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More Older People Are Finding Work, but What Kind? - The New York Times | The rules of the job market aren’t the same for older workers. As men and women 55 and older looking for employment probably suspect, at a certain point the kinds of jobs available to them narrow significantly. New research by Matthew Rutledge, an economist at the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College, found that they are increasingly being funneled into what he describes as “ ” jobs. And not surprisingly, older workers with the least education have the narrowest set of opportunities, though Mr. Rutledge found this effect was small. It turns out that “ ” jobs are a mix of service work (like managers, sales supervisors and accountants) and service work (like truck drivers, janitors and nursing aides). Absent from the top of the list are jobs calling for a fair amount of physical labor. Jobs in farming, manufacturing and repair represent less than a quarter of all new hires in this age bracket. Manufacturing employment has been in steep decline for over 20 years, but even within this shrinking sector, older workers are less likely to be hired for manufacturing jobs than their younger peers. For example, men and women age 55 to 64 are 25 percent less likely to get machine operator jobs and 58 percent less likely to get metal worker jobs. Instead, older workers are finding employment in service jobs. They are 65 percent more likely to find work in child care, 93 percent more likely to work as cabdrivers and twice as likely to find work in retail. Mr. Rutledge found that job losses among this group were greatest for jobs like machinists and clerks. Mr. Rutledge also looked for patterns in jobs that favor the older worker. Using a database that classifies each job based on the kinds of skills it requires, Mr. Rutledge found that jobs held in greater proportion by older workers tended to require higher levels of dependability and outdoor work and lower levels of active learning, numerical ability and physical skills. So, other things being equal, they are at a disadvantage for engineering jobs, but did better in real estate sales or property management. He also found that over all, these jobs tended to pay less. Jobs that favor older workers tend to pay 6 to 11 percent less than jobs that favor younger workers, mostly because these jobs call for less skill. But despite such obstacles, older people haven’t stopped turning up to work. What’s also important to remember is that the older workers in this employment data are the winners in the labor market: They’re the ones who managed to find work. The truth is that many older workers don’t. Using a longitudinal survey of households and individuals from the census, Richard Johnson, a senior fellow at the Urban Institute, found that, between 2008 and 2012, workers age 62 and older with a college degree had less than a 50 percent chance of finding work even after two years of actively looking. For the same age group without a college degree, the chances fell to 35 percent. The participation rates of baby boomers would be expected to drop as a natural consequence of aging. And this is happening. However, partly because of the Great Recession, older people have entered the work force in greater numbers than in the past. Gary Burtless, an economist at the Brookings Institution, found that between 2007 and 2014, the largest growth in the labor force among all age groups was 62 to 64 men’s participation grew 2. 9 percent, and women’s grew 4. 5 percent. This is in marked contrast to a mysterious decline in the labor force participation rate by prime age workers. There are several reasons you might see more older workers in the labor force today compared with previous generations. Fewer have pensions. Many had their finances severely damaged during the recession. People are living longer and healthier lives, and work is less physically demanding than it used to be. Additionally, the extension of unemployment benefits created an incentive for people who otherwise would have retired to continue looking for work. But still: fewer choices, lower pay, more rejections. Are these signs of age discrimination? Using a method of uncovering discrimination well known in economics, David Neumark, an economist at the University of California at Irvine, led a study that sent out 40, 000 fake résumés to employers who had posted openings. Mr. Neumark and his found that résumés suggesting an applicant was 64 to 66 years old got a response 35 percent less often than résumés suggesting that the applicant was 29 to 31. Labeling it discrimination is another matter, however. “The one thing that people always point out is that acceptability for age stereotyping is extremely high,” Mr. Neumark said. “The number of people who make jokes are way more frequent than people who make jokes. For whatever reason, the social stigma for age discrimination is really weak. ” Aside from fairness, evidence suggests that finding ways to keep older Americans working has benefits to the broader society: Working keeps older Americans happier, healthier and more mentally engaged. And forestalling retirement could relieve some of the pressure a large aging population places on this country’s social safety net. “Governments all over the world are trying to figure how to get old people to stay at work longer,” Mr. Neumark said. “If we have discriminatory barriers, then all these reforms will be less effective.“ | 0fake |
Outside campaign groups lag U.S. presidential candidates in spending | DES MOINES, Iowa (Reuters) - In 2015, it wasn’t the new breed of political groups that can raise as much as billionaires will give them that spent the most on the U.S. presidential race. Rather, it was candidates’ campaign organizations, with strict fundraising caps, that led the way, Federal Election Commission filings released on Sunday showed. Official campaigns, which can accept donations of only up to $2,700 from individuals for the primary races, spent $322 million in 2015, the filings showed. By contrast, Super PACs, which came into being after a controversial Supreme Court ruling in 2010 and can raise and spend unlimited amounts, spent under $200 million on the effort to elect the next president. Super PACs usually spend heavily on political advertising, but are barred from sharing strategy plans or even schedules with the candidates they support. Much of the money raised by official campaigns has to fund travel and accommodation costs, but they also spent heavily on advertising in 2015, perhaps in part because they are generally entitled to much cheaper television rates. Among the presidential candidates, U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders, a Democrat from Vermont, spent at least $10 million on advertising in the last three months of the year. His rival, former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, spent at least $8 million. On the Republican side, U.S. Senator Marco Rubio spent the most on television ads, at $8 million, followed by retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson at $3 million. Even when it comes to fundraising, campaigns are leading the way, bringing in $449 million in 2015 against $341 million for the Super PACs. Whether this pattern will hold in 2016 is unclear. Super PACs had $158 million in hand to spend in the coming months, while the campaigns collectively had $128 million. (Editing by Kevin Liffey) SAP is the sponsor of this coverage which is independently produced by the staff of Reuters News Agency. | 0fake |
President Obama Weighs His Economic Legacy - The New York Times | Two months ago, across an table in a factory in Jacksonville, Fla. President Barack Obama was talking to me about the problem of political capital. His efforts to rebuild the U. S. economy from the 2008 financial crisis were being hit from left, right and center. And yet, by his own assessment, those efforts were vastly underappreciated. “I actually compare our economic performance to how, historically, countries that have wrenching financial crises perform,” he said. “By that measure, we probably managed this better than any large economy on Earth in modern history. ” It was a notably grand claim, especially given the tenor in which presidential candidates of both parties had taken to criticizing the state of the American economy — “Many are still barely getting by,” Hillary Clinton said, while Donald Trump said that “we’re a nation. ” Asked if he was frustrated by all the criticism, Obama insisted that he wasn’t, at least not personally. “It has frustrated me only insofar as it has shaped the political debate,” he said. “We were moving so fast early on that we couldn’t take victory laps. We couldn’t explain everything we were doing. I mean, one day we’re saving the banks the next day we’re saving the auto industry the next day we’re trying to see whether we can have some impact on the housing market. ” The result, he said, was that he lacked the political capital to do more. As his presidency nears its end, this has become an increasingly common refrain from Obama, who, despite his prodigious skills as an orator, has come to seem more confident about his achievements than about his ability to promote them. “I mean, the truth of the matter is that if we had been able to more effectively communicate all the steps we had taken to the swing voter,” he said, “then we might have maintained a majority in the House or the Senate. ” The president had come to this factory, built by Saft America for the manufacture of batteries, for a kind of belated victory lap. One of Obama’s first major acts as president was to sign the American Recovery and Re investment Act, and some of the money in that bill went to Saft. Now batteries were rolling off the line, and Obama had stopped by to shine the national spotlight on how far we had come since the financial crisis. But the president did seem frustrated. As he tried to sum up his economic legacy in Florida, our discussion stretched to twice as long as planned, seemingly to the consternation of the Secret Service. When we got back on Air Force One, he sent an aide to ask if we could continue the conversation when I joined him again, he looked as if he’d been stewing over something. He quickly returned to the topic of public perception. “If you ask the average person on the streets, ‘Have deficits gone down or up under Obama?’ probably 70 percent would say they’ve gone up,” Obama said, with some justifiable exasperation — the deficit has in fact declined (by roughly ) since he took office, and polls do show that a large majority of Americans believe the opposite. Obama is animated by a sense that, looking at the world around him, the U. S. economy is in much better shape than the public appreciates, especially when measured against the depths of the financial crisis and the possibility — now rarely even considered — that things could have been much, much worse. Over a series of conversations in the Oval Office, on Air Force One and in Florida, Obama analyzed, sometimes with startling frankness, nearly every element of his economic agenda since he came into office. His economy has certainly come further than most people recognize. The private sector has added jobs for 73 consecutive months — some 14. 4 million new jobs in all — the longest period of sustained job growth on record. Unemployment, which peaked at 10 percent the year Obama took office, the highest it had been since 1983, under Ronald Reagan, is now 5 percent, lower than when Reagan left office. The budget deficit has fallen by roughly $1 trillion during his two terms. And overall U. S. economic growth has significantly outpaced that of every other advanced nation. Gene Sperling, the former director of the National Economic Council who spent hours inside the Oval Office debating and devising the president’s economic strategy, told me, “If we were back in early 2009 — when we were coming to work every morning with clenched stomachs, with the economy losing 800, 000 jobs a month and the Dow under 7, 000 — and someone said that by your last year in office, unemployment would be 5 percent, the deficit would be under 3 percent, AIG would have turned a profit and we made all our money back on the banks, that would’ve been beyond anybody’s wildest expectations. ” There are, of course, many reasons so few Americans seem to be celebrating. “How people feel about the economy,” Obama told me, giving one part of his own theory, is influenced by “what they hear. ” He went on: “And if you have a political party — in this case, the Republicans — that denies any progress and is constantly channeling to their base, which is sizable, say, 40 percent of the population, that things are terrible all the time, then people will start absorbing that. ” But as Obama also acknowledged, the public anger about the economy is not without empirical basis. A large swath of the nation has dropped out of the labor force completely, and the reality for the average American family is that its household income is $4, 000 less than it was when Bill Clinton left office. Economic inequality, meanwhile, has only grown worse, with the top 1 percent of American households taking in more than half of the recent gains in income growth. “Millions and millions and millions and millions of people look at that pretty picture of America he painted and they cannot find themselves in it to save their lives,” Clinton himself said of Obama’s economy in March, while on the campaign trail for his wife. “People are upset, frankly they’re they’re disoriented, because they don’t see themselves in that picture. ” It is this disconnect that haunts Obama. He has, by his own lights, managed the recovery as well as any president ever could, with results that in many cases exceeded his own best hopes. But despite the gains of the past seven years, many Americans have been left behind. Something has changed, and as he prepares to leave office, Obama seems to understand that his economic legacy might be judged not just by what he has done, but by how the results compare to a bygone era of opportunity, one that perhaps no president, faced with the sweeping changes transforming the global economy, could ever bring back. The economic meltdown that would define every aspect of Obama’s economy came to a head well before he became president, of course, and so did the legislation that would be the basis for everything that came after. In September 2008 — as Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy and AIG, the world’s biggest insurance company, accepted a federal bailout — Senator John McCain of Arizona, in what was widely viewed as a political move, suspended his presidential campaign and called on Obama to rush back to Washington for a bipartisan meeting at the White House. Obama recalled the moment: “I still remember Bush calling me and saying, ‘Look, I doubt this is going to be particularly useful, but I felt obliged to say yes, and I hope you can come. ’’u2009” The next day Obama found himself in the Cabinet Room just down the hall from the Oval Office, along with McCain and congressional leaders from both parties. Henry M. Paulson Jr. the Treasury secretary, was developing a bank bailout by which the Treasury would buy up to $700 billion in shaky securities — “troubled assets” — a plan that eventually became the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP. He needed votes, and Republicans weren’t going for it. Nobody wanted to be seen as a friend of the banks. “We’re sitting around a table, McCain is on one side, I’m on the other, Bernanke and Paulson and President Bush,” Obama recalled. “Paulson says, ‘If we don’t take action now, we could go into a free fall.’ And given how bad the politics were, it was still very tempting for Nancy and Harry” — that is, the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, and the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid — “to let the Republicans do what they needed to do. ” Many within Bush’s own party were supporting an alternative bill that was focused on asset insurance and tax cuts. But Obama, convinced that anything short of a major bailout could lead to economic catastrophe, said Democrats should back Paulson’s plan. They did. It was a rare moment of bipartisanship, with political consequences. To Obama, this was a necessary alliance with Wall Street and a Republican president. To many others, it looked like a sweetheart deal for the same people who created the mess some critics wondered why he was not equally quick to help aggrieved homeowners through an aggressive or forgiveness program. “The whole thing about financial crises is the tools that work are the ones that will make you look like you’re in bed with the banks,” said Timothy Geithner, an architect of TARP whom Obama made his Treasury secretary. The strange relationship with Wall Street made the next part of Obama’s program extremely complicated. When Obama took office, he turned immediately to trying to pass a stimulus package. If TARP was meant to keep the economy out of free fall, the stimulus was meant to help it get back into good shape. The crucial questions was: How much money was needed? Many argue today that Obama’s $800 billion plan, the one that eventually became law, was not enough. With a bigger boost, the economy would have recovered much more quickly and years of needless suffering could have been allayed. In truth, of course, the political headwinds against stimulus were extraordinary. Republicans dismissed it as an irresponsible shopping spree that would leave the country in even greater debt. Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, the minority leader in the House, physically threw the bill on the ground, arguing that it was “nothing more than spending, spending and more spending. ” But Democrats, led by the “deficit hawk” wing of the party, also fought against anything too ambitious, and Obama, still in the first month of his presidency, was left in the position of negotiating with his own party, such that he was just barely able to get the $800 billion on a straight vote. At first, the results of the stimulus were just as feeble as a stalwart Keynesian might predict. The economy needed a big injection, but it got only a one, so it continued to falter. A January 2009 report from the president’s Council of Economic Advisers projected that the stimulus would keep unemployment below 8 percent. Instead, it climbed to 10 percent in 2009 and only fell back below 8 percent in 2012, leading to criticism that the stimulus was ineffective. Obama’s critics regularly trot out the talking point that Obama’s economy is “the worst recovery since World War II. ” Judged solely by the growth of gross domestic product, that is accurate. But Kenneth Rogoff, a Harvard economics professor and of “This Time Is Different,” a history of financial crises, scoffed when I mentioned the “worst recovery” epithet. “Well, have we had a systemic financial crisis since World War II?” he asked rhetorically. “I mean this was like nothing we’ve experienced since World War II. The 1982 Volcker recession was nothing compared to this, and so you have to look at the nature of the shock. ” Obama, though, was unable or unwilling to rhetorically underscore the severity of the crisis as it unfolded, so perhaps what should have been seen as successes were seen as failures. “It was a delicate balance throughout 2009 and 2010 to be straight with the American people about the depths of the problem, how close we were to disaster, without scaring the heck out of them,” Obama said. Beyond the messaging challenge, Obama faced a practical bind as well: Just as he was trying to reinflate the economy, he was also being forced to cut government jobs, under pressure from Republicans who contended that government bloat and the cost of it could create our next financial crisis. Call it an . “This is the first recovery where you actually saw the government work force decline, and that created this massive fiscal drag throughout the recovery,” Obama said. Despite all this, over the course of his presidency, Obama has actually been able to oversee a much larger stimulus than has been typically reported. If you add up all of his administration’s classic stimulus measures, including the many tax breaks the administration extended, you get $1. 4 trillion, a figure that is nearly twice the original figure. The then, was counteracted by a stealth stimulus. “Progressives don’t fully appreciate the degree to which the 2011 budget deal not only averted a potential default but actually limited the potential damage of a newly emboldened Congress in imposing austerity on a recovery,” Obama said. “And by me winning in 2012 and getting the Bush tax cuts for the upper 2 percent repealed, we ended up getting a grand bargain. It’s just we got it sequentially instead of all at once. ” When I asked Barney Frank about how history will judge the recovery, he was simultaneously rueful and amused. As chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, Frank was one of the major legislative architects of Obama’s economic program. “You get no credit for disaster averted or damage minimized,” Frank said. By way of illustration, he described a bumper sticker that a friend made him in 2010, with a slogan that could have worked just as well for Obama: “Things would have sucked worse without me. ” Frank, with a halfhearted laugh, added, “That’s not a very salable message. ” Often in our conversations, the president expressed a surprising degree of identification with America’s business leaders. “If I hadn’t gone into politics and public service,” Obama told me, “the challenges of creating a business and growing a business and making it work would probably be the thing that was most interesting to me. ” His showy embrace of capitalism was especially notable given his fractious relationship with Wall Street and the business community for much of his first term. In December 2009, Obama was not reluctant to chastise bankers. “I did not run for office to be helping out a bunch of bankers on Wall Street,” he told Steve Kroft on “60 Minutes. ” “The people on Wall Street still don’t get it. They don’t get it. They’re still puzzled, ‘Why is it that people are mad at the banks? ’’u2009” Given the national mood at the time, Obama’s words shouldn’t have come as a surprise to the business leaders. But the financial sector had buoyed Obama’s campaign, giving him $16 million in political support, nearly twice what McCain received from it, and some executives responded to his new populism in emotional terms. “It’s a war,” Stephen Schwarzman, a of Blackstone Group, the giant firm, said of Obama in 2010 and his effort to close a tax loophole that benefited the industry. “It’s like when Hitler invaded Poland in 1939. ” (Schwarzman later apologized.) Others seemed more concerned with the language itself. In 2011, Leon Cooperman, a billionaire manager, wrote a public letter to Obama, saying: “The divisive, polarizing tone of your rhetoric is cleaving a widening gulf, at this point as much visceral as philosophical, between the downtrodden and those best positioned to help them. It is a gulf that is at once counterproductive and freighted with dangerous historical precedents. ” When I asked him about these reactions, Obama laughed. The criticism he leveled at Wall Street “was extraordinarily mild,” he said, but “it hurt their feelings. I would have some of them say to me, ‘You know, my son came home and asked me, ‘Am I a fat cat? ’’u2009” He laughed again. Obama’s rhetoric does seem mild, at least compared with the withering contempt of, say, Franklin Roosevelt, who, laying out the objectives for the second stage of the New Deal in 1936, said that reckless bankers and speculators are “unanimous in their hate for me — and I welcome their hatred. ” Obama, to the contrary, seems to find their hatred irritating. “One of the constants that I’ve had to deal with over the last few years is folks on Wall Street complaining even as the stock market went from in the 6, 000s to 16, 000 or 17, 000,” he said. “They’d be constantly complaining about our economic policies. That’s not rooted in anything they’re experiencing it has to do with ideology and their aggravations about higher taxes. ” Wall Street’s biggest fight with Obama was over the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, which Obama signed into law in the summer of 2010. The legislation, which runs to 2, 223 pages, limited Wall Street’s riskiest trading schemes, established the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and created a system to wind down failing banks without bailouts and break up banks that don’t comply. Like the stimulus, has been seen as both going too far and not far enough. Some economists have suggested that the reform package, combined with the Federal Reserve’s efforts to force the banks to hold more capital, most likely slowed lending and potentially economic growth in the short term. The new rules may have been sensible in the aftermath of the crisis, but they did take an economic toll. “Growth requires access to capital to finance investments in plant, equipment, technology, and workers,” said Douglas a former director of the Congressional Budget Office who now runs American Action Forum, a research group. “ made capital scarcer and more expensive at a time when the weak economy desperately needed a boost to growth. ” estimated in 2015 that the regulations would shave $895 billion off gross domestic product over the next decade. Obama sees the legislation in more complicated terms. He said that he liked the film “The Big Short” — a vivid portrayal of the 2008 crisis with a special emphasis on the avarice of its main architects — but not its ending. It suggests, wrongly, he said, that nothing has changed on Wall Street. The financial sector “is bigger, absorbs more resources and maybe most importantly, more talent than I would like to see. I would like folks who are really good at math to be going into engineering and the sciences more than they’re going into trying to build algorithms to beat the market and to work arbitrage,” he said. “But there is no doubt that the financial system is substantially more stable,” he said. “It is true that we have not dismantled the financial system, and in that sense, Bernie Sanders’s critique is correct” — a reference to the Vermont senator and presidential aspirant who regularly calls to break up America’s biggest banks. “But one of the things that I’ve consistently tried to remind myself during the course of my presidency is that the economy is not an abstraction. It’s not something that you can just redesign and break up and put back together again without consequences. ” The Saft America plant, a giant mass of concrete, is a modern marvel: its roof covered in row upon row of solar panels, embodying the renewable future that the batteries manufactured within are meant to sustain. (The main customer for the batteries was originally meant to be manufacturers, but the company is now selling mostly to utilities who want to store solar and wind energy.) Obama spoke from a makeshift stage set up at the center of the factory floor, an American flag and a Saft logo perfectly positioned behind him to catch the sight lines of the photographers. “The reason I’m here today is because Saft is telling a story about the amazing work that people all across this country have done to bring America back from one of the worst financial crises in our history,” Obama said, surveying the crowd. He added: “Anybody who says we are not absolutely better off today than we were just seven years ago, they’re not leveling with you. They’re not telling the truth. ” The story Obama told was one of American ingenuity and growth since the financial crisis. Unemployment in Florida peaked at 11. 2 percent in 2009, higher than the national average, and the state was a center for home foreclosures. Saft America was an example not of the government’s effort just to reduce unemployment right now, which it has, but also to spur investment in the green technologies, like batteries, that will help the economy expand for decades to come. In a way, though, the plant was inadvertently telling a more complicated story, about globalization and the changing nature of commerce. Saft America is a unit of Saft Groupe, a French company with holdings around the world. Sales of batteries have been considerably slower than anticipated, and the factory has yet to turn a profit. The French parent doesn’t expect profitability for another two or three years and has already written down part of its investment on the factory. Here was a factory built, in part, with U. S. government dollars for the benefit of the local and national economy. Yet the factory, its technology and its patents are all owned by a foreign corporation. Its French chief executive is almost completely detached from the community here in Jacksonville he did not even attend Obama’s speech. And the factory’s profits, to the extent they ever come, may very well be sent abroad instead of being reinvested here. The factory visit might also tell a more complicated story about the presidency. It has always been the case that voters credit or, more often, blame the president for the nation’s economic performance. But it is also the case that the president generally has considerably less sway to move the economy than even he might like to acknowledge. And as the economy continues to disperse, that sway may be diminishing further. A president has less power than ever, in either a power ( ) or (cultural) sense, over American chief executives, let alone over the chief executives of multinationals based in France or China or other places where many U. S. employers make their headquarters. In the assembly room after the speech, Obama acknowledged as much. “When you’re talking about inversions,” Obama said, referring to the practice whereby American companies effectively move overseas, “or you’re talking about C. E. O. perks or the gap between what the worker is making compared to what the C. E. O. is making, all those things used to be constrained by the fact that you live in the city, you’re going to church in that city, your kids might be going to the same school as the guy who is working on the assembly line because public schools actually were invested in,” Obama said. “And all those constraining factors have been greatly reduced or, in some cases, eliminated entirely. And that contributes to the trends toward inequality. That contributes to, I think, a divergence between how the people who run these companies and economic elites think about their responsibilities and the policies that they promote with political leaders. And that’s had, I think, a damaging effect on the economy overall. ” Leaning forward in his chair, Obama described the profound structural shifts in the economy over the past two decades that voters often don’t appreciate or acknowledge. “If you are a worker, you saw manufacturing head out to China,” he said. “You’re in a town, the plant closes. But — in part because of the housing bubble — a whole bunch of manufacturing workers could suddenly shift into construction. ” The underlying economic decay was covered up by cheap credit, as homeowners made up for the shortfall in wage growth with second mortgages and unprecedented loads of debt. And that “meant that people felt pretty good in terms of their purchasing power even though their underlying situations hadn’t improved appreciably,” Obama said. Then the bubble bursts, “and suddenly they get washed away. ” Those construction jobs have returned slowly, and many of those manufacturing jobs never came back at all. “They’d be much worse off had we not taken the steps that we took,” Obama said. “But they have a sense that it’s a little more of a struggle for them than it might have been for their parents or for their grandparents. ” Obama considered the problem from a political perspective. “In some ways,” he said, “engaging in those hard changes that we need to make to create a more nimble, dynamic economy doesn’t yield immediate benefits and can seem like a distraction or an effort to undermine a bygone era that doesn’t exist. And that then feeds, both on the left and the right, a temptation to say, ‘If we could just go back to an era in which our borders were closed,’ or ‘If we could just go back to a time when everybody had a plan,’ or ‘We could just go back to a time when there wasn’t any immigrant that was taking my job, things would be O. K.’’u2009” He didn’t mention Donald Trump or Bernie Sanders by name, but the implications were obvious. Perhaps the biggest economic shift during Obama’s presidency came from a piece of legislation that wasn’t sold as such. On March 21, 2010, Congress passed the Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare. It was Obama’s boldest piece of legislation and the one that will most likely define him. It has been largely viewed as a social program, a way to provide health insurance to tens of millions of uncovered citizens. But the bill, which affected not just insurance companies but doctors, hospitals and pharmaceutical companies, also had an immediate and growing impact on the economy as a whole. The health care industry accounts for 17. 5 percent of the U. S. gross domestic product, and health care spending accounts for 8 percent of the average household budget. Of course, the largest economic challenge most Americans ever confront comes in the form of a sudden health crisis. “In the long term,” Sperling told me, “the Affordable Care Act will actually be seen as one of the great economic accomplishments, not just health care, economic. Because it actually is closing a key part of the insecurity gap. ” In closing that gap, though, Obama has been confronted with a knotty economic and political paradox. The legislation was designed to slow the growth of health care costs, even as it extended coverage. Slowing the growth of an industry that accounts for nearly a fifth of the U. S. economy is inevitably going to mean slowing the growth of the economy as a whole. The legislation was also designed to exert a more subtle economic influence. For most of the postwar era, most Americans received health insurance from their employers, in the form of benefits. If they quit their jobs or were fired, they could lose those benefits, and if they had a condition, they could have a hard time getting them back, even if they got a new job with good benefits elsewhere. That meant they would be much less likely to leave a job, and that meant employers could be a little less worried about raising wages, because they had a somewhat captive work force. In the age of the gig economy, more portable insurance could transform the way we work and potentially have a real effect on wages in some sectors. In 2014, the Congressional Budget Office released a report estimating that the Affordable Care Act would “reduce the total number of hours worked, on net, by about 1. 5 percent to 2. 0 percent during the period from 2017 to 2024” — a seemingly disastrous outcome for the economy. But, the director of the office, Doug Elmendorf, later wrote, “The reason for the reduction in the supply of labor is that the provisions of the A. C. A. reduce the incentive to work for certain subsets of the population. ” In other words, a lot of people worked because they had to, in order to keep their insurance. Now they could quit, even if they were sick a positive development for them, but with a perverse effect on the economy. And for all of that, Americans do not yet seem to be feeling the benefits of the new program, in part because the benefits remain uncertain. “If your health care premiums go up by 6 percent, you’re still irritated,” Obama said, “even though the trend lines have been those premiums are going up 15 percent. ” Republicans were unanimously opposed to the bill, and Obama could pass only so much major legislation before the congressional election that many expected to flip House control from the Democrats to the Republicans, as it indeed did. That meant that he had to choose the A. C. A. over any number of other agenda items, including another stimulus, perhaps in the form of a massive infrastructure bill, which would have given the economy an unambiguous boost. “If you went back a few years, you might say, ‘Well, he should’ve focused even more on pushing through a bigger fiscal stimulus, which he could have if he wasn’t going for the Affordable Care Act,” Rogoff said. “That was a he made, and it cost him. ” Obama knows it. “The fact of the matter is, is that our failure in 2012, 2013, 2014, to initiate a massive infrastructure project — it was the perfect time to do it low interest rates, construction industry is still on its heels, massive need — the fact that we failed to do that, for example, cost us time,” Obama said. “It meant that there were folks who we could have helped and put back to work and entire communities that could have prospered that ended up taking a lot longer to recovery. ” After 2010, all that was available to Obama was executive action: The ascendant G. O. P. made anything else nearly impossible. So the president turned more and more to regulatory rule changes and executive orders. He raised the minimum wage for federal contract workers to $10. 10 he overhauled immigration policy to protect some illegal immigrants from deportation (the Supreme Court just heard a case to overrule the action) he signed an order calling on government agencies with oversight of industry to find ways to make them more competitive, like pressing cable companies to let customers use cable boxes made by rivals. But without Congress, the big legislative moves, the ones that would really change history, seemed past. “I can probably tick off three or four things we could have done where we’d be growing a percentage or two faster each year,” Obama said. “We could have brought down the unemployment rate lower, faster. We could have been lifting wages even faster than we did. And those things keep me up at night sometimes. ” When the president’s motorcade left Saft to head back to Air Force One, I noticed something unusual: The plant’s parking lot was extremely small. It dawned on me that Obama’s tour of the factory, filled with photo ops and handshakes, had included very little interaction with workers. Instead, he was shown machine after machine, mostly operated by computers. At one point, he was introduced to a robot named after the Pixar film that takes battery components from a tray. No employees necessary. This giant mecca of innovation, a physical marvel that if built several decades ago would have easily employed a few thousand people, employs only 300. It was a scene that underscored a challenge facing the U. S. economy and one that may be the driving factor behind greater inequality: We’re not only losing jobs to overseas competition, we’re losing them to technology. Obama noted the robots, too. “We just saw here those robots were pretty impressive, but also pointed to the direction the economy is going,” he said. He clearly recognizes the problem — he said he spends a lot of time thinking about it — but he also knows the solutions will come only when he is long out of office. Many citizens, he said, back on Air Force One, “have to worry about retraining at some point in their careers, because they can’t anticipate being in one place for 30 years. The occupational mix in the economy places greater demands on people because it’s changing more rapidly. And all of this makes people feel that they don’t know what’s around the corner. ” For whatever sense of “uncertainty” business leaders lament, this may be a much more profound sense of uncertainty. “It’s one of the reasons that I pursued the Partnership,” he said, bringing up the pact that, uniquely, has divided both parties, “not because I’m not aware of all the failures of some past trade agreements and the disruptions to our economy that occurred as a consequence of globalization, but rather my assessment that most trends are irreversible given the nature of global supply chains, and so we better be out there shaping the rules in ways that allow for higher labor standards overseas, or try to export our environmental standards overseas so that we have more of a level playing field. ” Whether a president can truly improve, or damage, an economy remains an open question. The greatest economic power might in fact remain in the hands of the Federal Reserve. Economists credit the Fed’s policy of keeping interest rates at historic lows with helping to pump up the economy and bring unemployment down. At the same time, the Fed has been blamed for widening inequality, swelling the price of real estate and corporate profits, even as savers and retirees dependent on assets have suffered. That can cut either way in terms of a president’s economic legacy. Critics of Obama, including the new House speaker, Paul Ryan, credit Ben Bernanke, the former Federal Reserve chairman, and Janet Yellen, the current chairwoman, for whatever recovery we’ve had since the crisis, contending it happened in spite of the president. “I think the Federal Reserve has done more,” Ryan said at a January news conference. Frank, for his part, almost jumped through the phone when I mentioned that argument during an interview. “And Bernanke and Yellen were appointed by whom? Neither Bernanke or Yellen would have been able to do what they were doing without his full backing. ” Ultimately, however, Obama said the lessons of his time in office are being misunderstood in the election campaigns. “If you look at the platforms, the economic platforms of the current Republican candidates for president, they don’t simply defy logic and any known economic theories, they are fantasy,” Obama said. “Slashing taxes particularly for those at the very top, dismantling regulatory regimes that protect our air and our environment and then projecting that this is going to lead to 5 percent or 7 percent growth, and claiming that they’ll do all this while balancing the budget. Nobody would even, with the most rudimentary knowledge of economics, think that any of those things are plausible. ” He continued: “If we can’t puncture some of the mythology around austerity, politics or tax cuts or the mythology that’s been built up around the Reagan revolution, where somehow people genuinely think that he slashed government and slashed the deficit and that the recovery was because of all these massive tax cuts, as opposed to a shift in policy — if we can’t describe that effectively, then we’re doomed to keep on making more and more mistakes. ” | 0fake |
Data Points to Rapid Loss of Control Aboard EgyptAir Jet - The New York Times | CAIRO — A piece of luggage adrift in the Mediterranean Sea. Floating nearby, a passenger seat from a plane. Scraps of metal, scattered personal belongings and, finally, the grim discovery of human remains. As the investigation continued Friday into what caused an EgyptAir flight from Paris to Cairo to suddenly and violently plunge from the sky, the discovery of the debris allowed search crews to home in on the location of the crash — an area about 180 miles north of Alexandria, Egypt — even as its cause remained a mystery and the subject of intense speculation. Data that was transmitted from the aircraft to operators on the ground, published Friday by a respected aviation journal, revealed a rapid loss of control, with alarms and failures in the seconds before the plane was lost from radar. The transmissions are evidence of a catastrophic failure, but do not answer the crucial question: What caused it? Why would a plane with a good safety record and experienced pilots fall from the sky on a clear spring night? No bulk wreckage has been found, and the parts of the aircraft most likely to provide clues for investigators — including the voice and data recorders — are also the ones most likely to quickly sink to the seafloor. An Egyptian official has said that investigators consider terrorism to be one possible cause of the disaster, but no terrorist group has claimed responsibility. Officials cautioned that there was no direct evidence to suggest a bomb aboard the plane, or any other deliberate act of sabotage. The plane, a Airbus A320 jet, went down Thursday while flying through a cloudless night sky en route to Cairo from Paris. The Hellenic Civil Aviation Authority provided what a spokesman called a definitive timeline on the disaster. The agency reported that the flight was proceeding normally at 1:48 a. m. Cairo time on Thursday, when Greek traffic controllers last spoke with the pilot, who seemed in good spirits. At 2:27 a. m. when the plane was passing from Greek to airspace, the controllers in Athens tried and failed repeatedly to reach the pilots by radio. Even attempts on an emergency frequency failed. At the same time, technical data was being transmitted from the plane automatically through its Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System, or Acars, which modern jetliners use to provide status updates to maintenance and operational centers on the ground. Representatives of Airbus and the Federal Aviation Administration said they could not confirm the authenticity of the technical signals. Dina a spokeswoman for EgyptAir, declined to comment on the apparently leaked data. “We cannot say anything, because we have already launched a committee to investigate the crash,” she said. “It hasn’t told us anything until now. ” The data, first reported on AVHerald. com, is written tersely in abbreviations and codes. Robert W. Mann, a former airline executive and an industry analyst, said the jargon in the messages told a compelling, although incomplete, story. At 2:26 a. m. a message indicated that the right cockpit window had been opened. This could have been done to vent smoke, Mr. Mann said, or something else could have caused the breach. Over the next two minutes, there were two smoke indications, one in a bathroom and another in the avionics bay, the part of the plane where much of its electronic equipment is housed. Mr. Mann cautioned that these messages did not necessarily mean that there was a fire. The messages could also have been prompted by rapid decompression of the aircraft, which can produce condensation that the plane’s sensors could mistake for smoke. Finally at 2:29, there were two more alerts having to do with the plane’s flight control computer systems. “The last two are troubling,” Mr. Mann said. “You are starting to really see things rapidly degrade. ” First, there was a problem with the autoflight control computer. The jet would have been flying near its maximum speed and elevation at that time. That is the most efficient way for jetliners to fly, and it is safe, but pilots prefer to rely on autopilot systems in those conditions because if they were to ever lose control of the plane, it could be hard to regain, Mr. Mann said. That is why pilots sometimes call those conditions the “coffin corner. ” The last message had to do with the spoiler elevator controller, which essentially controls the flaps responsible for pitch and roll control. The computer controlling these failed as well. “It looks to me like you have a progressive flight control system failure,” Mr. Mann said. It is over the course of two minutes, which might have seemed like an eternity on that plane, but is relatively fast. This is also the moment that the plane left Greek airspace, and at 2:29:40 a. m. Greek controllers lost the aircraft’s trace, just inside Egyptian airspace, about halfway between Crete and Egypt. Around this time, the plane made a turn to the left and then a full circle to the right, dropping precipitously to 15, 000 feet from 37, 000 and then plunging again to 9, 000 feet before it disappeared from radar. The crew never gave any indication of a technical problem or other difficulties on board, even during the final, fatal minutes when the plane itself was transmitting data indicating a catastrophic failure. One former crash investigator said that radar evidence pointing to a series of sharp maneuvers in the moments before radar contact was lost suggested that the plane was almost certainly not under the control of the pilots. Whatever upset the Airbus was so sudden and violent that it could not be compensated for by the plane’s automated safety systems. “In my mind, this basically opens two axes of possibility: either a sudden technical problem or some kind of illicit or terrorist act,” said the expert, Alain Bouillard, a former chief investigator for the French Bureau of Investigations and Analyses. Given the limited amount of evidence available so far, experts said it was difficult to say with any certainty what kind of technical failure could have brought the plane down. One possibility, Mr. Bouillard said, might be a malfunction in the plane’s cabin pressurization systems that could have caused the fuselage to rupture. At high altitude, such a rupture could be potentially catastrophic if the crew was unable to initiate a controlled descent to a lower altitude and make an emergency landing. If the inquiry fails to uncover strong evidence of a technical problem, experts said the possibility of a more sinister chain of events would most likely take prominence. But given the circumstances of this accident, particularly in the absence of a claim of responsibility by a terrorist group or intelligence pointing to a perpetrator, it could take months to prove with any certainty that it was a terrorist act. An initial review of the passengers aboard against American terrorist watch lists have found no matches, according to Representative Adam B. Schiff of California, the senior Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, who has received several briefings on the investigation. The Islamic State, considered the most likely group behind the attack, is normally quick to announce its role, as it did last fall after the crash of a Russian flight over Egypt’s Sinai Desert. “It’s important to note that attribution in the theater of terrorism is crucial,” said Michael S. Smith II, a managing partner of Kronos Advisory, a firm specializing in terrorism research. What may be most valuable to investigators — and perhaps far more difficult to recover — is material that would have quickly sunk to the seafloor. If that debris is scattered over a wide area, and the pieces are relatively small, it would suggest that the plane broke up in the air — supporting the theory of an onboard explosion. However, if the debris field is concentrated in a relatively small area, that would indicate that the aircraft hit the surface of the water largely intact. The plane’s two data recorders, or “black boxes,” if they can be recovered, would also provide important clues. The shock wave of an onboard explosion, for example, may have been captured by the microphones of the cockpit voice recorder, experts said such a blast would also instantly disable the flight data recorder. In the event of a technical failure, Mr. Bouillard said, the data recorder — which tracks information including the plane’s position, speed, altitude and direction — would normally continue to function until the moment of impact. Officials could also not rule out that one of the pilots intentionally brought down the plane. The flight track of the Airbus on Thursday indicated that it crashed halfway between Crete and Egypt, which could mean it landed on what scientists refer to as the Mediterranean Ridge. The ridge has been pushed upward by the African plate of the earth’s crust sliding under the Aegean Sea, deforming and crumbling the seafloor, said William B. F. Ryan, a scientist at the Earth Observatory at Columbia University who has studied the Mediterranean seafloor. The water there is about 1. 5 miles deep, and picking out wreckage at the bottom from among the bumps, which are perhaps 50 to 100 feet in size, could be complex, he said. If the plane crashed farther to the south, the wreckage would lie on a smoother plain at a depth between 1. 7 and 2 miles, Dr. Ryan said. In that case, the search would go faster — and the answer to what caused the crash could come quicker. | 0fake |
FBI Found "Tens Of Thousands Of Emails" Belonging To Huma Abedin On Weiner's Laptop | FBI Found "Tens Of Thousands Of Emails" Belonging To Huma Abedin On Weiner's Laptop Zero Hedge
With furious Democrats - and the Clinton Campaign - now openly blasting the FBI's reopened investigation (as Republicans take delight for once in having a government agency reinforce their side of events), the question turns to just what emails were found on Weiner's laptop, and how damaging their contents are for the FBI to take the unprecedented step of "intervening" in a major political event just days before the national election.
