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Two Candidates Vie for One House Seat (for the Fourth Time) - The New York Times | In 2014, I wrote an article about New Hampshire’s very swingy congressional districts. With the same Democrat and Republican facing off in the First District for the fourth — yes, fourth — time, I couldn’t resist another visit. Presidential candidate after presidential candidate visits this city, the biggest in New Hampshire. In late January or early February, its strip malls and main drag can feel like the center of the political world, as the news media descends and the voters decide whom they will rocket to the center of the presidential race with their primary. It has also become part of a more predictable biennial battle: The tug of war between Representative Frank C. Guinta, a Republican, and former Representative Carol a Democrat, over the congressional seat that one of them has held for a decade. Watching them debate is “like seeing an old married couple rehash the same argument year after year after year,” said Andy Smith, the director of the Survey Center at the University of New Hampshire. No one wants to see that anymore, he said. The extended nature of this particular matchup is due in large part to the dynamics of the district — and to the tenacity of two party outsiders who see, in alternating elections, a path to victory. New Hampshire’s First District is one of a shrinking number of swing districts, with a large number of independent voters and perhaps a slightly Republican tilt. Ms. first elected when she was a social worker, has done better during presidential election years, and Mr. Guinta in midterm elections. It is hard to keep the seat — but also hard to suffer a resounding defeat. Ms. first won the seat, which had previously been controlled by Republicans for decades, in 2006, amid a swell of antiwar sentiment that helped Democrats around the country. She held on to it in 2008, when President Obama was elected, but lost it to Mr. Guinta, a former mayor of Manchester, in the Tea Party wave of 2010. Ms. recaptured it as Mr. Obama won in 2012, but lost it, again to Mr. Guinta, in 2014. This time around, polling shows Ms. with a clear advantage. A WMUR Granite State poll released this month showed her with 43 percent support among likely voters, and Mr. Guinta with 29 percent. Voters are “probably sick and tired of these two candidates running against each other,” said David Wasserman, the House editor of The Cook Political Report. “The race essentially becomes a function of turnout as a result. ” Both candidates have overcome skepticism within their parties to return to the fray this year. Some of New Hampshire’s top Republicans, including Senator Kelly Ayotte, suggested last year that Mr. Guinta should resign after he settled a campaign finance violation, but he slipped through the primary after embracing Donald J. Trump. Hacked emails from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee reviewed by The Portsmouth Herald showed party leaders trying to encourage someone to challenge Ms. in a primary, but he did not enter the race. “These two, in particular, are so stubborn,” Mr. Wasserman said, “that I’ll be surprised when they stop running against each other. ” For the candidates, it is like seeing disliked neighbors emerge from their house once every two years, and wishing that they would just move away. “I wish I weren’t running against the same person, but he did win his primary, so here we go again,” Ms. said. Said Mr. Guinta, “She does tend to talk about almost identical issues that she’s campaigned on in previous campaigns. ” There are also candidates, including Shawn O’Connor, who is running as an independent. He, along with Mr. Guinta and Ms. spoke at a congressional forum here this month. “That was kind of nice to hear someone else for a change,” said Christine Williams, a college admissions director and a Republican. | 0fake |
SICKENING: Donald Trump Actually Hit On A 10-Year-Old Girl (VIDEO) | Donald Trump is a sexual predator, and more and more evidence of that fact keeps surfacing. It seems that the hot mic tape of the lewd conversation between Trump and then-Access Hollywood host Billy Bush was just the tip of the iceberg. There have also been women who have come forward to say that Trump groped them inappropriately, and now there is video footage of Trump literally making sexually suggestive remarks about a 10-year-old girl. This occurred at a Christmas event in Trump Tower years ago, in 1992, when Trump was 46 years old. During the event, aired on Entertainment Tonight, Trump inquired of the little girl if she was going up the escalator. He then said, unabashedly and live on air: I am going to be dating her in 10 years. Can you believe it? This is just beyond creepy. Donald Trump needs to be investigated. We have a sexual predator as a major party presidential nominee, and nothing is being done about his behavior by the authorities. Granted, we do have statues of limitations and all of that, but this is just insane. This more than locker room talk, as Trump put it at the second presidential debate. No, this is predatory behavior, and it is becoming more and more apparent that Trump regularly engages in inappropriate behavior even with pre-pubescent children. If the GOP doesn t disavow Trump after this, the entire nation will know that they tolerate literal pedophilia in their ranks. Watch the disturbing comments below:Here's Trump, then 46 yrs old, saying in 1992 that "I'm going to be dating her in 10 years" while referring to a young girl. Via CBS News pic.twitter.com/w2zCH6SdR1 Jim Dalrymple II (@JimDalrympleII) October 12, 2016Featured image via Ethan Miller/Getty Images | 1real |
WATCH: REPORTER GRABS THROAT Of Secret Service Agent At TRUMP Rally…Gets Smacked Down | If we didn t know better, we d think the liberal press was actually stirring things up to make news at Trump rallies, since no one gives a damn what they have to say since Trump has made them irrelevant According to The Independent Journal s congressional reporter Joe Perticone, the man holding the camera in the video below is a journalist. Perticone writes, Secret Service agent choke slams reporter. Videos added below appear to show the reporter intentionally bumping up against the agent and saying f*ck you before the agent throws him to the ground. From the ground, you can see the reporter kicking the agent from an apparent defensive position.Secret Service agent choke slams reporter pic.twitter.com/jdsHOlylSB Joe Perticone (@JoePerticone) February 29, 2016Nevertheless, once whatever happened between the two men is over, and both are standing, watch the reporter suddenly reach out and grab the Secret Service agent s throat.Reporter at Trump Rally accuses SS agent of choking him. pic.twitter.com/Q4oigVt3qf Jackie Alemany (@JaxAlemany) February 29, 2016ADDED: Additionally, the video below shows a chest bump between the agent and the Time reporter. Perticone reports that things got physical after the Time reporter said fuck you to the Secret Service agent.Here's moments prior. The reporter says "f*ck you" that's when it got physical pic.twitter.com/h9K2wIbEWQ Joe Perticone (@JoePerticone) February 29, 2016ADDED: The Secret Service has released a statement:Via: Breitbart News | 1real |
Facebook Federal Spy Agency, DC Swamp Chess, Bathroom Cams & Tranny Electorate: Boiler Room EP #135 | Tune in to the Alternate Current Radio Network (ACR) for another LIVE broadcast of The Boiler Room tonight 6:00 PM PST | 8:00 PM CST | 9:00 PM EST for this special broadcast. Join us for uncensored, uninterruptible talk radio, custom-made for bar fly philosophers, misguided moralists, masochists, street corner evangelists, media-maniacs, savants, political animals and otherwise lovable rascals.Join ACR hosts Hesher and Spore along side Jay Dyer of Jays Analysis for the hundred and thirty fifth episode of BOILER ROOM. Turn it up, tune in and hang with the ACR Brain-Trust for this weeks boil downs and analysis and the usual gnashing of the teeth of the political animals in the social reject club.On this episode of Boiler Room the ACR Brain-Trust is running a round table discussion on school systems putting cameras in bathrooms in the US and the EU, Facebook as an extension of the federal intelligence apparatus, silicone valley insiders admit social media was designed to exploit inherent vulnerabilities in human beings to get them addicted to their applications, the selective silencing of dissenting voices in social media, the NY bike path terror attack from a non-conspiratorial VLOGer, the Texas church shooting near San Antonio and the first Transexual elected to political office.Direct Download Episode #135 Please like and share the program and visit our donate page to get involved! Reference Links, for your consideration and research: | 1real |
U.S. army probes fake evacuation orders sent to U.S. military, families in South Korea | SEOUL (Reuters) - The U.S. military said on Saturday it has opened an investigation into fake mobile phone alerts and social media messages advising U.S. military personnel and their families to evacuate the Korean Peninsula. The phony messages, which were spread on Thursday, came at a sensitive time, with tensions high after North Korea conducted its sixth and largest nuclear test on Sept. 3. The test and a series of missile launches have triggered a war of words between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korea s leader Kim Jong Un. U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) was not yet aware of how many people received the hoax messages or who was behind them, a spokesman for the USFK told Reuters. The USFK posted a statement on its official Facebook page on Thursday making clear that the U.S. military did not issue any evacuation-related alerts. It has also instructed all U.S. Department of Defense personnel and their family to confirm any evacuation-related communications before acting. The USFK conducts regular biannual noncombatant evacuation operation (NEO) exercises in the spring and fall to rehearse for possible evacuation. The second NEO exercise of the year is scheduled to take place in October. | 0fake |
HILLARY SUPPORTERS Launch VILE ATTACK On Woman Hillary “Threatened” For Coming Forward With Rape Allegations Against Bill Clinton: “Hillary should have beat her up, not ‘silenced’ her. Liar” | Alleged Bill Clinton sexual victim Juanita Broderick hit back after Chelsea Clinton complained that her parents were always being attacked and is some sort of tradition. Her parents being attacked is a tradition? What about your father s victims of sexual assault? Is that some sort of tradition?Following the debate, Trump told the press that he was holding back on bringing up Bill Clinton s sexual predator history out of respect for Chelsea being in the audience.Chelsea, who apparently is okay with her father receiving oral sex in the Oval Office, and her mother berating and threatening his alleged sexual abuse victims, had this to say about Trump: It s a distraction from his inability to talk about what s actually at stake in this election and to offer concrete, comprehensive proposals about the economy, or our public school system, or debt-free college, or keeping our country safe and Americans safe here at home and around the world. And candidly, I don t remember a time in my life when my parents and my family weren t being attacked, and so it just sort of seems to be in that tradition, unfortunately. Juanita Broderick hit back after Chelsea s disgusting flippant attitude about a woman who claims (one of many who have bravely come forward to expose Bill Clinton after being sexually assaulted by him) she was raped by her father:1. Here is my response to Chelsea Clinton's statement about her father's sexual misdeeds Juanita Broaddrick (@atensnut) September 28, 20162. Chelsea you said you don't remember a time in your life that your parents weren't being attacked. Juanita Broaddrick (@atensnut) September 28, 20163. There's a very good reason for this your parents are not good people. Juanita Broaddrick (@atensnut) September 28, 20164 your father was, and probably still is, a sexual predator. Your mother has always lied and covered up for him. Juanita Broaddrick (@atensnut) September 28, 20165. I say again "I was 35 when Bill Clinton Raped me and Hillary tried to silence me. I am now 73. It never goes away". Juanita Broaddrick (@atensnut) September 28, 2016Here s the vile way people who are supporting the FEMALE candidate for President responded:Another foul mouth. And he's from Canada. pic.twitter.com/NmnJIIFcMz Juanita Broaddrick (@atensnut) September 30, 2016And this one wants me beaten pic.twitter.com/rCKPUyuROz Juanita Broaddrick (@atensnut) September 30, 2016Now this idiot is saying I have been in prison. pic.twitter.com/yMhKb1i1kb Juanita Broaddrick (@atensnut) September 30, 2016 | 1real |
Cold War Jitters Resurface as U.S. Marines Arrive in Norway - The New York Times | For Norwegians, the sight of dozens of American Marines traipsing through the snow in military fatigues — the first time foreign forces have been posted to their country’s territory since World War II — may have brought a welcomed sense of security, but it also harked back to a dark era of the Cold War that many had hoped to forget. A United States military plane on Monday delivered most of the 330 Marines to a garrison in Vaernes, in central Norway, a deployment that Norwegian officials said had been carried out by the United States as part of a bilateral agreement. It was the latest effort by the United States and its European allies to buttress their defenses against a resurgent Russia, which condemned the move. Despite being generally welcomed across the political spectrum, the arrival of the Marines from Camp Lejeune, N. C. — shown on Norwegian television dragging their suitcases through the snow — also provoked some jitters in Norway. A wealthy country that is a member of NATO but not the European Union, the Nordic state has long prided itself on its independence. But the deployment recalled a Cold War era in which Russian intrigue grabbed headlines and Norwegians lived in fear of Soviet hegemony. Neuroses about Russia continue to exert influence in Norwegian popular culture. The political television thriller “Okkupert” depicts a future in which Norway is occupied by Russia, and with the backing of the European Union, takes over the country’s oil production. Such fears have been magnified in recent years with murky sightings of submarines across the region that have stoked concern about Russian espionage and military intervention. In October 2014, an unidentified vessel spotted off the Stockholm archipelago spurred Sweden’s largest mobilization since the Cold War and accusations that Russia was spying on the country. The episode, called “The Hunt for Reds in October” in the Swedish news media, included unsubstantiated reports of a man in black spotted wading near the vessel. It deeply unsettled the nation, even as the Kremlin issued strenuous denials and accused Stockholm of scaremongering. Then, in April 2015, the sudden appearance of an underwater vessel in Finland, which shares a long border with Russia, prompted the navy to fire depth charges — the first such warning in more than 10 years. And Lithuania on Monday said it plans to use European Union funding to build a fence on the border with Russia’s highly militarised Kaliningrad exclave to increase security and prevent smuggling, according to Agence . Construction of the $32 million fence will start this spring and will be finished by the end of the year, said Interior Minister Eimutis Misiunas. “The reasons are both economic to prevent smuggling and geopolitical to strengthen the E. U.’s external border,” Mr. Misiunas said. “It would not stop tanks but it will be difficult to climb over. ” In Moscow, the deployment of United States Marines in Norway has been met with disdain. After plans for the deployment were confirmed in October, Frants Klintsevich, a deputy chairman of Russia’s defense and security committee in the upper chamber of Parliament, was quoted by Russian news media as saying that the Kremlin viewed the Marines as a direct military threat. He also said the deployment made Norway a potential target for Moscow’s powerful arsenal, which includes nuclear weapons. On Monday, the Russian authorities reiterated their discontent. Maria Zakharova, a spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, said in an interview with NRK, the Norwegian public broadcaster, that the move “certainly will not improve relations. ” “The relationship between Norway and Russia is put to a test now,” she said. “Instead of developing economic cooperation, Norway is choosing to deploy United States troops on Norwegian soil. ” The deployment of the Marines, who will be stationed hundreds of miles from the border with Russia, comes as countries across Europe have been reinforcing their defenses out of concern over an increasingly assertive Russia. Last week, a convoy from an American armored brigade crossed the German border into Poland, the first installment of what are expected to be several thousand NATO troops to be based across Eastern Europe. Relations between the West and Russia in the Nordic region and beyond have been tense since that country’s annexation of Crimea in March 2014 and the outbreak of conflict between government forces and rebels in eastern Ukraine. At the same time, Donald J. Trump fanned alarm in Europe in the months leading to his election victory when he questioned whether the United States should automatically defend NATO allies if they were attacked, and predicated American support on the willingness of countries in the alliance to pay their fair share for military protection. In Norway, some lamented that the Marines’ arrival stood against the country’s traditions and threatened to make it a target of its much larger neighbor. Morten Harper, a leftist member of the local assembly that governs the area housing the military base, said the Marines’ arrival was ensnaring Norway into the United States’ “power struggle” with Russia. “We see an ever more tense foreign policy situation,” he said. “If there ever was to be a major conflict between the great powers in the future, this makes us a more likely bomb target. ” After World War II, Norway abandoned its neutral stance by joining NATO in 1949 and committing to the alliance’s doctrine of collective defense. But the country, which shares a northern border with Russia, sought to placate Moscow by pledging that no foreign troops would be allowed to be permanently stationed on its soil. Norway’s defense minister, Ine Eriksen Soreide, said in an interview on Sunday that Russia had no reason to be alarmed by the Marines’ presence. She said that the deployment did not flout the restriction because the Marines were there on a trial period that was . The Marines will take part in military exercises, involving skiing and surviving in Arctic temperatures, to hone their abilities to fight in tough winter conditions. It is part of a bilateral agreement between Oslo and Washington, but Norwegian officials said that, in the case of a conflict, the troops would probably fall under NATO’s command. Hedda B. Langemyr of the Norwegian Peace Council, a group made up of several nongovernmental organizations, said the deployment threatened to aggravate tension between Norway and Russia while breaching Norway’s tradition of not allowing permanent foreign troops on its soil. “It might give the hawks in Moscow arguments for a continued arms race,” she said. | 0fake |
Obama renews call for U.S. public health insurance option | (Reuters) - President Barack Obama on Monday urged Congress to reconsider offering a government-run health insurance option alongside private plans on the exchanges created as part of his national healthcare law. In an article published in the online edition of the Journal of the American Medical Association, Obama said the Affordable Care Act had made much progress toward improving access to healthcare and the quality and affordability of care. Many Republicans fiercely oppose the law saying it has raised health coverage costs for Americans and have tried repeatedly to repeal it in Congress Obama said several challenges remain. “Now, based on experience with the ACA, I think Congress should revisit a public plan to compete alongside private insurers in areas of the country where competition is limited,” the president wrote. Public programs like Medicare often deliver care more cost effectively by curtailing administrative overhead and securing better prices from providers, Obama said. Republicans and some Democrats opposed the inclusion of a government-run plan similar to Medicare in the original Obamacare law, and the so-called “public option” did not make it into the final legislation. Since the ACA became law, the uninsured rate has declined to 9.1 percent in 2015 from 16 percent in 2010. Most enrollees live in counties with at least three policy issuers, which helps keep down costs, Obama said. However, 12 percent of those enrolled in plans through the exchanges live in areas with only one or two issuers. Adding a public plan in such areas would give consumers more affordable options, he said. Obama also called on Congress to increase financial assistance to purchase coverage, which he said would help middle class families who are stilling struggling with premiums. Obama said spending on prescription drugs, which rose 12 percent in 2014, remains a problem, and he urged Congress to act on his proposal to increase transparency around manufacturers’ production and development costs. He said the federal government should be given the authority to negotiate prices for certain high-priced drugs. Last month, Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives unveiled a plan to overhaul the nation’s healthcare system that would keep some of Obamacare’s more popular provisions, including protections for people with pre-existing conditions and allowing young adults to stay on their parents’ coverage until age 26. The proposal, which is not formal legislation, is part of a broader effort by House Speaker Paul Ryan to offer a Republican agenda ahead of the Nov. 8 elections. | 0fake |
Palestinians say they won't be blackmailed by U.S. move to close PLO office | RAMALLAH/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Palestinian officials expressed surprise on Saturday at a U.S. decision to close the Palestine Liberation Organization office in Washington unless the group enters peace negotiations with Israel, and said they would not surrender to blackmail. A U.S. State Department official said that under legislation passed by Congress, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson could not renew a certification that expired this month for the PLO office, given certain statements made by the Palestinian leaders about the International Criminal Court. The law says the PLO, the main Palestinian umbrella political body, cannot operate a Washington office if it urges the ICC to prosecute Israelis for alleged crimes against Palestinians. In an address to the United Nations General Assembly in September, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said the Palestinian Authority called on the ICC to open an investigation and to prosecute Israeli officials for their involvement in settlement activities and aggressions against our people. The State Department official added that restrictions on the PLO in the United States, including the operation of its Washington office, could be waived after 90 days if U.S. President Donald Trump determines the Palestinians have entered into direct, meaningful negotiations with Israel. We are hopeful that this closure will be short-lived, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. According to the official Palestinian news agency WAFA, the Palestinian presidency expressed surprise at the U.S. move, which was first reported by the Associated Press. WAFA quoted Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad Al-Maliki as saying that Palestinian leaders would not give in to blackmail or pressure regarding the operation of the PLO office or negotiations on an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement. The agency quoted a spokesman for Abbas, Nabil Abu Rdainah, expressing surprise, given that meetings between Abbas and Trump had been characterized by full understanding of the steps needed to create a climate for resumption of the peace process. A Palestinian official who spoke on condition of anonymity told Reuters the State Department had informed the Palestinians of the decision on Wednesday. It was not immediately clear what effect the State Department s move might have on the Trump administration s efforts to revive peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians, which are led by Jared Kushner, the U.S. president s son-in-law and senior adviser. Abbas spokesman called the U.S. move an unprecedented step in U.S.-Palestinian relations that would have serious consequences for the peace process and U.S.-Arab relations, according to WAFA. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement on Saturday: This is a matter of U.S. law. We respect the decision and look forward to continuing to work with the U.S. to advance peace and security in the region. The State Department official said the U.S. move did not amount to cutting off relations with the PLO or signal an intention to stop working with the Palestinian Authority. We remain focused on a comprehensive peace agreement between the Israelis and the Palestinians that will resolve core issues between the parties, the official said. | 0fake |
Republicans seek Trump presidency votes in Israel | JERUSALEM (Reuters) - The Israeli branch of the U.S. Republican party began a campaign on Monday to get American voters living in Israel to cast absentee ballots in favor of Donald Trump. According to the Israeli chapter of the Republican party, around 300,000 Americans are eligible to vote in the November presidential elections. They live in Israel or in settlements in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem. Marc Zell, the head of Republicans Overseas Israel branch, said the campaign aimed to rekindle interest in U.S. politics among second- and third-generation citizens, many of whom have children who will be eligible to vote for the first time. “We want to try to attract new voters who perhaps in the past had no special interest in voting in the U.S. elections,” Zell told Reuters. Tzvika Brot, who is heading the campaign, estimated that about three-quarters of American-Israelis would support the Republican party. A Democratic party representative in Israel disputed that estimate, telling Israel Radio the majority of Israeli and U.S. Jewish voters had always preferred the Democrats. A poll of Jewish Israelis conducted in May found 40 percent of respondents backed Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton and 31 percent supported Trump. The poll didn’t specify whether those who responded were eligible to vote in the U.S. election. The pro-Trump drive opened at a shopping mall in the central Israeli town of Modiin and will focus on areas with high concentrations of American-Israelis. Brot said he hoped the new votes being sought might help tip the balance in swing states. Trump, who has accused the administration of President Barack Obama of lacklustre support for Israel, won his party’s nomination for the presidency last month. He has rejected last year’s nuclear deal with Iran and called for more investment in missile defense in Europe. His views, including a vow to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border and a proposal to impose a temporary ban on Muslims seeking to enter the country, have polarized the Republican party and caused widespread consternation. Trump has also been criticized for his lack of foreign policy knowledge. German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said last month he would put at risk U.S. and world security with his “politics of fear and isolation”. | 0fake |
Samsung Halts Galaxy Note 7 Production as Battery Problems Linger - The New York Times | In 1995, furious over quality problems with one of his company’s mobile phones, Lee the chairman of Samsung and arguably the most famous businessman in South Korea, set a pile of 150, 000 defective phones on fire outside a factory. The phone bonfire became a turning point for Samsung’s rise from an electronics maker associated with inexpensive knockoffs to one considered a leader in product quality, design and sales. But to the company’s critics, that employee motivational moment has also served as a wry historical foreshadowing of safety problems with one of Samsung’s smartphones. The company has temporarily halted production of its Galaxy Note 7, a answer to the latest iPhones from Apple, a person familiar with the decision said on Monday. In a statement, the company also asked retailers and telecommunication carriers to stop selling the phones until the problem is fixed, and said “consumers with either an original Galaxy Note 7 or replacement Galaxy Note 7 device should power down and stop using the device. ” The phone has been blamed for at least one house fire, a burning Jeep and several alarming moments on planes when the devices started smoking . The Federal Aviation Administration is so concerned that airline passengers are routinely warned that they should not turn on or charge the Galaxy Note 7 during a flight or stow the phone in checked baggage. Southwest Airlines, which had to evacuate a plane on Wednesday after a Samsung phone caught fire, said the details of the incident are still being investigated. The decision to stop selling the Galaxy Note 7 comes just five weeks after Samsung said it would recall 2. 5 million of them — the largest ever in the smartphone industry — after early reports of battery fires. Samsung had said it believed it had identified the issue, and allowed consumers to trade in their phones for new ones. But production was halted after the four major United States carriers said they would stop selling or replacing Galaxy Note 7 smartphones because of additional reports of fires, including with the replacement models. Three of Australia’s biggest telecom companies — Telstra, Optus and Vodafone Australia — said they had stopped shipping Galaxy Note 7 phones to customers after reports that the replacement model had caught fire in the United States. The company said it hoped to provide an update within a month. The federal Consumer Product Safety Commission praised Samsung’s move and urged consumers to stop using the phone. The missteps by Samsung, the world’s top seller of smartphones, have given a rare opportunity to competitors like Apple to close the gap with the South Korean giant as the holiday shopping season approaches. “We believe this incident has destroyed billions of dollars of Samsung brand value,” said Laura Martin, a technology analyst with Needham Company. “The consumer says, ‘Which one blows up? I’m just going to stay away from Samsung. ’” The Galaxy Note 7 featured a battery to help its increasingly sophisticated features, like an iris scanner for added security. It also supported fast wireless charging technologies. It was the most expensive phone offered by Samsung, putting it in direct competition with Apple’s iPhone. “Definitely, Apple is the biggest beneficiary” of Samsung’s problems, said Linda Sui, a director at research firm Strategy Analytics. What’s more, Google, the company whose Android software runs on nearly all of Samsung’s smartphones, is now pushing harder to sell its own phones. Last week, Google unveiled the Pixel — the first smartphone that it designed and manufactured. At the same time, aggressive smartphone manufacturers like Huawei and Xiaomi are looking for ways to expand beyond their footholds in China to compete with Samsung all over the world. It is difficult to say what the impact of the phone problems will be on the company’s overall sales. Before the recall, the research firm Strategy Analytics had estimated that Samsung would sell 15 million Note 7 units in 2016. But now, the firm is estimating that Samsung, with about $180 billion in annual revenue, could lose more than $10 billion from the ongoing troubles. Samsung’s reputation is already taking a big hit online, according to an analysis by Spredfast, a social media marketing firm that helps businesses analyze chatter on Twitter and other social networks. Since the Note 7’s problems began to receive widespread attention, negative Twitter messages about the device rose 450 percent compared to the previous five and a half weeks, the company said. “While this is itself a huge problem for Samsung, we also found a steep 186 percent rise in negative sentiment about Samsung itself,” Chris Kerns, Spredfast’s vice president of research and insights said in a statement. “Digging deeper, it’s clear that this is not just an isolated issue with one product, but is, in fact, a brand crisis. ” Like many Asian companies, Samsung struggled for years to establish a strong reputation in the West. Shortly after Apple introduced the iPhone, Samsung went headlong into the smartphone market. Samsung had been gaining some ground in smartphones with its latest Galaxy S phones, which have curved edges and offer a premium feel over the company’s budget phones. When it released the Galaxy Note 7 in August — with its 5. screen and a price tag exceeding $800 — it was supposed to add to that momentum. The recurring problem has led industry experts to wonder whether the problem went beyond sloppy production and resulted from a faulty battery or software design. Technology companies are hardly immune to manufacturing issues. In 1994, Intel was forced to recall its flagship Pentium chip because of a mathematical mistake built into it. Dell recalled more than 4 million laptop computers in 2006 because of exploding lithium ion batteries produced by Sony. And companies like Fitibit and Microsoft have had manufacturing problems over the years. Companies with strong brands can withstand product quality problems. Over a span starting in 2009, Toyota recalled about 9 million cars because of issues related to sudden, unintended acceleration. Its chief executive appeared before Congress, and Toyota paid a $1. 2 billion fine to the Justice Department for concealing information about defects from consumers and government officials. In 2015, Toyota was the world’s largest automaker. Samsung is counting on customers like Justin Brooke of Cooper City, Fla. whose family owns three Note 7 phones as well as Samsung televisions and tablets, to stay loyal to the brand. Mr. Brooke said he thinks the fire risk has been overblown. He loves the Note 7’s big screen and pen feature, which he uses to critique websites for his advertising training business, DMBI Online. “For me as a business owner, it’s the most productive phone on the market,” he said. Still, he admitted to some apprehension. He said his family never charges the batteries on their phones to 100 percent to reduce the risk of overheating. “Maybe we’re in denial,” he said. He said his father asked him for a phone recommendation on Sunday night, and he recommended another Samsung model, the S7, which has not been implicated in the fires, or a Google Pixel phone. | 0fake |
Indonesia condemns U.S. decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israeli capital | Bogor, INDONESIA (Reuters) - Indonesian President Joko Widodo, leader of the world s largest Muslim-majority nation, onThursday condemned the U.S. decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel s capital. Indonesia strongly condemns the United States unilateral recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and asks the U.S. to reconsider the decision, Widodo told a news conference. This can rock global security and stability, he said. | 0fake |
HOUSE INTEL Slaps Subpoenas on McCain Institute Associate Involved in “Trump Dirty Dossier” Sources | Please see our previous report below on the McCain Institute associate who has now been subpoenaed by the House Intel Committee. David J. Kramer was in hot water before for the same reason the Intel Committee is now issuing a subpoena:He was previously subpoenaed by the lawyers for a Russian tech executive suing BuzzFeed. The guy just refuses to give out any information on sources for the dirty dossier. This raises the question of if there were sources that were fictional and were used just to build a fake case against Trump. President Trump just tweeted out that the dossier is a pile of garbage . Could it be that this pile of garbage was used to make the case for a FISA warrant to spy on POTUS The plot thickens on this one The Daily Caller reports: The House Intelligence Committee has issued a subpoena for an associate of Arizona Sen. John McCain s who revealed last week that he knows the names of the Russian sources used in former British spy Christopher Steele s infamous dossier.A congressional source tells The Daily Caller that California Rep. Devin Nunes issued the subpoena on Wednesday for David J. Kramer, a former State Department official.Kramer refused to divulge the names of Steele s sources during a Dec. 19 interview with the panel, the source says.Steele used Russian sources to gather information on the Trump campaign and Donald Trump s activities in Russia. The ex-spy was working for Fusion GPS, an opposition research firm that was on the payroll of the Clinton campaign and Democratic National Committee.OUR PREVIOUS REPORT ON THE MCCAIN ASSOCIATE WHO REFUSED TO SPILL THE BEANS: Lawyers for a Russian tech executive suing BuzzFeed for publishing the Steele dossier say that a longtime associate of Arizona Sen. John McCain and two major news outlets are resisting subpoenas seeking their depositions for the case.In a brief filed in federal court late Wednesday, lawyers for the executive, Aleksej Gubarev, claim that David Kramer (pictured below), a former State Department official and McCain associate, has been seemingly avoiding service of a deposition subpoena for weeks.Please see the very curious input Reason.com put out just this July regarding Kramer s involvement in the Steele dossier getting into the hands of the press. And The New York Times and Wall Street Journal are challenging deposition subpoenas they have been served as part of the case.Gubarev s lawyers are attempting to find out who gave BuzzFeed the salacious dossier, which the website published to much controversy on Jan. 10.The dossier, written by former British spy Christopher Steele, alleges that Gubarev and his companies, XBT Holdings and Webzilla, used spam, viruses and porn bots to hack into DNC computer systems. Gubarev vehemently denies the allegations.Gubarev s attorneys say that identifying BuzzFeed s source could shed light on whether the news outlet was warned that information in the dossier could be false. They argue that publishing the dossier despite such warnings would show reckless disregard for the truth or falsity of the information published. BuzzFeed has defended its decision to publish the dossier, which was financed by the Clinton campaign and DNC and commissioned by opposition research firm Fusion GPS. It is also resisting demands from Gubarev s team to identify its dossier source on the grounds that it would violate its First Amendment protections as a news-gathering organization.Via: Daily CallerReason had this to say on July 16th on the mystery surrounding how the fake dossier got into the hands of Buzzfeed:Did John McCain and a controversial D.C. lobbying group conspire to get the infamous pee dossier into the hands of the press?A lawsuit making its way through court in the UK hopes to determine just what role the senator and his associates had in making the lurid dossier public.New filings in the lawsuit, obtained by McClatchy, detail how David Kramer employed by the nonprofit and purportedly non-political McCain Institute acted as a representative of McCain in the Arizona senator s dealings on sensitive intelligence measures:According to a new court document in the British lawsuit, counsel for defendants Steele and Orbis repeatedly point to McCain, R-Ariz., a vocal Trump critic, and a former State Department official as two in a handful of people known to have had copies of the full document before it circulated among journalists and was published by BuzzFeed. Read more: McClatchyIt also reveals that McCain was one of a just few people with whom the dossier s author, ex-British spy Christopher Steele, shared a copy of his final findings. So how did they get from there to publication in Buzzfeed?THE PLOT THICKENS! | 1real |
US charges 61 with India-based scam involving 15,000 victims | US charges 61 with India-based scam involving 15,000 victims US charges 61 with India-based scam involving 15,000 victims By 0 166
The US Justice Department has charged 61 people and entities with involvement in a major India-based scam that targeted thousands of Americans.
The scheme involved Indian call centers, where some workers called American citizens and convinced them to pay their non-existent debts by impersonating Internal Revenue Service (IRS), immigration and other federal officials, the Justice Department said in a statement on Thursday.
Some victims were even offered short-term loans or grants on condition of providing good-faith deposits or payment of a processing fee.
The scammers had stolen more than $300 million from at least 15,000 unsuspecting citizens, the department noted.
The victims’ money was laundered by an American network of criminals who used debit cards or wire transfers under fake identities, the indictment said.
Federal officials arrested 20 people across America on Thursday. Additionally, 32 individuals and five call centers in India were charged… | 1real |
Trump takes center stage in fractious Senate race in Alabama | HUNTSVILLE, Alabama (Reuters) - President Donald Trump injected himself into a bitter U.S. Senate primary fight in Alabama on Friday, putting to the test his ability to enlist his anti-establishment voters to come to the aid of an endangered Republican incumbent. Trump spoke at a rally in Huntsville, Alabama, on behalf of Senator Luther Strange, who was appointed after the seat was left vacant when Jeff Sessions was named Trump’s attorney general. Strange is trying to ward off a challenge from Roy Moore, an arch-conservative former state Supreme Court justice, in a runoff election next week. Polls show the race to be close. Trump appeared on stage as the latest Republican effort to repeal Obamacare looked to be faltering after Republican Senator John McCain announced his opposition to a measure to repeal and replace the healthcare law. McCain’s opposition could spell doom for the bill, which the Senate may vote on it next week, because Republicans can afford to lose few votes among their own. When Trump mentioned McCain’s name in front of the arena crowd of more than 7,000, attendees booed lustily. Trump expressed optimism that the bill could still pass. “We’re going to do it eventually,” he said. He also continued to engage in a rhetorical sparring match with North Korea leader Kim Jong Un, again referring to him as “Rocket Man” to the crowd’s cheers. “We can’t have madmen out there shooting rockets all over the place,” Trump said. The evening was reminiscent of the raucous campaign rallies that helped define Trump’s insurgent presidential candidacy, and the president’s popularity in this region appeared undiminished. As he has frequently done in such settings, he spent a significant portion of his remarks discussing his surprise victory last November. He also again rejected any suggestion that his triumph was aided by Russian interference in the election. “Russia did not help me. That I can tell you,” Trump said. “Are there any Russians in the audience?” Trump, however, was in Huntsville not to back the maverick candidate Moore, but instead the establishment favorite, Strange. A win by Moore in Alabama could embolden other insurgent candidates to challenge Republican incumbents in next year’s congressional elections, and perhaps give an edge to Democrats in some of those races. Trump’s involvement in the Alabama race could help bolster his strained relationship with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, whose help the president needs to advance his agenda on taxes, healthcare and immigration. McConnell has strongly supported Strange, viewing him as a reliable vote to further the Republican Party’s legislative agenda. Hours before Trump was due to arrive in Alabama, his housing secretary, Ben Carson, issued a statement in support of Moore as “truly someone who reflects the Judeo-Christian values that were so important to the establishment of our country.” “I wish him well and hope everyone will make sure they vote on Tuesday,” Carson said, stopping short of asking people in Alabama to vote for Moore. Republican leaders fear that candidates who are too far to the right could lose to Democrats, who are seeking to wrest control of the House and the Senate in the 2018 midterm elections. Strange, 64, and dubbed “Big Luther” in reference to his 6-foot-9 stature, has been backed by nearly $9 million of advertising from a McConnell-allied political action committee. Trump implored the crowd to back Strange so that “we can defend your interests, fight for your values, and always put America first.” Moore, 70, is a religious conservative who twice lost his position as the state’s top judge. He was ousted in 2003 after refusing to comply with a federal court order to remove a Ten Commandments monument from the state Supreme Court building. He is also known for his opposition to gay rights. He is popular with many of the same conservative voters who backed Trump last November. “A lot of people love Trump and love Roy Moore,” said Ford O’Connell, a Republican strategist who has worked for Strange in Alabama. Trump’s embrace of Strange has put him at odds with his former adviser Steve Bannon and the nationalistic wing of the party. Breitbart, the conservative news site that Bannon oversees, has repeatedly attacked Strange as a Washington insider while praising Moore as an outsider in the mold of Trump when he was a presidential candidate. | 0fake |
In Virginia, Clinton tests Senator Tim Kaine as a 'safe' VP pick | WASHINGTON/ANNANDALE, Virginia (Reuters) - Hillary Clinton campaigned with potential vice presidential running-mate U.S. Senator Tim Kaine in his home state of Virginia on Thursday, testing whether the person widely seen as the “safe choice” can propel her to the White House in November. Kaine’s 16-minute introduction of the presumptive Democratic nominee in a community college gymnasium in the Washington suburb of Annandale reflected Clinton’s need to reach out to Hispanic voters with her vice presidential pick. Kaine, a former missionary in Honduras who speaks Spanish, peppered his introduction with Spanish phrases and criticism of Republican Donald Trump’s statements regarding Latinos. “He trash talks Latinos - to him it doesn’t matter if you are a new immigrant or you’re a worker who has been here for a long time or a DREAMer or if you’re a Latina governor of New Mexico or a federal judge,” Kaine said to applause. Kaine was referring to statements Trump has made about young immigrants brought to the United States by their parents, New Mexico Governor Susana Martinez and the judge overseeing a civil fraud lawsuit against Trump University. Kaine could help Clinton check a lot of boxes in the list of requirements for a running mate. The former civil rights lawyer is a Virginian, which could help Clinton win a battleground state in the Nov. 8 race against Trump. Such states are hotly contested because their populations can swing either to Republicans or Democrats and play a decisive role in presidential elections. Kaine is also affable, savvy about foreign policy and has executive experience as a former governor of Virginia and a former mayor of Richmond, the state’s capital. Though the Clinton campaign is keeping the vice presidential selection process tightly under wraps, many Democrats in Washington see Kaine as the front-runner. Some Democrats in Congress and in outside groups want to see Clinton make a more unconventional pick for her already historic run as the first female presidential nominee of a major party. U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, a fierce critic of Wall Street, and Julian Castro, a Latino who is the U.S. secretary of housing and urban development, are two possibilities mentioned by Democrats who want to see Clinton go with a bold choice before the Democratic convention in Philadelphia July 25-28. Labor Secretary Tom Perez, Representative Xavier Becerra of California, U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio and, more recently, retired Navy Admiral James Stavridis have also been mentioned as possibilities. Asked about Kaine, Artie Blanco, a superdelegate from Nevada, said he would not be her top pick. “Excited, no. OK with, you know, sure,” she said. Blanco said she likes Becerra and Perez as potential picks. She said Warren “would be fantastic” and she likes Brown’s stance on worker issues. Thursday’s event with Kaine gave Clinton an opportunity to gauge whether the 58-year-old, Harvard-educated senator would help her fire up a crowd and make for a comfortable fit on the campaign trail. Cynthia Smith, a registered nurse from Cleveland, was at the event because her nephew is a volunteer with the campaign. She said she was not familiar with Kaine and would like to hear more from him, but at this point preferred Warren. “I’d like to see two women,” Smith said. Clinton had lunch with Democratic senators on Capitol Hill on Thursday. After the session, the lawmakers were mostly mum. When Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the top Democrat, was asked by a reporter what the takeaway from the lunch was, he responded: “She’s going to be president.” Clinton spoke to the senators about returning the Senate to Democratic control and about how to create jobs in all 50 U.S. states. Some Democratic senators have been rallying around colleague Kaine, while others are holding out for a bolder pick. Robert Menendez of New Jersey, who has served on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee with Kaine, said in a brief interview: “If you look at the totality of Tim’s life and his work, I think there are elements that would bridge that divide” between progressive Democrats and more establishment Democrats who have fostered Clinton’s drive for the White House. | 0fake |
Obama pledges faster action on new icebreakers to keep up in Arctic | President Obama wants to accelerate by two years plans to acquire a new icebreaker and will ask Congress for money to build additional ones for the Coast Guard, in an effort to keep up with ship traffic that is increasing as the Arctic waters off Alaska grow warmer.
The president also said the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the Coast Guard will map and chart waters of the Bering, Chukchi and Beaufort seas, for which existing maps and charts are nonexistent or outdated.
The moves are nods toward Alaskan leaders — including Republican Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan — who have been urging the administration to bolster the paltry ability of the Coast Guard to monitor the largest state’s 6,640-mile coastline.
