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Chart Of The Day: Mind The Everything Bubble—-Financial Assets To DPI At All-Time High | Chart Of The Day: Mind The Everything Bubble----Financial Assets To DPI At All-Time High By David Stockman. Posted On Tuesday, November 8th, 2016
| 1real |
Swiss admit drone test bungle in Golan Heights | ZURICH (Reuters) - Switzerland s defense ministry has admitted sending staff to test reconnaissance drones in contested land held by Israel - an embarrassing blow for the neutral European country s status as an honest broker in the Middle East. Swiss officials visited an airfield in the Golan Heights region on three occasions in 2012, 2013 and 2015 to monitor tests of the Israeli-built Hermes 900 aircraft that they are buying for $265 million. The visits, which lasted several days, took place in an area which Switzerland does not recognize as being part of Israel, which took the land from Syria following a 1967 war. Following an internal review this year, the Swiss found the presence of their personnel at the airfield contradicted the Swiss position on the Middle East conflict, the ministry said. The visits took place without the knowledge of the Swiss foreign ministry. No further visits have taken place since the affair came to light, it said in a statement. This incident was a communication breakdown, it said. Those who were informed about the activities did not realize Swiss officials were not allowed to be there and those who knew about the restrictions were not informed about the planned activities. Future tests will now take place at an airfield within Israel, it added, with the drones due to enter service in 2020. Switzerland has frequently acted as a broker in the Middle East, most recently hosting peace talks about the Syrian civil war in Geneva and carrying out consular services for Iran and Saudi Arabia in their respective countries. This case damages the credibility of Switzerland with regards to all governments in the region which are in conflict with Israel, veteran diplomat Tim Guldimann, a lawmaker from the Social Democrat party, told the Tages-Anzeiger paper. | 0fake |
Factbox: Contenders for senior jobs in Trump's administration | (Reuters) - The following are people mentioned as contenders for senior roles as U.S. President-elect Donald Trump puts together his administration before taking office on Jan. 20, according to Reuters sources and other media reports. Trump already has named a number of people for other top jobs in his administration. * Navy Admiral Mike Rogers, director of the National Security Agency * Ronald Burgess, retired U.S. Army lieutenant general and former Defense Intelligence Agency chief * Robert Cardillo, director of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency * Pete Hoekstra, Republican former U.S. representative from Michigan * Debra Wong Yang, a former U.S. attorney who was appointed by former President George W. Bush * Ralph Ferrara, a securities attorney at Proskauer Rose LLP * Paul Atkins, a former SEC commissioner who heads Trump’s transition team for independent financial regulatory agencies * Daniel Gallagher, Republican former SEC commissioner * John Allison, a former CEO of regional bank BB&T Corp and former head of the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank * Paul Atkins, former SEC commissioner * Thomas Hoenig, Federal Deposit Insurance Corp vice chairman and former head of the Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank * Dan DiMicco, former CEO of steel producer Nucor Corp * Robert Lighthizer, former deputy U.S. trade representative during the Reagan administration * Wayne Berman, senior executive with private equity and financial services firm Blackstone Group LP * David McCormick, president of investment manager Bridgewater Associates LP * Mick Mulvaney, Republican U.S. representative from South Carolina * David Malpass, former chief economist with investment bank Bear Stearns and a senior Trump adviser * Chuck Conner, a former acting secretary of the U.S. Agriculture Department and current head of the National Council of Farmer Cooperatives * Tim Huelskamp, Republican U.S. representative from Kansas * Sid Miller, Texas agriculture commissioner * Sonny Perdue, former Georgia governor * Scott Brown, former Republican U.S. senator from Massachusetts * Sarah Palin, former Alaska governor * Jeff Miller, former Republican U.S. representative from Florida who was chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee * Dr. Scott Gottlieb, a venture capitalist, resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and former Food and Drug Administration deputy commissioner * Jim O’Neill, a Silicon Valley investor who previously served in the Department of Health and Human Services The Trump transition team confirmed the president-elect would choose from a list of 21 names he drew up during his campaign, including Republican U.S. Senator Mike Lee of Utah and William Pryor, a federal judge with the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. | 0fake |
Watch: Spicer Asked How It Feels ’To Work for a Fascist?’ In Apple Store - Breitbart | Asking @PressSec questions in Apple Store since he doesn’t like the press. https: . While shopping at an Apple Store, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer was asked whether he had committed treason and how he felt about working for a fascist. In the video, which was posted on Saturday by Twitter account @shreec, Spicer is asked how it feels “to work for a fascist?” He is further asked, “Have you helped with the Russia stuff? Are you a criminal as well? Have you committed treason too, just like the president? … What can you tell me about Russia?” Spicer responded by saying “Thank you” and “such a great country that allows you to be here. ” Spicer then goes about his business in the store, ignoring questions about how he feels about working for a fascist, destroying the country, and lying to the public. ( The Hill) Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett | 0fake |
Comey had pushed for more resources for Russia probe before being fired by Trump: source | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - FBI Director James Comey, days before President Donald Trump fired him, told lawmakers he sought more resources for his agency’s probe into possible collusion between Trump’s presidential campaign and Russia to sway the 2016 U.S. election, a congressional source said on Wednesday. With the Republican president facing a storm of criticism from many Democratic lawmakers and some in his own party, the Trump administration accused Comey of “atrocities” on the job and denied his firing was related to the FBI’s Russia investigation. Trump, who met Russia’s foreign minister at the White House on Wednesday, lashed out at critics, calling Democrats “phony hypocrites,” and defended his decision to abruptly oust Comey on Tuesday from the law enforcement post he held since 2013. In a farewell letter to staff seen by CNN, Comey, who was appointed by Trump’s predecessor, Democratic President Barack Obama, said he had “long believed that a president can fire an FBI director for any reason, or for no reason at all.” Comey added he would not spend time dwelling on Trump’s decision “or the way it was executed.” But Democrats ramped up accusations that Comey’s removal was intended to undermine the Federal Bureau of Investigation probe and demanded an independent investigation into the alleged Russian meddling, with some calling the firing an attempt to cover up wrongdoing related to Russia. A congressional source with knowledge of the matter said Comey told lawmakers within the past few days he had asked the Justice Department to make additional resources available - mainly more staffing - for the Russia probe. Comey informed lawmakers of that request after the Senate Intelligence Committee, conducting its own investigation, had asked the FBI to speed up its Russia inquiry, the source said. Democrat Dianne Feinstein, the Senate Judiciary Committee’s top Democrat, told reporters she understood Comey was seeking more resources for the FBI investigation. Responding to media reports that Comey had asked Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein last week for a significant boost in resources for the agency’s probe, Justice Department spokesman Ian Prior said in an email: “Totally false.” U.S. intelligence agencies concluded in a January report that Russian President Vladimir Putin had ordered an effort to disrupt the 2016 election that included hacking into Democratic Party emails and leaking them, with the aim of helping Trump. Russia has denied any such meddling. The Trump administration denies allegations of collusion with Russia. Top U.S. Republicans rallied to Trump’s defense, but some called the action troubling. Republican House Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz said in a statement on Wednesday he had requested a review by the Department of Justice’s inspector general of Trump’s decision to fire Comey, who had more than six years left in his 10-year post. Comey’s dismissal stunned Washington and plunged Trump deeper into a controversy over his campaign’s alleged ties with Russia that has dogged the early days of his presidency, while also threatening to hinder his policy goals. “He wasn’t doing a good job, very simply,” the Republican president said of Comey during a meeting with former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger in the White House Oval Office. The administration said on Tuesday that Comey’s firing stemmed from his handling of an election-year FBI probe into Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server during her time as secretary of state. White House officials said Trump’s anger at Comey had been building for months but a turning point came when the FBI chief refused to preview for top Trump aides his planned testimony to a May 3 Senate hearing on the Clinton email issue, an act Trump and his aides took it as an act of insubordination. Trump had been considering letting Comey go “since the day he was elected” in November, White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said. She referred to what she called Comey’s “atrocities in circumventing the chain of command” at the Justice Department. Many Democrats have criticized Comey’s management of the Clinton investigation, but they questioned the timing of his dismissal, given that Trump could have acted soon after taking office on Jan. 20 and that he has repeatedly criticized the FBI and congressional probes into Russia’s role in the election. In a flurry of Twitter posts, Trump said Comey had “lost the confidence of almost everyone in Washington, Republican and Democrat alike.” He added, “Dems have been complaining for months & months about Dir. Comey. Now that he has been fired they PRETEND to be aggrieved. Phony hypocrites!” The Senate minority leader, Democrat Chuck Schumer, said Rosenstein should appoint a special prosecutor. Schumer called on Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to hold closed and potentially classified briefings with all senators to question the top Justice Department officials, Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Rosenstein. “We know Director Comey was leading an investigation (into) whether the Trump campaign colluded with the Russians, a serious offense. Were those investigations getting too close to home for the president?” Schumer said. McConnell accused Democrats of “complaining about the removal of an FBI director who they themselves repeatedly and sharply criticized” and said a special prosecutor would impede existing probes like one under way in the Senate Intelligence Committee. Paul Ryan, the Republican leader of the House of Representatives, told Fox News in an interview it was “entirely within the president’s role and authority” to remove Comey and that a special prosecutor was unnecessary. Mark Warner, the intelligence committee’s top Democrat, said he and the panel’s Republican chairman, Richard Burr, had asked Comey to testify before the panel in private next Tuesday. On Wednesday evening, the intelligence panel said it had issued a subpoena requesting documents from Trump’s former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, in relation to its Russia probe. The committee said it had first requested the documents in a letter to Flynn on April 28. Flynn was forced to resign in February for failing to disclose the content of his talks with Sergei Kislyak, Russia’s ambassador to the United States, and then misleading Vice President Mike Pence about the conversations. Trump said he had “a very, very good meeting” with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and they discussed Syria’s civil war. Their meeting was the highest-level public contact between Trump and Putin’s government since Trump took office. During an earlier appearance at the State Department, Lavrov responded in a sarcastic tone when asked about Comey’s dismissal, saying: “Was he fired? You’re kidding. You’re kidding.” In the Russian city of Sochi, Putin said Comey’s firing would not have an impact on U.S.-Russian relations. Trump’s nominee as the new FBI director would need to win Senate confirmation. Trump’s possible choices to head the FBI on an interim basis, according to a White House official, include acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe, Assistant Director Paul Abbate, Chicago FBI agent Michael Anderson and Richmond, Virginia, agent Adam Lee. | 0fake |
HOW PAUL RYAN JUST Made A Mockery Of Trump’s Promise To Protect Blue-Collar Jobs From Foreign Workers | The bipartisan congressional language creates a headache for Trump and his deputies because it flips the politically difficult problem from Congress to the Department of Homeland Security of deciding whether to provide extra wage-cutting H-2B contract workers to companies or else to improve job opportunities for Trump s blue-collar voters.The new rule helps business groups offset rising pressure for wage increases, just 18 months before the mid-term elections when voters will vet the success or not of Trump s Buy American, Hire American policies.The H-2B language was hidden deep in the draft 2017 supplemental budget which is to face House and Senate votes this week and it surprised opponents of the legislation. In December 2016, Ryan had agreed to trim the program when the partial 2017 budget deal was announced just one month after blue-collar voters backed Donald Trump s campaign promise of a low-immigration, high-wage national economic policy.Apparently nothing is going to change, as long as Speaker Ryan remains at the helm. Watch: Immigration expert Mark Krikorian tweeted aboutHere's the text of the #H2B "returning workers" loophole that makes a mockery of the law's numerical "limits". https://t.co/G7dc1Qpmaz pic.twitter.com/Hf4UPjwJB4 Mark Krikorian (@MarkSKrikorian) May 1, 2017The language in the 2017 budget says the Department of Homeland Security has the authority to exceed the supposed 66,000 annual cap on H-2B outsourcing visas by a number equal to the maximum number of workers who benefited from an earlier exemption, dubbed the returning worker exemption. Via: Breitbart | 1real |
Trump-backed Navy expansion would boost costs some $400 billion over 30 years: study | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Expanding the U.S. Navy to 355 ships as recommended by military leaders and backed by President Donald Trump would cost some $400 billion more over the next 30 years than the currently planned 308-ship fleet, according to a study released on Monday. The annual cost to build, crew and operate a 355-ship fleet would be about $102 billion, or 13 percent more than the $90 billion needed for the currently planned Navy, according to the study by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. The $102 billion cost of the 355-ship fleet is 33 percent more than Congress appropriated in 2016 for the current 275-ship Navy, the CBO said. To achieve the larger force, the Navy would need $26.6 billion annually for ship construction, which is 60 percent more than the average amount that Congress has appropriated for shipbuilding in the past 30 years, the CBO study said. The Navy’s 2017 shipbuilding plan called for boosting the size of the fleet to 308 ships, which was expected to cost $21.2 billion per year to implement over 30 years. With Trump pressing for an expansion of the fleet to 350 ships during the presidential campaign last year, the Navy released a new force structure assessment in December seeking a 355-ship Navy. Taking into consideration older ships being retired, creating a 355-ship fleet would require the Navy to buy about 329 new ships over 30 years, compared with 254 under its previous plan for a 308-ship fleet, the CBO study found. The Navy would have to buy about 12 ships per year under the larger fleet plan, versus about eight per year under the earlier plan. The larger fleet would require more civilian and uniformed personnel and more aircraft, pushing up overall operating costs, the CBO said. The increase in shipbuilding would force all seven U.S. shipyards to expand their work forces and improve their infrastructure in order to meet the demand for vessels, the CBO said. The greatest challenge would be building submarines to meet the force structure requirements, the report said. The study said the earliest the Navy could achieve a 355-ship fleet would be the year 2035, or 18 years from now. | 0fake |