We first laid what was the most likely explanation yesterday , when we showed several examples of Huma Abedin emails being sent from her work email account to her personal account at , courtesy of a Judicial Watch FOIA release. Of the more than 160 emails in the latest Judicial Watch release, some 110 emails – two-thirds of the total – were forwarded by Abedin to two personal addresses she controlled. The Washington Times reported in August 2015 that the State Department had admitted to a federal judge that Abedin and Mills used personal email accounts to conduct government business in addition to Clinton’s private clintonemail.com to transact State Department business.
One email from May 15, 2009, was sent by Abedin from her State Department email to her personal email. Abedin was archiving in her personal email account an email Hillary Clinton sent her from Clinton’s private email server at . Abedin was asked to print out attachments to an email Mills sent via a private address the previous day to Clinton involving “timetables and deliverables” for her review via Alec Ross, a technology policy expert who then held the title of senior adviser for innovation to Secretary Clinton.
However, while forwarding Hillary's emails to her personal email server for "convenience" is one thing, what is more troubling is the amount of redaction involved in these emails which migrated to the open email account, which as we now know ended up in Anthony Weiner's computer: in the above example, the two pages of timetables and deliverables attached to the email were 100 percent redacted, with “PAGE DENIED” stamped across the first redacted page.
An argument can be made that the extensive redaction confirms confidential material was part of the transmission.
This is a nuanced point being pushed by Hillary Clinton supporters such as Newsweek's Kurt Eichenwald, who in an article yesterday tried to make a case citing "sources" (even though the FBI said that nobody has seen the content of the Weiner/Abedin emails), that " no emails being examined by FBI were to or from Clinton ." No emails being examined by FBI were to or from Clinton. All of this has to do with procedures followed by an aide. https://t.co/mcsBi7j7XU
— Kurt Eichenwald (@kurteichenwald) October 29, 2016
It remains to be seen just what is in the emails, although whether Hillary sent emails with confidential content herself, or directed, or simply allowed her closest aide, Huma Abedin to forward such emails to her outside unsecured email address (where they subsequently ended up on Anthony Weiner's notebook), is what this latest case will be all about and how it will be defended and prosecuted in the media, by the water coolers and perhaps, in court.
However, we do know one thing: according to the NYT , the number of Huma emails that made their way to Weiner's PC was staggering:
The F.B.I. is investigating illicit text messages that Mr. Weiner, a former Democratic congressman from New York, sent to a 15-year-old girl in North Carolina. The bureau told Congress on Friday that it had uncovered new emails related to the Clinton case — one federal official said they numbered in the tens of thousand
Which brings up two more critical questions: i) when she was questioned by the FBI over the summer, did Huma reveal and admit the existence of these "thousands" of emails located on a personal, home computer, and ii) will the FBI be able to comb through everything in the next 10 days ahead of the election? If the answer to the second question is no, will the US presidential election really take place with one candidate currently under FBI investigation, one which could potentially lead to impeachment proceedings within weeks or days of her being elected president?
Still, the biggest irony in this latest debacle is that it was largely predicted by Donald Trump himself back in August of 2015. It came out that Huma Abedin knows all about Hillary’s private illegal emails. Huma’s PR husband, Anthony Weiner, will tell the world.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 3, 2015 Share This Article... | 1real |
TEMPERS FLARE IN DC: BIKERS FOR TRUMP Break Through Protester Line…Rioters Trap Wife Of Trump Supporter…Trump Bikers Brawl With Masked Protesters [VIDEO] | https://youtu.be/ZfRYj2ZX3dE#Trump supporter gets past #DisruptJ20 barricade but couldn't get back to his wife #Inauguration pic.twitter.com/JFHOcgcT9c Alex Rubinstein (@RealAlexRubi) January 20, 2017Finally, these bikers are caught in a brawl with a DisruptJ20 protester:Bikers For Trump guy fights with #DisruptJ20 protester pic.twitter.com/JVUpuDBsQZ Alex Rubinstein (@RealAlexRubi) January 20, 2017 | 1real |
Congress Passes Monumental Mental Health Reform Bill | In a rare display of bipartisanship, nearly every member of the U.S. Congress voted in a favor of a monumental mental health reform package. The legislation, which was designed to address current gaps in mental health services, such as a lack of qualified staff and a shortage of beds for patients in crisis, will now head to the Senate for approval.According to the non-profit organization Mental Health America more than 57 percent of people who are impacted by mental illness have not received treatment within the past year. On top of that, mental health facilities across the country report a lack of beds for patients in crisis. It s estimated that at least 100,000 beds would be needed to effectively address the needs of all patients.While Congress did not go that far, the legislation does increase funding for additional hospital beds. It also expands access to local mental health services, including treatment by a qualified psychiatrist. In addition, the bill provides for Medicaid to conditionally cover mental health services. It also allows parents of seriously mentally ill adults to access their son or daughter s medical records and treatment plans.According to NBC, the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), which was created to oversee the nation s mental health system, does not employ a single Psychiatrist. The legislation addresses this problem by providing funding for the agency to hire qualified staff. It also creates a new position, Assistant Secretary of Mental Health and Substance Use Disorders, to head up SAMHSA. The person selected to hold the position must be a psychiatrist or psychologist.While mental health advocates say they would have liked the bill to go farther, most believe it would be a positive first step toward reforming America s failing mental health system.As NBC reports here, the bill is the most comprehensive mental health system reform package since the early 1960 s. The Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act (H.R. 2646) passed the House on July 6, with 422 representatives voting in favor and only two voting against. According to govtrack.us, the bill now has a 27 percent chance of being signed into law.Featured image via wikipedia public domain | 1real |
Trump, South Korea's Moon to meet amid tensions over North Korea | NEW YORK/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump and South Korean President Moon Jae-in will hold talks on North Korea s nuclear crisis on Thursday amid tensions over whether Trump s harsh rhetoric against North Korean leader Kim Jong Un could lead to a miscalculation. U.S. officials scrambled to stress diplomatic options remained open after Trump used his U.N. General Assembly speech on Tuesday to threaten to totally destroy nuclear-armed North Korea and blast Kim as a rocket man on a suicide mission. Trump and Moon are to sit down at midday on the last day of Trump s four-day visit to New York, where he met with a flurry of foreign leaders gathered for the annual U.N. event. Trump will first meet Moon, then have lunch with Moon and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, then meet separately with Abe. Publicly, the South Korean government described Trump s speech as an expression of how serious the United States views the North Korean nuclear challenge. We view the speech as portraying a firm and specific stance on the key issues regarding keeping peace and safety that the international community and the United Nations are faced with, Moon s office said in a statement on Wednesday. But two senior South Korean diplomats, interviewed by Reuters, expressed concern that Trump s rhetoric could provoke a miscalculation from Kim and prompt him to launch an attack. The diplomats also said the two governments are not communicating the same message, with South Korea saying it cannot afford another war on the Korean peninsula. Any allies can t be on the exact same page on every matter but it s concerning that we are giving the impression that the two countries have different voices, one diplomat said. A senior U.S. official dismissed the South Korean diplomats worries about a miscalculation and said a cautious approach by past U.S. administrations had not stopped North Korea from developing nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles. They re always worried about that, the official said. The cautious, go-slow approach of strategic patience has gotten us to where we are. U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson told reporters on Wednesday night that U.S.-led sanctions against North Korea are starting to take effect with the North experiencing fuel shortages. Trump and Moon are also at odds over trade. Trump has complained about the U.S. trade deficit with South Korea, but has so far been persuaded by his top advisers not to terminate a U.S.-South Korean trade agreement as he has threatened. Moon, speaking at a business event in New York, urged greater U.S. investment in South Korea and defended the U.S.-South Korea trade agreement known as KORUS. It is a fact that the Korea-U.S. FTA is an agreement that benefits both countries by expanding their trade, enhancing market accessibility and increasing their investment and jobs, Yonhap quoted Moon as saying. It said he added that the U.S trade deficit with South Korea was limited to products and was shrinking while South Korea continued to post large trade deficits with the United States in the service sector. | 0fake |
“Genocide Denial” in Canada | By John Bart Gerald Global Research, October 26, 2016
On his return from attempting to stop the terrible slaughter of Rwandans there was no official to welcome home Canada’s General Romeo Dallaire. In his recent memoir, Waiting For First Light: My Ongoing Battle with PTSD , (1) Dallaire reveals that his return also began a pattern of suicide attempts, blamed on ptsd, perhaps survivor’s guilt, but which these years later might be traced more accurately to his reluctance to understand that the people who sent him to Rwanda did not care for humanity.
Dallaire, a protector, continues to affirm Canada’s adherence to a code of genocide prevention, on paper, and as a Senior Fellow contributes to the Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies. It is the major Genocide prevention NGO in Canada, but noted for coincidences of policy with those of the U.S. State Department and Canadian foreign service. Any MIGS project concerned with the genocide of U.S. or Canadian Aboriginal peoples, or of Palestinians is hard to find. Our society’s intransigence of not caring, hardens.
Currently it’s not even helpful to discuss a relationship between the U.S. and the Convention on Genocide since U.S. foreign policies lack moral compass. Having withdrawn from the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, the U.S. avoids charges of genocide as long as it has the military power to do so. With less military power, Canada subscribing to the Court, needs moral and political power to maintain its borders. Of necessity, diplomacy has meaning. Canada ratified the Convention on Genocide in 1952, (2) a generation before the U.S. which waited until 1988.
Several current news items lead to the same point of focus: Canada’s evasion of its responsibility to honour and adhere to the Convention on Genocide. Its unfaithfulness encourages states of emergency to play out through Indigenous communities in Canada. It’s also evident in foreign policies against more distant peoples. As though the Convention on Genocide were not primary law, had no statute of limitations, has no affect beyond the good will and salaried hopes of NGO’s, and no application to first world countries.
Canadian Mining Companies
From Toronto the Justice and Accountability Project has just issued a report on the responsibility of Canadian Mining companies for one level of violence in Latin America. The “Canada Brand”: Violence and Canadian Mining Companies in Latin America, (3) documents 44 deaths and 403 injuries in the years 2000 to 2015, all involving Canadian Companies in Latin America, and declares this is the tip of an iceberg. It classifies the majority of the victims as “targeted.”
While the report includes cases of criminalization it doesn’t include reports of deaths and injuries which aren’t verified by two independent sources and it doesn’t include “death threats, deliberate burning of crops and property destruction, forced displacement, reported assassination attempts without reported injury, illness from environmental contamination, or psychological trauma from any of the violence…” (4) or countries in other regions such as in Canada or Africa. This is 15 years of violence against native protectors of the land without bringing to bear the effects of the mining companies on entire communities and their habitats: to put the two together places the mining companies within a perspective of the U.N . Convention on Genocide. The murder of activist protectors suggests the element of “intention” considered by U.S. interpretation necessary to prosecution of genocide charges.
In Muskrat Falls Labrador, on October 23rd, 150 protesters entered the Crown corporation Nalcor’s construction site to protest the company’s reluctance to thoroughly clear vegetation and some topsoil from the land it’s about to flood. Uncut vegetation as well as topsoil are considered factors in the increase of methylmercury poisoning of the watershed. Nalcor workers are being evacuated from the camp, turning their quarters over to the protesters. The RCMP is blocking roads to discourage reinforcement to the protesters. Pam Palmater, a respected lawyer and Mi’kmaq teaching as an Associate Professor in Toronto, sees the company’s carelessness in risking the environment to poison as part of the ongoing industrial genocide of native peoples. (5) It’s a concern which increasingly covers settlers, immigrants, as both Indigenous and ‘settler’groups are equally deprived of power under law. Mayors of four nearby towns affected by the flooding say Nalcor consistently ignores them and they’ve been excluded from the talks between the company and Indigenous groups.
First Nations
In northern Saskatchewan so far in October four indigenous children – girls of from ten to fourteen years of age, took their own lives. This is part of an ongoing suicide epidemic in first Nations communities of the north where the suicide rate is five times the norm for Canada. The government is responding by increasing the number of mental health care workers available. This misses the point of the children’s final acts. As a group they’re refusing life on the terms that Canada offers. Suicide rates among northern Indigenous people are a result of social engineering by Canada’s dominant culture, either through its lack of concern or by intention. It continues the colonial genocide of subjugation. What could stop the native society’s slide into hopelessness is honouring the society’s basic needs of housing, water, food. This is not beyond the power and convenience of Canadian and Provincial governments. It seems beyond the business game plans of resource corporations and a European mindset of superiority which permeates all areas of Canadian society.
A recent article in the Canadian Medical Association Journal reveals that the children of Nunavut have the highest respiratory infection rates in the world, and accuses the Nunavut government of covering up respiratory disease (respiratory syncytial virus / RSV) infections, which according to statistics from 2009 (why aren’t these statistics current?) hospitalized 40% of the children in Western Nunavut. The dosage of pharmaceuticals for treatment costs about $6500 / patient. (6) And children often have to be flown to hospital. Emergency funds go to pharmaceutical companies and airlines rather than the community and improving the living conditions and poor nutrition which cause the disease rate. The cycle of poverty and relief profits big business, as maintained by government budgeting.
All of these areas converge in a consideration of genocide but to mention the word “genocide” is a snare. While university courses and human rights NGOs raise the issue of genocide again and again as a thorn in the side of Canada’s self-image – the nuts and bolts of legally applying the Convention under Canadian law are so carefully controlled that the term has no meaning except in the service of a European exploitative class.
Application of the U.N.’s Convention on Genocide, which has teeth within Canadian law (7) requires permission of Canada’s Minister of Justice. (8) Canada’s Minister of Justice is a political appointment by the nation’s Prime Minister. Therefore practically, it isn’t likely the Prime Minister would ever be charged with genocide, nor will his political allies, nor the visiting leaders of allied countries, which gives all of them a certain amount of freedom from worry. And under the code of one dominant ruling elite, protection is assured subsequent government administrations and Ministers of Justice, as long as a group remains to subjugate. The same provision of requiring Ministerial approval applies to the prosecution of any crimes against humanity. (9)
Writing about this for some years, I’ve seen no challenge to this facet of Canadian law which obviously protects the establishment’s governance from prosecution for one of the worst crimes known to humankind. My belief is that Canada could survive honest and direct application of the Convention on Genocide to its policies, but won’t be able to if it delays in correcting root causes of disproportionate Aboriginal death and disease.
This loophole protecting politicians who further genocide lends impunity to the policies of NATO countries in their assaults on the peoples of Afghanistan, Libya, the former Yugoslavia, Iraq, Syria, where militarily applied policies have involved what I think was/is genocide. The U.S., British, French policies find the democratically elected country heads guilty of crimes then bomb the peoples into subservience and fealty to NATO. It is clearly genocide against a national group, again and again.
The media of our NATO countries have formed a reality for our peoples which doesn’t recognize the criminality of NATO country foreign policies. In North America the governments’ impunity in oppressing First Peoples, Blacks and all the poor, while claiming to save them, provides a third rail carrying the power to knock out any resistance to the terrible crimes of foreign policy necessary to corporate resource extraction with high profits.
The impunity is acceded to by a professional class where the judicial system is so expensive, the lawyers so strictly controlled, the laws so favourable to capital, that there is no effective protest of obvious injustices. Where the mental health industry accepts as norm the murder of foreign civilian populations. Where the economic machinery empowered by security and surveillance would refuse existence to those who question, protest, and struggle effectively. Where the security industry believes in the fears created to further its expansion. Where education becomes naked training of skill sets for serving oppressive corporations. Where artists and writers are rewarded for saying nothing.
The situation of all young people gradually becomes near that of a Saskatchewan Indigenous girl. First Peoples precede us. If government maintains its refusal to protect Indigenous peoples with the primary human rights laws, then peoples of settler stock will, when convenient to power, find themselves without as well. We have to affirm and apply the protections of the Genocide Convention, for others, or we lose that protection for ourselves.
Notes
1. “Inside Roméo Dallaire’s brutally revealing new memoir,” Brian Bethune, Oct. 21, 2016, Maclean’s . 2. “Treaties, States Parties and Commentaries: Canada, current, International Committee of the Red Cross ICRC . 3. The “Canada Brand”: Violence and Canadian Mining Companies in Latin America , Justice and Accountability Project, Oct. 24, 2016, Osgoode Hall Law School, York University, Toronto, Ontario. 4. Ibid. 5. ”Muskrat Falls a ‘modern day form of genocide’: lawyer,” Hans Rollmann, Oct. 21, 2016, the In dependent.ca (Newfoundland & Labrador). 6. « ’Horribly sick kids :’ Arctic regions have highest infant lung infection rates in the world, » The Canadian Press, Oct. 18, 2016, CBC News ; « ’We have not seen it stop’ : Canada’s public health agency review respiratory illness in Nunavut babies, » John Van Dusen, Oct. 25, 2016, CBC News . 7. Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act – S.C.2000 , c.24 (Section 4),(Section 6), (SCHEDULE : Provisions of Rome Statute), and (Section 14). 8. Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act – S.C.2000 , c.24,“Procedures and Defences” 9. (3, 4). 9. The Canadian law against torture which wasn’t applied to former U.S. President Bush at his most recent visit of May 12th, 2014. The original source of this article is Global Research Copyright © John Bart Gerald , Global Research, 2016 Share: | 1real |
Staffers INSIDE The White House Are Showing Us Just How MASSIVE An A** Trump Really Is (TWEETS) | Last week, a ton of U.S. government employees took to Twitter to tell Donald Trump to go fuck himself in their own ways. There are now well over a hundred of these rogue accounts, and one of them comes from inside the White House itself. Rogue POTUS Staff, under the handle @RoguePOTUSStaff, has been tweeting out things about Trump that give us an inside look at Trump and his administration.Their account has over half a million followers already, showing the popularity of what they have to say. Many of their tweets are news stories and support for other rogue accounts, because all these rogue employees need to support each other. But Rogue POTUS Staff also puts forth things that will probably never make it into mainstream media reports, such as what Trump said just five days after he was inaugurated:Pres. Trump is already making waves at the office. Wants to be the President who will be remembered as a King. His words, not ours. Rogue POTUS Staff (@RoguePOTUSStaff) January 26, 2017POTUS loved Kellyanne s alternative facts line. Said she was dumb for it, but loved the idea anyway because people would talk about it. Rogue POTUS Staff (@RoguePOTUSStaff) January 26, 2017And they have no problem telling all of Twitter that the Liar-in-Chief is, in fact, a liar that s intimidating everyone:Everyone in the room knew POTUS was lying about 5 million illegals voting, but nobody dared to point it out. What have we done? Rogue POTUS Staff (@RoguePOTUSStaff) January 26, 2017Rogue POTUS Staff keeps careful tabs on the growing discord Trump is creating at the White House, but also keeps careful tabs on what Trump does behind the scenes. It s both entertaining and frightening they ve proven to be better than the press just how much of a child Trump really is.POTUS asking around about people s Photoshop skills. Says inauguration photos need to be touched up. Rogue POTUS Staff (@RoguePOTUSStaff) January 27, 2017POTUS not pleased with Priebus using @MeetThePress appearance to promise green card change that POTUS rejected. Feels his hand was pushed. Rogue POTUS Staff (@RoguePOTUSStaff) January 30, 2017Under early morning advice from Bannon POTUS to push Spicer to accuse #MuslimBan protests of compromising national security. Rogue POTUS Staff (@RoguePOTUSStaff) January 30, 2017Suspicion that Bannon urging POTUS to egg on protests, then call in National Guard to disperse, as demonstration of power. #resistpeacefully Rogue POTUS Staff (@RoguePOTUSStaff) January 29, 2017Priebus calling @MeetThePress interview disaster. POTUS appears uncooperative on fixing EO problems, more worried about press coverage. Rogue POTUS Staff (@RoguePOTUSStaff) January 29, 2017POTUS fuming after judge order last night. Suggested having agents to do it anyway & ignore order. Preibus said to be at wits end. Rogue POTUS Staff (@RoguePOTUSStaff) January 29, 2017POTUS sowing real discord by being more interested in NYT than the work of being POTUS. Bannon encouraging him to irritate #UnholyTrinity . Rogue POTUS Staff (@RoguePOTUSStaff) January 29, 2017Bannon jokes that he has mixed feelings about SCOTUS pick. Says that a white man shouldn t have to serve coffee to a Hispanic woman. Rogue POTUS Staff (@RoguePOTUSStaff) January 31, 2017Priebus worried about public anger if they learn POTUS wasted tax $$ to bring in SCOTUS loser for Apprentice style nom. announcement. #oops Rogue POTUS Staff (@RoguePOTUSStaff) January 31, 2017They re making Trump look like the huge, egotistical buffoon he is:Overheard through locked door: Don t they know I m the f President!? POTUS displeased at resistance. #resist Rogue POTUS Staff (@RoguePOTUSStaff) January 27, 2017POTUS will NOT shut up about how he s going to overshadow Pelosi s town hall. Wants press conference to run long to obscure coverage. #petty Rogue POTUS Staff (@RoguePOTUSStaff) February 1, 2017POTUS asks why he should give a damn about muzzie Canucks? Rogue POTUS Staff (@RoguePOTUSStaff) January 30, 2017They also point out how Trump patted himself on the back for his SCOTUS nomination:POTUS appearing very proud of himself today. Says country should be thanking him for the best SCOTUS nomination in history. Rogue POTUS Staff (@RoguePOTUSStaff) February 1, 2017Best SCOTUS pick in history using the most transparent appointment process in history by way of the man with the biggest inaugural audience in history. Right.Trump apparently wasn t too totally keen on Gorsuch, though:#UnholyTrinity back Gorsuch for SCOTUS. Had POTUS convinced. But POTUS swaying back to Hardiman for spite, despite look of more nepotism. Rogue POTUS Staff (@RoguePOTUSStaff) January 30, 2017Bannon suggested reaching out to Gorsuch and Hardiman to gauge willingness to back #MuslimBan EO in court. Pence dissuades, but barely. Rogue POTUS Staff (@RoguePOTUSStaff) January 30, 2017POTUS getting eye rolls at flip-floppity attitude toward SCOTUS pick. After settling from crazy weekend, seems back on the Gorsuch train. Rogue POTUS Staff (@RoguePOTUSStaff) January 31, 2017These people will never reveal who they are, though, and for good reason. They re putting their jobs and possibly their freedom on the line to keep the world informed of goings-on inside the White House. It s the same with all the rogue and alt government accounts it s even highly unlikely that each person or group behind each account knows who s behind any of the other accounts.Feel free to unfollow. We have families. This acct could be violation of Hatch Act. What you act could be prosecuted as espionage. #inhiding https://t.co/XGKiFR9Gr1 Rogue POTUS Staff (@RoguePOTUSStaff) January 27, 2017This starting to get scary. Four of these messages in the inbox today. Not indications yet that POTUS is aware of this acct, but someone is. pic.twitter.com/mfihbghTVr Rogue POTUS Staff (@RoguePOTUSStaff) January 27, 2017Bannon apparently hunting for heretics. Confirmed, is aware of this acct. Actively trying to identify us. #UnholyTrinity may be losing grip. Rogue POTUS Staff (@RoguePOTUSStaff) January 28, 2017Because of this, it s impossible to know what s real and what s not. Some suspect this is a fake account, others suspect that the suspicious ones are the fake accounts. Rogue POTUS Staff has been around since Jan. 25, though, which is on the early side of when this whole movement got started. Their pinned tweet says everything:When well intended patriots disagree, that s democracy. When POTUS says it s not fact until he approves it, that s tyranny. Rogue POTUS Staff (@RoguePOTUSStaff) January 26, 2017Featured image by Pete Marovich via Getty Images/screen captures | 1real |
Reince Priebus Says We ARE Going Forward With Trump’s COMPLETELY Asinine Terrorism Plan | On CNN s State of the Union yesterday, Reince Priebus fielded a question about Gen. Michael Flynn s insistence that it s perfectly rational to fear Muslims. Poor Priebus tried to deflect and failed miserably: There are some people within that particular religion that we do fear. So what are we going to do about it? We re going to cause massive immigration delays and blow yet another hole in the deficit by going forward with the Muslim ban. Or rather, we re potentially going to piss off some allies by suspending all immigration from certain countries: We don t believe in religious tests and are not blanketly judging an entire religion, but, in fact, we will try to pinpoint the problems and temporarily suspend those areas from coming into the United States until a better vetting system is in place. And yet, they want to implement a values test, through which people can lie to their heart s content. Given the Trump train s Islamophobia, such a values test could actually look like a religious test.He s targeting both refugees and other immigrants from areas where there might be a problem with terrorism that could end up getting exported here, and will use both DHS and the Department of State to pinpoint these countries, and we ll develop our extreme vetting and all will be right with the world.As reported everywhere about five million times, we already have an extensive vetting system in place for refugees, whatever Trump, Priebus, and the rest of the fear-mongerers keep pushing.We likewise have a very lengthy, complex, and extensive vetting process in place for other immigrants. Most applicants need a U.S. sponsor a relative or potential employer as assurance that they aren t coming here to be a burden on our system. The whole process starts with a petition, and then goes to National Visa Center screening if the petition is approved.There are also in-depth interviews that take place, along with about a squillion forms that must be filled out and submitted to the NVC. When they finally come to the U.S., they generally have a packet about an inch thick which U.S. Customs and Border Protection evaluates before granting entry into the U.S. From there, immigrants get sent to Customs and Immigration Services for processing.Trump would add a values test to this already-lengthy and complex process. This is to ensure that no potential Muslim extremists could successfully immigrate here, and is actually not entirely without precedent here. However, our current law states that we will not apply values tests to potential immigrants.Other parts of the plan, including the rest of his extreme vetting, could actually strain State Department and DHS resources and cause major delays. How bad the whole thing will be depends heavily on what countries they plan to target, which could be limited to the Middle East, but could just as easily stretch into Europe and parts of Africa. Many of our immigrants come from Africa who knows who this will piss off?All of this could also become quite expensive, but it seems the deficit is suddenly not a major issue to the GOP. After all, we re supposed to get this yuuuuuuge influx of jobs, which means a yuuuuuge influx of tax dollars despite the tax cuts. This is so not going to work.Featured image by Alex Wong via Getty Images | 1real |
3 Tied to San Bernardino Gunman Are Indicted - The New York Times | LOS ANGELES — The investigation into the San Bernardino massacre produced criminal charges on Thursday against the brother of one of the attackers and two other people — not for contributing to the mass shooting, but for their roles in a sham marriage designed to skirt immigration laws. On Dec. 2, Syed Rizwan Farook, and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, who had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State, armed themselves with assault rifles and pipe bombs, and carried out one of the worst terror attacks on American soil, killing 14 people and wounding more than 20 others at a social services center in San Bernardino, Calif. The couple then died in a shootout with the police. The only person arrested in connection with the massacre has been Enrique Marquez Jr. a longtime friend of Mr. Farook’s, charged with providing material support to terrorists, making a “straw purchase” of a gun for Mr. Farook, and other crimes. Federal officials have said that Mr. Marquez also admitted that in exchange for money, and as a favor to the Farooks, he entered into a fraudulent marriage with a Russian immigrant, Mariya Chernykh, so she could gain legal residence in the United States. On Thursday, federal prosecutors in Los Angeles announced felony charges against Ms. Chernykh, 26, her sister, Tatiana Farook, 31, and Ms. Farook’s husband, Syed Raheel Farook, 31, the brother of the San Bernardino gunman. All pleaded not guilty and will be released on bond. A trial is set for June 21. Law enforcement officials stressed they did not believe that any of the three had advance knowledge of the December attack, or took steps to conceal evidence afterward, but that major investigations often lead to the discovery of unrelated offenses. The F. B. I. continues to comb through the backgrounds of the San Bernardino attackers, looking for motives and possible accomplices, and until recently the bureau was engaged in a very public legal battle with Apple over Syed Rizwan Farook’s cellphone. The company refused to help the F. B. I. unlock the phone to search his contacts and messages, but the bureau dropped the matter after cracking the phone’s security with help from an unknown outside group that was apparently paid at least $1. 3 million. The indictment, announced Thursday, represents an unusually tough stance for the government in a marriage fraud case. Five criminal charges are leveled at Ms. Chernykh, including fraudulent use of immigration documents and lying to federal agents, with combined maximum prison terms of up to 30 years. Syed Raheel Farook, a U. S. Navy veteran who worked as a computer technician aboard an aircraft carrier, and his wife, are also charged in one of those counts, conspiracy to make false statements under oath on government documents, and face a maximum sentence of five years. Ordinarily, the authorities do not pursue criminal charges for a sham marriage, just an admission by the U. S. citizen, and deportation of the immigrant, said Carl Shusterman, an immigration lawyer in Los Angeles who has formerly handled immigration cases for the government. “I’ve never seen anything like these kinds of charges in a sham marriage case,” he said. “I think it has to be related to the fact that there’s a link to the shooting. ” On immigration forms, Ms. Chernykh and Mr. Marquez stated that they lived with the Farooks in their townhouse in Corona, Calif. Federal agents, who had searched the home this year, did so again Thursday, and also searched a residence in Ontario, Calif. that was identified as Ms. Chernykh’s. In fact, the indictment says, neither Mr. Marquez nor Ms. Chernykh lived with the Farooks, and she “resided with her child and an adult male other than Enrique Marquez Jr. ” in Ontario. The couple had wedding pictures taken and opened a joint bank account, but the indictment shows that they were far from expert at creating a false front. At one point, Tatiana Farook told her sister to stop posting pictures of herself posing with her real boyfriend to her social media page, the indictment says, and another time, Ms. Farook told Mr. Marquez that he needed to change the address on his driver’s license to match the one on the immigration forms. They also left a considerable electronic trail, particularly as Mr. Marquez and Ms. Chernykh prepared last fall for an interview with immigration agents, who would try to determine if their marriage was genuine. Last November, they exchanged messages that “discussed their mutual anxiety for their upcoming immigration interview due to the lack of contact with each other,” and he told her he was afraid of going to prison for immigration fraud, the indictment says. At about the same time, someone using Mr. Marquez’s Facebook page indicated that he might be in trouble, writing “involved in terrorist plots, drugs, antisocial behavior, marriage, might go to prison for fraud, etc. ” But the planning to hide the sham marriage continued. The day before the shooting, the indictment says, Ms. Farook sent an electronic message to her husband, asking him to create a backdated lease agreement to make it appear that Mr. Marquez and her sister lived with them. The indictment said that the Farooks helped the pair open their joint account and buy a wedding band, and served as witnesses on their marriage license. On Thursday, the Farooks’ neighbor, Brittani Adams, said she had maintained a friendly relationship with the couple after the December attack. “It is rough they are good people just twisted in family stuff,” she said. If the coupled feared arrest, she said, they kept it bottled up ‘real well.’ The Farook brothers were born in the United States, to parents who immigrated from Pakistan. Ms. Malik was born in Pakistan and spent much of her life in Saudi Arabia, before marrying Syed Rizwan Farook and moving to the United States in 2014. Officials have said they have no indication that the couple had any connection to a terrorist group or mentor, but instead, it appears they “ . ” They seemed unlikely candidates for it. Mr. Farook worked for several years as an inspector for the San Bernardino County Department of Public Health, where he reportedly had no conflicts with . Ms. Malik had a college degree in pharmacology, and the couple had a baby daughter. | 0fake |
Georgia Abandons Ukraine's Anti-Russian Obsession - Archil Sikharulidze | Your daily reality snack Georgia Abandons Ukraine's Anti-Russian Obsession
After a brief period in which both Ukraine and Georgia appeared to be united against Russia, it now appears that the two nations are moving along very different paths Originally appeared at Russia Direct
In October, Georgia didn’t support any of Ukraine’s resolutions denouncing the Kremlin’s foreign policy within the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE). That is surprising, given how many analysts had by now assumed that Georgia and Ukraine were on the same page when it came to Russia.