The announcement late Monday night was an acknowledgment that the United States has fallen behind other nations, especially Russia, which possesses 40 icebreakers and has plans to add at least 11 more.
The White House said that after World War II, the United States had seven icebreakers in its fleet — four under the Navy and three under the Coast Guard. Today, the United States has only two fully functional icebreakers, and just one is a heavy-duty icebreaker.
The acquisition of a new icebreaker would happen in 2020 instead of 2022.
The announcements Monday night — after the president’s speech to senior ministers from Arctic nations — were also an acknowledgment that climate change is prompting a scramble for the rights to develop the Arctic’s largely untapped reserves of oil, natural gas and minerals. In 2014, the first unescorted commercial vessel to transit the Northwest Passage delivered to China a cargo of nickel ore mined in the Arctic off northern Quebec.
Even if the United States does not permit large-scale mining or exploration in Alaska, the state’s shores could be threatened by spills, leaks or other accidents from the activities of other nations.
“The growth of human activity in the Arctic region will require highly engaged stewardship to maintain the open seas necessary for global commerce and scientific research, allow for search and rescue activities, and provide for regional peace and stability,” the White House said in a statement. “Accordingly, meeting these challenges requires the United States to develop and maintain capacity for year-round access to greater expanses within polar regions.”
Alaska’s leaders said Obama’s announcement will have to be judged by the amount of funding the president can line up. Murkowski said the $4 million in last year’s federal budget “doesn’t even buy you a porthole.” The current budget includes $8 million, she said.
“Do we need icebreakers? Yes. Did we need them yesterday? Yes,” Murkowski said.
The state of Alaska has a long wish list for the Obama administration. Sullivan, a freshman senator, said he has been pressing the Pentagon not to go ahead with a proposal to cut one of two 5,000-member Arctic combat brigades.
Sullivan also wants federal agencies to speed up permit approvals for a much-discussed pipeline for natural gas, which can be liquefied and shipped to China or Japan.
Some Alaskan lawmakers are seeking broadband access in small villages across the state. And Gov. Bill Walker, a longtime Republican who won election as an independent, has told Obama that four communities need to escape coastal hardships intensified by climate change.
[Obama can rename Mount McKinley Denali — but he can’t stop its loss of ice]
On Tuesday, Obama visited the Exit Glacier, which has receded 1.25 miles since 1815 — 187 feet last year alone. “This is as good of a signpost of what we’re dealing with it comes to climate change as just about anything,” the president said.
Standing in front of a gravelly creek bed, he said that when glaciers melt, the water runs to the ocean and raises sea levels, altering the surrounding flora and fauna.
“It is spectacular, though,” he said. “We want to make sure that our grandkids can see this.”
He said his hike “beats being in the office.”
Obama’s announcement about the icebreakers Monday night came after he finished an impassioned appeal to top officials from Arctic nations to do more about climate change.
In his speech, he talked about a cycle of warming temperatures, melting permafrost and wildfires as a negative feedback loop, and he tried to infuse the audience with a sense of urgency.
“The point is that climate change is no longer some far-off problem. It is happening here. It is happening now,” he said.
“Our understanding of climate change advances each day,” he added. “The science is stark. It is sharpening. It proves that this once-distant threat is now very much in the present.”
Obama did not, however, put forward any major new plans on the climate front, whether for Alaska or for world leaders. That disappointed Murkowski.
“What do we do, and how do we do so in a way that would make a difference for the people of Alaska?” she asked after the speech. “What specifics do you have? We didn’t hear that. We just heard a call to action.”
But it was a rousing call to action. Obama took aim at those who doubt that humans are spurring climate change, saying that they are “on their own shrinking island.”
He also said people overestimate the damage that mitigation measures would do to their economies.
“The notion is somehow this will curb our economic growth. And at a time when people are anxious about the economy, that’s an argument oftentimes for inaction,” he said. “The irony, of course . . . is that few things will disrupt our lives as profoundly as climate change. Few things can have as negative an impact on our economy as climate change.”
He painted the future as grim if nations fail to moderate the climate trends. Among the results, he said: “Submerged countries. Abandoned cities. Fields no longer growing. . . . Desperate refugees seeking the sanctuary of nations not their own.”
The president warned, “We will condemn our children to a planet beyond their capacity to repair.” | 0fake |
BREAKING LIVE FEED: POLICE FORM LARGE BARRICADE In Atlanta To Keep LARGE Crowd Of Black Lives Matter Protesters Off Major Highway…Protesters Launch Water Bottles At Trucker | A large group of Black Lives Matter protesters marched through downtown Atlanta in an attempt to shut down a major highway. Police have formed a large barricade, preventing them from disrupting traffic. The protests are in response to recent police shootings.No protests have been scheduled to bring attention to the multiple murders of young black youth by young black youths in Obama s hometown of Chicago. Black lives ONLY matter when they are killed by white people or cops (especially white cops).The march began at Centennial Olympic Park at 6 p.m. and organizers expected more than 1,000 people to show up. Groups started gathering hours earlier.NAACP march organizers in Atlanta said they expect other groups, like Black Lives Matter, to merge with Friday s march. The organization said it will not tolerate any violence.MINUTE BY MINUTE:10:50 p.m.Channel 2 Action News spoke to the driver of the truck that protesters climbed on top of.Chris Golden said he was on his normal route when he got stuck. He said he was not scared when the protesters started to climb up.Protesters block tow truck from getting to truck stuck on Williams St. for hours. #atlmarch https://t.co/S7bpyd80pH pic.twitter.com/ZDu27UlSVV WSB-TV (@wsbtv) July 9, 2016Protesters are launching water bottles at a tow truck on William Street. WATCH: https://t.co/Hb26W0IR6R pic.twitter.com/yS0LbA1ZRi WSB-TV (@wsbtv) July 9, 201610:45 p.m.A group of protesters are yelling at police police on Peachtree Street near the Westin hotel.The crowd is dispersing at Williams Street.Police are setting up another blockade on Williams Street.These protestors in front of the downtown connector say they have no intention of leaving. pic.twitter.com/iJk9emiwYc Matt Johnson (@MJohnsonWSB) July 9, 2016Via: WSBTV | 1real |
“Not a word”…That’s What The Parents Of Beautiful Young Woman Murdered By Illegal Alien In Sanctuary City Have Heard From White House [VIDEO] | Kate Steinle is the wrong race, and she was killed by someone Obama is advocating for. If they can only get FOX News to stop reporting about it, this whole nightmare for Obama s executive amnesty/votes for Democrats program will go away The parents of Kathryn Steinle said Monday in a cable television news interview that they support a proposal to give mandatory prison time to deported people who return to the U.S. illegally. Steinle, 32, was walking along a waterfront in San Francisco when she was shot by a gun allegedly fired by Juan Francisco Lopez Sanchez, a Mexican national who was in the country illegally. Steinle s brother also appeared on Fox and revealed to Megyn Kelly that the White House hasn t even bothered to reach out to the family. Not heard a word, Brad Steinle said. Instead, he said, we find solace in the fact that Kate was doing what she loved and she was with the man she loved the most, my dad. WATCH VIDEO INTERVIEW WITH BILL O REILLY HERE:Sanchez, 45, who has pleaded not guilty, had been released from jail months before the shooting, despite a federal immigration order asking local authorities to hold him.Jim Steinle and Liz Sullivan, of Pleasanton, California, were interviewed by Fox News talk-show host Bill O Reilly for a Monday segment on The O Reilly Factor.The death of their daughter has fueled a national debate on immigration, with advocates of stricter border control and even some Bay Area Democrats denouncing San Francisco as a city whose immigrant sanctuary protections harbor people who are in the country illegally.Supporters of sanctuary protections have jumped on O Reilly and others for politicizing the death. They say public safety is improved when immigrants can work with local police without fear of deportation.Steinle, who was at his daughter s side when she was shot, and his wife said the proposed Kate s Law would be a good way to keep her memory alive. O Reilly is collecting signatures for the petition, which would impose a mandatory five years in federal prison for people who are deported and return. We feel the federal, state and cities their laws are here to protect us, Jim Steinle said. But we feel that this particular set of circumstances and the people involved, the different agencies let us down. It ll be a legacy in her name and her death would not go unnoticed. The grieving parents said failings at multiple levels of government led to Sanchez being freed, but they re tired of finger-pointing. Ff Kate s Law saves one person, then it s all for good, said Steinle.Federal records show Sanchez had been deported three times before being sentenced to more than five years in federal prison. He had completed another four years in federal prison when he was shipped to San Francisco March 26 on an outstanding 1995 drug charge.The San Francisco District Attorney s office declined to prosecute, given the age of the case and the small amount of marijuana involved.Via: UK Daily Mail | 1real |
Trump Goes ‘Home’ To Trump Tower After Racism Condemnation, IMMEDIATELY Retweets Alt-Right Leader | It sure didn t take long for Donald Trump to clear up any confusion about exactly who he was referring to when he made his weak statement against racism on Monday. Trump finished his golf vacation, despite the murder of a young woman by an alt-right activist in Charlottesville on Saturday. The statement he issued that day caused many to wonder just who he was referring to when he referenced violence on many sides. Then, after serious pressure from not just the public, but even Congressional Republicans, he issued another statement Monday afternoon: Racism is evil and those who cause violence in its name are criminals and thugs, including the KKK, neo-Nazis, white supremacists and other hate groups that are repugnant to all that we hold dear as Americans. Glaringly absent from Trump s condemnation was one major contributor to the racist movement in America. Perhaps two, if you see it as two different groups: White nationalists and the alt-right. Largely, the alt-right describes themselves with the term nationalists, so for the sake of this article, it s just them.Richard Spencer, a leading member of the alt-right, made headlines himself Monday by declaring that he knew Trump wasn t talking about them. Also, Andrew Anglin, the founder of the internet s pre-eminent Nazi website, The Daily Stormer, knew on Saturday that Trump wouldn t be criticizing white nationalists: People saying he cucked are shills and kikes. He did the opposite of cuck. He refused to even mention anything to do with us. When reporters were screaming at him about White Nationalism he just walked out of the room. When Trump got back home to Trump Tower Monday night, it took him no time at all to prove them right. First, he made a big show of how much he loves the White House (after being caught calling it a dump), then his very first retweet his most common type of tweet was from another prominent alt-right leader, Jack Posobiec.Feels good to be home after seven months, but the White House is very special, there is no place like it and the U.S. is really my home! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 15, 2017Meanwhile: 39 shootings in Chicago this weekend, 9 deaths. No national media outrage. Why is that? https://t.co/9Crutnnrp8 Jack Posobiec ?? (@JackPosobiec) August 14, 2017Posobiec isn t only known for his promulgation of Sean Hannity s insane Seth Rich/DNC conspiracy theories; he was also the brainchild behind the alt-right s effort to smear Trump resisters with a Rape Melania sign at a protest, held up by someone hired by Posobiec to pose as an anti-Trump protester.Way to go, Donald. We know whose side you re on now. After all, with one member of the alt-right writing your speeches and another in your ear as chief strategist, how could you possibly have been talking about them?Featured image via Drew Angerer/Getty Images | 1real |
Former Vice President Biden to announce political action committee | (Reuters) - Former Vice President Joe Biden will announce on Thursday the formation of a political action committee (PAC), a signal that he is at least considering a possible run for president in 2020, the New York Times reported on Wednesday. Biden’s PAC will be called “American Possibilities” and run by his former aide Greg Schultz, who also worked on President Barack Obama’s two White House campaigns, the paper said. The 74-year-old former vice president considered a run against Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination in 2016 before bowing out, citing family concerns in the wake of his son’s death. Clinton lost the presidential election to Republican Donald Trump in November. | 0fake |
Factbox: Catalonia crisis - What's next? | MADRID (Reuters) - Spain on Friday sacked Catalonia s regional government, dissolved the Catalan parliament and called a snap election in the region for Dec. 21, in a bid to draw a line under the country s worst political crisis in 40 years. Below are several scenarios of what could happen in the next few days. Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy sacked Catalonia s government including regional president Carles Puigdemont and his deputy Oriol Junqueras and assumed direct control over the region. Central government ministries will assume directly the powers of the Catalan administration until a regional election takes place on Dec. 21. It is not clear whether a snap regional election will resolve the crisis. An opinion poll published by the El Periodico newspaper on Sunday showed a snap election would probably have results similar to the last ballot in 2015, when a coalition of pro-independence parties formed a minority government. Other opinion polls have shown Catalonia is almost evenly split between pro- and anti-independence supporters. Catalonia s main secessionist groups have called for widespread civil disobedience. They also instructed civil servants not to obey orders from Madrid and respond with peaceful resistance. It is unclear whether such calls will be followed or not. Spain s government said it was not planning to make any arrests, but it is unclear how it will proceed if the current regional administration staff refuse to leave their offices. A growing number of analysts fear this could lead to a physical confrontation if national police, who used heavy-handed tactics to thwart an Oct. 1 vote on independence, seek to intervene. One of the main problems over the implementation of direct rule will relate to Catalonia s own police forces, the Mossos d Esquadra. Rajoy said the Mossos chief would be fired. But a group of Mossos favoring independence has already said they would not follow instructions from the central government and would not use force to remove ministers and lawmakers from power. Several officers told Reuters they believed the 17,000-strong force was split between those who want independence and those who oppose it. The Mossos, whose chief is under investigation on suspicion of sedition, will have to act on direct orders from their new bosses. If deemed necessary, Mossos officers may be replaced by national police. The Economy Ministry has already increased its control over regional finances, to block the use of state funds to organize the secession bid, and started paying directly for essential services. Under the new proposal, Madrid will take full financial control. Many companies have however said on condition of anonymity that they feared a new Catalan treasury could start levying taxes, and that they would seek to move their tax base outside Catalonia. It is also possible that some pro-independence Catalans will stop paying their taxes to the Spanish treasury. The Spanish government had initially said it would control widely watched Catalan public television TV3, but it eventually dropped that plan. The media is likely to play an important role in the run-up to the new election in Catalonia. | 0fake |
Come on, Paul Ryan must be running in 2016, right? Right? | The Washington game now requires that any unindicted politician with a bit of ambition — even 75-year-old Jerry Brown — let it be known that he is thinking about maybe, just possibly running for president.
But here’s the flip side: the media culture now demands to know whether these pols are quietly plotting a White House bid — and treats it as sort of strange if the answer is no.
What do you mean you’re not feverishly plotting a presidential bid three years before the next election? Is there something wrong with you?
I guess we don’t like to take no for an answer.
Take Paul Ryan. A natural leader of the conservative movement. The Republican VP nominee last year. A man who can translate Beltway jargon into Main Street concerns.
The Wisconsin congressman is in the spotlight because he just hammered out a budget agreement with Patty Murray that passed the Senate yesterday with 64 votes—three fewer than supported a cloture vote—after winning bipartisan approval in the House. The modest deal is noteworthy mainly because it temporarily ends the Washington gridlock and threats of shutdown and default. But it also brought sniping from more militant conservatives who see Ryan as selling out to the Democrats.
The dustup triggered a spate of Whither Paul Ryan pieces in the press. Is he running? Is he not running? It’s 2013 already — we have to know!
“In interviews The Hill conducted with more than two dozen House Republicans from across the ideological spectrum over the last couple of weeks, many of Ryan’s colleagues said they are doubtful he will run for president in 2016. Most believe that concerns for his young family will lead him to lay claim to the job he’s always wanted: chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee.”
Ryan wants to be a Hill poohbah and not move into the White House.
“Ryan on Tuesday told The Wall Street Journal that he plans to lead the Ways and Means Committee in the next Congress. Ryan and his wife Janna have three children, and his friends say that his concern about the hardship of an 18-month presidential campaign is a genuine factor in his consideration.”
This is the human factor that journalists rarely pause to consider. Running for president is a meat grinder that chews people up, and Ryan got a taste of that as Mitt Romney’s running mate.
I don’t know whether Ryan is being coy, or whether, with the highest positive rating among Iowa Republicans, he’ll change his mind and jump into the race. But I do think the press ought to take him at his word until there’s evidence to the contrary.
I guess it wasn’t a big story when John Podesta compared the Republicans to a suicide cult.
But now that Podesta is joining President Obama’s inner circle, Politico is asking: “Can John Podesta Save Him?” (Boy, that’s a tall order.)
In its profile of Podesta, who is stepping down as head of the Center for American Progress, this incendiary quote was slipped into the narrative without comment.
White House officials, said Podesta, “need to focus on executive action given that they are facing a second term against a cult worthy of Jonestown in charge of one of the houses of Congress.”
Podesta was comparing John Boehner to Jim Jones, who led his followers to kill themselves? Didn’t that set off any alarm bells?
But the quote caused a stir now that the former Bill Clinton chief of staff is joining the White House, and he tweeted an apology: “In an old interview, my snark got in front of my judgment. I apologize to Speaker Boehner, whom I have always respected.”
Click for more from Media Buzz.
Howard Kurtz is a Fox News analyst and the host of "MediaBuzz" (Sundays 11 a.m. and 5 p.m. ET). He is the author of five books and is based in Washington. Follow him at @HowardKurtz. Click here for more information on Howard Kurtz. | 0fake |
THE JUDGE HITS THE STREETS TO ASK: Whose Fault is it That The Healthcare Bill Died? [Video] | 1real | |
Germany favors Eurofighter as it seeks to replace Tornado | BERLIN (Reuters) - The German Defence Ministry said on Monday that the European fighter jet was the leading candidate to replace its Tornado jets, which it wants to start phasing out in 2025. The ministry s position appears to contradict that of the German air force, whose chief indicated last month that he preferred Lockheed Martin s F-35, which meets the military s requirements of stealth and long-distance operational capabilities. In a letter to a Greens lawmaker who had inquired about the deliberations, the ministry said the F-35 and Boeing s F-15 and F-18 fighters were secondary options. The indicated view of the inspector of the air force that the F-35 Lightning II is an especially suitable successor to the Tornado system is not the position of the federal government, Deputy Defence Minister Ralf Brauksiepe wrote in the letter. The Eurofighter Typhoon is a joint project between British defense group BAE, France s Airbus and Italy s Finmeccanica. The ministry s preference for the Typhoon is no surprise; France and Germany said earlier this year they would work together to develop a new European fighter, as they expand cooperation on defense and security [nL8N1K43JS]. Many German allies in Europe, including Norway, the Netherlands, Britain, Italy, Turkey and Denmark have selected the F-35 and some have received initial deliveries. Belgium is expected to make a decision next year. The contract to replace Germany s 85 Tornado jets, which go out of service around 2030, could be worth billions of euros. A new fighter purchase would have to be approved by parliament in the next two years and a contract signed by 2020 or 2021 to ensure deliveries by 2025. No final decision is likely before a new government is formed, following elections this past September. Chancellor Angela Merkel will open talks on Wednesday with the Social Democrats (SPD) on renewing their alliance, which has ruled Germany since 2013. She turned to the SPD after efforts to form a coalition with the environmentalist Greens and the pro-business Free Democrats failed. | 0fake |
Back Channel to Trump: Loyal Aide in Trump Tower Acts as Gatekeeper - The New York Times | “Hey Rhona!” Donald J. Trump screamed from behind his desk on the 26th floor of Trump Tower one day last summer, before he won the presidency. Moments later, Rhona Graff, Mr. Trump’s longtime executive assistant, popped in from her adjacent corner office. “How long have you worked for me, Rhona?” Mr. Trump asked. “A couple of dozen years — I was 10 years old at the time — I was a child prodigy,” Ms. Graff joked. “Mr. Trump discovered me. ” “Many of the people who are with me have been with me for a long time,” Mr. Trump explained. In business, as a candidate and now as president, Mr. Trump has valued loyalty as the defining attribute in family, aides or Republicans in Congress. He does not always get it, as the defection of the Freedom Caucus last week on the health bill he was trying to pass made abundantly clear. But Mr. Trump can always count on Ms. Graff’s allegiance, and that has made Ms. Graff, from her office in Trump Tower, a major figure in the operations of the White House for a simple reason: She is believed to have a direct line to the president. With her deep Queens accent and unerring deference to her boss (she has always referred to him as Mr. Trump or, usually, as Mr. T) Ms. Graff, 64, is a familiar voice to New York’s business leaders, the nation’s political reporters and now old associates hoping to circumvent the normal channels of communication to reach Mr. Trump. Ms. Graff is a senior vice president of the Trump Organization, and her unofficial role as a back channel to the president raises questions about whether Mr. Trump is skirting the Federal Records Act, which governs the preservation of schedules and correspondence from the president, something the White House denied in response to questions about her role from Politico. Reached on Sunday, Ms. Graff declined to comment. “I like staying behind the scenes,” she said in a conversation last year in which she rejected a reporter’s proposal to shadow her for a day because so much private campaign, business and personal information crossed her desk. “We’re so intertwined when he’s here,” she said. Or, as she once put it to Real Estate Weekly, “Everybody knows in order to get through to him they have to go through me. ” Ms. Graff, a Queens College graduate with a master’s degree in psychology, left a sports marketing job after college to spend more time at home with her ailing mother. Eventually in search of another job, she heard about an opening in Mr. Trump’s office, and in 1987 called cold. They hit it off. Since entering the Trump Organization’s secretarial pool, Ms. Graff has acted as Mr. Trump’s media liaison, scheduler, sometimes spokeswoman, planner, “Apprentice” and Miss Teen USA judge. And regardless of who is taking Mr. Trump’s calls in Washington, it is Ms. Graff who occupies a more central space in the Trump orbit. In 1991, during Mr. Trump’s brush with going broke, it was Ms. Graff, “my very loyal secretary,” as he put it in “The Art of the Comeback,” who came into his office to tell him that his estranged wife, Ivana, was on the phone with the message, as he put it in the book, “I vant my money now. ” In 1993, Mayor David N. Dinkins presided at the wedding of Ms. Graff to Lucius Joseph Riccio, the city’s transportation commissioner, and later nicknamed Professor Pothole by The New Yorker for pioneering the field of pothole analytics at Columbia University. For decades, Ms. Graff worked under the tutelage of Mr. Trump’s longtime personal assistant, Norma Infante Foerderer, who died in 2013 from a heart attack after a difficult eye surgery. “She’d still be here if she didn’t have that problem,” Ms. Graff lamented in Mr. Trump’s office last year. “A disaster,” Mr. Trump agreed. But by 2005, the year Ms. Foerderer retired, Ms. Graff was already ascendant in an office that loomed large among the nation’s secretaries. (A poll of secretaries by a staple company showed that Mr. Trump trailed only President George W. Bush when it came to the country’s imagined toughest bosses.) In 2004, Ms. Graff became a recurring character on “The Apprentice,” and in 2008, she was briefly listed as the secretary for a luxury golf course in Scotland before a Trump confidant, George Sorial, replaced her. In 2013, she attained boldfaced name status in Page Six of The New York Post as “Donald Trump’s right hand. ” Since Mr. Trump has technically stopped running the Trump Organization, Ms. Graff now forwards messages to Mr. Trump’s personal assistant in the White House, Madeleine Westerhout, whom Ms. Graff helped train. Sometimes she forwards messages to Katie Walsh, one of the deputy chiefs of staff a White House spokeswoman maintained that messages are routinely sent to an official point of contact, instead of directly to the president. Mr. Trump’s dedication to his secretary and hers to him is much like the relationship Fred C. Trump, his father, had with his secretary, Amy Luerssen, treating her like family. He once had workers carry her up 12 flights of stairs when her elevator stopped working, lent her nephew his wife’s pink Cadillac when his car was stolen and would see her off at the airport when she went on a trip. When Ms. Luerssen’s niece, Kathy Quigley, tried to bring her aging aunt down to Florida, she said Donald Trump and his brother, Robert, insisted that Ms. Luerssen stay until she was senile. “It was a little bit of a battle because I was thinking, ‘Gee, I’d really like her to be down here with me,’” Ms. Quigley said. “But she was very happy. ” When her aunt died in 2006, a death notice appeared in The New York Times that read, “The Trump family mourns the passing of our beloved Amy, a trusted and loyal friend and employee for over 65 years. ” Mr. Trump compared his father’s dedication to Ms. Luerssen to his own loyalty to Ms. Graff. “My father was very loyal to people,” he said last summer. “I think I am too. ” Ms. Graff was clearly touched. “Well thank you boss,” she said. “Well it works both ways obviously. I’d never leave him. ” | 0fake |
Smile for the Phone, Creep - The New York Times | I was assaulted the other evening when I was strolling along the High Line. Maybe groped is the more physically accurate word, but given the nature of the violation and the feelings of anger and helplessness it kicked off, I can’t help considering it an assault. It happened a little after 7 p. m. on a brutally humid evening, but a promising one. I was walking home from an art opening in my favorite dress, enjoying the deep summer scent of the gardens, thinking about going to a bar in Brooklyn that promised rowdy opera — horned helmets optional, the website says. Really, is there anything you can’t find in New York on a summer night? I see three teenage boys, maybe ages 13 or 14, walking in my direction. Suddenly I feel a hand shoot up my skirt and a kid grabs the outside of my thigh. There’s laughter. Then the kids run off. You know the lightning responses you see in action movies when an attack takes place? I don’t have those. I stand frozen for what seems like a long time as my brain processes what has just happened. Huh? Was that a hand on my thigh? That hand was under my dress. I turn around to see where the creep has gone and see him and his two buddies half a block away. They aren’t running, they’re looking over the rail, scoping out the crowd. I see no police officers. Obviously I’m going to have to take justice in my own hands. “CREEP!” I yell. The kids sneer. Then I remember what the modern victim is supposed to do: Get a photo. I open the flap of my bag unzip the phone pouch try to unlock my phone with a sweaty fingerprint — and fail, because wet hands mess up the ID punch in my security code swipe through the icons for the camera find it and aim. By which time the kids have, of course, disappeared. You know those assault horror stories that have exploded this summer? Women groped on subways perverts exposing themselves black drivers pulled over and terrorized by the police officers murdered by snipers. What has amazed me about these crimes is the ability of many victims or to quickly grab their phones and get a photo. Or the attackers on Facebook. America is a country of artists, with apps instead of guns. But not me. I am, I realize, one of those helpless townspeople who after years of being terrorized by a gang of sneering bandits, would have to hire a gunman. Clint Eastwood, say, in a remake of “High Plains Drifter” — call it “High Line Drifter. ” Clint — I am talking the young, chiseled Clint, not the Clint who talks to chairs — would have known what to do with that groper. He would have gotten a photo and posted it on Twitter instantly. Then he would have sprinted after the creep and dangled him by his heels over the High Line rail, two stories over 10th Avenue — dangled him with one hand, him on Periscope with the other. Clint would not be oblivious to how I look in my favorite summer dress either. “You know a good place for fried chicken?” Clint would ask me, as the kid begged for mercy. “I like fried chicken. ” Then Clint would drop the creep on 10th Avenue and there would be a public outcry and his license would be suspended and I would still not have a boyfriend. Where was I? Oh, yeah, my inability to handle a locked and loaded cellphone. Obviously I needed to brush up on my technological skill set, which means rounding up a young person. The ones I rely on are my nieces, Caity and Freyja. They tell me which printer to get and why I should not be on Tinder. (S. T. D. s, and people don’t actually use it to find someone to have dinner with in a strange town.) I consult with Caity. She is horrified when she hears about the High Line incident and immediately gives me some basics. “When you grab your phone, it’s probably going to be locked, but there’s a camera icon on the lower right,” she says. “You don’t need to unlock it to use the camera. Just swipe up and you’re ready to go. ” I had never noticed a pale gray camera icon on my phone it’s lost in a pale gray corner of my home screen, but when I put on my reading glasses I see it. And since sometimes there is a different screen and the camera icon does not appear, Caity shows me a bar at the bottom of the phone I can swipe upward. That brings up several icons, including the camera still in the lower right. on Facebook takes longer on my phone. When Caity opens the app, a “Go Live” button appears on the corner of the screen. Although I have the same phone, I have no such tab. I have to take an extra step going first to my page, then opening the “What’s On Your Mind” tab to find the “Go Live” button. I see on the web that other people are having this problem. Further research is required. But I have the basics. You know the way people practice their aim in the Westerns, shooting bottles off the fence? That’s me, metaphorically, with my phone. I’ve moved it to a more accessible pocket of my bag, and walking through Union Square, I sometimes practice my draw. Bam! Bam! Gotcha, Gandhi statue! I may not be as fast as a but I can confidently say there’s a new sheriff in town. And if I see another creep in action, this time I will get him. | 0fake |
Think the N.C.A.A. Bracket’s Too Easy? Try One of These Pools - The New York Times | Starting in the 1970s, eight prosecutors in the Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section set up a standing meeting. Once a year, they would gather in the deputy attorney general’s conference room and run an elaborate pool for the N. C. A. A. men’s basketball tournament. “We mostly followed the law,” said Reid Weingarten, one of the pool’s charter members. The pool lasted decades, surviving long after the colleagues had left for other jobs. Like most N. C. A. A. tournament pools, it brought friends together for good fun. Any financial stakes paled in comparison to the competitive ones. Participants got carried away with preselection research. And they were merciless in lambasting one another’s pet predilections. “Eric” — that would be Eric H. Holder Jr. the future attorney general — “would always pick U. C. L. A. because he was a Kareem guy,” Weingarten said, referring to Kareem ’s alma mater. “And he would always pick the Ivy League team, because he went to Columbia. ” But what made the bracket truly unusual was its structure. The participants did not pick games rather, they drafted teams. (Random selection dictated the drafting order.) Owning the team that won it all merited the largest reward, of course, but it also was worth something to have a team that made the Final Four or the team to make the round of 16. This was not, in other words, your ordinary office pool. “I find blind pool picking tedious, ridiculous and not fun,” Weingarten said. That is not to say there is anything wrong with simple pools millions of Americans take part in one every March, often merely for the prize of office or family bragging rights. In fact, one recently existed in a place even higher than the Justice Department. For the previous six N. C. A. A. tournaments, Kyle Lierman, then of the White House Office of Public Engagement, ran BOTUS — Bracket of the United States — for hundreds of members of President Barack Obama’s staff. (He will run the pool again this year it has been rechristened BOTUS 44.) There were no financial stakes, Lierman said, and the president’s bracket, publicly filled out on ESPN, was automatically entered every year. “He did well a couple years,” Lierman said. “Other years, not so well. ” The N. C. A. A. tournament, which kicks off Tuesday, is the Super Bowl of sports wagering. Actually, it is the Super Bowl twice over. The American Gaming Association, a trade group for the casino industry, estimated that Americans will wager more than $10 billion on the tournament this year, most of it illegally, compared with $4. 7 billion on the Super Bowl. And that figure does not include the multitudes of office pools, with their $5 or $10 entry fees. Officially, the N. C. A. A. opposes “all forms of legal and illegal sports wagering. ” “Despite the N. C. A. A.’s protests against gambling,” said Geoff Freeman, the chief executive of the gaming association, which supports the broad legalization of sports wagering, “they’ve created the biggest gambling event in American history. They wisely did it with great marketing, tremendous use of the bracket and infiltration into the American cultural lifestyle. ” Most pools are straightforward: Take a blank bracket, predict winners for every game and submit it before the first one tips off. But for a certain breed of fan, like those aforementioned anticorruption lawyers, the standard pool is not enough. Several have devised sophisticated, even byzantine alterations on the theme. Noah Chestnut, a product manager at the sports website Bleacher Report, crafted a pool several years ago that is similar to the one used by the lawyers. In his pool, drafting is . Entrants are allocated a $100 budget that must be spent on four to six teams whoever offers the most for a given team buys it. (When Kentucky entered the 2015 tournament undefeated, the successful draftee paid $96 for the privilege of selecting the Wildcats, who lost in the semifinals.) “I’ve always preferred to draft to everything else in life,” Chestnut said. “I don’t actually enjoy the games as much as the time before the games. ” A common tweak in irregular pools is to adjust how many points a participant receives for picking an underdog in order to make every game closer to an effective tossup. Picking a 14th seed that wins its first game, some reason, should be worth more than picking a No. 3 seed that holds serve. Chestnut, for example, weighted the scoring so that additional points were available when a team upset a favorite: 3 points, for instance, when a No. 10 beat a No. 7. And The Wall Street Journal reported several years ago on a biostatistician who used sophisticated mathematical formulas to determine point values for every matchup based on how previous, similar matchups had turned out. Similarly, in the early 1980s, Stephen Brown raided the microfiche at the University of Virginia where he was a graduate student. Armed with pencil and paper, he consulted past bracket results from The New York Times and, based on previous outcomes, calculated upset bonus points, which increased as the bracket narrowed. “I was supposed to be writing my dissertation on an poet named Edward Young,” said Brown, now an English professor at Rhode Island College. The bonus points, though, were secondary to Brown’s core innovation: picking. Instead of filling out an entire bracket before the first game, participants picked games in the second round after knowing the results in the first, and so on. The structure keeps more participants in the running, as anyone with a bad first round, say, can make up for it with a good second round — particularly if there are more upsets, and thus more available upset bonus points. “I never liked the idea of filling out the brackets,” he said, adding, “It makes so much more sense, and would take more judgment and skill, if you knew who was actually playing every game. ” Brown’s pool survives to this day, administered by his nephew. So does a offshoot centered in the Washington area. (Full disclosure: The offshoot is this reporter’s annual pool of choice.) Finally, for those who prefer getting ready for the party to the party itself, Bryan Cimorelli’s pool, the Conference Tournament Challenge, is for you. It covers not the one N. C. A. A. championship tournament, but the 32 Division I conference tournaments, which this season comprised 294 games, per his calculation. Each tournament is treated like the N. C. A. A. tournament, with point values increasing each round. Additional points are awarded for upsets, calculated by a method too exasperating to explain here. Values are additionally multiplied depending on how prominent the conference is: Conferences like the Southwestern Athletic are the baseline, while points in the Ivy League are multiplied by 3. 5 the Atlantic 10 by 4. 5 and the six power conferences by 5. “I like things that are really complicated and take a lot of thought,” said Cimorelli, perhaps stating the obvious. Cimorelli, whose day job in budgeting also involves spreadsheets, emails a preview every morning and a recap every night to ensure his pool’s 40 participants remain engaged. A recent preview was more than 15, 000 words. It informed competitors that only one had picked Richmond to win the Atlantic 10, discussed coaching seniority in the Southeastern Conference and made the observation that while more than half the pool had picked Rice to upset Paso in one game, none had the Owls reaching the Conference USA final. On Sunday, the C. T. C. ended and, soon after, the selection committee handed down the N. C. A. A. tournament bracket. For Cimorelli, it always is perhaps the year’s biggest letdown. “I don’t even want to look at a bracket,” he said. “I fill one out because it’s my sports fan’s obligation, but after 300 games in 13 days, I get to the actual tournament and I’m like, This is boring. ” | 0fake |
THIS IS RICH! COMMIE NYC MAYOR UNLEASHES CLASS WAR ON SCOTT WALKER FROM SWANKY PRIVATE CLUB | New York Mayor Bill de Blasio traveled to Milwaukee to attend a fundraiser where he delivered a blistering speech attacking Scott Walker and the wealthy. Governor Walker is part of a dangerous breed of Republicans, a group actively working to dismantle the foundation for middle-class life. Now listen, he told attendees, according to the transcript, I m not saying Scott Walker set out to destroy Wisconsin s middle class. But if that were his mission, I can t think of a (darn) thing he d had done differently! It s no wonder why the latest polls show Governor Walker s approval sinking to new lows. The people of Wisconsin can see beyond his pleasant smile and reassuring words. He tries to play the everyman then he stabs the everyman in the back. Mayor de Blasio s event was held at the exclusive and private Milwaukee Athletic Club (pictured above). According to Orbitz:The Milwaukee Athletic Club is a private city club located in the heart of downtown Milwaukee .Built in 1917, the historic club sits on the corner of Broadway and Mason streets. The 12 floors house 17 meeting rooms including the stunning Grand Ballroom, restaurants, bars, 60 hotel rooms, separate athletic facilities for men and women, co-ed fitness studio, pilates studio, yoga studio and babysitting room Swanky!Read more: GATEWAY PUNDIT | 1real |
MSNBC Tweets Terrifying Video Of Cop Being Dragged By Thug’s Car, Jokingly Asks If It Counts As A Police Chase? | MSNBC the cable news station who hired tax cheat, FBI snitch and paid race baiter, Al Sharpton as a mouthpiece to spew hate for the sniveling leftists who run the pathetic low ratings network After being called out by The Gateway Pundit, MSNBC took down a video mocking a police officer being dragged from a car by a suspect fleeing the officer.MSNBC deleted their report but not before The Gateway Pundit saved a screengrab of it The video, which was posted Friday night, was removed Saturday afternoon from MSNBC s Facebook and Twitter accounts within an hour of publication of The Gateway Pundit report.The video was titled, Does it count as a police chase if you take the cop along for the ride? MSNBC subsequently posted an apology to Twitter, but the statement did not state what precisely was being apologized for, nor was there an apology to the law enforcement community.A video tweeted from @msnbc Friday evening has been removed. The material was inappropriate. It should not have been posted and we're sorry. MSNBC (@MSNBC) May 16, 2015 A video tweeted from @msnbc Friday evening has been removed. The material was inappropriate. It should not have been posted and we re sorry. The takedown of the videos and apology by MSNBC came within one hour and twenty minutes of the 2:57 p.m. CDT posting of the article at TGP.The MSNBC video was posted in conjunction with NowThisNews and was also deleted from the Twitter account of NowThisNews Saturday after The Gateway Pundit report.Commenters at the Facebook page slammed MSNBC:Erick Delumeau: MSNBC you have shown your true colors again. Irresponsible reporting. A family member just had this happen to his partner and his partner suffered a head injury. So everyone who allowed this to air with circus music, deserves to be fired. Walter Daniel Bosak: You re network is disgusting. This officer could have been killed all because this individual thinks it s ok to resist a lawful investigation partly because networks like yours have advocated violence against police. Tiffany Eve: You should be ashamed of yourselves MSNBC!!! These men and women in uniform serve and protect us all, and this is how you treat them? An apology to all law enforcement officers and their families should be in order. Kyle Bodenhorn: Way to go MSNBC. You once again proved why cops around the world have a great disdain for media. This officer is lucky to be alive and you made jokes about his being dragged. Surely you feel that adding fuel to the fire of the hatred for police is a better news story than the thousands of police who have spent the week in D.C. honoring slain police as it is Police memorial week. Estela Ramirez: Msnbc how is this comical with this head line and music like this is a joke. The cop could have or was probably injured because of this. If it was a black man being dragged by a cop this head line would be different. This is tasteless and just shows how the media works to its own benefits. Via: Gateway PUndit | 1real |
Trump Warns Comey: Better Hope That There Are No ’Tapes’ of Our Conversation | President Trump warned former FBI Director James Comey Friday morning, after accounts surfaced in the press about a dinner they had in January, attributed to Comey associates. [“James Comey better hope that there are no ‘tapes of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!” Trump tweeted. James Comey better hope that there are no ”tapes” of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 12, 2017, Trump fired Comey on Wednesday, setting off a slew of speculation and leaks over why the former FBI director — who had been disliked on both sides of the aisle — was fired. On Thursday, the New York Times published an account of a dinner, sourced to two Comey associates, that differed from the president’s account. It’s not clear yet whether Trump has any recordings of the conversation that took place. Trump told NBC’s Lester Holt on Thursday Comey had requested the dinner on January 27, because the wanted to stay on as FBI director. He said at that dinner, Comey told him he was not under investigation. But according to Comey’s associates, Trump requested the dinner, and pressed him to pledge his loyalty. “Mr. Comey declined to make that pledge. Instead, Mr. Comey has recounted to others, he told Mr. Trump that he would always be honest with him, but that he was not ‘reliable’ in the conventional political sense. ” Comey’s people added that Comey was wary about dining with the president, but believed he couldn’t turn him down. The White House disputed the account. “We don’t believe this to be an accurate account,” said Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the deputy press secretary. “The integrity of our law enforcement agencies and their leadership is of the utmost importance to President Trump. He would never even suggest the expectation of personal loyalty, only loyalty to our country and its great people. ” According to the White House, one of the many reasons Comey was fired was because he failed to stop sensitive leaks of information to the media. | 0fake |
MILLIONS IN OUTSIDE MONEY, Hollywood Influence Couldn’t Put Georgia’s 6th District Democrat Candidate In “Win” Column [VIDEO] | Dem. candidate for Georgia congressional seat @ossoff: Not an issue I don t live in district, can t vote for myself https://t.co/RcX3MNqMTD New Day (@NewDay) April 18, 2017Democrats used the anger and fury of their progressive base, including hate-filled Hollywood actor Samuel L. Jackson, to stir up emotions in voters as a way to encourage them to the show up at the polls in Georgia yesterday. They failed Listen to disgusting Hollywood actor/radical activist Samuel L. Jackson tell voters in a state where he doesn t even live to go vote vote for the Democratic Party. STOP Donald Trump, the man who encourages racial and religious discrimination and sexism. Remember what happened the last time people stayed home. We got stuck with Trump! We have to channel the great vengeance and fury that we have for this administration into votes at the ballot box. Ossoff led an 18-candidate field of Republicans, Democrats and independents, the entire slate placed on a single ballot to choose a successor to Republican Tom Price, who resigned to join Trump s administration as health secretary.But Ossoff fell just shy of the majority required to claim Georgia s 6th Congressional District outright, opening the door to Handel, who finished a distant second but ahead of a gaggle of Republican contenders.The investigative filmmaker and former congressional staffer received 48.1 per cent of the vote on Tuesday he needed 50 per cent to avoid a runoff. Handel, meanwhile, received 19.8 per cent of the vote.The rest of the vote was split between several other Democrats and Republicans, as well as two Independents.Here s what President Trump had to say on Twitter about the Democrats failed efforts to embarrass him:Despite major outside money, FAKE media support and eleven Republican candidates, BIG "R" win with runoff in Georgia. Glad to be of help! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 19, 2017Dems failed in Kansas and are now failing in Georgia. Great job Karen Handel! It is now Hollywood vs. Georgia on June 20th. Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 19, 2017In total, Democrats received 49 per cent of the vote, Republicans received 51 per cent of the vote. Daily MailIf Republicans are going to maintain their majority in the House and Senate, perhaps they need to take a few pages from the Democratic playbook. The Democrats are fighting for their lives this is no time for the Republicans to sit back and take their majority for granted.Republican resources were split between eleven Republican contenders. The most prolific fundraising candidate among them raised less than $500,000, not even ten percent of the amount Ossoff raised.The Republican establishment, initially caught flat-footed, ended up spending over $5 million in advertising against Ossoff in the last weeks of the campaign, but it never caught up in the all-important ground game, which typically consists of a positive voter engagement on behalf of a single specific candidate rather than a negative attack on a single candidate.In retrospect, Republicans failed to recognize the unique opportunity the jungle primary provided Democrats who focused all their support behind one candidate. Republican leadership could have made a similar choice from among their eleven candidates, but did not do so. They did, in the end, get some help from the Republican establishment in Washington. Republicans in Georgia sounded the alarm several weeks ago, prompting $2 million in spending from the NRCC to help boost Republican turnout and counter Democrats energy. The Congressional Leadership Fund, the super PAC aligned with House leadership, also dumped in $3 million of its own money and dispatched on-the-ground staffers to the district, Politico reported.Speaker Ryan, however, who has the responsibility to support Republican candidates in the House, did not see the risk of a Democratic victory in Georgia until it was too late.In fact, he was not even in the United States on Tuesday. Instead, he was in Europe, leading a bi-partisan Congressional delegation.For entire story: Breitbart | 1real |
Bernie Vows To Keep Fighting Despite Huge Super Tuesday Loss (And Why That’s A Good Thing) | Last night, Hillary Clinton won the Democratic nomination. Yes yes yes Feel the Bern, Debbie Wasserman Schultz is evil, Superdelegates are unfair, Hillary must have cheated, etc. etc. etc. Aside from all of that, it s clear Clinton has kept the Obama coalition more or less intact and that s going to land her the nomination. Without the support of the black community and non-millennial voters, Bernie s path to victory is extremely narrow and that s before you factor in the Superdelegates. If you don t believe me, then you should believe Nate Silver s fivethirtyeight.com, which has been the gold standard in political statistical analysis for the last several years.So Sanders should just quit and go home, right? Good lord, no! Even though he s losing the primaries, he s winning the debate and the Democratic Party still needs him. Badly.Love him or kind of like him (no one really hates him on the left), Sanders is correct when he says the Democratic Party is a little too cozy with Big Money. The problem is that while the corporate media loves LOVES to pretend that Democrats are just as far to the left as the GOP is to the right, that s total bullshit. The Democratic Party is comfortably to the left on social issues but center left (and just barely) when it comes to economics. This is a serious issue when it comes to making the necessary compromises with Republicans to get anything done. Any middle ground sits squarely to the right (which, of course, was the entire point of Republicans go so far to the fringe in the first place).What Bernie does, and does brilliantly, is drag the entire process to the left and the Democratic Party with him. He ll never say it out loud, of course, but Bernie never really intended to win the primaries. His entire campaign is designed to influence politics on the left. This is heresy to the Bernie True Believers but let s be honest, Bernie has kept the Democratic Party at arm s length for decades, constantly poking at them like a gadfly. Winning the Superdelegates necessary to win the nomination was never an achievable goal and he s not even trying. Why? Because winning the election was not the goal, showing the Democratic Party that they can openly embrace Democratic Socialism and not be immediately burned at the stake was.And it s working. Very VERY well.In case you haven t noticed, Bernie Sanders openly advocating Socialism has not sent the country into shock. The corporate media keeps trying (poorly) to attack Sanders over this but he s so persistent and consistent with his message that the media s You re a Commie! nonsense is getting drowned out. On top of that, the negative connotations of Socialism are completely lost on Millennials, AKA, the group of people that will be controlling politics in a decade or so.Bernie will continue to fight tooth and nail for every state he can because the higher his delegate count, the stronger his message is despite the lead Clinton has and will continue to hold even without the Superdelegates. When he concedes sometime in the summer (and he s got the war chest to go that far with ease), he will urge his followers to support Clinton and the Democratic Party but to continue to hold their feet to the fire. Clinton will have campaigned further to the left that she would have normally and for long enough that moving too far back to the center in the general election will hurt more than help.Like Obama, Sanders is playing a long game. He may not even be around to see the seeds he s planted take root but as long as he pulls Hillary and Democratic politics to the left (and he has), he s already won even if he s not the nominee.Featured image courtesy of Michael Vadon via wikimedia commons. | 1real |
New Russian ambassador to U.S. calls for resumed military contacts | MOSCOW (Reuters) - Moscow and Washington should re-establish direct contacts between their military and foreign policy chiefs, Russia’s new ambassador to Washington, Anatoly Antonov, said on Wednesday. “The time has come to resume joint meetings of Russia’s and the United States’ foreign and defence ministers in a ‘two plus two’ format,” Antonov said in an interview published on the Kommersant business daily’s web site. Military contacts between Moscow and Washington were frozen in 2014 due to the Ukraine crisis. Antonov also called for meetings between the heads of Russia’s Federal Security Service and Foreign Intelligence Service and the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation and Central Intelligence Agency. A “working cooperation” between Russia’s Security Council and the U.S. National Security Council could also help fight terrorism, cyber threats and help strategic stability, he said. Antonov, a former deputy foreign minister, is subject to European sanctions over his role in the conflict in Ukraine. (This story has been refiled to remove an extraneous word in first paragraph) | 0fake |
Trump Shamefully Uses Hurricane Devastation To Promote Tax Cuts For The Wealthy | Leave it to Donald Trump to exploit a tragedy.Hurricane Harvey and Hurricane Irma have left parts of Texas and Florida in ruins. Americans are dead because of these storms and the resulting floods.I ll say that again. People are dead.But that isn t stopping Trump from using the storms to promote his tax reform policy, a policy that would mostly benefit the wealthy while slashing the very revenues that contribute to paying for a strong Coast Guard, a prepared FEMA, and the organizations that predict and track hurricanes.On his Twitter Wednesday morning, Trump urged Congress to begin work on tax reform.The approval process for the biggest Tax Cut & Tax Reform package in the history of our country will soon begin. Move fast Congress! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 13, 2017Trump then told Congress to pass tax reform because of the hurricanes.With Irma and Harvey devastation, Tax Cuts and Tax Reform is needed more than ever before. Go Congress, go! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 13, 2017For most Twitter users, this didn t make any sense.This makes no sense. Hurricanes are going to require more federal government spending. That means cutting taxes will just hurt relief effort Ed Krassenstein (@EdKrassen) September 13, 2017Actually, those hurricanes suggest action on climate change is needed more than ever before. Miranda Yaver (@mirandayaver) September 13, 2017Also decreasing revenue of government may impact the ability to help fund relief efforts for those that need it most. Michael Romano (@Romano_PoliSci) September 13, 2017 What? How are the two connected? Who is paying for the relief if you continue to cut taxes? Calvin (@calvinstowell) September 13, 2017Indeed, Trump s tax plan would give tax giveaways to wealthy individuals and corporations. So while the rest of us are paying more than our fair share to keep the government running, people like Trump and corporations like the Trump Organization will be able to shirk their own responsibility.Right now, we need taxes. Trump is already growing the deficit that had been shrinking under President Obama. Now he wants it to skyrocket with tax cuts that won t do a damn thing to help this country. All such tax cuts will do is further strangle already cash-strapped government agencies like FEMA that Americans need more than ever.What this country needs most is higher taxes on the wealthy, not lower.Trump should be ashamed of himself for using these two tragedies to push his greedy tax plan. It s an insult to the millions of Americans who have been affected.Featured Image: Alex Wong/Getty Images | 1real |
Donald Trump’s grandfather ran Canadian brothel during gold rush, author says | Donald says Friedrich Trump amassed 'substantial nest-egg' from Yukon hotel before heading to New York Donald says
Canadians amused by the improbable presidential run of Donald Trump might be surprised to learn the role their own country played in shaping his story.