Two Houston Police Officers Shot, Manhunt Underway | Two Houston Police Department officers were hospitalized Tuesday after a suspected burglar reportedly shot each of them multiple times. [The Houston Chronicle notes that one identified officer, Ronnie Cortez, remains in critical but improving condition after a bullet lodged near his spine. Cortez’s fellow officer remains unnamed. He is reported to be awake and talking at this time. A second officer received a threatening wound to his foot. He is listed in stable condition. One suspect was killed at the scene of the crime in southwest Houston while two others remain at large. Officers were called to the scene of a burglary in progress at a home in southwest Houston. When officers arrived, the suspects were still in the area. A gunfight broke out between the suspected burglars and the officers, Fox 26’s Isiah Carey reported. Mayor Sylvester Turner told the Fox reporter one of the officers was shot multiple times. KHOU CBS 11 reported the burglar involved the theft of multiple guns from a home. It is not known if the stole guns were used in the shootout. The injured officers were transported by ambulances that were escorted by Houston police vehicles. HPD: Two officers injured after shooting in SW Houston. Police escorting ambulances as they are rushed to the hospital. pic. twitter. — Tim Wetzel (@KHOUTim) February 28, 2017, At least one suspect appears to still be at large. A manhunt is underway in the area of the shooting and school officials put several schools on lockdown as a precaution. Click2Houston reported: Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo said officers were called to the neighborhood just after 11 a. m. to investigate a reported burglary. About 20 minutes later, officers who had arrived in the neighborhood were flagged down by a resident who said there was a burglary in progress. More officers were called to the area, a perimeter was established and search began. Another person told two officers they noticed that the door to a shed in their backyard was open, Acevedo said. As the officers opened the door to the shed, a man stepped out and began shooting. The officers returned fire, killing the gunmen. This article will be updated with additional information upon confirmation. Logan Churchwell contributed to this article. He is a founding editor of the Breitbart Texas team. You can follow him on Twitter @LCChurchwell. He also serves as the communications director for the Public Interest Legal Foundation. Bob Price serves as associate editor and senior political news contributor for Breitbart Texas. He is a founding member of the Breitbart Texas team. Follow him on Twitter @BobPriceBBTX. | 0fake |
In photos, North Korea signals a more powerful ICBM in the works | SEOUL (Reuters) - With photographs obliquely showing a new rocket design, North Korea has sent a message that it is working on an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) more powerful than any it has previously tested, weapons experts said on Thursday. If developed, such a missile could possibly reach any place on the U.S. mainland, including Washington and New York, they said. North Korea s state media published photographs late on Wednesday of leader Kim Jong Un standing next to a diagram of a three-stage rocket it called the Hwasong-13. Missile experts, who scrutinize such pictures for clues about North Korea s weapons programs, said there is no indication the rocket has been fully developed. In any case, it had not been flight tested and it was impossible to calculate its potential range. However, a three-stage rocket would be more powerful than the two-stage Hwasong-14 ICBM tested twice in July, they said. South Korean and U.S. officials and experts have said the Hwasong-14 may have a range of about 10,000 km (6,200 miles) and could possibly strike many parts of the United States, but not the East Coast. We should be looking at Hwasong-13 as a 12,000-km class ICBM that can strike all of the mainland United States, said Kim Dong-yub, a military expert at Seoul s Kyungnam University. It s likely meant to show that they are working on a three-stage design with greater boost and range, said retired Brigadier General Moon Sung-muk, an arms control expert who has represented South Korea in military talks with North Korea. He said the pictures were intended to show that North Korea was refusing to bow to international pressure to abandon its weapons programs. The North is trying to be in control of the playing field, Moon said. Wednesday s report carried by the KCNA news agency lacked the traditionally robust threats against the United States, and U.S. President Donald Trump expressed optimism about a possible improvement in relations. State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said it was unclear if the photos were taken before or after Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on Tuesday welcomed what he called the restraint North Korea had shown recently in its weapons programs and said he hoped a path could be opening for dialogue sometime in the near future. We consider it overall a good first step that there haven t been any missile launches or testing for ...three-plus weeks or so, Nauert told a regular briefing. However Pyongyang needed to do a lot more to show it was willing to negotiate in good faith, she said. The photographs were accompanied by a report of Kim issuing instructions for the production of more rocket engines and warheads during a visit to the Academy of Defense Sciences, an agency he set up to develop ballistic missiles. We re getting a look at it to emphasize domestic production of missiles, and to advertise what s coming next, said Joshua Pollack, a nuclear weapon and missile systems expert who edits the U.S.-based Nonproliferation Review. The photographs were published as tensions between North Korea and the United States appeared to have eased slightly since North Korea tested the Hwasong-14 and later threatened to fire missiles toward the U.S. Pacific territory of Guam. Kyungnam University s Kim said the Hwasong-13 appeared similar to the KN-08, a three-stage missile of which only a mockup has previously been seen at military parades. But the new images show a modified design for the main booster stage that clusters two engines. Another picture published by North Korean state media showed Kim Jong Un standing next to a rocket casing that appeared to be made of a material that could include plastic. Experts said if such material were used in the missile, it would be intended to reduce weight and boost range. The photographs also showed the design for the Pukguksong-3, likely a new solid-fuel intermediate-range ballistic missile being developed for submarine launches. (For a graphic on North Korean missile ranges click tmsnrt.rs/2t6WEPL) | 0fake |
OBAMA’S CHIEF OF STAFF WARNS AMERICA…He’s Not Going Away Quietly: Promises “Audacious Executive Actions” Including Gun Control | The big question is who, in Congress has the will to stop him? Keep your notepads handy America, and start keeping track of who you will and won t re-elect in 2016.White House chief of staff Denis McDonough pushed back against the notion his president is played out in the wake of his last State of the Union address, promising audacious executive action in Barack Obama s final year in office.During a breakfast with reporters in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, McDonough responded to the observation that the president s final speech before Congress lacked the usual pledge to go it alone if lawmakers failed to act.Coupled with the feeble executive actions on gun control announced earlier this month, had President Obama rethought the utility of acting unilaterally on issues important to the White House? We ll do audacious executive action over the course of the rest of the year, I m confident of that, said McDonough, explaining that President Obama s decision not to outline specific executive actions was more about a commitment to process than a lack of willpower. Process is your friend, but process also dictates what you can do, McDonough said. And we do want to make sure that the executive actions we undertake are not left hanging out there, subject to Congress undoing them. In addition to gun control, the White House has expressed interest in further unilateral actions on immigration reform, and in working around Congress to close the prison in Guantanamo Bay. But McDonough said the White House is considering executive action on any and all issues, and that the main question President Obama plans to ask himself is Why not? And so that s the spirit through which we ll approach this last year, McDonough said.Via: National Review | 1real |
Lou Dobbs Blasts Mueller Investigation: ‘What is going on here?’ [Video] | Lou Dobbs has had it with this kangaroo court situation and the Trump Russia Fake News. He and Tom Fitton of Judicial Watch discuss the fact that Mueller s appointment could be constitutionally suspect ..@TomFitton: I think the special counselor regulations, and Mueller s appointment, are constitutionally suspect. https://t.co/OTC2kFtmii pic.twitter.com/b5s704lR6F FOX Business (@FoxBusiness) September 21, 2017Fitton s best point: Mueller is investigating himself in my view. The firing of Comey led to his appointment. Comey s leaking of information led to his appointment and Sessions recused himself almost immediately Today, we hear that Mueller is going after Trump s notes on policy clearly adding to the question of whether he s going over the line in the investigation.Lou has been a voice of reason and concern throughout the entire Trump Russia debacle:THIS IS HUGE! Lou Dobbs joined Sean Hannity to discuss the constant effort to destroy President Trump. Dobbs has mentioned a coup before (SEE BELOW) but is doubling down on his concern that the deep state and lefty media are in a full court press to get Trump out of office ASAP.Lou Dobbs had this to say about the effort to destroy Trump: The double standard is more than that by a long measure. This is an effort to subvert the administration of President Donald Trump. It is nothing less. It is an effort by the Deep State to roll over a duly elected president and a legitimate government and to break the will of the American people. This is no longer about Republicans and Democrats, conservatives and liberals, this is about a full-on assault by the left, the Democratic party to absolutely carry out a coup d etat against President Trump.LOU DOBBS AND CLINTON CASH AUTHOR DISCUSS THE DEEP STATE AND THE EFFORT TO TAKE DOWN TRUMP: Never in American history has there been a more highly organized group of people, the deep state , attempting to subvert the will of the American people, in this case, the Trump presidency. Peter Schweizer discusses the efforts of the deep state , their conspiracy campaign against Donald Trump and its potential impact on President Trump s administration.TAKE NOTES AND CALL OUT YOUR CONGRESSMEN IF THEY RE NOT SUPPORTING PRESIDENT TRUMP! | 1real |
UK PM May tightens grip over Brexit talks, appoints official as EU adviser | LONDON (Reuters) - Prime Minister Theresa May appointed the top official at the Brexit ministry as her EU adviser on Monday, taking tighter control of divorce negotiations just as Britain tries to shift the focus of talks onto the future relationship with Europe. In order to strengthen cross-government co-ordination of the next phase of negotiations with the European Union, the Prime Minister has appointed Oliver Robbins as her EU Adviser in the Cabinet Office, in addition to his role as EU Sherpa, a government spokesman said in a statement. Robbins will continue to lead British officials in the negotiations and will work closely with Brexit Secretary David Davis, the spokesman said. Robbins, 42, who media reported had sometimes clashed with Davis, had worked in the Brexit ministry since shortly after it was set up following the EU referendum in June 2016. Robbins will be replaced as permanent secretary of the Brexit department by his second-in-command Philip Rycroft. May, whose position was weakened after losing her governing Conservative Party s majority at a June election, has been criticized for failing to give clear instructions to her negotiating team. Her foreign minister, Boris Johnson, was accused by colleagues on Sunday of backseat driving after setting out his own vision for Brexit days before May is due to give a major speech on the subject on Sept. 22. Moving key individuals at this critical time adds a whole new dimension to government s chaotic approach to Brexit, opposition Labour Party Brexit spokesman Keir Starmer said. The real problem we have is the failure of the government to confront the difficult policy choices it faces, Bob Kerslake, a former top government official told BBC Radio, adding the timing of the move was odd. It could be ... a simple case of the prime minister wanting more control and influence over the process, it could be down to clash of personalities, he said. What I worry about is the signal it sends ... about our organization and capability in this crucial time. May is due to make a speech on Britain s future EU relationship ahead of the next round of talks later this month. So far negotiations on the terms of the divorce have made limited progress, prompting warnings from the EU the start of discussions on post-Brexit ties could be pushed back from October. | 0fake |
CNN’s Resident Racist Just Told Us How He Thinks Obama Should Solve Violence In America (VIDEO) | CNN s supposed law enforcement expert, Harry Houck, is promoting a new video with what he no doubt thinks is an absolutely brilliant message. He wants President Obama to solve violence, and he even has a suggestion for how best to do it. There is a video floating around social media that calls on Obama to ban niggas, not guns, in order to stop escalating violence in America s cities. To a racist like Houck, this makes perfect sense.He posted a link to the video on his Twitter account, and said: He knows what he s talking about! Because the man who made the video, Tommy Sotomayor, is black, and therefore that makes this okay. Watch the video in all its racist, bigoted glory below:The video appeared on a Facebook page called Uncle Sam s Misguided Children about a week ago, but Houck seems to have just now noticed it, and it s awful message resonated with him, because of course. One only needs to look at his Twitter feed to see how racist he is. He s called for Donald Trump, Jr., to be the new mayor of New York City, and he s screamed, Death to political correctness! there when he hears the word, racism. He also uses his spot on CNN to say that black people are more predisposed to committing crimes, and that black victims of police brutality have nobody to blame but themselves for it (those who survive, anyway). He said that on CNN just two weeks ago, in fact, which threw CNN s panel at the time into an uproar.He s even tweeted a link to a white supremacist website. Yes, Houck is clearly a wonderful law enforcement expert who should definitely be taken seriously. Not. In truth, he needs to be removed from the air for promoting racial hatred.Featured image via screen capture | 1real |