The two resolutions deal with “the political implications of Russia’s aggression in Ukraine” and human rights abuses “on the occupied Ukrainian territories.” By supporting them, PACE recognized the military conflict in Ukraine as “Russian aggression” for the first time and called on the Kremlin to withdraw its forces from the eastern part of Ukraine. Moreover, it denounced the parliamentary elections , recently conducted by Russia in Crimea .
When the Georgian delegation in PACE didn’t support these resolutions, the nation’s pro-Western parties reacted strongly. For example, the United National Movement lambasted the Georgian government and accused the country’s former Prime Minister, Bidzina Ivanishvili, of supporting Russia. Moreover, Mikheil Saakashvili, the former Georgian president and now the governor of the Odessa region in Ukraine, described such a stance as a “disgraceful” move.
However, an immediate response came from one of the members of the Georgian delegation in PACE, Eka Beselia. She retorted that Tbilisi needed to defend its own national interests. Even though this statement seems to have alleviated the increasing conflict, the video of Russian-Ukrainian journalist Matwey Ganapolsky, who accuses Georgia of betraying Ukraine in favor of Russia, fuelled the tensions. In contrast, Russian pundits see the unwillingness of Georgia to vote for the PACE resolution as a sign of improvement in Tbilisi-Moscow relations.
In reality, the reluctance of the Georgian Dream, the ruling party in Georgia, to approve these resolutions is just the logical conclusion of complicated relations with Kiev. Since the start of the color revolutions in the post-Soviet space , Georgia and Ukraine were largely in the same boat.
After the success of the Rose Revolution in Tbilisi and the Orange Revolution in Kiev, the newly elected governments were closely connected with each other and teamed up against Russia. This resulted from friendly relations between Ukraine’s former prime minister Yulia Timoshenko and former president Viktor Yushchenko on the one hand, and Georgia’s Saakashvili on the other hand.
However, their relationship was rather pragmatic in its nature, although officially Tbilisi recognized Ukraine as one of its closest allies. Since 2007 the democratic processes in the two countries have started moving in a reverse direction. Saakashvili’s penchant for conducting an aggressive policy as well as his authoritarian inclinations was increasing, while Ukraine faced the corruption and the political rivalry between Timoshenko and Yushchenko.
The more impact this had on the countries’ stability and development, the more obvious became the fact that the ruling elites from both sides did not support democratic reforms, but only the regimes that were friendly to them. Thus, Georgian-Ukrainian relations could be seen as a form of cooperation between governments, not between the people.
And this trend became relevant until the 2010 presidential elections, when Georgia’s civil society and population called on the government to support democratic processes and regime change in its “brother” country. From then on, Georgia has been shying away from supporting the political regime in Ukraine and focusing more on the support of the country’s own population.
However, Ukraine refused to consider such tactics, with its official representatives criticizing the Georgian Dream coalition for supporting Russia during the 2012 parliamentary elections. Moreover, Kiev cooperated with Georgia’s United National Movement, which was openly accused of building an authoritarian regime and egregious human rights abuses.
Logically, the new Georgian government under Ivanishvili cannot help paying attention to this fact. But it was relatively reticent and didn’t respond, even when Georgian volunteers came to fight in Eastern Ukraine to support Kiev and accused Tbilisi of supporting Russia. That had some implications for the Georgian Dream: It was seen as a political force that is capable of defending the country’s national interests.
Moreover, Georgian voters also saw the fact that Saakashvili was appointed as the governor of the Odessa region as an unfriendly move from Ukraine, as a slap in the face, because the former Georgian president was legally prosecuted in his home country, which meant that Ivanishvili couldn’t fulfill his pledges and restore justice [During the election campaign he promised to put Saakashvili in jail for corruption and the abuse of power — Editor’s note]. The problem was exacerbated when Kiev granted Saakashvili Ukrainian citizenship, which made it impossible to imprison the former Georgian president.
Saakashvili crossed the red line during the latest parliamentary elections in Georgia during the campaign. First, his colleagues from the United National Movement visited Ukraine. Second, he openly called for a coup d’état against the Georgian government, which he sees as pro-Russian. In fact, he threatened to conduct a new revolution in Georgia. This was the last straw for the Georgian Dream.
It is safe to say that the current Georgian political elites started seeing Ukraine as a real headache and the shelter for dubious and controversial Georgian politicians from the United National Movement accused of different wrongdoings and legal violations.
However, with the victory of the Georgian Dream in the 2016 parliamentary elections, a lot has changed. Moreover, the odds of the party of winning the constitutional majority are really high. It means that the influence of the party is growing in the Georgian parliament and even more could change.
As a result, the government won’t necessarily have to take into account the views of other political forces to take decisions. It can be pretty outspoken now that it won’t put up with anti-government moves and initiatives like the ones promoted by Saakashvili. Moreover, the Georgian voters, who are seeking to have those involved in the violations during Saakashvili’s tenure prosecuted. So, in this regard, the electorate supports the Georgian Dream.
Thus, all this indicates that Georgian-Ukrainian relations have always been more complex and nuanced than they seemed to be at first glance. During Saakashvili’s tenure, there was cooperation between his government and the ones of Timoshenko and Yushchenko. However, eventually, Tbilisi shifted its priority from supporting top political officials to supporting society and people.
Ukrainian politicians should keep in mind that the Russian factor is not the only one that determines the Ukrainian-Georgian agenda. Providing shelter to Saakashvili also does matter. So, to improve the relations with Tbilisi, Kiev should take into account its national interest and support the Georgian people instead of the country’s politicians. | 1real |
In Havana, Castro’s Death Lays Bare a Generation Gap - The New York Times | HAVANA — At the Salon Rojo, one of Havana’s most popular nightspots, where the reggaeton usually blares into the early hours, the music stopped abruptly. An announcement was made: Fidel Castro had died. The police waved along young women in miniskirts and young men with gelled mohawks as they spilled into the streets. No one was weeping. No one was chanting. Some said the country would be better off, freer now, though they said it quietly, wary that someone might overhear such hopes. A hearse, repurposed as a taxi, happened to drive by. “Take him with you,” one of the young men shouted with a smile as a friend cheered him on. The young women with them looked embarrassed, but not angry. A few feet away from a crowd of partygoers, three neighbors, each in their 50s and consoling one another, stood in their apartment building’s doorway facing the iconic Hotel Nacional. Concepcion Garcia, 55, looked at the young people around her with disappointment. “What a rich experience we have had, to live the two periods of Cuba — capitalism and socialism,” she said. “Imagine how we Cubans feel. The most precious thing we have just died. ” With the departure of Cuba’s epic revolutionary in green fatigues, at the age of 90, the residents of Havana have not erupted so much as moved into their own emotional corners. All over this city on Saturday, indifference and relief stood side by side with sorrow and surprise as the conflicts that characterized Fidel Castro in life continued to reverberate after his death. “He was the only leader I ever knew,” Graciela Martinez, 51, said as she mopped the floors of a cafe near the American Embassy on Saturday morning. She paused, then began to weep, thinking of her father, who fought for the revolution — and of her relatives who had fled to the United States. “For those who loved him, he was the greatest,” she said of Mr. Castro. “For those who hated him, there was no one worse. ” Cuba, a verdant, struggling country of 11 million people that has been moving slowly toward changes, finds itself again at an international crossroads. Mr. Castro died as Venezuela has pulled back financial support, facing its own political and economic crisis, and the détente engineered under President Obama threatens to be rolled back by Donald J. Trump. While Mr. Obama issued condolences to the Castro family and offered “a hand of friendship to the Cuban people,” Mr. Trump wrote on Twitter, “Fidel Castro is dead!” and later issued a statement calling him a “brutal dictator. ” Cuban officials have long maintained that the island has diversified its international ties enough to withstand financial or political storms. But after decades of unfulfilled promises about economic growth, the passing of Mr. Castro may open rifts both inside and outside Cuba over how to proceed. Elaine Díaz, an independent blogger in Cuba, said she expected Mr. Castro’s death to lead to more diversity of opinion within the leadership. The Cuban government likes to portray itself as a monolith, even though some factions are more conservative than others, she said. “This is going to bring that out in public,” she said. Other divides may also become more visible, especially between generations. Mr. Castro molded the country and governed it for so long that many older Cubans can hardly think of the nation apart from his legacy. But he has also been out of the national spotlight for so long (after handing power to his brother Raúl Castro in stages, beginning in 2006) that many young Cubans have had little exposure to him and do not seem to identify with him. Theirs is a generation that has, in many ways, already become — seeing politics as useless and intractable, craving technology and, in many cases, much more eager to leave Cuba than to defend the Communist slogans that are as faded as the billboards still displaying them on the nation’s highways and roads. “In my parents’ generation, there is also still a lot of loyalty. In my generation, you’ll see more differences,” said Ms. Diaz, 31. “In a large portion of the young people, what you will see is apathy. ” On Friday night, for example, many young people did not respond with any visible emotion when they were told of Mr. Castro’s death. On Saturday, many went about their day as usual, arguing that little would change because of Mr. Castro’s demise. “The country will continue on the path that it’s on,” said Abraham Jimenez Enoa, 27, a of an independent blog called “el estornudo,” or “the sneeze. ” “I don’t really see changes in the near future. ” The response could not have been more different from that of the government or its strongest supporters. Their grief began with a brief televised speech by Raúl Castro announcing that “El Comandante” had died. He did not emphasize that the man was also his brother — his passing was a loss for the nation. By sunrise, flags all over Havana had been lowered to . Young and old gathered in small groups, and where there might have normally been laughter or yelling, whispers filled the void. Much of Havana seemed uncertain about exactly how to feel, or at least how to talk about it. “It is a very strange feeling,” said Francisco Rodríguez Cruz, a prominent blogger and gay activist who supports the revolution. He was one of many who said losing Mr. Castro was like losing a parent. “With this death, you feel that your own life is spread before you,” Mr. Cruz, 46, said. Many others looked back to what they had gained in Fidel’s Cuba. Ms. Garcia removed her glasses and pointed at her eyes. “I have the revolution and Fidel to thank for this cataract surgery,” she said, adding that she would not have been able to afford the procedure without Cuba’s socialized medical care. It did not cost her a cent, she said. “He put Cuba on the map,” Ms. Garcia added, “and the world has recognized that. ” Her neighbor Josue Carmon Arramo, 57, chimed in, “His life may be over, but his work will live on. ” “This story will not die, because we are followers of his ideas of nationalism and solidarity of the Cuban people,” he said. “That’s who we are. ” The official state apparatus seemed ready for the news. A night watchman working near the Malecon — the seaside boulevard where so many young people gather that Cubans often call it the city’s longest sofa — said he had seen busloads of soldiers pass by before Mr. Castro’s death was widely known. Cuban national television interrupted its regular schedule in favor of historic video clips of Mr. Castro and scenes of the reunion of Elián González with his family in Cuba after the boy was returned from Florida in 2000. Near the American Embassy on Saturday morning, the police circled in patrol cars while men in plain clothes who refused to answer questions about Mr. Castro seemed determined to keep an eye on those nearby. Long after the sun soared over Havana harbor, the Malecon, usually bustling at all hours, was devoid of all but jogging tourists and a few cars. But the news for Cuba’s memorial plans moved through the streets quickly. He was to be cremated Saturday. There would be a period of public mourning in Havana on Monday and Tuesday, and then a procession over the course of the week, with the revolutionary’s ashes moving across the country from Havana to the city known as the cradle of the revolution, Santiago de Cuba, where he would be put to rest on Sunday, Dec. 4. The details, at least, were easier to talk about in public than his legacy. They could not be argued about, or get you in trouble if overheard in conversation. In Miami, by contrast, celebratory crowds gathered at Versailles, a Cuban restaurant in the Little Havana neighborhood that has become a focal point of the Cuban exile community in the United States. Revelers posted videos on social media of popping champagne bottles. Still, in Havana, expectations were limited and often more narrowly focused, on economic survival, and on how little would really change when the mourning was done. “It closes one chapter and starts another,” Miguel Fernandez, 56, said as he walked his dog Saturday near the Malecon. “But it won’t bring about anything substantial. He’s been out of the picture for a while. ” | 0fake |
OBAMA APPOINTED JUDGE Sides With Dems In Critical Swing State…Doesn’t Matter If Vote-by-Mail Ballot Signatures Don’t Match…Votes Still Count | After only serving less than 4 years on the bench, Barack Obama nominated U.S. District Judge Mark Walker in 2012. Only one week ago, Judge Walker made what many consider a very controversial decision that forces the state of Florida to accept voter registration forms for one extra day because of Hurricane Matthew. Today, Obama appointed U.S. District Judge Mark Walker made another controversial decision after the Democratic Party sued the state. This decision clearly opens the door for extensive voter fraud. If you don t sign your ballot, your vote doesn t count. Seems like a pretty simple concept Pay attention to, and know about the judges on your ballots this November because judges decisions matter Calling the state s current law illogical and bizarre, a federal judge late Sunday ordered the state of Florida to give thousands of voters a chance to make sure their vote-by-mail ballots are counted.U.S. District Judge Mark Walker ruled that county election offices should notify voters if their signature on a vote-by-mail ballot and their voter registration forms don t match. Voters would then be given a chance to fix the problem by 5 p.m. the day before the election.The Florida Democratic Party sued the state because currently voters who don t sign their vote-by-mail ballot are given a chance to fix it. But voters whose signatures don t match aren t told about the problem until after the election is over and their ballot is discarded.Walker said that makes the law unconstitutional.Meredith Beatrice, a spokeswoman for Secretary of State Ken Detzner, said state officials were reviewing the decision.It is not clear exactly how many voters would be affected by the decision. But more than 23,000 vote-by-mail ballots were rejected by Florida election officials during the 2012 presidential election where President Barack Obama carried the state by slightly more than 74,000 votes.Nearly 513,000 Floridians have already voted by mail according to data compiled by the Florida Division of Elections. And another 2.4 million vote-by-mail ballots have been requested.Judge Walker, citing the contentious 2000 Florida election where George W. Bush carried the state over Al Gore by 537 votes, said he needed to act because the current practice was enough of a burden to affect the outcome of an election and by extension, our country s future. Florida s Republican-controlled Legislature in 2004 passed a law that said all vote-by-mail ballots that had mismatched signatures or did not contain a signature were to be tossed out. But then in 2013 legislators changed the law to allow people who turned in a ballot without a signature to fix the mistake prior to the election.Detzner, the state s top election official, did not try to defend the current law. Instead his lawyers asserted that he could not order county election offices to correct the problem and that he was not the proper person to sue. Walker disagreed sharply in his decision. Via AP | 1real |
POLICE IN GERMANY BEGIN RAIDS On Homes Of Facebook Users Who Post “Hate Speech” Against Refugees | If Facebook has aligned themselves with Germany to restrict the free speech of its users, what makes us so sure they won t do the same thing in the US with Obama or (God forbid) a Hillary presidency? And wouldn t Germany be better off focusing their policing efforts on the over 1 million freeloaders and terrorists they ve just admitted into Germanista?Police in Germany have started carrying out raids in peoples homes in an attempt to prosecute people for inciting hate speech on Facebook.A press release from Germany s federal police agency confirmed that around 60 homes were searched this week as a result of people posting messages deemed as extreme by the German authorities. The action carried out today shows that the authorities are acting firmly against hate on the internet, which has grown considerably in the wake of the refugee situation, said Holger M nch, head of the BKA, said in the statement. Attacks on refugees are often the result of radicalization, which begins on social networks. These words should not poison the social climate, he continued.The move comes after it was revealed in January that Mark Zuckerberg had teamed up with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in order to censor people s frustrations with her migrant policy, when she decided to open up Germany s borders to millions of migrants last year.Facebook consequently introduced a policy where they agreed to remove anything deemed as hate speech within 24 hours. Bretibart News | 1real |
Macron expects casualties, after Hurricane Irma hits French territories | PARIS (Reuters) - President Emmanuel Macron said on Wednesday that there would be casualties in two of its Caribbean territories, St. Martin and St. Barthelemy, after Hurricane Irma hammered the islands. At this moment, it is too early to have a total figure, but I can already say that the impact will be hard and cruel, Macron said after a crisis meeting to assess the situation. There will be casualties and the material damage on both islands will be considerable. He gave no further details. | 0fake |
Who Is Registered to Vote in Two States? Some in Trump’s Inner Circle - The New York Times | Donald J. Trump spent his first week in office repeating the lie that between three million and five million people had voted illegally in the November election, first to members of Congress, then on Twitter, then in an ABC News interview, then again on Twitter on Friday, citing an unsubstantiated claim popular in conspiracy circles. On Wednesday, Mr. Trump had announced in a pair of tweets that he would be asking for a “major investigation” into voter fraud, “including those registered to vote in two states. ” Since then, a variety of news organizations have found that several members of Mr. Trump’s inner circle were registered in more than one state during the election. Several still are. There is no evidence that any of them voted twice. • Steve Bannon, Mr. Trump’s strategist, was registered to vote in Florida and New York, the Sarasota found. • Tiffany Trump, Mr. Trump’s youngest daughter, was registered in Pennsylvania and New York, NBC News reported. • Sean Spicer, his press secretary, was registered in both Virginia and Rhode Island, according to The Washington Post. • Jared Kushner, his and close adviser, was registered in New York and New Jersey, according to The Washington Post. • Steven Mnuchin, who is nominated to lead the Treasury Department, was registered in New York and California, CNN found. Not really. Have you ever moved to a new state? And did you call up the people in charge of voting in your old state to tell them to go ahead and take you off their list? Probably not. Neither, apparently, did some members of the Trump family and his White House. “There is nothing illegal about that,” Fred Voigt, the deputy election commissioner for Philadelphia, told Heat Street, the News Corp. conservative and libertarian site, which reported Ms. Trump’s double registration. “The illegality only occurs if one votes in two places, not if you’re registered in both. ” State authorities regularly purge their voter rolls of people who move or die. Mr. Bannon’s case is a little different. A Guardian report last summer found that Mr. Bannon was registered at a vacant home he had previously rented for his but that he had never lived there himself. Shortly after that report, the Guardian said, Mr. Bannon changed his registered address to the home of a Breitbart writer, also in Florida. When he voted in November’s election, he did so by absentee ballot in New York, a spokesman for the state Board of Elections confirmed. On Wednesday, after widespread news reports of his double registration, Sarasota County removed Mr. Bannon from the rolls, The Herald Tribune reported. As the reports of double registrations grew, Kellyanne Conway, one of Mr. Trump’s senior advisers, appeared on NBC’s “Today” show on Thursday and denied that members of Mr. Trump’s inner circle were registered in more than one place. “I talked last night to Tiffany Trump, and she said it is flatly false that she is registered in two states,” she said. But NBC had confirmed that Ms. Trump, in fact, was. | 0fake |
WIKILEAKS : Hillary Receiving Donations from Radical Muslims in Turkey – TruthFeed | WIKILEAKS : Hillary Receiving Donations from Radical Muslims in Turkey WIKILEAKS : Hillary Receiving Donations from Radical Muslims in Turkey Breaking News By Amy Moreno October 29, 2016
We have learned through Wikileaks released emails that Hillary and her team are actively disenfranchising American voters by accepting foreign donations.
We also know that Hillary LOVES Middle Eastern countries who ABUSE WOMEN and TOSS GAY PEOPLE off buildings.
She and her husband take MILLIONS from Saudi Arabia and Qatar.
Now, we can add Turkey to that list.
Hillary is a disgusting, greedy little pig.
Do you really think THIS WOMAN would fight Islamic terror?
They FUND her. | 1real |
Paintings 'almost no one else seemed to be doing' | Print
When Judith Gait met “Father X,” it was a lopsided grief that drew them together. He had lost his only chance at fatherhood through an abortion years ago. Gait is a married mother of five, and long-term American resident in Britain. Her support of the pro-life movement is driven by “thankfulness and praise” for life and her Christian faith.
Witnessing abortion’s heavy toll on the living and dead, Gait began to make the paintings almost no one else seemed to be doing. Subtle and working entirely with symbolism, these simple artworks avoid screaming about abortion. Rather, they mourn in color, symbol and tone with single shoes, broken cord, dead flowers and other lonely and broken things. “Troubadours Sailing Hibiscus Seas”painting by Judith Gait, commentary by Father X
When a friend first visited Gait’s studio, he was struck by her abortion paintings. Confessing years of torment after his partner aborted his child, he wrote: “I realize your work comes from a place of great love, for it attempts to give defenseless life the dignity and protection it never knew in our throw away culture.”
Gait invited him to pray with her for his lost child. It happened to be the anniversary of the death of his baby, five years to the day. Father X remembers every detail.
Their conversation grew into a joint effort, culminating in a book, “ Troubadours Sailing Hibiscus Seas: Meditations on Post Abortion Trauma .” Father X wanted to remain anonymous, as a place-setter for millions of unconsidered fathers in the acts of abortion. He wrote poetic and powerful statements for each of Gait’s 30 paintings in this book, which have also been shown together in art exhibits.
Time and neglect does not necessarily heal the wounds of abortion, Gait claims. Rather, “the past refocuses into a sharper image and the pain through an iterative process of silence, guilt and remorse has not abated.” You can see that in the words of Father X, which run the gamut of human emotions. “On Abortion: Shoe, Pot and Crosses”from “Troubadours Sailing Hibiscus Seas”
“Jonah of Nineveh” features an upended, single rose with red cords and funereal foliage. Flowers are “already in the birth position, head down and waiting to be born.” Torn and shroud-like ribbons hang across the painting. Spirals represent a child’s DNA helix and the “veil of the Temple which has just been so rudely shaken down to its foundation.” Father X makes an analogy between Jonah fleeing “parental responsibility” and eventual redemption – then veers off to his own personal engulfment in almost a stream of consciousness: “It was her wedding dress, my sea green empress, this blue lagoon princess she slipped into her own heart of darkness on that day she decided to abort and when time really stopped in our lives. She was full of fear. …”
In some of these works, hammers incongruently hang with flowers. They are bloody or blackened, some submerged underwater or hanging from a noose. Father X interprets these tools as decision markers, to either build or tear down. In “Hammer of Decision,” it belongs to Thor, the war god “infested with his one eyed wisdom of intrigue and destruction.” Wagner, the Olympics, “sperm races,” Thomas Moore and Valkyries are all inducted into this choice by the author. Either the Carpenter’s “hammer of wisdom” or Thor’s “tool of chaos” will be chosen by expectant parents. “Hammer, Suspended”
“ Troubadours ” runs from elegant poetry to sentiment over babies and an ad hoc theology. Striving to extend lives of children lost to abortion, the authors create a fantasy universe of possibilities. This includes moonlighting for angels, celestial games, “interstellar wind-jammers” and a “baby steamer sailing on children’s seas,” among other delightful prospects. Lost and murdered infants in these tales pine for love or for a family in their Limbos.
Father X occasionally speculates on spiritual issues outside the Bible or the treatment of abortion in other religions. Running from nursery rhymes and quotes to historical characters, these are not theological statements, but a type of literary yearning that seeks an answer to abortion.
In Gait’s “Pink Rose” and “Stardust,” we see empty fields, withered plants and other tokens. Father X takes off from here on fanciful trips for the lost children. He places them in a cosmic waiting rooms or dancing in circles, which is reflected in the painting. Children are disfigured, or missing eyes or arms and singing in “low mournful tones” so as not to disturb their parents. Music is “intense, equivalent to the sound created by Hildegard von Bingen (a 12th-century nun and composer). “Troubadours Sailing Hibiscus Seas”painting by Judith Gait, commentary by Father X
References to Mary as a mother are common, as well as other scriptural allusions. “All babies jump for Jesus” in the womb (or in “its sack of nibbling yoke”) writes Father X. Elizabeth’s child John “leapt for joy, just as his ancestor David did before the ark of the covenant,” he continues.
Gait addresses the human embryo, finding Biblical, ethical or emotional arguments for its worth at all stages. Her “Abbey Target Beginning” has a crosshair target, which is interpreted spiritually: “The first target blastula conflates the first cellular divisions with the laver bread – the bread on fire with the Holy Spirit the same stage of development as the child in Mary’s womb when she arrived at her cousin Elizabeth’s house.”
Post-abort guilt isn’t rationalized or downplayed, but emotionally reacted to in art and word. Father X describes bats as whirling about “in circles at the pitiful sound the [aborted] children make” because they are tuned to such distressing signals. This contrasts with many parents who are “still stone deaf” to such mournful sounds. At another point, Father-X imputes the collective white noise of guilt to attacks of tinnitus, a roar of unwanted thoughts. “Troubadours Sailing Hibiscus Seas”painting by Judith Gait, commentary by Father X
Father X elaborates on what Gait hints in her paintings: the injustice and evil of abortion. He cites a world built on slavery before Christ’s advent, and the works of such men as William Wilberforce and John Brown in furthering Christ’s gospel of justice and peace. All this is contrasted to abortion throughout.
Ruminating on Gait’s “Palms of our Lord,” Father X claims “the face of the baby is in the midst of the ruins of the abortion. “Palms” is murky, with a single, red hand print. “To look at the after birth of an abortion is to read the Tarot of Ruins,” he continues.
“Suicide” advances this dark theme, where Gait and Father X criticize the death industry and it’s euphemistically named “clinics.” He takes a few swings at the girl gangs of the glass ceilings: “… a caricature of a woman who made a mistake, who got herself in trouble, who has had an abortion and afterwards committed suicide in her heart.”
But all isn’t baleful and sad here. In “Cloud Children,” Father X muses on paper dolls in Gait’s paintings with this lovely thought: “Where children go … is a mystery. … Some say they take their daytime rest in Christ’s tomb in Jerusalem, and like him when their time is come they will ascend into heaven before a quire of angels and assembled Star Ships.”
“ Troubadours Sailing Hibiscus Seas ” is a work of meditation, grief counseling, poetry, social commentary and visual art. Father X may not reveal his identity here, but the reader comes to know intimate details about relationships and emotions surrounding the death of his only child. Gait and Father X describe their efforts as a “silent prayer of witness for all the ghost families, those Phantoms of Sorrows, who will never laugh or cry together as a family, because of an abortion.” They hope that prying open the tightly locked matter of abortion will help to heal those who have had abortions or are victimized in some way.
Judith Gait is a graduate of California College of Arts and Crafts and received a Masters at Oxford’s Ruskin School of Fine Drawing. Her work is in public and private collections in America and abroad. She is an American citizen, residing in Britain. Father X is an addictions counselor and writer in Great Britain, who prefers to remain anonymous.
“Troubadours Sailing Hibiscus Seas:Meditations on Post Abortion Trauma” is a coffee-table size, 103-page paper book, with 33 color-illustrations and related commentary. You can purchase it at Amazon U.S. | 1real |
Trump's pick for Army secretary drops out | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Vincent Viola, an Army veteran and founder of a high-speed trading firm nominated by U.S. President Donald Trump to be secretary of the Army, withdrew his name from consideration on Friday, a U.S. official said. “Secretary Mattis is disappointed but understands and respects Mr. Viola’s decision,” a Pentagon statement said, adding that Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis would recommend another candidate soon. The Military Times, which first reported the news, cited Viola’s inability to get around Defense Department rules concerning his family businesses as the reason for withdrawing his name. Viola is a former chairman of the New York Mercantile Exchange and is a leader in electronic trading. Along with Virtu CEO Douglas Cifu, he bought the Florida Panthers of the National Hockey League in 2013. | 0fake |
Trump STUPIDLY Attacks A Major U.S. Ally Before Threatening North Korea With War | If Donald Trump drags us into war with North Korea, it could be without the help of our most important ally in the region.South Korea is a critical ally since the country sits just below North Korea. South Korea not only serves as a base for our troops and any strike we launch against Kim Jong-Uu, it would provide logistical and military support.Defeating North Korea requires strong allies and cooperation. But Trump may have just ruined that with a Twitter tantrum on Sunday morning.First, Trump took a shot at China. Then he tweeted out what amounts to an I told you so and accused South Korea of appeasing North Korea. Then he threatened war with North Korea.North Korea has conducted a major Nuclear Test. Their words and actions continue to be very hostile and dangerous to the United States .. Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 3, 2017..North Korea is a rogue nation which has become a great threat and embarrassment to China, which is trying to help but with little success. Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 3, 2017South Korea is finding, as I have told them, that their talk of appeasement with North Korea will not work, they only understand one thing! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 3, 2017Trump s attack on South Korea comes just a day after he instructed his staff to prepare to withdraw from the South Korea trade deal, another move that antagonizes one of our closest allies at a time when we need them the most.So just to recap, China has warned Trump not to attack North Korea and now he has antagonized South Korea.America is running out of allies in Asia. And it s all because Donald Trump is a terrible leader who thinks being a bully works better than diplomacy and cooperation. Americans better get ready for nuclear war because Trump is going to start one.Featured image via Sean Rayford/Getty Images | 1real |
Clinton campaign scrambles to defend Rust Belt against Trump | With the general election campaign just hours old, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump began focusing their attention this weekend on America’s Rust Belt -- hoping their separate plans to restore prosperity to the all-important region will sway enough voters there to help them win in November.
“We’re going to create jobs in Pennsylvania and across America, especially in places that have been left behind,” Clinton said at a rally Saturday at a factory in Johnstown, part of Pennsylvania’s western, industrial region, home to a large conservative voting bloc that Trump needs.
“I believe with all of my heart that the economy should work for everyone, not just the top 1 percent. … We’re going to support steel workers,” continued Clinton, who also touted her campaign promise to, in her first 100 days in the White House, make the largest investment in jobs since World War II.
Clinton won the Democratic labor and blue-collar vote in her failed 2008 presidential primary bid. But those voters have been more difficult for her to reach in this election cycle.
Primary rival Sen. Bernie Sanders’ populist message repeatedly tried to portray Clinton as less receptive to middle class needs. The Vermont senator in fact scored a major suprise win over Clinton in the Michigan primay.
Meanwhile, Trump, the Republican nominee, and running mate Mike Pence continued to argue that electing Clinton would continue the Obama administration's failed economic policies -- marked by stagnant wages and bad international trade deals that are sending manufacturing jobs oversea.
“The second-quarter numbers came out -- 1.2 percent growth in the American economy,” Pence, Indiana's governor, said Friday night at a rally in Lima, Ohio. “We can’t keep doing the same thing and expect a different result … People are restless for change.”
Most political analysts predict that the general election will again be decided by four so-called battleground states, among them Ohio and Pennsylvania.
Clinton and Trump are deadlocked in those states, according to two recent Quinnipiac University polls, though an NBC survey released July 13 shows Trump trailing by 9 percentage points.
“It will be interesting to see if Clinton can hold off Trump in the Rust Belt by going back to the blue-collar vote,” Caleb Burns, a Republican strategist and partner in the Washington law firm Wiley Rein, said earlier this week. “If she can, it will be extremely difficult for Trump to find a path to victory.”
To be sure, Trump already has a narrow path toward getting the requisite 270 electoral votes to take the White House.
Beyond winning the 13 states that GOP nominees have taken in the past six presidential races, Trump must also win some combination of battleground states -- including Colorado, North Carolina, Florida, Virginia, Ohio and Pennsylvania.
No Republican has won Pennsylvania since 1988, and no Republican nominee has won the White House without winning Ohio.