Trump’s grandfather started the family fortune in an adventure that involved the Klondike gold rush, the Mounties, prostitution and twists of fate that pushed him to New York City.
Friedrich Trump had been in North America a few years when he set out for the Yukon, says an author who’s just completed a new edition of her multi-generational family biography.
That Canadian chapter proved pivotal for the entrepreneurial German immigrant, says Gwenda Blair, author of The Trumps: Three Generations That Built An Empire.
“It allowed him to get together the nest egg he’d come to the United States for,” the author and Columbia University journalism professor said in an interview.
“Whether he could’ve accumulated that much money somewhere else, in that short a period of time, as a young man with no connections, and initially not even English, is certainly … unlikely.”
He’d left Europe in 1885 at age 16, a barber’s apprentice whose father died young.
Trump wanted a life outside the barber shop, far from the family-owned vineyards his ancestors had been working since they’d settled in Germany’s Kallstadt region in the 1600s carrying the soon-altered surname Drumpf.
He sailed in steerage to join his sister in New York.
Within five years he’d anglicized his name to Frederick; moved to the young timber town of Seattle; and amassed enough cash to buy tables and chairs for a restaurant.
His next big move was heralded by the front page of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer of July 17, 1897, and its exclamatory headline: “Gold! Gold! Gold!”
It described a resplendent scene at the port involving mountains of yellow metal and men returning from the “New Eldorado” with fortunes as high as $100,000.
Trump sold everything and headed north.
The move to Canada spared him financial disaster. He not only sold off two Seattle eateries, but also land in nearby Monte Cristo, Wash. — right before floods and avalanches destroyed the nearby railroad and development plans for the town were scrapped.
Blair describes his perilous northward journey in early 1898.
After boarding a crowded ship to Alaska, Trump trekked over mountains, through Canadian customs, and to the Yukon River where he had to build a boat from scratch and transport a year’s worth of personal supplies.
The worst was a notorious mountain pass. The U.S. National Parks Service estimates 3,000 animals died on the White Pass, with many bones still visible today in its so-called Dead Horse Gulch.
“Owners whipped horses, donkeys, mules, oxen, and dogs until they dropped. The bodies were not buried or even moved,” Blair writes.
“Travellers … had no choice but to walk over the remains. As the months went by, the walls of the pass were stained dark red from the blood.”
Trump smelled opportunity.
He opened a canteen along the route, Blair says, where weary travellers likely stopped for a bite of Arctic roadkill. There are records for similar establishments along the route, Blair writes: “A frequent dish was fresh-slaughtered, quick-frozen horse.”
This established a pattern for Trump’s Canadian business model.
It’s summed up in one chapter title: “Mining the Miners.”
Unlike other gold-crazed migrants, Blair wrote, “[Trump] realized that the best way to get [rich] was to lay down his pick and shovel and pick up his accounting ledger.”
‘Liquor and sex’
In his three years in Canada, Trump opened the Arctic Restaurant and Hotel in two locations with a partner — first on Bennett Lake in northern B.C., and then moving it to Whitehorse, Yukon.
Their two-storey wood-framed establishment gained a reputation as the finest eatery in the area, Blair said — offering salmon, duck, caribou, and oysters.
It offered more than food.
“The sex,” Blair wrote. She cited newspaper ads referring obliquely to prostitution — mentioning private suites for ladies, and scales in the rooms so patrons could weigh gold if they preferred to pay for services that way.
One Yukon Sun writer moralized about the backroom goings-on: “For single men the Arctic has the best restaurant,” he wrote, “but I sex.”
The Mounties initially tolerated the rowdiness. There were exceptions, according to the legendary Canadian writer Pierre Berton. People faced forced labour or banishment from town if they cheated at cards; made a public ruckus; or partied on the Lord’s Day.
“Saloons and dance halls, theatres and business houses were shut tight one minute before midnight on Saturday,” Berton wrote in “Klondike Fever.”
“Two minutes before twelve the lookout at the faro table would take his watch from his pocket and call out: ‘The last turn, boys!”‘
‘I wouldn’t call him a pimp’
Trump acted as cook, bouncer, waiter.
But Blair cautions: “I wouldn’t call him a pimp.”
She said backroom ribaldry was part of the restaurant package in those towns, and it’s not clear how the arrangement worked: “As somebody trying to attract business to his restaurant, of course he would have liquor. Of course he would arrange easy access to women. A pimp is, I think, a different business model.”
By early 1901, trouble was brewing.
The Mounties announced plans to banish prostitution, and curb gambling and liquor. Trump quarrelled with his partner. Gold strikes were getting scarcer.
“The boom was over, Frederick Trump realized,” Blair wrote. “He had made money; perhaps even more unusual in the Yukon, he had also kept it and departed with a substantial nest-egg.”
He returned to Germany with US$582,000 in today’s currency, and found a wife. But he was greeted as a draft-dodger for being away and becoming a U.S. citizen during his military years.
So he was deported from his own country. He boarded a ship for New York, his wife pregnant with Donald’s dad.
The elder Trump died of pneumonia in 1918, leaving behind some real estate. His son built the empire, his grandson the global brand.
Ironically, their heir is now running for president on a platform of mass-deportation. But Donald and grandpa share some traits — an entrepreneurial spirit, and formative youthful adventures in Canada.
Donald met his first wife, Ivana, at the Montreal Olympics. Related Posts: | 1real |
Anthony Weiner-Huma Abedin Marriage Is Like the de Facto Israel-Saudi Arabia Alliance | [MORE] by Gaius Publius
Summary first: We have been at war in Syria over pipelines since 1949. This is just the next mad phase.
I’m not sure most Americans have figured out what’s happening in Syria, because so much of what we hear is confusing to us, and really, we know so little of the context for it. Is it an insurgency against a brutal ruler? Is it a group of insurgencies struggling for power in a nearly failed state? Is it a proxy war expressing the territorial and ideological interests of the U.S., Russia, Turkey and Iran?
Or something else?
According to Robert F. Kennedy Jr. it is something else — a war between competing national interests to build, or not build, a pipeline to the Mediterranean so natural gas can be exported to Europe. Inconveniently for Syria, that nation lies along an obvious pipeline route.
Which makes it another war between interests for money — something not very hard to understand at all.
Here’s Kennedy’s argument via EcoWatch. This is a long piece, well worth a full read, but I’ll try to present just the relevant sections here.
The Historical Context: Decades of CIA-Sponsored Coups and Counter-Coups in Syria
Kennedy’s introductory section contains an excellent examination of the history of U.S. involvement in Syria starting in the 1950s with the Cold War machinations of the Eisenhower-appointed Dulles brothers, John Foster Dulles, the Secretary of State, and Allen Dulles, the head of the CIA. Together, they effectively ruled U.S. foreign policy.
Kennedy writes (my emphasis): Syria: Another Pipeline War
… America’s unsavory record of violent interventions in Syria—obscure to the American people yet well known to Syrians—sowed fertile ground for the violent Islamic Jihadism that now complicates any effective response by our government to address the challenge of ISIS. So long as the American public and policymakers are unaware of this past, further interventions are likely to only compound the crisis. Moreover, our enemies delight in our ignorance.
… [W]e need to look at history from the Syrians’ perspective and particularly the seeds of the current conflict. Long before our 2003 occupation of Iraq triggered the Sunni uprising that has now morphed into the Islamic State, the CIA had nurtured violent Jihadism as a Cold War weapon and freighted U.S./Syrian relationships with toxic baggage.
During the 1950′s, President Eisenhower and the Dulles brothers rebuffed Soviet treaty proposals to leave the Middle East a cold war neutral zone and let Arabs rule Arabia. Instead, they mounted a clandestine war against Arab Nationalism—which CIA Director Allan [sic] Dulles equated with communism—particularly when Arab self-rule threatened oil concessions. They pumped secret American military aid to tyrants in Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Iraq and Lebanon favoring puppets with conservative Jihadist ideologies which they regarded as a reliable antidote to Soviet Marxism. At a White House meeting between the CIA’s Director of Plans, Frank Wisner, and Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles, in September of 1957, Eisenhower advised the agency, “We should do everything possible to stress the ‘holy war’ aspect.”
The CIA began its active meddling in Syria in 1949—barely a year after the agency’s creation. Syrian patriots had declared war on the Nazis, expelled their Vichy French colonial rulers and crafted a fragile secularist democracy based on the American model. But in March of 1949, Syria’s democratically elected president, Shukri-al-Kuwaiti, hesitated to approve the Trans Arabian Pipeline, an American project intended to connect the oil fields of Saudi Arabia to the ports of Lebanon via Syria. In his book, Legacy of Ashes, CIA historian Tim Weiner recounts that in retaliation, the CIA engineered a coup, replacing al-Kuwaiti with the CIA’s handpicked dictator, a convicted swindler named Husni al-Za’im. Al-Za’im barely had time to dissolve parliament and approve the American pipeline before his countrymen deposed him, 14 weeks into his regime. Kennedy then details the history of coups and counter-coups in and against Syria, and concludes this section with this: Thanks in large part to Allan Dulles and the CIA, whose foreign policy intrigues were often directly at odds with the stated policies of our nation, the idealistic path outlined in the Atlantic Charter was the road not taken. In 1957, my grandfather, Ambassador Joseph P. Kennedy, sat on a secret committee charged with investigating CIA’s clandestine mischief in the Mid-East. The so called “Bruce Lovett Report,” to which he was a signatory, described CIA coup plots in Jordan, Syria, Iran, Iraq and Egypt, all common knowledge on the Arab street, but virtually unknown to the American people who believed, at face value, their government’s denials.
The report blamed the CIA for the rampant anti-Americanism that was then mysteriously taking root “in the many countries in the world today.”… A parade of Iranian and Syrian dictators, including Bashar al-Assad and his father, have invoked the history of the CIA’s bloody coups as a pretext for their authoritarian rule, repressive tactics and their need for a strong Russian alliance. These stories are therefore well known to the people of Syria and Iran who naturally interpret talk of U.S. intervention in the context of that history.
While the compliant American press parrots the narrative that our military support for the Syrian insurgency is purely humanitarian, many Syrians see the present crisis as just another proxy war over pipelines and geopolitics. Before rushing deeper into the conflagration, it would be wise for us to consider the abundant facts supporting that perspective. So much for our supposed interest in “humanitarian” intervention in Syria. From a Syrian point of view, it has never been thus. It has been about pipelines since 1949, and they understand that, even if we don’t.
The Current Conflagration
Kennedy then turns to the present, or the near-present. Refer to the map above as you read: A Pipeline War
In [the Syrians'] view, our war against Bashar Assad did not begin with the peaceful civil protests of the Arab Spring in 2011. Instead it began in 2000 when Qatar proposed to construct a $10 billion, 1,500km pipeline through Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria and Turkey.
Qatar shares with Iran, the South Pars/North Dome gas field, the world’s richest natural gas repository. The international trade embargo, until recently, prohibited Iran from selling gas abroad and ensured that Qatar’s gas could only reach European markets if it is liquefied and shipped by sea, a route that restricts volume and dramatically raises costs.
The EU, which gets 30 percent of its gas from Russia, was equally hungry for the pipeline which would have given its members cheap energy and relief from Vladimir Putin’s stifling economic and political leverage. Turkey, Russia’s second largest gas customer, was particularly anxious to end its reliance on its ancient rival and to position itself as the lucrative transect hub for Asian fuels to EU markets. The Qatari pipeline would have benefited Saudi Arabia’s conservative Sunni Monarchy by giving them a foothold in Shia dominated Syria.
The Saudi’s geopolitical goal is to contain the economic and political power of the Kingdom’s principal rival, Iran, a Shiite state, and close ally of Bashar Assad. The Saudi monarchy viewed the U.S. sponsored Shia takeover in Iraq as a demotion to its regional power and was already engaged in a proxy war against Tehran in Yemen, highlighted by the Saudi genocide against the Iranian backed Houthi tribe. Which puts the Qatari pipeline squarely opposite to Russia’s national interest — natural gas (methane) sales to Europe. Of course, the Russians, who sell 70 percent of their gas exports to Europe, viewed the Qatar/Turkey pipeline as an existential threat. In Putin’s view, the Qatar pipeline is a NATO plot to change the status quo, deprive Russia of its only foothold in the Middle East, strangle the Russian economy and end Russian leverage in the European energy market. In 2009, Assad announced that he would refuse to sign the agreement to allow the pipeline to run through Syria “to protect the interests of our Russian ally.” That was likely the last straw vis-à-vis the U.S. Which brings us to another pipeline, the so-called “Islamic Pipeline” (see map above):“Assad further enraged the Gulf’s Sunni monarchs by endorsing a Russian approved “Islamic pipeline” running from Iran’s side of the gas field through Syria and to the ports of Lebanon. The Islamic pipeline would make Shia Iran instead of Sunni Qatar, the principal supplier to the European energy market and dramatically increase Tehran’s influence in the Mid-East and the world. Israel also was understandably determined to derail the Islamic pipeline which would enrich Iran and Syria and presumably strengthen their proxies, Hezbollah and Hamas. Another, competing pipeline which would run through Syrian territory, but this time carrying Iranian gas instead of Qatari gas. Thus the demonizing of Assad as evil in the mold of Saddam Hussein, instead of just a run-of-the-mill Middle East autocrat, as bad as some but better than others. Kennedy includes a good section on the history of the al-Assad family’s rule of Syria, including this information from top reporters Sy Hersh and Robert Parry: According to Hersh, “He certainly wasn’t beheading people every Wednesday like the Saudis do in Mecca.” Another veteran journalist, Bob Parry, echoes that assessment. “No one in the region has clean hands but in the realms of torture, mass killings, civil liberties and supporting terrorism, Assad is much better than the Saudis.” In September 2013, the Sunni states involved in the Qatar-Turkey pipeline were so determined to remove Syrian opposition to the pipeline that they offered, via John Kerry, to carry the whole cost of an U.S. invasion to topple al-Assad. Kerry reiterated the offer to Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL27): “With respect to Arab countries offering to bear the costs of [an American invasion] to topple Assad, the answer is profoundly Yes, they have. The offer is on the table.” Obama’s response: Despite pressure from Republicans, Barrack Obama balked at hiring out young Americans to die as mercenaries for a pipeline conglomerate. Obama wisely ignored Republican clamoring to put ground troops in Syria or to funnel more funding to “moderate insurgents.” But by late 2011, Republican pressure and our Sunni allies had pushed the American government into the fray. The rest is a history of provocation and over-reaction — a great deal of both — and chaos and death in Syria. Kennedy provides much detail here, at one point adding: [Syria's] moderates are fleeing a war that is not their war. They simply want to escape being crushed between the anvil of Assad’s Russian backed tyranny and the vicious Jihadi Sunni hammer that we had a hand in wielding in a global battle over competing pipelines. You can’t blame the Syrian people for not widely embracing a blueprint for their nation minted in either Washington or Moscow. The super powers have left no options for an idealistic future that moderate Syrians might consider fighting for. And no one wants to die for a pipeline. I’ll leave it there, but again, do read the entire piece if you want to truly understand what’s going on in Syria, and what is about to go on.
Bottom Line
Bottom line, it’s as Kennedy said: “No one wants to die for a pipeline”… but many do and will.
I’ll offer three thoughts. One, if we weren’t so determined to be deeply dependent on fossil fuels, this would be their war, not ours. Two, we are deeply dependent on fossil fuels because of the political machinations of the oil companies, their CEOs, and the banks and hedge funds who fund them, all of whom pay our government officials — via campaign contributions and the revolving door — to prolong that dependence. We’re here because the holders of big oil money want us here.
And three, keep all this in mind during the term of the next president. It will help you make sense of the phony warrior-cum-humanitarian arguments we’re almost certain to be subjected to.
We have been at war in Syria over pipelines since 1949. This is just the next mad phase. • Replies: Never underestimate the Israeli factor. , @Mr. Anon Economic determinst arguments are always trotted out to explain these geo-political events. While they are not irrelevant, they do not necessarily explain everything. Remember back in 2002-2003, when a lot of people were pushing the idea that the war in Afghanistan was over a proposed pipeline. Well, the war isn't over, and there is still no pipeline. A country riven by civil war and crazy head-chopping-off-jihadists sounds like a lousy place to build a pipeline that could easily be sabotaged. Why not just build it via a different route? Through Turkey? Through Jordan and Israel? Through Saudi Arabia? "According to Robert F. Kennedy Jr " And that is supposed to be an authoritative source? I haven't noticed that the third-generation Kennedys are very bright or adept at much of anything. , @RonaldB It's nuts to say our usage of fossil fuels is optional and due only to the foot-dragging sponsored by the oil companies. The fact is, fossil fuel, including natural gas, is the most efficient, and throwing billions of dollars of government subsidies at "clean energy alternatives" will not do anything except increase the national debt. Having said that, the US is easily independent of political ramifications of Middle Eastern oil. North America produces more oil than Saudia Arabia, natural gas and coal are plentiful, and approving the keystone pipeline would make domestically-produced fossil energy even more available. So, even the worst scenario, a Middle Eastern effective boycott, would not have strategic implications, but would at most increase the price of oil and gas moderately. If the report is true, that Obama resisted the pressure from Republicans to invade Syria, I have a new-found respect for Obama and continue to hope that Trump considers himself completely separate from the Republican establishment. Also, the US can be supportive of Israel vis a vis UN and EU boycotts and one-sided resolutions, but does not need to ally itself with Israel foreign policy. Israel has its own, legitimate interests, which may not coincide with the US. Israel should go its own way, without the collaboration of the CIA. Israel has direct security interests as a neighbor of a hostile Syria and Iran, but it is up to Israel, and not the US, to best protect Israel's vital security. , | 1real |
Rewriting the Past | Lee Carroll
Kryon – Greetings dear ones I’m Kryon of magnetic service.
This morning. We ask you to feel the wind of truth. It’s a metaphor; when you feel the wind blows often in a gentle way that’s refreshing and that’s the way the truth is of this shift. You’re looking at new energies that you have never had before presented to you in different ways. Years ago we spoke of the recalibration energy. You have passed through that and now comes the work.
So many of you have asked this very day. What’s next, what should I do? What’s possible? Because this is new dear ones, the manual for what’s next hasn’t been written, but there are things we can ask you to do that are so able to be done and it has to be done by old souls.
Now this is an overview, it’s a generality that I’m giving you. It’s not a specific. So let’s talk about the specifics first, which is backwards. You ask what you’re gonna do next. What are we supposed to do? What is that which is in the plan for you and almost all of you we say to you, you are unique. So it may be different for each of you, but there is one thing that we’re going to start asking for and you are going to hear it more and more. Old soul, in this new energy things are going to come to you. Watch for the synchronicity. Don’t pass it up.
When you hear ideas, when you meet people, when somebody says let’s go over here and do something and you’ve never done it before, that is synchronicity. And the second thing we would say to you is that in the synchronicity that you will meet, see it for what it is, because that’s what you should do. What brought you here to this room for those of you sitting here, what’s the synchronicity?
Not all of you said oh yes I’m going to go to this meeting. Let’s buy a ticket now. In fact, there’s a lot of you that did not happen at all. And here you sit to hear these messages of hope and truth. Can you feel the wind blowing? Things are changing, dear ones; and the second large thing we ask of you individually is to be patient.
Human beings, when they start feeling the energies and realize the ah ha of truth are so excited and they want to act now. It’s almost like you’re going to run out of time and you’re not. Be patient; let the things develop as they come to you. You’ll know what to do with them. We told you over and over.
It’s time to start practicing mastery, to treat others differently, all, all of these things. That’s what you’re here for. We said before, those of you who are sitting around expecting a plan, what am I supposed to do? “ and we said before, what if you’re already doing it?
What if your very existence anchors energy for those around you? What if you’re playing a part you don’t even know you’re playing simply by being you around others who are watching you? What if that’s why you’re here? You realize the importance of that, of who you’re touching your changing. so it’s not like you think; it’s not a linear, “What am I to do?”
And yet, I’m going to ask you for something now, all of you. All of those listening to my voice. All of those in the room. There really is something you can do. My partner touched on an energy. You might call it a scenario that is going on right now on this planet.
The very thing I’m going to discuss is something that is holding you back from the evolution that we speak of, from the wildcards that are coming, for the inventions we told you you need – things that are being developed and are ready right now are being held up by what I’m going to tell you.
It’s very real, what my partner was telling you that most of this planet is still in an ” expectation of doom” mode.
Most wherever you go, there is this feeling of what you have called, waiting for the other shoe to drop. You’re overdue for doom. You’re overdue for the world war that was given to you as prediction after prediction after prediction.
It is so odd; everything around you says it’s changed, everything. If you will take a look at the wars that you had, the last world war and the one before. Take a look at who the players were; now take a look at what they’re doing. They drop their borders. They are trading with one another.
The scenario for the next war is not there, yet you expect it. Take a look at all that is around you. It is not then yelling at you ” You’re going to have a war.” There’s so much more. It’s giving you the evidence that’s not what’s going to happen at all. And why is it that you feel like it’s coming. Now, those listening to my voice, old souls; those in the room, old souls. You are awakening to a grander truth for the planet, a truth that doesn’t just belong to a niche amount of believers. It’s for the whole planet. Therefore, I’m telling you something that involves the whole planet. But the old souls are the graduates. You have most of the experience; you have profound consciousness that can change energy.
The world is expecting doom. The books that have been written about the fractals tell you about the ripples of time that repeat themselves, that yell to you that there’s going to be problems, there’s going to be war; that yell to you your economy is going to collapse at any moment.
There are seeds of truth in the ripples. Let me tell you something, perhaps you’ve figured out or not. The ripples of an old energy are dangerous to you dangerous because if enough human beings buy into the old energy, it’s going to slow things down and some of them will occur.
Now you know what I would ask you to do. I want you to start spreading the word to everybody you know who would ask you, who would mention it in idle passing or not. Shape your words, for a good future. Don’t buy into this. Don’t be persuaded that something awful has to occur.
Dear ones, the prophecies have come and gone. You are in the clear.
But the ripples are still there of the old energy.
When you hear those speak of it. You can tell them this.
Well, it didn’t happen. We got a good future ahead.
They will start giving you chapter and verse of the old energy. They’ll tell you what has happened and therefore and therefore. They’ll pull the politics of the day into it, they’ll say and therefore and therefore. And you don’t have to convince them. All you have to do is show them you don’t agree. In a loving way, you can say, ” yeah, I don’t think so. I feel something good is coming.”
Old souls carry weight. You carry with your family, with your children, with your friends, with your colleagues. And the weight you carry is because of who you are and who they see in you. Are you a person who is slow to anger, who is quick to love? Are you a person who is not showing their age as much? Are you a person who has more energy than you should for your age? Are you a person that they will look at and they will say I don’t know what you got but I like it. They’re gonna listen to you, old soul.
Anyone who listens to my voice. I’m going to call it a name. I want you to rewrite the past. The old ripples of time that say that you are overdue for something was written in an old energy; you are rewriting that energy. You have seen the prophecies of an older time drop away. The Mayan calendar told you that old history and time was over. The new calendar that has been put up by the Maya says that history is going to go into a place nobody expected, that a new long count is here and that human consciousness can go into an evolved state higher than it’s ever been. Where is that realization? I will tell you, it’s only with the wise ones. And that’s you. You come to a meeting like this to get excited because you hear the facts, you see the physics, you hear the predictions, and you walk out the door and you know, absolutely know that things are different and the shift is here and there’s a chance that humanity will pull out of this faster than you know.
That’s the first thing we ask you to do, but the second thing? Well, it may be backwards, dear ones. I do that a lot. Even the logic is in a circle. One thing leads to another. One thing builds on another. There are those listening to my voice that still don’t believe it. How are you going to live in a way that’s going to tell others to expect good things are coming; how are you going to rewrite this past if you haven’t really cognized it; if you don’t believe it? You say, well Kryon, that should have been the first thing. No, I wanted to give you the most profound thing first.
You’re gonna have to change the past;
you’re going to have to avoid the ripple
and that can only be done by high consciousness groups of individuals
who arespreading the word in their own way
of a bright future for this planet,
a better consciousness.
You have to cognize it. You are going to have to believe it for yourself. You’re gonna have to know it’s different. It’s got to be your truth. So strong does it have to be that it competes with your belief system of whether gravity is real and not, whether when you drop something it’ll fall on the floor or not. That’s how cognizing works. It has to be part of your cellular structure. That’s why I’m here. I’m here, to carry humanity into a brighter future and to void out those ripples, those old energy things that we have felt coming and are still here. The earth is still expecting to terminate.
“Kryon, what do we do about that?”
Well if you just wait, it’ll go away. But that’s not what you want is it? Generation after generation will eventually clear the ripples– you are already starting to see it with the indigos. They’re not buying into an old energy system. One of those things they’re not buying into is the ripples. Are you going to wait for another generation and another and perhaps another before you can move forward? Or are you gonna start getting active?
“Kryon, I don’t really understand. What am I supposed to do, shout it from the rooftop?”
I’ll tell you what you are supposed to do. You watch because suddenly in your life you will have synchronicity to open your mouth. It will come from various sources and you remember this moment and you’ll smile because you say, “here it is.” Somebody will say to you, “do you believe this election? Do you believe what’s going on here; do you believe how bad all of this energy is?” What do you say normally? ” yeah it’s bad; I see it.” Or do you say, “I recognize it and you know what?
The next one is going to be different. Things are changing. It’s going to get better. You just wait.” You say that, dear one; how many people will take that and repeat it? You see what you’ve done? At every single time you get the synchronicity to state a bright future, how many times have people complained to you or saw that you were a listener– and you are– and they come to you and they say, ” things are not going well”, what do you say?
What should come out of your mouth immediately, “That’s today; just wait for tomorrow. And if you will do this, and if you will believe this and if you will then find the God inside, perhaps you’ll find the joy to understand that humanity is headed for a bright future. You can go faster if you do that. You gotta believe it. Believe it, before it can be passed on.
This is the first time I have broached this, that now your job gets harder. You called yourself a light worker; turn on the light. You’re going to find moment after moment after moment presented to you [wherein] you didn’t even recognize what you are saying or doing.
Or you can turn it around in a benevolent way– and not argumentative– and you can say yes I see the election isn’t that interesting. It’s going to be something different next time. Then after that even next time. You can say is that interesting to watch and see the old energy we never saw before.
And now we can start cleaning up. People will walk away saying either. That’s a wise old cheerful person, even if you’re young, or they’ll say that’s a Pollyanna and they walk away and do whatever they wish. It doesn’t matter what they do with that, dear ones, what you do with it. Can you turn things around so that you are a positive speaker? A positive speaker.
Number three, the final. We will use three because this is the catalyst. This is going to be the catalyst. If enough old souls are doing this regularly, it’s going to be obvious to many. What’s going on with them? They are not echoing anymore the drama that’s here. They’re not agreeing anymore that the old energy is here. Instead, all they are seeing is light.
The third thing. How do I tell you this. You’ve heard it before. This won’t be work [unless] you fall in love with yourself. This won’t be work if you [don’t] fall in love yourself. If you’re with a cheerful person, it’s contagious isn’t it? If you are with a person who is joy and laughter, it’s contagious isn’t it? Who are you?
Now you going to see I just went backwards on everything. Should’ve been the first thing I said; fall in love with yourself, cognize it’s real and spread the word. . . .
I want you to think about the circle of time you’re in and the fact that that’s why it is the way it is. The circle of time has created the belief that people have that doom is coming. The new energy that was predicted all over the planet is here and yet the old energy circle still exists in the psyche of those who’ve experienced it all their life.
Enter the old soul. With joy, with love; with the countenance that is a smiling countenance. Not a depressed one. Are you listening? Some of you need to hear this. You are so concerned with the earth, and what’s happening that you walk around depressed. May I just tell you. Your depression is not helping anyone, even you. You could be as concerned as you want to; you can frown all day long and you haven’t helped a soul. So, are you listening? God is joyful and the things that you worry about will be faster settled if you’ll spread the word of joy. That is all we’re asking. Change your countenance.
Watch for the synchronicities and at every single point if you can give a positive outcome, not an agreed on negative one. Oh, it’s easy to listen to somebody complain and say yeah that’s what it is and then you move on. How many times you do that? You might think was none of my business.
I don’t want to start an argument. You’re not dear ones, when you just state the obvious. My truth is that we’re climbing out of this. It may not look like it. Don’t watch the news anymore’ you can tell them, because all you’re going to see his ugly stuff and it is going to lay on you and hurt your heart.
Turn it off and create the reality that this earth needs. It’s getting better, not worse. There are those who will turn away and not believe you, and then there are those who start understanding what you’re saying. They may even come and listen to the facts that were presented, even this day that you won’t necessarily see on the news that this planet is going through a recalibration and starting to correct things that need correcting, and slowly the integrity of humanity is one that no longer wants war.
I want you to analyze how many countries are there on the planet and how many are actually fighting with everybody else. It’s a fraction of what it was 50 years ago, a fraction. There’s really only about three or four holdouts today that have dictators who would willingly invade another country. That’s old energy. Dear ones, that is not what’s going to happen.
Take a look at the reaction of the countries to this. Take a look at what what humanity in general is after and trying to do. Putting things together, not tearing them apart. Not circling the wagons and competing for resources anymore; trying to put together, make it work.
You’ve been doing this long enough now that you can see it’s not the way it used to be. Telling friends. This is what the old souls is about today. It’s not going to be that hard. When you believe it. You walk around with a smile and joyful. People ask what have you got, what you doing? Why are you smiling so much? And you can say because things are getting better. They are getting better in my life because I’ve discovered there’s a shift going on.
This this isn’t going to void out somebody’s belief system or religion for you to say the future is going to get better.
The prophecies of the old and they didn’t happen.
The’re not; that didn’t happen.
All the timelines that were given to you,
including the end of time with the Mayans is not what took place.
Instead, things are starting to improve. – kryon
That’s the message. You see because the the synchronicity will be given to you to comment more than you think. And then my advice is that comment in love in joy, not in opposition. There’s a difference. You can hold them to your bosom as friends as mates and at the same time you can give them beautiful information without making them wrong because you’re giving it in joy, with a smile. I believe things are going to improve. That’s the predictions of the ancients. We passed the corner. It’s tough time right now you’re seeing a lot of opposition to light and I am the light. What a joyful, loving answer, not an opposing proposition, not an opinion, that’s different. It’s just a statement of power. Old soul, you know how to do this; you been there, you’ve done that; you know human nature.
Fall in love with yourself. Start to change your [countenance] in joy. Cognize the truth that things are happening differently and then cancel this ripple of doom. If you can cancel the ripple, or even make a dent in it. I will tell you the speed of what is going to take place will quicken.
The fewer people who expect the end will create a far faster evolution of consciousness on this planet. But those ripples of doom that are not going to happen that people still sense and have got to go away or be erased or at least diminished before some of the things that I know are coming will arrive.
You have a bright future.
Wait till you see the next wildcard.
It’s not coming until the planet
is clear of expecting the end.
There are some movies being developed that may surprise you because the Indigos are young [old] enough now to be writing the scripts. There will be some of hope; there will be some that are rewriting the past and reminding those in the story of the things that did not happen.
There’ll be those who are brave enough to paint the future, something they didn’t expect that would be good. Watch for this. It’s just now beginning to happen. Watch for linear literature that changes with writers who are now writing about a kinder, softer future. What is at hand that might work. Watch for exciting stories, even science fiction about a bright future. Watch for stories about meeting benevolent aliens that might actually help the planet and the drama that would ensue around it and those who might not believe them. It’s all part of voiding the ripples of doom and it can advance your evolution by generations.
Do you accept the task? This is the old soul; I’m hearing it all over the planet. It’s not going to be that hard– if you see the truth, and the light that is there.