VAN JONES AND CNN’S DON LEMON ON OBAMA’S “I’m fearless” RACIST SPEECH AT CHARLESTON PASTOR’S FUNERAL: “Once You’re Fearless, Once You Don’t Give A Damn…No One Can Stop You” [VIDEO] | Not a bad imitation of a black pastor from a guy who quit going to church when he entered the White House because according to Reverend Wright, of the Black Liberation Church where Barack and Michelle Obama attended for several years: Church is not their thing. It never was their thing. CNN s Don Lemon: You know, Brooke, um this is quite possibly one of the most powerful and extraordinary moments that I ve witnessed ah on television, especially a speech coming from the President. I ve never really at a loss for words, and I m almost at a loss for words right now. I mean, Van and I couldn t even look at each other.Van Jones (racist and self proclaimed communist): Yeah Because this is what happens in the black church every single morning.DL: Not only that, this is what many people around the country wanted to hear from this president, for a long, long time. It s time to step into your legacy.Van Jones: It really is. This is a different President, this year, I think has transformed him. I think a year ago Ferguson, then Baltimore, now Charleston. I think you re seeing the 3.0 version. When he first came on the scene, he was trying to talk about race, even his book was about race. He was trying DL: But he was getting hit.VJ: He kept getting hit. He became a politician. Yeah..he became the racial pi ata of the blacks saying he wasn t doing enough, the whites saying he was doing too much. Suddenly in this speech he just decides to give over to the cadences.DL: He said it in the podcast man. He said: I am fearless. And you know, once you re fearless, and once you don t give a damn no one can stop you. And I think the President is in that mode now. He knows this is his legacy.Obama was supposed to be delivering a eulogy for Pastor Clementa Pinckney, but instead he chose to turn it into another one of his divisive racist rants. Oh and by the way once the left has removed every trace of the Confederate flag, he s coming after your guns. Then, and only then will his legacy be complete. Molon Labe https://youtu.be/FWVq1WnICqYAnd for anyone who is interested in hearing the most off-key version of Amazing Grace sung by a muslim, you can see it here:https://youtu.be/WmRAxJIa0u8Not bad for a guy who quit going to church when he entered the White House because according to Reverend Wright, of the Black Liberation Church where Barack and Michelle Obama attended for several years: Church is not their thing. It never was their thing. | 1real |
Nikki Haley: ’The President Is CEO of the Country - He Can Hire and Fire Whomever He Wants’ - Breitbart | .@nikkihaley: ”The president is the CEO of the country. He can hire and fire whomever he wants.” https: . pic. twitter. Sunday on ABC News’s “This Week,” U. S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley reacted to President Donald Trump firing FBI Director James Comey and pointed out that as president, Trump can fire whomever he wants. “The president is the CEO of the country,” she explained. “He can hire and fire whomever he wants. That is his right. ” Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN | 0fake |
WAPO DOES HONEST HIT-JOB ON HILLARY’S Failed Jobs Promise While NY Senator | This is rich! Left-leaning Washington Post does a hit job on Hillary: JUST THE FACTS ARE PROVIDED EXPOSING THE LIES OF THE CLINTON PROMISE TO CREATE 200,00 JOBS:In her presidential bid, Hillary Clinton has made job creation a centerpiece of her platform, casting herself as a pragmatist who would inspire the biggest investment in new, good-paying jobs since World War II. Her argument that she would put more Americans to work has focused on her time in the Senate, when she took on the mission of creating jobs in chronically depressed Upstate New York. As her husband, former president Bill Clinton, put it recently, she became the region s de facto economic development officer. But nearly eight years after Clinton s Senate exit, there is little evidence that her economic development programs had a substantial impact on upstate employment. Despite Clinton s efforts, upstate job growth stagnated overall during her tenure, with manufacturing jobs plunging nearly 25 percent, according to jobs data.The former first lady was unable to pass the big-ticket legislation she introduced to benefit the upstate economy. She turned to smaller-scale projects, but some of those fell flat after initial glowing headlines, a Washington Post review shows. Many promised jobs never materialized and others migrated to other states as she turned to her first presidential run, said former officials who worked with her in New York.Clinton s self-styled role as economic promoter also showcases an operating style that has come to define the political and money-making machine known to some critics of the former first couple as Clinton Inc. Some of her pet economic projects involved loyal campaign contributors, who also supported the Clinton FoundationREAD MORE: WAPO | 1real |
Trump to offer federal coal to industry awash in reserves | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration has billed his move to re-open federal lands to new coal leases as a win for miners seeking to expand production. But a review of company filings shows that coal miners with the most to gain already have enough leases in hand to last well over a decade. Trump will sign a decree on Tuesday to reverse former President Barack Obama’s 2016 ban on new federal coal leases, part of a wide-ranging executive order to sweep away green regulations his administration says have hobbled the drilling and mining industries. “When we evaluate energy, let’s look at the social cost of not having a job,” Trump’s Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke said in a Twitter post on Tuesday ahead of the executive order. But companies focused on coal deposits below federal lands, such as Peabody Energy, Arch Coal, and Cloud Peak, have enough coal in the ground on existing leases to last an average of more than 17 years at 2015 sales levels, earnings reports show. That suggests miners could already ramp up production levels immediately if the market demanded more coal. Energy experts say that is unlikely on a large scale due to stiff competition from cheap and abundant natural gas. “These initiatives prevent things from getting worse for coal, but they won’t help much,” said Charles Dayton, vice president of market analytics at Doyle Trading Consultants in Colorado, which has been tracking reserve levels on public lands. Shares in Cloud Peak were up about 3 percent in early trading on Tuesday, ahead of the executive order, with Peabody up 1.5 percent and Arch down 0.3 percent. The current level of reserves appeared to be within historical norms. A decade ago, under Republican President George W. Bush when there were no bans on federal coal leasing, the industry had about 18 years worth of leases on federal lands, according to a Reuters examination of securities filings. Arch Coal and Peabody confirmed they have substantial reserves on their federal leases already, but nonetheless welcomed Trump’s move. “Peabody has a comfortable amount of reserves in the Powder River Basin, although we recognize the poor public policy represented by the leasing moratorium put into place by the prior administration,” Peabody spokesman Vic Svec told Reuters in an email. Arch Coal has “sufficient permitted reserves to sustain our operations on federal lands for a number of years to come,” spokeswoman Logan Bonacorsi said. “But as with all producers we will need to add reserves over time, and the ability to obtain those reserves when needed is important.” Officials at Peak and Contura did not respond to requests for comment. Trump’s executive order will also seek to undo Obama-era rules limiting carbon emissions. One example is the Clean Power Plan, a regulation that would have increased pressure on states to replace coal-fired power stations with ones using cleaner fuels like natural gas, wind and solar. Obama’s administration imposed the temporary ban on new federal coal leases in January 2016 as part of a broad environmental and economic review to ensure royalties from lease deals provide fair returns to taxpayers. It was not immediately clear whether the royalty review would continue even with the ban on leases lifted. Some analysts said this scenario could trigger a near-term land rush by companies fearing higher royalty rates in the future. Coal accounts for about a third of U.S. electricity production, down from about half a decade ago. About 40 percent of all U.S. coal comes from federal lands, mainly in the Powder River Basin in Wyoming and Montana. Luke Popovich, a spokesman for the National Mining Association industry group, said he expected Trump’s executive order to have symbolic impact, at least. “Lifting the moratorium would strengthen the signal to markets that the federal government is not any longer standing in the way of fossil energy,” he said. He added that re-opening federal lands to new leases could also play into a production upswing if demand ultimately increases. The U.S. Energy Information Administration has forecast a 9 percent increase in western coal production to 443.4 million short tons by 2018, driven mainly by higher natural gas prices. Others were less optimistic about the U.S. coal industry’s outlook, saying the best Trump could do is slow the sector’s decline. Since 2012, coal production has plunged more than 25 percent to the lowest levels since 1978 due to falling prices. The industry has been hit with massive layoffs and bankruptcies. | 0fake |
Ann Coulter Accuses Trump Of Initiating The Biggest ‘Sell-Out’ Ever | Trump (once again) may be losing his biggest cheerleader okay, second biggest cheerleader after Rudy Giuliani Ann Coulter.Coulter, author of New York Times bestselling In Trump We Must recently took to twitter to already denounce Donald Trump, who he feels is about to initiate the biggest sell-out in politics over immigration.After conservative writer Mickey Kraus expressed worry over Mike Pence and Paul Ryan s pledge to tackle immigration head-on, Coulter tweeted:Sounds like the big sell-out is coming. Oh well. The voters did what we could. If Trump sells out, it s not our fault. https://t.co/tdMpAuDaRI Ann Coulter (@AnnCoulter) December 2, 2016Actually Ann, it is your fault. You and all the voters (even though Trump lost the popular vote by over 2.5 million) put a notorious, serial liar in office for the next four years. Someone who flip-flopped on every issue imaginable (and then lied about flip-flopping) is going to be President of th United States, so don t act all shocked when it turns out he was surprise a major sell-out to the people. The exchange that seemed to put Kaus and Coulter on edge was an interview Mike Pence gave with Scott Pelley:PELLEY: Just since the election, President-elect Trump has reversed himself on prosecuting Hillary Clinton and on deporting 11 million illegal immigrants in this country. Did he just say those things to get elected? Did he never intend to do them?PENCE: I think what the American people know they have in President-elect Donald Trump is someone who speaks straight from his mind and straight from his heart. And on the issue of illegal immigration, I promise you, as we were meeting yesterday on Capitol Hill with leaders of the House and Senate, we re going to go straight to work after this Congress convenes and this administration takes office. And we re going to pass policies that will end illegal immigration in this country.Doesn t seem like anything bad, and on the surface it looks like something every conservative should want. But when one factors in that Republicans are seeking to repeal Obamacare, deregulate Wall Street, and begin confirmation hearings for the next SCOTUS pick, immigration reform happening right away may seem like a distant hope for xenophobes like Kaus and Coulter.It looks like Trump is losing support from Coulter and he s not even president yet. It wouldn t be the first time Coulter seemed to back off of supporting Trump. It certainly won t be the last time either.Featured image Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images | 1real |
Investors Have Pulled $8 Billion From Deutsche Bank’s ETF Unit | By Zero Hedge
Earlier this month, Deutsche Bank stock was shaken following a Bloomberg report that Deutsche Bank’s hedge fund clients had withdrawn billions in margin cash from the bank’s prime brokerage unit, adding a shade of liquidity concerns to the bank’s ongoing capitalization woes. It now appears that DB has continued to hemmorhage cash with the FT reporting that the German lender’s exchange traded fund unit has seen billions in outflows as Germany’s biggest lender considers whether to sell parts of its asset management business.
Investors have pulled $8bn from Deutsche’s ETF arm so far this year . This is an unwelcome collapse after a strong performance in 2015 when the unit attracted positive inflows of $28bn, according to ETFGI, a London-based consultancy. DB’s clients have been heading for the exit after the bank was threatened with a $14bn claim by the DOJ.
“The noise around Deutsche Bank has clearly not helped its ETF business,” said a senior executive from a rival asset manager who did not wish to be named.
As the FT adds, Deutsche has put aside €5.5bn to cover potential litigation costs but the threat of a larger bill has forced it to consider selling a minority stake in its asset management arm, its best-performing division in recent years. However, efforts to raise fresh capital could be hindered by the outflows from the ETF unit, which is widely regarded as one of the crown jewels of Deutsche’s asset management operations.
To be sure, DB defended itself when a spokesman for the bank said the ETF outflows were “part of the broader industry-wide” trend away from currency-hedged ETFs. The outflows account for 10 per cent of Deutsche’s total ETF assets under management, and indeed the difficulties at Deutsche coincide with a period of upheaval across the European ETF industry. A cut-throat price war led by BlackRock and Vanguard, the world’s two largest fund managers, has forced rivals to abandon their strategic plans.
Still, the cash strapped bank may find it more complicated to unwind positions and provide the needed cash at a time when each of its moves is scrutinized under a microscope.
DB is not alone: Source, the London-based ETF provider, has been put up for sale fewer than three years after being acquired by Warburg Pincus, the private equity group. Commerzbank, Germany’s second-largest lender, has also confirmed it plans to spin off its ETF business into a separate unit.
Some industry observers believe Deutsche’s ETF business could make an attractive acquisition target for a rival looking to establish a foothold in the market. A former Deutsche employee said that efforts had been made in the past to find a buyer for the ETF unit, which has assets of $76.9bn and ranks as the fifth-largest ETF provider globally.
“We heard a lot of rumours that senior management put [the ETF business]up for sale several times but they were unable to get much traction for the price they were asking,” he said.
It wouldn’t be the first time Deutsche has tried to monetize some of its better performing assets. Following a review in 2011, the Frankfurt-based lender tried to sell large chunks of the asset management business but a potential deal with Guggenheim Partners, the US investment firm, fell apart in 2012. The bank subsequently merged the asset management division with the bank’s wealth unit, bringing the two together under the leadership of the scandal-plagued Michele Faissola whose involvmenet in a series of Monte Paschi deals has prompted the Italian government to launch an investigation into his “market manipulation” activities. As reported previously, the former investment banker is one of four executives to have led the asset management division in as many years. His involvement in the suicide of former Deutsche Banker William Broksmit was profiled here recently . Faissola’s departure from Deutsche Asset & Wealth Management last year led to another reversal: the separation of the asset and wealth management divisions just three years after they had been brought together.