“And this election will be no different,” Fox News contributor and senior Bush administration policy adviser Karl Rove recently wrote in The Wall Street Journal editorial pages. “If Mr. Trump’s appeal to blue-collar, white swing voters is real, he could paint Pennsylvania red. If so, he is likely to win the White House with 273 electoral votes.”
However, a loss in Pennsylvania would mean Trump would have to find wins in such Midwestern industrial states as Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin, all Democratic strongholds.
Clinton and Kaine continued their “Stronger Together” tour Saturday with a late-afternoon rally in Pittsburgh and an evening event in Youngstown, Ohio. Their tour concludes Sunday in Columbus.
At a rally in Colorado on Friday, the day after Clinton accepted the Democratic nomination in Philadelphia, Trump went after Clinton and Kaine on economic issues.
“We have to go over some numbers,” he said at a rally in Denver, a liberal stronghold. “Hillary was talking last night about how wonderful everything was. She didn’t talk about all of the unbelievable long-term unemployment, the fact house ownership is the lowest in 51 years.”
He also argued that Kaine is “not popular” in his home state of Virginia, considering that unemployment nearly doubled in his one term as governor and that his first move after getting elected to the post in 2005 was to increase taxes by $4 billion.
Trump plans to visit Columbus and Cleveland on Monday. | 0fake |
Fishing boat capsizes in South Korea, eight killed | SEOUL (Reuters) - A South Korean fishing boat capsized off the country s western coast on Sunday after it collided with a refueling vessel, killing eight people, South Korea s coast guard said. The boat was carrying two sailors and 20 passengers when the collision occurred in waters near Incheon west of Seoul, a coast guard official told a media briefing. Two people remain missing and a search and rescue operation involving five helicopters and 19 vessels is underway. President Moon Jae-in ordered all measures be taken to find those missing, his office told reporters. Those rescued from the water have been sent to nearby hospitals, the coast guard said. The reason for the collision has yet to be confirmed, according to the coast guard. | 0fake |
Earth’s Magnetic Field is Collapsing — Are the Poles About to Switch? | As it turns out – according to studies— our planets magnetic field could flip in our lifetime. According to experts , the position of the South Pole has shifted and is not located precisely at Antarctica, the North Pole is also believed to be ‘racing’ across the Arctic Ocean. Earth’s magnetic field appears to be collapsing which could severely damage our climate and WIPE OUT power grids across the world.
Our planet’s magnetic field exists because Earth has a massive ‘ball of iron’ at its core which is surrounded by an outer layer of molten metal.
As the earth’s magnetic field varies over time, the positions of the north and south magnetic poles gradually change. The magnetic declination at a given location also changes over time. As it turns out a lot has changed in the last couple of hundred years, and to see what we are taking about visit NOAA and take a look at Historical Magnetic Declination .
Interestingly, according to previous studies, Earth’s magnetic field – which shields our planet from blasts of deadly solar radiation has dangerously weakened in the last couple of years.
According to reports from the European Space Agency , the biggest weak spots seen in the magnetic field are located in the western hemisphere.
Experts are unsure why the magnetic field is weakening but one of the MOST LIKELY reasons is that our planets magnetic poles are getting ready to flip said Rune Floberghagen, the ESA’s Swarm mission manager.
Researchers have concluded that the magnetic field had diminished at a rate of around five percent per century. However, new studies who that the magnetic field is weakening at an accelerated rate of five percent per decade –meaning that it is deteriorating five times faster than previously believed.
If we take a look at the animation of secular variation in geomagnetic total intensity for the last 400 years, we will see that the magnetic field began weakening in 1600 .
Animation of secular variation in geomagnetic total intensity for the last 400 years:
Furthermore, the magnetic field weakened a staggering 10 percent from the 1800’s to 2000.
Ok so… what would happen if it really flips? According to experts, if the pole switch does happen the entire planet and everything on it will become exposed to solar winds which could punch giant holes into the ozone layer which in turn could have a devastating effect on mankind. If the planet’s Magnetosphere starts collapsing power grids could collapse, the weather would abruptly change and humans would have serious health risks.
According to reports from the European Space Agency, as of 2014 the magnetic field is continuing to weaken rapidly . With the help of SWARM, scientists have obtained unprecedented insights into the complex workings of Earth’s magnetic field. Reports show that the general trend of the magnetic field is weakening and the most dramatic declines are present over the Western Hemisphere.
The latest measurements also confirm the movement of magnetic North towards Siberia. It is believed that the magnetic field is speeding away at a rate of about 40 miles per year.
But what is most terrifying is perhaps a study that warns that magnetic reversals lead to extinction events. The highlights of the study indicate :
Geomagnetic field reversal substantially weakens the protection for the atmosphere. Solar wind energizes more oxygen ions to escape when geomagnetic field is weakened. Oxygen escape may explain the drop of atmospheric level during mass extinction. The causal relation between reversal and mass extinction should be “many-to-one”. The simulated oxygen escape rate based on knowledge of Mars support our hypothesis. Furthermore, it is believed that magnetic reversals can be responsible for floods of biblical proportions as you can see in the video below:
Source: EWAO
Related: The White House Just Issued An Executive Order officially Preparing For The “Event?” — Geomagnetic “Collapse” and Storms 1 Day Later New Shocking Evidence Points to Pole Shift Inuit Elders tell NASA Earth Axis Shifted Ancient Huts May Reveal Clues to Earth’s Magnetic Pole Reversals The Sun’s Mysterious Tilt Gets A Surprising Explanation Astronomers point to Planet Nine Mysterious Planet Nine Might Explain Tilt in Solar System | 1real |
Putin, on Iraqi Kurdistan, says Moscow handles situation with care | MOSCOW (Reuters) - President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday that Russia was exercising a policy of non-interference and using cautious rhetoric after the independence referendum in Iraq s Kurdistan in order not to explode the situation in the region. Putin, speaking during an energy forum in Moscow, also said that it was in no-one s interest to cut off oil supplies from Iraq s Kurdistan. | 0fake |
Bulgaria deputy PM wants new laws to stifle radical Islam | SOFIA (Reuters) - Bulgaria should tighten rules on foreign financing for religious communities and restrict visits by foreign clerics to help counter the potential spread of radical Islam, deputy prime minister Krasimir Karakachanov said on Thursday. Karakachanov is a co-leader of the nationalist United Patriots, a junior partner in the coalition government that is known for its tough rhetoric on migration and Bulgaria s Roma. He said proposals to parliament to amend laws on religion and education as well as the criminal code would be submitted by the end of the year. Bulgaria s government banned the wearing of full face veils in public places last year. Bulgaria has one of the biggest Muslim communities in Europe at about 12 percent of its 7.1 million population a legacy of almost 500 years of Ottoman Turkish rule that ended in the late 19th century. Historic resistance to the Muslim Ottomans is a core element of national identity for the mainly Orthodox Christian majority and some nationalists have cast the recent arrival of Muslim migrants via Turkey as a threat to the nation s security. It turns out that problems we see in a number of European countries already exist in Bulgaria, Karakachanov said after a meeting to discuss how to prevent the spread of radical Islam in the country. He said extremely liberal laws were allowing the spread of non-traditional Islam through the private provision of education and training. It is mostly the ... financing by private structures of religious communities that attempt to realize political influence in the country, Karakachanov said. Many Islamist organizations in Europe are financed largely with foreign donations. Karakachanov has previously complained that many imams preaching in Bulgaria come from abroad and do not speak Bulgarian, and has spoken of fostering native imams who are more deeply integrated into Bulgarian society. The wave of mainly Muslim refugees and migrants reaching Europe s borders over the past years has contributed to a rise in right-wing nationalism across the continent. | 0fake |
Brexit deal agreed on all Irish issues - Irish government sources | DUBLIN (Reuters) - British and European Union Brexit negotiators have reached agreement on a deal for all Irish issues, including the maintenance of regulatory alignment on the island to avoid a hard border, two Irish government sources told Reuters. Agreement has been reached on an overall deal for the Irish issues, one of the sources said. The key phrase is a clear commitment to maintaining regulatory alignment in relation to the rules of the customs union and internal market which are required to support the Good Friday Agreement, the all-island economy and the border. | 0fake |
BREAKING: Another Undercover Video Released of CNN Producer Mocking Cuomo and Calling voters “Stupid as Sh*t” [Video] | Project Veritas just released yet another video of the CNN producer calling voters stupid as sh*t and even mocking on of their top news anchors Chris Cuomo!The undercover reporter stroked Carr s ego saying he had just as much gravitas as Cuomo and he responded saying, Just can t stand the guy when he talks, we re like shut up. The Veritas reporter asked for clarification as to who he was talking about and he reaffirmed that he was referring to Cuomo.Carr backed up his past comments on other videos such as calling the American electorate stupid as sh-t, and admitting to pushing stories on Russia strictly for ratings. I mean granted, anything I ve said to you I would defend on the record. I don t think I ve said anything, wrong, said Carr.OUR PREVIOUS VIDEOS AND REPORTS FROM PROJECT VERITAS ON CNN:Project Veritas newest video from the American Pravda: CNN series exposes Jimmy Carr, the Associate Producer for CNN s New Day attacking President Donald Trump and admitting that CNN has a left-leaning bias. When asked by an undercover journalist if CNN is impartial, Carr plainly responded, In theory. We reported on the previous videos from Project Veritas: James O Keefe s Project Veritas reporters went undercover at CNN to investigate the #VeryFakeNews network to determine the motivation behind CNN s Trump-Russia collusion obsession. Since the inauguration, CNN has mentioned Russian story nearly 16,000 times.Project Veritas reporters can be seen in the video below having a conversation with CNN s supervising producer John Bonifield. The reporter talked to Bonifield first about the constant barrage of Trump-Russia stories on CNN. Bonifield admitted that although CNN has no evidence or proof of Trump involvement with Russia, they continue to make it their top story on CNN simply for ratings and to make money. Bonifield has worked as a journalist and as a producer for nearly 15 years at CNN, making him a pretty reliable source when it comes to how things work at CNN.Bonifield actually confessed to the undercover Project Veritas journalist that President Trump is correct when he says the media is on a witch hunt to take him down. Bonifield told the reporter: I think the President is right to say, like, look you are witch hunting me You have no real smoking gun, you have no proof. Bonifield told the undercover reporter for Project Veritas that CNN is biased and is playing to their audience by attacking President Trump, and actually admitted that Trump is good for business right now. The Project Veritas reporter asked Bonifield, But honestly, you think the whole Russia shit is bullshit? to which Bonifield replied: Could be bullshit. I mean, it s mostly bullshit right now. Like, we don t have any big, giant proof. The way these leaks happen, they d leak it. It d leak. If it was something really good, it would leak. Watch the unbelievable video here:Did the three resignations that took place at CNN today have anything to do with the impending release of O Keefe s explosive video proving that CNN manufactures Trump-Russia collusion stories for ratings, or for money?The story about the three CNN employees resigning for publishing fake news broke yesterday. Is ti a coincidence that today, O Keefe released this explosive bombshell video?Here s the story that broke yesterday: CNN employees have resigned for their role in pushing fake news about the Trump-Russia story that claimed a member of the Trump transition team was under investigation.Reporter Thomas Frank, editor Eric Lichtblau and executive editor Lex Haris all resigned from their positions following a company-wide investigation into the single-sourced story that was quickly debunked, The Washington Post first reported. CNN quickly followed up with a story of their own on the resignations. Lichtblau reportedly oversaw the false story, while Haris headed up CNN s investigative unit. In the aftermath of the retraction of a story published on CNN.com, CNN has accepted the resignations of the employees involved in the story s publication, CNN s coverage quotes a company spokesman as saying.Philly.com On Thursday evening, CNN investigative reporter Thomas Frank published a potentially explosive report involving an investigation of a Russian investment fund with potential ties to several associates of President Donald Trump.But by Friday night, the story was removed from CNN s website and all links were scrubbed from the network s social media accounts. That story did not meet CNN s editorial standards and has been retracted, CNN said in an editors note posted in place of the story. Links to the story have been disabled. | 1real |
BREAKING: US SUPREME COURT RULES King Obama Overstepped Authority…Executive Amnesty For 5 MILLION ILLEGAL ALIENS/ Democrat Voters Not Going To Happen | Don t let the door hit ya B..b..but who will beat up innocent Trump supporters? The assertion of presidential power was remarkable in scale. With the flick of a pen just before Thanksgiving in 2014, President Obama ordered that nearly five million illegal immigrants be allowed to come out of the shadows and work legally in the United States.Standing at the same lectern where he had announced the death of Osama bin Laden three years earlier, Mr. Obama insisted in a speech to the nation that his plan for immigrants was a fully legal response to a Republican-controlled Congress that had refused his plea for an overhaul of the nation s immigration laws.But on Thursday, the Supreme Court disagreed. In a 4-to-4 decision, the justices let stand a lower court ruling that Mr. Obama had overstepped his authority. The decision freezes the president s actions for the balance of his term, leaving the future of the program and millions of undocumented workers in limbo.Mr. Obama campaigned vowing to win passage of comprehensive immigration legislation in his first year in office, but the Supreme Court defeat will force him to finish his term without securing the major progress he had promised to millions of Latino immigrants living under the threat of deportation.Instead, one of the president s chief immigration legacies will be the years of increased enforcement he ordered at the border with Mexico and in immigrant communities, hoping it would lead to a compromise with Republicans. The aggressive actions of immigration agents and local law enforcement, especially during Mr. Obama s first term, angered many family members separated by raids and deportations.Mr. Obama did earn praise from Hispanics for taking action in 2012 to help the so-called Dreamers, young undocumented immigrants who had been brought to the United States as small children. Under the president s program, more than 730,000 of them received documents allowing them to work legally without constant fear that they might be sent home.Hillary Clinton, who embraced the president s executive action programs, has said she would expand them. The court s actions could complicate her ability to do that if she is elected president in the fall.But the successful legal assault on Mr. Obama s actions may also yield some political benefits for Mrs. Clinton and Democrats by helping to motivate and energize Hispanic voters who are angry with the court s decision. Activists have promised to punish Donald J. Trump and other Republicans who opposed the president s actions by registering more Hispanic voters and getting them to vote. Mr. Trump s rhetorical assault on immigrants, especially Mexicans, is also likely to help energize Hispanic activists on behalf of Mrs. Clinton and other Democratic candidates.The court s action comes after nearly eight years of largely futile attempts by the president to make good on his promise.Mr. Obama had resorted to executive actions in 2014 after years of fighting to get Congress to act. In 2013, the Senate passed a bipartisan immigration overhaul that the White House said the president could support. But House Republicans blocked any consideration of the legislation, accusing the Senate and Mr. Obama of supporting amnesty for the millions of illegal immigrants already in the United States.For most of his presidency, even Mr. Obama said he did not have the power to act unilaterally. He repeatedly told Hispanic activists that he could not use the Dreamers program as a model to expand similar protections to a much larger pool of illegal immigrants. If we start broadening that, then essentially I ll be ignoring the law in a way that I think would be very difficult to defend legally, Mr. Obama told Jose Diaz-Balart in an interview in September 2013, after it was clear that House Republicans were blocking the Senate s immigration measure. So that s not an option. NYT | 1real |
After Super Bowl Ad Flap, 84 Lumber CEO Says She Backs Trump and Border Wall | John Carney, Breitbart News economics editor, joined Breitbart News Daily SiriusXM host Alex Marlow on Wednesday to discuss the recent Super Bowl ads, including the 84 Lumber ad, which drew a considerable amount of attention. [In response to Marlow’s saying it usually does not make news if conservative backlash damages a company’s bottom line, Carney said, “It hasn’t been traditionally. But I think when you see as extreme as what we saw with 84 Lumber, the longer version, which is on YouTube, which the NFL actually turned down to show because it was too political — but they still insisted on making it available … I think this is saying, much like Kellogg but not just about Breitbart, about America, about people who voted for Donald Trump, about the country as a whole. ” Added Carney, “84 Lumber is saying we don’t share your values. And I think Americans are going to look at that. ” As the controversy grew, 84 Lumber CEO Maggie Hardy Magerko appeared to walk back any perceived opposition to a border wall and President Trump. She said the ad “was not meant to be or a political statement at all” and that she is “a staunch supporter of President Donald Trump,” who thinks a border wall “is a need. ” Breitbart News Daily airs on SiriusXM Patriot 125 weekdays from 6:00 a. m. to 9:00 a. m. Eastern. | 0fake |
null | Regarding the federal Judge's decision noted:
Yes, he correctly notes that oil is different than gas pipelines from a regulatory standpoint, BUT, the Clean Water Act permits required for stream crossings can be DENIED by EPA and/or the State regulatory agency.
If I were ND State agency head or US EPA Regional Administrator, I could do that and make it stick legally.
The regulatory framework is seriously flawed, but still is sufficiently powerful to kill these pipelines - IF it were enforced vigorously, which is is NOT.
Activists need to get up to speed on these issues and start holding State regulatory agencies, Governors and EPA accountable. | 1real |
SAY WHAT? UN Working With Obama Regime To Create Global Police Force In Several American Cities | Whiskey, Tango Foxtrot!!! A Sharia compliant UN working with Obama to create a Global police force? Does anyone else have alarm bells going off in their heads? On Wednesday, Attorney General Loretta Lynch announced at the United Nations that her office would be working in several American cities to form what she called the Strong Cities Network (SCN), a law enforcement initiative that would encompass the globe.This amounts to nothing less than the overriding of American laws, up to and including the United States Constitution, in favor of United Nations laws that would henceforth be implemented in the United States itself without any consultation of Congress at all.The United Nations is a sharia-compliant world body, and Obama, speaking there just days ago, insisted that violent extremism is not exclusive to Islam (which it is). Obama is redefining jihad terror to include everyone but the jihadists. So will the UN, driven largely by the sharia-enforcing Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and the pro-Islamic post-American President Obama, use a global police force to crush counter-jihad forces?After all, with Obama knowingly aiding al-Qaeda forces in Syria, how likely is it that he will use his global police force against actual Islamic jihadists? I suspect that instead, this global police force will be used to impose the blasphemy laws under the sharia (Islamic law), and to silence all criticism of Islam for the President who proclaimed that the future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam. What is a global police force doing in our cities? This is exactly the abdication of American sovereignty that I warned about in my book, The Post-American Presidency: The Obama Administration s War on America. The Obama Department of Justice made it clear that it was exactly that when it distributed a press release last week announcing the Launch of Strong Cities Network to Strengthen Community Resilience Against Violent Extremism. In that press release, the DoJ complained that while many cities and local authorities are developing innovative responses to address this challenge, no systematic efforts are in place to share experiences, pool resources and build a community of cities to inspire local action on a global scale. So if the local and municipal effort to counter the euphemistic and disingenuous violent extremism is inadequate and hasn t developed systematic efforts are in place to share experiences, pool resources and build a community of cities to inspire local action on a global scale, the feds and the UN have to step in. Thus the groundwork is being laid for federal and international interference down to the local level. The Strong Cities Network, Lynch declared, will serve as a vital tool to strengthen capacity-building and improve collaboration i.e., local dependence on federal and international authorities.Lynch made the global (that is, United Nations) involvement clear when she added: As we continue to counter a range of domestic and global terror threats, this innovative platform will enable cities to learn from one another, to develop best practices and to build social cohesion and community resilience here at home and around the world. This internationalist character was brought to the fore by the fact that the Strong Cities Network was launched on September 29 not at the White House or the Department of Homeland Security, or at the FBI headquarters or anywhere else that might be fitting for a national project, but at the United Nations.Even more ominously, the DoJ press release says that the Strong Cities Network will strengthen strategic planning and practices to address violent extremism in all its forms by fostering collaboration among cities, municipalities and other sub-national authorities. Sub-national and international: the press release then quotes Governing Mayor Stian Berger R sland of Oslo, Norway, a participant in the Strong Cities Network, saying: To counter violent extremism we need determined action at all levels of governance. To succeed, we must coordinate our efforts and cooperate across borders. The Strong Cities Network will enable cities across the globe pool our resources, knowledge and best practices together and thus leave us standing stronger in the fight against one of the greatest threats to modern society. But what is that greatest threat, exactly? Remember, the DoJ presser says that the SCN will address violent extremism in all its forms. It also says that it will aid initiatives that are working toward building social cohesion and resilience to violent extremism. Building social cohesion is a euphemism for keeping peace between non-Muslim and Muslim communities mostly by making sure that non-Muslims don t complain too loudly about, much less work against, rapidly expanding Muslim populations and the Islamization of their communities.The DoJ presser noted that at the launch of the Strong Cities Network, welcoming remarks would be offered by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Prince Zeid Ra ad Al Hussein and Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York City. The involvement of New York City s Marxist internationalist mayor is yet another warning sign.Assert American sovereignty and individual rights. Contact your representatives now. Exhort them to oppose SCN now. Exhort them to keep America free while it still is. Via: Breitbart News | 1real |
James Mattis Is a Secretary of Offense | Lt. Gen. James Mattis, the commander of U.S. Marine Corps Forces Central Command, speaks to the Marines of the maintenance section from Marine All-Weather Fighter Attack Squadron 121 on the Al Asad flightline, May 6, 2007 (US Department of Defense) | 1real |
Mostly White Group Of Boston College Students Sing Christmas Carols About Racism: ‘Walking Through a White Man’s Wonderland’ | What Catholic college campus would be complete without students who bastardize the lyrics to songs about the birth of Jesus Christ Tis the season to protest, apparently.A group of Boston College student activists that go by Eradicate Boston College Racism recently perverted the Christmas carol Walking in a Winter Wonderland to fit its Twelve Days of BC Racism campaign, Boston.com reports.The students distributed lyrics to their re-worked carol and attempted to deliver their rendition to the college s board of trustees during a luncheon Friday, Dec. 5. Rejected, they resorted to singing in the atrium in front of the building. And now we carol for accountability! the group posted to Twitter Dec. 4, along with a video of their stunt.And now we carol for accountability! #12Days #BostonCollegeRacism #CJBC @bostoncollege pic.twitter.com/7DKuoONzhX Eradicate BC Racism (@BCRacism) December 4, 2015Here are the lyrics to the song that is being sung by a mostly white chorus:Dear Trustees Are you listenin ? A real plan You are missin . Until you agree, And change we do see, We re walking through a white man s wonderland.Gone away, is our patience. Here to stay: demonstration. Deas tell us to trust But we know we must Keep walkin through a white man s wonderland.In your meeting you can do some planning, Decide how you ll get us to settle down. If you say, There s no problem. We ll say, No, Man? Try living on this campus If you re brown. More bad press You ll inspire If reforms, you do mire In mounds of red tape. You ll never escape. You re walkin through a white man s wonderland. At the end of the demonstration, the members read a wish list for the board, which asked that a faculty member of color, a staff member of color, and a student of color be added to the board and given voting power, Boston.com reports.Eradicate Boston College Racism s webpage also detailed the confrontation. After being denied permission to address the Board directly, students sang anti-racist carols from outside the doors to the luncheon in Gasson Hall 100 and presented three demands: 1. One voting student of color on the board, one faculty, one staff; 2. An action plan to address institutional racism supported by a budget (similar to those created at Yale University or Brown University); and 3. The presentation of the plan by representatives of the University at a Town Hall on January 19th, 2016 (the deadline set forth previously by the Executive Council of the Undergraduate Government of Boston College), according to the site."White emotional fragility has long been prioritized over black pain & anger in the American public sphere"#BCRacism https://t.co/6bloXu79v9 Eradicate BC Racism (@BCRacism) December 17, 2015No Leftist group in their right mind would ignore the incoming class of Freshman. Here, the Eradicate BC Racism group sends out a tweet in hopes of getting a jump on indoctrinating the young and malleable minds who ve been accepted to this prestigious Catholic college:Hey #BC2020, congrats on your early acceptance! If you choose to attend, we hope you'll join our work to eradicate #BostonCollegeRacism! Eradicate BC Racism (@BCRacism) December 17, 2015The Left has managed to find a way to tie phony climate change to racism. What protest about racism would be complete without addressing climate change? .@BClimateJustice "what many have received as the issue of our time:a 21 century color line drawn by climate change" https://t.co/jrfRIorwpz Eradicate BC Racism (@BCRacism) December 14, 2015The racial justice warriors also posted a video and full text of a speech delivered by student Kwesi Aaron, as well as links to its other Christmas celebrations, including BCPD is Comin to Town, Come All Ye Faithful, I m Dreaming of Whiteness in Academia, We Wish You a Day of Raciam (sic) Healing & White Accountability, Have Yourself a Bureaucratic Christmas, Roasting Admissions on an Open Fire, Leahy Baby, Slip a Present Under the Tree, For Me, and It s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Justice. Via: EAG News | 1real |
Catalan parliament declares independence from Spain | BARCELONA (Reuters) - Catalonia s regional parliament declared independence from Spain on Friday in a disputed vote that is now likely to be declared illegal by Spain s constitutional court. The independence motion was passed in the 135-strong assembly with 70 votes in favor, 10 against and 2 blank ballots, the assembly s speaker said. Lawmakers from the Socialist Party, the People s Party (PP) and Ciudadanos had left the chamber before the vote in protest. | 0fake |
Democratic leaders Schumer, Pelosi to dine with Trump Wednesday | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump invited Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer and House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi to dine with him on Wednesday night, Democratic sources familiar with the situation said. The two Democratic leaders will push the Republican president on legislation they want passed to protect youth brought to the United States illegally - a proposal known as the DREAM act, as well as on stabilizing the health care markets, Democratic aides said. | 0fake |
Trump administration imposing new email security protocols for agencies | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Trump administration on Monday will order federal agencies to adopt common email security standards in an effort to better protect against hackers, a senior Department of Homeland Security official said. DHS Assistant Secretary for Cybersecurity Jeanette Manfra, speaking at an event in New York, said the agency would issue a binding directive to require implementation of two cyber security measures, known as DMARC and STARTTLS, intended to guard against email spoofing and phishing attacks. The new requirements are “discrete steps that have scalable, broad impact” that will improve federal government cyber security, Manfra said. DMARC, or domain-based message authentication, reporting and conformance, is a decade-old popular technical standard that helps detect and block email impersonation, such as when a hacker might try to pose as a government official or agency. STARTTLS is a form of encryption technology that protects email traveling between servers, making it more difficult for a third-party to intercept. Civilian agencies will have 90 days to implement the new security measures, Manfra said. Many agencies already use DMARC and STARTTLS but recent reviews have found the protocols are not used universally across government. Foreign governments and other hackers have pilfered millions of personal records and other sensitive data from the U.S. government in recent years. The Trump administration has made upgrading government agencies’ much-maligned network security a top cyber priority. Democratic Senator Ron Wyden, who earlier this year pushed federal agencies to adopt the security standards more widely, said in a statement the moves were “two cheap, effective ways to secure email from being intercepted or impersonated by bad guys.” He said he hoped the decision would compel private sector companies to upgrade their own email security quickly. An August report from the Global Cyber Alliance, an international non-profit, found that federal government adoption of DMARC had been rising in recent months but that less than 10 percent of domains had the protocol fully implemented. Usage of DMARC is much higher on the consumer level with 85 percent of inboxes, including those hosted by Alphabet’s Google (GOOGL.O) or Microsoft (MSFT.O), supporting the standard, according to the Global Cyber Alliance. | 0fake |
’Drunk Don Lemon’: CNN Cuts Mic During New Year’s Eve Show | CNN anchor Don Lemon chugged tequila, had his ear pierced, and launched into a rant about how “awful” 2016 was during a drunken live New Year’s Eve performance that ended with producers cutting off his microphone. [Comedienne Kathy Griffin and CNN anchor Anderson Cooper kicked off the bizarre sequence of events by debating whether Lemon should get a tattoo or have his ear pierced. “What are you thinking?” CNN anchor Brooke Baldwin asked Lemon, who was reporting live from New Orleans. “Nipples! Nipples! Nipples!” Griffin screamed suggested a nipple piercing, as Lemon began to unbutton his shirt. He eventually settled on getting his ear pierced. “Is this going to hurt?” a tequila Lemon asked Chris, an tattoo artist who was hold a piercing gun in his hand. “It’s not going to hurt me,” Chris said. “You’ll be fine. ” “Mama Lemon,” a seemingly embarrassed Baldwin said, while looking into the camera,” I don’t know what he’s thinking. At least it’s just his ear, you know what I’m saying?” After the needled was in and Lemon was sporting a fleur de lis earring, Baldwin said “this is what happens when a lot of tequila happens. ” About 30 minutes later, as the clock struck midnight and the New Year had finally arrived, Lemon (now drinking champagne) began to rebuke 2016. “I can’t hear a damn thing,” Lemon said. “So, 2016 was awful,” he added just before his microphone was abruptly cut off. What exactly was so “awful” about 2016, we may never know. But perhaps CNN cut off Lemon’s mic because it didn’t want to relive the public relations nightmare it endured last month after one of the network’s producers was heard offscreen joking about the possibility of Donald Trump’s plane crashing. And, of course, 2016 was the year Lemon was called “dumb as a rock” by none other than Trump. . @dbongino You were fantastic in defending both the Second Amendment and me last night on @CNN. Don Lemon is a lightweight — dumb as a rock, — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 10, 2016, Oddly though, in a year where CNN had seen steep ratings declines and had been dubbed the “Clinton News Network,” Lemon’s antics received rave reviews on social media as #drunkdonlemon trended online. CNN needs to be cutting to #DrunkDonLemon every 10 minutes, if not 5. #CNNNYE, — Ashleigh Virginia (@ashvirginia_) January 1, 2017, Don Lemon wasted on @CNN getting his ear pierced in a bar is the perfect way to end 2016. #DrunkDonLemon, — Tim Baker👨🏻💻 (@IAmTimBaker) January 1, 2017, Honestly, #drunkdonlemon is the best thing ever on TV. 2016 finally gave us a solid. — Nicole McDaniel (@nicoleann75) January 1, 2017, Follow Jerome Hudson on Twitter: @JeromeEHudson | 0fake |
BUSTED: Donald Trump Protected Known Cocaine Trafficker (VIDEO) | Republicans like Maine Governor Paul LePage like to scare people with stories of black drug dealers corrupting our communities, but their own presidential nominee once went to great lengths to make sure a convicted cocaine trafficker received a light prison sentence.In 1985, Joseph Weichselbaum was indicted for drug trafficking. But while the drug dealers under him were sentenced to serve 20 years in prison, Weichselbaum only had to serve 18 months because Donald Trump stepped in as a friend and apparently pulled some strings, according to Trump biographer David Cay Johnston.During an appearance on CNN on Saturday, Johnston told host Mike Smerconish all about how Trump met this cocaine trafficking creep, housed him, and protected him from getting the punishment he deserved. Donald got his personal helicopter and the one for his casinos from a convicted felon who turned out to be a major drug trafficker, and instead of cutting ties with this guy, he kept him on, he rented him an apartment under very unusual circumstances as I described in the book, Johnston said. He wrote a letter pleading for mercy for him, saying he was a stand-up guy. The guy got 18 months while the people who actually delivered the drugs for him got 20 years. And, by the way, the case came before at one point Judge Maryanne Trump Barry Donald s older sister. This is the explosive story that could derail Trump s already imploding campaign. And let s not forget that Trump has said that he would consider his sister for the Supreme Court.It s so explosive, in fact, that Trump supporter Betsy McCaughey didn t even bother to refute it. Instead, she ignored it altogether and changed the subject by accusing Hillary Clinton of being a racist and claimed that Trump would make sure American workers get a higher take home pay even though Trump is supported by white supremacists and he fights constantly to make sure his workers can t unionize to fight for higher pay.Here s the video via YouTube.And it s not like Johnston isn t a credible source either. He has covered Donald Trump for 28 years and is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist. But you know that Trump supporters are going to call him a Hillary Clinton pawn.Speaking of Hillary Clinton, conservatives have been attacking her for defending an accused rapist in Arkansas in 1975. But conservatives apparently need to be reminded that every person in this country has the right to a competent defense in court no matter what they did or are accused of doing. It s kinda like how Founding Father John Adams defended the British soldiers who fired upon a crowd in Boston in 1770. And while Hillary did not feel good about representing the alleged rapist, she was still obligated to do her job to the best of her ability after being assigned to the case by the judge. It s the prosecuting attorney s job to put defendants in jail and the prosecutor failed to do so. Hillary cannot be faulted for being a better lawyer.Trump, however, was not obligated to associate himself with a drug trafficker. He did that voluntarily and continued to associate with Weichselbaum even after he was convicted, going so far as to make an effort to get him a light sentence for his crimes.Apparently, Trump s brand of law and order is that some defendants should be handicapped in court but if you re a friend of Trump even a drug trafficker can escape justice after being duly convicted in a court of law. Just imagine how many convicts could escape justice under a President Trump who has the power to grant pardons.Featured image via Getty Images | 1real |
BREAKING: Under Trump’s Leadership FEMA Could Run Out Of Money By Tomorrow | After Hurricane Harvey devastated Houston, Texas, then Irma barreled through the Caribbean on its way to Florida, two Senate Florida Senators are warning that the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) will run out of disaster assistance funding on Friday unless Congress approves more money.Republicans in the House had been looking at cutting almost $1 billion from disaster accounts to help finance Donald Trump s ego-wall on the Southern Border and now that a natural disaster occurred with another expected to hit Florida, the optics would look really bad for the GOP and for the former reality show star.Trump s budget includes slashing FEMA s budget:But the response to the next Harvey could face even stricter financial constraints if President Donald Trump gets his budgetary wishes for the 2018 fiscal year, which begins October 1. The president s budget blueprint calls for FEMA s budget for state and local grants to be cut by $667 million, saying that these grants are unauthorized or ineffective.However, after Hurricane Harvey unleashed its wrath with more storms coming, Senate Republicans agreed to more than double funding to $15.25 billion to FEMA and local block grants to handle natural disasters, according to Reuters. FEMA is stretched, and, of all things, FEMA runs out of money unless we act by tomorrow, Democrat Senator Bill Nelson said during a speech on Thursday following a letter he wrote with Florida Republican Senator Marco Rubio to congressional leaders warning that more funds were necessary.FEMA had just over $1 billion on hand as of Tuesday, and that s less than half the $2.1 billion it had last week. We re not going to let money get in the way of saving lives, FEMA director Brock Long told CBS on Wednesday. Congress knows what they need to do. A Senate vote is planned later on today.On Wednesday, the House voted 419-3 to pass a $7.85 billion package to help victims of Hurricane Harvey.Reps. Justin Amash (Mich.), Thomas Massie (Ky.) and Andy Biggs (Ariz.) were the only lawmakers to oppose the aid.Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images. | 1real |
SHOCKER! CLINTON CAMPAIGN MANAGER Gets Grilled By CNN’s Jake Tapper: “She hasn’t been cooperative” [Video] | 1real | |
U.S. Treasury's Mnuchin to bring up defense on Ottawa trip: U.S. official | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin will raise the issue of defense spending during his trip to Ottawa on Friday, a senior U.S. Treasury official said. Earlier this week, Canada unveiled plans to bulk up its military amid doubts that it could continue to rely on the United States as the world’s foremost global leader. [nL1N1J418R] “I expect we’d cover issues related to defense spending and we saw of course Canada’s recent announcements just in the last couple of days about that,” the senior Treasury official said in a conference call with reporters on Thursday. President Donald Trump has scolded NATO allies, which includes Canada, for not spending enough on defense and has so far declined to personally affirm the alliance’s mutual defense doctrine. While in Ottawa, Mnuchin is scheduled to hold a bilateral meeting with Canadian Finance Minister Bill Morneau. Deputy National Security Adviser Dina Powell will accompany Mnuchin on the trip, Treasury said. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, also said that Mnuchin would raise trade issues with his Canadian counterpart. Tensions between the traditionally close allies have been rising over the Trump administration’s accusations of unfair trade practices by its northern neighbor. The United States and Canada will soon begin talks on renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement(NAFTA). Mexico is also a member of the pact. During Friday’s talks, the United States wants to get a sense of Canada’s thoughts on timing and issues on trade before starting negotiations, the senior Treasury official said. Canada is already at odds with the United States over dairy subsidies, as well as exports of lumber and airliners. Mnuchin is expected to raise tax reform, financial regulation and countering terrorist financing as part of the discussions, the senior Treasury official added. | 0fake |
5 Border Horrors Establishment Media Mostly Ignore | The brutality that comes from the open border between the U. S. and Mexico is often unreported or never brought up again after an initial report by news outlets in both countries — Mexican journalists often lose their lives for such reporting U. S. journalists simply avoid such reports for political reasons. Even in the cases where establishment media have covered the horrors, they do not include the previous reports in current news or discussions about border issues. Let’s look at five egregious examples. [1. “Rape trees” exist in remote regions of southern Texas and extend as far as 90 miles from the border. Brooks County, Texas, is a remote area surrounding a secondary Border Patrol checkpoint nearly 100 miles from the U. S. border. Mexican human smugglers attempt to take groups of migrants around the checkpoint — often marching them days in immense heat through dense brush so that they can reach a stash house. The smugglers’ culture takes pride in raping any of the migrants the smuggler deems as attractive and the rapist will often tie a garment from the victim, such a a bra, on the tree under which the rape occurred. Police and federal agents refer to these trees as “rape trees. ” 2. The bodies of dead migrants are often found by animals in remote border regions of Texas and Arizona. Authorities routinely find the dead bodies of migrants in The Rio Grande Sector of Texas and in the Tucson Sector of Arizona. In one Texas county, the remains of 552 migrants were discovered in a period. The Ajo area of the Tucson Sector also sees a large number of bodies discovered. Though these incidents have been reported, they are often not included in current discussions about border security or the pros and cons of changing aspects of border security. 3. Migrants who cross the border without a Mexican cartel’s permission can be subject to beatings and sodomy as retribution for crossing the cartel’s “turf” on U. S. soil. In August 2015, an illegal immigrant crossed through Sinaloa Cartel territory without permission in an effort to illegally enter the U. S. A cartel scout saw the man and ordered a SUV with four gunmen to intercept him. The event occurred near Tucson, Arizona. The illegal immigrant was hospitalized and medical staff spent hours in surgery removing shards of wood from the man’s rectum. He had been severely beaten by the gunmen and sodomized. 4. The bodies of dead migrants have ended up thrown into mass graves in Texas without ever having been identified. This horror occurred in the same Brooks County mentioned previously in this piece. Forensic anthropologists from several universities were horrified to discover that this was occurring and that some were buried in piles and others were buried in kitchen trash bags. 5. Families in Central America often put their daughters on birth control before their illegal journey to the U. S. because there is the expectation of multiple rapes along the way. As Breitbart Texas previously reported: Women and young girls from Central America are routinely given birth control or morning after pills by their mothers in anticipation of the likely sexual assaults that will occur on their illicit journey to the United States. These females are often raped immediately upon making it to their first stop once they arrive in a Mexican stash house from Guatemala. They then are shipped to the U. S. border, usually to Reynosa, Mexico, immediately south of McAllen, Texas. In the process of making it from the first stash house to the second, the women and young girls are often sexually assaulted or raped again by the smuggler — or group of smugglers — taking them between the two locations. The sexual assaults and rapes then often happen again in the second Mexican stash house of their journey. They are then trickled into the U. S. across the porous border and brought to a third stash house in a U. S. border town, usually in or near McAllen, Texas. They are often sexually assaulted or raped again by the operator of the stash house, if they are deemed attractive by the criminals operating the clandestine facility. They are stockpiled until the cartel wants to send a large load of narcotics across the Rio Grande. The cartel then sends a large load of humans across in one area and then a drug load across in another. Once the human beings are in Texas, another smuggler then picks up the women and young girls and drives them with a coyote to a point along Highway 281 just before the Border patrol checkpoint immediately south of Falfurrias, Texas. The checkpoint is approximately 85 miles north of the U. S. border. This shocking report is not just from Breitbart alone, as even the Huffington Post reports that 80 percent of female migrants are raped or sexually assaulted on the journey from Central America to the U. S. Brandon Darby is managing director and of Breitbart Texas. He the Cartel Chronicles project with Ildefonso Ortiz and Stephen K. Bannon. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook. He can be contacted at bdarby@breitbart. com. Ildefonso Ortiz is an journalist with Breitbart Texas. He the Cartel Chronicles project with Brandon Darby and Stephen K. Bannon. You can follow him on Twitter and on Facebook. | 0fake |
White House Responds to Iranian Ayatollah: ‘There’s a New President in Town’ | White House press secretary Sean Spicer reacted Tuesday to a statement from Iran’s Ayatollah Khamenei, who said that Donald Trump “showed the real face of the United States,” accusing him of putting a in handcuffs. [“I think Iran is kidding itself if they don’t think there’s a new president in town,” Spicer replied when asked about the Ayatollah’s comments in the White House press briefing. He accused Iran of trying to “flout” the Joint Agreement reached with former President Obama, adding that Trump would continue to do what he thought was necessary to protect the United States. “He will continue to take action as he sees fit, and the president has made clear time and time again that he’s not going to project what those actions will be, and he will not take anything off of the table,” Spicer said. The ayatollah called for a protest of Trump in the streets in Iran on February 10. “They will show others what kind of stance the nation of Iran takes when threatened,” he said. | 0fake |
Hillary Clinton in HUGE Trouble After America Noticed SICK Thing Hidden in this Picture... * LIBERTY WRITERS NEWS | 0
Hillary Clinton has barely just lost the presidential election and here she is already getting herself caught in another one of her tangled web of lies.