I am Kryon in love with humanity for obvious reasons. I’ll say it again. I have seen this before; you have seen this before. It’s in your akash on another planet. It’s starting to reoccur; starting to come back to you. You are starting to feel better about it, At the same time, you understand, God is inside you. You have help. You are not doing this alone and you’ll see it; you’ll see it. That’s enough for now. And so it is. Kryon channeled by Lee Carroll in St Louis, August 20, 2016
SF Source Rosalie Parker Nov. 2016 Share this: | 1real |
Poll Finds White Republicans Are Angry Nearly All The Time | In a new poll that asked Americans to comment on their anger issues, Republicans and white people reported being angry nearly all the time.Perhaps stoked by hate-mongering organizations like Fox News and right-wing radio, a large portion of conservative white people said they got enraged over current events at least once a day, and many felt that they were angrier now than they were just one year ago.Overall, 49 percent of Americans said they find themselves feeling angrier now about current events than they were one year ago. Whites are the angriest, with 54 percent saying they have grown more outraged over the past year. That s more than Latinos (43 percent) and African-Americans (33 percent).Seventy-three percent of whites said they get angry at least once per day, compared with 66 percent of Hispanics and 56 percent of blacks.The poll also found Republicans are angrier than Democrats. Sixty-one percent of Republicans say current events irk them more today than a year ago, compared to 42 percent of Democrats.The poll, while not exactly scientific, does reinforce earlier research that found white, conservative Americans feel they are more oppressed than any other group. Oftentimes, this anxiety is explicitly about not coming to grips with a black president.Peter Brimelow, author of Alien Nation: Common Sense About America s Immigration Disaster, asserts that much of white America s anxiety derives from living under a black president and changing demographics.Diversity, he says, is not strength. The Tea Party is a response to this emerging white fear. Conservative politicians, sensing an opportunity, seized hold of those anxieties and exploited them for votes. It was also impossible to contain. The hatred and fear-mongering on the right has turned into an uncontrollable inferno. The results are toxic new realities like Donald Trump s popularity and more recently the armed takeover of a federally owned wildlife reserve by right-wing extremists who think paying grazing fees for their cattle is tyranny.On the face of things, Americans should have less to be angry about. Conservatives may not like it, but the economy has roared back to life under Obama. More Americans have health insurance than at any time in history. Social injustices that have long plagued the country are finally being reckoned with. Crime, in large part, is down.What s left is the shrieking, hollow screams from pundits and politicians who desperately need you to stay mad. The Tea Party was an utter disaster, and many of its beneficiaries have been booted out of office by voters with a Tea Party hangover, but its initial surge of racist, xenophobic rage proved to many that voting angry is a legitimate if pathetic electoral strategy. And as America approaches its next election, it s clear that they are madder than ever.Feature image via Flickr | 1real |
Coretta Scott King’s Daughter Speaks Up And AGAINST Republicans, And It’s Brilliantly BRUTAL | When it comes to strategizing an offense against Donald Trump and the Republicans, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King s daughter Bernice King might just be on to something.While the words and actions of Trump are horrific all by themselves, it s important to remember that he is not working alone. He has the support of those working closely around him and the support of the Republican party. So far, they ve been backing his ideas and confirming all his nominations for his Cabinet.Here s what King has to say about all of this:Some Wise Advice Circulating:1. Use [Trump s] name sparingly so as not to detract from the issues. I believe that everyone, regardless of their beliefs, deserves the dignity of being called by their name. However, this is a strategic tactic. While we are so focused on him we are prone to neglect the questionable policies that threaten freedom, justice and fairness advanced by the administration.2. Remember this is a regime and he s not acting alone;3. Do not argue with those who support him and his policies it doesn t work;4. Focus on his policies, not his appearance and mental state;5. Keep your message positive; those who oppose peace and justice want the country to be angry and fearful because this is the soil from which their darkest policies will grow;6. No more helpless/hopeless talk;7. Support artists and the arts;8. Be careful not to spread fake news. Check it;9. Take care of yourselves; and10. Resist!Keep demonstrations peaceful. In the words of John Lennon, When it gets down to having to use violence, then you are playing the system s game. The establishment will irritate you pull your beard, flick your face to make you fight! Because once they ve got you violent, then they know how to handle you. The only thing they don t know how to handle is non-violence and humor. When you post or talk about him, don t assign his actions to him, assign them to The Republican Administration, or The Republicans. This will have several effects: the Republican legislators will either have to take responsibility for their association with him or stand up for what some of them don t like; he will not get the focus of attention he craves; Republican representatives will become very concerned about their re-elections. King posts this only one day after Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) got shut down by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) on the Senate floor for reading Coretta Scott King s letter from 30 years ago condemning Jeff Sessions.It s time to remember that it s not only Trump we have the responsibility to hold accountable, but all Republicans, and this post from Bernice King is definitely a good start.Read more:Featured Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images | 1real |
(VIDEO) For the Love of Winston Smith, “Let The Truth Be Told” | Undoubtedly, we are living in an age of universal deceit, where government and corporations are colluding to bury the truth, and promote only state-sanctioned narratives. The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command. His heart sank as he thought of the enormous power arrayed against him, the ease with which any Party intellectual would overthrow him in debate, the subtle arguments which he would not be able to understand, much less answer. And yet he was in the right! They were wrong and he was right. George Orwell describing the plight of Winston Smith in the literary classic, 1984.YouTube artist Rebekah Johnson says, Propaganda puppets are lying to the public and suppressing the truth to further their agenda. Listen to her song and watch her video here:. READ MORE PROPAGANDA NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire Propaganda FilesSUPPORT 21WIRE SUBSCRIBE & BECOME A MEMBER @ 21WIRE.TV | 1real |
CHILLING: How America Looks After 8 Long Years With An Anti-American President | The shocking truth about how close we are to becoming a one-party fascist stateThis is the most brilliant and scary analysis of where we, as a nation are today Last year a retired Border Patrol Officer by the name of Zach Taylor went on camera to explain the driving force behind the unprecedented surge in illegal immigration happening on our southern border. Taylor went on to note that what was happening at our border was not due to a spur of the moment event, or a humanitarian crisis , but asymmetrical warfare. The surge we saw at the border was apart of a larger more chilling event that served one purpose and one purpose only, to show our enemies that our southern border had been compromised and the government wouldn t do a damn thing about it.The border was destroyed because of the actions taken by President Barack Obama under the guise of his Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) plan. Simply put, DACA rewrote our immigration laws and created the incentive for illegal aliens to break our laws as Obama deliberately undermined our nation s sovereignty by simply creating his own. The culmination of Obama s DACA has resulted in over 790,000 illegal aliens entering the country from the middle of 2013 to May of 2015, for a total of 2.5 million new illegal immigrants since Obama took office in January of 2009.While the threat comes from without, in this case millions of illegal immigrants, it could not have been possible without the enemy already being inside of the United States. As Mr. Taylor states, If asymmetrical warfare is going to be successful, the first thing that has to be done is to compromise America s defense against invasion because they have to have their personnel inside the United States to affect the infrastructure our hospitals, our schools, our electric grid, our power supplies, our water supply basically what we call infrastructure [which] effects the degeneration from inside the United States. By drawing away the resources that are intended to protect the United States border in order to care for the illegal immigrants, the border is now wide open and our infrastructure is overloaded. Yet, the crisis on the border is only a small part of the larger warfare that s being waged against our country at the hands of our own president. Today the Obama juggernaut is systematically bankrupting our country, and undoing the constitutional arrangements our Founders left to us , writes David Horowitz in his book Fight Fire With Fire. The contempt of the Obama party for consultative and representative government is relentlessly on display. Horowitz goes on to give the example of what our enemy represents with the following statement uttered by then Senate Majority leader Harry Reid as he defended his refusal to negotiate with Republicans over Obamacare and the debt crisis. Reid stated in these words: We are here to support the federal government. That s our job. End quote. You ll notice that representing the people for whom our Constitution makes sovereign is not included in Reid s statement.Horowitz then writes the following: My years as a radical prepared me to see much of this coming. But even I never thought we would be looking so soon at the prospect of a one-party system and a fascist state. Those words may sound hyperbolic, but take a moment to think about it. If you have transformed the taxing agency of the state into a political weapon and Obama has; if you are setting up a massive government program to collect and file the financial and health information of every citizen, and also to control their access to care; and if you have a spy agency that can read the mail and listen to the communications of every individual in the country, you don t really need a secret police to destroy political opponents. You already have the means to do it. This is all the more troubling when you look at the sheer amount of data the Obama administration, or shall I say the Obama government, is collecting on each and every individual living in the United States. To effect the degeneration of the country from within the Obama administration has weaponized the IRS, DOJ, and FBI to target Americans who oppose their agenda. Now, the White House has added a key tool in their arsenal by prying into our most personal information at the most local levels, all for the purpose of racial and economic justice. On Saturday, Paul Sperry of the New York Post, uncovered the latest Obama plan that is aimed at collecting personal data for a secret race database. Sperry writes, Unbeknown to most Americans, Obama s racial bean counters are furiously mining data on their health, home loans, credit cards, places of work, neighborhoods, even how their kids are disciplined in school all to document inequalities between minorities and whites. It may sound conspiratorial but under this government the only conspiracy is that being committed against Americans who are too distracted by today s latest ginned up political crisis.Sperry continues by noting that, this Orwellian-style stockpile of statistics includes a vast and permanent network of discrimination databases, which Obama already is using to make disparate impact cases against: banks that don t make enough prime loans to minorities; schools that suspend too many blacks; cities that don t offer enough Section 8 and other low-income housing for minorities; and employers who turn down African-Americans for jobs due to criminal backgrounds. Big Brother Barack wants the databases operational before he leaves office, and much of the data in them will be posted online. This means that so called civil-rights attorneys like those working for the ACLU and urban activist groups will be able to exploit them to show patterns of racial disparities and segregation, even if no other evidence of discrimination exists. Such databases have never before existed. Obama is presiding over the largest consolidation of personal data in US history. He is creating a diversity police state where government race cops and civil-rights lawyers will micromanage demographic outcomes in virtually every aspect of society , concludes Sperry. If you were to add all the databases created under this administration, including the Obamacare database, known as MIDAS, which retains tens of millions of Obamacare enrollees information, you could quiet literally make the claim that the federal government has data on every single American citizen. In the hands of someone like Obama this becomes of grave concern given his willingness to use such information against his opponents. Now that this information will be made public in order to extort communities deemed too segregated . Whether it be through the withholding of federal funds for a local community showing a pattern of racial disparity or lawsuits against a school that disciplines minorities more than whites, it doesn t much matter. The government will be able to force you to act in a way that it deems socially acceptable as Obama drastically changes the racial makeup of America by enshrining an infrastructure that will continue long after he s gone.All the while this is happening below the surface and under the radar from most Americans, we remain and for good reason, distracted by the latest crisis of the day. A Christian owned Oregon bakery is forced by the state to pay a fine for not baking a cake for a lesbian couple, a woman is killed by an illegal immigrant and 7-time convicted felon in San Francisco, four Marines and one Navy Officer are executed by an Islamic jihadist; none of this would be happening but for Obama s actions. He knew that ISIS had put out a hit list specifically targeting our military, and he did nothing. He cheered on the Supreme Court ruling that legalized gay marriage knowing that it would be used in a way to exploit and destroy businesses specifically owned by Christians. He created the sanctuary city policy that has served to protect illegal immigrants while they rape, murder, and assault American citizens like Kate Steinle in San Francisco.All of this is happening because of the enemy we have in the White House. The country is being brought to its knees by overt acts such as the jihadist attack that was met with no response, to covert acts such as the Obama race database. Yet, no resistance is met to counter the agenda of the Obama adminstration. Even the capacity of the American people to determine their own national interests are being torn asunder without any fight, without even so much as a whimper from Congress. Without a pushback, the adminstration goes about acting without repercussion held to no degree of accountability. With impeachment and the power of the purse both taken off the table by Congress, America is literally at the whim of Obama as the only checks that exist today on what the president can do is what he personally thinks he can get away with and what his political incentives are.So the adminstration pushes full steam ahead without any concern for the American people themselves. Nowhere is this more apparent, on a foreign policy scale, than with the adminstration s nuclear deal with Iran. As Andrew McCarthy of National Review writes, At the U.N. today, the Obama administration is colluding with our enemies and other foreign sovereigns to deprive the American people through their elected representatives of the power to determine what obligations they will accept under international law. The Obama administration has taken the position that Russia, China, and, yes, Iran, have a vote on our national security, but we do not. And in this betrayal, Congress has, at best, been a witless aider and abettor. At worst, they ve gone along with the adminstration in committing treason against the United States of America.I believe in the latter.Via: Politically Short | 1real |
Roy Moore Wants To Be Alabama’s Senator, But He Can’t Stop Being A Giant Racist | The name sounds familiar, right? Here s why: He used to be Judge Roy Moore, that one guy from The Dukes of Hazzard. Roscoe, you get them Duke Boys in here now! No, wait.Oh, that s right He was Chief Justice Roy Moore, of the Alabama Supreme Court. Remember the dude back in 2003 who refused to remove the monument of the Ten Commandments from the grounds of the courthouse? That s him. He s one of just a handful of judges who have ever been removed from office in this country by a judicial panel. Funny enough, he got re-elected to the position a decade later, but got smacked down again, this time because he told Alabama judges to ignore the Supreme Court and continue turning away same-sex marriage license applicants.Now Ol Roy wants to serve in the Yoo-nited States Senate, taking the place of Trump s Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who vacated his Senate seat after his appointment to the Department of Justice.The problem is, like the guy before him (who shares a namesake with that guy in the white hat), Roy Moore is an unrepentant racist. I m pretty sure when Roy kicks the proverbial bucket, his headstone is going to read Jesus Christ Was A White Man. So it was with no small amount of suppressed horror that the world watched the Formerly-Honorable Roy Moore call Native Americans and Asians reds and yellows at a campaign event on Sunday: We know that we were torn apart in the Civil War. Brother against brother, North against South, party against party. What s changed? Now we got blacks and whites fighting. Reds and yellows fighting. Democrats and Republicans fighting. Men and women fighting. What s gonna unite us? What s gonna bring us back together? A president? A Congress? No, it s gonna be God. We assume he means the white, Republican, male God.Watch the video here:Featured image via Erik S. Lesser/Getty Images | 1real |
U.S. judge orders Virginia to extend voter registration through Friday | (Reuters) - A federal judge on Thursday ordered Virginia to reopen its voter registration window and allow residents to continue to sign up through midnight Friday, after its online registration portal was unavailable to many users earlier this week. U.S. District Judge Claude Hilton’s order came in response to a lawsuit filed on Tuesday by the activist New Virginia Education Fund, which complained that the state’s online voter registration portal had worked erratically in the days leading up to the state’s initial Monday deadline to register. The lawsuit argued that the problems risked illegally denying thousands of people the right to vote in the Nov. 8 election. Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe this year restored the right to vote to thousands of ex-felons, a move seen as potentially tipping what had been a traditional Republican stronghold in Democrats’ favor. “I am pleased that the court has agreed with the request to extend Virginia’s voter registration period after unprecedented web traffic prevented many people from completing their registrations online before the original deadline,” McAuliffe, a Democrat, said in a statement on Thursday. “The Commonwealth will fully comply with the court’s order and extend our registration process online, in person and through the mail.” State law gives the power to extend voting registration to the legislature, so McAuliffe had been unable to act until the judge’s ruling, noted Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond School of Law. The Republican-controlled legislature had declined to take any action following the flurry of complaints on Monday. “The real question is if this leaves enough time to get the word out to people who had been blocked from registering and may not know that the issue has been resolved,” Tobias added. Shortly after the judge’s decision was handed down in an Alexandria courtroom, the state’s Department of Elections updated its Web site to show the new deadline. Representatives of the New Virginia fund did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Recent polls show Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton leading Republican New York real estate developer Donald Trump in the state. The decision comes the week after a judge in North Carolina gave residents in counties hard hit by Hurricane Matthew additional time to register to vote. Similar steps were also taken in parts of Georgia, South Carolina and Florida following the storm. | 0fake |
Uber Under Criminal Investigation for Law Enforcement-Evading Software - Breitbart | Uber is currently under criminal investigation over the company’s “Greyball” software, which allegedly allowed them to hide cars from regulators and law enforcement. [“Uber used the software tool to hide cars from regulators who were attempting to conduct sting operations on drivers in areas the company was not yet licensed to operate, such as Portland, Oregon,” reported The Verge. “The company claims it was developed as a way to cut down on fraud and protect drivers from violent taxi union protestors, and it claimed at the time that it still uses Greyball primarily for this purpose. ” “The program worked by identifying suspicious users either based on credit card information, location, or the type of device being used to access the Uber app,” they explained. “The company went so far as to check credit card data against popular credit unions used by law enforcement and mining public social media data to determine the suspected person’s employment. Once a user was ‘Greyballed,’ so to speak, Uber would show a different version of the its app with fake cars that would not respond to call requests. ” The software was first revealed by The New York Times in March, prompting the investigation. In April, The New York Times also reported that Uber was nearly kicked off of the Apple App Store after they were caught breaking privacy rules. “For months, [Uber CEO Travis] Kalanick had pulled a fast one on Apple by directing his employees to help camouflage the app from Apple’s engineers,” reported The Times. “The reason? So Apple would not find out that Uber had been secretly identifying and tagging iPhones even after its app had been deleted and the devices erased — a fraud detection maneuver that violated Apple’s privacy guidelines. ” The article painted Kalanick as a serial who would frequently push the lines in an effort to advance his company. “In a quest to build Uber into the world’s dominant entity, Mr. Kalanick has openly disregarded many rules and norms, backing down only when caught or cornered,” The New York Times claimed. “He has flouted transportation and safety regulations, bucked against entrenched competitors and capitalized on legal loopholes and gray areas to gain a business advantage. In the process, Mr. Kalanick has helped create a new transportation industry, with Uber spreading to more than 70 countries and gaining a valuation of nearly $70 billion, and its business continues to grow. ” Charlie Nash is a reporter for Breitbart Tech. You can follow him on Twitter @MrNashington or like his page at Facebook. | 0fake |
For Solace and Solidarity in the Trump Age, Liberals Turn the TV Back On - The New York Times | There is a new safe space for liberals in the age of President Trump: the television set. MSNBC, after flailing at the end of the Obama years, has edged CNN in prime time. Stephen Colbert’s openly “Late Show” is beating Jimmy Fallon’s “Tonight” for the first time. Bill Maher’s HBO flock has grown nearly 50 percent since last year’s presidential primaries, and “The Daily Show” has registered its best ratings since Jon Stewart left in 2015. Traditional television, a medium considered so last century, has watched audiences drift away for the better part of a decade. Now rattled liberals are surging back, seeking catharsis, solidarity and relief. “When Obama was in office, I felt like things were going O. K.,” Jerry Brumleve, 58, a retiree from Louisville, Ky. said last week as he stood in line for a “Daily Show” taping in Manhattan. These days, he is a newfound devotee of Rachel Maddow of MSNBC — “She’s always talking about the Russians!” his wife, Yvonne, chimed in — and believes Mr. Stewart’s successor, Trevor Noah, has finally “hit his stride. ” “With Trump in office, I really feel the need to stay more informed,” Mr. Brumleve added. “You just don’t know what the hell this guy is going to do. ” Many others feel the same. Last month, Ms. Maddow was watched by more viewers than at any time in the run of her show. The turbocharged ratings are a surprise even to television executives, who had been bracing for a plunge in viewership after the excitement of the presidential campaign. Before election night, networks were scrambling to generate new hits and digital offshoots that could stanch the bleeding. Instead, the old analog favorites are in, with franchises like “Saturday Night Live” drawing its highest Nielsen numbers in 24 years. Despite a dizzying array of new media choices, viewers are opting for television’s mass gathering spots, seeking the kind of shared experience that can validate and reassure. “There’s definitely a sense of we’ ” Mr. Noah said in an interview, noting that Mr. Trump’s election had infused his show with a new sense of purpose. “People are finding a space here in saying, ‘Oh, I’m not crazy — somebody else is also outraged by this,’” Mr. Noah said. Uncertainty and tumult have long driven ratings, and the interest is bipartisan. Fox News, already cable’s network, is having another big year: In February, its viewership was up another 31 percent from a year ago. of the 48 million people who watched Mr. Trump’s address to Congress two weeks ago did so on Fox. But MSNBC’s growth has outpaced its rivals — its audience in February was up 55 percent from a year ago — a striking turnaround for a channel once considered the of cable news. The network has beaten CNN in total weekday viewers for six of the last seven months. (CNN still outranks MSNBC in prime time among the audience of adults ages 25 to 54.) At MSNBC headquarters in New York on a recent weeknight, the mood was energized. Ms. Maddow sprinted down a hallway minutes before her 9 o’clock airtime the anchor was late for makeup after a monologue on Russian meddling in the election. (Generous by cable news standards, the segment still spilled over its allotted time.) It was a day after a Maddow milestone: Her Wednesday show outranked that of her Fox News counterpart, Tucker Carlson, in total audience and the coveted demographic. Later, after swapping her blazer for a fleece Ms. Maddow speculated that some viewers were gravitating to the show to feel part of a broader movement across the country. “There is this surge in civic interest and engagement,” Ms. Maddow said as she sprawled in a chair in her cluttered Rockefeller Plaza office, where the tip of an Emmy Award poked out of a metal beer pail. “It feels like a spontaneous, organic, pretty heterogeneous, energized, constructive force, and it’s been interesting to me to see it happen everywhere. ” Still, Ms. Maddow smiled when told that some viewers say they turn to her as a source of sanity. “My standard response to that is, ‘That is a gossamer thread — you need to work on that in your life! ’” she said, laughing. “I’m a TV show, and you shouldn’t depend on me. Anything can happen. Build up other sources of sanity. ” In some ways, television is the last mass medium that Americans turn to en masse in uncertain times. “It is a place where we congregate,” said Martin Kaplan, director of the Norman Lear Center for media and society at the University of Southern California. “We all gather around that hearth to know what’s going on out there, and be comforted by the people who come on our screens to say, things will be all right. ” Last week, outside a taping of Samantha Bee’s TBS comedy show, “Full Frontal,” Stacie Bloom, 44, said she was finding television “cathartic. ” “Maddow, I love her,” said Ms. Bloom, a scientist who lives in New York. “It’s reinforcing to watch. It’s the same reason I marched in the women’s march: It’s because I believe in it, and I want to be surrounded by other people who believe in it, too. ” Ms. Bee, in an interview, said she was glad her show could provide an outlet for liberals’ frustrations. “I’m certainly requiring catharsis myself,” she said, laughing. “I wish I could be more helpful to them, actually. As much as they need the show, I need the show. I experience it in a different way than the audience experiences it, but I need it, too. ” For Mr. Noah, who struggled early on to replicate the success of his “Daily Show” predecessor, Mr. Stewart, the election became a clarifying moment. “We are in the same position as a lot of our audience is in,” he said. “We felt the change and we felt an immediate shift, and we responded accordingly. ” Viewing habits seem to reflect the increasingly polarized state of the nation. Cable news, with its sharp punditry, is seeing huge ratings, but viewership for the network evening newscasts is falling, along with that of morning shows. CNN, once the straight man of cable news, has embraced its role as foil to Mr. Trump, with anchors like Jake Tapper delivering aggressive interviews and commentary on the administration. Gloria Steinem, the liberal activist and writer, wrote in an email that she had grown tired of “false equivalency or ” from news organizations, which she blamed for aiding Mr. Trump’s rise. “I watch MSNBC for Joy Reid, Chris Hayes, Rachel Maddow and Lawrence O’Donnell because I trust them as journalists,” Ms. Steinem wrote, adding, “A journalist’s job is not to be balanced it’s to be accurate. ” At Rockefeller Plaza, Ms. Maddow was asked if it felt odd to be enjoying a major career moment thanks to the election of a president whose policies she loathes. “I don’t feel like a winner right now, if that’s what you’re getting at,” she said. “I don’t feel like, ‘Score! Let’s hope for even more senior diplomats to get fired! ’” “Like, God, no,” Ms. Maddow added, turning serious. “I am not hoping for it to get worse. ” | 0fake |
NATO Considers Russian Warships Sailing in Mediterranean 'Acceptable' | Get short URL 0 9 0 0 NATO is tracking the movement of the Russian Admiral Kuznetsov aircraft carrier in the Mediterranean Sea, considering its presence in the international waters close to the alliance's member states acceptable, Germany’s Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen said on Wednesday.
BERLIN/BRUSSELS (Sputnik) — On October 15, the Russian Northern Fleet’s press service said that a group of warships headed by the aircraft-carrying cruiser Admiral Kuznetsov and accompanied by the Pyotr Veliky battle cruiser, the Severomorsk and the Admiral Kulakov anti-submarine destroyers, and support vessels was sent to the Mediterranean to hold drills and strengthen capabilities.
NATO officials have expressed concerns that the group could be used to support Damascus in the ongoing Syrian civil war. "It is acceptable that the Russian aircraft carrier operates in the international waters, though considering the current situation we will keep a close eye on it," she said. ... | 1real |
House Passes Bill Allowing 9/11 Lawsuits Against Saudi Arabia White House Hints at Veto - The New York Times | WASHINGTON — The House on Friday approved a bill to allow families of those killed in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to sue Saudi Arabia for any role in the terrorist plot, setting up a rare bipartisan showdown with the White House. The measure was never debated on the House or Senate floors. It reflects a growing desire to Washington’s alliance with the kingdom, which for decades has been a cornerstone of American foreign policy in the Middle East. Other measures, like a bipartisan one that would seek to block the sale of some tanks to the kingdom, are also on the horizon. But President Obama says he is strongly opposed to the measure, and the White House has signaled that he would veto it. Lawmakers felt intense pressure from families of the victims of the attacks, who wanted the legislation passed before the 15th anniversary of on Sunday. That may account for the bill jumping from a committee room to an expedited vote on the House floor. “The families have been asking for this for over a decade,” said Terry Strada, whose husband, Thomas S. Strada, was killed in the attack on the World Trade Center towers. She has long lobbied Congress on the issue. “We don’t feel this is in any way, shape or form,” she said. Mr. Obama has voiced opposition to the effort for months, fearing that it could expose the United States to lawsuits by people in other countries. A White House official said this week that the administration’s position has not changed even after some changes were made to the bill to mollify critics. The bill “is a politically way for Congress to send a signal of seeming seriousness about terrorism on the dawn of the 15th anniversary of ” said Jack Goldsmith, a professor of law at Harvard who served in the Department of Justice under President George W. Bush. “Congress itself could have investigated lingering questions about but instead is delegating those tasks to the unelected judiciary. The costs of the law will be borne by courts, which are an awkward place to ascertain Saudi responsibility for and especially the president, who will have to deal with the diplomatic fallout with Saudi Arabia and other nations. ” The bill addresses a 1976 law that gives other countries broad immunity from American lawsuits. It amends the law to allow for nations to be sued in federal courts if they are found to have played any role in terrorist attacks that killed Americans on home soil. It also allows Americans to direct financial claims against those who funded the attacks. The administration has argued that it would put Americans at legal risk overseas. That position seemed at least somewhat validated when Pierre Lellouche, a member of the French Parliament who is chairman of the rough equivalent in France of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said he would pursue legislation that would permit French citizens to sue the United States with cause. “I have sympathy with the notion of hitting those countries which actively support terrorism,” Mr. Lellouche said Friday. But the American bill “will cause a legal revolution in international law with major political consequences. ” The Saudi government, which has denied any involvement in the Sept. 11 attacks, has warned that it might liquidate hundreds of billions of dollars worth of American assets if the bill becomes law, which many experts believe to be a false threat. The bill was pushed by a bipartisan coalition in the House and Senate led by members from New York who have long felt the powerful and enduring passions of families who lost loved ones in the attacks. “Anyone who facilitates a terrorist attack on our people should be brought to justice,” said Representative Jerrold Nadler, Democrat of New York, who was a lead Democratic sponsor of the bill in the House. Several Republicans moved to block the bill in the Senate, but it ultimately sailed through by unanimous consent. In the House, there seemed little appetite for the bill this spring, when it landed in the House Judiciary Committee, but was then suddenly pushed to the House floor without any debates. In May, after visiting Saudi Arabia, Speaker Paul D. Ryan warned that Congress ought to make sure “we’re not making mistakes with our allies. ” The Obama administration had counted on a firewall in the House against the bill. But Mr. Ryan was recently in New York where he saw many families who pressed him to move forward. To make the bill more palatable to critics, lawmakers added a provision that would allow the executive branch to halt the litigation if it proves in court that its members were engaged in settlement negotiation with a nation, preserving the executive branch’s purview over foreign policy while still giving a pathway for family members to sue. Mr. Goldsmith said this was inadequate, noting that “a circumstance that may be hard to satisfy in important cases, especially concerning the claims against Saudi Arabia. ” Based on the vote totals in the House and Senate, Congress has enough votes to override a veto should Mr. Obama issue one. But it is possible that members may have second thoughts, under pressure from the administration and foreign governments may be persuaded to change positions. “We were able to get some changes to make it less damaging to potential dangers over time,” said Senator Bob Corker, Republican of Tennessee and the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee. “We as a nation have got more to lose on sovereignty issues than any other nation in the world. If the White House actually vetoes this, I think there will be whole levels of discussion. ” Still, many members of Congress expressed continued support this week for the bill. “Unanimous passage of this bill, I believe, sends an unmistakable message that we will combat terrorism with every tool we have,” said Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas. “And just as importantly, we will make sure that simple justice is available to the victims of terrorist attacks on our soil by not erecting any unnecessary roadblocks to their pursuit of justice in the courts of law. ” | 0fake |
In Turkey, U.S. Hand Is Seen in Nearly Every Crisis - The New York Times | ISTANBUL — Turkish officials accused the United States of abetting a failed coup last summer. When the Russian ambassador to Turkey was assassinated last month, the Turkish press said the United States was behind the attack. And once again, after a gunman walked into an Istanbul nightclub early on New Year’s Day and killed dozens, the news media pointed a finger at the United States. “America Chief Suspect,” one headline blared after the attack. On Twitter, a Turkish lawmaker, referring to the name of the nightclub, wrote: “Whoever the triggerman is, Reina attack is an act of CIA. Period. ” Turkey has been confronted with a cascade of crises that seem to have only accelerated as the Syrian civil war has spilled across the border. But the events have not pushed Turkey closer to its NATO allies. Conversely, they have drifted further apart as the nation lashes out at Washington and moves closer to Moscow, working with the Russian president, Vladimir V. Putin, to secure a in Syria. One story in the Turkish press, based on a routine travel warning issued by the American Embassy in Turkey, was that the United States had advance knowledge of the nightclub attack, which the Islamic State later claimed responsibility for. Another suggested that stun grenades used by the gunman had come from stocks held by the American military. Still another claimed the assault was a plot by the United States to sow divisions in Turkey between the secular and the religious. Rather than bringing the United States and Turkey together in the common fight against terrorism, the nightclub attack, even with the gunman still on the run, appears to have only accelerated Turkey’s shift away from the West, at a time when its democracy is eroding amid a growing crackdown on civil society. All of this is a reflection, many critics say, of what they call the paranoia and authoritarianism of Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whose leadership has so deeply divided the country that, instead of unifying to confront terrorism, Turkish society is fracturing further with each attack. The West, symbolized by the United States, is the perennial bogeyman. While seeming to pile on the Obama administration in its waning days — by accusing it of supporting Turkey’s enemies, including the Islamic State Kurdish militants and supporters of an exiled Muslim cleric, Fethullah Gulen, whom Mr. Erdogan blamed for directing the coup — Turkish officials are also telegraphing something else: that they are willing to open the door and improve relations with the United States once Donald J. Trump takes office. “Our expectation from the new administration is to end this shame,” Turkey’s prime minister, Binali Yildirim, said this week while accusing the United States of providing weapons to Kurdish militants in Syria who are fighting the Islamic State, but are also an enemy of Turkey. “We are not holding the new administration responsible for this,” Mr. Yildirim said. “Because this is the work of the Obama administration. ” Meanwhile, the nightclub assailant is on the loose. The Turkish authorities said on Wednesday that they had identified the killer, but refused to release any other details, although photographs of the man, from surveillance cameras, have been released. Also, a video surfaced that appeared to show the assailant recording himself in Istanbul’s Taksim Square. A senior United States official, who has been briefed on the investigation and spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss confidential details, said the Turks had recovered the video from a raid on a house in Istanbul. The official said the Turks now believed the killer was from Uzbekistan, not Kyrgyzstan, as many reports this week had first suggested. The official expressed alarm at the growing in Turkey, which seems to accumulate after each crisis here, and said it put the lives of Americans in the country in jeopardy. The chaotic investigation has added to the anxiety on Istanbul’s streets, with vehicle checkpoints, night raids on houses and helicopters. “There is significant fear in ordinary people,” said Aydin Engin, a columnist at the daily newspaper Cumhuriyet, who was detained last year as part of the government’s crackdown on the news media. “Fear prevails when it comes to going to an entertainment place, being in a crowd, going to a shopping mall, getting on the metro. ” With each passing day, public life descends deeper into what many Turks concede is a mix of darkness and seeming absurdity, with growing fears of violence and expressions of xenophobia set next to repressions on civic life. In the days before and after the nightclub massacre on the shores of the Bosporus, nationalists staged a mock execution of Santa Claus in the name of defending Islam a reporter for The Wall Street Journal was detained, and placed in solitary confinement — for, according to the newspaper’s account, “violating a government ban on publication of images from an Islamic State video” and a fashion designer was beaten up at the Istanbul airport and arrested for his social media posts. “In a way, it’s basically a breakdown of order,” said Soli Ozel, a Turkish columnist and academic, seeking to explain the tumult in society. “Everyone feels entitled to do whatever they want to do and how they want to do it. ” Tugrul Eryilmaz, another longtime Turkish journalist, recalled the country’s military coup in 1980 and the crackdown on civil society that followed, and said, “I have never been in such a situation like today. ” He brought up the Spanish filmmaker Luis Buñuel, who was known for surreal and absurd themes. “I feel like I am in his movies,” he said. While Turkey faces a growing terrorism threat, the country is also largely at war with itself, with deep divisions along many lines — religion, class, ethnicity — that make unity difficult even in a time of crisis. Perhaps the greatest source of division is between supporters of Mr. Erdogan, about half the country, and opponents who assert that he has become too powerful. “Turkey is so deeply polarized around the powerful persona of Erdogan that, instead of asking why terror attacks are happening and how they can be stopped, the and blocks in the country are blaming each other,” said Soner Cagaptay, a specialist on Turkey at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “This is why I am deeply worried about Turkey and the country’s ability to stymie further terror attacks. ” Parliament voted overnight to extend by three months the state of emergency that went into effect last summer after the failed coup. The emergency grants Mr. Erdogan’s government extraordinary powers to detain perceived opponents and hold them in pretrial detention. Tens of thousands of people have either been arrested or been purged from their jobs, on suspicion of having links to Mr. Gulen, who now lives in Pennsylvania. Mr. Erdogan on Wednesday made his first public remarks since the attack on Sunday morning, a striking period of silence for a man who is normally ubiquitous in the public sphere, often giving speeches daily. Mr. Erdogan, an Islamist, rejected criticism that his government, in pushing an Islamist agenda, had deepened divisions between the secular and the pious. Many on social media, in the aftermath of the nightclub attack, noted that the Turkish government’s religious authorities had denounced New Year’s celebrations as . “As the president of all 79 million citizens,” Mr. Erdogan said, “it is my duty to protect everyone’s rights, law and spaces of freedom. ” Mr. Erdogan, who spoke this week with President Obama in a condolence call, also told his audience what he believed Turkey, in facing so many terrorist attacks, was really up against: a plot by the West. Invoking the collapse of the Ottoman Empire after World War I and the subsequent Turkish war against Western armies and their proxies, he said, “Today Turkey is in a new struggle for independence. ” | 0fake |
Gingrich slut-shames Megyn Kelly | OUT OF LEFT FIELD Gingrich slut-shames Megyn Kelly Adele M. Stan: Misogyny isn't just baked into the Trump brand, it is the Trump brand Published: 26 mins ago
(American Prospect) — When, as a campaign surrogate and once-powerful white man, you answer allegations that your candidate may be a sexual predator with a sex-laced attack on your female interviewer, you’re probably a misogynist. A desperate misogynist.
That’s what former House Speaker Newt Gingrich is looking like this morning.
During a Tuesday discussion of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s sinking poll numbers, Gingrich accused Fox News Channel host Megyn Kelly of being “fascinated with sex” when she dared to mention that Trump’s fortunes began falling after the now infamous Access Hollywood video, featuring Trump boasting about his self-proclaimed prerogative to sexually assault women, became public on October 7, and nearly a dozen women came forward to allege that Trump had either assaulted them or otherwise taken liberties with their bodies. | 1real |
White Crowd Chants ‘Donald Trump, Build That Wall!’ And Then The Black And Latina Players Did This | At a Wisconsin high school soccer game, players from the visiting team walked off the field as the home team crowd disgraced themselves with racist chants of Donald Trump, build that wall! :BELOIT, Wis. Officials from the Elkhorn Area School District are investigating racist taunts directed at Beloit Memorial High School soccer players by a group of its students attending a game.The incident happened Thursday night as the Beloit Memorial girls varsity soccer team visited Elkhorn.Beloit Memorial girls soccer coach Brian Denu said the Elkhorn students taunted black and Latina girls soccer players with racial slurs and chants like Donald Trump, build that wall. Considering the young age of the students doing the chanting, it s hard to say if they actually meant what they were saying or if they just thought it would be a clever way to distract the opposing team. Either way, the effect was devastating: They came off the field and weren t able to finish the game because they were too upset and distraught over what happened to them, Denu said. One of the girls was cradled in the arms of one of our assistant coaches for a good 15 to 20 minutes. Denu said even though the chants came from a small group of Elkhorn students, their words had a big impact on his players. I could just see the hurt and pain on their face and know that this was obviously something that they hadn t seen before, Denu said.I want to give the benefit of the doubt but in all likelihood, this is the Trump Effect spilling down. It s not difficult to imagine that the parents of these students are ardent Trump supporters that have been gleefully teaching their children that it s OK to hate if the other person has dark skin. That is, after all, the core of Trump s popularity. It s not just that he s openly racist, he s telling his followers that it s permissible, encouraged even, for them to openly hate as well.School officials are looking into the incident but it s unclear if they will be able to do anything about it. At the very least, it would be nice if the other students from Elkhorn publicly shunned their fellow classmates for their racism.Featured image via AI archives | 1real |
VW’s U.S. Diesel Settlement Clears Just One Financial Hurdle - The New York Times | Volkswagen solved one big problem stemming from its diesel emissions deception, agreeing on Tuesday to pay up to $14. 7 billion to settle claims in the United States. But the final financial toll — once the company deals with a long list of fines, lawsuits and criminal investigations around the world — may well be far higher. The continuing fallout could leave Volkswagen vulnerable to billions of dollars more in expenses at a time when profit is already under pressure. So far, Volkswagen has set aside 16. 2 billion euros, or about $17. 9 billion, for costs related to its public admission last September that its supposed “clean diesel” cars had been deliberately designed to cheat on tests. Matthias Müller, Volkswagen’s chief executive, said less than two weeks ago that the amount was adequate. But the American settlement with the government and car owners will consume a big chunk of that money. And Volkswagen faces even more scrutiny in the United States and around the world, most notably as authorities pursue criminal investigations. The Volkswagen scandal is “one of the most flagrant violations of environmental and consumer laws,” Sally Q. Yates, deputy attorney general of the United States, said at a news conference in Washington on Tuesday. “We can’t suck the nitrous oxide out of the air,” Ms. Yates said. But the settlement, she said, would help repair some of the damage. The deal, in which Volkswagen did not admit to wrongdoing, includes $10. 03 billion to buy back affected cars at their prescandal values and pay additional cash compensation to owners. Additionally, the company has agreed to put $2. 7 billion into a government fund to compensate for the environmental impact of the cars and to spend $2 billion on projects. “This is by no means the last step,” Ms. Yates cautioned. “The settlements do not address any potential criminal liability. ” She said the United States was aggressively pursuing a criminal investigation of the company and individuals. Volkswagen said the settlement was covered by the money already set aside, though it did not rule out the possibility of allocating more. “Today’s announcement is within the scope of our provisions,” Frank Witter, Volkswagen’s chief financial officer, said in a statement. “We are in a position to manage the consequences. ” One big risk to the carmaker is in Europe. The American deal focuses on nearly 500, 000 Volkswagen vehicles. But the carmaker admitted to installing the cheating device on more than 11 million cars worldwide, with 8. 5 million in Europe. European legal systems do not favor consumers as much as those in the United States do. And the emissions rules in the region are more lenient than in the United States, which will make it harder for European owners to pursue claims. Still, Volkswagen may have to pay up. There is an increasing outcry from European owners and politicians for compensation. “Now that this is done, attention should turn to Europe,” said Michael Hausfeld, a lawyer whose firm represents aggrieved owners and shareholders on both sides of the Atlantic. The settlement “is a strong foundation for what Volkswagen needs to do for European owners as well as for the environment. ” In addition, it may not be clear for many months how much Volkswagen will ultimately have to pay to American car owners. A maximum of around $10 billion has been allocated in the settlement. The actual cost to Volkswagen will depend on how many owners exercise their option to sell their cars back to the company at the prescandal value, which will vary according to the age and mileage of the cars. The Federal Trade Commission said consumers could expect to get from roughly $12, 500 for an Jetta to as much as $44, 000 for a 2014 Audi. The settlement works out to about $21, 000 a car. If Volkswagen is lucky, the total paid to car owners could turn out to be less than $10 billion. Analysts at Kelley Blue Book estimate that the cost of buying back all the offending diesels would be $7. 3 billion. Volkswagen also owes owners additional compensation of $5, 100 to $10, 000, or at least another $2. 4 billion. Another big uncertainty is Volkswagen’s fix for the problem. VW owners can have the company retool the emissions systems. But the company has not yet come up with solutions that pass regulatory muster — and it is unclear what they will cost Volkswagen. While they would improve emissions, any fixes might not also make the cars fully compliant with American rules and could create more challenges for already frustrated car owners. George Farquar, a plaintiff named in the consumers’ suit, said he was interested in getting his 2010 Volkswagen Jetta TDI fixed. Mr. Farquar said he had reluctantly continued to drive his Jetta, even though he thinks he “gets nasty looks from every Prius car that passes. ” But he said he worried that the eventual fix would require him to drive to the dealer more frequently for maintenance, defeating the purpose of a cleaner car. Even now, he said, “many things aren’t clear. ” Then there is the issue of what Volkswagen will do with all the cars it buys back from owners in the United States. The settlement bars Volkswagen from simply exporting the cars, without fixes, to countries with emissions standards. “We are not shipping the air pollution elsewhere,” Gina McCarthy, the Environmental Protection Agency administrator, said on Tuesday, noting that Volkswagen was required to fix the cars that it bought back or scrap them. Volkswagen representatives portrayed the settlement as a good deal for the company under the circumstances. “It would have been counterproductive for Volkswagen to engage in a multiyear, litigation with the U. S. government, 50 states and private plaintiffs,” said Robert J. Giuffra Jr. a lawyer with the firm Sullivan Cromwell who represented Volkswagen. But the swell of scrutiny worldwide will only add to the financial pressure. German prosecutors are looking into whether Volkswagen and top executives, including the former chief executive Martin Winterkorn, waited too long to inform shareholders about the looming scandal. Investors are also suing Volkswagen over similar disclosure issues. Volkswagen faces an inquiry by attorneys general in 42 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. Eric T. Schneiderman, the attorney general of New York, one of the states leading the investigation, announced on Tuesday the states’ own settlement with Volkswagen for $500 million in penalties for defrauding consumers. A separate investigation by the state attorneys general into possible environmental misconduct by Volkswagen is continuing. In addition, the criminal investigation of Volkswagen in the United States looms large. Senators Edward J. Markey of Massachusetts and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, both Democrats and members of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, pressed authorities for further action. “We continue to call on the Department of Justice to vigorously pursue its criminal investigation,” they said in a joint statement. “All the facts point to criminal culpability, and officials should be held accountable as appropriate. ” Volkswagen’s credibility with investors, already strained, could deteriorate further if the company is forced to increase the money it has set aside for costs. Shares of Volkswagen are down more than 20 percent since the scandal erupted late last year. And the deception itself has been a major drag on sales. Never fabulously profitable, the company reported a record loss in 2015, while earnings and sales declined in the first quarter of 2016. Volkswagen is also trying to quell a potential backlash by dealers in the United States. The carmaker is facing a lawsuit filed by the owner of three dealerships, seeking compensation for lost sales suffered by the more than 600 dealers in the United States. Separately, a group of dealers has been trying to work with Volkswagen to win financial support. “As dealers, we are very anxious to get a settlement,” said Wade Walker, owner of a Volkswagen dealership in Montpelier, Vt. “We’re customers, too — of Volkswagen — and we’ve been hurt in this process, tremendously. ” | 0fake |
Done Deal? Clinton, Trump Shift to General Election after Big Wins | The front-runners in the race for president are one step closer to clinching their parties' nomination.