Source: Zero Hedge
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Trisha Brown, Choreographer and Pillar of American Postmodern Dance, Dies at 80 - The New York Times | Trisha Brown, the choreographer and exemplar of the founding generation of American postmodern dance, died on Saturday in San Antonio. She was 80. Barbara Dufty, the executive director of Ms. Brown’s dance company, confirmed the death. Ms. Brown had been treated for vascular dementia since 2011. Few dance inventors have so combined the cerebral and sensuous sides of dance as Ms. Brown did, and few have been as influential. Her choreography, showcased primarily in New York, helped shape generations of modern dance creators into the 21st century. [ Mikhail Baryshnikov, Laurie Anderson and other artists speak on working with Ms. Brown. ] In December 2012, it was announced that the two dances she had made the previous year would be her last. By that point, she had been an international figure for over 30 years, choreographing for the Paris Opera Ballet, collaborating with Mikhail Baryshnikov, and commissioning stage designs from Robert Rauschenberg and other eminent visual artists, including Donald Judd and Nancy Graves. In 1983, she won European as well as American acclaim for “Set and Reset. ” This intensely sensuous theater piece, with music by Laurie Anderson and designs by Rauschenberg, became the most beloved work ever made in postmodern dance. In the 1980s, her influence was cited by the American choreographers David Gordon, Mark Morris and Stephen Petronio and her work began to join the repertories of other dance companies. In 1988, the French government named Ms. Brown Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Arts et Lettres. In January 2000 she was promoted to Officier and in 2004 to Commandeur. In 1991, she was named a MacArthur fellow, the first female choreographer to achieve this distinction. Patricia Ann Brown was born on Nov. 25, 1936, to the former Dorothy Louise Abel, an English teacher, and Martell W. Brown, a salesman. In later years she often spoke of her debt to the landscapes of the Pacific Northwest. In public conversation with the choreographer Merce Cunningham (also from Washington State) she once remarked, “The rain forest was my first art class. ” Ms. Brown graduated from Weatherwax High School in Aberdeen in 1954 and studied modern dance at Mills College, in Oakland, Calif. earning a degree in 1958. She taught dance at Reed College in Oregon for the next academic year and also studied at the American Dance Festival summer schools of 1958, 1959 and 1961, learning especially from Louis Horst, the veteran pedagogue of modern dance composition. Her next chief influences were the postmodern choreographer and teacher Robert Ellis Dunn and John Cage, the radical composer whose ideas on music and art opened up many possibilities. After moving to New York in 1961, she helped found the Judson Dance Theater group the next year. Like her colleagues Mr. Gordon, Steve Paxton and Yvonne Rainer, she made dances that eliminated bravura, academic technique, acting and musicality — the hallmarks of modern dance as it had been developed by Martha Graham and others, not to mention ballet. In 1970, Ms. Brown helped found another experimental collective, Grand Union, as well as her own troupe, the Trisha Brown Dance Company. In those years she worked, as a rule, in unconventional spaces and without music. The term “postmodern dance” was not coined until the late 1970s, and perhaps it can now be seen that Ms. Brown and others were leading dance at that time into the radical extremes of modernism. Cunningham, whom she greatly admired, had made dance independent from music and design she in turn helped to make it independent of technical rigor and, in the 1970s, to present it with no musical accompaniment. This was “democratic dance,” composed largely of movement that the average untrained dancer could do, albeit in new combinations. Some dances were performed barefoot, others in sneakers. Three historic works that Ms. Brown made in 1971 suggest much in their titles alone: “Walking on the Wall,” “Roof Piece” and “Accumulation. ” “Walking” had dancers suspended in harnesses moving sideways along walls “Roof” spread its dancers across 12 roofs on 10 SoHo blocks “Accumulation” was a formal study in graduated movement, with repeated phrases building in complexity — like sentences that each time added one word. The experimental dance of that era, embodied in those pieces, set itself up against virtuosity. Ms. Brown nonetheless now became a virtuoso of a new kind. In 1978 she took her “Accumulation” solo and embellished it, showing, in “Accumulation With Talking Plus Water Motor,” just how many things could be done simultaneously. She could coordinate several physical acts while talking, as if illustrating multiple trains of thought in action. Having earlier pared dance down to its basics, she was now rebuilding it in new ways, and it was then that she became a seminal figure of truly postmodern dance. A classic of hers from this era was “Opal Installation” (1980) among the purest of all works. A quartet in silence, it is its own music, the connections and reactions between the dancers making its harmonies marvelous. Here “the line of least resistance” became gorgeous: a fascinating chain sequence of hitches, ripples, shimmies, hops, knee bends. The style was often called “release technique,” and some accredited its invention to her. (In fact, release technique was devised by another native of Washington State, Joan Skinner.) Ms. Brown, a gently but memorably witty woman, simply described her own idiom as “the line of least resistance,” neatly evoking the rippling of impulses and ricochets that characterized much of her dance. By this time, Ms. Brown was already moving on, starting a different kind of dance theater. From 1979 she made a series of pieces that turned her purity into a new kind of theatricality, sometimes ravishing and generally novel, working with designers like Rauschenberg, and with sound scores and music by Ms. Anderson, Judd and others. (When asked why she had stopped choreographing in silence, she once replied, “I got fed up with listening to all the goddamn coughing. ”) Although the names of works from this era are uninviting — “Glacial Decoy” (1979) “Set and Reset” (1983) “Lateral Pass” (1985) “Newark” (1987) “Astral Convertible” (1989) “Foray Forêt” (1990) and “Astral Converted” (1991) — the works themselves excited lasting adoration. These remained creations, with ingeniously inventive choreography, but their music, costumes and décor made them potently theatrical: Each had a strong atmosphere in which visual effects and music made contributions. It was these pieces, notably “Set and Reset,” that brought her a new kind of worldwide prestige. By the late 1980s, she was having seasons in big theaters like City Center in New York and Sadler’s Wells in London and she became a darling of the French. She never quite abandoned this style, returning to it in 2011 for her final creation, “I’m going to toss my arms — if you catch them they’re yours,” which had designs by her husband, Burt Barr, and music by Alvin Curran. From the late 1980s on, Ms. Brown opened up her next phase: a new engagement with classical music. The composers Monteverdi, Bach, Rameau, Schubert and Bizet supplied her with the challenges she needed, and her responses were never conventional in musicality or theatricality. Her “M. O. ” (1995) was based on Bach’s “Musical Offering” in 2002, she staged Schubert’s “Winterreise” with the eminent baritone Simon Keenlyside (a superb mover). For decades, Ms. Brown was her own greatest dancer, creating many remarkable solos for herself. “If You Couldn’t See Me” (1994) memorably fused her cerebral and sensuous sides. The underpinning notion — a gimmick, you might say — was that her back remained turned to the audience throughout. The transcendent factor lay in her spine’s fluidity. When, in 1989, Mr. Baryshnikov turned from being a ballet specialist to a master investigator of American modern dance, Ms. Brown was a favorite collaborator. That solo in 1995 became a duet, “You Can See Us. ” As danced in 1996, this showed Mr. Baryshnikov facing front Ms. Brown still kept her back to the audience. From the 1930s on, a series of choreographers had made New York a haven for pure dance. Of those choreographers, Cunningham and Ms. Brown were among the brainiest. Devotees of difficulty, they never needed to court an audience. The news that her 2011 dances would be her last — she had made over 100 dances, many of which had been recorded on film and video — followed Cunningham’s death in 2009 and the closing of his company in December 2011. Plans for the limited afterlife of her company were announced in the ensuing months and years. In January 2016, the Brooklyn Academy of Music gave a season to the company’s final presentation of her “proscenium” theater pieces. Since 2015, “In Plain Site” seasons have been given in special locations, excerpting dances from her repertoire and asking audiences to walk around different rooms to observe the various dances (an entirely Brownian idea). In 2016, the art historian Susan Rosenberg published “Trisha Brown: Choreography as Visual Art” (Wesleyan University Press). Mr. Barr, Ms. Brown’s husband, died in November. She is survived by her son, Adam four grandchildren a brother, Gordon and a sister, Louisa Brown. Since the 1980s, Brown dances have often been performed by other companies. Her “Set and Reset” is usually included in the undergraduate curriculum for French dance students. The choreographer Mr. Petronio, a member of her dance company in the early 1980s, added her “Glacial Decoy” to his company’s repertoire in 2016. But Ms. Brown’s work is not easily codified, and its language may prove elusive to dancers from generations who did not know the casual body language of the last century. All dance legacies are fragile hers may prove especially so. Any of this pertinacity should continue to provoke debate. How great was even Ms. Brown’s greatest work? That motto of hers, “the line of least resistance,” has sometimes suggested her own limitations: Her work has often seemed to lack drama. Or did it rather extend our idea of drama? Much of Ms. Brown’s work created intensely kinesthetic currents. Audiences felt them even as they watched them. Dances in which nothing happened became dances in which much was eventful. | 0fake |
AMERICANS EXPECTED OBAMA TO CALL FOR CALM…Instead Used Press Conference To Bash Trump [Video] | Isn t it the job of the CURRENT president to call for calm? These are his supporters rioting in the streets!Pres. Obama says he told Trump, It s really important to try to send some signals of unity https://t.co/hU5i7GUcPS https://t.co/3WMFDS12Sb CNN (@CNN) November 14, 2016Here s the entire press conference if you would like to listen. You have to skip over the reporters in the beginning to get to Obama and better volume. It s pure torture | 1real |
WATCH: Trump Loves The GOP Healthcare Bill But Kellyanne Conway Doesn’t Want His Name On It | If Trump isn t willing to attach his name to something, you know it must really be bad no matter how wonderful he says it is.On Monday, House Republicans passed what they dubiously refer to as the American Healthcare Act, which repeals the Affordable Care Act.The bill would strip healthcare from millions of Americans, including the millions who were able to access Medicaid coverage. The bill also defunds Planned Parenthood and sticks senior citizens with higher costs among a litany of other things that screw over the American people.On Tuesday, Donald Trump praised the bill on Twitter.Our wonderful new Healthcare Bill is now out for review and negotiation. ObamaCare is a complete and total disaster is imploding fast! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 7, 2017Of course, the only reason why the Affordable Care Act is imploding is because Trump and Republicans have been sabotaging it.But as wonderful as Trump says the Make America Sick Again bill is, his propaganda minister Kellyanne Conway is desperate to make sure Trump s name is not attached to it.After being asked by Fox News host Bill Hemmer if it would be okay to call the bill Trumpcare, Conway was quick to reply that Trump s name should not be associated with it in such a way. It s the American Health Care Act, and I think it s aptly named that for this reason, Conway said. It wants to cover, it wants everyone to have access to coverage, and that is something that didn t happen under Obamacare I ll call it Trumpcare if you want to, but I didn t hear President Trump say to any of us, I want my name on that. It s not about branding according to someone s name. This is serious business. Here s the video via YouTube:Gee, that didn t stop Republicans from branding the Affordable Care Act as Obamacare, even though the landmark healthcare law was aptly named because it actually made healthcare more accessible and affordable for millions of Americans.Trump s American Healthcare Act only strips millions of Americans of their healthcare coverage. It does nothing to give coverage to everyone. If Trump wants to cover all Americans he would push for universal healthcare, not a bill that takes healthcare away from millions, including people who voted for him.The real reason why Conway doesn t want Trump s name on the bill is because it s a bad bill that will harm a lot of people. In fact, it will likely lead to the deaths of many Americans.Trump and his Republican sycophants don t give a shit about all the people they are going to hurt by repealing the Affordable Care Act. Ad they certainly do not care about this country and its future. They only care about themselves.Featured image via screenshot | 1real |
No reason to believe Trump is target of any investigation: White House | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - There is no reason to believe that U.S. President Donald Trump is the target of any investigation, White House spokesman Sean Spicer said on Wednesday. “There is no reason that we have to think that the president is the target of any investigation whatsoever,” Spicer said at a news briefing. Trump, without offering evidence, said in tweets on Saturday that he had been wiretapped by then-President Barack Obama during the 2016 presidential campaign. | 0fake |
Trump Tells Planned Parenthood Its Funding Can Stay if Abortion Goes - The New York Times | The White House, concerned about the possible political repercussions of the Republican effort to defund Planned Parenthood, has proposed preserving federal payments to the group if it discontinues providing abortions. The proposal, which was never made formally, has been rejected as an impossibility by officials at Planned Parenthood, which receives about $500 million annually in federal funding. That money helps pay for women’s health services the organization provides, not for abortion services. “Let’s be clear: Federal funds already do not pay for abortions,” Dawn Laguens, the executive vice president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said on Monday. “Offering money to Planned Parenthood to abandon our patients and our values is not a deal that we will ever accept. Providing critical health care services for millions of American women is nonnegotiable. ” But the outreach to allies of Planned Parenthood is a glimpse of the internal struggle inside a White House torn between trying to satisfy the conservative base that elected President Trump and responding to the views of his daughter Ivanka Trump, who urged her father to tread carefully on the Planned Parenthood issue during the Republican primary contest. Ms. Trump has no formal role in the administration, but as an informal adviser she has made women’s issues a focus. She has had a mixed record of success in the administration’s early days, but during the campaign, she was able to nudge Mr. Trump toward a nuanced view of Planned Parenthood’s work. Mr. Trump confirmed the discussions in a statement on Monday to The New York Times. “As I said throughout the campaign, I am and I am deeply committed to investing in women’s health and plan to significantly increase federal funding in support of nonabortion services such as cancer screenings,” he said. “Polling shows the majority of Americans oppose public funding for abortion, even those who identify as . There is an opportunity for organizations to continue the important work they do in support of women’s health, while not providing abortion services. ” Indeed, Mr. Trump made similar statements as a candidate, putting him at odds with other Republicans in a primary race characterized by conservative views. In private discussions with people close to Planned Parenthood, White House officials have suggested that there could even be an increase in federal earmarks if the work related to abortion ends. At various points during the campaign, Mr. Trump spoke favorably of the work of Planned Parenthood, even while saying he would support withdrawing its funding if abortions continued. “Millions and millions of women — cervical cancer, breast cancer — are helped by Planned Parenthood,” he said in February 2016 at a debate hosted by CNN. “I would defund it because I’m but millions of women are helped by Planned Parenthood. ” Marjorie Dannenfelser, the president of the Susan B. Anthony List, which supports candidates, said Mr. Trump was living up to his campaign promise. “We’re not used to that in politics,” she said. She added that she had no problem with the deal because her issue with Planned Parenthood is with its abortion work. Until 2011, when he announced he opposed abortion rights, Mr. Trump had supported legal measures allowing abortions. Congressional Republicans have said they will soon move legislation to strip all federal funds from Planned Parenthood, and a provision for doing that was included in the House Republican bill to replace the Affordable Care Act released on Monday night. Senator Kirsten E. Gillibrand, Democrat of New York, suggested that Mr. Trump had authorized the proposal because he wanted to be able to claim that he had made an offer to Planned Parenthood and that officials with the group were not being reasonable. “The Trump administration needs to stop playing political games that would put access to the full range of safe reproductive care at risk, or they will get the fight of their lives,” Ms. Gillibrand said. Diane Max, a major donor to Planned Parenthood, called the offer “an absurd play” and said Mr. Trump had been “sympathetic to a woman’s right to choose until it was politically unpopular” for him. | 0fake |