The day after losing, a picture was posted of her taking her dog out for a walk. The picture was reportedly from a random hiker she ran into and showed that she was getting back to public life, or that’s what she wants you to believe.
Now, I want you to do me a favor and take a very close look at this picture, specifically the “hiker” she met. Memorize her face…
Got it? Okay, good.
Now what I am about to show you is something Hillary Clinton was hoping nobody else would notice. Tell me if the girl in the 2nd picture, taken in the 2000’s, reminds you of anyone:
Yeah, it is the EXACT SAME GIRL!
Her name is Margot Gerster and her mother just happens to be one of the big fundraisers for Hillary. That’s actually where the older picture was taken.
Wow! That doesn’t seem random at all, does it?
It looks like this is yet another example of Hillary Clinton trying to mislead the public using her inner circle and pretending like she doesn’t know them.
All I gotta say is, give it the Hell up, Hillary! You lost, nobody needs to see your “chance encounters” or other promotional propaganda anymore. This is exactly why Americans ended up hating you!
Oh well, I guess you really cannot teach an old dog new tricks. Well, in that case all that’s left to do is share this all across Facebook and the internet and expose yet another one of her Serial Lies! | 1real |
HILLARY’S ANTI-TRUMP MUSLIM DAD Claims Terror Has “Nothing To Do With Islam”…Tries To Convince Americans Trump’s Desire To Protect Us From Terror Is Somehow Evil [VIDEO] | We ve inserted our thoughts and a few tweets throughout this article. Our comments can be found in bold red type.Let s start with Trump s Twitter response to Mr. Kahn s passionate speech denouncing Trump at Hillary s coronation. I don t think too many Americans can argue with this:I was viciously attacked by Mr. Khan at the Democratic Convention. Am I not allowed to respond? Hillary voted for the Iraq war, not me! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 31, 2016Khizr Khan, the bereaved father of fallen soldier Capt. Humayun Khan who attacked Donald Trump last week in a speech at the Democratic National Convention, told CNN s Jim Acosta Sunday morning that terror has nothing to do with Islam. Here is Khan s full quote (emphasis added):https://youtu.be/BPwRRUw2XWoIn addition to this, there was in the speech that my good wife asked me to refrain from saying, I wanted to say we reject all violence. We are faithful, patriotic, undivided loyalty to this country. We reject all terrorism. She asked me not to say that because that was not the occasion for such a statement.Well, if you really believed that and you had an audience of millions who were listening to your impassioned pleas, why didn t you just say it? Americans have been begging for Muslims to denounce the violence committed in the name of Islam against innocent Americans. He had the chance, but it was more important that he unfairly bash Trump for holding an opinion about how to best stop terrorism than speak out against radical ISLAM.This Twitter user @socalmike_SD makes a good point:His son was killed by radical Muslims..ppl Trump doesn't want here in the US..How is that shameful? Ridiculous https://t.co/BhaeZPuN99 Michael (@socalmike_SD) July 31, 2016Khan also asked Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Speaker of the House Paul Ryan to repudiate Trump, calling it a moral obligation and warning that failing to do so would be a burden on their souls that history would not forgive.Don t worry Khan. If you re looking for an ally in bringing immigrants to America, you ve found the right guy in Paul Ryan. While you re at it, why don t you ask Ryan how the UN can properly vet immigrants coming from Muslim majority nations who hate us In previous remarks, Trump had acknowledged the positive contributions of most Muslims, while focusing on the need to fight radical Islamic terror. In his speech after the Islamic terror attack on a gay nightclub last month in Orlando, for example, Trump said: We have Muslim communities in this country that are great, and we have to form that partnership. Last Thursday, Khan caused a sensation at the convention when he spoke alongside his wife, challenging Trump s proposed ban on Muslim immigration, saying: Have you even read the U.S. Constitution? You have sacrificed nothing and no one. By the way Khan Trump and his children have received death threats and threats of violence. Trump doesn t have to run for President of the United States. He s doing it because he loves our country. Despite what you and the Democrats would like low-information voters to believe, you don t have the corner on loving America Khan made no mention of radical Islam, or terror. His claim that the Constitution bars Trump s ban on Muslim immigration has also been disputed.Here are a few Muslims views on a temporary Muslim ban in America. Pay close attention to the last man of three who are being interviewed:Via: Breitbart News | 1real |
#BREAKING: SECOND Assassination Attempt On Trump In NV; Suspect Detained (LIVE BLOG) | We Are Change
Donald Trump on Saturday was quickly ushered off the stage by Secret Service agents in the middle of a campaign speech in Nevada after an incident in the crowd near the front of the stage.
Secret Service rushes Trump off stage at Reno rally https://t.co/n82d9jXopX
— Chrissy (@omgitsmechrissy) November 6, 2016
Video shows that Trump was in the middle of his speech when the incident occurred. He was looking into the crowd, his hand over his eyes to block the glare from the stage lights, when Secret Service agents grabbed him and escorted him off the stage. Trump ducked his head as he left the stage. The crowd panicked with frightened looks on their faces, as the Secret Service and police tactical units rushed in to quickly arrest the man. Video on twitter shows the moment that the Secret Service and law enforcement took down the man. Got footage of man who was detained by police and Secret Service after @realDonaldTrump was rushed off stage by USSS agents pic.twitter.com/FVEieSYj5w
— Jeremy Diamond (@JDiamond1) November 6, 2016
Early unconfirmed reports suggest a man was armed in the crowd according to some witnesses. One witness said that they were in the crowd when an unknown guy creeped toward the stage staring at Trump. The witness then proceeded to get the attention of four bigger guys surrounding them and confronted the man. The man then freaked out and reached into his pocket to grab what looked like a gun.” According to the witness the man was mumbling about “the delegates.” “ I was in the crowd, me and my dad saw a guy creeping toward the stage staring at trump. i got the attention of 4 big guys around me and we confronted him and when we did he spurged out and reached into his pocket to grab what looked like a gun. when we tackled him to the ground and between punches he kept saying something about “the delegates”? he must have the delegates. sorry i’m pretty shaken up right now. “ With one person in the crowd shouting “he’s got a gun.” The man was then detained by police officers, Secret Service agents and SWAT armed with assault rifles and taken to a side room for questioning. The suspect is seen below. Trump returned to the stage minutes later and proceeded to continue his speech before thanking the Secret Service and police. “Nobody said it was going to be easy for us, but we will never be stopped. We will never be stopped. I want to thank the Secret Service. These guys are fantastic.”
~Donald Trump, said.
Luke breaks down the details in the video below of the attempted assassination of the anti-establishment candidate Donald Trump.
It’s worth noting that the last Trump assassination attempt also occurred in Nevada when Michael Sandford a British citizen attempted to grab a police officer’s gun and shoot Donald Trump a few weeks ago.
Julian Assange was right when he said earlier today to John Pilger that “anti-establishment Trump Wouldn’t Be Allowed To Win.” Although Julian just missed how he would be stopped.
(THIS IS A DEVELOPING STORY AND WILL BE UPDATED AS NEW DETAILS BECOME AVAILABLE.) The post #BREAKING: SECOND Assassination Attempt On Trump In NV; Suspect Detained (LIVE BLOG) appeared first on We Are Change .
| 1real |
Pentagon says reviewing 'adjustments' to arms for Syrian Kurds | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Pentagon said on Monday it was reviewing adjustments in arms for U.S.-backed Kurdish forces in Syria but stopped short of declaring a halt to weapons transfers, suggesting such decisions would be based on battlefield requirements. Turkey said on Friday that U.S. President Donald Trump told President Tayyip Erdogan he had issued instructions that weapons should not be provided to Syrian Kurdish fighters, which Ankara views as threat. It called on Monday for Washington to follow through on its pledge. We are reviewing pending adjustments to the military support provided to our Kurdish partners in as much as the military requirements of our defeat-ISIS and stabilization efforts will allow to prevent ISIS from returning, said Pentagon spokesman Eric Pahon, using an acronym for Islamic State, which U.S. and U.S.-backed forces are battling in Syria. | 0fake |
Trump’s Spokeswoman Just Said Half Of Bernie’s Supporters Will Vote For Trump (VIDEO) | Infamous Donald Trump spokeswoman Katrina Pierson has once again proven just how pitiful and ridiculous The Donald and his entire team is. In speaking about President Barack Obama s recent endorsement of Hillary Clinton, Pierson revealed that she actually thinks that supporters of Bernie Sanders are going to switch sides and vote GOP. Actually, she said with full confidence that she thinks HALF of Sanders fans are going to switch over to team Trump.It doesn t get any more idiotic than this, and it s almost hard to believe. When Jake Tapper asked Pierson how many Sanders supporters will jump ship to avoid voting for Clinton, Pierson said: I think the polls are showing, one in four, maybe, I think it s going to be half at some point. There is a transition happening, not just in this country but globally, the consciousness is definitely changing, and younger voters want to see the status quo busted up. That is absolute madness, and Pierson has mocked the intelligence of Bernie s followers by saying they would vote for a racist, misogynistic Republican. First of all, Trump has insulted their chosen candidate several times, referring to him as Crazy Bernie. He s also encouraged violence against Sanders supporters that dare to attend his rallies. Another thing Trump is in denial about is the fact that Sanders will probably be giving Clinton his endorsement soon, and urge his supporters to throw their support behind the former Secretary of State as well.Now, Sanders fans might not be happy that Clinton is leading the Democratic party, but most of them know that Trump needs to be stopped by any means possible. According to a recent poll, the real numbers reveal that less than a quarter of Sanders voters might switch over to Trump. The polls also revealed that 71 percent of Sanders backers would choose Clinton over Trump but when has the Trump campaign ever really been concerned with facts?You can watch Pierson spew this pro-Trump nonsense in the video below:Featured image is a screenshot | 1real |
Trump Tried To Distance Himself From His ‘Senior Advisor’ Who Promised Russia Would Help Get Him Elected | Remember the name Felix Sater, because it s going to come up a lot while Robert Mueller and his special counsel team tear down the fa ade surrounding Donald Trump s collusion with the Russian government to interfere in the 2016 election.According to the New York Times, Mr. Sater, a former broker for the Trump Organization, wrote a series of emails that played up his ties to both Trump himself and to Vladimir Putin and the Russian government. Those emails were sent to Michael Cohen, Mr. Trump s lawyer. In the communications, Sater said that if the company built a Trump Tower in Moscow, he would personally get Putin on board and, more importantly, that it would help them engineer Donald Trump s election as President of the United States:I will get Putin on this program and we will get Donald elected. We both know no one else knows how to pull this off without stupidity or greed getting in the way. I know how to play it and we will get this done. Buddy, our boy can become president of the USA and we can engineer it. I will get all of Putins team to buy in on this, I will manage this process.That s quite a boast, coming from a man who by the time he even worked for Trump had already worked as a mob informant for the U.S. government, fled to Moscow to avoid criminal charges while boasting of his KGB and Kremlin contacts there, and had gone to prison for slashing apart another man s face with a broken cocktail glass, according to Bloomberg.At another point, Sater promised to arrange for Ivanka Trump to sit in Putin s chair. Felix later escorted Donald s kids around Moscow, though Ivanka now says she had nothing to do with any business dealings.Trump insists he barely knows Felix Sater, and has for some time. But Sater, post-prison, carried a Trump Organization business card describing himself as a senior advisor to the future president. One might imagine that litigation-happy Trump would have fits if he saw an unauthorized person toting this around:Sater's business card pic.twitter.com/6AOZcb7QHd Kerry McCue (@krrmcc) May 13, 2017Does all that sound a little too James Bond-ish for you? How about a video of Donald Trump walking out of an interview four years ago with BBC s Panorama after being asked about Sater:Even in the video, Trump attempts to put as much space as possible between himself and the man whose emails to his lawyer just two years later would cast such a long shadow on his dealings with Russia.I just want to know if Ivanka ever got to sit in that chair.Featured image via video screen capture | 1real |
Kate McKinnon on ‘Ghostbusters,’ ‘S.N.L.’ and Hillary Clinton - The New York Times | Since its release last month, “Ghostbusters,” the reboot of the 1984 action comedy updated with a cast of female leads, has conjured up a series of heated debates about how women are depicted in movies and how they are treated online and in social media. The film has also shined a spotlight on Kate McKinnon, the comic actress who plays the “Ghostbusters” team member Dr. Jillian Holtzmann, a scientist and technology whiz who hides a mischievous sense of humor behind a pair of goggle glasses, a trench coat and a deadpan delivery. Playing off celebrated like Melissa McCarthy and Kristen Wiig, she is able to steal even the scenes in which she has no dialogue with just a gaudy grimace or a roll of her eyes. As Manohla Dargis wrote in her review of “Ghostbusters” for The New York Times, Ms. McKinnon “makes for a sublime nerd goddess,” bringing “a dash of the young Jerry Lewis to the role with a glint of Amy Poehler. ” Like her cinematic counterpart, Ms. McKinnon, 32, seems to have been hiding in plain sight. A Long Island native and Columbia University graduate, she has become an integral cast member at “Saturday Night Live,” where, over five seasons, she has delivered reliably eccentric impersonations of Hillary Clinton, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Angela Merkel, as well as a roster of oddball celebrities, foreigners and barflies. She received her fourth Emmy nomination in July and is poised for the kind of career breakout enjoyed by her “S. N. L. ” predecessors and personal heroes like Tina Fey, Ms. Poehler and Ms. Wiig. Not that Ms. McKinnon thinks of herself this way. “I pride myself on being tragically uncool,” she explained in an interview on Tuesday. “I’m wearing cat socks right now,” she said in her dry, drawl. “But I’m wearing them just for the utilitarian purpose of wearing socks. ” Over lunch at a vegan restaurant in Manhattan, she spoke about her “Ghostbusters” experience and the distinctions she draws between her characters and herself. These are edited excerpts from the conversation. You made such specific choices in your portrayal of Holtzmann. How did you approach the role? I just wanted to make a character who was very alien but so joyful and earnest and fascinated by the world that you would relate to her anyway. In the script, there were these moments where she would be talking so lackadaisically about an extraordinarily lethal piece of equipment. I thought, what sort of a person could let that terror slide off her shoulders? But I noticed that I underreact in a similar way, in a lot of situations. How so? In most combat scenarios, I find that I’m pretty steady. [laughs] No, seriously. “S. N. L. ” can be a stressful environment, and I am panicking constantly, but I guess I keep it pretty internal. Because I’ve been told that I seem . Did you consult with any scientists? I’ve been a big astrophysics nut since I was 12. I have always had a real soft spot for the bizarreness of quantum mechanics. But I gave up on being a scientist in high school — I’m just not that good at math. So that ticks me off, that I’ve limited myself and my life choices in that way. I will never be a theoretical physicist. Who devised her wardrobe and hairstyle? The costume designer, Jeffrey Kurland, had gotten all these wacky things, and when I saw them initially, I thought, this is way too cool. I wanted to be the plainest of the plain. But then I rationalized it by saying that, to her, it’s not even cool. She just has these objects and throws them on. The hair was a collaboration between me and Brenda McNally, my hairstylist. I was like, what hair would a person who doesn’t care about an exploding nuclear reactor have? Probably Tilda Swinton’s hair. Some people who have seen the movie believe that Holtzmann is gay. Do you have any thoughts on her sexuality? No. I’m so sorry. Do you think it’s significant that moviegoers who don’t see themselves represented onscreen are identifying with her? I wanted Holtzmann to be a general champion for the disenfranchised and the other. And I hope that she appeals to anyone who feels like that. Leslie Jones, your “Ghostbusters” and “S. N. L. ” nearly quit Twitter after she became the target of intense online abuse. Did you speak to her during this period? She did text, and she was deeply, deeply disturbed and upset. As anyone would be. I said that I love her and she’s gorgeous. And she should get off Twitter. [chuckles] But that’s not a solution. “Just don’t read it” is not a solution. You don’t have a social media presence — I imagine that didn’t change your mind? Even when Facebook came out and I was in college, I found myself never putting anything on it. It just feels unnatural to me to broadcast anything other than the character I’ve created. You’re very modest in person, yet you play many characters. Where do they come from, I wonder? You and my therapist. [laughs] There must be some exhibitionist tendency that I funnel into these other people. I think it comes from wanting to share and to connect, to offer up for display something that I find delightful and fascinating. I hope that if other people feel the same way then we’ve made a connection. That’s the way I feel most comfortable connecting. Are you paying close attention to the presidential election to gather more material on Hillary Clinton? I’m following it because we’re at a real moment right now. But also because I feel very connected to her, in a strange way. I spend so many hours studying her and imagining her inner life that I feel like we’re very close. Even though I don’t have her phone number. Did you feel that when you appeared in an “S. N. L. ” sketch with her last season? She was very warm and charming and sincere. And I liked being around her, and I felt a similarity to her, in that I am a very accomplished legal scholar and have spent my life crusading for the middle class. Have you ever met Justice Ginsburg? No, ay yi yi. What I wouldn’t do. I’d crawl in that robe and never leave. Are you already thinking about “S. N. L. ” starting up in the fall? Yes, I think it’s a good time to be a comedian. Some people look at movies and think, oh my gosh, that’s so amazing. But to me, I look at a politician or a scientist and think, they’re creating the content of humanity. I can’t believe I get to even comment on this in some small way. This whole year, with Larry [David] as Bernie [Sanders] and me getting to play Hillary was, like, the closest I’ll ever come to being involved in something that’s as important as politics or science. Comedy has become, I think, a very important branch of public intellectualism. But it still ain’t Washington. Will you go back to “S. N. L. ” with more visibility because of all the praise you’ve received this summer? That would be hellish. What makes this current cast so strong is that there’s fairly equitable distribution of real estate within the show, and everyone has such a different voice and really gets to use that. It feels like a real ensemble. Before getting hired there, I did mostly shows, and I liked being the only weird one onstage. But that gets old real fast, not just for me but for people watching. Has there been any talk of a “Ghostbusters” sequel? I haven’t heard. I haven’t been doing that much. I literally don’t know what I did the last two weeks. I know that I had a consultation about window dressings with a lady who was very knowledgeable. That took up a big part of my psychic energy. What would be your dream role to play? My manager asks me this every day, and I don’t quite have the answer. What I want is to play as many as possible. I really like collections of things. I love antique botanical prints with a bunch of different weeds and seeds. I love the produce section at the grocery store. A panoply of gorgeous, fascinating distinct objects with a common theme, is what I would love to build for the rest of my career, as long as they’ll have me. | 0fake |
China official says Lincoln would have approved of freeing Tibetan serfs | BEIJING (Reuters) - Late U.S. President Abraham Lincoln, who freed the slaves, would have approved of China s policy to end serfdom in Tibet, a senior Chinese official said on Thursday. China considers devoutly Buddhist Tibet an inherent part of its territory and routinely rejects accusations from exiles and rights groups of repression and human rights abuses. Chinese forces entered Tibet in 1950 in what the government terms a peaceful liberation, and says its rule has brought prosperity and freedom to what was a backward and feudal society, including freeing a million people from serfdom, an event marked in Tibet as Serfs Emancipation Day. Speaking on the sidelines of China s 19th Communist Party Congress, Supervision Minister Yang Xiaodu, who helps fight corruption, said the United States and Tibet had much in common with their human rights experiences. Yang recounted a tale of meeting a person he described as a former assistant U.S. secretary of state during a visit to the United States. I said, In Chinese people s minds, Lincoln is a hero, as he freed the slaves, and on this issue Chinese and American people s recognition is the same, it s a human rights issue , Yang said. In Tibet we freed the serfs, and how are American friends not able to understand this? This is also a human rights issue. If you look at it from Lincoln s point of view, he would have approved of China overturning the serfdom system in Tibet. Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation freeing slaves in the United States in 1863. China keeps a tight grip on Tibet due to periodic anti-Chinese unrest, and all foreigners require permission to visit, including foreign reporters. Penpa Tashi, Tibet s propaganda chief, told reporters at a separate event that it would like to have more foreign visitors. But Tibet is a high altitude area, he said. Our receiving capability is still being improved. | 0fake |
Oakland Sets Up $300,000 Anti-Deportation Fund - Breitbart | Oakland, one of California’s many sanctuary cities, set up a $300, 000 fund on Tuesday in response to President Donald Trump’s executive order last week that aims to cut off federal funds to “jurisdictions that willfully refuse to comply” with federal immigration enforcement. [According to the San Francisco Chronicle, the fund will be disbursed to to a “rapid response network” composed of 12 Oakland organizations to help families that cannot afford legal representation and whose illegal status could result in deportation. Money will also go towards creating an emergency hotline for residents, holding “know your rights” workshops, and providing free consultations. “Without counsel, up against a federal prosecutor, they’re supposed to represent themselves in one of the most complex areas of law, where the stakes are permanent separation from their families,” Eleni immigration program director of Centro Legal de la Raza, told the Chronicle. According to the Chronicle, over a quarter of residents in Oakland are . The publication further noted that on Tuesday, during a City Council meeting to discuss Oakland’s budget for the next two years, Mayor Libby Schaaf said, “I caution that we are at a moment of unprecedented uncertainty in this new, I would say, horrific federal environment. ” Schaaf had previously warned, according to the San Jose Mercury News, that Turmp’s order would “destroy trust in government” and complaining that “it’s disrespecting the American tradition of a peaceful transfer of power. ” Trump’s order states, “Sanctuary jurisdictions across the United States willfully violate Federal law in an attempt to shield aliens from removal from the United States. These jurisdictions have caused immeasurable harm to the American people and to the very fabric of our Republic. ” It stipulates that such jurisdictions will not be eligible to receive Federal grants unless they are found necessary for law enforcement purposes as prescribed by the Attorney General of Secretary of Homeland Security. Oakland is located just over 10 miles away from San Francisco, another sanctuary city where Kate Steinle was infamously murdered by an illegal alien and felon with multiple convictions and deportations in July 2015. Only one mayor from a major California city agreed with Trump’s order. Last week, Fresno Mayor Lee Brand told the Fresno Bee, “I’m not going to make Fresno a sanctuary city because I don’t want to make Fresno ineligible from receiving potentially millions of dollars in infrastructure and other types of projects … My philosophy is to follow the law and to avoid these national questions. ” Follow Adelle Nazarian on Twitter and Periscope @AdelleNaz | 0fake |
South Korea to start talks with U.S. on developing military capabilities | SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korea will immediately start talks with the United States on developing the Asian nation s military capabilities, including deploying the latest surveillance assets, the South s presidential office said on Tuesday. The pact was made during a summit meeting between South Korean President Moon Jae-in and his U.S. counterpart Donald Trump, Blue House spokesman Yoon Young-chan told a news briefing. The leaders also agreed to continue joint three-way efforts with Japan for practical responses to North Korean threats, he added. | 0fake |
Happy 4th Of July! American Income Inequality Hits Historic High | As people head out to celebrate America s independence, some people have more to celebrate than others. A LOT more.Even as the economy recovers from the financial collapse engineered by the rich, those same people managed to reap almost all the rewards, leaving the rest of us to scramble for the scraps. And while the rich whine about how persecuted they are, a new study shows that income inequality in America is at an all time high with no signs of slowing down.How bad is it? Very:While the past two years have been good for the majority of Americans income growth, they still haven t fully recovered from the recession. For the bottom 99 percent, incomes fell 11.6 percent during the height of the recession from 2007 to 2009. Afterward, they grew just 7.6 percent between 2009 and 2015 not enough to make up for the downturn. Incomes for the 99 percent have only recovered about 60 percent of what they lost.But the rich are doing great. The incomes of the 1 percent grew 37 percent between 2009 and 2015. They captured more than half of all the income growth in the country over that period, leaving just 48 percent to spread out among the bottom 99 percent of families.The Washington Post writes about a study of income inequality throughout the entirety of America s existence and the two researchers found that today s inequality is the worst it s ever been and steadily getting worse. Even when the country was first founded and most people lived on farms, the rich were not far separated from the poor. In fact, even the Gilded Age which saw obscene amounts of wealth concentrated in the hands of the few was not as obscene as it is now. Here s the chart they used:(Excerpted from Unequal Gains: American Growth and Inequality since 1700. Courtesy of Princeton University Press)If you ll notice, the sharp upturn of income inequality started in the 1970s when unions started to dwindle and corporations started to increase worker productivity while refusing to share the profits from it. You ll also notice that the sharpest climb came after the 2008 financial crisis.This hoarding of wealth is what has lead to the 1% attempting to completely co-opt our system of government by buying politicians outright. The bad news is that this is going to get much worse before it gets better. The good news is that the rich always lose these fights in the end. The British lost when they tried to bleed the colonies dry. The southern slave holders lost when they tried to maintain their control over their property. The Robber Barons lost when they tried to turn America into their own personal playground. And the current crop of greedy, soulless 1%ers will lose this time as well.Soon-to-be Hillary Clinton may not go after the rich with both barrels blazing, but she, like Obama before her, will lay the foundation for the 99% to take our country back. By quietly rebuilding the government institutions and courts the GOP crippled, we re going to have the tools we need to wrest control away from the corporations and stop the decline of the middle class and the suffering of the poor.So light those fireworks, America! We re almost ready to declare our independence from the 1%!Featured image via Jeff J Mitchell / Getty Images | 1real |
Spain gives Catalan leader 8 days to drop independence | (This October 11 story has been refiled to add Puigdemont s first name, title in paragraph three.) By Blanca Rodr guez and Sonya Dowsett MADRID/BARCELONA (Reuters) - Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy on Wednesday gave the Catalan government eight days to drop an independence bid, failing which he would suspend Catalonia s political autonomy and rule the region directly. His move could deepen the confrontation between Madrid and the northeastern region but also signals a way out of Spain s biggest political crisis since a failed military coup in 1981. Rajoy would probably call a snap regional election after activating Article 155 of the constitution that would allow him to sack the Catalan regional government. Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont issued a symbolic declaration of independence from Spain on Tuesday night but then immediately suspended it and called for negotiations with the Madrid government. The cabinet has agreed this morning to formally request the Catalan government to confirm whether it has declared the independence of Catalonia, regardless of the deliberate confusion created over its implementation, Rajoy said in a televised address after a cabinet meeting called to consider the government s response. He later told Spain s parliament the Catalan government had until Monday, Oct. 16 at 0800 GMT to answer. If Puigdemont was to confirm he did declare independence, he would be given an additional three days to rectify it, until Thursday, Oct. 19 at 0800 GMT. Failing this, Article 155 would be triggered. It is not yet clear if the Catalan government will answer the requirement but it now faces a conundrum, analysts say. If Puigdemont says he did proclaim independence, the central government will step in. If he says he did not declare it, then far-left party CUP would probably withdraw its support for his minority government. Rajoy has two objectives: if Puigdemont remains ambiguous, the pro-independence movement will get more fragmented; if Puigdemont insists on defending independence then Rajoy will be able to apply Article 155, said Antonio Barroso, deputy director of the London-based research firm Teneo Intelligence. Either way, Rajoy s aim would be to first restore the rule of law in Catalonia and this could at some point lead to early elections in the region. The stakes are high - losing Catalonia, which has its own language and culture, would deprive Spain of a fifth of its economic output and more than a quarter of exports. Puigdemont had been widely expected to unilaterally declare Catalonia s independence on Tuesday after the Catalan government said 90 percent of Catalans had voted for a breakaway in an Oct. 1 referendum. Central authorities in Madrid had declared the referendum illegal and most opponents of independence boycotted it, reducing turnout to around 43 percent. Madrid responded angrily to Puigdemont s speech to Catalonia s parliament, saying his government could not act on the results of the referendum. Neither Mr. Puigdemont nor anyone else can claim, without returning to legality and democracy, to impose mediation... Dialogue between democrats takes place within the law, Deputy Prime Minister Soraya Saenz de Santamaria said. Invoking Article 155 to ease Spain s worst political crisis in four decades would make prospects of a negotiated solution even more remote. A spokesman for the Catalan government in Barcelona said earlier on Wednesday that if Madrid went down this road, it would press ahead with steps towards statehood. We have given up absolutely nothing...We have taken a time out...which doesn t mean a step backwards, or a renunciation or anything like that, Catalan government spokesman Jordi Turull told Catalunya Radio. Spanish Socialist opposition leader Pedro Sanchez said he would back Rajoy if he had to activate Article 155 and that he agreed with the premier to launch constitutional reform within six months to address how Catalonia could fit better in Spain. It was not clear how the Catalan government would respond to that offer. Puigdemont s speech also disappointed supporters of independence, thousands of whom watched proceedings on giant screens outside parliament before sadly leaving for home. Financial markets, however, were encouraged that an immediate declaration of independence had been avoided. After Puigdemont s speech, Spain s benchmark IBEX share index rose as much as 1.6 percent, outperforming the pan-European STOXX 600 index. The rally propelled the main world stocks index, the MSCI s 47-country All-World index, to a record high. Spain s 10-year government bond yield - which moves inversely to the price - dropped 5 basis points to 1.65 percent in early trade, according to Tradeweb data. At European Union headquarters in Brussels, there was relief that Spain, the euro zone s fourth-largest economy, now had at least bought some time to deal with a crisis that was still far from over. One EU official said Puigdemont seems to have listened to advice not to do something irreversible . The EU has been cool to Puigdemont s calls for European mediation. The Catalan crisis has deeply divided the region itself as well as the Spanish nation. Opinion polls conducted before the vote suggested a minority of about 40 percent of residents in Catalonia backed independence. Some of Catalonia s largest companies have moved their head offices out of the region and others were set to follow if Puigdemont had declared independence. | 0fake |
Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, North Dakota: Your Tuesday Briefing - The New York Times | (Want to get this briefing by email? Here’s the .) Good morning. Here’s what you need to know: • Trump and taxes. The Times obtained documents that show that Donald J. Trump avoided reporting hundreds of millions of dollars in taxable income in the early 1990s by using a maneuver that his lawyers warned would most likely be deemed improper by an I. R. S. audit. “Whatever loophole existed was not ‘exploited’ here, but stretched beyond any recognition,” said one of the tax experts who reviewed the documents. Here’s how Mr. Trump structured his companies to gain personal tax advantages. • Clinton and emails. The F. B. I. is using a special computer program to see if recently discovered emails belonging to a top aide to Hillary Clinton contained classified information. The software should show whether the messages were already examined during the inquiry into Mrs. Clinton’s private server, officials said. James B. Comey’s decision to start the new review so close to Election Day has led some historians to draw parallels between the F. B. I. director and an infamous predecessor: J. Edgar Hoover, who ordered the bureau to wiretap the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. • Interview with Bashar . The Syrian president rejected any personal responsibility for the war raging in his country, and placed all the blame on the U. S. and on Islamic militants, during a recent interview with our reporter. Mr. Assad also said he will remain in office until at least 2021, when his third term ends. • North Dakota oil pipeline protests. Demonstrators in the monthslong fight against the $3. 7 billion Dakota Access project say it will threaten water supplies, and members of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe say it violates their right to sacred land. The protests have led to numerous clashes with local law enforcement. We interviewed a protester and a sheriff’s deputy to explore both sides of the debate. • Pope attempts to heal religious rift. Pope Francis was in Sweden on Monday to observe the 499th anniversary of Martin Luther’s protest of the sale of indulgences, which set off more than a century of religious warfare and forever changed the practice of Christianity. The pope noted the positive impact of Luther’s actions on Catholicism. “The Protestant Reformation helped give greater centrality to sacred Scripture in the church’s life,” he said. • Physical triumphs. “Having something foreign in my body after a cancer diagnosis is the last thing I wanted,” said Debbie Bowers, a breast cancer survivor. “I just wanted to heal. ” She is one of a growing number of women “going flat” rather than having additional surgery to reconstruct their breasts. Separately, we spent time with competitors in a megatriathlon race that requires 703 miles of swimming, biking and running over five days. “This is not good for my body,” one participant said, “but it is good for my soul. ” • The yogurt company Chobani and its founder, Hamdi Ulukaya, have been criticized for hiring refugees and are being targeted by racist attacks on social media. “He’s the xenophobe’s nightmare,” the executive director of Human Rights Watch said. “Here’s an immigrant who isn’t competing for jobs, but is creating jobs big time. ” • The tech billionaire Peter Thiel defended his support of Mr. Trump in a speech on Monday, and said that Silicon Valley was out of touch with most of the country. “I think the truth has been more one of specific success but more general failure,” he said, suggesting that the tech industry had not done much for people outside of Silicon Valley. • What happens to all the leftover Halloween candy? Buyback programs and donation drives for charities help absorb the surplus. • U. S. stocks were slightly down on Monday. Here’s a snapshot of global markets. • Be transported. We’re introducing a series of immersive 360 videos that let you experience Times journalism in a powerful new way. The first offers a rare glimpse of Yemen after a deadly airstrike. Watch it here. • New to read. The ranks of the literary detective are getting a new member. His name is Isaiah Quintabe (the book is titled “IQ”) and he’s from the same part of Long Beach, Calif. as Snoop Dogg. Our reviewer calls Quintabe a “fine, durable character for the long run. ” We also recently reviewed the latest horror novels, and six new thrillers for fall. • World Series, Game 6. The Cleveland Indians can win their first title since 1948 tonight (8 p. m. Eastern, Fox) or the Chicago Cubs can force a Game 7. Either way, relief pitching has been the dominant story of the series, our columnist writes. • Recipes of the day. Learn how to master two side dishes: roasted vegetables and fried rice. Halloween may be over in the United States, but Mexico and Central America are celebrating Día de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead. Hundreds of years ago, the Aztecs of that region honored their dead with elaborate rituals in the summer. The invading Spanish could not stamp out the tradition, and it was eventually merged with the Roman Catholic holidays of All Saints Day (Nov. 1) and All Souls Day the next day. Decorative skulls made of sugar are the most famous symbols of the holiday. They’re sometimes eaten or used on masks and dolls to represent the sweetness of life. People honoring Day of the Dead also visit the graves of their relatives and build ofrendas, or small altars with flowers and gifts, inside their homes. On Saturday, Mexico City hosted its first official Día de los Muertos parade. The inspiration: last year’s James Bond movie. “Spectre” begins with a chase through a Day of the Dead parade, and Mexican officials saw an opportunity to promote the capital city. Tens of thousands of people attended the parade. Among the marchers was a troupe dressed as Aztec warriors on skates. “It would be hard to conserve these traditions without any changes,” its leader said. Karen Zraick contributed reporting. Your Morning Briefing is published weekdays at 6 a. m. Eastern and updated on the web all morning. What would you like to see here? Contact us at briefing@nytimes. com. You can sign up here to get the briefing delivered to your inbox. | 0fake |