Donald Trump completed a five-state sweep in Tuesday's Republican presidential primaries, while Hillary Clinton won four out of the five states, losing only Rhode Island to her rival Bernie Sanders.
Now the two front-runners are beginning to shift their focus, with each expecting to go up against the other in the General Election.
"Frankly, if Hillary Clinton were a man, I don't think she would get 5 percent of the vote. The only thing she has got going is the woman's card," Trump told supporters.
Clinton fired back, saying, "Well, if fighting for women's healthcare and paid family leave and equal pay is playing the 'woman's card,' then deal me in!"
The former secretary of state now has nearly 90 percent of the delegates needed to secure the Democratic nomination, and after a sweep of Tuesday's primaries, Trump is one step closer to avoiding a contested convention.
Meanwhile, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Ohio Gov. John Kasich are hoping their alliance to stay out of each other's way in Indiana, Oregon, and New Mexico will help slow down Trump's momentum and block him from winning the nomination before the convention.
"I got good news for you tonight. This campaign moves back to more favorable terrain," Cruz told his supporters.
Currently, Trump has 950 delegates, Cruz has 560, and Kasich has 153. It takes 1,237 to win the nomination.
Meanwhile on the Democratic side, Sen. Bernie Sanders refuses to go quietly into the night.
"The fight we are waging is not an easy fight, but I know you are prepared to wage that fight," the Vermont lawmaker told supporters.
The candidates now move on to Indiana, with Sanders, Cruz, and Trump all holding events there Wednesday.
With Kasich pulling back in the Hoosier State, Cruz will basically have a shot at a one-on-one race against Trump. But if he loses, it could turn out to be his last stand. | 0fake |
UKIP leader and Brexit figurehead Farage congratulates Trump | LONDON (Reuters) - Nigel Farage, the leader of the UK Independence Party who was a figurehead in the campaign to get Britain out of the European Union, congratulated Donald Trump on being elected the next U.S. president on Wednesday. Farage, who spoke at a Trump rally during the election campaign, had predicted the former reality TV host could harness the same dissatisfaction among voters that led to Brexit, something that Trump himself made repeated reference to. “I hand over the mantle to @RealDonaldTrump! Many congratulations. You have fought a brave campaign,” Farage wrote on this Twitter website. | 0fake |
Trump not planning to invoke executive privilege for Comey testimony: NY Times | (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump does not plan to invoke executive privilege as a way to block former FBI Director James Comey from testifying to Congress next week, the New York Times said on Friday citing two unnamed senior administration officials. On Saturday, a White House spokesperson referred a question about the Times’ story to outside council. Outside council did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Comey was leading a Federal Bureau of Investigation probe into alleged Russian meddling in last year’s U.S. presidential election and possible collusion by Trump’s campaign when the president fired him last month. On Friday, White House officials said that they did not know yet whether President Donald Trump would seek to block Comey’s testimony, a move that could spark a political backlash. “I have not spoken to counsel yet. I don’t know how they’re going to respond,” White House spokesman Sean Spicer told reporters on Friday. The former FBI chief is due to testify on Thursday before the Senate Intelligence Committee as part of its own Russia-related investigation, and his remarks could cause problems for the Republican president. Presidents can assert executive privilege to prevent government employees from sharing information. However, legal experts say it is not clear whether certain conversations between Trump and Comey that the president has talked about publicly would be covered, and any effort to block Comey, who is now a private citizen, from testifying could be challenged in court. | 0fake |
You Don’t Like the Girls in ‘Girls’? That’s Its Genius. - The New York Times | Normally, you’d be confused. Why would HBO lower the curtain on Season 5 of “Girls” with two episodes on Sunday rather than the usual one at a time? Why not give the show’s 10 episodes a full 10 weeks? But there are the mysteries. Then there are the realities. And the presumable reality is that decks needed clearing and hatches needed battening for next weekend’s simultaneous resumption of “Game of Thrones,” “Veep” and “Silicon Valley” — and the Saturday unveiling of whatever this Beyoncé “Lemonade” thing is supposed to be. So Sunday’s “Girls” finale points to the national indifference that’s accrued around a show whose fealty to discomfort, poor choices and social cannibalism, which felt new in 2012, are now just part of television’s oxygen. In the last two seasons, the show’s senses of satire and pathos are stronger and more pungent than everBut it’s true: Funny narcissists are indeed easy to come by (even on HBO). Perhaps instead you’re watching “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt,” “Veep” “Transparent,” “Togetherness” “Crazy ” and “You’re the Worst. ” And “Girls” didn’t invent them. There they were, for instance, on “The Golden Girls,” “Will Grace,” “Sex and the City” and “30 Rock. ” But “Girls” keeps finding ways of dramatizing its satire so that it doesn’t always seem satirical. Few shows better explore the complications of personality and behavior. Even if it doesn’t appear as robust, refined and specific an achievement as, say, “Transparent,” the show still has the confidence to jump along a tightrope of displeasure. [ Has “Girls” gotten better? Read our discussion. ] The show’s ringmastered by its chief protagonist, Hannah Horvath (Lena Dunham) pinball off one another, going from friends to lovers to frenemies. What set the show apart this year — from both its previous seasons and most of its peers — is the use of the space, place, framing, allusion and mood to house that narcissism. Bad manners are met with mannerism. Shoshanna’s first adult job landed her in Tokyo and, for a few episodes, the show went with her. Her intoxication with the culture — without her Japanese pals losing sight of her foreignness — felt like a gentle rebuke of the incurious insularity of a movie like “Lost in Translation. ” She wasn’t a citizen. Nor was she a tourist. This season’s seventh episode was particularly handsome. Written by Sarah Heyward and directed by Richard Shepard, it turned the 1964 murder of Kitty Genovese into a piece of immersive theater staged inside and around a stately apartment complex, which was meant to evoke the building near where Genovese was killed, while her neighbors went about their business. The killing inspired decades of research the show used the case as an ideal test for the characters’ own emotional nearsightedness. (“Hello Kitty” is the episode’s title.) Hannah enters the building lobby with her current boyfriend, Fran (Jake Lacy) and leaves devastated that her ex, Adam (Adam Driver) might be sleeping with one of her best friends, Jessa (Jemima Kirke). As usual, the comedy comes, in part, from Hannah’s obnoxious rebellion against propriety, which tends to be represented by poor Ray (Alex Karpovsky). His morality, civic engagement, loyalty and earnestness (culturally, he’s a generation older) are constantly disrupted, compromised and exploited by everyone else. This time he just wants to lose himself in some theater and no one will let him. The small silences in this episode are rich and absorptive. They’re too much, though, for Hannah, who keeps breaking them to muse about the artifice of it all. When her friend Marnie (Allison Williams) enters one apartment, newly single and almost radioactively aglow, she doubles the obliviousness. It’s unclear she even knows she’s at a play. They’re there to see Adam perform as half of a squabbling married couple, but by the time the play reaches its grisly climax, none of these people are really paying attention. Adam looked across the courtyard at Jessa, who’s vamping at him on a fire escape, while Hannah watches them both in disbelief. They ignore the screams and barely notice the amateurish plaster statues that stand in for the victim and her killer. There’s just Brenda Lee misting up the soundtrack. Basically, a crime loses out to a figurative one. It’s one of the show’s most sophisticated and most intricately filmed gags about selfishness. The camera glides toward windows. It cranes downs at the plaster . It oscillates from Jessa to Adam to Hannah. Perhaps you think about “Rear Window,” “Monsieur Hire,” “Stakeout” or any other movie involving voyeurism, danger and a little melodrama. And the atmosphere is so rich you can practically feel the balm of warm spring air. But Hannah and Marnie peel off to commiserate. And by the time you see these two spread out on somebody’s bed, they’ve cast themselves in their own sitcom: “The Sorrow and the . ” But the show manages to maintain the gravity of both transgressions: an ambitious if seemingly dumb take on real tragedy and the tragedy that Hannah thinks is her life. It’s a kicky, poignant of television — half of which is spent elsewhere at a Manhattan party, featuring Hannah’s roommate, Elijah (Andrew Rannells) who is trying to hold his own among greasy gay celebrities. Each plot warranted its own episode, but that was “Girls” this year: so many good ideas, so little space to unfurl them. There were moments during the series’ underrated fourth season when, between Hannah’s damningly indulgent stint at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and the invention of a carnivorous named (Gillian Jacobs) the show looked as if it had found its groove as a farce. This fifth season ended on a note, after Hannah runs into Tally (Jenny Slate) a college classmate, with a dark cloud of hair, who has become a literary star. She’s like Bizzaro Hannah: Her narcissism doesn’t repel success it vacuums it up. Tally encourages Hannah to steal a guy’s unlocked bike (it’s a sign, Tally says) and through two montages — set first to Vanity Fare then to Nicki Minaj and Beyoncé — they take a ride, smoke a joint on Hannah’s bed, and dance in her apartment. And for half an episode, as Tally and Hannah pedal and puff, “Girls” is no longer “Girls. ” It’s “Broad City. ” On that show, Ilana Glazer and Abbi Jacobson mount a perfectly calibrated celebration of millennial obnoxiousness, while also nailing the ridiculousness of consumer culture. The two shows have unruly young women and Brooklyn in common. That’s about it. But the way Ms. Slate is made to look resembles — passingly, cartoonishly — Ms. Glazer. These scenes between Ms. Slate and Ms. Dunham suggest a lunatic road not taken. “Girls” has some great slapstick. But it’s bending toward maturity that “Broad City” doesn’t care about. When it started, “Girls” was received as an anthem for entitled white women. Detractors had a field day with Ms. Dunham, who created this show and has written and directed much of it, for privileging privilege, as if she couldn’t be aspiring to the withering heights of Luis Buñuel or Carrie Fisher. Through 52 episodes of television — some of them, like that Kitty Genovese episode, marvelous — “Girls” has never stopped looking for the grander, harsher psychological picture. It’s never stopped looking for tough laughs. It fights American absurdity with its own version of it, as it does in the final episode of the season, in which Shoshanna (Zosia Mamet, a crayon turning at last into a scalpel) rebrands Ray’s coffee shop as a haven for people who actually work — that is, for “adults,” in other words. But in its highest gear, the show peerlessly vanishes the line between sociocultural satire and mental instability, between send up and crack up. That business with Hannah, Adam and Jessa closes the season with an unnerving cliffhanger. Hannah performs her pain for the storytellers’ radio hour “The Moth,” which obviously she takes to like a to a flame. The night’s theme is jealousy. In her tale, she proves she’s overcome it by delivering a peace offering in the form of a fruit basket. But the story deepens and darkens a deranged argument that took place a few minutes earlier. Suddenly, Hannah’s narcissism seems terroristic. Her personality disorder has the power to disorder other people’s personalities. Maybe, she’s the disorder. One of the last shots hovers about a demolished living room. But it’s not exactly a cliffhanger for the show’s next and final season. It’s a view of the wreckage in the canyon. Plus, there’s something about the way the camera lingers on the basket outside the door that makes Hannah’s offering seem more than a gift. It looks like a bomb. | 0fake |
Republicans in Congress are ready for Hillary as they prepare for new probes into Clinton Foundation | Daily Mail October 27, 2016 Republicans say they’ll keep the heat on Hillary Clinton if she wins the Oval Office with new investigations into her family charity and quid pro quo allegations. Judicial Watch, a conservative group that’s been at the forefront of Clinton’s email scandal, is already talking impeachment for the not-yet president. ‘I know this generation of Republican leaders is loath to exercise these tools, but impeachment is something that’s relevant,’ the organization’s president, Tom Fitton, told NBC News. Fitton noted, however, that congressional Republicans were unlikely to follow his advice. ‘They see [the oversight process] as an opportunity in some measure to keep their opponents off-kilter, but they don’t want to do the substantive and principled work to truly hold corrupt politicians, or the administration, or anyone accountable,’ he charged. Republicans on Capitol Hill are gearing up for a bevy of new investigations involving Clinton in the next Congress. 8:32 | 1real |
NYC MAYOR DE BLASIO Blasted by Queens Woman…He Runs Away! [Video] | Vickie Paladino and her husband were driving through their neighborhood when they spotted the mayor. Paladino was so upset over de Blasio s trip to Germany to speak at a G-20 protest in lieu of attending a vigil for slain New York police officer Miosotis Familia that she left the car to berate him.As de Blasio approached her and a group of others to shake hands, she started to ask about his trip. He turned around with his security detail and went to his car. I want to know why you let your police officers down and our country down by going to Germany and protesting against our country, she yelled at de Blasio. I want to know why you re doing that. OK? I don t care about the trees. We ll work it out. ADVERTISINGCBS reporter Marcia Kramer had a scathing assessment of de Blasio, who she said simply fled when Paladino started her criticism. The woman in the white shirt single-handedly brought WrestleMania to the streets of Whitestone, Queens, but her opponent Bill de Blasio was no Hulk Hogan or The Rock, Kramer said. He was more like the Cowardly Lion in The Wizard Of Oz. Paladino caught the attention of the media assembled for the event, and she told reporters that she d had it with de Blasio and doubted he had a friend in the city. This is got to do with a liberal, socialist mayor who is running our city and has no regard for our country, she said. Why did you go to Germany? Why did you stand with the communists, with the anarchists, with the socialists when you re supposed to be here, taking care of our business, our police officers, she said in a later interview with Kramer. | 1real |
Married GOP Lawmaker And Trump Campaign Member BUSTED In Hotel With Teenage Boy | As if Donald Trump needs help delegitimizing his party, a senior member of his campaign in Oklahoma, state Senator Ralph Shortey, was forced to resign after being caught in a hotel room with a 17-year-old male prostitute.In true Trump style, Shortey tried to spin the encounter as him just helping the kid earn some money for his Spring Break by letting the kid earn his way with sexual stuff. In online messages, he told him: I m gonna f**k you like a good little boy if you keep calling me daddy. He also referred to having sex with the teen s boy p*ssy, baby boy .Source: Pink NewsAccording to court documents, Shortey was reported by a friend of the boy, who saw him getting into an SUV. The friend followed them to the hotel room, where he saw the boy enter with a strange man. The friend called the teen s father, who called the police.While the age of consent in Oklahoma is only 16, having sex with a prostitute under 18 is something else altogether. Shortey has been charged with engaging in child prostitution, engaging in prostitution within 1,000 feet of a church and transporting a minor for prostitution. All the charges are felonies. He s out on $100,000 bail.Here s the video:Shortey s statement following resignation fell short of admitting to his crimes, instead calling them a distraction. Earlier today, I submitted my resignation, effective immediately, to the President Pro Tempore of the Oklahoma Senate, as well as to Governor Fallin. I thank the constituents of Senate District 44 for the opportunity they provided to serve. Because I take that responsibility seriously, I recognize that the charges against me are a distraction to their interests and the remaining legislative session, which should serve all Oklahomans. My resignation is evidence of my respect for public service and the duties of our elected officials. I ask for the privacy of my family my wife and four daughters as I defend myself of these charges.Source: KFOR | 1real |
New French Law Makes It Illegal To Contact Employees After Work Hours | By Amanda Froelich at trueactivist.com
The new “right to disconnect” law mandates that a company with 50 employees or more cannot email an employee after typical work hours.
If you’ve ever been with friends or family members over the weekend then received an urgent email from work, you’re aware of the dread that fills your stomach and causes your mood to dip. Being unable to fully disconnect from work can have mental and physical health implications, which is why unwarranted contact by the workplace is soon to become illegal in France.
Credit: Wall Street Journal
Already, the country gives its employees 30 days off a year and 16 weeks of full-paid family leave; this latest initiative is only making France more popular. According to BBC News , the new “right to disconnect” law will mandate that a company with 50 employees or more cannot email an employee after typical work hours. The amendment is largely a result of studies showing that people have an increasingly difficult time distancing themselves from the workplace.
Good relays that the law seeks to make sure the French citizens are able to fully enjoy their time off. Said Benoit Hamon of the French National Assembly: | 1real |
Whether it's John McCain, Mitt Romney or Donald Trump, Democrats always run 'War on Women' tactic to destroy the Republican candidate | Whether it's John McCain, Mitt Romney or Donald Trump, Democrats always run 'War on Women' tactic to destroy the Republican candidate
Natural News Editors Tags: war on women , democrats , campaign tactic (NaturalNews) Single women are a crucial element of the Democrat constituency, pushed to the polls with a crude combination of scare tactics and pandering that would be comical if it wasn't so effective in election after election. We may pause to remark that Republicans should have been much more prepared for this in 2016, but we should also look back to 2012 because it was used in 2012, regardless of how absurd it was to suggest Mitt Romney was leading a "War on Women."(Article written by John Howard, republished from Breitbart.com )Even some liberals are recognizing the absurdity, given the emergence of "Strange New Respect" for Romney this year. Of course this new respect is pure political opportunism — and don't be surprised to hear liberals complaining in future election that the conservative Republican presidential candidate isn't as candid and relaxed about social issues as Donald Trump was in the good old days of 2016.We should practice a little political opportunism of our own, and put the Left's revised opinion of Romney to good use. What they said about him was absurd in almost every respect. They've wholeheartedly embraced his position on the geopolitical threat of Russia, which means they're tacitly admitting Barack Obama didn't know what the hell he was talking about. They razz Trump about not paying enough taxes, but they didn't care a whit that Romney paid stupendous amounts of tax, plus vast charitable contributions.Most pertinently, they turned Mitt Romney into a misogynist clod, and his wife Ann Romney into an out-of-touch Stepford Wife, on the thinnest of pretexts. Lefty polemicists today are acting like they were possessed by political demons when they spent the final weeks of the 2012 campaign shrieking about "binders full of women ," and now they can't quite remember what they were going on about.As for Mrs. Romney, she was unceremoniously stripped of her feminine identity by liberals and treated like a space alien because she dared to endorse stay-at-home motherhood. When a mild backlash ensued, the White House memorably denied one of its slander ninja by claiming to know several different people with the same name. [1, 2]In the Democrat imagination and campaign ads, Republicans are constantly targeting American woman. You can draw a straight line from Anita Hill's hit on Clarence Thomas in the Nineties, to "journalist" George Stephanopoulos ambushing the Republican presidential field with a bizarre question about contraceptives in the 2012 primary.It's all pure opportunism, not principle. Romney was a choirboy, so they claimed his policies revealed his secret inner misogynist beast. Trump's policies include a family-leave plan, a culture-war cease-fire declared by Peter Thiel at the GOP convention, and an unease with late-term abortion that tracks with the majority of the country. There's precious little that could be twisted into a War on Women narrative, even by the people who used Sandra Fluke to portray spending ten bucks on contraceptives as the equivalent of female slavery. Therefore, the Left ignores Trump's policies and hits his character, while Bill Freakin' Clinton gets ready to move back into the White House.In the Nineties, Democrats argued that Clinton's sexual abuses had nothing to do with how he governed, so discussing them was a silly distraction we all needed to MoveOn.org from, even when he was in the dock for perjury. Liberals of that election cycle laughed out loud at the notion Bill Clinton's libido had any effect whatsoever on national policy. He was good for the abortion industry, so his treatment of actual women was irrelevant.Partisan feminism is at a strange crossroads, as the core feminist message of independence clashes with victim politics. Women are supposed to simultaneously feel strong, capable... and be utterly helpless before systemic male chauvinism. They can only achieve personal "independence" through total dependence on the Big Government, which is staffed and managed by the only men in America who supposedly aren't looking to exploit them. (You're not to think about the bureaucrats who keep getting caught surfing for pornography on government computers.) [3]The great left-wing project to rewire society in defiance of biology has saddled America with devastating social problems, but that's not a problem for the social engineers. Indeed, it's more of a feature than a bug.Everything from illegitimacy, to crime, to the enormous difficulty of raising children as a single mom becomes another opportunity for them to push increased government power on a fearful, atomized population, which is rapidly losing its ability to form non-government voluntary structures of enduring social value, such as thriving small businesses and stable marriages.The dirty little secret known to the Left all along, but denied vociferously by them until their plans were fully up and running, is that most of these societal changes hit women harder, due to everything from their voluntary career choices, to the realities of child-rearing.So in the world liberals have made, single women become more anxious than ever, about everything from campus rape to the "implicit bias" of a systematically misogynist workplace, and they rush to government for protection from the harms caused by that abusive government.Read more at: Breitbart.com | 1real |
Democratic convention: passionate end to day one steadies early drama | A stormy opening night of the Democratic convention battered the Philadelphia arena on Monday as defiant Bernie Sanders supporters resisted attempts to persuade them to embrace Hillary Clinton.
Impassioned pleas for unity from a trio of Democratic women led by Michelle Obama raised hopes that the tumultuous first day of the convention may provide catharsis.
But despite a direct plea for calm from Sanders, many of his 1,846 delegates in the arena repeatedly jeered at mentions of the party’s presumptive nominee for the first hour or two of the evening.
Only after the Vermont senator appeared on stage at the Wells Fargo Center to urge them that the decision to choose between Clinton and Trump was “not even close” did the rebellion that has divided the party for much of the year show signs that it had reached its peak.
“Any objective observer will conclude that – based on her ideas and her leadership – Hillary Clinton must become the next president of the United States,” Sanders said, after three minutes of trying to quiet the floor.
Signs that a week of big-name Democratic speakers may help overcome the uncomfortable split also emerged when the first lady delivered a speech that brought the room to a standstill.
“Because of Hillary Clinton our daughters, and all our sons and daughters, now take for granted that woman can be president of the United States,” said Obama with evident emotion in her voice.
“In this election we cannot sit back and hope that everything works out for the best ... Between now and November we need to do what we did eight years ago and four years ago,” added the first lady. “We need to pour every last ounce of our passion and our strength and our love for this country into electing Hillary Clinton as president of the United States of America.
Earlier, even a live rendition of Bridge over Troubled Water from Paul Simon, ripe with symbolism, could not disguise scenes of open revolt that proved far more vocal than expected and caused consternation on stage.
“Can I just say to the Bernie or Bust people: you are being ridiculous,” said Sanders-supporting comedian Sarah Silverman as she called for unity and backed Clinton “with gusto”.
“I will be respectful of you. And I want you to be respectful of me,” demanded Ohio congresswoman Marcia Fudge of the vocal Sanders supporters after she was repeatedly interrupted. “We are all Democrats and we need to act like it.”
The tone of the evening was set when the religious invocation at the start of the session was interrupted by rounds of competitive chanting for different corners for the room: “Bernie! Bernie!” drowned out by “Hillary! Hillary!” and back again, as the pastor stood awkwardly on stage.
Congressman Elijah Cummings had his speech about the struggle of his family against racism interrupted by Sanders supporters protesting against trade deals. Other speakers nervously approached applause lines not knowing whether they would be booed or cheered by the fractious crowd.
At times, there was a faint echo of the mood at the Republican convention last week, where every mention of Clinton’s name also prompted boos, albeit much louder and without the balancing cheers of her supporters.
During a two-minute pause while an official photograph was taken of the hall, a lone shout of “Bernie” punctuated the awkward silence.
And as a violent thunder storm forced the evacuation of marquee tents outside the arena, party officials sent a warning to those outside:
A text to Sanders delegates was also sent to try to calm the storm inside. “I ask you as a personal courtesy to me to not engage in any kind of protest on the floor,” said the text signed “–Bernie”. “It is of utmost importance you explain this to your delegations.”
Yet the anger was intensified by leaked emails suggesting bias against the Sanders campaign by party officials, and the Democratic National Committee began the night with an apology.
“These comments do not reflect the values of the DNC or our steadfast commitment to neutrality during the nominating process,” it said. “The DNC does not – and will not – tolerate disrespectful language exhibited toward our candidates. Individual staffers have also rightfully apologized for their comments, and the DNC is taking appropriate action to ensure it never happens again.”
The turning point came when Obama took to the stage, to a rapturous welcome from Democrats waving a sea of “Michelle” purple placards.
She called Clinton “the president I want for my girls” and someone “who knows that the world is not black and white and easily boiled down to 140 characters”.
“Only one person I trust with the responsibility to be president and that is our friend Hillary Clinton,” said Obama.
Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren, a popular figure on the left, also focused her attention on defeating Trump in a calm speech that drew out what was at stake in November’s election.
“For me this choice is personal; it’s about who we are as a people,” said Warren, blasting Trump as “a man who thinks of nothing but himself”.
In an extended call for Sanders supporters to join her on the journey toward backing Clinton, Silverman memorably described her Republican opponent as “calling people names from his gold-encrusted sandbox because [he] was given money instead of human touch”.
Richard Trumka, president of the labor organisation the AFL-CIO, struck a similar note: “He thinks he’s a tough guy. Well Donald, I worked in the mines with tough guys. I know tough guys, they’re friends of mine. And Donald, you’re no tough guy. You’re a bully.
But it fell to Sanders himself to list the ways in which Clinton’s policies increasingly matched the priorities of his supporters.
“I understand that many people here in this conventional hall and around the country are disappointed at the result ... I think it’s fair to say no one is more disappointed than I am,” he said.
“Our revolution continues … Election days come and go but the struggle of the people to create a government that represents all of us and not just the one percent continues.”
After he left the stage, an email to supporters announced he was creating a new organisation, called Our Revolution, which would “transform American politics to make our political and economic systems once again responsive to the needs of working families”.
John Parker, a delegate from Florida, said he was not too concerned with the rancor within the party on the first day of its convention.
“Democracy is not always pretty and people have the right to their opinion,” he said. “It is what it is. But look around, we’re all good now.
“There’s no choice but Hillary Clinton. We can’t take Donald Trump.”
Gary West, a Sanders supporter and delegate from Texas, said the email leaks revealed “a major bias in the party”. Having volunteered out of pocket to organize for Sanders across the country, West said he had not yet warmed up to Clinton and the controversy “made it more difficult”.
“We all suspected that these things were going on, the rigging of the primaries and the collusion between the DNC and the Hillary campaign,” West said. “And we were all told we were crazy.
“Nobody on stage has brought it up as an apology to Bernie, as an apology to the delegates.”
“It’s an uphill battle for Hillary to get the support of the progressive movement,” he added. “She has to prove herself.” | 0fake |
Senator Graham open to selling Boeing F-18 to Kuwait, Qatar | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham, one of the Republican party’s senior foreign policy voices, said on Thursday he would likely support the sale of advanced military equipment including Boeing F-18 fighter jets to Qatar and Kuwait, despite Israel’s concerns. Israel’s government worries that equipment sent to Gulf states could fall into the wrong hands and eventually be used against the Jewish state. “The Israeli argument is that you’ve seen regimes in the neighborhood change pretty quickly. Be careful of introducing new weapons into the region,” Graham told reporters following a trip to the region, citing the situation in Iraq. However, he said he thought it was important for such sales to go ahead despite those concerns, given instability in the region and threats including Islamic State militants. “I say to my Israeli friends, ‘We need partners. Partners without capability are paper partners.’ ... So I’ll probably be in the camp of pushing the increased capability of Gulf Arab states, understanding Israeli’s concern,” Graham said. He acknowledged that there was strong opposition in Congress toward arming some Gulf Arab states. “I don’t know how the votes go right now,” Graham said. Graham is a senior member of the Senate Armed Services Committee and the chairman of the Senate Appropriations subcommittee that oversees foreign aid. | 0fake |
Nixon Historian Says Donald Trump Is More Petty And Vengeful (VIDEO) | If you thought Richard Nixon was bad, just wait till Donald Trump gets in office.On a scale of 1-10, prominent Nixon expert Rick Perlstein rated Trump an 11 on just how Nixonian he is during an interview on MSNBC.Trump s obsession with revenge, his pettiness, his constant lying, and his desire to shut down the press paint a picture of a petulant child that goes beyond the personality displayed by the 37th President.In fact, Perlstein sees a lot of Nixon in Trump, but Trump is more outlandish and transparently authoritarian. Nixon was very shrewd and tactical, sedulous, careful he wouldn t have been tweeting he would have been saying, Let s take away the Washington Post s broadcast licenses that they rely on for their revenue, which, you know, Trump may be doing soon when he is granted the power of the executive office, Perlstein warned.Indeed, Trump is poised to change the relationship between the White House and the press from one of cordiality and mutual benefit to one of antagonism and open hostility.Trump s refusal to accept facts makes him even more of a threat because he will now have the power to punish news outlets who write the truth about him.Host Christ Hayes pointed out that unlike Trump, Nixon had some self-control. Nixon would not have taken to the podium and said, I don t like this person, this person and Dan Rather; he was self-controlled enough to channel that! This is different insofar as this is all out there in public. Perlstein then explained how Trump may attack people who criticize him once he takes control of the full power of the government, including the NSA, which he could use as his personal spying apparatus. Basically once Trump can find out anything enemies are up to and find out where their vulnerabilities are, maybe find embarrassing things about them leak them to Breitbart and soon it s, you know, on CNN, God forbid MSNBC, then we re talking about a different ballgame. Hayes noted that such behavior by a president is ultimately what led to Nixon losing the trust of the American people and being forced to resign or face impeachment.Perlstein then warned that Trump could use the IRS to attack people and businesses who have slighted him and seek lists of names in departments so he can cut them off at the knees, which is something his transition team is already doing.Here s the video via YouTube.But even if Trump commits these impeachable offenses, Republicans in Congress don t care about the Constitution enough to actually do something about it. They see Trump as the puppet to pursue their destructive agenda. And they ll look the other way as long as he remains a useful idiot.Featured image via screenshot | 1real |
Comedy Central Launches Late-Night Trump-Mocking ’President Show’ | Comedy Central is set to debut a new weekly late night series, The President Show, that will see comedian Anthony Atamanuik play a parody President Donald Trump who will address the American people straight from the Oval Office. [The new show, created by Atamanuik, will premier on Thursday, April 27 and will reportedly run weekly if it becomes a ratings success. “When I was first approached about this show I thought it would be about me, but on further thought, this makes way more sense,” Comedy Central president Kent Alterman said. Comedy Central released a short video clip on Monday, which offers a glimpse of what audiences can expect from Atamanuik’s parody Trump. . @LateNightDonald makes a surprising announcement. No, he’s not resigning. #PresidentShowpic. twitter. — The President Show (@PresidentShow) April 3, 2017, “They unzipped my pants. They got on their knees, it was disgusting,” Atamanuik says, surrounded by a gaggle of reporters on Air Force One. “And I would get incredible ratings, some of the best ratings, huge ratings. Great ratings, ok? And they’d say, You want to be on the same channel as Noah Trevor, or whatever the guy’s name is. Who cares? Whatever. I said just invite me on and be nice. ” “I’ll have the best guests, the most beautiful women. It will be so funny, the most funny show,” he says. Atamanuik has made something of a career out of lampooning the president. The 30 Rock alum has performed his Trump impersonation on The View, CNN’s Newsroom, and on a Trump vs. Bernie debate comedy tour that aired on Fusion. “Laughing at the President is a proud American tradition and we hope not to disappoint anyone in that department,” Atamanuik said in a statement. “But our political system is too broken for us to be content joking about one man, even though he is a disastrous silly little toddler boy. Mostly I’d just like to thank Comedy Central for giving us this platform to speak truth to power and if we’re lucky, end up in prison!” Follow Jerome Hudson on Twitter: @JeromeEHudson | 0fake |
OBAMA FLOODS America With Illegal Aliens, Muslim Refugees, While Veteran Under VA Care Dies With Maggot-Infested Wound | Four employees at an Oklahoma Department of Veterans Affairs facility have resigned after a resident with a maggot-infested wound died while under their care.Vietnam veteran Owen Reese Peterson, 73, initially came to the Talihina Veterans Center with an infection, but ended up with sepsis and died on Oct. 3.Sepsis is a potentially life-threatening complication of an infection that can damage the internal organs, causing them to fail.Peterson had apparently been at the facility for just a few weeks, and the time frame between the gruesome discovery of the maggots and his death is unclear. He did not succumb as a result of the parasites, Executive Director Myles Deering told the Tulsa World. He succumbed as a result of the sepsis. A physician s assistant and three nurses, including the director of nursing, resigned in the wake of the investigation, said Shane Faulkner, a spokesman for the ODVA. All four chose to resign before the termination process began, Faulkner said. WND | 1real |
Clinton campaign chief Podesta: FBI probing hack of his emails | (Reuters) - The chairman of Democrat Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, John Podesta, said on Tuesday the FBI is investigating the hack of his emails as published on WikiLeaks. Speaking to reporters aboard the campaign plane, Podesta said the FBI probe is part of a broader investigation into the hacking of Democratic computers. He said Russia is behind the hack and may be colluding with the campaign of Clinton’s opponent, Republican Donald Trump. | 0fake |
Major Corporation Leaves South Carolina After Republican Introduces Anti-LGBT Bill | South Carolina Republicans just introduced an anti-LGBT bill similar to laws passed in North Carolina and Mississippi, and they are already paying the price for it.GOP state Senator Lee Bright thinks trans people are a threat to the safety of women and children in bathrooms despite there being zero evidence of it across the country. I mean, years ago we kept talking about tolerance, tolerance, and tolerance, and now they want men who claim to be women to be able to go into bathrooms with children, Bright said on the floor of the state Senate while introducing his legislation. And you got corporations who say this is okay. But Bright s claim is a complete lie that is not based in fact. In 17 states and over 200 cities across the country that have passed protections for LGBT people against discrimination, there has not been a single recorded instance of a trans person entering a women s bathroom to sexually harass anyone.Yet Republicans have made the claim to justify their anti-LGBT bills anyway, making discrimination legal under the guise of religious liberty. North Carolina passed the odious law last month, and Mississippi did the same this month. So far, both states have faced a severe backlash and it is costing both states dearly.Businesses and corporations are threatening to pull out of the state and many have already done so or cancelled plans to expand into the states. Both are also facing the loss of billions of federal dollars.And corporations aren t even waiting for South Carolina Republicans to pass their own bill into law. Just introducing it was enough for one CEO to move his company to California rather than remain in a state that still embraces bigotry.Uphold is a financial services industry that allows users of the service to transfer deposits of bitcoin into reserve-backed currencies such as the dollar. It s a fast-growing business that has handled nearly $1 billion in transactions in just the last two years.CEO Anthony Watson is so disgusted by Bright s bill that he has decided to move his company, which is headquartered in Charleston, out of the state. Uphold is founded on the key pillars of transparency and accountability, and at our very core, we stand for fairness, inclusion and equality, Watson wrote in a statement on the company website. Just as Uphold brings financial services to everyone, everywhere, we ve also built a company that brings the principles of fairness, inclusion and equality to everything we do. Watson then proceeded to rip South Carolina Republicans a new one and announced his decision to launch a preemptive exodus out of the state rather than sit and watch as bigoted Republicans jam the bill into law. As the openly gay, British CEO of an American company, I have watched in shock and dismay as legislation has been abruptly proposed or enacted in several states across the union seeking to invalidate the basic protections and rights of LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) U.S. citizens.Some of you may be aware that Uphold s U.S. headquarters is based in Charleston, South Carolina. In recent days, we have been made aware that South Carolina Sen. Lee Bright has introduced a bill largely mirroring North Carolina s controversial law that blocks local governments from passing LGBT-inclusive anti-discrimination ordinances. As such, we feel compelled to take action to oppose the discrimination being proposed in South Carolina and protect our LGBT employees.Today, Uphold has taken the difficult decision to move its U.S. corporate Headquarters from Charleston, South Carolina to Los Angeles, California.We will stand firm in our commitment to fairness, equality and inclusion and our strong conviction that we can make a difference by living our core values. It s the right thing to do for our members, employees, partners and the communities in which we live and work. The bold move will cost South Carolinians hundreds of jobs and will likely be a major blow to the state and local economies. It s just a taste of what South Carolina Republicans can expect if they continue on the path of taking the state backwards.Featured iamge via Wikimedia | 1real |
Exclusive: Trump drops plans for order tightening food aid shipping rules - sources | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump’s administration has dropped plans for an executive order that will require all U.S. food aid to be transported on American ships after members of Congress protested, congressional and aid sources said on Friday. Reuters reported on Thursday that Trump was considering issuing an order that would have increased to 100 percent the current requirement that 50 percent of such aid be transported on U.S.-flagged vessels. Senator Bob Corker, the Republican chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, stopped short of confirming information about the order but said he had discussed the issue with Trump and that he understands that the shift would have increased the cost of food aid and caused more people to starve. “I had a good conversation today with President Trump,” Corker said in a statement emailed to Reuters. “As a businessman, he understands that expanding the cargo preference would substantially drive up the cost of food aid and cause more people to starve around the world,” Corker said. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Although unlikely to have any significant effect on the $4 trillion global cargo shipping industry, the initiative originally touted as part of Trump’s “America First” platform might have slowed food aid getting to millions of people and do little to create jobs, critics said. Aid groups, and members of Congress from both parties have been working for years to lower, or eliminate, the 50 percent shipping requirement. The United States, the world’s largest provider of humanitarian assistance, spent about $2.8 billion on foreign food aid in 2016. About half of that is estimated to go to shipping and storage. The conservative-leaning American Enterprise Institute said in a November report that shipping food aid on U.S.-flagged vessels costs 46 percent more than aid shipped at internationally competitive rates and can take as much as 14 weeks longer. Jeremy Konyndyk, a former director of USAID’s Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance, welcomed the administration’s decision to drop the order. Konyndyk, a senior policy fellow at the Washington-based Center for Global Development, said that with four potential famines in the world “it would have been the worst possible moment to be shifting money out of hungry mouths and into subsidies for big shipping conglomerates.” Corker has been pushing for years to reform the U.S. food aid program, including by eliminating the cargo preference. He said in his statement he looked forward to working with Congress and the administration to achieve “long overdue reforms.” After hearing about the possible executive order, several members of Congress called the White House to express their concern, congressional aides said. The administration’s budget proposal has suggested slashing foreign aid in general while increasing defense spending. That plan was also met with stiff opposition in Congress, as lawmakers argued that “soft power” options such as food and medical aid and disaster recovery assistance can be effective tools in foreign policy that should not be discounted. Supporters say Trump’s initiative would not only create new U.S. jobs in the shipping industry but that U.S.-controlled food shipments are important for national security because the U.S. fleet could be transferred to the military in case of a conflict. Food aid is a very small percentage of the worldwide sea cargo flow, critics argue, while the security issue is moot as most cargo ships are too slow for use by the 21st century military. They said the costs would also be far higher by eliminating competition for shipping contracts with lower-cost international carriers, requiring more U.S. taxpayer dollars to feed fewer people. | 0fake |
RNC Is Preparing To Dump Trump Unless He Cleans Up His Act | Donald Trump may soon be facing the November election completely alone. A new report from Time is detailing an ultimatum between RNC Chairman Reince Priebus and the Republican presidential candidate: either he cleans up his act, or the Republican Party will stop funding him.Citing polls that show Trump s campaign in the gutter, Priebus, in a phone call with Trump, told the nominee that if he didn t change the trajectory of his message, the party would instead focus on funding and supporting down ballot races in the House and Senate. Priebus also allegedly told Trump he would have been better off staying at his Florida estate, Mar-a-Lago, after the convention.Considering Democrats are poised to take back the Senate and make significant gains in the House, the Republicans should utterly and completely dump Trump.The alleged phone call stemmed after Trump s confrontation with the gold star Khan family, and his refusal to endorse Paul Ryan and John McCain.Trump, of course, denied this, saying:He never said that. We never had a conversation about that. We do very well together. We never had that conversation. Doesn t exist. And by the way, Reince Priebus is a terrific guy. He never said that. It was never stated. Why would they state that when I m raising millions of dollars for them.Something tells me his latest Second Amendment comment isn t what Priebus had in mind. Priebus also told Trump that his loyalty is not to the Trump campaign, but to the Republican Party, saying he is not the chairman to the Trump campaign and that he would do what s best for the GOP:Priebus and Trump talk frequently, with the party chair urging Trump for months to professionalize his operations and campaign. But the tenor of the calls turned more frank and frustrated last week as Trump s campaign slide continued. The officials said Priebus reminded Trump that his title is RNC chairman, not chairman of the Trump campaign, adding that he would act in the best interests of the Republican PartyTrump is the nominee for President of the United States it s safe to say Priebus failed to do what is best for the GOP. His own economic agenda was drowned out by his calls for a Second Amendment remedy for Hillary Clinton, and a slew of prominent Republicans have been abandoning ship and announcing their support for Clinton.The GOP is in full tail-spin mode. And it s all thanks to Donald Trump.Featured image via Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images | 1real |
SECOND TWIN FALLS SEXUAL ASSAULT CASE…Mohammed Hussein I. Eldai Faces Felony Charges For Sexual Assault Of “Mentally Retarded” Woman | Donald Trump was clearly on to something when he said we need to stop allowing unvetted refugees into our country until we get the refugee situation under control TWIN FALLS, IDAHO A town that was recently rocked by the horrific gang-rape of a five-year-old girl by refugee boys has had an arrest in a case involving charges of another disturbing sexual assault case last weekend.Mohammed Hussein I. Eldai, 28, is facing charges of felony sexual assault of a vulnerable adult for an attack that happened Friday afternoon.The alleged victim, who has been diagnosed with mental retardation, encountered Eldai when she was out for a walk in the Saturday afternoon heat and laid down to take a nap.As Twin Falls TV station KM TV reports:She then laid on the sidewalk when her fatigue took over. That s when she says 28-year-old Mohammed Hussein Eldai saw her and asked if she was okay.Court documents say Eldai brought the woman to his house where he made her a drink. She told police Eldai touched her and exposed himself to her while he kept the victim in his bedroom.Neither the media nor the local authorities have released information on why Mohammed Eldai was in Twin Falls, whether he is a U.S. citizen, or whether he has any connection to Twin Falls s controversial refugee program. Sources say that Eldai required the services of an interpreter in court.The June 2nd rape of a five-year-old garnered national attention after local politicians and media attempted to downplay or cover up the incident. In an exclusive interview with Breitbart News, the victim s father revealed that he had watched 30 seconds of the video of the horrific attack in that case.For entire story: Breitbart News | 1real |
GOP 2016 candidates look to seize momentum out of debates | A day after the Fox News-Facebook Republican presidential primary debates, contenders for the nomination tried to capitalize on momentum Friday by firing up their base at a gathering of grassroots conservative.