Obamacare supporters rally against congressional repeal efforts | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Supporters of Obamacare staged rallies across the country on Thursday denouncing efforts by President Donald Trump and Republican congressional leaders to repeal the landmark law that has extended medical insurance coverage to some 20 million Americans. Hundreds of demonstrators turned out in Washington, Chicago and Los Angeles marking the seventh anniversary of enactment of Obamacare, as the Affordable Care Act (ACA) has become widely known. Many talked about a very personal stake in the outcome of the healthcare debate roiling Capitol Hill. “I feel sick today, but I came here because I’m terrified,” said Steve Martin, 27, an unemployed Los Angeles resident who was diagnosed with cancer a year ago. “The legislators have the best healthcare in the world, and we deserve the same.” The ACA, considered former Democratic President Barack Obama’s premiere domestic achievement, has drawn unrelenting scorn from Republicans, with promises to repeal and replace it a centerpiece of Trump’s presidential campaign. Thursday’s rallies coincided with planned action in the House of Representatives on a Republican-backed bill to begin dismantling Obamacare, but the vote was indefinitely postponed as Republican leaders and the White House scrambled to muster enough votes for passage. Many moderate Republicans as well as Democrats have raised concerns that repeal-and-replace would leave too many Americans without health coverage. Supporters of the bill say it would lower premiums, but critics counter that those savings would in many cases be more than offset by higher co-pays and other out-of-pocket costs. Obamacare backers also worry about the fate of millions who gained insurance under the bill’s major expansion of Medicaid, the federal-state program providing coverage for the needy, the elderly and the disabled. In the nation’s capital, several hundred chanting protesters gathered at Freedom Plaza, a few blocks from the White House, carrying signs with slogans such as “We Fight Back” and “Keep America Healthy.” Robinette Barmer, 61, a former seamstress and caterer from Baltimore now on a disability pension, said that without Obamacare she could not afford the various medications she takes for ailments such as asthma and high blood pressure. “It’s co-pay this, co-pay that. I can’t pay that. I’m struggling as it is right now,” she said. After the rally, protesters marched a block to the Trump International Hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue, where several dozen sprawled on the sidewalk in a “die-in” symbolizing the effect of rolling back Obamacare. Some 24 protesters were arrested in front of the White House after they refused get off the ground, organizers said. Protest organizers said smaller gatherings were also held outside the congressional district offices of various Republican lawmakers around the country. | 0fake |
Takata Airbag Recall Is Said to Grow by 35 Million - The New York Times | Regulators are expected to announce as early as Wednesday that at least 35 million additional airbags made by Takata will need to be fixed, according to a person briefed on the matter. This would more than double what is already the largest automotive recall in American history. The airbags can unexpectedly explode, sending metal parts hurtling into the cabin. At least 11 deaths worldwide have been linked to the defect. The expansion would bring the total of recalled Takata airbags to at least 63 million in the United States — possibly affecting nearly one in four of the 250 million vehicles on America’s roads. At issue is Takata’s use of a compound called ammonium nitrate, which can become unstable over time or when it is exposed to moisture. Takata has wrestled with the makeup of the compound over the years, eventually adding a drying agent to make it more stable. The new recalls focus on airbags that do not have the drying agent. Scott Upham, founder and chief executive of the automotive consulting firm Valient Market Research, said that the wider recall was an admission by Takata that its use of ammonium nitrate — a cheap, but potent, compound more often used at sites like coal mines — was a safety risk. “Finally, there’s enough scientific evidence to point to the humidity issue as affecting the propellant,” Mr. Upham said. “For a long period of time, they denied that ammonium nitrate was to blame. But this does validate there are fundamental issues with the chemical itself. ” Ever since the first Takata airbag recall of about 4, 000 vehicles in 2008, the company insisted for years that the problems did not lie in the design of the airbag inflaters with ammonium nitrate, but instead were the result of manufacturing flaws or quality control problems. Internally, though, it harbored doubts, quashing the results of tests that failed, manipulating data to conform with automakers’ safety requirements and continually revising patents. But only in May last year did Takata admit that its products were, in fact, defective. Then in a consent order issued last November, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration gave the Japanese parts maker until the end of 2018 to prove that the airbag inflaters without the drying agent were safe. The agency imposed a $70 million penalty that could increase by $130 million if Takata does not meet the consent order’s terms. In levying the penalty, regulators noted that Takata had produced testing reports that contained selective or inaccurate data. The new round of recalls to be announced this week was prompted by findings of three separate investigations into the rupture conducted by Honda Motor, the automaker most affected by the recalls Takata and a consortium of 10 automakers. The agency has said that ultimately, more than 100 million airbag inflaters that use ammonium nitrate may need to be recalled. Takata has until the end of 2019 to show that its inflaters that contain the drying agent are safe. The safety agency has also barred Takata from using ammonium nitrate for new orders. In a statement, the safety agency said it could not comment on plans for an expanded recall. But it said the agency had reviewed the findings of investigations into the Takata airbag ruptures and would “take all appropriate actions to make sure airbags in Americans’ vehicles are safe. ” Takata said in a statement that it was “working with regulators and our automaker customers to develop orderly solutions to these important safety issues. ” The expanded recall was reported earlier by The Wall Street Journal. The growing recall, though, has been anything but orderly, and Takata now faces new financial pressure. It already appeared to be heading for a second consecutive year of losses, and the company said on Monday that it planned to to book special charges totaling 20. 1 billion yen, or $189 million, to cover recall costs and settlements with consumers injured by its inflaters. That would more than negate the 5 billion yen of net profit, or $47 million, it forecast in its most recent earnings guidance. The company is scheduled to report final results for its latest fiscal year on May 11. As for consumers, the mere announcement of the newly expanded recall is likely to sow more confusion in what has been a dizzyingly complex problem. Even as automakers look to other suppliers to provide them with replacement inflaters, there has been a persistent shortage of parts in many areas of the country, forcing many car owners to ask for loaners if they can get them or drive their cars knowing of the danger. All the while, doubts over ammonium nitrate have persisted as the human toll has mounted. In December, a Georgia man, Joel Knight, died on a South Carolina highway when the airbag in his Ford Ranger ruptured after his truck hit a cow, sending metal into his neck. He bled to death, not knowing that the airbag posed a risk because it had not been recalled. The Ranger has since been recalled. Mark Lillie, a former Takata engineer who raised concerns about the ammonium nitrate propellant in the late 1990s, said he felt vindicated by Takata’s expanded recall. But he said he remained concerned that the ammonium nitrate remained vulnerable, even with the drying agent, which is called a desiccant. “Undoubtedly, the desiccant will reduce the problem, and delay the onset of the problem,” he said. “But it can’t eliminate the problem. ” | 0fake |
GROUP WITH TERROR TIES Encourages Muslims To Swing U.S. Presidential Elections: “Turn Your Islamic Centers, Mosques Into Registration Centers For Voters” | The idea that a tax-exempt radical organization in the United States of America with ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, a terror organization can influence our vote by suggesting Muslims register voters in Mosques should be shocking to every American.Could anyone imagine the outrage if non-profit groups were advocating churches register voters to support the Republican party?The last time the Muslim Brotherhood got involved in an election, it ended with a tyranny, church burnings, terrorism, a civil war, mass sexual assaults on women and a popular uprising against it.Presumably the local Muslim Brotherhood crew is hoping for a better outcome in the United States than they ended up with in Egypt, as Sharona Schwartz at The Blaze Reports.The head of the Council on American-Islamic Relations said that Muslims could comprise the swing vote in the presidential elections if 1 million of them register to vote, as he urged them to turn mosques into polling stations this November. I believe we have at least 1 million Muslim eligible voters in this country. We have to register every single Muslim to vote in 2016. The Muslim vote can be the swing vote in major states, CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad said at the Muslim American Society (MAS) and Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA) annual conference in Chicago, according to video posted earlier this month.Awad explained that CAIR which is prohibited from engaging in political activity due to its registration as a tax-exempt organization would not be the vehicle by which a candidate would be endorsed. He said another organization would be set up to promote the Muslim-friendly presidential candidate.Awad urged all Muslims to register to vote and to use Islamic centers as polling stations. Turn your centers, Islamic centers, mosques into registration centers for voters, into polling stations during the election time, he said. Via: Frontpage Mag | 1real |
THIS Is What It Means If You Have Two Dimples On Your Back | posted by Eddie Whether you have back dimples, or not, you have to admit that they are quite an interesting characteristic. These back dimples are also called the ‘dimples of Venus’, and are more commonly found on women. Theses dimples of Venus, officially named Lateral Lumbar indentations, are caused by ligaments pulling under the skin of your back and creating indentations. One of the most intriguing things about this trait is that it can reveal certain things about your health and even yourself. In addition to being aesthetically pleasing, there is some research that claims women with these back dimples can reach climax more easily during intimate activities. There isn’t a lot of scientific evidence that supports the claim, but it is explained by the unique shape and placement of your pelvis and your backbone. The way your muscles and bones are positioned in your body can help improve circulation, which could increase your chances of a release. While there needs to be more research done before any of these claims can be confirmed, at this moment there seem to be no possible risks or health problems associated with having these back dimples. Additionally, back dimples come in all different shapes and sizes. Their appearance varies greatly from person to person depending on their weight, body shape, and athletic ability. It is also unlikely for men to have these back dimples. However, if you do have back dimples, they can be enhanced by doing certain exercises focused on engaging your lower back and core muscles, which will be good for the overall health of your body, and perfect for making your back dimples more noticeable. You could even get piercings on each of them if you’re really wanting to show them off. source: | 1real |
Message for Progressive Left: ‘If You Want to See Real Nazis, Come to Ukraine’ | Ever since last month, the US media and the left wing politicians have been up in arm about alleged rise of Nazism in America. By now, the coverage has been incessant and beyond hysterical, as pundits and antifascist activists claim that a viable white supremacist movement is threatening to take over the country which is a media-driven alternative reality. What America s mainstream media establishment will not mention is the US government s own role, particularly that of the Obama Administration and Hillary Clinton s State Department (and funded by her campaign financier George Soros) in helping to fuel the scourge of Nazism in eastern Europe, in the Ukraine. Likewise, Republicans and so-called conservatives will not want to mention party luminary Senator John McCain s own personal role in promoting Ukraine s Far Right parties and helping shoe-horn them into power in 2014 after a successful US-backed coup d etat and putsch, and the disastrous junta which has followed.The following open letter was posted by Aleksandr Gontar from Donetsk in eastern Ukraine, skillfully articulates the current farce in the United States and the feigned righteous indignation from the progressive left over the recent staged political altercation in Charlottesville, Virginia I always considered myself as a person with left-wing views, but looking at what is happening in the US I can t escape the thought that the American left, in its majority, is the dumbest and most useless comrade on the planet. As a minimum, to profess liberal views and at the same time to call oneself leftist is a bit silly.The desperate fight of American comrades against Nazis in general is comical. They are shocked by a torchlight procession in Charlottesville, while regular torch processions in the capital of Ukraine, which they so fervently support in its fight for democracy , don t shock them. I speak as well about simple red-blue rainbow plankton, as well as about the famous fighters against oppression a la Tom Morello (whom I respect as a musician) and other celebrities, cosplaying Che Guevara with a red star on the cap. A nightmare, Nazis are in America! They hoisted the colors of the confederates and shaved their heads! OH MY GOD . American Nazis are the same clowns as American anti- fascists , by the way.Kids, come into The Ukraine, we will show you Nazis. Real ones. Who kill people kill massively, proceeding from the racial theory. They kill in savage ways like the SS did in the 40 s. We will show you a whole State that erects monuments to the ideologists and performers of the Holocaust, of Jewish riots, of the genocide of Poles. Who sweep away monuments to the liberators of mankind from Nazism. A State with a Nazi Ministry of Truth, repressions against dissent, promotion of racial hatred in schools, on TV, in children s books. A State in which the Ministry of Internal Affairs supervises a website that incites the committing of murder of unreliable citizens, openly publishing all their personal information as well as members of their families.So, when you will have such things in America, we will talk. When you have, instead of a car crashing into a crowd of anti-fascists, these anti-fascists like cattle are herded into the local House of Trade Unions and will be burned with Molotov cocktails (finishing off with steel poles those who try to escape), when the FBI creates a website on which it will publish the addresses of those who criticize Trump and the White Race, and the organized alt-right will start to go to these addresses, who, after your murder, will be called patriots and will be released, so then we will believe in your whining about Nazis.And for now, suck on it, Mr American anti-fascists.This letter was originally published at Stalker Zone, translated by Ollie Richardson and Angelina Siard.READ MORE ALT RIGHT NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire ALT RIGHT FilesSUPPORT OUR WORK BY SUBSCRIBING & BECOMING A MEMBER @21WIRE.TV | 1real |
Burundi says U.N. office break-in may have been fabrication | GENEVA (Reuters) - A break-in at the U.N. human rights office in Burundi s capital may have been an attempt to smear the government, a presidential aide told reporters on Friday in Geneva. U.N. staff in Burundi filed a complaint with police after a group of armed men broke into the office in Bujumbura at around 2.30 a.m. on Wednesday, a U.N. spokeswoman said. Nobody was hurt and there was no damage in the attack, which came a week after a U.N. human rights inquiry said Burundian officials at the highest level should be held accountable for crimes against humanity. Willy Nyamitwe, senior communications officer in the office of the president, said the two guards at the office had been arrested and it was probably not a simple burglary. What the police have already said is apparently there was no attack coming from the outside, which certainly means the guards would seem to be complicit. But ... we should wait for the final conclusions of this investigation. Nyamitwe is expected to respond to the allegations at the U.N. Human Rights Council next week. Burundi has rejected the findings of the U.N. inquiry, which Nyamitwe said was a puppet of the European Union. U.N. human rights spokeswoman Elizabeth Throssell called for an investigation of the break-in that complied with international legal procedures. | 0fake |
College warns against ‘deplorable and problematic’ costumes | College Reform October 27, 2016
Grinnell College is promoting a guide to help students avoid “cultural appropriation” this Halloween, warning that some costumes could be considered “deplorable and problematic.”