NY mayor criticizes Trump's closing public atrium for campaign events | NEW YORK (Reuters) - A showdown between New York City and Donald Trump over one of the most potent symbols of Trump’s candidacy, the glitzy atrium of Trump Tower, intensified on Wednesday as the mayor’s office criticized his closing of the tower’s public space for campaign events. Lined with pink marble and indoor waterfalls and a popular tourist attraction, the atrium has become a favorite event backdrop for Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee for the U.S. presidency, who frequently boasts to voters of his wealthy lifestyle and his success as a building developer. City officials are now investigating whether Trump’s using the atrium for private campaign events without permission is in breach of a long-standing agreement between Trump and the city’s planners. Trump had agreed to maintain it as a public space as a zoning concession when the tower was built. A spokesman for Mayor Bill de Blasio, a Democrat, weighed in on Wednesday to register City Hall’s displeasure, which may yet force Trump to find an alternative setting for his events for the five months remaining before the November presidential election. “Despite what he may think, the rules and laws of this city apply to everybody, including Mr. Trump. Mr. Trump should honor his agreement with the city to keep the space open to the public,” Austin Finan, the spokesman, said in a statement. In order to build his flagship Fifth Avenue skyscraper taller than zoning rules would have otherwise allowed, including the penthouse where Trump lives, Trump agreed to keep the atrium open to the public from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. every day. The atrium, opened in 1983, is one of scores of “privately owned public spaces” across the city, an effort to balance the wishes of developers to build taller while preserving pockets of space for New Yorkers in crowded neighborhoods. Since launching his campaign by descending an escalator into the atrium last June, Trump has held at least half a dozen campaign events where Reuters reporters have seen his security staff prevent anyone but a few pre-approved journalists from entering parts or all of the atrium. City officials, whose investigation was first reported by Reuters on Tuesday, say they have no evidence of Trump seeking or getting permission to close the space for a private event, which is allowed to happen up to four times a year. Michael Cohen, an executive vice president for the Trump Organization, said on Tuesday he could neither confirm nor deny if there had been a violation of the agreement while his staff tried to locate the paperwork. He did not respond to questions on Wednesday. | 0fake |
After Retirement, Finding a ‘Second Career’ as a Volunteer - The New York Times | On an October day, Anne Davis, 76, wheeled into her Midtown Manhattan cubicle wearing a bright red coat, with her hair cut short, and took a turn at a sharp angle to reach her desk. Ms. Davis has not walked in 30 years, about a decade after she was told she had multiple sclerosis. And then in 2003, Ms. Davis, a former lawyer for CBS, learned she had invasive cancer. And so her weeks filled with chemotherapy and physical therapy appointments, in addition to her work in a second career — this time as a volunteer financial counselor. On this day, she prepared for a hectic afternoon, reviewing scheduled appointments with clients over the next month. As a Financial Coaching Corps volunteer, Ms. Davis is among 2, 500 volunteers in the Retired and Senior Volunteer Program, sponsored by Community Service Society, one of the eight organizations supported by The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund. R. S. V. P. matches volunteers — often retirees, and all of whom are at least 55 years old — with more than 350 nonprofits across New York City. It also has several signature programs, including the Financial Coaching Corps and a mentoring program for children who have a parent in prison. Founded in 2007, the Financial Coaching Corps has 34 volunteers who, in the past five years, have advised almost 4, 000 New Yorkers on their finances, helping them hone their money management skills. The goal is to give them control over their personal finances and allow them to work toward economic security. And for the past decade, despite health scares and cancer treatments, Ms. Davis has spent every Friday working with people in dire financial straits. Her desk is neat, with a rack of organized colored folders, each with its own label: “Dispute Letters,” “Credit Report Requests” and “Budget Forms. ” She has helped clients with debt management, improving their credit scores, and those recovering from identity theft. Along the way, she has forged relationships with the people she has helped. In August 2013, a retired woman with $10, 000 in arrears and credit card debt came to Ms. Davis for guidance. Over two years, Ms. Davis helped her pay off her debt. She also suggested that the woman sell her apartment and downsize to a apartment in the same building. The move provided her with a $50, 000 savings nest egg and some financial security. They still meet — not to discuss finances, but for lunch and afternoons spent at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. And the first client to sit at her desk, in spring 2007, still visits often, Ms. Davis said. The former client, who is legally blind and lives in public housing, receives Social Security and insists that she still needs Ms. Davis’s financial expertise. “But, really, we just chat,” Ms. Davis said with a smile. For Ms. Davis, who also takes French lessons and volunteers her legal services at the New York City chapter of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, her work with the Financial Coaching Corps is more than having something to do on Fridays. “The most rewarding part is knowing that you really helped get someone on the right path,” she said. That same motivation pushed Gloria Perez to start volunteering shortly after she retired. She worked for more than 30 years with the city’s Human Resources Administration, helping people in need of public assistance. “And then my husband died, and I retired, and I wondered what in the world I was going to do with my life,” Ms. Perez said. That was in 1995, and the answer came later that year in the form of an advertisement. Another program through R. S. V. P. the Advocacy, Counseling and Entitlement Services Project, needed volunteers to work alongside the agency where she had dedicated her entire career. “When I saw it,” she recalled, “I thought, ‘This is what I’ve been doing all along, so I ought to be able to manage this, too. ’” Founded in 1984, the ACES Project trains volunteers to work as benefit counselors in neighborhoods. It has served more than 28, 000 people in the past five years, helping those eligible to sign up for public benefits. Volunteers like Ms. Perez check whether people qualify for benefits, assist them in the application process and make referrals. More than two decades after joining the program, Ms. Perez, 84, still volunteers for six hours every Wednesday at Queens Hospital Center, in Jamaica. She sets up a table in the lobby for people to inquire about possible benefits. Many people approach her table to ask how to receive food stamps. Many others simply are not aware of the programs they qualify for, Ms. Perez said. Signing up for public benefits can involve a lot of red tape and a lot of waiting. But using her insider’s understanding of the system, she said, she once got someone placed in public housing through the city’s Department for the Aging within two weeks. The new tenant returned to the hospital to thank Ms. Perez for her help. Another woman received cash assistance the same day she turned in her application. “This has become my second career,” Ms. Perez said with a laugh, adding that she had no intention of retiring again anytime soon. | 0fake |
Factbox: Trump on Twitter (Aug 30) - Hurricane Harvey, North Korea, tax reform | The following statements were posted to the verified Twitter accounts of U.S. President Donald Trump, @realDonaldTrump and @POTUS. The opinions expressed are his own. Reuters has not edited the statements or confirmed their accuracy. @realDonaldTrump : - The U.S. has been talking to North Korea, and paying them extortion money, for 25 years. Talking is not the answer! [0847 EDT] - After witnessing first hand the horror & devastation caused by Hurricane Harvey,my heart goes out even more so to the great people of Texas! [0912 EDT] - After reading the false reporting and even ferocious anger in some dying magazines, it makes me wonder, WHY? All I want to do is #MAGA! [0927 EDT] - Will be leaving for Missouri soon for a speech on tax cuts and tax reform - so badly needed! [0942 EDT] - Texas & Louisiana: We are w/ you today, we are w/ you tomorrow, & we will be w/ you EVERY SINGLE DAY AFTER, to restore, recover, & REBUILD! [1538 EDT] - First responders have been doing heroic work. Their courage & devotion has saved countless lives – they represent the very best of America! bit.ly/2eGG03u [2100 EDT] -- Source link: (bit.ly/2jBh4LU) (bit.ly/2jpEXYR) | 0fake |
Word Via Ned Dougherty Nov 1, 2016 | By wmw_admin on November 5, 2016 End Times Daily — Nov 1, 2016 St. Rosalie’s Parish Eucharistic Chapel, Hampton Bays, NY Our Lady of Light My dear son, On this very important feast day in the Church of My Son Jesus, the Redeemer of the world, I come to you with greetings from not only your Heavenly Mother, but also from your brothers and sisters, who are now united with us in the Eternal Kingdom of the Father in Heaven. You must know that your brothers and sisters are particularly saddened by the events that are taking place in your world, but your brothers and sisters in Heaven know resolutely that all will be fulfilled in the end according to the Word of the Father in Heaven. But your brothers and sisters know the challenges that you are going through in your world, particularly in the United States of America, where the evil one, the demon from hell, is currently waging his battle for the future of your country, and his minions are working overtime to keep the evil one in power and control over the rest of you. The challenge for you living here on Earth, not only in America, but throughout the world is to identify and defeat the minions of satan, who are stealthily going about their plans to create a draconian new world order to dominate and control the rest of you. Alas! Now the minions of satan are becoming exposed to the rest of you, as it has been ordained through the intervention of the Father in Heaven through His Son, the Redeemer of the world. In your governments, your institutions, your foundations, your places of higher learning, as well as through your commercial businesses and entities, and in your media and entertainment, you are seeing the work of the evil one stripped bare and the minions of the evil one fully exposed now. This dressing down of the minions of satan has been made necessary for the Father’s plans for mankind to be realized. However, the Father in Heaven and His Son, the Redeemer of the world, are relying on you, the sons and daughters of all that is good, to stand up to the challenge presented by those who are supporting all that is evil. Never before has it been so clear to you, who among your public figures have sworn their allegiance to the evil one, so it is imperative upon humanity in these times to remove these evilly motivated and controlled individuals from places of power and authority, for such is the will of your Father in Heaven. You have been given a unique opportunity in the history of mankind to reduce, nay to eliminate, all the evil in the world that comes from satan, but that is implemented and fueled by his minions. Do not avoid the truth at this point! Now is the time to remove the despots from their positions of power and authority and to replace them with those who can align themselves with the Heavenly Father and His Son to usher in a New Heaven and a New Earth, as opposed to the new world order of the evil one. So be it! | 1real |
Trump says: 'Most likely I won't be doing the debate' on Fox News | (Reuters) - U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said on Tuesday that “most likely I won’t be doing the debate” on Fox News in Des Moines, Iowa, scheduled for Thursday night. The billionaire businessman made the comment at a news conference in Marshalltown, Iowa, as the nomination race nears its first contest, the Iowa caucuses, on Monday. Trump has been engaged in a public spat with Fox News since a debate last August in which he said he was subject to unfair questioning by moderator Megyn Kelly. “Let’s see how much money Fox makes without me in the debate,” Trump told the news conference. (Reporting by Eric Walsh in Washington; Editing by Eric Beech) SAP is the sponsor of this coverage which is independently produced by the staff of Reuters News Agency. | 0fake |
WATCH CNN HOST FREAK AFTER On-Air “Fact-Check” Proves All 13 Of HILLARY’S Mobile Devices DESTROYED With Hammers [VIDEO] | Hang-on, hang-on, hang-on, hang-on Brooke Baldwin desperately tried to discredit the story about Hillary s 13 Blackberries being destroyed by State Department employees. Unfortunately for Brooke, and the entire leftist machine, Hillary s ship is sinking and they just can t bail fast enough to save her https://twitter.com/magnifier661/status/771874124884905984 | 1real |
Catalan separatists march in Brussels | BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Nearly 50,000 people marched through Brussels European quarter on Thursday in support of Catalan independence and the region s ousted president, who has avoided arrest in Spain by taking refuge in Belgium. Before Carles Puigdemont addressed the crowd, many draped in Catalan flags, police estimated its size at 45,000. There were chants of Puigdemont, President from a generally good-natured throng, many of whom had traveled from Spain. Some carried placards criticizing the European Union for not pressuring Madrid. One sign showed the face of European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker with the question: Democracy? Some defend it when it suits them. Shame on them. Puigdemont, who like many in the crowd wore yellow in support of jailed separatist leaders, addressed the crowd in Catalan before switching to French to direct a message to Juncker. Is there any place in the world that holds demonstrations like this to support criminals? he said. So maybe we are not criminals. Maybe we are democrats. Spain s Supreme Court on Tuesday withdrew an international arrest warrant for Puigdemont in order to bring his case back solely under Spanish jurisdiction, leaving him without an international legal stage to pursue his independence campaign. Puigdemont and four of his cabinet members fled to Belgium when Madrid imposed direct rule on Catalonia and sacked his government after an Oct. 27 declaration of independence by his local government. He is likely to be detained if he returns to Spain, pending investigation on charges of sedition, rebellion, misuse of public funds, disobedience and breach of trust. Puigdemont said on Wednesday he would remain in Belgium for the time being. Brussels is a kind of a loudspeaker for us, said Gloria Cot, a clerk from Barcelona at Thursday s march who had just arrived by coach. It is a loudspeaker so that people can know that we really don t have a 100 percent democracy in Spain and that Catalonia has always been subjected to problems with Spain. Juncker s deputy Frans Timmermans said he welcomed the very positive atmosphere of the demonstration, which took place as campaigning gets under way for a Catalan election on Dec. 21. Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy hopes pro-independence parties will lose their majority in the Catalan parliament in the election and end the deadlock created by his government s refusal to recognize a banned independence vote Puigdemont held in September. Polls have separatists and unionist parties in a tie. Timmermans said there was no change to Commission policy that the dispute with Catalan authorities remains an internal one in which the EU has no need to intervene because Spain s democratic constitution is functioning in line with EU values. He accused Puigdemont and his allies of undermining the rule of law by choosing to ignore a Spanish constitutional ban on secession rather than trying to change the constitution. If you do not agree with the law, you can organize yourselves to change the law or the constitution, he said. What is not permissible under the rule of law is to just ignore the law. | 0fake |
‘Is He Having A Stroke?’: Huckabee Calls Trump A ‘Car Wreck,’ Freaks Out When People Laugh At Him | By Jameson Parker Election 2016 , Politicians Behaving Badly , Politics November 4, 2016 ‘Is He Having A Stroke?’: Huckabee Calls Trump A ‘Car Wreck,’ Freaks Out When People Laugh At Him
It was a good morning for Ben Carson. No longer can it be said that he is Donald Trump’s very worst campaign surrogate. The title now belongs to Mike Huckabee – a very dim bulb in a low wattage room.
In a turn that had people seriously questioning his mental health, the former Arkansas governor decided to use his patented ability to make lousy metaphors to compare Donald Trump to a car wreck. A strong endorsement if there ever was one. Trump may be a car wreck, but at least his car is pointed in right direction. Hillary is a drunk-driver going the wrong way on the freeway.
— Gov. Mike Huckabee (@GovMikeHuckabee) November 4, 2016
To break down the comparison, Huckabee is saying Donald Trump may be dead on arrival, but at least he isn’t Hillary Clinton, a woman he thinks is taking the country in the wrong direction. In Huckabee’s tortured brain, the fact that his own candidate is a total mess – the one he plans on voting for and is enthusiastically flying around the country supporting – is less bad than a woman who would back liberal policies he disagrees with. So… vote for Donald Trump, the car wreck!
Hilariously, Huckabee seemed legitimately shocked and outraged that people took his analogy to mean he thought Donald Trump was a bad candidate. But instead of clarifying, Huckabee’s follow-up made everything so much worse. Low IQ media don't get my earlier tweet about car wreck. @realdonaldTrump will bend fenders but is a vehicle going right way.
— Gov. Mike Huckabee (@GovMikeHuckabee) November 4, 2016
To break down his new comparison: Donald Trump will hurt other people but in a conservative, Republican-style way. The “right” way. Uh… not helping, Mike. Is he having a stroke? https://t.co/OMFaLuROxC
— lyz lenz (@lyzl) November 4, 2016 Deep thoughts this morning from Huckabee (his daughter works for the guy he just called a car wreck) https://t.co/UP2rpf9q68
— Eliza Collins (@elizacollins1) November 4, 2016 Just to be clear: Huckabee is a Trump surrogate… Who calls his candidate a car wreck. #WithSurrogatesLikeThat https://t.co/wflfPpTd2v
— Elizabeth Kricfalusi (@EKricfalusi) November 4, 2016
Longtime fans of Huckabee’s peculiar brand of stupidity may recall that this isn’t the first time he seemed to suggest his candidate was in for an untimely demise. Last month, Huckabee got dismantled by Megyn Kelly after suggesting Trump was like Quint fighting the shark from the movie Jaws. Kelly was forced to point out that Quint actually gets eaten by the shark. And they wonder why Hollywood hates them pic.twitter.com/7YJxixbzVf
— JORDAN OKUN (@Jzokun) October 11, 2016
Yikes.
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Obama to host Colombian President Santos next week: White House | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama will host Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos at the White House next week, the White House said on Friday. During the official working visit on Thursday, the two leaders will “mark 15 years of ... cooperation through Plan Colombia, the joint effort to create a safer, more prosperous future for the people of Colombia,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest said at a news briefing. | 0fake |
Republicans Poised For Massive Losses This November | The Republican Party is tearing at the seams due to Donald Trump s frontrunner status for the party s presidential nomination. Thousands of Republicans will either refuse to vote for him or vote for Democrats to keep Donald Trump from taking over their party and ultimately the Oval Office. But Mr. Trump s campaign, along with Senator Ted Cruz who is also despised by many of his Republican colleagues and supporters of the party, have pulled Republicans far to the right, leaving moderate Republicans with nowhere to turn but the Democratic Party.Republicans currently have a majority in both the House and the Senate. Congress has been in gridlock since they took over. The GOP majority has consistently refused to do their jobs; they are more focused on obstructing President Obama than working with Democrats to solve the pressing problems facing our nation. This November, those do-nothing Republicans will pay the price by losing elections across the country, in addition to the presidential election.Republicans love to do nothing, so the Democrats will help them achieve those ambitions of doing nothing by no longer allowing them to be employed in Congress. Despite the pressing and timely concerns posed by the threat of climate change, Republicans refuse to acknowledge its existence and do nothing. When religious nutjob Kim Davis refused to do her job as a county clerk charged with issuing marriage licenses in Kentucky, Republicans applauded her propensity for not doing her job. When Paul Ryan became Speaker of the House, Republicans forced him to promise to not do anything on immigration reform, and bow to the party leaders wishes for Congress to continue to do nothing better than before.Despite mass shootings occurring all over the country on a regular basis, the Republican Party has refused to take any action on gun control or mental health issues. Every meaningful proposal or reform that is introduced into Songress is met with staunch resistance from the Republican Party, who refuses to act to help solve or mitigate any of the issues facing the country. With the Republican majority gone, Democrats can finally start solving some of the country s problems.Featured image via Flickr | 1real |
8-Year-Old Dies Because Her ‘Extremely Religious’ Mother Thinks Doctors Are ‘The Work Of The Devil’ | A mother describing herself as extremely religious is being held on suspicion of the murder of her 8-year-old daughter, and the abuse of two younger children, in Newark, New Jersey.The body of 8-year-old Christiana Glenn was found in the family home in October of 2011. The girl had died a slow and agonizing death from severe malnutrition and an untreated broken femur.Her mother, 34-year-old Krisla Rezireksyon Kris underwent an assessment by clinical psychologists at Essex County Jail this week, during which she told mental health professionals that she became extremely religious prior to her daughter s death, and began following ever stricter lifestyle rules in an aim to become become more godly, more spiritual. This involved keeping to a strict and limited diet, regularly fasting, and the avoidance of all modern healthcare as she felt doctors and medicine do the work of the devil .In reality, she was starving herself and her children to death, and putting them at great risk of death by treatable disease and illness.This week, Joel Morgan, a clinical neuropsychologist who assessed Kris, testified that she was suffering a mental disorder at the time, and not acting with the intention of hurting her children. Morgan argues that Kris was suffering a mental health crisis which made her vulnerable to the predations of an exploitative Pastor. Further, that this Pastor manipulated Kris into adopting the rules which ultimately killed her child, at the same time as extracting money from her. He stated: She adopted his way of life. She became a zealot and empowered him with having judgment over her and her children in terms of daily activities, prayer, diet, medical health, everything, Despite the testimony, evidence of Kris educational and employment records was put forward to argue that the mother was of above average intelligence, and functioning well in life at the time of her alleged crimes.Whatever the outcome of the trial, a child is dead, and two others endured a horrible torment and now need to adjust to life without their mother. Featured image via Flickr Creative Commons | 1real |
JUST IN: AS ANOTHER ACCUSER COMES FORWARD…JohnConyers Makes Major Announcement…It’s Not What The Media Expected | What pushed Democrat Congressman John Conyers to resign instead of just announce he would retire at the end of his term?The Detroit Free Press reports another accuser came forward just last night:The most recent, Elisa Grubbs, made accusations against Conyers on Monday night, saying in a statement that Conyers put his hand up her skirt at a church, among other allegations.As late as Tuesday morning, there were reports that Conyers would fight on, choosing to remain in office til the end of his current term and then retire in early 2019. But speaking on Mildred Gaddis show on WPZR-FM (102.7), Conyers said he was resigning.FORCED TO RESIGN:Facing a rising chorus of voices demanding he step down because of sexual harassment claims, U.S. Rep. John Conyers Jr., D-Detroit, resigned the seat he has held for more than five decades, a swift and crushing fall from grace for a civil rights icon and the longest-serving active member of Congress.ENDORSES HIS SON TO REPLACE HIM:Saying he was finalizing his plans for retirement, Conyers added he would endorse his son, John Conyers III, to replace him Congress. My legacy can t be compromised or dimished in any way by what we re going through now. This too shall pass. My legacy will continue through my children, Conyers told Mildred Gaddis on her Detroit radio show.As for the accusations against him, Conyers said, They re not accurate, they re not true and they re something I can t explain where they came from. Conyers, 88, resigned two weeks after an article on BuzzFeed.com detailed a secret settlement of more than $27,000 with former staffer, MARION BROWN who accused him of making sexual advances toward her and paying her out of funds from his taxpayer-supported office.MARION BROWN CAME FORWARD WITH SHOCKING DETAILS:The descriptions below of what went on at the office of Rep. John Conyers will make your blood boil. He felt entitled to treat the women in his office like he owned them in every way. It s pretty disgusting.We re still waiting to hear what s going to happen with Conyers. Democrat leaders have called for him to resign but his lawyer has been pushing back trying to make the accuser look bad. He treads a fine line with his threats to the accuser and to others in D.C. We re hoping he spills the beans on the others who have used our tax dollars to pay off sexual harassment victims.Marion Brown, a former staff member whose accusations have sparked the scandal surrounding embattled U.S. Rep. John Conyers, described in an interview Thursday how the Detroit congressman allegedly created a hostile work environment for his female staffers and, at times, pressed her for sexual favors, particularly when his wife was away. He owns you when you are there, Brown said in the interview with Stephen Henderson, host of Detroit Today on WDET-FM (101.9) and editorial page editor at the Free Press. At one time, it was said amongst staff members females that he thinks that his initials, J.C., stand for Jesus Christ, she said.Brown said Conyers would invite me to a hotel in the guise of business, and then it turns into something else. And this happened too often. And that was throughout. She said the sexual advances intensified whenever his wife, Monica Conyers, was out of town. He seemed to have taken on the attitude that I m gonna go for it now. My wife s away, and I have these needs and I m going to call you up in the middle of the night, Brown said. I know it s because he decided that he wanted to stop the hunting game, Brown said. He had no more interest in trying to persuade and seduce me into, you know, sex or being his side piece. During that interview, she shared details of Conyers alleged sexual advances toward her, including how Conyers in 2005 allegedly invited her to his Chicago hotel room and, while in his underwear, pointed to his genitals and asked her to touch it. | 1real |
SWEDEN LOSES 14,000 Refugees Slated For Deportation: “We simply do not know where they are” | It s time for Sweden to take off the blindfolds and stop pretending their progressive policies are somehow benefiting their citizens. How does a country lose 14,000 foreign invaders anyway? And where did those 14,000 refugees go?As part of the just concluded cash for refugees deal between the EU Turkey, the FT adds that not only will migrants whose asylum applications are rejected be sent back to Turkey but that this crackdown on irregular migration would be complemented by a parallel programme offering a legal route to Europe, resettling up to 500,000 Syrian refugees directly from Turkey, Lebanon or Jordan. The FT adds that, as expected, if such an EU-wide scheme were made mandatory it would be flatly opposed by many eastern European countries. To avoid the proposals being blocked, Brussels and Berlin are exploring a voluntary scheme with 10 countries willing to take refugees. It is unclear whether other Schengen members would be asked to contribute to the costs of resettlement. But before crossing that particular bridge, which will sow even further anger, mistrust and antagonism spread among the member countries of the European Union , a bigger question is just how will Europe track down and sequester those refugees that pose the biggest threat in the eyes of authorities, those who are already slated for deportation.As the following case study from Sweden proves, having once entered Europe, Europe may have problems trying to track down the hundreds of thousands of refugees having already found their way to the continent.As Sweden s Afton Bladet reports, over half of all the illegal migrants slated for deportation in Sweden have mysteriously disappeared.The National Border Police Section reports that of the 21,748 individuals due to be sent home after their asylum applications were turned down, a whopping 14,140 have simply vanished off the police radar. Around a third, or the remaining 7,608, still live and are accounted for in the Swedish Migration Board s premises or have indicated an address for their own homes. It is not clear if anyone has actually tried following up on said home address to see how many have simply made one up.Based on a translation of the Swedish report by Breitbart, some are expected to have left the country secretly, but the majority are thought to still be in Sweden, having fallen through the cracks of the comprehensive welfare state. The local cops is brutally honest: We simply do not know where they are , said Patrik Engstrom, a spokesman for the local police.This is not the first time refugees have vanished from official supervision: one month ago we reported that roughly 4,000 asylum-seekers who had initially been accomodated by the German state of Lower Saxony had mysteriously disappeared. To our knowledge they have still not been found. Via: Zero Hedge | 1real |
In Trump’s Early Days, News Media Finds Competing Narratives - The New York Times | During his first 11 days in office, President Trump has provided news outlets with plenty of material, at all hours of the morning and night. But his maelstrom of activity — the bold executive orders, the fiery Twitter posts, the brazen speeches — has also exposed, and perhaps exacerbated, ideological differences. For those devouring news about the administration, the choice of narratives has become starker, with brighter lines drawn around the content. For the readers and viewers, it’s follow the narrative of your choice, and be wary of the great chasm between. Over the weekend, as protesters descended on airports across the country in response to Mr. Trump’s immigration ban, fissures began to emerge even among news organizations. On Monday, the divide only widened. And not everyone behaved predictably. Bill O’Reilly, the outspoken Fox News host, expressed skepticism about the rollout of Mr. Trump’s plan and called it “a mistake” to rush it. While he did make some effort to defend Mr. Trump, he was also somewhat moderate in one segment. “It is certainly responsible and logical for a new president to institute updated protections for this country by ordering specific temporary immigration actions,” Mr. O’Reilly said. “However, it’s also responsible for a federal judge to order that foreigners with the proper credentials already issued not be punished. There should be room for decision making. ” He even invoked the Statue of Liberty to make his point. Some of Mr. O’Reilly’s guests were also critical. Karl Rove said of Mr. Trump that “the controversy is hurting him more than the controversy is helping him. ” Brit Hume said it was handled “very clumsily. ” And Charles Krauthammer said it was introduced in the “most amateurish, botched way. ” But, in more typical form, Mr. O’Reilly also focused on what he said he perceived to be Mr. Trump’s political calculation, adding that much of the country was “getting fed up with the people. ” By late Monday, order on Fox News had been fully restored. In his opening monologue, Sean Hannity followed a familiar trope, criticizing the mainstream news media for “freaking out and completely misrepresenting” the immigration ban. The Trump administration, he said, was trying to “set the record straight, but the media won’t listen. ” The Wall Street Journal, part of the Rupert News Corporation, delivered a scathing editorial on Monday denouncing Mr. Trump’s “blunderbuss” policy. But on Tuesday, some journalists at the publication were frustrated after a note from the editor in chief, Gerard Baker, instructed editors to avoid the phrase “seven majority Muslim countries” when writing about the order. “It’s very loaded,” Mr. Baker wrote Monday night in the note, a copy of which was obtained by The New York Times (and reported earlier by BuzzFeed). “The reason they’ve been chosen is not because they’re majority Muslim but because they’re on the list of countries Obama identified as countries of concern. Would be less loaded to say ‘seven countries the U. S. has designated as being states that pose significant or elevated risks of terrorism. ’” The note caused concern among some editors and reporters in the newsroom as inappropriate interference. In a statement, a spokeswoman for The Journal said Mr. Baker’s note was “part of a larger conversation discussing developments as a story was being edited on deadline. ” In the same email chain, she said, Mr. Baker also pushed to include more comments from critics of Mr. Trump’s policy. On Tuesday, Mr. Baker sent a memo to employees saying there was “no ban on the phrase ‘ country’” but that the publication should “always be careful that this term is not offered as the only description of the countries covered under the ban. ” The unrest was only the latest manifestation of greater concern among a faction of reporters and editors at The Journal who are dissatisfied with what they view as sympathetic coverage of Mr. Trump. Mr. Baker has maintained that the publication is committed to fair reporting. Elsewhere in the news and entertainment empire of the Murdoch family, there was a more pointed response to Mr. Trump’s immigration policy. In a memo to employees of 21st Century Fox on Monday evening, James and Lachlan Murdoch suggested they did not fully support Mr. Trump’s executive order. “21CF is a global company, proudly headquartered in the U. S. founded by — and comprising at all levels of the business — immigrants,” they wrote. “We deeply value diversity and believe immigration is an essential part of America’s strength. ” Among organizations, the tone in the last few days has been predictably defiant and jubilant, reflecting their position on the conservative spectrum. Several seized on Mr. Trump’s accusation that Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York, had shed “fake tears” over the ban. The Federalist, a web magazine, published an article under the headline, “No, Trump’s Immigration Order Isn’t Racist or Reminiscent of the Holocaust. ” After Mr. Trump fired Sally Q. Yates, the acting attorney general, on Monday night for refusing to carry out his immigration order, Breitbart News went with the spirited headline, “You’re Fired: Trump Fires AG for ‘Betrayal. ’” The conservative Daily Caller called Ms. Yates’s decision a “brazen act of defiance that cost her the post. ” On Tuesday afternoon, Breitbart readers may have been surprised to see the site covering protests — but the blaring headline would have quickly showed the organization’s focus. “Trump Supporter Knocked Unconscious at Portland Airport Protest,” the site wrote. | 0fake |
EPA inspector general to investigate agency chief's travels to Oklahoma | WASHINGTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) - The frequent travels of the head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Scott Pruitt, to Oklahoma will be investigated following congressional requests, the agency’s Office of Inspector General said on Monday. Pruitt’s many travels to his home state have fueled speculation that he intends to run for the U.S. Senate from Oklahoma. “Administrator Pruitt is traveling the country to hear directly from the people impacted by EPA’s regulations outside of the Washington bubble,” said Amy Graham, an EPA spokeswoman. “This is nothing more than a distraction from the Administrator’s significant environmental accomplishments.” The Office of Inspector General said it would look into the “frequency, cost and extent” of Pruitt’s travels to Oklahoma through July 31, and whether travel policies and procedures were followed. It said the investigation will also aim to determine “whether EPA policies and procedures are sufficiently designed to prevent fraud, waste and abuse with the Administrator’s travel that included trips to Oklahoma.” Pruitt was in Oklahoma on at least 43 of the 92 days of March, April and May, according to copies of his travel records obtained by the Environmental Integrity Project watchdog group and reviewed by Reuters last month. The travel records show Pruitt’s schedule this spring often took him to cities in the U.S. heartland where he held meetings, often with oil and gas industry representatives, made speeches and attended events before flying to Tulsa for extended weekends. The records showed Pruitt paid for some legs of the trips directly related to his visits home, although it was not clear he paid for all such legs. Pruitt has riled environmentalists by raising doubts about climate change and by vowing to sweep away scores of Obama-era regulations to help business. “Pruitt seems to be using these visits to launch his political career,” said Melinda Pierce, legislative director for the Sierra Club, an environmental group that has been deeply critical of Pruitt. “Perhaps he should use polluter money to fund these trips if he’s going to continue doing their bidding.” Before becoming head of the EPA under Republican President Donald Trump in February, he was Oklahoma’s attorney general and repeatedly sued the agency he now runs to block federal environmental rules. | 0fake |
U.S. calls for U.N. action against Iran over Yemen missile | UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The United States accused Iran on Tuesday of supplying Yemen s Houthi rebels with a missile that was fired into Saudi Arabia in July and called for the United Nations to hold Tehran accountable for violating two U.N. Security Council resolutions. U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said information released by Saudi Arabia showed the missile fired in July was an Iranian Qiam, which she described as a type of weapon that had not been present in Yemen before the conflict. Saudi-led forces, which back the government in neighboring Yemen, have been targeting the Iran-allied Houthis in a more than two-year war. Saudi Arabia s crown prince on Tuesday described Iran s supply of rockets to the Houthis as direct military aggression that could be an act of war. Haley said that by providing weapons to the Houthis, Iran s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp s had violated two U.N. resolutions on Yemen and Iran. She said a missile shot down over Saudi Arabia on Saturday may also be of Iranian origin. We encourage the United Nations and international partners to take necessary action to hold the Iranian regime accountable for these violations, Haley said. It was not immediately clear what action the United States was calling for. Saudi U.N. Ambassador Abdallah Al-Mouallimi echoed Haley s call for U.N. action against Iran in a letter to the U.N. Security Council and Secretary-General Antonio Guterres later on Tuesday, seen by Reuters. He said the missile fired on Saturday may amount to a war crime and that Saudi Arabia was taking appropriate measures to respond to these terrorist acts. Iran s U.N. Ambassador Gholamali Khoshroo also wrote to the Security Council and Guterres on Tuesday, rejecting the accusations by Saudi Arabia as baseless and unfounded. Iran calls for self-restraint and wisdom instead of provocation and threat that may bring further instability to this already volatile region, Khoshroo wrote in the letter, seen by Reuters. Under a U.N. resolution that enshrines the Iran nuclear deal with world powers, Tehran is prohibited from supplying, selling or transferring weapons outside the country unless approved in advance by the U.N. Security Council. A separate U.N. resolution on Yemen bans the supply of weapons to Houthi leader Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, two Houthi commanders, Yemen s former President Ali Abdullah Saleh, his son, and those acting on their behalf or at their direction. The United States could propose people or entities to be blacklisted by the Security Council s Yemen sanctions committee, a move that would need consensus approval by the 15-members. Or it could put forward a new Security Council resolution to impose sanctions on Iran. To pass, a resolution needs nine votes in favor and no vetoes by the United States, Britain, France, China or Russia. | 0fake |
BREAKING VIDEO: BRICKS AND ROCKS HURLED AT POLICE BY TEENS (7 injured) IN BALTIMORE AS THEY PREPARE FOR A NIGHT OF MORE VIOLENCE | High school kids out of control? Noooo! We ve been reporting of the huge groups of high school kids getting violent at malls and other places in towns across America. Basically they re organized riots There were reports of an organized riot, called a purge, to be carried out by students from three Baltimore high schools in the name of Freddie Gray and unrest over police brutality.// <![CDATA[ var p = new anv_pl_def(); p.config = {}; p.config.width = 640; p.config.height = 360; p.loadVideoExpressV3('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|1000011|SPS'); // ]]>At least seven police officers were injured. At least one police officer suffered a broken bone. Another officer was knocked unconscious.Read more: abc2news | 1real |
With all three Clintons in Iowa, a glimpse at the fire that has eluded Hillary Clinton’s campaign | CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa — “I had one of the most wonderful rallies of my entire career right here in 1992,” Bill Clinton said by way of opening to the crowd of more than 1,100 on Saturday night.