At the 2015 RedState Gathering in Atlanta, a host of Republican 2016 hopefuls including Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie tried to build on strong performances the night before.
The gathering, named after the conservative political website RedState.com, is the brainchild of WSB Radio host Erick Erickson. The three-day convention of top GOP elected officials brought a host of 2016 contenders hoping to establish themselves as favorites among the conservative base.
All three sought to stir up the base with biting speeches that used humor while showcasing their conservative principles.
“2016 is going to be a fight, a real fight, between conservatism and the progressivism that has completely dominated the Democrat Party and that is now not only undermining the character of our nation but crushing the potential of this nation,” Fiorina, whom analysts seemed to agree dominated Thursday's 5 p.m. Fox News-Facebook debate, told participants.
“In order to win [in 2016], we’re going to have a nominee who throws every punch, who will not ever pull her punches,” Fiorina said.
Both Fiorina and Christie took aim at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce – an unpopular organization among many grassroots conservatives – with Christie blaming it for Republicans not properly dealing with the problem of illegal immigration.
“The reason we’re not dealing with immigration as strongly as we need to be in my opinion is because of the Chamber of Commerce crowd,” Christie said. “Because they want to employ illegal folks and they don’t want to use E-Verify.”
Fiorina asked: “What does the Chamber of Commerce do, remind me?”
Meanwhile, Rubio received big cheers for emphasizing his plan to “repeal and replace” ObamaCare, and spent much of his speech talking about solutions to the issue of student loans and the cost of higher education, arguing for more competition and innovation to break the monopoly of higher education.
“I believe before you take a loan, schools should have to tell you ‘this is how much people make when they graduate with a degree you are seeking from our school.’ And then you can decide if it’s smart to borrow $50,000 to be a Greek or Roman philosopher, because the market for those philosophers has tightened in the last 2000 years,” Rubio quipped to laughter from the audience.
The participants also had choice words for President Obama’s policies, with Christie promising to repeal his “illegal” executive actions and slamming his economic record.
“It is just disgraceful that we are sitting with a president who takes a victory lap for the worst economic growth in post-World War II history,” Christie said, while also calling for a radical simplification of the tax code.
“Imagine how many people I could fire from the IRS if you could do your taxes in 15 minutes.” Christie said.
Meanwhile Rubio took aim at Obama’s foreign policy, specifically his approaches to Iran and Israel, saying, “we have a president who is more respectful of the Ayatollah of Iran than the prime minister of Israel.”
Other candidates at the gathering included Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal and former Texas Gov. Rick Perry. The lineup was due to be followed up on Saturday with appearances by former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, business mogul Donald Trump and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker.
The gathering adopted a similar tone to Thursday's debate, which was filled with lots of jabbing one-liners that resonated with the audience, and vitriol aimed at the Obama administration and Hillary Clinton. The Republicans sparred with each other plenty on Thursday, but nobody landed a KO, leaving the 17-candidate field intact heading out of the Cleveland showdown. | 0fake |
FL Pastor ‘Accidentally’ Shoots Wife In The Head While Cleaning Gun | According to Pastor Darrell Reid, he was cleaning his gun inside the home he shared with his wife of 35 years on Monday, when the gun accidentally went off, shooting her in the head.Reid s wife, Katie, was rushed to Apopka Hospital, where she was pronounced dead a short time later.According to the Christian Post, the couple met when they were 12 years old. They ran a church called Happy Hill Ministries out of their home, located in Zellwood, Florida.It appears that the couple s outward appearance of happiness wasn t quite the reality.WKMG reports that police were called to the pastor s home on 23 separate occasions over the past three years.Reid was arrested multiple times for violent crimes. According to WKMG, the pastor was most recently charged with aggravated battery with a deadly weapon, but the charge was never prosecuted. He was also charged with resisting a police officer with violence in 2012. That charge was also never prosecuted.WKMG reports:A close family friend who didn t want to be identified told News 6 the couple had a violent relationship.Reid s attorney, on the other hand, told the Orlando Sentinel that the couple seemed very close, noting that they always came to court together. A neighbor said that while he couldn t imagine that Reid intentionally killed his wife, he also has a hard time understanding how you can accidentally shoot someone while cleaning a gun.Judging from his criminal background, Reid was someone who should never have been allowed to posses a gun. Police had been called to the couple s home almost two dozen times. He was charged with multiple violent crimes, yet his status as a white, Christian minister no doubt helped him walk away from those crimes unpunished, time and time again.According to the website smartgunlaws.org:Florida law does not explicitly authorize or require the removal or surrender of firearms at the scene of a domestic violence incident.Police are currently investigating the accidental shooting death of 62-year-old Katie Reid.In the meantime, Darrell Reid remains free and likely in possession of a gun.Featured image via Happy Hill Ministries | 1real |
Trump National Security Adviser Called Russian Envoy Day Before Sanctions Were Imposed - The New York Times | ■ The national security adviser appointed by Donald J. Trump called a Russian envoy the day before sanctions were imposed on Russia for meddling in the election. ■ The “conscience of the House” — the civil rights hero John Lewis — does not believe Mr. Trump will be a legitimate president. Not a good start. ■ The great potty coverup on The Mall: does the not want “Don’s Johns” visible on Inauguration Day? ■ And readers get a chance to say what they would ask Mr. Trump’s E. P. A. pick, Scott Pruitt. Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn, who will be Mr. Trump’s national security adviser, spoke with Sergei I. Kislyak, the Russian ambassador to the United States, the day before President Obama imposed sanctions on Russia for election hacking, to arrange a phone call between President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and Mr. Trump once he becomes president, a Trump spokesman said Friday. Mr. Flynn’s secret call did not violate the law, Mr. Trump’s spokesman said. But under the circumstances, it is bound to raise eyebrows. “The call centered around the logistics of setting up a call with the president of Russia and the after he was sworn in, and they exchanged logistical information,” Sean Spicer, Mr. Trump’s spokesman, told reporters on a conference call on Friday. “That was it, plain and simple. ” Several news organizations reported on Thursday on the calls between the two men. David Ignatius of The Washington Post suggested it could have violated the Logan Act, a law that bars American citizens from negotiating without authorization with foreign governments that have a dispute with the United States. Mr. Spicer said General Flynn had initially reached out to Mr. Kislyak via text message on Christmas Day to wish him a happy holiday and to say that he looked forward to working with him in the coming administration. The ambassador sent a text back returning the sentiment, he added. The Russian envoy followed up on Dec. 28 with another text that asked if he could call General Flynn, and the two spoke, Mr. Spicer said. The call, which came the day before Mr. Obama announced penalties for Russia, including the expulsion from the United States of 35 Russian diplomats, never touched on the sanctions, Mr. Spicer said. It was bad enough that a new Gallup poll on Friday morning found that only 44 percent of Americans approve of the way Mr. Trump has handled his transition — compared with 83 percent who approved of President Obama’s transition and 61 percent who approved of George W. Bush’s. That followed a Quinnipiac University poll this week that put Mr. Trump’s approval rating at 37 percent. But now, Representative John Lewis, Democrat of Georgia and a hero of the civil rights movement, is flat out saying he doesn’t see Mr. Trump “as a legitimate president. ” Elected Democrats are not only boasting of skipping the inauguration but are pledging to join the massive protest march that will follow on Jan. 21. Needless to say, this is not a good way to start a presidency. They are calling it the potty of the 2017 inauguration. The Associated Press reported on Friday that workers preparing the Capitol grounds and National Mall for the inauguration of Mr. Trump have altered the portable toilets being set up to accommodate attendees, apparently to spare the ego of the . The toilets are provided by the equipment rental company Don’s Johns. But on Friday, a Capitol employee was photographed covering the company’s logo with blue masking tape, and later, dozens of the appeared to have been altered that way. The company’s chief executive said he had no idea why his logo had been covered, telling the AP “we’re proud to have our name on the units. ” It appears, however, that a certain somebody else is not. On the campaign trail, Mr. Trump promised that with his skills, we’d be winning so much, we’d get tired of winning. Marillyn Hewson, the chief executive of Lockheed Martin, which makes the fighter jet, delivered the latest victory: the cost will come down, as Mr. Trump has demanded. After meeting with the she told reporters at Trump Tower, “I’m glad I had the opportunity to tell him that we are close to a deal that will bring the cost down significantly from the previous lot of aircraft to the next lot of aircraft, and moreover it’s going to bring a lot of jobs to the United States. ” She added: This is a bit of corporate spin for the incoming commander in chief’s benefit. Shortly before the election in November, the Pentagon had imposed a price cut on the last group of because Lockheed wouldn’t budge. Then the Defense Department began negotiating the price for the next lot, and Lockheed understood that if it tried to fight another price cut, the Pentagon would have imposed it again. Attorney General Scott Pruitt of Oklahoma, who spent years suing the Environmental Protection Agency to thwart its regulations, especially those that combat climate change, will appear before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee on Wednesday for a hearing to confirm him as head of the agency. The hearing promises to be among the most contentious of all the confirmation grillings, so The New York Times is reaching out to readers: What should senators ask Mr. Pruitt? The election was more than two months ago, the Electoral College ballots have been certified and the inauguration is a week away, but the has not gone beyond campaign mode when it comes to Hillary Clinton. After the decision by the Justice Department inspector general to investigate James B. Comey, the F. B. I. director, over his actions in the final days of the campaign, Mr. Trump went on a tirade. The leap to “guilty as hell” was a big one. The investigation will center on why Mr. Comey sent a public letter to Congress in the last days of the campaign announcing that the F. B. I. was reopening the Clinton emails investigation after discovering other messages on the laptop of Anthony D. Weiner, the estranged husband of Huma Abedin, a top Clinton aide. Days later, Mr. Comey announced that the computer held no incriminating evidence. On Twitter on Friday morning, Mr. Trump again brought up the unsubstantiated, explosive dossier that a retired British intelligence agent compiled from information that he said Russia possesses. Mr. Trump likes to dismiss the “failing New York Times,” but he clearly reads it closely. The Times published a lengthy history of the dossier in question that traces it to Republican and Democratic operatives who helped bankroll it to stop Mr. Trump’s election. Left unsaid are the respectable credentials of the British spy, Christopher Steele, or the fact that he is now in hiding, fearing retribution. By now, Mr. Trump’s concert has become a kind of reality show unto itself, marked by rumors of stars, leaks to the press, and occasional promises of an unforgettable show on the eve of the ’s swearing in. The final details are in and the affair looks to be — well, you decide. The concert is actually two. The first portion of the evening, “Voices of the People,” will feature performances by small groups from across the country. Think more D. C. Fire Department Emerald Society Pipes and Drums and Webelos Troop 177 than Beyoncé. The have been reserved for the second part, which will be televised across the country and feature remarks by Mr. Trump himself. This part of the evening, “Make America Great Again! Welcome Celebration,” looks to be heavy on country music — Toby Keith, Lee Greenwood, and a group calling itself the Frontmen of Country — with some 1980s Broadway (Jennifer Holliday) rock (3 Doors Down) and a D. J. (RaviDrums) mixed in. Jon Voight, the actor who narrated a video for Mr. Trump during the campaign, will serve as M. C. And a fireworks show by Grucci will close out the evening. And in case you were wondering, a news release announcing the details boasted that the show “is produced and directed by Emmy Award winners and nominees. ” That would include Mark Burnett, the acclaimed reality television producer who worked with Mr. Trump on “The Apprentice” and has helped plan the inaugural festivities. One of Mr. Trump’s most provocative and persistent antagonists, Cher, is leading a new boycott of the that aims to hit him where he will most certainly feel it: his Nielsen ratings. Under the Twitter hashtag “TURNHIMOFF,” Cher began Thursday night circulating her plea for people who oppose Mr. Trump to turn off their televisions when his inaugural festivities begin next Friday. “Ratings are what he understands,” the singer and actress said in a phone interview. Cher’s Twitter feed became one of the most animated and popular sources of sentiment during the election. And the ferocity that she — a megacelebrity with nearly 3. 2 million Twitter followers — used to go after Mr. Trump seemed to perfectly capture what a surreal turn American politics took in 2016. Senior national security officials for President Obama are hosting their counterparts on Trump’s team on Friday for a exercise at the White House intended to practice the response to a major domestic or international emergency. The session, similar to one that George W. Bush’s staff held in the restricted Situation Room for Mr. Obama’s team just days before he was inaugurated in 2009, aims to familiarize the incoming president’s team with the protocols and practices the federal government uses in a crisis. Josh Earnest, the White House press secretary, said it would simulate what happens during “major domestic incidents,” including natural disasters. In the exercise in 2009, top Bush administration officials walked Mr. Obama’s aides through what would happen in the event of an attack involving a series of explosions detonating in a number of American cities simultaneously. Maybe the new White House will conclude what “WarGames,” that 1980s movie, said about fighting a nuclear war: “The only winning move is not to play. ” Mr. Trump’s foray onto social media Friday morning wasn’t all anger and spittle. He praised his cabinet picks’ performances before the Senate — which have gone well, on the whole — and the progress Congress is making toward gutting the Affordable Care Act. And: The House is likely to give final approval on Friday to parliamentary language that would allow Congress to eviscerate President Obama’s signature domestic achievement with a simple Senate majority this spring, and without fear of a Democratic filibuster. What comes next is uncertain, and of grave concern to the 20 million Americans now covered by the health law and the millions more protected by its prohibitions on discrimination for medical conditions and lifetime coverage caps. From the department of mixed messages: The House speaker said on Thursday that the United States would not send out a large force to remove thousands of unauthorized immigrants any time soon. “It’s not happening,” Mr. Ryan said during a CNN town meeting in Washington, where a woman whose parents brought her to the United States at age 11 — a category of people often referred to as “dreamers” — asked him, “Do you think that I should be deported?” Mr. Ryan said that Mr. Trump’s promise of a deportation force would not come to fruition. “I can see that you love your daughter and you’re a nice person who has a great future ahead of you,” he said, “and I hope your future’s here. ” When the moderator, Jake Tapper, reminded Mr. Ryan of the ’s campaign promise to create a “deportation force,” Mr. Ryan said, “I know, I know. ” He continued, “But I’m here to tell you, in Congress, it’s not happening. ” Mr. Ryan has long supported an immigration plan that would mix new border security measures with protections for some unauthorized immigrants, but he has had little luck getting other Republican members of the House to join him. | 0fake |
OBAMA WILL SEND REPRESENTATIVE To Alton Sterling Funeral…Couldn’t Be Bothered With Supreme Court Justice Scalia’s Funeral | It s almost like our Community Agitator in Chief purposefully won t acknowledge anyone who isn t in lock-step with his radical agenda Hope Change Division and Hate The Obama White House sent three officials to robber Michael Brown s funeral in Ferguson. Obama sent more officials to Brown s funeral than to Margaret Thatcher s funeral.Obama sent three White House officials to criminal Freddie Gray s funeral.The White House sent no one to NYPD Officer Brian Moore s funeral.Obama skipped Antonin Scalia s funeral and went golfing instead.The Obama White House will send a representative to Alton Sterling s funeral on Thursday. GPThe Advocate reported:Gary Chambers, spokesman for the Sterling family, confirmed Thursday that both Civil Rights activist the Rev. Jesse Jackson and a White House representative would be attending the funeral of Alton Sterling on Friday. Jackson will be a speaker at the event along with the Rev. Al Sharpton and Louisiana Congressman Cedric Richmond.The family of Alton Sterling is inviting the community to mourn with them on Friday at a public funeral held at Southern University.Chambers said both Richmond and Sharpton immediately reached out to the Sterling family in the wake of Alton Sterling s death and offered to help in any way. | 1real |
Media Meltdown Over Breitbart Expansion | The mainstream media’s reaction to Breitbart News’ expanded influence has run the gamut from bewildered hostility to turgid hysteria, and not much in between. [Media sites are struggling to frame the news of Breitbart’s recent high profile hires, plans to open new bureaus in Europe, and the departure of former Breitbart employees to work in the Trump White House. We summarize their findings here for the amusement of our 45 million unique monthly readers. First up, the Washington Post is upset that Breitbart is not racist. While falsely labeling us an “ ” site, the Washington Post’s Callum Borchers speculates on Breitbart’s future in an article titled: “How Breitbart could lose its street cred. ” The Post moans: “Breitbart has, in fact, looked increasingly mainstream since Election Day. ” After weeks of disingenuously associating us with “white supremacists,” “white nationalists,” and “” the Post appears frustrated to learn that we’re not cross burners after all. But, of course, the Post couches their disappointment by feigning concern for our “street cred. ” If we “go mainstream,” the Post warns that we “risk alienating readers who were drawn to the website because it seemed to be by and for outsiders. ” When reached for comment, Breitbart senior management thanked the Post for the warning and shared the following image from Alexa. com’s top US website rankings: The Atlantic’s Rosie Gray claims we’re trying “to go Mainstream. ” She describes Breitbart News as a “scrappy, outsider publication” that “has never enjoyed this much prominence — but it’s discovering that success brings its own challenges. ” Like the Washington Post, Gray expresses concern that the more Breitbart “becomes part of the mainstream, the more its outsider cred is threatened. ” Ironically, Gray mocked Breitbart just a few days ago for running an oversized headline framing Trump’s inaugural address as : Breitbart going with the font pic. twitter. — Rosie Gray (@RosieGray) January 20, 2017, When reached for comment, Breitbart senior management thanked the Atlantic for its concern and shared the following image from Alexa. com’s top US website rankings: Meanwhile, Salon labels Breitbart News a “fringe news site” and “ propaganda organ. ” Salon’s Gary Legum writes that the recent White House hiring of former Breitbart employees ranks high on the list of the “many tragedies … set in motion by the nascent Donald Trump administration. ” And as a “fake news” bonus, Salon used a headline photo purporting to show the former Breitbart employees who left to join the Trump White House. They included an image of former Breitbart Executive Chairman Steve Bannon, former Breitbart Senior National Security Editor Sebastian Gorka, and a woman they claim is former Breitbart reporter Julia Hahn. Breitbart Alexander Marlow, when reached for comment, said, “Scoreboard. Oh, and I have no idea who that woman is. ” Legum describes in lurid detail the horrors of “a fully White House”: With Bannon in the West Wing, it was inevitable that the administration would bring in a few of the propagators of the racist, isolationist, nativist swill that over the last few years has made Breitbart the “news” site for the sort of white people who berate Mexican restaurants for printing their menus in Spanish. But even recognizing the likelihood that Bannon would poach some of his former employees was not enough preparation for the ugliness we will likely hear on a daily basis from a fully White House. We offer no comment about “ ugliness,” but Breitbart National Security Editor Frances Martel, when reached for comment, said this about the Mexican restaurant menus: Ojalá que tenga razón Salon que los americanos que no hablan español le estén dando tanto negocio a los restaurantes mexicanos, porque la comida mexicana es deliciosa (aunque, claro, no mejor que la cubana). The Associated Press — the mainstay of establishment journalism — is perhaps understandably miffed that Breitbart is now treated with the same respect as their own hallowed organization at White House press briefings. Two weeks ago, they offered a snarky aside that only Breitbart got a reserved seat at Trump’s January 11 presser. “Other reporters scrambled to save their seats. Reporters shouted and waved their arms at Trump to get his attention, rather than the president calling on questioners from a list, as is often the practice,” the AP sniffed. Breitbart CEO Larry Solov was unavailable for comment. | 0fake |
Mali president wants U.S. to reverse Chad travel ban | BAMAKO (Reuters) - Mali s President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, head of a group of five countries in Africa s Sahel region, has asked the United States to remove a travel ban on Chadian nationals, saying that a failure to do so could affect Chad s security commitments. Security analysts expressed surprise when Chad, a key U.S. security partner since the Cold War, was named last week alongside North Korea and Venezuela as part of an eight-country the travel ban. Chad s army acts as a bulwark against local and regional armed movements and played a critical role in pushing back troops from jihadist group Boko Haram when they made a bid to expand beyond northeastern Nigeria in 2015. Its troops continue to hold front-line positions in unstable north Mali where jihadists ousted government authorities five years ago. As recently as February, Chad, also a key French ally, hosted a U.S. military training exercise for special forces as part of a broader strategy to empower regional troops such as the G5 Sahel security bloc consisting of Chad, Mali, Niger, Mauritania and Burkina Faso. The president of the G5 thinks this decision could affect the commitment of Chad, which has until now shown itself to be a key partner in the fight against terrorism in the G5 Sahel and beyond, said Keita in a statement sent to journalists late on Wednesday. The president...calls on the authorities to favorably re-examine the matter by lifting the sanctions against Chad, he added. Chadian officials expressed surprised at the decision earlier this week, calling it incomprehensible . The new U.S. measures, which have no end-date, help fulfill a campaign promise President Donald Trump made to tighten U.S. immigration procedures and align with his America First foreign policy vision. The White House says the restrictions are the consequences for countries not meeting new requirements for vetting immigrants and issuing visas. | 0fake |
U.S. wants U.N. vote on new North Korea sanctions next Monday | UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The United States wants the United Nations Security Council to vote next Monday to impose the strongest possible sanctions on North Korea over its sixth and largest nuclear test, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said on Monday. North Korea said it tested an advanced hydrogen bomb for a long-range missile on Sunday, prompting global condemnation and a U.S. warning of a massive military response if it or its allies were threatened. China s U.N. Ambassador Liu Jieyi pushed North Korea on Monday to stop taking actions that are wrong, deteriorating the situation and not in line with its own interests and truly return to the track of solving the issue through dialogue. Haley said the 15-member council would negotiate a draft resolution this week. She described North Korean leader Kim Jong Un as begging for war and that while the United States doesn t want conflict, our country s patience is not unlimited. Enough is enough, Haley told the council. Only the strongest sanctions will enable us to resolve this problem through diplomacy. Since 2006, the Security Council has unanimously adopted eight resolutions ratcheting up sanctions on North Korea over its ballistic missile and nuclear programs. Haley said the council s incremental approach to sanctions had not worked. The council last month imposed new sanctions over North Korea s two long-range missile launches in July. The resolution aimed to slash by a third Pyongyang s $3 billion annual export revenue by banning exports of coal, iron, lead and seafood. Diplomats have said the council could now consider banning Pyongyang s textile exports and the country s national airline, stop supplies of oil to the government and military, prevent North Koreans from working abroad as well as add top officials to a blacklist to subject them to an asset freeze and travel ban. A resolution needs nine votes in favor and no vetoes by the United States, Britain, France, Russia or China to pass. Typically, China and Russia only view a test of a long-range missile or a nuclear weapon as a trigger for U.N. sanctions. China has not publicly said it will back new sanctions. Russian U.N. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia said he would consider a U.S. draft resolution but questioned whether further sanctions would make a difference. Whatever measures we are planning now, I m not sure that they will influence the other side to abandon what they have been doing. This is not the way to get parties at the table ... to seek for a political solution, he told reporters. He told the council there was an urgent need to maintain a cool head and avoid escalating tensions, and called for a return to dialogue, including by leveraging mediation efforts of U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. Both Russia and China pushed their proposal to kick-start talks with a joint suspension of North Korea s ballistic missile and nuclear programs and the military exercises by the United States and South Korea. Liu said he hoped it would be seriously considered by the parties. The idea that some have suggested of a so-called freeze-for-freeze is insulting, Haley told the council. When a rogue regime has a nuclear weapon and an ICBM (intercontinental ballistic missile) pointed at you, you do not take steps to lower your guard. No one would do that. We certainly won t. Through sanctions, the Security Council has tried to choke off funding and support for North Korea s ballistic missile and nuclear programs, though some Western states have expressed doubt about Russia and China s commitment to implement them. Haley said in July that cutting off oil supplies to the North Korean government and military was an option. China supplies most of North Korea s crude. According to South Korean data, Beijing supplies roughly 500,000 tonnes of crude oil annually. It also exports 200,000 tonnes of oil products, according to U.N. data. The U.N. resolution adopted last month capped the number of North Koreans working abroad at the current level. Diplomats said a new resolution could impose a complete ban. Some diplomats estimate that between 60,000 and 100,000 North Koreans work abroad. A U.N. human rights investigator said in 2015 that North Korea was forcing more than 50,000 people to work abroad, mainly in Russia and China, earning between $1.2 billion and $2.3 billion a year. The council could ban textiles, which were North Korea s second-biggest export after coal and other minerals in 2016, totaling $752 million, according to data from the Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency (KOTRA). Nearly 80 percent of the textile exports went to China. The military-controlled airline, Air Koryo, could be banned. It flies to Beijing and a few other cities in China, including Dandong, the main transit point for trade between the two countries. It also flies to Vladivostok in Russia, but flights to Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur and Kuwait have ended. | 0fake |
More Trump Victims Surface As Condo Scam Is Revealed, Millions Lost As He Profited (VIDEO) | Donald Trump has a pattern of business behavior that he has repeated several times over his career when he isn t on a reality show pretending to be a billionaire genius. A loud, splashy launch of a project followed by a high pressure sales job that dazzles prospective customers, followed by mismanagement and poor business decisions that result in a failed business but somehow Trump makes money for himself.The pattern has repeated itself with Trump University, Trump Steaks, Trump Magazine, and now the Los Angeles Times has revealed the seedy underbelly of Trump Ocean Resort, a condo community that was supposed to be built in Baja with homes overlooking the Pacific Ocean.Guess what happened next?In the end, nothing at all was built at Trump Ocean Resort, and Simms lost her money. As did about 250 other buyers, most of them from Southern California.All told, two years of aggressive marketing yielded $32.5 million in buyer deposits, every bit of it spent by the time Trump and his partners abandoned the project in early 2009 as the global economy was reeling. Most of the buyers sued them for fraud.In this case, Trump did what he has often done in real estate deals licensed his name to a third party developer, but not actually do the building himself. Trump has often portrayed these properties he really had nothing to do with as part of his real estate empire, and the media has gone along with the fairy tale.The people who lost money in these condos say that is what happened here, and that Trump s children Donald Jr. and Ivanka were part of a ruse to make it seem as if Trump was one of the main developers instead of just a name attached like a cheap sticker. We are developing a world-class resort befitting of the Trump brand, Ivanka Trump said in a video on the Trump Baja website. I m very excited about it. I actually chose to buy a unit in the first tower. Her father appeared in the same video saying he was proud that when I build, I have investors that follow me all over. The sales team even told prospective buyers that Trump himself had purchased a condo in the development, but he actually never did. Trump even signed a letter given to prospective customers identifying himself as one of the builders but he wasn t.The company doing the actual building, after months of inactivity on the construction site, eventually sent a letter to people who had bought in telling them that they would not be able to proceed with construction due to a lack of money and the economic turndown in 2008-9. They also said they wouldn t be providing refunds of the millions of dollars they had taken.The Trumps did get $500,000 in licensing fees for their involvement in the scheme. Another pump and dump Trump mission completed.Featured image via screen capture | 1real |
Obama tax inversion rules may overstep authority: U.S. lawmaker | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama’s proposed rules to stop U.S. companies from reincorporating abroad, if only on paper, to avoid U.S. income taxes appear to overstep legal authority, a top Republican lawmaker said on Friday. Representative Kevin Brady said his staff is scrutinizing the rules, which were unveiled last week by the U.S. Treasury Department. Legal experts have offered mixed views on the viability of any court challenge. The new rules, intended to discourage tax “inversions,” led to the collapse of U.S. drugmaker Pfizer Inc’s $160 billion acquisition of Ireland’s Allergan Plc. “We recognize there is broad discretion in some areas of that tax code,” Brady, a Texas Republican and chairman of the tax-writing House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee, said in a speech to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. “But it certainly appears that Treasury overstepped its authority, especially in effect, taking legislative proposals that haven’t passed this Congress or any other Congress and essentially making it law through regulation.” Brady gave no indication of what his committee might do. It was unclear what action, if any, the Republican-controlled Congress would take against the inversion rules in an election year marked by voter anger over taxes and international trade. “I share the concern about inversions. Everyone does. But there’s a right way and a wrong way to tackle them,” Brady said. An inversion is a tax-driven deal in which a U.S. company acquires a smaller, foreign business and adopts its tax domicile to reduce the combined company’s overall tax burden. The deals most often involve reincorporating in Ireland or Britain. Though inversions have been going since the 1980s, a new wave has been under way for about five years. The Pfizer-Allergan deal would have been the biggest inversion of all time. There is bipartisan agreement on the need for comprehensive tax reform to address inversions, but the deeply divided Congress is unlikely to tackle this until 2017, especially with elections coming in November, analysts said. In the interim, the Obama administration has tightened inversion rules in limited areas, drawing Republican criticism. “The administration’s strategy won’t solve the fundamental problem and likely will make it worse,” Brady said. | 0fake |
DOJ LEADER PUTS BLAME FOR RIOTS ON…SLAVERY? | It s no accident that President Obama named Vanita Gupta acting head of the Civil Rights Division of the DOJ. Gupta is beloved by the radical left for her militant hostility toward law enforcement officers. Here s a fantastic overview from J. Christian Adams who has intimate knowledge of what s going on at the DOJ. He worked there and knows just how the DOJ has been turned into a politicized radical leftist entity of the Obama administration. Here s an example of that:Vanita Gupta, head of the Department of Justice Civil Rights Division, has told a lawyers group in Colorado that slavery and Jim Crow helped fuel the Ferguson and Baltimore riots.The last few days have seen a number of fanciful stories with the Obama administration seemingly questioning the authority of local police. I ve long maintained that the administration is nakedly seeking to federalize policing standards but get rid of local police? No way, that sounds like something broadcast from a shortwave station in Austin, Texas. But then up steps Vanita Gupta to lend some credibility to the idea that some want to disband local police and replace police powers with the federal government. Speaking to a group of left-wing lawyers in Colorado, Gupta had this to say:The conversation in these rooms, however, is not about whether to have police or not but about what kind of policing communities want and deserve.There is no question that we need police in our communities.The conversation? What conversation is Gupta hearing that needs to be corrected? Who brought up the idea we might not need police? Nobody sane, for sure.If you read the entirety of Gupta s speech, you ll get a sense of what is going on in the mind of the anti-police left. Officials in this administration still think it is rational and acceptable to bring up the name Michael Brown in the context of anything other than a likely felon against whom deadly force was justifiably used. Behold Gupta:Eric Garner. Michael Brown. Tamir Rice. John Crawford. Walter Scott. Freddie Gray.These names and many others have become familiar to us under tragic circumstances in recent months. Their deaths and those of other unarmed African American men and women in encounters with police officers, have provoked widespread responses across the country and have fueled the Black Lives Matter movement. In communities of color, in particular, the reaction has been stark and sobering.In the seven months I have been at the Civil Rights Division, I have spent a lot of time with local leaders and community members in cities all across America, including with numerous mothers who have lost their children in officer-involved shootings. The pain, anger, frustration the lack of trust in the police is real, and it is profound.Gupta asks the question that many Americans have already asked and answered:It s worth asking, first, how did we get here? And second, what are we going to do about it?To most law-abiding Americans, the idea of fleeing from the police, or worse, charging at a policeman you have already punched, is simply beyond the realm of possibility.So how did we get here? Was it a breakdown of values? Perhaps a pervasive tolerance for lawlessness? Of course not. Says Gupta:Let s start with the first question and consider the source of the mistrust. Mistrust can t be explained away as the kneejerk reaction of the ill-informed or the hyperbolic. It s in part the product of historical awareness about the role that police have played in enforcing and perpetuating (wait for it! here it comes!) slavery, the Black Codes, lynchings and Jim Crow segregation.Read more: pjmediaRead more: pjmedia | 1real |
Dear America, Let’s Now Unite and Flood Our Nation With Optimism | Dear America,
Whether you voted for Trump or not, surely you can join me in admitting the past few years have been devoid of optimism. We’ve been pessimistic on the economy, on the social foundation of our country, our standing in the world, our concern over potential for war, our healthcare, our jobs and generally speaking… our future.
For some of you Barack Obama may be a likable character. While many of us believe he’s corrupt and wrong in his way of thinking, it’s understandable that many of his voters found him to be generally likable. For those who do, the truth is he betrayed you. He betrayed all of us.
His healthcare law was sold to you as a law that would make healthcare affordable and wouldn’t change the plan/doctor you have. Most of us are now finding that was a lie. We’re losing our plans and doctors, and costs are skyrocketing.
His economic policy enriched the mega rich while crushing jobs. His environmental policy has pumped billions of our dollars into the pockets of special interests, killed off jobs and did absolutely nothing for the environment. His tax policy is painful. If you pay taxes you know this to be the case.
He spends money like it grows on trees. For him it’s not an issue. He lives in the high castle and will never have to worry about money. But you and I? Yeah, it’s an issue.
He dragged us nearly into world war with Russia. He collapsed the Middle East in a way that has rippled across the globe.
We can disagree on issues, but surely we can agree this hasn’t been a good situation. Something has to change. Hillary Clinton wasn’t going to change anything. She was going to take Obama’s burning agenda and throw gasoline on it.
We now have an opportunity. Donald Trump has his flaws. We all have concerns about it. No secret there. But his plan is something we should all get excited about. That is, of course, provided he actually follows through with it.
Trump is likely to relax tensions with Russia. He’s likely to pull back our nonsensical involvement in the Middle East. He’s likely to repeal and replace Obamacare. He’s likely to initiate a tax and economic policy that WILL invigorate business growth.
For businesses, Trump has a plan that will help create spenders. And for consumers his plan will help us earn and retain more financial stability.
This is a good thing. It’s good for liberals, conservatives and independents. It’s good for America.
Not long ago there was a time when Americans were optimistic, hungry for success and excited to work hard for it. We’ve exiting a period of time where that mentality has been non-existent. We’re entering a time where it can exist again.
We’ve got a mess on our hands. There is much work to do to clean it up. But it can be cleaned up, and we can flourish as a result of it.
That is, if we unify and optimistically strive for success as a nation.
It’s time, America. It’s long overdue.
Let’s make America great again.