The guide provides several examples of costumes that might fit the definition of “cultural appropriation,” defining the term as “the act of displaying people’s cultures in a disrespectful or condescending manner.”
The guide, called “My Identity, Not Your Costume,” goes on to list several examples of “offensive” Halloween costumes, featuring pictures of Grinnell students holding photos of costumes that would be considered disrespectful towards their culture.
In one instance, the guide shows a picture of a burly white man dressed in lingerie with a sash proclaiming “Call me Caitlyn,” referring to Caitlyn Jenner. The photo is held by a Grinnell student wearing a “National Coming Out Day” pin, and includes a caption stating, “the misrepresentation of my identity bothers me because people categorize me by my looks and may not understand my culture.”
Another example of culturally appropriated Halloween costumes, according to the guide, is “using other cultures as accessories to appear more hip/interesting without adequate understanding or permission,” one example of which is a picture of someone dressed as a Hindu deity being held by an Indian student and the message that such costumes are “deplorable and problematic.”
It then warns students that if their costumes take “defining characteristics of another culture” without “permission, or understanding of the historical background behind the said culture,” then these costumes might be too offensive to wear.
The guide then concludes with two questions the school thinks students should consider before selecting a Halloween costume, asking, “Does your costume perpetuate stereotypes or inaccurately portray my culture as a joke?” as well as “Why would I find your ‘Halloween costume’ to be offensive?”
Campus Reform reached out to Grinnell for a comment on the matter but did not receive a response in time for publication. This article was posted: Thursday, October 27, 2016 at 5:53 am Share this article | 1real |
Senate presses ex-Trump aide's son for documents in Russia probe: source | (Reuters) - The U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee has asked the son of President Donald Trump’s former national security adviser to provide documents and testimony as part of the panel’s probe into Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. election, a source familiar with the congressional matter told Reuters. Michael G. Flynn was a close aide to his father, former U.S. Army general Michael Flynn, 58, who was fired by Trump three weeks into his White House job in February as he came under scrutiny for his foreign contacts. The son managed his father’s schedule and accompanied him on trips while working at Flynn Intel Group consultancy, including one to Moscow in 2015 for an event where the elder Flynn sat next to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Russia has repeatedly denied the conclusions of U.S. intelligence agencies that Moscow interfered in the presidential campaign to help Republican Trump by hacking Democratic Party emails and spreading propaganda online. Barry Coburn, a lawyer for the younger Flynn, 34, declined to comment on the Senate committee’s request, which was reported earlier by NBC News. The panel could issue a subpoena to the younger Flynn, although he could invoke his Fifth Amendment constitutional protection against self-incrimination and not comply. The elder Flynn has also been asked by the panel to provide information and to testify. A source close to Flynn said that he had turned over documents to intelligence committees in both the Senate and U.S. House of Representatives. The source familiar with the congressional investigation said that the Senate committee is not satisfied and wants to obtain more evidence from him. The source also confirmed that the Senate panel was issuing a subpoena to former Trump campaign foreign policy adviser Carter Page after Page declined committee requests that he voluntarily turn over records related to any contacts with Russians. Page told Reuters in an email on Tuesday that he was “cooperating with everyone in D.C. who might want my help in the interest of helping our country get to the end of this witch hunt.” Page has said it was touched off by the circulation of a dossier produced by former British spy Christopher Steele on purported links between Trump, his advisers and Russia. The Senate committee, which has sought to speak with Steele, is also investigating whether there was any collusion between then-candidate Trump’s campaign and Moscow officials. Trump has denied any collusion by his associates, calling it “fake news.” The Flynn consultancy’s business activities are under scrutiny by congressional and federal investigators mainly because of the lobbying work it did for a Turkish businessman. Various congressional panels are sparring over Steele’s reports outlining Russian financial and personal links to Trump’s campaign and associates. | 0fake |
Pitched Battle Inside the FBI | American Thinker November 1, 2016
Is it a crisis yet? The fate of a criminal probe into the activities of a possible president has been fought behind closed doors. The nation’s premier investigative agency allegedly is riven by conflict over investigating Hillary Clinton’s email, the Clinton Foundation, and Anthony Weiner’s sexting.
Devlin Barrett of the Wall Street Journal has apparently mined many sources at the FBI and the DoJ, along with other “people familiar with the matter,” and put together a remarkable piece that is providing a lot of new information. Unfortunately, it is behind a paywall, though I understand that the WSJ is offering very low initial subscription rates, as low as $4, which might be worth it even on a tight budget, considering the history unfolding before our eyes.
Barrett identifies a timeline for the Weiner email trove that begins:
… in early October when New York-based FBI officials notified Andrew McCabe, the bureau’s second-in-command, that while investigating Mr. Weiner for possibly sending sexually charged messages to a teenage minor , they had recovered a laptop. Many of the 650,000 emails on the computer, they said, were from the accounts of Ms. Abedin, according to people familiar with the matter. The FBI lacked a warrant to read the emails, but they did examine the metadata, that showed “apparently … thousands” of them were from Hillary’s private email server.
This led to a dramatic meeting:
At a meeting early last week of senior Justice Department and FBI officials, a member of the department’s senior national-security staff asked for an update on the Weiner laptop, the people familiar with the matter said. At that point, officials realized that no one had acted to obtain a warrant, these people said.
Mr. McCabe then instructed the email investigators to talk to the Weiner investigators and see whether the laptop’s contents could be relevant to the Clinton email probe, these people said. After the investigators spoke, the agents agreed it was potentially relevant.
Mr. Comey was given an update, decided to go forward with the case and notified Congress on Friday, with explosive results. Senior Justice Department officials had warned the FBI that telling Congress would violate policies against overt actions that could affect an election, and some within the FBI have been unhappy at Mr. Comey’s repeated public statements on the probe, going back to his press conference on the subject in July.
Barrett does not venture into speculation, but I believe that Comey had no choice at that point, because the news would have leaked out. Too many people knew of the discovery at this point (including, possibly, the NYPD , which may have gotten the Weiner probe going in the first place – we still don’t know). Many journalists (including me) in touch with active and retired FBI agents have heard of the extreme disappointment of many within the FBI community with Comey’s damage to the Bureau’s reputation.
The meatiest reporting, however, covers the investigation of the Clinton Foundation, which Barrett characterizes as one of “ several matters related, directly or indirectly, to Mrs. Clinton and her inner circle” (emphasis added).
New details show that senior law-enforcement officials repeatedly voiced skepticism of the strength of the evidence in a bureau investigation of the Clinton Foundation, sought to condense what was at times a sprawling cross-country effort, and, according to some people familiar with the matter, told agents to limit their pursuit of the case. The probe of the foundation began more than a year ago to determine whether financial crimes or influence peddling occurred related to the charity.
Unnamed FBI agents are characterized as “viewing FBI leadership as uninterested in probing the charity[.]” My guess is that the “senior law enforcement officials” voicing skepticism might be from Loretta Lynch’s staff. But they may include FBI officials. | 1real |
Sinister Siblings From ‘The Great Comet’ Go to Fashion Week - The New York Times | In “Natasha, Pierre the Great Comet of 1812,” a rock opera on Broadway adapted from a section of Leo Tolstoy’s “War and Peace,” Amber Gray and Lucas Steele play Hélène and Anatole Kuragin, a pair of aristocratic siblings who are impervious to consequence and impossibly chic in their punk romantic . In other words, they were perfect casting for New York Fashion Week — presuming they could get seats to a show. A reporter’s initial plan was to take them to Raf Simons’s debut at Calvin Klein, but with just 400 seats in the house and no Calvin Klein available for them to wear, the request was declined. They almost didn’t get into Tory Burch either, until Ms. Burch and her team agreed to dress Ms. Gray and seat her with Mr. Steele in the front row at her show Tuesday morning, which took place at the Whitney Museum in Lower Manhattan. (The company doesn’t have a men’s line and therefore couldn’t outfit Mr. Steele). Had so few people in the fashion industry read the rapturous reviews in The New York Times, Variety and The Hollywood Reporter? Or could it be the source material? If it was the latter, Ms. Gray could hardly blame them. She hadn’t read the classic novel when she and Mr. Steele debuted as the scheming siblings in in its first Off Broadway production in 2012. “When I first picked the book up, I cheated and just read the section the show is based on,” Ms. Gray said, upon arriving at the Whitney in a burgundy leather jacket from AllSaints, along with a smart looking Tory Burch guipure lace Carolina dress and ’ ankle boots from Ms. Burch. Mr. Steele wore his own vintage black leather jacket, with a borrowed burgundy and black shirt, borrowed black slacks and borrowed black and red loafers from AllSaints. Behind them was a stylist named Michael Fusco. “He’s here to make sure we don’t look like morons,” Mr. Steele said with a glance, as Mr. Fusco adjusted his jacket collar. On their way into the museum, they ran into the veteran magazine editor and critic Hal Rubenstein, whom Mr. Steele had met over the summer at a charity gala. “I was at your benefit,” Mr. Steele said. “I saw your show,” Mr. Rubenstein said. “It was a wonderful evening. ” A few minutes later, a nervous Mr. Steele and Ms. Gray were introduced to Anna Wintour, who had seen it, too. “I saw it! I loved it,” Ms. Wintour said, going on to marvel at how gloriously “awful” their characters managed to be. In their seats, the duo chatted about what it has been like to take part in a show that started small before settling at the Imperial Theater in Times Square. Both actors said they struggled for years before being cast in an early production of “The Great Comet” in 2012. Ms. Gray, who is 35 and lives in Brooklyn, with her boyfriend and young son, worked over the years for the jewelry company Dinosaur Designs. Mr. Steele, who lives in Harlem and is unmarried, did everything from being a nanny to manning sample sales. (Although he is in his 30s, he asked that his age not be printed). Given the quirky format of the show, neither saw its ultimate commercial viability as . The 2012 production took place in a faux supper club, broke the fourth wall and featured dance numbers and progressive casting choices, which is how Ms. Gray (who is black) and Mr. Steele (who is white) ended up playing biological siblings. The audience often got inebriated and unruly, Ms. Gray said. ”There was a little groping of the ladies,” she said. “And there was the famous incident when someone threw a cellphone,” Mr. Steele said, referring to the time in 2013 when Kevin Williamson, a writer from National Review, earned plaudits among the cast for taking the device of a texting seatmate and hurling it into the distance. Yet here they were five years later, being photographed by the fashion paparazzi, still not exactly famous but not anonymous either. Around 9:30 a. m. the muslin came up and the models began their march. Roxy Music blared and Ms. Gray joked with Mr. Steele, who noted the similarities to the opulence of the models and their characters in “The Great Comet. ” “They’re all Kuragins,” she said. Like all fashion shows, it was considerably shorter than a Russian novel. Ten minutes later, the pair headed over to meet Ms. Burch, who was holding court in a corner with a gaggle of editors. “Thank you so much for coming,” Ms. Burch said, before apologizing for not having yet been to see them on Broadway. The three posed for pictures, and then Ms. Gray and Mr. Steele exited onto the street and walked over to the nearby Standard Hotel for avocado toast. “There’s no dairy in it, right?” Mr. Steele asked the waiter. Although “The Great Comet” has been on Broadway just two months, Ms. Gray and Mr. Steele have each performed it more than 400 times in its various incarnations. Both said that next fall might be a good time for them to leave. Mr. Steele has had surgery and extensive physical therapy that he attributes to all the he does in the show. It also gets exhausting, he said, playing one of those people who “peaked in high school. ” Ms. Gray seemed more upbeat. Before departing the restaurant shortly before 11 a. m. she recalled some advice she got early in her career: “If you stand in line long enough, you will get served. ” | 0fake |
Republican Kirk breaks with U.S. Senate leaders on high court seat | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican U.S. Senator Mark Kirk, facing a tough re-election fight in Illinois, said on Monday the Senate should vote on whomever President Barack Obama nominates to the U.S. Supreme Court, breaking with his party’s leadership. In another defection among Republicans, Senator Susan Collins of Maine called for hearings on the eventual nominee. A political fight has erupted over filling the court’s vacancy left by the Feb. 13 death of conservative Justice Antonin Scalia, with many top Republicans threatening to block any nominee put forth by the Democratic president. Obama’s nominee could shift the court to the left for the first time in decades. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has said the seat should remain vacant until Obama’s successor takes office in January so voters can have a say on the selection when they cast ballots in the November presidential election. Kirk wrote in a Chicago Sun-Times opinion piece that he recognized the right of any president to choose a Supreme Court nominee and he looked forward to Obama picking one for the Senate to consider for confirmation. “I also recognize my duty as a senator to either vote in support or opposition to that nominee following a fair and thorough hearing along with a complete and transparent release of all requested information,” Kirk added. Kirk, who holds Obama’s old Senate seat, said he hoped the president would pick a nominee “who can bridge differences, a nominee who finds common ground and a nominee who does not speak or act in the extreme.” Kirk’s stance illustrates that McConnell may have trouble keeping Senate Republicans fully united over filling Scalia’s seat. Some senators like Kirk are seeking re-election this year in states where Democrats are competitive. Collins, who is not facing re-election until 2020, said on Monday the Senate had an obligation to hold public hearings on Obama’s nominee. “The kind of thorough process that a hearing allows is the best way to evaluate a nominee,” Collins told reporters, according to the Hill newspaper. But it appeared unlikely that enough Republicans would peel away from McConnell to allow a vote on the Senate floor. Republican Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah said on Monday it was up to McConnell and Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley to decide whether to hold confirmation hearings. “I feel like we ought to put it off and get it out of this harsh atmosphere,” Hatch told reporters. | 0fake |