Two days before the Iowa caucuses, Cedar Rapids tried to deliver that same old feeling to his wife, Hillary Clinton.
In the crowd, one woman held a sign that said “227 years of men. It’s HER turn!" Some carried signs and books. Others had traveled from as far as Missouri. They had waited hours, even after the fire marshal told them there was no more room inside the high school gymnasium.
The restive crowd chanted slogans and buzzed with anticipation until finally Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton all appeared on stage hand-in-hand, an hour behind schedule. As they roared, Hillary Clinton beamed.
It has been a long slog in Iowa for the Clinton campaign, which has struggled mightily to shake the label that its supporters can’t muster the enthusiasm of its rival’s backers. As the caucuses near, and with the help of a former president, the energy level at her events are notably dialing up.
"He's a charismatic speaker," said Cigi Ross, 31. "In general, I'd say he's a bigger draw for people."
Monday night will put the campaign's months of their work to the test. Can the campaign’s organization bring out their supporters? Can the candidate energize voters?
Clinton, who seemed to draw on the higher-than-usual energy, stood at the center of it all and delivered a confident closing statement.
“What we need is a plan, and a commitment,” Clinton said at the top of her voice.
“And me, yes, thank you,” Clinton finished.
Eight years later, Clinton is in Iowa once again facing what could be a nail-biting conclusion of a hard-fought campaign. Clinton acknowledges that it isn’t just her campaign that has changed since her devastating loss here in her last run, she too has changed — and improved, she told CNN on Saturday.
"I think I am a different, and perhaps a better, candidate, so I hope that also shows," Clinton said in an interview with the network that morning.
Days ago, Iowa seemed to be slipping from her grasp, but campaign aides are feeling more confident now. A slew of positive news, endorsements, and the latest poll from the Des Moines Register and Bloomberg News indicate the bleeding has at least slowed. That poll -- considered the gold standard in Iowa -- gave Clinton a slim lead over her rival Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders.
If Democrats are wary of political dynasties, they didn’t show it. Spotting someone in the audience carrying Chelsea Clinton's book, her father remarked: "Thank you, young woman, for holding up her book."
Bill Clinton, who has spent days crisscrossing the state on his wife's behalf, has settled easily into this role as booster-in-chief. He lays off the policy, leaving that to his wife. He focuses instead on what he knows "about the job."
“There are certain, almost intangible qualities that determine whether a president succeeds or not,” Clinton said, his voice raspy, even and low. "You need a sticker. A sticker: someone who won’t quit on you.”
"She’s the best at that I’ve ever known,” he added. | 0fake |
Is Donald Trump Really, Finally Falling Apart? | After he refused to be felled by his racist comments, incoherent policies, childish insults, a bizarre fixation on his hand size, and the vague threat of nuclear war, is it possible that Republican voters are finally beginning to think twice about Donald Trump?
All past attempts to predict the imminent collapse of Trump’s presidential campaign have failed. That being said, there are at least a few reasons to think the billionaire has finally reached a tipping point. Several new polls show Trump tanking nationally (though still in first place), while his negatives continue to rise. Amid 36 hours of nonstop gaffes and terrifying pronouncements, Trump suddenly looks poised to lose Wisconsin next week, a delegate-rich, winner-take-all state that would have virtually ensured that he would win the nomination, but where he now trails Ted Cruz by as much as 10 points.
Perhaps most important, Trump appears to be losing the so-called “shadow primary” to secure the state delegates who would decide the outcome of a potential contested convention. Politico reports that while Cruz and John Kasich have been making inroads with critical party insiders, more than 100 delegates won by Trump are prepared to ditch him after the first ballot in Cleveland. If he can’t win the Republican nomination outright, it’s looking more and more like Trump will be forced to put up or shut up about his threats to run a third-party spoiler campaign.
A lull in the G.O.P. primary calendar may have helped voters clarify their thoughts on the punchy billionaire. With no primary contests in the last week, national media outlets have focused relentlessly on Trump’s spate of truly awful statements in recent days, including a sustained barrage of unseemly insults aimed at Cruz’s wife, Heidi, and his misogynistic defense of his campaign manager, who was charged Tuesday for roughly grabbing a reporter. The following day, during a town hall event with MSNBC’s Chris Matthews, Trump mused that he wouldn’t rule out using nuclear weapons in Europe. Minutes later, under heated questioning, the Republican front-runner suggested that there “has to be some form of punishment” for women who get illegal abortions—a line that panicked party elites desperate to avoid another Todd Akin moment.
But never let it be said that Trump cannot learn from his mistakes. After losing in Iowa to Cruz and his disciplined ground game, Trump managed to pull his operation together in New Hampshire a week later, despite reports that the campaign was hopelessly disorganized. (“We learned a lot about ground games in one week,” Trump boasted in his victory speech.) He has already launched an organized effort to sway delegates to his side, and might up the ante by offering things that Cruz and Kasich cannot: “There are a lot of delegates who’d like to ride on Trump’s plane,” former Trump operative Roger Stone told The New York Times. “There are a lot of delegates who’d like to have a phone call from Ivanka Trump. We’ll get to that phase.” | 0fake |
Despite NATO pledge to increase Afghan support, troop shortfall remains: U.S. | BRUSSELS (Reuters) - NATO s pledge to send more troops to Afghanistan still falls short of commitments, U.S. commanders said on Thursday, concerned that fewer reinforcements could threaten the already precarious security situation in the country. At a meeting of NATO defence ministers, commanders said that nearly three months after President Donald Trump announced his South Asia strategy, the promised troop numbers do expand the NATO training presence but not by as much as hoped. We have made it very clear to the allies that we really need their help in filling these billets that we have identified, said General John Nicholson, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan and head of the NATO training mission. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said this week that NATO allies and the United States would split the burden of providing some 3,000 more troops, an increase that would take NATO s training mission to about 16,000 troops. Two diplomats said that at this stage, the United States is likely to provide 2,800 troops, while non-U.S. NATO allies and partners will send an additional 700 troops, potentially making up a 3,500-strong personnel increase. Germany, one of the main European troop contributors, said it was not increasing its contribution for next year, which German Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen defended. The commitments received so far are sufficient. We will not reach the total troop level, but to a high degree, Von der Leyen told reporters. European NATO s focus has partly shifted to deterring Russia on its eastern flank, diplomats said, after Moscow s seizure of Crimea in 2014 helped take East-West ties to post-Cold War lows. Nicholson said he was concerned that the United States would be put in a position where it would have to fill the shortfall. Right now my plan is to have U.S. forces focused on the things that only U.S. forces can do, so I would not like to have to divert U.S. forces to do things that allies can perform, Nicholson said. Security in Afghanistan has deteriorated in recent months, 16 years after the United States invaded to topple the Islamist Taliban government that gave al Qaeda the sanctuary where it plotted the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. We fought ... at the lowest year level of capability that we have ever had in the 16 years. So it was the lowest level of capability and the highest level of risk we have faced in this time, Nicholson said. Before the ministers meeting, U.S. officials said about 80 percent of the troop commitments had been met by the allies. U.S. Defence Secretary Jim Mattis said that about two dozen countries had signalled their intent to increase their troop commitment, but declined to publicly give concrete numbers. I don t give the enemy information they can use to their advantage, he told a news conference. Officials said there was a 10 percent shortfall even after the NATO meeting. According to U.S. estimates, about 43 percent of Afghanistan s districts are either under Taliban control or being contested. One area in particular where there was a need for NATO troops was in training Afghan soldiers and police officers. A total of 2,531 Afghan security forces were killed and 4,238 wounded in the first four months of the year, according to figures in a recent report by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan (SIGAR), a U.S. Congressional watchdog. I am most concerned about police training in particular, because we are trying as part of this four-year road map to get the police out of paramilitary policing and (into) civilian policing, Nicholson said. The four-star general said that while contractors could potentially be used to fill the gaps, ideally it would be filled by NATO members. A recent report published by SIGAR said that tens of billions of dollars could be wasted unless changes are made in the training of Afghan security forces. U.S. intelligence agencies have assessed that the conditions in Afghanistan will almost certainly deteriorate through next year, even with a modest increase in military assistance from America and its allies. | 0fake |
Women In The World Founder Has The PERFECT Description For Trump’s Crazy Presidency (VIDEO) | This past week was the annual Women in the World Summit. It s a place that celebrates women who have a voice, and who speak for those who do not. It is a place of celebration, discussion, strategy, and empowerment. It is also a place for women to speak their minds. Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton definitely spoke her mind on that stage. Now that the Summit is over, its founder, Tina Brown, is sounding off on Donald Trump s presidency.Appearing on CNN s Reliable Sources, Brown told host Brian Stelter of what it feels like to watch Trump: It s almost like being in the ward of a mental hospital half the time, with what s going on with Trump. I mean, you can t make this up. Stelter then asks, You mean we re all the patients of the mental hospital? Brown responds: You know, watching his behavior, you know it s like watching out of control that s what makes it such riveting viewing. He seems so his entire administration seems to be so out of control. Unfortunately it s addictive. Stelter then joked about a New Yorker cartoon that quipped about people binge watching CNN, and asked Brown if that was a bad thing. Brown responded: It s a disastrous thing, because, you know, you re actually talking about very serious things that are not being discussed, and that is what is so scary about it. I mean, I was thinking the other day, how many hours have been spent by everybody in Washington in the you know, last two months, whether it is the Intelligence community or the National Security community.. everybody trying to retrofit the crazy tweet about being eavesdropped by Obama. It s like the need to backfill his mendacity by so many different agencies is the most time-consuming thing right now in government. Stelter then lamented: It was a month ago, and we re never going to get that month back. Brown concluded: Think about all the things that weren t done in that month. Tina Brown is correct. It s like being in a mental hospital, or perhaps in the back of a car driven by a very drunk driver who thinks he is sober and refuses to stop so people who know better can hop out. The people who have the power to take us off this crazy train won t, so we re stuck. Hopefully, we survive.Watch the fascinating exchange below:Tina Brown: It s almost like being in the ward of a mental hospital half the time, with what s going on with Trump https://t.co/DH6Ywnnfni Reliable Sources (@ReliableSources) April 2, 2017Featured image via Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images | 1real |
Kellyanne Conway Fires Back at Morning Joe’s Baseless Attack: ’It Is a Privilege to Assist President Trump’ - Breitbart | Counselor to President Donald Trump Kellyanne Conway is firing back hard at Morning Joe hosts Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough for baselessly claiming she does not actually support President Trump. [Conway said in a statement on Tuesday: The hosts of MSNBC’s Morning Joe have become virulent critics of the President and those close to him. Ignoring insults and insinuations is a valuable skill. But when sentiments are attributed to me that are not true, it is necessary to respond. My beliefs, commitments and loyalties are plain to see. The notion that I am serving for ‘the money’ or a ‘paycheck’ is absurd. As campaign manager, I made a fraction of what other consultants have made on unsuccessful presidential campaigns. Then I walked away from dozens of opportunities for millions of dollars, and instead walked into the White House. I would do it again. It is a privilege to assist President Trump in the White House, just as it was during the campaign. I know him, I respect him, I believe in him, and I am confident in his capacity to be a transformative and successful President. Taking a moment from more important matters to respond … . pic. twitter. — Kellyanne Conway (@KellyannePolls) May 16, 2017, Conway’s Tuesday statement comes after attacks from Scarborough and Brzezinski on Monday morning’s program, in which they claimed that Conway — Trump’s successful general election campaign manager — is only in it for the money. They even claimed that Conway once said she needed “a shower” after standing up for Trump when the microphones were off during the campaign, something on which they provided no proof. “This is a woman, by the way, who came on our show during the campaign and would shill for Trump in extensive fashion and then she would get off the air, the camera would be turned off, the microphone would be taken off and she would say ‘bleeech I need to take a shower’ because she disliked her candidate so much,” Brzezinski said on Monday. “Also said, that this is just, like my summer in Europe. I’m just doing this for the money, I’ll be off this soon,” Scarborough backed up his . “I don’t know that she ever said ‘I’m doing this for the money,’ but this is just my summer vacation, my summer in Europe. And basically, I’m gonna get through this. ” Brzezinski then finished Scarborough’s sentence for him. “But first I have to take a shower because it feels so dirty to be saying what I’m saying,” she said. “I guess she’s just used to it now. ” And Scarborough did the same for her: “And also, I thought it was very interesting, after the Access Hollywood tape came out, that’s when she started referring to Donald Trump as ‘my client,’” Scarborough said. Scarborough and Brzezinski have been roundly panned by most for the unsavory and unsubstantiated comments. Fox News’ Tucker Carlson ripped them on Monday for smearing Conway with such comments. “Many journalists believe it’s literally impossible to be unfair to Donald Trump or the people who work for him,” Carlson said in a segment on Monday evening criticizing the media for bias, and particularly ripping Brzezinski and Scarborough for this extreme bias against Conway and Trump. “Extremism in the pursuit of Trump is no vice. That’s the view in newsrooms and you hear it in conversations all around Washington, a city that voted 91 percent for Hillary Clinton last fall … They’ve succumbed to Trump hatred that is so intense, it has destroyed their judgment and in some cases affected their character. ” What’s more, Brzezinski’s and Scarborough’s implication that Conway was just supporting Trump for the money — as simply a client, rather than supporting somebody and something she believes in — is not backed up by the facts. In fact, a piece in The Atlantic of all places, in March, detailed how Conway has spent the better part of her adult life helping build out the intellectual framework of the ideology that propelled Trump to electoral success. Calling her the “unsung architect of Trumpism,” the Atlantic’s Molly Ball detailed how she was not just a television personality or spin artist or generic GOP strategist, but “a principal architect of the theory behind Trump’s winning campaign. ” Ball wrote: Years before Conway went to work on Trump’s campaign — when she was still a midlist conservative pollster and Steve Bannon was still running Breitbart — the two were charter members, Bannon recently told me, of the ‘cabal’ he was forming behind the scenes to upend the Republican establishment. And Conway’s ideas were the key to a major shift in the way Trump addressed immigration, which became his signature issue. One Conway poll in particular — a 2014 messaging memo commissioned by a controversial group — Bannon cited as a sort of Rosetta stone of the message that powered Trump’s victory. It was, Bannon told me, a pillar of ‘the intellectual infrastructure of the populist movement that candidate Trump galvanized’ from the moment he began his candidacy in 2015. Conway, when the rest of Republicans generally speaking were marching to the tune of amnesty in the wake of Mitt Romney’s embarrassing defeat in the 2012 presidential election, went a different route. After the Senate rammed through the “Gang of Eight” amnesty bill in 2013, and a similar push in the House was maintained through 2014, Conway — a pollster with The Polling Company — in August 2014 published a poll that proved the opposite of the open borders lobby’s arguments. “There was, she wrote, ‘strong consensus on many populist immigration policies,’ including enforcing current immigration law, limiting illegal immigrants’ access to welfare and work, and reducing legal immigrants’ ability to bring family members to the United States,” Ball wrote in the Atlantic. Ball continued: The issue, she wrote, should be framed in terms of ‘America First,’ and as a matter of ‘fairness … to workers.’ of likely voters, she pointed out, wanted more enforcement of current immigration laws. (Most economists agree that immigration displaces some workers while improving the economy and creating more net jobs overall. And while majorities of voters of both parties consistently oppose deporting the undocumented en masse, majorities generally also oppose increasing the number of legal immigrants.) Conway told me her argument was intended as an explicit rebuttal to the ‘autopsy’ report. ‘Candidates had been told after 2012, because Mitt Romney only got 27 percent of the Hispanic vote, that they had to support comprehensive immigration reform,’ she told me. ‘We were telling them, ‘That’s not true. ’’ white voters, in particular, supported the idea that illegal immigration was hurting their ability to find work, she said. So, in other words, after spending a great deal of her life working on building out the intellectual framework for the ideology that led to Trump’s victory, then personally joining his campaign and helping him across the finish line, somehow to Brzezinski and Scarborough she is not sufficiently committed to the president and his agenda? That does not pass the smell test. | 0fake |
Trump to limit Cuba travel, restrict business deals with military: U.S. officials | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump on Friday will announce a plan to tighten rules on Americans traveling to Cuba and significantly restrict U.S. companies from doing business with Cuban enterprises controlled by the military, senior White House officials said on Thursday. Trump will lay out his new Cuba policy in a speech in Miami that will roll back parts of former President Barack Obama’s opening to the communist-ruled island after a 2014 diplomatic breakthrough between the two former Cold War foes. Taking a tougher approach against Havana after promising to do so during the presidential campaign, Trump will outline stricter enforcement of an existing ban on Americans going to Cuba as tourists and will seek to prevent U.S. dollars from being used to fund what the new U.S. administration sees as a repressive military-dominated government. The new policy will ban most U.S. business deals with the Armed Forces Business Enterprises Group (GAESA), a sprawling conglomerate involved in all sectors of the economy, but make exceptions related to air and sea travel, the officials said. This will essentially shield U.S. airlines and cruise lines now serving the island. But even as he curbs Obama’s détente with Cuba, Trump will stop short of closing embassies or breaking off diplomatic relations restored in 2015 after more than five decades of hostility, U.S. officials said. He will also leave in place some other tangible measures implemented by his Democratic predecessor, including the resumption of direct U.S.-Cuba commercial flights, though Trump’s more restrictive policy seems certain to dampen new economic ties overall. And, according to one White House official, the administration does not intend to “disrupt” existing business deals such as one struck under Obama by Starwood Hotels, which is owned by Marriott International Inc, to manage a historic Havana hotel. There are also no plans to reinstate the limits that Obama lifted on the amount of the island’s coveted rum and cigars that American can bring home for personal use, one White House official said. As a result, the changes – though far-reaching – appear to be less sweeping than many pro-engagement advocates had feared. Trump will justify his partial reversal of Obama’s measures to a large extent on human rights grounds. His aides contend that Obama’s easing of U.S. restrictions has done nothing to advance political freedoms in Cuba, while benefiting the Cuban government financially. Saying that the aim was to repair what Trump has called a “bad deal” struck by Obama with Havana, one U.S. official said the new administration would leave the door open to improved relations if Cuba undertakes democratic reforms such as allowing free and fair elections and the release of political prisoners. International human rights groups say, however, that reinstating a U.S. policy of isolating the island could make the situation worse by empowering Cuban hardliners. The Cuban government has made clear it will not be pressured into political reforms in exchange for diplomatic engagement. At home, Trump’s critics have questioned why his administration is now singling out Cuba for its human rights record while insisting that in other parts of the world it will not lecture other countries on the issue. Trump will issue a presidential memorandum when he delivers his speech at the Manuel Artime Theater in Miami’s Little Havana district, the heart of America’s Cuban-American and Cuban exile community. The venue is named after a leader of the failed U.S.-backed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in 1961 against Fidel Castro’s revolutionary government. Republican Senator Marco Rubio, who was played a key role in pushing for Trump’s changes, was expected to attend along with U.S. Representative Mario Diaz-Balart and other Cuban-American lawmakers. Under Trump’s order, the Treasury and Commerce Departments will be given 30 days to begin writing new regulations and they will not take effect until they are complete. Under the revised travel policy, U.S. officials say there will be tighter enforcement to make sure Americans legally fit the 12 authorized categories they claim to be traveling under, which could spook many visitors, wary of receiving a hefty fine. While tourism to Cuba is banned by U.S. law, the Obama administration had been allowing people to travel to Cuba as part of “people to people” educational trips for visitors, a classification that a White House official said was “ripe for abuse” by those looking for beach vacations. Trump’s new policy will eliminate such visits by individuals while still allowing them to be done as group tours, and also retaining individual travel under other authorized categories such as religious, artistic and journalistic activities, the official said. But Trump’s planned rollback of Obama’s policy has drawn opposition from American businesses and the travel industry, which have begun making inroads on the island, as well as many lawmakers, including some of Trump’s fellow Republicans. The new policy has come together after contentious meetings within the administration. Some aides have argued that Trump, a former real estate magnate who won the presidency promising to unleash U.S. business and create jobs, would have a hard time defending any moves that close off the Cuban market. But other advisers have contended that it is important to make good on a promise to Cuban-Americans whose support they considered significant in winning Florida in the 2016 election. Miami is home to the largest Cuban-American community. | 0fake |
Elliott Abrams is Trump's leading candidate for deputy secretary of state: source | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Elliott Abrams, who served in foreign policy roles for presidents Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush, is President Donald Trump’s leading candidate to be deputy secretary of state, a source familiar with the matter said on Monday. Abrams is to meet Trump at the White House on Tuesday along with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. Abrams, 69, last served in government in the Bush White House, first as a Middle East expert on the National Security Council and later as a global democracy strategy adviser. Another candidate for the position was former diplomat Paula Dobriansky, the source said, while adding that it appeared Abrams had the inside track. | 0fake |
New York mayor to back $2.5 billion light rail in key speech | NEW YORK (Reuters) - New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio will back a $2.5 billion plan to create a light rail service linking the city’s outer boroughs when he gives his annual keynote speech on Thursday The 16-mile track would run from Astoria in Queens, tracing a line along the East River and New York’s upper harbor to link up with Sunset Park in Brooklyn. It would pass through popular neighborhoods like Williamsburg and Brooklyn Heights. The plan is not new but the mayor’s emphasis reflects the growing importance of the outer boroughs. It also makes good on his pledge to address the gap between wealthy Manhattan and the rest of the city, a longstanding gripe with many New Yorkers. “This is about equity and innovation. We are mapping brand new transit that will knit neighborhoods together,” de Blasio said in a statement. The introduction of a light rail service would be a new development for the city. It would mirror the increasing use of such services in New Jersey, especially connecting the growing commuter towns along the Hudson River, an area real estate developers have dubbed the “Gold Coast.” The mayor’s office said the city will offset costs with tax revenues from increased property values along the proposed line. Major upgrades are being planned to aging transport infrastructure throughout the state. Governor Andrew Cuomo has embraced around $100 billion of projects including a $20 billion rail tunnel under the Hudson River. De Blasio, who comes from the liberal wing of the Democratic party, has emphasized social issues since taking office in 2014 such as free schooling for four year olds and reforming the city’s police. He will likely use Thursday’s state of the city address to hone in on some of those issues. Homelessness will likely be a focus after the mayor faced accusations he was not doing enough to address the problem. De Blasio is also likely to revisit public safety. He and his police commissioner, Bill Bratton, cited new statistics on Wednesday showing this January was the safest ever. De Blasio shifted Thursday’s speech to 7 p.m. from its usual daytime spot in the hope of reaching more New Yorkers. It will be held at the Lehman Center for the Performing Arts, a concert venue in the Bronx. (This version of the story corrects day of speech in paragraphs 1, 9 and 11) | 0fake |
White House makes formal veto threat against Keystone, ACA bills | The White House made formal veto threats Wednesday against House bills that would allow the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline and change a key mandate under the Affordable Care Act, signaling a rocky start to the 114th Congress.
While White House press secretary Josh Earnest had announced Tuesday that President Obama intends to veto the first bill headed to his desk under the GOP-controlled Congress, the new Statement of Administration Policy elaborates on the president's objection to the bill.
The House version — which is identical to the one just introduced in the Senate on Tuesday by Sens. John Hoeven (N.D.) and Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) — "conflicts with longstanding Executive branch procedures regarding the authority of the President and prevents the thorough consideration of complex issues that could bear on U.S. national interests (including serious security, safety, environmental, and other ramifications)," reads the statement, which was released by the Office of Management and Budget.
"If presented to the President, his senior advisors would recommend that he veto this bill," it adds.
The president also laid down the gauntlet when it comes to House Republicans' latest effort to chip away at his signature health-care law. Currently the Affordable Care Act requires employers to provide health insurance if they have at least 50 full-time workers, which is defined by anyone working 30 hours a week or more. The Save American Workers Act would change the definition of a full-time employee to someone working at least 40 hours a week.
Obama will reject the measure "because it would significantly increase the deficit, reduce the number of Americans with employer-based health insurance coverage, and create incentives for employers to shift their employees to part-time work – causing the problem it intends to solve."
"Rather than attempting once again to repeal or undermine the Affordable Care Act, which the House has tried to do over 50 times, it is time for the Congress to stop fighting old political battles and join the President in forwarding an agenda focused on providing greater economic opportunity and security for middle class families and all those working to be a part of the middle class," the Statement of Administration Policy adds.
During his regular press briefing Wednesday, House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) questioned why the president was starting out the new session on such an adversarial note.
"Too many Americans are out of work, too many are working harder just to keep pace in the face of rising costs and frankly, we’ve got an awful lot of work to do," Boehner said. "Unfortunately, by threatening two of these bipartisan jobs bills, the president essentially is telling the American people he really doesn’t care what they think. Well, our commitment is to stand up for the American people and their priorities, and it’s a commitment we will not break.”
Brendan Buck, a spokesman for House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.), noted in an e-mail that 18 House Democrats voted for a similar health care bill last Congress. A companion bill in the Senate is sponsored by Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Joe Donnelly (D-Ind.).
Polls show a clear majority of Americans support approving the Keystone pipeline, with 60 percent in a November USA Today survey saying Obama and Congress should authorize the project; 25 percent said it should not and the rest were unsure. Separate polling finds most Republicans, independents, and moderate or conservative Democrats support the pipeline, liberal Democrats and those with the most education more opposed.