-Eric Odom
| 1real |
For Commerce Pick Wilbur Ross, ‘Inherently Bad’ Deals Paid Off - The New York Times | MEXICO CITY — With a panel of senators questioning him, the billionaire investor Wilbur L. Ross stayed on message: If confirmed as President Trump’s commerce secretary, he would protect American workers and tear up bad trade deals that harmed American industry. And yet, for more than a decade, those same trade deals helped Mr. Ross amass a fortune across the globe — in countries like Mexico and China, among others. In fact, Mr. Ross has sometimes invested overseas in ways that Mr. Trump condemns. As the head of an auto parts company, Mr. Ross shipped jobs to Mexico, taking advantage of the North American Free Trade Agreement, which he now says is unfair and must be renegotiated. That company, along with a textile firm he founded, publicly stated that Mexico was central to their growth. To some of his former associates, that history clangs against the persistent message of Mr. Trump, who has called Nafta “the single worst trade deal ever approved in this country” and has excoriated American businesses for sending jobs overseas. But a spokesman for Mr. Ross described his experience as an asset, not a contradiction. “As a private businessman, Mr. Ross made pragmatic decisions based on the rules of the road at the time and it is precisely his knowledge of how trade deals work that will allow him to be successful in renegotiating bad deals like Nafta,” said the spokesman, James Rockas. The Senate is scheduled to vote on Mr. Ross’s confirmation on Monday. Mr. Ross’s flexible approach to trade is characteristic of many private equity barons focused on the bottom line, his former associates say. After taking over two bankrupt American textile makers more than a decade ago, for instance, Mr. Ross paid a visit to an executive of J. C. Penney Company. The industry was in turmoil, and Mr. Ross needed advice. Fellow mill owners, largely concentrated in the American Southeast, were blaming free trade for destroying their livelihoods. Many felt that sending jobs overseas, even for survival, was tantamount to treason. But for Mr. Ross, who made his name fixing bankrupt companies across a variety of American industries, hiring workers abroad made sense, former associates say. So Mr. Ross inquired about opening a mill with hundreds of workers — not in the United States, but in Vietnam. “He struck me as very practical about trade,” recounted Peter McGrath, the former head of product development for J. C. Penney, who offered Mr. Ross advice. “He was on a different part of the curve than a lot of his competitors. ” Just over a year later, in 2006, Mr. Ross announced plans to open an $80 million cotton plant in Vietnam that would employ 1, 500 workers. It was one of many business decisions Mr. Ross made over the years that seemed to depart from Mr. Trump’s stance against deals and the migration of jobs overseas. “I don’t think he is a devious person,” Jock Nash, a retired lobbyist for Milliken Company, a textile manufacturer, said of Mr. Ross. “Anybody that knows how to make money is opportunistic — and they have to be to make money. ” Having been tapped by Mr. Trump to lead the charge on America’s worldwide trade relationships, Mr. Ross, 79, has adapted once more. In his new role, if confirmed, he will be tasked with increasing American exports to help create jobs in America. First and foremost, he told members of Congress, he would focus on Nafta. “We cannot afford trade that is inherently bad for American workers and for American businesses,” Mr. Ross said during his testimony. His measured comments have taken a back seat to Mr. Trump’s more vocal broadsides against the auto industry for its investments in Mexico, often via Twitter. Mr. Ross has argued that investment in Mexico hurts American economic growth, bolstering the Mexican economy while reducing investment in the United States. But Mr. Ross has made extensive investments in the auto industry south of the American border. His entry into Mexico began in 2007, a year after he began buying up the global assets of struggling American auto parts makers. He combined them into International Automotive Components, a supplier of auto interiors with factories around the world, including in Mexico and China. Sales in 2015 reached $5. 9 billion. Nearly a decade ago, when his company announced the purchase of a plant in Hermosillo, Mexico, adding $300 million in sales and 1, 700 employees to its payroll, Mr. Ross said the deal “demonstrates our commitment to expansion in countries. ” Eight years later, just before Mr. Trump began his presidential campaign, the company inaugurated a brand new plant, its eighth operation in Mexico. By then, Mr. Ross’s company had completed expansions at three other plants in Mexico. The future there looked bright: His company cited a forecast that Mexico would account for 25 percent of the world’s growth in auto production. Mr. Ross acknowledged in the hearing that he had moved “a couple of hundred” jobs to Mexico, saying an automaker had demanded the shift. But he began transferring work to Mexico in the early days of his business. When Mr. Ross acquired an auto parts factory in Carlisle, Pa. a decade ago, he took a hard line with the union, demanding cuts in wages and benefits worth between a quarter and 30 percent of workers’ earnings, according to Doug Carey, who was the president of Local 1739 of which represented many of the workers. When the union rejected the demand, Mr. Ross shut the plant down, moving the work to North Carolina, Canada and Mexico, Mr. Carey said. “Wilbur Ross — there’s no way he cares about the worker,” said Stacey Foltz, who worked at the plant for 10 years. “He made billions of dollars taking jobs out of the country. ” In other cases, even when a plant stayed open, Mr. Ross transferred production to Mexico. In 2007, after Mr. Ross acquired 11 plants from Lear Corporation that were represented by the United Automobile Workers, their bargaining committees flew to Detroit to meet him. Over lunch, they said, they listened to his pitch for turning the company around, which involved cuts to their salaries and benefits. “All the U. A. W. plants gave concessions,” said Richie Franklin, the bargaining chairman for Local 2999 in Strasburg, Va. “It was a tough pill to swallow. ” Though grateful to Mr. Ross for turning the company around, Mr. Franklin was frustrated to see jobs vanish. Two years after the workers agreed to the cuts, Mr. Ross’s company moved the production of consoles for General Motors trucks to Mexico, leaving 110 people out of work. “They just did it, and there was nothing we could do,” Mr. Franklin said. In the world of textiles, Mr. Ross used a playbook developed over years. He scoured for companies in distress. Before long, he purchased two textile makers in North Carolina: Cone Mills and Burlington Mills. At the time, the industry was in upheaval. Textile and clothing manufacturers were bleeding money and jobs. Cheaper wages in Asia brought a surge of imports that helped wipe out nearly of the industry, experts say. Finding a way forward for Mr. Ross’s company, the International Textile Group, would require cheap labor in Mexico and elsewhere. “I think he was one who recognized that Burlington wouldn’t survive without that kind of diversification of production,” said Patrick Conway, an economics professor at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. “It is the same juxtaposition you would see with Trump hiring foreign workers for his casinos while talking about building a wall. ” “It is a compartmentalization of the businessman’s mind,” he added. Mr. Ross began lobbying for another trade deal, one that would essentially incorporate Central America into a zone like Nafta. According to people familiar with the negotiations, he became one of the biggest proponents of the Central American Free Trade Agreement, or Cafta. He became a mediator of sorts between textile makers like himself and retailers like Walmart and J. C. Penney, whose priority was giving consumers low prices, not using American fabrics. While Cafta has failed to prevent an onslaught of Chinese imported goods, Mexico remains a crucial element of the company Mr. Ross built. of the International Textile Group’s revenue is generated by two factories in Mexico, and in its 2015 annual report, published when Mr. Ross was still in charge, the company was clear where the future lay — not in the United States, but in Mexico and China. “I. T. G. ’s focus includes realizing the benefits of its global expansion, including reaching full production at the company’s facilities in China,” the company said in its report. As for Mexico, the report stated that because the company was a “resident, diversified textile product manufacturer in Mexico,” it “believes that Nafta is generally advantageous. ” Mr. Ross sold the International Textile Group in October to another private equity firm. For all the choices Mr. Ross made to open factories abroad or lay people off domestically, most who knew him during that era say he was not a heartless Wall Street tycoon. He kept jobs where he could in the United States, including in Greensboro, N. C. where the company maintains a denim mill. Bruce Raynor, a former union leader in the textile and auto parts industries, said Mr. Ross was not as many of his Wall Street contemporaries were. Over the years, Mr. Raynor sat across the table from Mr. Ross on numerous occasions, whether negotiating contracts for textile workers or for auto parts workers. “It was a low bar to be a decent guy, but as a distressed investor, you buy things that are not doing well,” said Mr. Raynor, who now runs a consulting business. “By definition, if you represent workers, and this is a company in trouble, it’s not like those transactions are fun. ” “Wilbur was always very decent to work with,” he added. “You can’t say that about too many of these guys. ” Perhaps most telling, he said, was the investment Mr. Ross made in the Amalgamated Bank, a nearly institution founded by the nation’s unions. In the depths of the financial crisis, Mr. Raynor asked Mr. Ross for a bailout. Having worked with Mr. Ross for years, he asked whether the businessman would be interested in making an investment of $50 million, the largest the bank would allow. After months of due diligence, the deal went through, Mr. Raynor said, which he believes was a testament to Mr. Ross’s decency — not greed. He said Mr. Ross could have made more lucrative investments, but opted instead to help the unions. “‘I want to make money, but I’m not under any illusions and I’m not in a hurry,’” he said Mr. Ross had told him. | 0fake |
Sanders says would prefer Elizabeth Warren over Kaine as vice presidential pick | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Former Democratic presidential candidate Senator Bernie Sanders said Sunday he would have preferred to see Hillary Clinton select someone like Senator Elizabeth Warren for the vice presidential spot over Senator Tim Kaine. “I have known Tim Kaine for a number of years...Tim is a very, very smart guy. He is very nice guy,” Sanders said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “He is more conservative than I am. Would I have preferred to see somebody like an Elizabeth Warren selected by Secretary Clinton? Yes, I would have.” | 0fake |
Harnessing the U.S. Taxpayer to Fight Cancer and Make Profits - The New York Times | Enthusiasm for cancer immunotherapy is soaring, and so is Arie Belldegrun’s fortune. Dr. Belldegrun, a physician, Kite Pharma, a company that could be the first to market next year with a highly anticipated new immunotherapy treatment. But even without a product, Dr. Belldegrun has struck gold. His stock in Kite is worth about $170 million. Investors have profited along with him, as the company’s share price has soared to about $50 from an initial price of $17 in 2014. The results reflect widespread excitement over immunotherapy, which harnesses the body’s immune system to attack cancer and has rescued some patients from death. But they also speak volumes about the value of Kite’s main scientific partner: the United States government. Kite’s treatment, a form of immunotherapy called was initially developed by a team of researchers at the National Cancer Institute, led by a longtime friend and mentor of Dr. Belldegrun. Now Kite pays several million a year to the government to support continuing research dedicated to the company’s efforts. The relationship puts American taxpayers squarely in the middle of one of the hottest new drug markets. It also raises a question: Are taxpayers getting a good deal? Defenders say that the partnership will likely bring a lifesaving treatment to patients, something the government cannot really do by itself, and that that is what matters most. Critics say that taxpayers will end up paying twice for the same drug — once to support its development and a second time to buy it — while the company reaps the financial benefit. “If this was not a cancer treatment — if it was for a new solar technology, for example — it would be scandalous to think that some private investors are reaping massive profits off a invention,” said James Love, director of Knowledge Ecology International, an advocacy group concerned with access to medicines. The debate goes squarely to one of the nation’s most vexing challenges: rising health care and drug prices. Kite is one of a growing number of drug and biotech companies relying on federal laboratories. Analysts expect the company to charge at least $200, 000 for the new treatment, which is intended as a therapy for patients. While the law allows the government to demand concessions from its partners, the government has declined to do so with Kite and generally disdains the practice. Insisting on lower prices, federal researchers say, would drive away innovative partners that speed the process and benefit patients. But with the government doing so much pivotal research, others say that the private sector cannot afford to walk away. “The market is so reliant on the knowledge and that comes out of the government and academic labs,” said Dr. Aaron Kesselheim, director of the Program on Regulation, Therapeutics and Law at Brigham Women’s Hospital in Boston. Price curbs, he said, “would not suddenly lead to a total abandonment of this pipeline. It couldn’t possibly. ” Drug makers would be especially unlikely to turn away from immunotherapy, where the promising science has set off a “gold rush mentality,” according to Mark Edwards of Bioscience Advisors, a company which tracks pharmaceutical licensing deals. The National Institutes of Health, the parent agency of the National Cancer Institute, currently has about 400 cooperative research agreements with companies, and licenses hundreds of patented inventions for development. Kite executives and national health officials characterize their partnership as a model arrangement in a system established by Congress three decades ago. The system has given birth to the cancer drug Taxol, the AIDS drug Prezista, two cervical cancer vaccines and a widely used test for H. I. V. infection, among other innovations. Kite’s first drug, called could help thousands of patients each year in the United States with certain blood cancers. If it succeeds, it could generate sales of $1 billion to $2 billion annually, according to Wall Street analysts, making it among the most lucrative drugs to come from government research. But the government’s share of any Kite success would be modest, much lower than some academic research groups have wrangled in immunotherapy deals worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Federal officials counter that the reward to the taxpayer is not money but the drug itself. “This is exactly the way things should work,” said Dr. Steven Rosenberg, who has led the surgery branch at the National Cancer Institute for 42 years and led development of Kite’s drug. Such partnerships, he said, are “absolutely essential or many discoveries will not see the light of day. ” Moreover, government officials say, companies in such deals must take significant financial risks and expenditures on their own, without any guarantee that the drug will be approved. Kite says it has spent more than $200 million on research and development, including running larger clinical trials than those conducted by the cancer institute, and recently spent about $30 million to build a factory that will be able to make treatments for up to 5, 000 patients a year. Setting the price of the drug, Dr. Rosenberg said, “is for the marketplace. ” Like many business deals, this one began with a personal relationship — in this case between Dr. Rosenberg and Dr. Belldegrun. After finishing medical school in his native Israel, performing surgery in helicopters for the Israeli armed forces, and completing residency at Brigham Women’s Hospital, Dr. Belldegrun became a research fellow for Dr. Rosenberg at the N. C. I. It was 1985, and Dr. Belldegrun was put to work on a new project of Dr. Rosenberg’s — extracting immune cells from cancer patients, multiplying them in the laboratory, and putting them back in. “He was one of the more outstanding fellows to come through,” said Dr. Rosenberg, 76, who is widely considered a cancer research luminary. When the fellowship ended in 1988, Dr. Belldegrun became a prominent surgeon at the University of California, Los Angeles, but the two men stayed in touch. Eventually, Dr. Belldegrun, 67, got the entrepreneurial bug. He a biotech company, Agensys, which was acquired by a bigger company for more than $500 million. He was also involved with Cougar Biotechnology, which developed the prostate cancer drug Zytiga and was acquired by Johnson Johnson for $1 billion in May 2009. A month later, Dr. Belldegrun formed Kite with a group of colleagues and investors to pursue cancer immunotherapy. That same month, a Florida marine contractor named Eric Karlson, whose ’s lymphoma was advancing despite four prior treatments, became the first patient treated by Dr. Rosenberg with what would eventually become . The treatment entailed removing some of Mr. Karlson’s immune system T cells from his blood, genetically engineering them to recognize and fight his cancer, multiplying the T cells to huge numbers in the laboratory and transferring them back into his body. After two such treatments, Mr. Karlson remains alive and eight years later. Kite initially thought it would pursue an approach to immunotherapy known as cancer vaccines, but in 2010, Dr. Belldegrun visited Dr. Rosenberg and was shown the of Mr. Karlson and of a second patient. Dr. Belldegrun was bowled over. “I had no doubt that this is going to be a drug and, more than that, it will become a platform for multiple products,” he recalled. “We never looked back. ” Over the next two years, the National Cancer Institute worked out a deal with Kite that was signed in 2012. It was the first of eight contracts between the government and the company that generally take two forms. In one type of contract, Kite licenses patented inventions and agrees to pay the government royalties, roughly 5 percent of sales of any commercial product arising from a particular patent. However, there is no such license specifically for because the underlying treatment was not patented by the N. C. I. so royalties will be minimal. Officials say the agency did not apply for a patent because the treatment was similar to what others had been developing. Also, at the time the treatment was first created, in 2007, immunotherapy was considered to have dim commercial prospects. “Back then, we didn’t even think about commercial aspects,” said Dr. James N. Kochenderfer, a scientist at the agency who designed the treatment when working in Dr. Rosenberg’s group. Under the second type of contract, known as a cooperative research and development agreement, Kite provides money to the N. C. I. to support research. Kite is now paying $3 million a year to Dr. Rosenberg’s lab and has provided $7. 5 million to it in total since 2012. Based on its regulatory filings, Kite is paying $7. 8 million a year for research agreements and licenses in total, with at least $4 million of that going to the cancer institute and the rest to academic or corporate partners. The taxpayer has invested, too. Dr. Rosenberg estimated that the government has spent roughly $10 million over the years on what has become . He said Kite’s $3 million a year is about equal to the taxpayer funding in that area and has helped speed research. These days, researchers from Kite and the cancer institute, typically including Dr. Rosenberg and Dr. Belldegrun, confer by conference call every other Thursday for 90 minutes. Kite employees have spent long periods at the N. C. I. learning how to manufacture the therapy and how to treat patients in advance with chemotherapy. “We shouldn’t underestimate the value and the importance of N. I. H. not only to Kite but to the whole field of engineered therapy,” Dr. Belldegrun said. When Kite signed its first deal with the cancer agency, he said, it “tapped into six years of monumental work that they had done. ” Some immunotherapy competitors marvel at the company’s coup in tapping into the agency’s expertise. “They got 20 years of research all together in one scoop,” said Dr. Carlos Paya, chief executive of Immune Design, which is pursuing a different approach. But government officials say few, if any, other companies were interested in the technology at the time Dr. Belldegrun came calling. Dr. Rosenberg said that before Kite, a few companies, including Johnson Johnson, had looked at an earlier version of his technology but were wary because treatment involved processing each patient’s cells. technology available to be licensed to companies is posted on the website of the National Institutes of Health. And when the agency intends to grant a license to a particular company, it publishes that in the Federal Register, inviting public comment and possible competing offers. Both steps were taken in the case of Kite, officials said. Kite did not get everything the cancer institute has developed in the field. Some other companies, including Opus Bio and Bluebird Bio, got rights to some products, in part because the companies had special expertise that the agency’s researchers desired. But Kite seems to have gotten the balance of them and N. C. I. technology accounts for the majority of its pipeline of possible products, though the company is diversifying. Dr. Rosenberg professes no interest in the business side of the Kite relationship. He does not own stock in any company, even Kite, though he could get up to $150, 000 a year in patent royalties if some of Kite’s efforts pay off. Dr. Belldegrun, in contrast to his mentor, has commercial flair. He is known for his sharp business suits, lives in the neighborhood of Los Angeles, and seems as comfortable on Wall Street or in high society as in the operating room. Kite’s relationship with the N. C. I. is an important part of its appeal to investors. In some presentations, Dr. Belldegrun has shown a photograph of himself with Dr. Rosenberg in their younger days. And he persuaded Dr. Rosenberg to speak at Kite’s first big meeting for investors in June 2015, the only time he has ever spoken to Wall Street. In emails obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request by Knowledge Ecology International, Dr. Belldegrun praised Dr. Rosenberg’s talk and sent him copies of investment reports from the conference written by Wall Street analysts. “Thank you for making the effort to come to NY,” Dr. Belldegrun wrote. “I heard only raving reviews about your presence and presentation. ” The reliance of private companies on research goes well beyond obvious cases like Kite. In many instances, companies work with universities or medical centers that, in turn, have been funded from the $32 billion annual budget of the National Institutes of Health. Kite’s two main competitors, Novartis and Juno Therapeutics, for instance, derived similar immunotherapy treatments largely from academic institutions, developed at least in part with government funding. Novartis has a relationship with the University of Pennsylvania, and Juno with the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and Seattle Children’s Hospital. “For the most important drugs you’ll see some involvement,” said Bhaven Sampat, an associate professor of health policy and management at Columbia University. He was one author of a study that found that 9 percent of all drugs approved between 1988 and 2005 were based directly on a patent held by the public sector. But 47. 8 percent of the drugs relied at least indirectly on some federally funded research. The figures were higher for more medically important drugs: 17. 4 percent had a direct patent, while 64. 5 percent had at least an indirect influence. These figures are up sharply from before the 1980s. Such partnerships and licensing deals were encouraged by the 1980 and Acts, and the 1986 Federal Technology Transfer Act. The laws are credited with the biotechnology industry. But from the beginning, some people questioned whether taxpayers were getting a bad deal. Perhaps the drug developed from a cooperative research and development agreement — the cancer drug Taxol — was the subject of several congressional hearings in the early 1990s that investigated whether the drug’s maker, Squibb, charged too much and whether the government recouped enough of its investment. In the end, the pricing was left unchanged. The N. I. H. argues that if it imposes pricing restrictions, it won’t get partners. In fact, in 1995, it struck from its negotiating tactics a goal that prices be “reasonable. ” “Companies will not take technologies from us if we say the government will decide in the future what the price will be,” said Mark Rohrbaugh, who ran the technology transfer office at the institutes from 2001 to 2013 and is now an adviser to the agency. After the “reasonable price” clause was struck, he said, there was a threefold increase in partnership deals. The N. I. H. can collect royalties from successful products to help offset the costs of the research, but so far these royalties have been small, amounting to an estimated $135 million in the last fiscal year from 870 licenses, with the bulk of the money coming from a small number of drugs. “We’re not preoccupied with financial value,” Dr. Rohrbaugh said. “Our mission is treatment of people and improving public health. ” In that regard, the government’s bet on a small company like Kite, which might have seemed risky, appears to be paying off so far. Dr. Belldegrun has largely delivered on promises to raise money, assemble an experienced staff, build the factory, conduct clinical trials and begin to apply for regulatory approval. Once considered the underdog to Novartis and Juno, Kite might be the first reach the market. Academic centers and companies often drive harder bargains in licensing technology. In some cases, academic centers own a stake in a company they license technology to, allowing them to reap a financial windfall if the company does well. Both the Hutchinson cancer center and Sloan Kettering have owned stock in Juno and are entitled to substantial payments — up to $350 million and $150 million — if Juno’s stock reaches certain levels. The N. I. H. does not take equity positions in companies to avoid an appearance of a conflict of interest. So to critics of the government deals, drug prices are crucial to understanding taxpayer value. After all, they ask, is a drug truly widely available — which is what the government says is its measure of success — if it costs too much for some people? Rachel Sachs, an associate law professor at Washington University in St. Louis and expert in innovation policy, said the government had every right to seek price concessions. She noted that the government, through Medicare and Medicaid, was effectively buying its inventions back from itself. “The public is paying for the research and to the extent that many people, if not most, will pay through public insurance, we’re paying again,” she said. Hillary Clinton, in her campaign for president, promised to set new rules for federal support of research so that Americans “get the value they deserve” for the money taxpayers spend in supporting research. It is not clear how Donald J. Trump will approach these issues he has said he favors reducing health care costs, but Republicans, who control Congress, too, have opposed a government role in price setting. One mechanism to control pricing already exists. It is called rights, and it lets the N. I. H. take back control of a patent on an invention made with federal funding if the drug is not being made available to the public on reasonable terms. The tool has gone unused. Earlier this year, Knowledge Ecology International and another advocacy group, the Union for Affordable Cancer Treatment, petitioned the agency to exercise rights on Xtandi, a prostate cancer drug that was developed by federally funded researchers at U. C. L. A. It said the price in the United States of about $129, 000 a year, two to four times that in other developed countries, meant the drug was not reasonably available. The effort was supported by other public interest groups and some Democratic members of Congress. U. C. L. A. made more than $500 million by selling its royalty rights to the drug. But the N. I. H. declined to exercise its rights on Xtandi, arguing that it was not qualified to judge whether a drug’s price is reasonable and that a high price does not mean a drug is not being made available to the public. “N. I. H. has made it clear that its job is not to decide prices of drugs, period,” Dr. Rohrbaugh said Kite says it has not decided what to charge for but Dr. Belldegrun hinted that Kite’s therapy might be relatively expensive because ideally it would be a single treatment that would cure the patient, not a drug that would have to be taken continuously. He added that Kite would take steps to make sure that everyone who needed the drug could get it. Meantime, the relationship between Kite and the National Cancer Institute is expanding to develop treatments for other cancers, including one technique Dr. Rosenberg thinks could be used to attack solid tumors like colon, breast and lung cancer. “The potential for broad applicability is huge,” he said. That could mean many lives saved and maybe more drugs for Kite and its investors, with the American taxpayer right in the middle of the deal. | 0fake |
If they don’t want to break up families, why do the encourage “unaccompanied minors?” | 175 Views Share: Commentary — Seriously, you always hear that we mustn’t deport people because it could break up families. Yet we are encouraging teenagers to run away from their families and try their luck on America’s streets! Latino Invasion Set for New Record
The New Observer March 2, 2016
More than 17,000 “unaccompanied alien minors” had invaded the US over the Mexican border in the past few months, and the number of “family units” has increased to 21,000, the US House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration and Border Security has been informed.
The House was also told that if the present trends continue, there will be a 30 percent increase on the record number of 260,000 invaders who entered the US in 2014.
“In the past few months the number of unaccompanied alien minors unlawfully entering the US soared to over 17,000 and the number of family units increased to 21,000,” Chair Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) informed the US House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration and Border Security in a February 4 hearing on Capitol Hill.
“If these trends continue it is predicted there will be a 30 percent increase in the record high numbers we witnessed in 2014.”
The widespread criminal violence endemic in the nonwhite Third World countries to the south continues to be a major factor in the ongoing invasion, Omar Zamora, public affairs officer for the US Border Patrol Rio Grande Valley (RGV) Sector told the local KVUE TV station.
“We’ve got gangs over there that are controlling the neighborhoods, controlling the cities,” Zamora said.
Agents of the RRGV Sector, he said, “man the front lines of the battle against drug trafficking and human smuggling.”
The US government has mounted an ad campaign along the Guatemala–Honduras border warning would-be invaders what to expect from human traffickers.
According to Zamora, the human traffickers engage in everything from child molestation and rape to extortion and fraud. READ Cologne Police Officer Confirms: It was “Refugees”
“I think the biggest misconceptions are, ‘Hey they’re just children down there, right? It’s a humanitarian crisis,’” said Zamora, “But what I want to stress is there’s the 50 percent of the other individuals that are running, that are fighting, that have criminal records.”
Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX), who chairs the House Border Security Caucus, told KVUE that “If people figure they have a 95 percent chance of being allowed to stay and work and get government benefits, they’re going to come no matter what they might hear on the street or on the radio or see in a leaflet.”
In a February 23 hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) asked agency Acting Chief Ronald Vitiello whether giving undocumented immigrants the impression they won’t be allowed to stay in the US without a legal claim would act as a deterrent and slow the flow of unauthorized crossings.
“Yes, I believe that matters,” Vitiello answered. | 1real |
Past, Present and Future Collide in Joan Didion’s ‘South and West’ - The New York Times | SOUTH AND WEST: FROM A NOTEBOOKBy Joan DidionForeword by Nathaniel Rich126 pages. Alfred A. Knopf. $21. In two dazzling collections of essays, “Slouching Towards Bethlehem” and “The White Album,” Joan Didion used her own experiences — and observations and anxieties — as a kind of index to the times, as America lurched through the convulsions of the 1960s and ’70s. The political pieces she later wrote for The New York Review of Books — beginning with the 1988 presidential campaign, on through the impeachment of Bill Clinton and the high drama of the 2000 in Florida — were less original, less idiosyncratic, but reading them in retrospect, they are oddly prophetic about the growing gap between the electorate and the political elites, and the growing dysfunction of the entire system. Her slender 2003 book, “Fixed Ideas: America Since 9. 11,” would be even more explicit about a “disconnect between the government and the citizens,” about how our political process not only spurns consensus but works by “turning the angers and fears and energy of the few” against “the rest of the country. ” No doubt Didion has now decided to publish “South and West,” two excerpts from her notebooks — written in the 1970s — because they similarly shed light on the current political moment. At a remove of more than four decades, she maps the divisions splintering America today, and uncannily anticipates some of the dynamics that led to the election of Donald J. Trump and caught so many political and media insiders unawares. The shorter entry is a meditation on California, the place Didion grew up and long called home. The more substantial piece is an account of a monthlong trip that she and her husband, John Gregory Dunne, took through the Deep South for a assignment that her editors at Life magazine came to refer to as “The Mind of the White South. ” As bookends to each other, the pieces in this book give us two Americas, two ways of looking at history: the South, deep in the grip of the past — a place where many people are invested in holding onto ancient prerogatives of race and class and California, insistently focused on the future and the horizon — a place where the frontier ethos of shucking off roots is the one real tradition. It’s 1970, when the nation is being rocked by seismic cultural and political shifts, and yet Didion has the strange intuition here that the South, not California, would exert a gravitational pull over the rest of the country. She had “some dim and unformed sense,” which she could not explain coherently, “that for some years the South and particularly the Gulf Coast had been for America what people were still saying California was, and what California seemed to me not to be: the future, the secret source of malevolent and benevolent energy, the psychic center. ” Didion’s account of her travels from New Orleans and Biloxi, Miss. to Meridian, Miss. and Tuscaloosa, Ala. and onto Faulkner’s hometown, Oxford, Miss. makes it clear that she feels like an outsider there. Her notes lack the depth and understanding of J. D. Vance’s memoir, “Hillbilly Elegy,” which depicts the frustrations and anger of poor white communities from within. And while Didion’s estrangement sharpens her reportorial eye, it can curdle, at times, into condescension. Writing about high school gymnasiums in small Southern towns, she says she has “the sense of sports being the opiate of the people. ” And writing about a visit to two small towns in Alabama, she observes: “It seemed a good and hopeful place to live, and yet the pretty girls, if they stayed around Guin, would end up in the laundromat in Winfield, or in a trailer with the on all night. ” What Didion does capture, powerfully, in this book is the insularity of many places in the South, and, by implication, how insular the elites (like herself) are in places like California and New York and Washington — a thought she would develop further in her essays in The New York Review of Books (collected in the 2001 volume “Political Fictions”) and in “Fixed Ideas. ” Here, she writes of Southerners: “The isolation of these people from the currents of American life in 1970 was startling and bewildering to behold. All their information was and mythicized in the handing down. Does it matter where Taos is, after all, if Taos is not in Mississippi?” There was a kind of “time warp” there, she says: “The Civil War was yesterday but 1960 is spoken of as if it were about 300 years ago. ” The people Didion interviewed or tried to interview tended to greet her questions with defensive remarks about the pace of change in the South, or with nostalgic and what can only be called racist talk about old ways of life. Although it was 1970, the attitudes Didion encountered can sometimes sound like those described by Harper Lee in “To Kill a Mockingbird,” set in 1930s Alabama. The chilling thing is, some of the attitudes about race and outsiders that Didion chronicles here also sound a lot like attitudes expressed by some Trump supporters during the 2016 campaign. The other reason that readers will find this volume so fascinating is that it shows Didion at work, as a writer and reporter, gathering details, jotting them down and running her observations through the typewriter of her mind. Even these hurriedly written notes shine with her trademark ability to capture mood and place. Of New Orleans in June, she writes: “The place is physically dark, dark like the negative of a photograph, dark like an : The atmosphere absorbs its own light, never reflects light but sucks it in until random objects glow with a morbid luminescence. ” More than that, this book illuminates Didion’s later work, containing the seeds of both “Political Fictions” and her elliptical 2003 book on California and the West, “Where I Was From. ” It is weirdly prescient — pointing the way not only to where she would go as a writer but also a path the country would take in the years to come. | 0fake |
Trump to make decision on Paris climate pact after G7 summit | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump will not make a decision on whether to pull the United States out of the Paris climate agreement until after he returns from the May 26-27 Group of Seven summit, the White House said Tuesday. White House spokesman Sean Spicer said Trump is continuing to hear from advisers on the pros and cons of the United States remaining in the global accord. He will make a decision when he returns from the G7 summit in Italy, not prior to that, as originally planned. “It’s a sign that the president wants to continue to meet with his team ... and come to a decision on what’s (in) the best interest of the United States,” Spicer told reporters. Trump advisers had been scheduled to meet at the White House on Tuesday to try to reach a final decision, but a White House official said the meeting was postponed due to scheduling conflicts. His advisers and cabinet chiefs have been split over whether Trump should keep his campaign promise to pull the United States out of the agreement or remain to try to reshape it, according to senior administration officials and several people briefed on the meeting. His daughter Ivanka and son-in-law Jared Kushner, who are senior presidential advisers, as well as Secretary of State Rex Tillerson are in favor of remaining, while Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt and senior adviser Steve Bannon have urged Trump to withdraw. Advisers had been under pressure to deliver a final recommendation to Trump ahead of the May 26-27 G7 meeting. | 0fake |
HIDDEN ORDER: Was the Death of Justice Scalia Linked to ‘Secret Society’ at Cibolo Ranch? | Shawn Helton 21st Century WireWith the United States in the heat of the 2016 presidential election cycle, key questions surrounding the death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia continue to persist as there s a new conspiratorial twist added to an already suspicious case.Recently, here at 21WIRE, we discussed many of the strange circumstances observed in the aftermath of Justice Scalia s death. The 79-year-old conservative justice was found dead in his hotel room at Cibolo Creek Ranch, a luxury ranch located in Presidio County, Texas.There was no official autopsy made by a medical examiner in Scalia s death, only a controversial pronouncement over the phone by Presidio County Judge Cinderela Guevara.As 21WIRE pointed out in an earlier report regarding Scalia, Guevara appears to have reversed her previous statement claiming that Scalia had died of a heart attack , revising the cause of death to natural causes. Guevara s handling of the death scene of a Supreme Court Justice without being present has drawn sharp criticism from both the media and the public. ORIGINAL MEANING Controversial conservative firebrand, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. (Photo illustration 21WIRE)Secret Order, Secret Death?On February 24th, The Washington Post published an article entitled Justice Scalia spent his last hours with members of this secretive society of elite hunters : When Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia died 12 days ago at a West Texas ranch, he was among high-ranking members of an exclusive fraternity for hunters called the International Order of St. Hubertus, an Austrian society that dates back to the 1600s. Continuing, The Washington Post confirmed that indeed, the FBI will not be conducting an investigation into Supreme Court Justice Scalia s death. On an interesting note however, the article states that the FBI was unaware of the secretive international order all together: Law enforcement officials told The Post that they had no knowledge of the International Order of St. Hubertus or its connection to Poindexter and ranch guests. The officials said the FBI had declined to investigate Scalia s death when they were told by the marshals that he died from natural causes. CLOAK & DAGGER Members of The International Order of Saint Hubertus, from left: John Kotts, Boysie Bollinger, Vidal Martinez, Reed Morian and John Poindexter. (Photo link chron)The Washington Post article also revealed the identity of Scalia s travel partners: C. Allen Foster, a prominent Washington lawyer who traveled to the ranch with Scalia by private plane, and that Cibolo Creek Ranch owner John Poindexter, along with C. Allen Foster, had flown with Scalia to the ranch for the now infamous quail-hunting trip.Also according to the Post, both Poindexter and Foster, hold leadership positions within the [Saint Hubertus] Order. It is unclear what, if any, official association Scalia had with the group. While the Post acknowledged that many of the 35 guests in attendance at Cibolo Creek Ranch have remained largely unknown to the public eye, they discuss some of the details surrounding the St. Hubertus order, an international brotherhood whose founding member, Count Franz Anton von Sporck , also started a branch of Freemasonry in Bohemia (now the Czech Republic): Members of the worldwide, male-only society wear dark-green robes emblazoned with a large cross and the motto Deum Diligite Animalia Diligentes, which means Honoring God by honoring His creatures, according to the group s website. The conspiratorial coincidence doesn t end there, it was also revealed that The society s [Saint Hubertus] U.S. chapter launched in 1966 at the famous Bohemian Club in San Francisco. CIBOLO CONSPIRACY What really happened to Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. (Photo link twitter)Magic Bullets Become Magic Pillows Another bizarre element to this story, was the description and discovery of Scalia s body when it was first found by Cibolo Creek ranch owner, Poindexter. This aspect of the story is illustrated very clearly in a passage from the blog Followship of the Minds: On February 14, 2016, in an article for mySA (MySanAntonio) titled, Texas Ranch owner recalls Scalia s last hours, reporter John MacCormack quoted Poindexter: We discovered the judge in bed, a pillow over his head.Everything was in perfect order. He was in his pajamas, peacefully, in bed. His bed clothes were unwrinkled. He was lying very restfully. It looked like he had not quite awakened from a nap. On February 17, Poindexter clarified his comment to the New York Daily News that There was a pillow over his head, not over his face. The face was entirely clear. And now, the latest.David Warren reports for the AP that according to a Presidio County Sheriff s Office incident report obtained by The Washington Post on Feb. 23, nothing appeared out of place around Scalia s bed. Three pillows were stacked to elevate Scalia s head. A top pillow appeared to have toppled onto his eyes and forehead but didn t appear positioned to impede his breathing. Scalia s arms were at his side atop the bed covers, which were pulled up to his chin. The bed covers were smooth and creased and showed no sign of a struggle. That is one magic pillow!First, it was over Scalia s head.Then, it was above Scalia s head, whose face was entirely clear .Now, the pillow is neither over nor above Scalia s head, but partially covering his face ( toppled onto his eyes and forehead ), although the pillow made sure to position itself so as not to impede his breathing . SECRETS IN CIBOLO The scenic surroundings of Cibolo Creek Ranch. (Photo link tripadvisor)While you have to wonder about the confusion surrounding Scalia s pillow placement, The Washington Post s recent eye-opening revelations regarding the Order of St. Hubertus give us some other things to consider Silencing Conspiracy with ConspiracyThe overtly conspiracy-tinged Post piece is a rarity in the mainstream world, one that conjure s many Hollywood or government tales of murder, deception and intrigue throughout history.The acknowledgement of a decadent Eyes Wide Shut-like secret society on location at Cibolo Creek Ranch prior to Scalia s death, only enhances the drive by voyeurism witnessed since his passing and in a way, it could undermine any legitimate investigation into his death after the fact.While its true, this compelling new detail will most likely bring its lion s share of political protest, as well as predictable calls for congressional inquiry or a push for a federal investigation (as should be) the heavily publicized presence of a secretive fraternal order of hunters nearby a suspicious crime scene, will unfortunately fuel more speculation.Put another way: Whether or not the secret group at Cibolo Creek Ranch was involved in Scalia s death, you have to wonder why the mainstream media revealed this latest conspiratorial element in the first place.Media gatekeepers in television, print and radio will have a field day with this new controversial piece, all the while pushing and pulling the population into a particular corner and by the looks of it, that s already happening.Having said all of this however, there s still much to be concerned with regarding Scalia s highly suspicious death OBAMA NO-SHOW The funeral service for Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. Oddly, President Obama elected not to attend. (Photo link detroitnewstime)Big Questions RemainOver the years, Scalia s various political connections and political perspective on important issues earned him a controversial reputation.In 2014, Justice Scalia drew harsh criticism for his views on the CIA torture debate, when the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee released a report on the interrogation techniques used since the 9/11 attacks.Whether you agreed or disagreed with Scalia, it s important to note once again that the high court has several pending landmark cases on climate, abortion and immigration, all within weeks or months of his death.The NY Post s recent article entitled Scalia could have been poisoned: forensic pathologist, raised even more questions about the state of Scalia s body upon being discovered: Lethal poisoning could have left Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia s body in virtually the same condition in which it was found, a top forensic pathologist [Dr. Michael Baden] told The Post on Wednesday. For the time being, were left to wonder what other secrets lie in Cibolo Creek Ranch regarding the death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia READ MORE ELECTION NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire 2016 Files | 1real |
Judge blocks Indiana governor's order barring Syrian refugees | (Reuters) - A U.S. judge on Monday blocked Indiana Governor Mike Pence’s order barring state officials from helping Syrian refugees resettle in the state, saying it was discriminatory. Pence was among more than 25 U.S. governors, mostly Republicans, who called on President Barack Obama to stop resettling refugees fleeing Syria’s civil war after November attacks by militants in Paris that killed 130. Governors have cited concerns that some refugees could be associated with Islamic State, which claimed responsibility for the attacks. The suit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of Exodus Refugee Immigration Inc was among the first challenging governors’ moves to block resettlement. “The State’s conduct clearly discriminates against Syrian refugees based on their national origin,” U.S. District Judge Tanya Walton Pratt said in a ruling granting the preliminary injunction. She added that withholding federal grant money from Exodus did not advance Indiana officials’ assertions that they were barring refugees for safety reasons. Indiana Attorney General Greg Zoeller plans to appeal the decision and will seek a stay of Pratt’s order, a spokesman for the attorney general’s office said in a statement. The ACLU had contended that decisions on immigration and refugee resettlement were exclusively the province of the federal government and could not be dictated by state officials. Indiana had argued that Exodus, a nonprofit that gets federal money to resettle refugees, lacked standing to assert refugees’ rights. The U.S. State Department said in November that a refugee family that had been headed to Indiana was relocated to Connecticut, but did not specify the family’s country of origin. After the Paris attacks, the Obama administration stood by its pledge to admit some 10,000 refugees to the United States over the following year. Refugee advocates have noted that candidates for resettlement go through extensive background checks, taking up to two years, before reaching the United States. | 0fake |