Pro-Houthi fighters call powerful Yemen ally 'evil', escalating feud | DUBAI (Reuters) - Fighters loyal to the armed Houthi movement on Wednesday decried as evil the group s main ally in Yemen s civil war, ex-president Ali Abdullah Saleh, widening an unusual public rift as they fight a Saudi-led coalition for control of the country. The Popular Committees , a body of rank and file pro-Houthi combatants, condemned Saleh s description of them in a speech as a militia, criticizing the former leader who remains one of Yemen s most powerful politicians and military figures. What (Saleh) said transgressed a red line and he could have only fallen into this because he s evil and void of every good, patriotic or religious characteristic, the collection of tribal and volunteer fighters said in a statement. The tactical alliance between Saleh and the Houthis has often appeared fragile, with both groups suspicious of each other s ultimate motives and sharing little ideological ground. While president, Saleh waged six wars against the Houthis from 2002 to 2009 and was for many years an ally of convenience for Saudi Arabia. Big switches of loyalty are a feature of Yemen s byzantine political landscape, particularly since 2011 Arab Spring unrest which led to Saleh s fall in 2012. A war of words has escalated in recent days between the Iran-allied Houthis and Saleh, who together run northern Yemen. The two factions have traded barbs on responsibility for challenges such as unemployment and mounting hunger after 2-1/2 years of fighting the internationally recognized government, based in the south and backed by the Saudi-led coalition. The alliance intervened in the civil war in 2015 to restore the government to power in the capital Sanaa. But the conflict, which has killed at least 10,000 people, is in stalemate. At least 30 people were killed in an air strike that hit a small hotel north of Sanaa on Wednesday, the Houthis said. The Saudi-led coalition has controlled Yemeni air space since the war began. Based in the southern port city of Aden, the government struggles to impose its writ over militias and armed groups there, but strife now looms for its northern foes. In a speech on Sunday, Saleh summoned party supporters to hold a mass rally in Sanaa on Aug. 24, a planned show of force that has deeply irritated the Houthis. Their leadership convened on Wednesday and recommended the announcement of a state of emergency and suspension of all party activity , telling Saleh s supporters any mass gatherings should be made on battlefronts, not in public squares. In comments that may deepen Houthi suspicions, the United Arab Emirates Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Anwar Gargash, spoke approvingly of the rift, saying it may represent an opportunity to break (Yemen s) political deadlock. | 0fake |
David Letterman: ’Makes Me Sick’ that Soulless ’Goon’ Trump is President | icon David Letterman says he’s sick knowing that President Donald Trump is representing America on the world stage. [“I’m disappointed that this man is representing me and my country,” Letterman said in an interview with GQ magazine this week. “It makes me sick. ” The former late night mainstay, who retired from CBS’ Late Show in 2015 after 33 years of hosting, said there is “no reason to regret” having Trump on his show as often as he did. “He was just a big, wealthy dope who’d come on and we would make fun of his hair. I would refer to him as a slumlord,” he said. One month before Election Day, Letterman called Trump a “damaged human being” who should be “shunned. ” In March, Letterman said the president is “insulting to America. ” Doubling down on personal insults, Letterman now says Trump is a soulless “goon. ” “But now, this goon … I don’t know,” the comedian told GQ. “He’s demonstrated himself to be a man without a core, a man without a soul. Is there a guy in there?” Acknowledging that he would like to interview Trump once more, Letterman said he just wants to ask the president a single question. “I would love to have 90 minutes with him in a TV studio, just to talk to the guy,” he said. “I would just like to say, ‘All right, Don: What the f*ck happened? ’” Follow Jerome Hudson on Twitter: @JeromeEHudson | 0fake |
OPEN SOCIETY: Soros-backed, Anti-Trump Immigration Protests ‘Sprung from Nowhere’ at Airports Across America | 21st Century Wire says This week a US presidential executive order temporarily restricted travelers and refugees from Syria, Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen from entering America. In response to the controversial order, a wave of anti-Trump flash mob protests emerged seemingly out of nowhere at New York s JFK Airport and other airports across the nation. Welcome to the brave new world of digital activism, driven by some of the world wealthiest men ENGINEERING CRISIS George Soros tied to protests over Trump s recent executive order concerning immigration. (Photo illustration 21WIRE s Shawn Helton)While the airport angst appeared to be an organic effort to reject Trump s executive order on immigration, it was revealed that the heavily organized protests were found to be tied to social movement billionaire financier George Soros. Participating groups included the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the National Immigration Law Center, the Urban Jusric Center, and Make The Road advocacy group, to name only a few are all funded by Soros front organizations led by his Open Society Foundation.The airport protests erupted just a week after a string of multi-million dollar Soros-linked/Democratic Party-affiliated NGO s organized what was dubbed a Women s March on Washington DC. The Soros-backed women s march was full of Hollywood celebrities in addition to a bevy of other speakers that included Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards, activist Gloria Steinem, filmmaker Michael Moore, as well as the convicted felon Donna Hylton, who took part in kidnapping and torturing a 62-year-old real-estate broker named Thomas Vigliarole, in a botched ransom plot from 1985.The recent airport protests and mainstream media reportage regarding the immigration based executive order prompted a response from President Donald Trump over the past 24 hours:Below will take a closer look at the main outline of the immigration based executive order, as another wave of Soros-backed political opposition has been triggered into action (Image Source: abcnews.com)Here are the key provisions of the immigration order outlined by the Trump administration:Whether or not someone supports the new US immigration order, it is strange that the list does not include other countries linked to state-sponsored terror such as Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Pakistan. From a security standpoint, by leaving out these terrorist-linked and terrorist sponsor countries Trump s executive order makes little sense.In a press release from February of 2016, The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) outlined travel orders similar to Trump s immigration EO based on the Terrorist Travel Prevention Act of 2015. Here s a passage of the DHS release discussing travel restrictions concerning the exact countries included in the Trump order: The Department of Homeland Security today announced that it is continuing its implementation of the Visa Waiver Program Improvement and Terrorist Travel Prevention Act of 2015 with the addition of Libya, Somalia, and Yemen as three countries of concern, limiting Visa Waiver Program travel for certain individuals who have traveled to these countries. Pursuant to the Act, the Secretary of Homeland Security had sixty days to determine whether additional countries or areas of concern should be subject to the travel or dual nationality restrictions under the Act. After careful consideration, and in consultation with the Director of National Intelligence and the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Homeland Security has determined that Libya, Somalia, and Yemen be included as countries of concern, specifically for individuals who have traveled to these countries since March 1, 2011. At this time, the restriction on Visa Waiver Program travel will not apply to dual nationals of these three countries. DHS continues to consult with the Department of State and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to develop further criteria to determine whether other countries would be added to this list. Last month, the United States began implementing changes under the Act. The three additional countries designated today join Iran, Iraq, Sudan and Syria as countries subject to restrictions for Visa Waiver Program travel for certain individuals. Under the new law, the Secretary of Homeland Security may waive these restrictions if he determines that such a waiver is in the law enforcement or national security interests of the United States. Such waivers will be granted only on a case-by-case basis. As a general matter, categories of travelers who may be eligible for a waiver include individuals who traveled to these countries on behalf of international organizations, regional organizations, and sub-national governments on official duty; on behalf of a humanitarian NGO on official duty; or as a journalist for reporting purposes. Additionally, under the Obama administration, during the Syrian refugee resettlement program US entrance for Iraqi refugees was halted for 6 months in 2011.Interestingly, several Soros-linked organizations led the charge following the detention of immigrant travelers at airports in America over this past weekend. The ACLU, and the immigration-advocacy group Make The Road, both Soros linked entities, were heavily involved in organizing political opposition concerning the Trump immigration order.In 2014, it was disclosed that George Soros s Open Society Foundations granted $50 million dollars to the ACLU. Additionally, a law suit filed by ACLU associated lawyers and The National Immigration Law Center led to a stay of President Trump s executive orders over the past 48 hours.Breitbart recently reported that the The National Immigration Law Center has received numerous Open Society grants earmarked for general support. RT reported the following on January 30th: Three more federal judges, along with a district judge, have issued rulings barring authorities from deporting people detained at US airports following President Donald Trump s executive order restricting entry to travelers from seven countries with Muslim-majorities. Whether in the flesh, social media or through mainstream TV, the populace is subject to various forms of hyperreal propaganda around the global in many ways this is being used to push certain political regime changes and party objectives through the use of deceptive color revolutions and their many incarnations.In a book from 2011 written by Susanne Elizabeth Shawyer entitled Radical Street Theatre and the Yippie Legacy: A Performance History of the Youth International Party, 1967 1968, we gain a clearer perspective of the term Smart Mobs and the nature of these cross-platform gatherings: The potential for ideological uses of flash mobs soon became clear by autumn 2003. Because of its original apolitical nature and network organization, the flash mob was easily appropriated for other means beyond random fun. Flash mobs were soon used for political or commercial end by those seeking to capitalize on the trendy cultural capital of flash mobs. Adding to that, Shawyer cites author social science critic Howard Rheingold, who penned a book entitled Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution in 2003 and continued to outline the nature of smart mobs: A smart mob may be composed of strangers who have no relationship to each other beyond their mutual connection to the network, yet this connection creates a virtual community and provides the opportunity for collective action. When looking at the smart mob phenomena concerning the recent anti-trump protests in America, we can see how a large block of people can become useful in spreading political or cultural memes.In addition, the blending of socially engineered political agitator mobs and color revolutions is becoming more and more imperceptible as any group-think meme can cause a sudden flash gathering for the cause of the day.Controversial filmmaker Michael Moore took to social media to rouse the masses, while acknowledging that the Soros-backed NGO MoveOn.org mobilized a protest directly outside of the White House . Debra Heine PJ MediaThe flurry of anguished news stories and protests surrounding President Trump s executive action temporarily suspending immigrants and non-immigrants from countries of particular concern appears to be part of a coordinated PR effort financed by left-wing billionaire George Soros.Rather than a complete Muslim ban as promised during the campaign, Trump s executive order contains moderate refugee restrictions, similar to those that have been implemented by President Obama. If reports are true that restrictions are being applied even to green-card holders, that is an unfortunate misapplication of the law that will likely soon be corrected.Protesters quickly materialized Saturday at JFK Airport, where some refugees were being temporarily detained.Who are these people? Make the Road is a NY-based far-left non-profit funded in part by George Soros.According to Breitbart s Aaron Klein, the signatories to the lawsuit filed Saturday to block Trump s executive order included immigration lawyers from groups financed by Soros.At least one case quickly prompted a legal challenge as lawyers representing two Iraqi refugees held at Kennedy International Airport in New York filed a motion early Saturday seeking to have their clients released. They also filed a motion for class certification, in an effort to represent all refugees and other immigrants who they said were being unlawfully detained at ports of entry.The suit was filed by lawyers from the International Refugee Assistance Project, the National Immigration Law Center, the Jerome N. Frank Legal Services Organization at Yale Law School, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), and the International Refugee Assistance Project (formerly Iraqi Refugee Assistance Project) at the Urban Justice Center.The ACLU is massively funded by Soros s Open Society Foundations, including with a $50 million grant in 2014.The National Immigration Law Center has received numerous Open Society grants earmarked for general support.The Urban Justice Center is also the recipient of an Open Society grant.Taryn Higashi, executive director of the Center s International Refugee Assistance Project, which is listed on the Trump lawsuit, currently serves on the Advisory Board of the International Migration Initiative of Soros s Open Society Foundations.Reportedly, open-borders advocate Soros has provided some $76 million for immigrant issues over the past decade, as Soros-funded immigrant rights groups helped influence President Obama s immigration policy.PJ Media continues here..READ MORE TRUMP NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire Trump FilesSUPPORT 21WIRE SUBSCRIBE & BECOME A MEMBER @21WIRE.TV | 1real |
Etihad advises checks with U.S. missions after new Trump order | DUBAI (Reuters) - Etihad Airways is advising some passengers to check with U.S. diplomatic missions before traveling after U.S. President Donald Trump signed a revised executive order banning visits by nationals of six Muslim-majority nations. Monday’s order, which takes effect on March 16, keeps a 90-day ban on travel to the U.S. by citizens of Iran, Libya, Syria, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen. It applies only to new visa applicants, meaning about 60,000 people whose visas were revoked by the previous order will now be permitted to enter. Etihad, based in the United Arab Emirates, said it was strongly encouraging nationals of the listed countries “to consult with their nearest United States embassy or consulate to ensure they are legally entitled to enter the United States.” Fellow UAE carrier Emirates said it was aware of the new order and would adhere to it.”Emirates will comply with the guidance provided to us by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection,” an airline spokeswoman said by email. The carrier was forced to reschedule flight crew on some U.S. flights to comply with the original ban. Trump’s original Jan. 27 executive order, suspended on Feb. 3, caused chaos and confusion at airports worldwide, with the airline industry complaining about a lack of clear and direct communication from U.S. officials. Hours before Monday’s order was signed, a Qatar Airways spokeswoman told Reuters it had not received guidance from the U.S. government about the new ban. | 0fake |
JUDGE JEANINE PIRRO: “We’re tired of being lectured to by the fat cats in Washington” [Video] | Next stop after BREXIT is the US! Judge Jeanine nails it and says we need to know the facts to fight this elitist agenda. We re tired of being lectured to by the fat cats in Washington . | 1real |
Inside ‘Bill Clinton Inc.’: Hacked memo reveals intersection of charity and personal income | Washington Post – by Rosalind S. Helderman and Tom Hamburger
When top Bill Clinton aide Douglas Band wrote the memo, he was a central player at the Clinton Foundation and president of his own corporate consulting firm. Over the course of 13 pages, he made a case that his multiple roles had served the interests of the Clinton family and its charity.