Along with overall public support, Americans are bullish about the pipeline’s job-creation prospects. More than eight in 10 respondents in a Washington Post-ABC News poll said the pipeline would create a significant number of jobs, while just under half thought it would pose a significant risk to the environment. | 0fake |
French Voting Station Reopens After Security Scare | PARIS (AP) — A voting station in eastern France has reopened after being evacuated because of a suspicious vehicle parked nearby. [Interior Ministry spokesman Brandet told The Associated Press that the voting station in Besancon was evacuated while explosives experts examined the car, but they deemed there to be no risk. He said no other incidents have been reported in Sunday’s presidential election. Tens of thousands of security forces are guarding voting stations across France after an attack in Paris on Thursday revived security concerns. France remains under a state of emergency after deadly Islamic extremist attacks in recent years. The top two winners on Sunday will advance to a May 7 runoff. | 0fake |
TRUMP HATER GEORGE RAMOS Promotes Movie Showing Illegal Aliens Being Shot At Border By Drunk Vigilante…Blames Trump [VIDEO] | Mexico has been the beneficiary of our open borders for decades. It s really quite amazing how loudly they cry foul when we finally have a presidential candidate willing to stand up to this insanity and say, ENOUGH! It s Time to put Americans first! Illegal immigrants send home $50 billion annually but cost taxpayers more than $113 billion. Approximately 126,000 illegal immigrants emigrated from these three nations to the U.S. since last October and federal officials estimate at least 95,500 more will enter next year.The Central American governments have encouraged the high levels of emigration because it is earning their economy billions of dollars! For every illegal alien that sneaks into the U.S. and remits money back home, that grand total remittance number only grows. But what if the millions of U.S. jobs now filled by illegal aliens were done by American workers earning better wages, paying more in taxes and spending their money in their communities rather than sending it abroad?Americans are the ones forced to pick up the $113 billion tab for taking care of the country s 12 million illegal immigrants. Is it the responsibility of taxpaying citizens to cover the cost of illegal immigration and the government s aid to these countries while illegal workers continue to send their money overseas to send $50 billion overseas? Via: immigrationreform.comYet, somehow Donald Trump is to BLAME for wanting to shut down our open borders and bring some sanity back to our nation that is being overrun by Mexican drug runners and gang bangers coming from every corner of Mexico, Central and South America? A new Mexican movie promoted by Univision host Jorge Ramos portrays a drunk vigilante motivated by Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump s anti-immigrant rant killing at least four illegal immigrants at the border.The trailer for the movie, Desierto, now in Mexican theaters, blasts out Trump s initial criticism of illegal immigrants as a man armed with a rifle guns down targets crossing under barbed wire.https://youtu.be/V48ttgGqsswIt later shows the same man, in a pickup holding a bottle of what appears to be whisky, a beer can nearby, as a voice says, Welcome to the land of the free. The trailer ends with, words are as dangerous as bullets. The Center for Immigration Studies on Tuesday first blogged on the exploitation movie and the promotion by Ramos on his Sunday show Al Punto. This material resonates powerfully with Jorge Ramos. His conviction that racism and xenophobia are the driving forces of opposition to illegal immigration is a central theme of his nightly newscasts. Ramos fixates on reports that confirm his conviction with the obsessiveness of an exploitation film director showing close-ups of bullets tearing into human flesh, wrote CIS Fellow Jerry Kammer.He added: On Sunday, Ramos talked with Desierto director Jonas Cuaron and star Gael Garcia Bernal about Trump s repugnant comments about Mexicans. Since then, Ramos said, there are thousands if not millions of North Americans who feel that they have the absolute freedom to be racists. Via: Washington Examiner | 1real |
Trump Family Honors Troops, Welcomes Children at White House Easter Egg Roll - Breitbart | WASHINGTON, D. C. — President Donald Trump, First Lady Melania Trump and their son Barron greeted participants at the 139th annual White House Easter Egg Roll on Monday as Attorney General Jeff Sessions read a bunny story to a group of children.[ Waves of little ones lined up to take their turn at racing their eggs to the finish line with the prodding of their wooden spoons. Hundreds came forward to make their dashes. The festivities went on through the morning despite spurts of rainfall. Eggs are rollin at the White House rain or shine #EasterEggRoll #WhiteHouseEasterEggRoll pic. twitter. — Michelle Moons (@MichelleDiana) April 17, 2017, President Trump greeted the crowd after some fanfare from the Marine Corps Band and the National Anthem. He thanked all in attendance, saying “We will be stronger and bigger and better as a nation than ever before and we are right on track … Thank you, everybody, for coming. ” “We’re going to do cards for soldiers. Melania and Barron and myself are going to sign some cards for some great troops … We’re going to come out and join you … for a great Easter egg roll,” the president continued. “I’ve seen those kids and they’re highly, highly competitive. ” President Trump thanked the First Lady for her diligent work on the event, “She’s been working on this for a long time to make it perfect … I want to congratulate her on this wonderful, wonderful day. ” First Lady Melania Trump then addressed the crowd, “First time my husband and I are hosting this wonderful tradition. It’s great that all of you are here with us today. I want to thank the military band, staff and all the volunteers who worked tirelessly to make sure you enjoy the activities. ” She gave great thanks to the military, “all around the world who are keeping us safe. ” FLOTUS at #WhiteHouseEasterEggRoll thanks the troops and ”We wish you great fun” pic. twitter. — Michelle Moons (@MichelleDiana) April 17, 2017, The President, First Lady and their son Barron walked down to a craft table to spend some time with the children. President Trump spoke with the children for a bit after which he stood up, thanked those gathered, and took his leave with his wife and son. Near the end of the race finish line, Attorney General Sessions and the First Lady took their turns reading books to some of the kids. Sessions read a story about a bunny that was briefly interrupted for the address from the President and First Lady, but resumed quickly thereafter. First Lady Melania read Kathie Lee Gifford’s children’s book entitled “Party Animals”. Gifford’s book tells the story of a goose who finds fault with everyone she can think of to invite to her birthday party, but after seeking counsel from an owl, decides to invite everyone, differences and all. AG @jeffsessions reads a bunny story to kids at #WhiteHouseEasterEggRoll pic. twitter. — Michelle Moons (@MichelleDiana) April 17, 2017, FLOTUS @MELANIATRUMP reads @KathieLGifford children’s book Party Animals to kids @WhiteHouse #EasterEggRoll @FLOTUS pic. twitter. — Michelle Moons (@MichelleDiana) April 17, 2017, Just after the First Lady finished her reading the rain returned and many took their leave from the festivities. Follow Michelle Moons on Twitter @MichelleDiana | 0fake |
THIS IS HUGE! Here’s Proof George Soros Fears Trump’s Presidency And will Do ANYTHING To Bring Him Down | The evil George Soros wrote a rare op-ed for The Guardian. You see, someone has finally challenged the dark underbelly of the radical far left and that man is Donald Trump. Just knowing that Soros feels it necessary to comment (since he rarely comments) on Trump tells me the left is considering Trump a major threat.The op-ed by Soros is below please note the deflection:It appears The Establishment has decided to bring in the big guns to dislodge The GOP s nightmare scenario as Donald Trump goes from strength to strength in the polls. Writing in an op-ed for The Guardian, billionaire puppet-master George Soros urges Americans to resist the siren song of the likes of Donald Trump, adding that the terrorists and demagogues want us to be scared. We mustn t give in. Authored by George Soros, originally posted at The Guardian,It s not easy to resist the threats and the hysteria that surround us, but we must do, as fear is the greatest danger to open societyOpen societies are always endangered. This is especially true of America and Europe today, as a result of the terrorist attacks in Paris and elsewhere, and the way that America and Europe, particularly France, have reacted to them. Jihadi terrorist groups such as Islamic State and al-Qaida have discovered the achilles heel of our western societies: the fear of death. Through horrific attacks and macabre videos, the publicists of Isis magnify this fear, leading otherwise sensible people in hitherto open societies to abandon their reason.Scientists have discovered that emotion is an essential component of human reasoning. That discovery explains why jihadi terrorism poses such a potent threat to our societies: the fear of death leads us and our leaders to think and then behave irrationally.Science merely confirms what experience has long shown: when we are afraid for our lives, emotions take hold of our thoughts and actions, and we find it difficult to make rational judgments. Fear activates an older, more primitive part of the brain than that which formulates and sustains the abstract values and principles of open society.The open society is thus always at risk from the threat posed by our response to fear. A generation that has inherited an open society from its parents will not understand what is required to maintain it until it has been tested and learns to keep fear from corrupting reason. Jihadi terrorism is only the latest example. The fear of nuclear war tested the last generation, and the fear of communism and fascism tested my generation.The jihadi terrorists ultimate goal is to convince Muslim youth worldwide that there is no alternative to terrorism. And terrorist attacks are the way to achieve that goal, because the fear of death will awaken and magnify the latent anti-Muslim sentiments in Europe and America, inducing the non-Muslim population to treat all Muslims as potential attackers.And that is exactly what is happening. The hysterical anti-Muslim reaction to terrorism is generating fear and resentment among Muslims living in Europe and America. The older generation reacts with fear, the younger one with resentment; the result is a breeding ground for potential terrorists. This is a mutually reinforcing, reflexive process.How can it be stopped and reversed? Abandoning the values and principles underlying open societies and giving in to an anti-Muslim impulse dictated by fear certainly is not the answer, though it may be difficult to resist the temptation. I experienced this personally when I watched the last Republican presidential debate; I could stop myself only by remembering that it must be irrational to follow the wishes of your enemies.To remove the danger posed by jihadi terrorism, abstract arguments are not enough; we need a strategy for defeating it. The challenge is underscored by the fact that the jihadi phenomenon has been with us for more than a generation. Indeed, gaining a proper understanding of it may be impossible. But the attempt must be made.Consider the Syrian conflict, which is the root cause of the migration problem that is posing an existential threat to the European Union as we know it. If it was resolved, the world would be in better shape. It is important to recognise that Isis is operating from a position of weakness. While it is spreading fear in the world, its hold on its home ground is weakening. The United Nations security council has unanimously adopted a resolution against it, and the leaders of Isis are aware that their days in Iraq and Syria are numbered.Of course, the outlook for Syria remains highly uncertain, and the conflict there cannot be understood or tackled in isolation. But one idea shines through crystal clear: it is an egregious mistake to do what the terrorists want us to do. That is why, as 2016 gets underway, we must reaffirm our commitment to the principles of open society and resist the siren song of the likes of Donald Trump and Ted Cruz, however hard that may be.Via: Zero Hedge | 1real |
WATCH: WIFE OF NFL PLAYER Admits RAIDERS “All-Black Offensive Line Allowed” QB Dereck Carr “To Get Injured” As Payback For Not Supporting Anthem Protests | The Oakland Raiders have been in the news quite a bit lately, and unfortunately, for NFL football fans, it has little to do with football, and everything to do with an anti-cop social justice movement, and a certain player s bad behavior. The Raiders team made the news when most of the members of the team kneeled for the national anthem. On October 1, 2017, running back Marshawn Lynch entered the Sports Authority stadium wearing an Everybody vs Trump t-shirt before the Oakland Raiders game against the Denver Broncos. Lynch then sat during the playing of the national anthem. While Lynch sat for the October 1st game, most of his teammates knelt.Raiders RB Marshawn Lynch wearing an "Everybody vs Trump" T-shirt: pic.twitter.com/7aiCUbjLUD Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) October 1, 2017According to Miko Grimes, wife of Tampa Bay Buccaneers cornerback Brent Grimes, the Oakland Raiders offensive line actually stood down and allowed Derek Carr to get hurt because he didn t agree with, nor did he join the team s anthem protests.Here is the play Miko Grimes was referring to when Oakland Raiders quarterback Dereck Carr was hit in the back while his offensive line allegedly stood by and watched, as a punishment for not joining the team in their Black Lives Matter-inspired protest of our flag:Derek Carr suffers back injury. #Raiders pic.twitter.com/kqDhq9cCmY Peter Joe (@RaiderPosts) October 1, 2017Miko Grimes made an appearance on The Breakfast Club where she emphatically claimed the star quarterback s views on the anthem protests led to his offensive line allowing him to get crushed. A lot of people don t know, but the reason Derek Carr got injured was because the Raiders offensive line allowed him to get injured, Miko explained as she launched into her story. Daily CallerWatch Grimes incredible allegation about how the Raiders allowed their quarterback to be injured as a sick payback because he was against his team s anti-cop social justice movement. Grimes was quick to point out that the Oakland Raiders has the only all-black offensive line in the NFL. She also mentioned that they had a fight in the locker room prior to the game and before the players went out to play the game that Carr was injured in, the players already had a plan in place to ensure that he would be left unprotected..@iHeartMiko shares little know allegation about Derek Carr's injury. #TheBreakfastClub pic.twitter.com/7XF54oh3U7 REVOLT TV (@RevoltTV) November 7, 2017On October 20, 2017, Oakland Raiders running back and national anthem kneeler, Marshawn Lynch, was ejected after he left the sidelines to physically attack a referee with whom he disagreed with. | 1real |
Islamic State loses al-Mayadeen in eastern Syria: military source | BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syrian government and allied forces have taken the eastern town of al-Mayadeen from Islamic State, a Syrian military source said on Saturday, further weakening the militants diminishing presence in Syria. Al-Mayadeen, near the Iraqi border in Deir al Zor province, had become a major base for Islamic State militants as they were being driven out of their de facto Syrian capital in Raqqa city by a U.S.-backed offensive. Over the past few months many of the individuals which the U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State has targeted have come from al-Mayadeen, coalition spokesman Ryan Dillon told Reuters. The Syrian government campaign to take al-Mayadeen has been supported by heavy Russian air strikes. The U.S.-led coalition has also previously struck in the vicinity of the town. Al-Mayadeen lies south of the provincial capital Deir al-Zor city, where Syrian and allied forces are also trying to oust the militants from a small pocket they still control. The Syrian military source said the jihadists in al-Mayadeen had suffered a collapse in their ranks. | 0fake |
Europe, Africa ministers agree to help migrants held in Libya | BERN (Reuters) - European and African ministers agreed on Monday to try to improve conditions for migrants in Libya and seek paths such as scholarships for Africans to reach Europe legally, to cut the death toll from smuggling across the Sahara and Mediterranean. The deadly trek across the desert from sub-Saharan Africa through Libya and over sea to Italy is now the main route used by refugees and other vulnerable migrants heading to Europe, after Turkey closed the other main route via Greece that brought in nearly a million people in 2015. Almost 115,000 migrants have landed on Italian shores so far this year. Almost 2,750 are known to have died while trying to cross the Mediterranean, the U.N. International Organization for Migration said on Friday, and the death toll in the Sahara desert is thought to be at least twice as high. European and African officials say the numbers reaching Europe have finally been falling over the past few months due to better efforts to fight smuggling. But that has also left tens of thousands of migrants trapped in Libya, often detained in conditions rights groups say are dangerous and inhumane. Interior ministers belonging to the Central Mediterranean contact group met in Switzerland to discuss the crisis. While they talked about law enforcement measures to combat smuggling, their final statement focused more on efforts to alleviate the journey s harm. Ministers from Algeria, Austria, Chad, France, Germany, Italy, Libya, Malta, Niger, Slovenia, Switzerland, Tunisia and Mali were among those backing the statement. We had a very intensive exchange, because the questions we are dealing with are very demanding issues, Swiss Justice Minister Simonetta Sommaruga said after the meeting. This is why we concentrated on protecting refugees. We had many people with different viewpoints sitting around the table, but nonetheless, on this point we all agreed.... We want to improve the situation of migrants and refugees, particularly in Libya. Sommaruga said an improvement in the situation on the central Mediterranean route would be possible only if countries joined together to help stabilize Libya. The ministers said they would work closely with Libyan authorities to ensure detained migrants and refugees were held with respect for human rights and humanitarian standards, and promised to secure priority release from detention for vulnerable people such as children and victims of torture. They also pledged to create economic alternatives to smuggling, including pilot projects for pathways for Africans to reach Europe legally, such as scholarships and apprenticeships. We risk this time to be seen as a dark chapter in European history. If we wish to change that situation, we must get together with those states which themselves are very severely affected by migration, Sommaruga said. | 0fake |
BREAKING: Hillary Clinton To Be Indicted… Your Prayers Have Been Answered | EndingFed News Network | Email Print Last week, FBI Director James Comey announced that he was reopening the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private email server. Now, FBI sources claim Clinton will be indicted as early as 2017. Comey’s letter to Congress noted that the FBI had discovered “new emails” pertinent to the earlier investigation on “several devices.” Reports indicate that one phone device belongs to Anthony Weiner, while the other belongs to his estranged wife Huma Abedin. Sources inside the FBI have confessed to reporters there are “smoking gun” bombshells on the devices and she could be facing time behind bars. Watch the video below and tell us what you think. Is Hillary clearly unfit to be president of this country? Breaking News : HILLARY To Be InditedAfter The Election In January Or February !This Is Bigger Than Watergate ! pic.twitter.com/XuunYGcLR1 | 1real |
Tancredo: Over 300 Sanctuary Cities Are Costing State and Local Taxpayers over $7,000,000,000 Annually - Breitbart | President Trump this week signed an executive order declaring war on sanctuary cities. Agencies within the United States Government will begin withholding federal grant funds from those cities, and additional actions to enforce federal immigration law will be taken soon. [Unlike Obama, President Trump is not trying to making new laws by executive decree. In his Executive Order, the president is only reminding mayors and governors of existing federal law dating to 1996: U. S. Code › Title 8 › Chapter 12 › Subchapter II › Part IX › § 13738 U. S. Code § 1373 — Communication between government agencies and the Immigration and Naturalization Service: Notwithstanding any other provision of Federal, State, or local law, a Federal, State, or local government entity or official may not prohibit, or in any way restrict, any government entity or official from sending to, or receiving from, the Immigration and Naturalization Service information regarding the citizenship or immigration status, lawful or unlawful, of any individual. (b) Additional authority of government entitiesNotwithstanding any other provision of Federal, State, or local law, no person or agency may prohibit, or in any way restrict, a Federal, State, or local government entity from doing any of the following with respect to information regarding the immigration status, lawful or unlawful, of any individual:(1) Sending such information to, or requesting or receiving such information from, the Immigration and Naturalization Service. (2) Maintaining such information. (3) Exchanging such information with any other Federal, State, or local government entity. (c) Obligation to respond to inquiriesThe Immigration and Naturalization Service shall respond to an inquiry by a Federal, State, or local government agency, seeking to verify or ascertain the citizenship or immigration status of any individual within the jurisdiction of the agency for any purpose authorized by law, by providing the requested verification or status information. (Pub. L. 104 — 208, div. C, title VI, § 642, Sept. 30, 1996, 110 Stat. 3009 — 707. The president’s executive order is not only good news for law enforcement, it is also a good civics lesson for some mayors and even some members of Congress. The Trump executive order is also good news for taxpayers. Sanctuary cities impose a huge, billion cost to taxpayers that has been hidden from public view and shielded from political accountability. This will be news to you because those annual taxpayer costs are hidden from public scrutiny — by Congress, by state legislatures, and by local officials. Sanctuary city policies have a high cost not only in allowing criminal aliens to roam free on our streets, they also impose a huge burden on taxpayers. How can we estimate those taxpayers costs? There is a wealth of data hidden in the annual reports on the federal State Criminal Alien Assistance Program (SCAAP) published by the US Department of Justice and each state department of corrections that chooses to apply for reimbursement grants under that program. Over 2, 000 local county sheriffs also get federal reimbursement grants under that federal program. The taxpayer costs revealed by those annual reports are . States and local communities are being reimbursed at less than three cents on the dollar of the true costs for criminal alien incarceration, but politicians are hiding that fact from the nation’s taxpayers. In my home state of Colorado, the 2016 SCAAP report by the state Department of Corrections revealed that state prison system was holding 2, 039 criminal aliens at a cost of $37, 958 per inmate. That is a total cost of $77, 396, 362. The federal reimbursement grant was $2, 077, 720. That is a grant of 2. 7 cents for every dollar of actual cost. Those 2, 039 criminal alien inmates were 14% of all state prison inmates: One in every seven felons in the state prison system is a criminal alien. What are the comparable numbers for your state? You can discover the SCAAP grant amounts for each state prison system and the local county jails applying for federal reimbursement at this website. The federal SCAAP grant program was established by Congress as an acknowledgment of federal responsibility for a failed border security and failed federal enforcement of immigration laws. But the appropriated amount for reimbursing local communities their incarceration costs through SCAAP grants has NEVER been adequate for full cost reimbursement. In 2016, the federal reimbursement program was given a paltry $189 million. To most Americans, these hidden taxpayer costs are not the most important reason for opposing sanctuary city policies. The real cost is not in taxpayer dollars but in the hundreds of thousands of crimes committed by individuals who should not be here in the first place. If we had secure borders and effective enforcement of all immigration, these criminal alien incarceration numbers would be very small. Yet, the fact that local governments hide these cost figures is symptomatic of the deeper problem. Too many local officials want all the political benefits of claiming to be the protector of “our immigrant community” while hiding the costs of protecting criminal aliens. Does your local sheriff publish the incarceration costs for criminal alien inmates in your local jail. Does he ever acknowledge the number of criminal aliens released from jail annually who are NOT turned over to federal immigration authorities because of local sanctuary policies? Does anyone on your local city council ever ask those questions? Some local politicians also use a phony “states rights” argument for resisting federal enforcement of immigration law. This is a phony argument because there is a long string of Supreme Court decisions, most recently the 2012 Arizona v. United States ruling by Justice Kennedy, saying that the Constitution in Article VI gives the federal government preemptive authority over immigration law. States cannot “ ’ of federal immigration law, and neither can cities or counties — or universities or private religious organizations. While public attention has been focused on the policies of the Obama administration, the truth is, even without official sanctuary policies established by mayors of local government, too many local sheriffs and police chiefs have been hiding behind an alleged “fear of liability” in not honoring the Detainer requests made by federal law enforcement, namely the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency — known as ICE. ICE detainers are fully legal and should be — indeed, MUST be — honored by local law enforcement agencies. Local sheriffs and police chiefs have no constitutional basis for refusing to honor ICE detainers. Citizens should hold local officials accountable when they refuse to obey the law. The Trump administration is making it clear that federal sanctions will be imposed — including the withholding of federal funds — from cities which want to disobey the law. But local citizens need not remain silent in this battle. Editor’s note: This article has been updated to note the figure for the cost to Colorado is $37, 958 rather than $27, 958. | 0fake |
Re: Something lighter: ‘Shiny’ legs optical illusion goes viral | Something lighter: ‘Shiny’ legs optical illusion goes viral Posted at 2:22 pm on October 26, 2016 by Greg P.
If you need a quick break from the election madness, check this out.
A new optical illusion has gone viral via Twitter [email protected] These look like shiny legs, right? Once you see it you can't unsee it pic.twitter.com/5mREeJUhYV
OK … now look again, but this time look for white streaks of paint…. This just pissed me off like cmon https://t.co/KVDerfPk6b
— Mathew Fiorante (@Royal2) October 26, 2016 mindblowing – do you see shiny legs or painted legs? WHOA. I saw shiny and then painted and I can't unsee it! https://t.co/rVN3LDdYAc
— Carla Marie (@theCarlaMarie) October 26, 2016 Where have the shiny legs gone?? https://t.co/SLPKynGnjE
— Jane Bradley (@jane__bradley) October 26, 2016
Although the image went viral thanks to @msbreeezyyy, it looks like this might be the original: A photo posted by hunter 🧀 (i post a lot) (@leonardhoespams) on Oct 23, 2016 at 9:01am PDT
That image was posted a month ago as well with the caption, “i like the feeling of paint on my skin.” A photo posted by hunter 🧀 (i post a lot) (@leonardhoespams) on Sep 15, 2016 at 1:55pm PDT
*** | 1real |
We May Already Have More Than Half The Republican Electors We Need To Stop Donald Trump | There are several movements out there to try and stop Trump from officially becoming president and most of them center on the Electoral College now. Alexander Hamilton wrote, in Federalist 68, that the purpose of the Electoral College was to prevent unqualified individuals (like demagogues such as Trump) from assuming the highest office in the land. One lawyer, who s actually a former presidential candidate himself, says that at least 20 Republican electors are ready to uphold Hamilton s ideal and reject Trump.We need 37 of them to flip their votes to anyone else. While it s unlikely they ll vote for Hillary instead, just denying Trump the minimum 270 votes he needs to secure the White House could have a major effect on how Congress decides the issue. According to Larry Lessig, who is a constitutional law professor at Harvard: Obviously, whether an elector ultimately votes his or her conscience will depend in part upon whether there are enough doing the same. We now believe there are more than half the number needed to change the result seriously considering making that vote. Lessig s anti-Trump group, known as Electors Trust, has been giving legal counsel to Republican electors who don t want to vote for Trump. They ve also been giving these electors a way to discuss their intentions privately, which is extremely important given that Trump has threatened to destroy any of his electors who don t vote for him.Of course, the RNC disagrees with this statistic vehemently. They ve been conducting a whip operation, which is basically an effort to ensure that all their electors plan to vote properly. They re only aware of Chris Suprun, a Texas elector who has gone on record numerous times as saying he s unable to vote for Trump. He s also been trying to convince his fellow Republican electors to follow his lead.Why would any Republican elector openly admit to the RNC that they re considering casting their votes for someone else? That s one thing the RNC doesn t seem to be considering. In fact, they re acting clueless about the discontent over Trump that exists within their party.And frankly, most of us would lie through our teeth if we were afraid an autocratic, thin-skinned, egotistical manchild of a Cheetolini was going to try and ruin us for defying him.This isn t set in stone, and we only have five days left before the Electoral College formally recognizes or denies Donald Trump, so there s no time to lose. If there s anything you know of that could help convince more Republican electors to drop Trump, now s the time to do it.Featured image via Drew Angerer/Getty Images | 1real |
Dr. Drew: Trump And His Supporters Are Mentally Unstable | Dr. Drew Pinsky knows a thing or two about reality show stars, so it wasn t really that hard for him to question Donald Trump s mental health.The Republican nominee has been going further and further off the deep end since the first day of his campaign last year. His behavior and big mouth have caused many Americans to say that Trump is not fit for public office, especially an office as powerful as the presidency, which has access to the nuclear weapons codes.And according to Dr. Drew, who is a board certified internist and a Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at the Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California, Americans are right to worry.During an interview with Don Lemon on CNN, Dr. Drew explained that he doesn t think Trump is necessarily insane. There s two definitions of sanity, one is legal definition, and that is somebody who is so out of it they don t know the difference between right and wrong. That is a very high standard for insanity, very few people meet that standard. When you re legally insane, you re really not functioning. Clinically, medically, usually when we talk about insanity, we mean psychotic, hearing voices, hallucinations. But he did concede that Trump is showing signs of mental instability. The question, though, is, are some of the reckless qualities that everyone is getting so disturbed about on the campaign going to be translated into office should he get elected? That s a pretty hard thing to predict. I don t know if this is just somebody playing politics, or is this somebody who really can t contain their impulses? When I hear people that are impulsive with their speech, I worry about hypomania and bipolar types of conditions. Pinsky then went on to question the mental health of Trump s supporters, who seem to support him no matter what he says or does. What s more fascinating to me, Don, is not him but his supporters that seem to not be concerned about any of this. That, to me, is fascinating. As always, what is up with us? Let s just assume that most people that would choose to be in a very high-profile race like this would have narcissistic tendencies, and there s something called sort of narcissistic injury, then narcissistic rage. If you injure if you really shame somebody they tend to be sort of teflon when it comes to shame. If you shame them, they can react with extreme aggression and extreme rage. So this seems to be that kind of a psychological process. Here s the video via VidMe.Donald Trump is a threat to this country. Placing him in a position with such consequential responsibility would be reckless and it would embarrass this nation on the world stage.America needs a president with a temperament and mental stability that will not cause World War III. We need someone who is not thin-skinned or easily provoked. We need someone who think of the people and the country before themselves. That person is NOT Donald Trump.Featured image via screenshot | 1real |
New Zealand to increase military personnel in Afghanistan by three | WELLINGTON (Reuters) - Just days after the United States said it would increase troop numbers in Afghanistan and ask its allies to do the same, New Zealand on Friday announced an extra three non-combat military personnel, boosting its military commitment to 13. U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday unveiled his strategy to end the conflict in Afghanistan, committing the United States to an open-ended conflict and signaling he would dispatch more troops to America s longest war. U.S. officials have said Trump had signed off on plans to send about 4,000 more U.S. troops to add to the roughly 8,400 now deployed in Afghanistan. U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis has since said exact troop numbers are yet to be decided. Trump said he would ask coalition allies to support his new strategy, with additional troops and funding, to end the 16-year conflict. New Zealand Defence Minister Mark Mitchell s announcement boosting the country s Kabul-based troops to 13 follows a request for NATO (National Atlantic Treaty Organization) to send more troops to Afghanistan earlier this year. New Zealand has had troops in Afghanistan since 2001. Its presence has been decreasing since 2013 but it has kept some personnel on the ground to train local officers. New Zealand will continue to stand alongside our partners in supporting stability in Afghanistan and countering the threat of international terrorism, said Mitchell. Prime Minister Bill English said the government has ruled out making a decision on sending combat troops to Afghanistan before New Zealand s election on Sept. 23. Opposition leader Jacinda Ardern told local media this week she would not back sending troops to Afghanistan at the moment but was not privy to intelligence such decisions were based on. | 0fake |
Medical supplies, U.N. aid workers reach Yemen after blockade eased | GENEVA/SANAA (Reuters) - Humanitarian aid workers and medical supplies began arriving in the Yemeni capital of Sanaa on Saturday, U.N. officials said, after the easing of a nearly three-week military blockade that sparked an international outcry. Aid groups have welcomed the decision to let aid in but said flights are not enough to avert humanitarian crisis. About 7 million people face famine in Yemen and their survival depends on international assistance. First plane landed in Sanaa this morning with humanitarian aid workers, the World Food Programme s regional spokeswoman Abeer Etefa told Reuters in an email, while officials at Sanaa airport said two other U.N. flights had arrived on Saturday. The U.N. children s fund UNICEF said one flight carried over 15 tonnes of vaccines that will cover some 600,000 children against diphtheria, tetanus and other diseases. The needs are huge and there is much more to do for #YemenChildren, the world body said on Twitter. Airport director Khaled al-Shayef said that apart from the vaccinations shipment, a flight carrying eight employees of the International Committee of the Red Cross had also landed. Sanaa airport was closed from Nov. 6 until today, more than 18 days and this closure caused an obstruction to the presence of aid workers, he told Reuters in Sanaa. There are more than 500 employees trapped either inside or outside being denied travel as well as 40 flights that were denied arrival at Sanaa airport. Colonel Turki al-Maliki, spokesman for the Saudi-led military coalition that closed the ports, said three more aid flights had been approved for Sunday. The coalition, which is fighting the armed Houthi movement in Yemen with backing from the United States, said on Wednesday it would allow aid in through the Red Sea ports of Hodeidah and Salif, as well as U.N. flights to Sanaa. The coalition closed air, land and sea access in a move it said was to stop the flow of Iranian arms to the Houthis, who control much of northern Yemen. The action came after Saudi Arabia intercepted a missile fired toward Riyadh. Iran denied again on Saturday supplying weapons to the Houthis. Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Bahram Qasemi said that Tehran would welcome the lifting of blockade and any initiative that alleviates the pain of Yemeni people. Maliki said on Friday that 82 permits had been issued for international aid missions since Nov. 4, both for Sanaa airport and Hodeidah, the country s main port where some 80 percent of food supplies enter. That includes issuing clearance for a ship today (Rena), carrying 5,500 metric tonnes of food supplies, to the port of Hodeidah, he said. He told Reuters on Saturday that the commercial vessel had been checked and cleared by coalition navy forces and was approaching Hodeidah, but port officials said no ships had arrived yet and they were not expecting any to dock soon. Maliki said new procedures aimed at blocking weapons transfers stipulate that aid and commercial shipments cannot be mixed on the same vessel, that requests require 72 hours notice instead of 48, and that only humanitarian workers can travel on aid flights. The blockade has drawn wide international concern, including from the United States and the U.N. secretary-general. Sources in Washington said Secretary of State Rex Tillerson had asked Saudi Arabia to ease its blockade of Yemen before the kingdom decided to do so. The heads of three U.N. agencies had earlier urged the coalition to lift the blockade, warning that untold thousands would die if it stayed in place. The coalition has asked the United Nations to send a team to discuss ways of bolstering its verification and inspection mechanism programme which was agreed in 2015 to allow commercial ships to enter Hodeidah. The coalition joined the Yemen war in 2015 after the Houthis forced President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi and his government to flee their temporary headquarters in the southern port city of Aden into exile in Saudi Arabia. The conflict has killed more than 10,000 people and displaced over 2 million, triggered a cholera epidemic, and driven Yemen to the verge of famine. | 0fake |
BOILER ROOM – No Surrender, No Retreat, Heads Will Roll – EP #38 | Tune in to the Alternate Current Radio Network (ACR) for another LIVE broadcast of The Boiler Room starting at 6 PM PST | 9 PM EST every Wednesday. Join us for uncensored, uninterruptible talk radio, custom-made for barfly philosophers, misguided moralists, masochists, street corner evangelists, media-maniacs, savants, political animals and otherwise lovable rascals.Join ACR hosts Hesher, & Spore along with Andy Nowicki from Alt Right Blogspot, ACR/21Wire contributor Randy J and Daniel Spaulding from souloftheeast.org. In this first broadcast of 2016 we re going off the rails and off the cuffs, listeners will be hearing us go around the BOILER ROOM on a myriad of topics including the Protest happening in Oregon over the Hammond Ranch incident and the federal abuse of small ranchers and farmers, the usual off-ramp into pop-culture topics, Obama s newest anti-gun executive order and more. If you want to participate, bring something interesting to throw into the boiler Join us in the ALTERNATE CURRENT RADIO chat room.BOILER ROOM IS NOT A POLICTALLY CORRECT ZONE! Live ACR player below Show goes live at 6 PM PSTThis week s topics: | 1real |
Britain asks for U.N. Security Council to discuss Myanmar violence | UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Britain has asked for the U.N. Security Council to meet on Wednesday to discuss escalating deadly violence between Rohingya insurgents and Myanmar security forces in Rakhine state, Britain s U.N. Ambassador Matthew Rycroft said on Tuesday. Need to address long-term issues in Rakhine, urge restraint by all parties, Rycroft posted on Twitter. A series of coordinated attacks by Rohingya insurgents on security forces in the north of Myanmar s Rakhine state on Friday has triggered a fresh exodus to Bangladesh of Rohingya Muslim villagers trying to escape the violence. | 0fake |
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