Episode #126 – SUNDAY WIRE: ‘Déjà vu 1968!’ with guests Matthew Richer and Basil Valentine | Episode #126 of SUNDAY WIRE SHOW resumes this Sunday March 13, 2016 as host Patrick Henningsen broadcasts 3 HOURS of power-packed talk radio LIVE on ACR LISTEN LIVE ON THIS PAGE AT THE FOLLOWING SCHEDULED SHOW TIMES:SUNDAYS 5pm-8pm UK Time | 12pm-3pm ET (US) | 9am-12pm PT (US)This week s very special edition of THE SUNDAY WIRE is broadcasting LIVE with host Patrick Henningsen covering the top news stories internationally. In the first hour we cover America s wild 2016 primary election race and Donald Trump s 1968 moment which took place in Chicago this week, as well as the accelerating agenda in Libya. At the 30 min mark we ll feature this week s SHOUT! Poll on freedom of speech and assembly. In the second hour we re joined by writer Matthew Richer to discuss America s explosive Trump paradigm. In third hour we connect with Basil Valentine for a breakdown of US voter and election fraud, Germany s migrant crisis, Brexit and the coming summer of uncertainty. Is it 1968 all over again?SHOUT! POLL: SHOULD PROTESTERS BE ALLOWED TO SHUT DOWN POLITICAL RALLIES? VOTE HERE.Strap yourselves in and lower the blast shield this is your brave new world *NOTE: THIS EPISODE MAY CONTAIN STRONG LANGUAGE AND MATURE THEMES* // <![CDATA[ broadstreet.zone(46707); // ]]> | 1real |
ICYMI: SNL Skewers “Morning Joe” And It Is Hilarious | This week s cold open for Saturday Night Live featured a parody of the morning show, Morning Joe. The sketch featured Alex Moffat as host Joe Scarborough and Kate McKinnon as Mika Mika Brzezinski. The sketch also has Alec Baldwin as President Donald Trump, who calls into the show as John Miller, a spokesperson for the White House. Back in the day, Trump was known for calling reporters all over the New York area pretending to be his own publicist. He would call, not to tout his business successes but to brag about his sex life.The sketch also made fun of the relationship between the hosts. The pair got engaged recently when they were celebrating Mika s 50th birthday. The sketch shows the response from the other panelists on the show, Mark Halperin, Willie Geist and Mike Barnacle, who all have no idea how to respond to Joe and Mika s behavior on the set.Featured image via Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images. | 1real |
Tech investor Thiel to donate $1.25 million to Trump campaign | NEW YORK (Reuters) - Silicon Valley heavyweight Peter Thiel will give $1.25 million as his first donation in support of Donald Trump’s campaign after endorsing the U.S. Republican presidential candidate earlier this year, a spokesman for the investor said on Sunday. The donation will be made through a combination of political action committee donations and money directly to the campaign, the spokesman said. So far, billionaire Thiel has been the most prominent supporter of Trump from the country’s technology hub. The New York Times first reported news of Thiel’s donation. A co-founder of PayPal and an early investor in Facebook Inc who sits on that company’s board of directors, Thiel offered a full endorsement of Trump while speaking at the Republic National Convention in July. Thiel has not made any donations to the campaign of Trump’s opponent in the Nov. 8 election, Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, the spokesman said. | 0fake |
The Woman Who Might Find Us Another Earth - The New York Times | Like many astrophysicists, Sara Seager sometimes has a problem with her perception of scale. Knowing that there are hundreds of billions of galaxies, and that each might contain hundreds of billions of stars, can make the lives of astrophysicists and even those closest to them seem insignificant. Their work can also, paradoxically, bolster their sense of themselves. Believing that you alone might answer the question “Are we alone?” requires considerable ego. Astrophysicists are forever toggling between feelings of bigness and smallness, of hubris and humility, depending on whether they’re looking out or within. One perfect fall day, Seager boarded a train in Concord, Mass. on her way to her office at M. I. T. and realized she didn’t have her phone. She couldn’t seem to decide whether this was or wasn’t a big deal. Not having her phone would make the day tricky in some ways, because her sons, Max and Alex, had a soccer game after school, and she would need to coordinate a ride to watch them. She also wanted to be able to find and sit with her best friend, Melissa, who sometimes takes the same train to work. “She’s my best friend, but I know she has other best friends,” Seager said, wanting to make the nature of their relationship clear. She is an admirer of clarity. She also likes absolutes, spaces and time to think, but not too much time to think. She took out her laptop to see if she could email Melissa. The train’s was down. She would have to occupy herself on the commute alone. Seager’s office is on the 17th floor of M. I. T. ’s Green Building, the tallest building in Cambridge, its roof dotted with meteorological and radar equipment. She is a tenured professor of physics and of planetary science, certified a “genius” by the MacArthur Foundation in 2013. Her area of expertise is the relatively new field of exoplanets: planets that orbit stars other than our sun. More particular, she wants to find an Earthlike exoplanet — a rocky planet of reasonable mass that orbits its star within a temperate “Goldilocks zone” that is not too hot or too cold, which would allow water to remain liquid — and determine that there is life on it. That is as simple as her math gets. Her office is spare. There is a set of bookshelves — “Optics” and “Asteroids III” and “How to Build a Habitable Planet” — topped with a row of certificates and honors leaning against a chalkboard covered with equations. In addition to the MacArthur award, which doesn’t come with a certificate but with $625, 000, she is proudest of her election to the National Academy of Sciences. Although the line between lunacy and scientific fact is constantly shifting, the search for aliens still occupies the shadows of cranks, and Seager hears from them almost daily, or at least her assistant does. By the standards of her universe, Seager is famous. She is careful about the company she keeps and the words she chooses. She isn’t searching for aliens. She’s searching for exoplanets that show signs of life. She’s searching for a familiar blue dot in the sky. That means Seager, who is 45, has given herself a very difficult problem to solve, the problem that has always plagued astronomy, which, at its essence, is the study of light: Light wages war with itself. Light pollutes. Light blinds. Seager has a commanding view of downtown Boston from her office window. She can sweep her eyes, hazel and intense, all the way from the gold Capitol dome to Fenway Park. When Seager works at night and the Red Sox are in town, she sometimes has to close her curtains, because the ballpark’s white lights are so glaring. And on this morning, after the sun completed its rise, her enviable vista became unbearable. It was searing, and she had to draw her curtains. That’s how light can be the object of her passion and also her enemy. Little lights — exoplanets — are washed out by bigger lights — their stars — the way stars are washed out by our biggest light, the sun. Seager’s challenge is that she has dedicated her life to the search for the smallest lights. The vastness of space almost defies conventional measures of distance. Driving the speed limit to Alpha Centauri, the nearest star grouping to the sun, would take 50 million years or so our fastest current spacecraft would make the trip in a relatively brisk 73, 000 years. The star is six away. To rocket across our galaxy would take about 23, 000 times as long as a trip to Alpha Centauri, or 1. 7 billion years, and the Milky Way is just one of hundreds of billions of galaxies. The Hubble Space Telescope once searched a tiny fragment of the night sky, the size of a penny held at arm’s length, that was long thought by astronomers to be dark. It contained 3, 000 previously unseen points of light. Not 3, 000 new stars — 3, 000 new galaxies. And in all those galaxies, orbiting around some large percentage of each of their virtually countless stars: planets. Planets like Neptune, planets like Mercury, planets like Earth. As late as the 1990s, exoplanets remained a largely theoretical construct. Logic dictated that they must be out there, but proof of their existence remained as out of reach as they were. Some scientists dismissed efforts to find exoplanets as “stamp collecting,” a derogatory term within the community for hunting new, unreachable lights just to name them. (Even among astronomers, there can be too much stargazing.) It wasn’t until 1995 that the colossal 51 Pegasi b, the first widely recognized exoplanet orbiting a sunlike star, was found by a pair of Swiss astronomers using a spectrograph. The Swiss didn’t see 51 Pegasi b no one has. By using a complex mathematical method called radial velocity, they witnessed the planet’s gravitational effect on its star and deduced that it must be there. There has been an explosion of knowledge in the relatively short time since, in part because of Seager’s pioneering theoretical work in using light to study the composition of alien atmospheres. When starlight passes through a planet’s atmosphere, certain potentially gases, like oxygen, will block particular wavelengths of light. It’s a way of seeing something by looking for what’s not there. Light or its absence is also the root of something called the transit technique, a newer, more efficient way than radial velocity of finding exoplanets by looking at their stars. It treats light almost like music, something that can be sensed more accurately than it can be seen. The Kepler space telescope, launched in 2009 and now trailing 75 million miles behind Earth, detects exoplanets when they orbit between their stars and the telescope’s mirrors, making tiny but measurable partial eclipses. A planet the size of Jupiter passing in front of its sun might result in a 1 percent dip in the amount of starlight Kepler receives, a drop that, in time, reveals itself to be as regular as rhythm, as an orbit. The transit technique has led to a bonanza of finds. In May, NASA announced the validation of 1, 284 exoplanets, by far the largest single collection of new worlds yet. There are now 3, 414 confirmed exoplanets and an additional 4, 696 suspected ones, the count forever increasing. Before Kepler, the nature of the transit technique meant that most of those exoplanets were “Hot Jupiters,” giant balls of hydrogen and helium with short orbits, making them scalding, lifeless behemoths. But in April 2014, Kepler found its first exoplanet in its star’s habitable zone: . It’s about 10 percent larger than Earth and orbits on the outer reaches of where the temperature could allow life. No one knows the mass, composition or density of but its discovery remains a revelation. Kepler was searching, somewhat blindly, an impossibly small sliver of space, and it found a potentially habitable world more quickly than anyone might have guessed. In August, astronomers at the European Southern Observatory announced that they had detected a somewhat similar planet orbiting Proxima Centauri, the single star closest to us after the sun. They named it Proxima Centauri b. Studying the data, Seager supported the discovery and agreed that it might boast a — or at least — surface temperature. There are now nearly 300 confirmed exoplanets or candidates orbiting within the habitable zones of their stars. Extrapolating the math, NASA scientists now believe that there are tens of billions of potentially planets in the Milky Way alone. The odds practically guarantee that a habitable planet is somewhere out there and that someone or something else is, too. In some ways, the search for life is now where the search for exoplanets was 20 years ago: Common sense suggests a presence that we can’t confirm. Seager understands that we won’t know they’re out there until we more truly lay eyes on their home and see something that reminds us of ours. Maybe it’s the color blue maybe it’s clouds maybe, however many generations from now, it’s the orange electrical grids of alien cities, the black rectangles of their lightless Central Parks. But how could we ever begin to look that far? “Everything brave has to start somewhere,” Seager says. The beginning of her next potential breakthrough hangs on the wall opposite the window in her office. It is a scale model of a single petal of something called the starshade. She has been a leading proponent of the starshade project, and outside her teaching, it is one of her principal professional concerns. Imagine that aliens with our present technology were trying to find us. At best, they would see Jupiter. We would be lost in the sun’s glare. The same is true for our trying to see them. The starshade is a way to block the light from our theoretical twin’s sun, an idea floated in 1962 by Lyman Spitzer, who also laid the groundwork for space telescopes like Hubble. The starshade is a huge shield, about a hundred feet across. For practical reasons that have to do with the bending of light, but also lend it a certain cosmic beauty, the starshade is shaped exactly like a sunflower. By Seager’s hopeful reckoning, one day the starshade will be rocketed into space and unfurled, working in tandem with a new space telescope like the Wfirst, scheduled to launch in the . When the telescope is aimed at a particular planetary system, lasers will help align the starshade, floating more than 18, 000 miles away, between the telescope and the distant star, closing the curtains on it. With the big light extinguished, the little lights, including a potential Earthlike planet and everything it might represent, will become clear. We will see them. The trouble is that sometimes the simplest ideas are the most complicated to execute. About once a decade since Spitzer’s proposal — he could work out the math but not the mechanics — someone else has taken up the cause, advancing the starshade slightly closer to reality before technological or political inertia set in. Three years ago, Seager joined a new, study to try to overcome the final practical hurdles NASA then chose her from among her fellow committee members to lead the effort. After those decades of false starts, Seager and her team have already succeeded in making the starshade seem like a real possibility. NASA recognized it as a “technology project,” which is speak for “this might actually happen. ” Today the starshade is a piece of buildable, functional hardware. Seager packs that single petal into a battered black case and wheels it, along with a miniature model of the starshade, into classrooms and conferences and the halls of Congress, trying to find the momentum and hundreds of millions of dollars that allow impossible things to exist. “If I want the starshade to succeed, I have to help mastermind it,” Seager says. “The world sees me as the one who will find another Earth. ” She has her intelligence, and her credentials, and her audience. She has her focus. But maybe more than anything else, Seager understands in ways few of us do that sometimes you need darkness to see. Seager grew up in Toronto, wired in a way all her own. “Ever since I was a child, there was just something about me that wasn’t quite like the others,” she says. “Kids know how to sort through who’s the same and who’s different. ” After her parents divorced, her father, Dr. David Seager, achieved a certain fame by becoming one of the world’s leaders in hair transplants. The Seager Hair Transplant Center still operates and bears his name a decade after his death. David Seager was besotted with his bright daughter and wanted her to become a physician. Seager did her best to fit in. Sometimes she did mostly she didn’t. Eventually, she gave up trying. She still talks breathlessly — “without enough modulation,” she has learned by listening to other people talk. She has never had the patience to invest in something like watching TV. “Things just move too slowly,” she says. “It feels like a drag. ” She sleeps a lot, but that’s just a concession to her biology she recognizes that she’s a more efficient machine when she’s rested. But if Seager’s apartness didn’t make her insecure, it also made her feel as though the expectations of others didn’t apply to her. “I loved the stars,” she says. When she was 16, she bought a telescope. Friendless for most of her childhood, Seager eventually forged her way to her own vision of the good life. She found and married a quiet man named Mike Wevrick, whom she met on a ski trip with her canoe club. He had seen something in her that nobody other than her father fully saw he saw her as special as well as strange. Later, she graduated from Harvard, an early expert in exoplanets. (51 Pegasi b was discovered just when she was searching for a thesis topic. “I was born at the perfect time,” she says.) She and Wevrick had Max and Alex Seager was hired by M. I. T. and she and Wevrick and the boys moved into a pretty yellow Victorian in Concord, Mass. She took the train to work. Wevrick, a freelance editor, managed just about everything that didn’t involve the search for intelligent life in the universe. Seager never shopped for groceries or cooked or pumped gas. All she had to do was find another Earth. Then, in the fall of 2009, Wevrick got a stomachache that drove him to bed. They figured it was the flu. Wevrick didn’t have the flu, but a rare cancer of the small intestine. They were told that the initial prospects were good, and he fought the cancer sufferer’s systematic fight. But while laws govern astrophysics, cancer is an anarchist. About a year after Wevrick’s diagnosis, he and Seager went skiing, and he couldn’t keep up. A few more terrible months passed, and he began writing out a methodical list, practical advice for Seager after his death. It wasn’t a love letter it was an instruction manual for life on Earth. By June 2011, he was 47 and in home hospice. Seager asked him how to get the roof rack that carried his canoes off the car. “It’s too complicated to explain,” Wevrick said. That July, he died. The first couple of months after Wevrick’s death were weird. Seager felt a surprising sense of relief from the uncertainties of sickness, a kind of liberation. She didn’t care about conventions like money, which she had never needed to manage, and she took the boys on some epic trips. There are pictures of them smiling together in the deserts of New Mexico, on mountaintops in Hawaii. Then one day, she went into Boston for a haircut, got turned around and accidentally walked into a lawyer’s office next to the salon. Seager ended up talking to a woman inside. That woman was also a widow, and she told Seager that there would be a moment, as inevitable as death itself, when her feelings of release would be replaced by the more lasting aimlessness of the lost. Seager walked back outside, and just like that, the world came out from under her feet. She fell into an impossible blackness. Later that winter, she took the boys sledding at the big hill in Concord. Two other women and their children were there. Seager stared at them coldly. They were smiling and carefree with their perfect, blissful lives. Seager felt ugly and ruined next to them. Then Alex, who was 6 at the time, had a meltdown. He sprawled himself across the hill so that the other children couldn’t go down it. The two other mothers tried to get him to move. “He has a problem,” Seager told them. They continued to try to shift him. “HE HAS A PROBLEM,” Seager said. “MY HUSBAND DIED. ” “Mine, too,” one of the other women said. That was Melissa. A few weeks later, on Valentine’s Day, Seager was invited to her first gathering of the widows. Today, Melissa says she could detect the telltale “flintiness” of the recently bereaved the moment she saw Seager on the hill. Now there were six widows united in Concord, each each in a different stage of grief, drawn together by the peculiar pull of the unlucky. Three had been widowed by cancer, two by accidents — bicycling and hiking — and one by suicide. Melissa’s husband was four years gone, Seager’s seven months. Widowhood was like a new universe for Seager to explore. She had never understood many social norms. The celebration of birthdays, for instance. “I just don’t see the point,” she says. “Why would I want to celebrate my birthday? Why on earth would I even care?” She had also drawn a hard line against Christmas and its myths. “I never wanted my kids to believe in Santa. ” After Wevrick’s death, she became even more of a satellite, developing a deeper intolerance for life’s ordinary concerns. Making dinner seemed an insurmountable chore, the routine of school lunches a form of torture. The roof needed to be replaced, and she didn’t have the faintest idea how to get it fixed. She wasn’t sure how to swipe credit cards. If the answers to her questions weren’t somewhere on Wevrick’s three wrinkled sheets of paper, it could feel as though they were locked in a safe. There was a pendant light in her front hall, where the boys would fight with their toy lightsabers, and sometimes they would hit the light with their wild swings. Seager decided that either the light or one of the boys was going to end up damaged. She asked the widows how to do electrical work — “I have to parcel out things with logic and evidence,” she says — got out the ladder and took down the light, carefully wrapping black tape around the ends of the bare wires that now poked through the hole in the ceiling. She remembers thinking that her removing that light, all by herself, represented the height of her new accomplishment. She felt so reduced. She felt so gigantic. For all of her real and perceived strangeness, the most unusual thing about Seager is her blindness to her greatest gift. She is more than aware of her preternatural mathematical abilities, her possession of a rare mind that can see numbers and their functions as clearly as the rest of us see colors and shapes. “I’m good at that stuff,” she says with her brand of factual certainty that is sometimes confused with arrogance. She knows she is unusually capable of turning abstract concepts into things that can be packed into a case. What she doesn’t always see is her knack for connection between places if not always people, the unconventional grace she possesses when it comes to closing unfathomable distances. Seager has lined the hallway outside her office with a series of magical travel posters put out by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Each gives a glimpse of the alien worlds that, in part because of her, we now know exist. There’s a poster for an exoplanet that orbits a pair of stars, like Luke Skywalker’s home planet of Tatooine. is depicted with red grass and red leaves on its trees, because its star is cooler and redder than the sun, which might influence photosynthesis in ways. There’s even one for PSO J318. a rogue planet that doesn’t orbit a star but instead wanders across the galaxy, cast in perpetual darkness, swept by rain of molten iron. After the discovery of Proxima Centauri b, Seager wrote a galactic postcard from it for the website Quartz. She closed her eyes and imagined a world 25 trillion miles away. “For the average earthling,” she wrote, “visiting this planet might not be much fun. ” She saw a planet perhaps a third larger than Earth, with an orbit of only 11 days. Given its proximity to its small, red star, she suggested that the ultraviolet radiation on Proxima Centauri b is probably intense but the light . She also deduced that Proxima Centauri b is “tidally locked. ” Like the moon’s relationship to Earth, one side of the planet always faces its star, which is always in the same place in its sky. Parts of Proxima Centauri b are cast in perpetual sunrise or sunset. One side is always in darkness. At first, after Wevrick’s death, Seager thought about abandoning her work, because she was having such a hard time with her responsibilities at home. Her dean talked her out of quitting, giving her financial support to hire caregivers for the boys and urging her to redouble her efforts. “I had worked so hard,” she says. “I had all the years I called the lost years with Mike when I ignored him. We had little tiny kids. I was working all the time, exhausted all the time. But I was like: We’ll have money some day. We’ll have time some day. ” She paused. Her face was blank, emotionless. “Now I’ll cry. ” Seconds later, tears spilled out of her eyes, and her voice modulated. “I wanted to make it up to him, and I never did. ” Seager has always found comfort and perhaps even solace in her work, in her search for another and maybe better version of our world. In her mourning, each discovery represented one more avenue of escape. In the spring of 2013, she was given responsibility for the starshade. That July, she met a tall, man named Charles Darrow. Darrow, who is now 53, was an amateur astronomer and the president of the Toronto branch of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada, and at the last minute he decided to go to the society’s annual meeting in Thunder Bay, Ontario. Darrow was on his way out of a profoundly unhappy marriage he worked for his family business, an wholesaler. He needed a break, and he pointed his car north. “I wanted to be alone,” he says. At a reception on the Friday evening, Darrow noticed a woman staring at him from across the room. “I thought she was looking at someone behind me,” he says. Then he went into the lecture hall, and the same woman was that night’s keynote speaker. She talked about exoplanets. The next day, lunch was in a university cafeteria. The woman was in the salad line ahead of him, and she turned around. Darrow mustered up his courage and invited Sara Seager to join him. “I knew about five minutes into the conversation that my life was going to change,” he says. Seager was taken with Darrow the night she saw him in Thunder Bay. She had been struck by the contrast between the whiteness of his shirt and his tanned summer skin. But she didn’t have the same certainty that possessed him at their lunch the next day. She wasn’t sure how to develop a relationship across the 549 miles between her home in Concord and his home outside Toronto. She thought they might never cross paths again. They might not have, except Darrow resolved during his drive back home that he had to call her. He picked up the phone five times but always hung up before she answered. On the sixth, he spoke to her, beginning a long correspondence, emails and conversations over Skype. Darrow and Seager talked every way but face to face. They fell in love remotely. “I had to follow my heart,” Darrow says. “I decided that I wasn’t going to die unhappy. ” Melissa, meanwhile, told Seager that if she could close the gap between here and a planet like — a journey that would take us 500 to complete — then the 549 miles between Concord and Toronto shouldn’t seem like such an insurmountable gulf. By her usual measures, he was right next door. Seager and Darrow married in April 2015. In different ways, each had rescued the other. Seager was the cataclysm that allowed Darrow to make every correction. He divorced, left his family business and moved into a pretty yellow Victorian in Concord. The two boys started calling him dad. For Seager, Darrow was a second chance to know love, even deeper than the one she had known, because it seemed so improbable in her sadness. “I feel so lucky to have found him,” Seager says. “What are the chances?” Adapting to his new life hasn’t always been easy for Darrow. He is determined, as he puts it, “to make Sara the happiest woman in the multiverse. ” He cooks dinner he helps take care of the boys he maintains the house he walks with Seager to the train station every morning, and he picks her up every night. He has chosen to take care of the mundane so that she can devote herself to the extraordinary. But he banged his head more than once on Wevrick’s canoe, which still hung from the back of the garage. Not long ago, Darrow was looking for the right ways to assert his presence, to make a claim to a house that didn’t always feel like his. The wires dangling from the front hall ceiling bothered him. They looked bad and seemed dangerous. A few months after his arrival in Concord, he took his opening. He carved out some of the plaster, installed a plastic box, ran the wires through it and hooked up a new fixture, flush mounted, so that the boys wouldn’t hit it during their duels. Darrow climbed down from the ladder and flicked the switch. The morning after she forgot her phone, Seager woke up and decided, just like that, to skip the commute. With the house to herself, she tried to make coffee. She left out part of the machine, and after some terrible noises, the pot was bone dry. She sat down at her kitchen table with her empty mug and began talking about hundreds of billions of galaxies and their hundreds of billions of stars. Tens of billions of habitable planets, far more of them than there are people on Earth. There has to be other life somewhere out there. We can’t be that special. “It would be arrogant to think so,” Seager said. But in her lifetime, after the Wfirst telescope rockets into orbit, and maybe her starshade follows it — she puts the chances of success at 85 percent — she will have time to explore only the nearest hundred stars or so. A hundred stars out of all those lights in the sky, a fraction of a fraction of a fraction. Will one of them have a small, rocky planet like Earth? Probably. Will one of those small, rocky planets have liquid water on it? Possibly. Will the planet sustain life? Now the odds tilt. Now they are working against her, and she knows it. Now they’re maybe one in a million that she’ll find what she’s looking for. She did some private math. “I believe,” she said. Seager’s discovery will be if it comes, but it will also be quiet, a few pixels on a screen. It will obey the laws of physics. It will be a probability equation: What are the chances? We won’t discover that there is life on other planets the way we’ve been taught that we’ll learn. There won’t be some great mother ship descending from the sky over Johannesburg or a bizarre lightning storm that monsters will ride to New Jersey. What Seager will have is a photograph from a space telescope of a distant solar system, with its star eclipsed by her starshade, and with a familiar blue dot some safe and survivable distance away from it. That’s all the evidence she will have that we’re not alone, and that will be all the evidence she will need. Her proof of life will be a small light where there wasn’t one before. | 0fake |
6 Myths That Men Believe About Southeast Asia | I’ve been living in South East Asia for almost a decade now, and over that time I’ve come to have a matured perspective on living here and a fair appreciation of the pros and cons of doing so. Like most people who come here, I set off thinking I was going to live in paradise. That’s far from the reality, let me tell you!
Living in South East Asia has its pros and cons, just like anywhere else. While I myself have decided to return west for a while, I’ll always have a connection to Asia and I’m sure I’ll be back many times throughout my life.
So what’s the REAL story with living in Asia? Is it all its cracked up to be? What does a man have to be aware of when coming here? Let’s look at six common stereotypical ideas about living in South East Asia, and assess them in the light of reality.
1. Asian Women Are Kind, Gentle, And Compliant To Their Husbands So sweet! Not so fast….
This is, most definitely, a myth, and if you come out here expecting to find some little house pet who does your bidding, you’ll be in for a rude awakening.
It’s definitely true that Asian women, in my experience, are a lot more traditional. They give the man his place in the house, rarely question your final decisions, and do not resent housework and basic wifely duties.
However, the idea that they’ll just do whatever you tell them without question is nonsense. They’re human beings with a will of their own and you wouldn’t be the first guy to get a smack in the head from a five-foot-two broad who weighs 90 pounds if you disrespect her.
The idea that Asian women are some sort of angelic alternative to Western women is also nonsense. While it’s not the norm, I’ve met several Western men who have been taken to the cleaners by their Asian wives and girlfriends. When you move here, you’re completely at her mercy and you will never have any legal rights as a citizen.
Asian women generally are a lot more traditional, but this stereotype that they’re some sort of perfect wife material has got to go. They’re individuals—and there are all kinds, good and bad, among them.
Read this guide to dating Asian women for a more complete perspective on the issue. It’s a thorny subject, and there’s a lot of misunderstanding surrounding it.
2. Asia Is Ridiculously Cheap
This is one I’d have to lean slightly towards agreeing with.
Most things in Asia are a lot cheaper. Eating out for my entire family often costs less than $15, meaning I can afford to do it basically every day. My rent for a condo apartment costs less than $150 a month, although that’s mostly because I live in the sticks and am not in a major city.
A general rule of thumb is that outside of major cities like Bangkok, Singapore, and KL, you can divide the cost of living by three and get a rough estimate.
Note, this does not apply to consumer goods such as cars and electrical appliances, which are in and around the same price. It certainly does not apply to luxury goods, which are often much more expensive because of the taxes placed on them by local governments.
Asia is cheaper overall, but anything other than the basics costs roughly the same. Life in South East Asia CAN be cheaper, but it isn’t necessarily so—it depends on your lifestyle.
3. You Can Become A Citizen Of An Asian Country And Stay Forever Becoming a citizen in an Asian country is nigh on impossible. Even if you could, you probably wouldn’t want to.
You can get a variety of visas like permanent residency, and each country aims to facilitate the spouses of their nationals and, especially, retirees with proven cash in the bank. However, you’ll not become a CITIZEN with all of the various rights they enjoy.
It’s also worth noting: while you might get permanent residence, you’ll never be “one of them.” Even if you live here for 30 years, you will always be a foreigner and will be viewed as such by locals. This has pros and cons to it, but you’ll never quite feel at home and accepted as one of the group.
You’ll get undue respect from some for being a Westerner, but forget about talking politics or leveling criticisms at the way things are done—you’ll be met with hostility and resentment for the latter.
4. The Weather In Asia Is 24/7 Sunshine
The weather in South East Asia is generally pretty awesome, and you can live an outdoors life you’ll truly enjoy if you’re that type.
The sun shines almost every day, and even when it’s overcast it’s warm, meaning you can go out and about and do anything from walk on the beach to shop in the city.
However, when the storms come, you’d better be prepared to get your ass inside. The rainfall and wind in many countries in South East Asia is truly terrifying. Just switch on any news station the next time a major storm hits the Philippines and you’ll see what it’s like.
Thankfully, after 1.5 years of living in the Philippines , I’ve never been caught directly in a major storm, although I’ve seen the tail end of plenty of them.
The weather is good when it’s good, and utterly awful when it’s bad. Check this clip out to see how bad it can get:
5. Asia Is 100 Years Behind The West In Terms Of Development
This is a stereotype that’s deeply mistaken, and whether or not it’s true depends on which country you go to.
True, countries like Laos and Bangladesh are miles behind any Western nation, but head to Singapore and you’ll be shocked by how far ahead of us they are in terms of tech and development.
Asia is developing at breakneck pace, and with that development comes super highways, skytrains, skyscrapers and everything else we usually associate with an advanced country. It won’t be long before many countries out here catch up and surpass the West, although it is definitely true that most of them are slightly behind for now.
There’s a phenomenon called “leapfrogging” which virtually guarantees Asian countries will catch up to and surpass the West quickly. Leapfrogging is when they can skip all of the evolution and development and simply emulate modern day technology developed elsewhere—a great example is India, where they have skipped the transition from dial-up to mobie internet and gone straight from nothing to mobile.
If you think this can’t be done and there are intellectual property laws to protect tech from being stolen wholesale, I salute you, but I have to laugh. There are no such laws, and even if there were, nobody would bother to enforce them.
On the other hand, you still have many scenes like this outside your window when you get out of the main cities:
6. Asians Are Extremely Family Oriented Again, this is one I lean towards agreeing with. There are exceptions to every rule, but the family unit is extremely strong in Asia, especially countries like the Philippines.
I don’t want to wax lyrical or speculate as to why this is. It’s enough to acknowledge it as a fact and accept that it’s the case. 90% of the Asian people I have ever met and gotten to know from Indonesia to the Philippines to Thailand are devoted to their families to the extent that we’d consider it cult-like in most Western countries.
I pass no judgment on this whatsoever. It can be a great thing or a bad thing, depending on your own perspective. I personally like it and think it’s something we’ve lost in many European countries, and America, too.
This is an idea about Asia I agree with—the dedication to family above individuality is definitely true, and so by default if you get into a relationship with an Asian woman, be prepared for this.
The family unit is the sun around which everything orbits in most Asian countries.
Living In Asia Summary Sorry to disappoint you, fellas, but you won’t find paradise in South East Asia.
What you will find is a place with many opportunities, pitfalls, pros and cons, but which I do not regret living in for a single second and which has come to be a large part of my life’s story.
I came out for a year and stayed for almost a decade. However, I’ve decided that time is now over and it’s time to go home.
I’d love to hear about your experiences living or traveling in Asia. Do you find my perceptions to be accurate, or do you have a different view?
Read More: Why Western Men Prefer Foreign Women Over Their Own
| 1real |
October 28: Daily Contrarian Reads | October 28: Daily Contrarian Reads By David Stockman. Posted On Friday, October 28th, 2016 My daily contrarian reads for Friday, October 28th. You need to login to view this content.
David Stockman’s Contra Corner isn’t your typical financial tipsheet. Instead it’s an ongoing dialogue about what’s really happening in the markets… the economy… and governments… so you can understand the world around you and make better decisions for yourself.
David believes the world -- certainly the United States -- is at a great inflection point in human history. The massive credit inflation of the last three decades has reached its apogee and is now going to splatter spectacularly.
This will have lasting ramifications on how governments tax and regulate you… the type of work you and your family members will have available and what you get paid… the value of your nest egg… and all other areas comprising your quality of life. Login
David Stockman's Contra Corner is the only place where mainstream delusions and cant about the Warfare State, the Bailout State, Bubble Finance and Beltway Banditry are ripped, refuted and rebuked. Subscribe now to receive David Stockman’s latest posts by email each day as well as his model portfolio, Lee Adler’s Daily Data Dive and David’s personally curated insights and analysis from leading contrarian thinkers. | 1real |
McDonald’s Brings Conservatives’ Nightmares To Life With New Ad That Has Them Fuming (VIDEO/TWEETS) | Over the past few months, McDonalds has been a target for protests in favor of the fast food franchise raising its minimum hourly wage. Now, the company has once again angered the public but for a much more noble cause.This time, McDonald s is taking hits from anti-gay religious groups that are absolutely fuming after McDonald s Taiwan posted an LGBT-friendly advertisement for McCafe onto its Facebook page.The ad, which features a young man coming out to his father, is 90 seconds of pure emotion, capturing a moment that is extremely scary and heart-wrenching for many LGBT youth and adults. In the ad, the young man passes a coffee cup to his father that says, I like boys. The father gets upset and jumps up from the table, leaving his son alone and fighting back tears. A few seconds later the father returns, picks up the same cup of coffee and writes on it I accept that you like boys, as translated by the Shanghaiist.Watch the subtitled ad called Acceptance below:The ad touched the hearts of many and went viral, with over 3.6 million views, more than 92,000 likes and thousands of shares. Unfortunately, not everyone enjoyed or appreciated the ad s accepting and equality-driven message. Chang Shou-yi, the secretary general of the Alliance of Taiwan Religious Groups for the Protection of Family, is actually calling for a boycott on the restaurant after seeing the ad. Shou-yi said: Because McDonald s is frequented by many children, it is especially important to oppose the promotion of same-sex behavior. The secretary general added that the religious group rebukes and boycotts all enterprises that are polluting the next generation. Now, even if you want to just take a leak at a McDonald s bathroom, you can t help but feel polluted. But regardless of the backlash against the ad, the social media response has been extremely supportive:TwitterFacebookIf religious groups want to keep opposing businesses that support LGBT rights, they re going to have very limited places to do business with it s a list that keeps getting shorter as the world moves further away from bigotry and the hateful conservative rhetoric. Even Chick-fil-A, a brand that infamously boasted its opposition to gay marriage, has a franchisee that donated food to a gay pride picnic last year. The religious right is seriously running out of places where their bigotry is welcome.Featured image via video screen capture | 1real |
Planned changes to criminal code in Romania seen as weakening anti-graft fight | BUCHAREST (Reuters) - A fresh row over judicial changes in Romania broke out on Thursday with prosecutors and the political opposition warning that proposed amendments to the criminal code would weaken the fight against corruption and other crimes. A parliamentary commission will start next Monday to debate the changes which have been introduced by the ruling Social Democrats. Under the proposals, prosecutors will have to tell potential suspects they are about to be investigated and restrict the types of evidence prosecutors can use to prove cases. Temporary 30-day arrest warrants, much used by police and prosecutors in corruption cases, might be scrapped. Prosecutors may also be restricted from drawing on wiretaps, street camera footage and digital evidence. They could also be forbidden from publicly disclosing the names of suspects until their cases effectively go to trial. Another proposed change would have witnesses give testimony in the presence of the accused - something which could prove to be an ordeal for a victim of human trafficking, for example. Romania s anti-corruption prosecution unit (DNA) has sent 72 deputies and senators to trial since 2006 alongside cabinet ministers, a sitting Prime Minister and hundreds of mayors and other public officials. Transparency International ranks Romania among the European Union s most corrupt states though Brussels, which has Romania s justice system under special monitoring, has praised magistrates for their efforts to curb graft. Prosecutors said the changes, if they went through, would seriously hinder the fight for law and order. Approving these changes will limit prosecutors ability to carry out their activities as well as exercising their constitutional role of representing society s general interest and defending the rule of law and citizens rights, the prosecutor general s office said in a statement. These changes could have a devastating impact on criminal investigations because they eliminate the indispensable legal instruments needed to investigate, the DNA said in a statement. While the Social Democrats have said the changes are needed to bring legislation in line with an EU directive, the Commission has criticized the proposed overhaul. The Social Democrats have already used their solid majority to approve a judicial overhaul in the lower house that threatens to put the justice system under political control. The senate, which has the final say, is expected to approve the bills next week. The proposed reforms have been criticized by the European Commission, the U.S. State Department, thousands of magistrates and centrist President Klaus Iohannis. Thousands of Romanians staged protests against them in recent weeks but the coalition has so far shrugged them off. | 0fake |
Trump (finally) Plays Antiwar Card (a little) | License DMCA
I woke up yesterday (Thursday) to a small but somewhat encouraging snippet on page 19 of my local (German) paper headlined "Trump: Clinton Risking World War," referring to Trump's remarks on Tuesday in a Reuters interview that was headlined "Trump says Clinton policy on Syria would lead to World War Three."
The five-sentence German article ended with this: "Critics noted that such [no-fly zones as proposed by Clinton] might have to be enforced militarily." This was apparently (back-translating from the German) a translation of "Some analysts fear that protecting those zones could bring the United States into direct conflict with Russian fighter jets" (Reuters).
The Reuters article goes on to say: "Clinton's campaign dismissed the criticism, noting that both Republican and Democratic national security experts have denounced Trump as unfit to be commander-in-chief.""'Once again, he is parroting Putin's talking points and playing to Americans' fears, all while refusing to lay out any plans of his own for defeating ISIS or alleviating humanitarian suffering in Syria,' Clinton spokesman Jesse Lehrich said in a statement."
The New York Times and other mainstream outlets reported similarly. I suppose this is considered "balanced" coverage -- as if what Lehrich or "Clinton's campaign" said was a substantive response to what Trump has finally said clearly and should be obvious. To their credit, the BBC did add (at the end of a 21-sentence article) that Trump "echoes concerns raised last month at a congressional hearing by the highest-ranking military officer in the US armed forces."
"Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford told lawmakers a 'no-fly zone' in Syria could spell war with Russia. 'Right now, senator, for us to control all of the airspace in Syria it would require us to go to war, against Syria and Russia,' Gen. Dunford told the Senate Arms Services Committee." - Advertisement -
At this point, just days before the election, it is probably too late, but it would be Trump's last opportunity to appear statesmanlike, and also save the planet from the catastrophic military adventurism that Clinton seems bound to embark on if she becomes commander-in-chief. At the least it would be a chance to ratchet up popular protest against the warmongering that has driven virtually all U.S. foreign policy since WWII, and is now taking us (and by "us" I mean the world) directly toward the precipice of WWIII.
"Stop demonizing Russia; work with them, not against them." This is the message that needs to be shouted from the rooftops, and surely Trump has access to experts like Stephen Cohen, Ray McGovern, Robert Parry and others who can help him do so. He should be able to easily "trump" the empty arguments of the bellicose Russia-bashers, even if the latter are aligned across party lines against him -- and against us, since the war they are pushing for will be global. How stupid does one have to be to propose "no-fly zones" when the highest military officer in the country says it would result in war with Russia? How stupid does one have to be to believe that Putin is "Hitler," that Russia shot down MH17 and is guilty of "aggression" on the eastern European borders, in Ukraine, and in Syria, without ever questioning the "evidence" for any of these assertions, much less the equally problematic role the U.S. has played in every case? Yet this is the mainstream narrative, repeated uniformly and relentlessly at every turn.
Trump is obviously not the best candidate in this race (Jill Stein is), but he is right on this most important issue of relations with Russia, which should have been the No. 1 issue from the beginning. So there is still a slight chance that Trump (and Stein also!) can at least go down with a (non-nuclear!) bang, not a whimper -- by giving peace, and reason, a chance. We should all hope that happens. - Advertisement - | 1real |
Puerto Rico's fiscal challenges not over: governor | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Puerto Rico, the U.S. commonwealth that recently declared a historic default, could be shut out of debt markets for two more years as it battles with fiscal challenges, the island’s governor said on Tuesday. Governor Alejandro Garcia Padilla said emergency fiscal measures in response to a $70 billion debt were not sustainable and that “Puerto Rico will not endure any more austerity.” He said a new law enacted by Washington allowing the federal government to appoint a control board would undercut self-government, but added it would help the island confront its fiscal problems. “Our challenges are not over and prosperity will not return overnight,” the governor said during a discussion at the Brookings Institution, a think tank in Washington. “It will take maybe two years until the market opens back to Puerto Rico if we do the right thing,” Garcia Padilla said, adding the government had been producing fiscally sound budgets that would help win back creditors. The island has been shut out of debt markets for about a year. Citing falling debt levels, he said it was a “moment of opportunity” in Puerto Rico, which has struggled with high debt loads and a weak economy for years. Puerto Rico defaulted on $779 million of constitutionally backed debt on July 1, among its most senior bonds, opting to pay for essential services for its citizens over obligations to creditors. Garcia Padilla said the Puerto Rican government would take steps on its own to get its fiscal affairs in order, therefore minimizing meddling by the oversight board. For example, he said that if the island’s government passed responsible budgets on its own, the control board would not need to impose its own fiscal plans. Garcia Padilla said, however, that while the government must become more efficient to improve its fiscal situation, that should be done through attrition rather than laying off workers. Asked by a reporter about steps that could be taken to shore up the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority, or PREPA, and the Puerto Rico Aqueduct and Sewer Authority, or PRASA, Garcia Padilla said: “PREPA is pretty advanced. We’ll be able to reduce a lot the debt related to PREPA. We want to do the same with PRASA. I think we’ll be able to do it.” | 0fake |
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