In doing so, Band also detailed a circle of enrichment in which he raised money for the Clinton Foundation from top-tier corporations such as Dow Chemical and Coca-Cola that were clients of his firm, Teneo, while pressing many of those same donors to provide personal income to the former president.
The system has drawn scrutiny from Republicans, who say it allowed corporations and other wealthy supporters to pay for entree to a popular former president and a onetime secretary of state who is now the Democratic presidential nominee.
Band wrote the memo in 2011 to foundation lawyers conducting a review of the organization amid a brewing feud with the Clintons’ daughter, Chelsea Clinton, who was taking a stronger role in leading the foundation and had expressed concerns about Teneo’s operations.
The memo, made public Wednesday by the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks, lays out the aggressive strategy behind lining up the consulting contracts and paid speaking engagements for Bill Clinton that added tens of millions of dollars to the family’s fortune, including during the years that Hillary Clinton led the State Department. It describes how Band helped run what he called “Bill Clinton Inc.,” obtaining “in-kind services for the President and his family — for personal travel, hospitality, vacation and the like.” Band and his Teneo co-founder, former Hillary Clinton fundraiser Declan Kelly, declined to comment. But Teneo issued a statement saying that “as the memo demonstrates, Teneo worked to encourage clients, where appropriate, to support the Clinton Foundation because of the good work that it does around the world. It also clearly shows that Teneo never received any financial benefit or benefit of any kind from doing so.”
Spokesmen for Bill Clinton and Chelsea Clinton and the foundation declined to comment.
Hillary Clinton campaign spokesman Glen Caplin declined to comment on the memo, calling the material “hacked by the Russian government and weaponized by WikiLeaks.” Caplin declined to authenticate the memo, but he also did not dispute it. Band, who grew close to Bill Clinton two decades ago as his personal aide in the White House and became the architect of his post-presidential activities, argued in the memo that he and his firm had benefited the former president and his foundation.
“We have dedicated ourselves to helping the President secure and engage in for-profit activities,” Band wrote. He also said he had “sought to leverage my activities, including my partner role at Teneo, to support and to raise funds for the foundation.”
Band’s memo provided data showing how much money each of Teneo’s 20 clients at the time had given to the Clinton Foundation, how much they had paid Bill Clinton and, in some cases, how he or Kelly had personally forged the relationships that resulted in the payments.
Band wrote that Teneo partners had raised in excess of $8 million for the foundation and $3 million in paid speaking fees for Bill Clinton. He said he had secured contracts for the former president that would pay out $66 million over the subsequent nine years if the deals remained in place.
For instance, Band wrote that Kelly arranged for the former president to meet the chief executive of Coca-Cola in January 2009 at the Clintons’ home in Washington. In all, according to Band’s memo, Coke had contributed $4.33 million to the foundation between 2004 and 2010.
A Coca-Cola spokesman said the company had supported the Clinton Foundation because it believed “in the great work that can be done when businesses, civil society and governments come together to solve problems.” He said Teneo had been hired to provide “business and communications” consulting.
Band also described how Kelly helped expand a fruitful relationship with UBS Global Wealth Management, introducing Bill Clinton to a top executive at a 2009 charity dinner. In the ensuing years, UBS upped its giving to the foundation, signed on as a Teneo client and agreed to pay Bill Clinton for speeches, Band wrote. Records show UBS paid Clinton about $2 million in speaking fees between 2011 and 2015 for a series of appearances, generally alongside former president George W. Bush. The company also paid Hillary Clinton $225,000 for a 2013 speech.
UBS declined to comment.
Another achievement cited by Band: Laureate International Universities, a chain of for-profit international colleges, which donated to the foundation and agreed to pay Bill Clinton $3.5 million a year to serve as honorary chancellor.
Clinton has credited Band with conceiving of the Clinton Global Initiative, the glitzy annual meeting where corporate, government and nonprofit leaders gathered annually to talk about the world’s problems. Started in 2005, CGI became the best-known arm of the Clinton Foundation, which also operated education, environmental and health programs around the world. The final CGI meeting took place last month .
By 2011, the longtime Clinton aide was ready to strike out on his own.
That’s when Band and Kelly joined forces to form Teneo. At first, the firm remained closely linked to the Clinton network.
Band described in the memo how he combined his work for CGI and Teneo. He wrote that he had used a hotel room upstairs from the 2011 CGI gathering to meet with Teneo clients. He also acknowledged giving free CGI memberships to “target Teneo clients” being cultivated as potential foundation donors. Memberships generally cost $20,000 a year.
Teneo, meanwhile, named Bill Clinton its “honorary chairman.” Clinton had been initially tapped for a three-year arrangement in which he would provide advice to Teneo “regarding geopolitical, economic and social trends,” according to a separate June 2011 memo that Band wrote to the State Department seeking ethics approval for the former president’s employment.
Bill Clinton was initially paid $2 million by Teneo, according to “Man of the World,” a book written with the former president’s participation by author Joe Conason.
But Chelsea Clinton grew concerned when news leaked in late 2011 that MF Global, the hedge fund owned by former New Jersey governor Jon Corzine, had been paying the Clinton-tied firm $125,000 a month just before MF Global went bankrupt. According to emails released by WikiLeaks, Chelsea Clinton complained in December 2011 to longtime Clinton aide John Podesta, who at the time was serving as an adviser to the Clinton Foundation, that she had been informed that a member of her father’s office staff who answered to Band had been making calls to British lawmakers “on behalf of President Clinton” for Teneo clients, particularly for the chief executive of Dow Chemical.
Chelsea Clinton wrote that the calls were occurring without her father’s knowledge and that the reactions she was hearing to them would “horrify” Bill Clinton. In another email, she wrote she feared Teneo was “hustling business at CGI.” Chelsea Clinton’s concerns helped spark efforts at the foundation to adopt new policies governing outside consulting agreements designed to erect a more solid wall between Bill Clinton’s private and charitable activities. Emails show that Cheryl Mills, who at the time was serving as Hillary Clinton’s chief of staff at the State Department, was deeply involved in the foundation’s proceedings.
Bill Clinton also separated from Teneo, returning to the company all but $100,000 of the money he had been paid, tax returns show.
Emails show how the dispute between Chelsea Clinton and her father’s longtime aide led to personal hostility.
“I don’t deserve this from her and deserve a tad more respect or at least a direct dialogue for me to explain these things,” Band wrote to Podesta at the time. “She is acting like a spoiled brat kid who has nothing else to do but create issues to justify what she’s doing because she, as she has said, hasn’t found her way and has a lack of focus in her life.”
Band complained that no similar scrutiny was being applied to Bill Clinton himself. Band noted that he had previously signed a conflict of interest document for CGI.
“Oddly, WJC does not have to sign such a document even though he is personally paid by 3 cgi sponsors, gets many expensive gifts from them, some that are at home etc.,” he wrote.
The Band memo disclosed by WikiLeaks on Wednesday made no direct reference to Hillary Clinton.
But Band outlined that Kelly, his Teneo co-founder, had served simultaneously between 2009 and 2011 as an unpaid economic envoy to Northern Ireland appointed by then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and as head of a separate consulting company whose clients included Coke, UBS and Dow. Band wrote that the arrangement was consistent with Kelly’s State Department ethics agreement.
Kelly’s multiple roles came together during one State Department event in 2010, when then-Secretary Clinton recognized Dow, among other companies, for creating jobs in Northern Ireland and thanked Kelly for his work on the issue.
Dow became one of Teneo’s first major clients. According to Band’s memo, Dow chief executive Andrew Liveris had been introduced to Bill Clinton over a round of golf with Kelly in August 2009.
The company then increased its Clinton Foundation support, contributing $705,000 in 2010 and 2011. A Dow spokeswoman said that the company’s participation in the foundation dated to 2007 and that the charity was “aligned to core business and citizenship strategies that have positively leveraged the resources and capabilities of our company.”
Dow paid Teneo $2.8 million in 2011, payments that then jumped to $19.4 million in 2012, according to internal Dow documents made public as part of a whistleblower complaint. The company later said in public filings that the increase reflected a cost-saving decision to consolidate several consulting contracts with one firm. But the spike raised red flags for an internal company fraud investigator, who expressed alarm that it may be linked to Bill Clinton’s work with a charity founded by Liveris — a charge the company denied.
“It appears Dow is paying Teneo for connections with Clinton,” the investigator wrote.
Anu Narayanswamy and Alice Crites contributed to this report. | 1real |
FAMILY OF S.C. SHOOTING VICTIM HAS A MESSAGE FOR AL SHARPTON And He’s Not Gonna Like It… | Poor little Al if he s not race baiting, he s hanging out with our President at the White House just waiting for the next white on black injustice. Heck if we didn t know better, we d almost think he enjoys being in front of the camera holding up the grieving parents but that would be so so insincere Stay away, Rev. Al. We don t want another Ferguson type of circus here, a source close to the Scott family told The Daily News.That was the message from the family of South Carolina police shooting victim Walter Scott to the civil rights activist Thursday two days before the funeral for the slain father of four.That was a reference to the Missouri town that was rocked by violent demonstrations last year after black teen Michael Brown was killed by a white cop.Sharpton gave a rousing speech at the 18-year-old s funeral, which was attended by thousands.Scott family attorney Chris Stewart said they appreciate Sharpton s support but the funeral is only going to be close family members. Via: NY Daily News | 1real |
BREAKING: Explosive Russian Dossier Deemed Reliable Enough For FBI To Obtain FISA Warrant | Remember that explosive Russian dossier from a few months that revealed Donald Trump s collusion with Moscow and affinity for pee pee parties? At the time, the document (supposedly written by a British spy) was considered too questionable to be believed. But now, it appears that at the dossier may be more legitimate than originally thought.CNN reported on Tuesday that the FBI deemed the Russian dossier reliable enough to obtain a FISA warrant against Trump aide, Carter Page. Sources added that FBI Director James Comey had also used the document to bolster [the FBI s] investigation during his testimony to Congress.According to CNN, the dossier alleges that Page met senior Russian officials as an emissary of the Trump campaign, and discussed quid-pro-quo deals relating to sanctions, business opportunities and Russia s interference in the election. CNN REPORTING JUST NOW: FBI used dossier of alleged Russian ties to Trump s campaign as part of the justification to get FISA approval. /1 Marshall Cohen (@Marshall_Cohen) April 18, 2017The FISA was to monitor the communications of Carter Page, who was a foreign policy adviser to the Trump campaign at the time. /2 Marshall Cohen (@Marshall_Cohen) April 18, 2017Page s trip to Russia in July 2016 drew the FBI s attention and raised concerns of his contacts with suspected Russian operatives. /3 Marshall Cohen (@Marshall_Cohen) April 18, 2017Page tells CNN he will sue Obama admin. officials for civil rights violations. (Remember: He asked Comey to investigate this.) /4 Marshall Cohen (@Marshall_Cohen) April 18, 2017So the FBI used the dossier as part of its justification to get Page FISA. Even though FBI has distanced itself from the dossier lately. /5 Marshall Cohen (@Marshall_Cohen) April 18, 2017As CNN points out, the fact that the FBI used the dossier to obtain a FISA warrant means that they believe at least parts of it are true. Officials familiar with the process say even if the application to monitor Page included information from the dossier, it would only be after the FBI had corroborated the information through its own investigation, noted the network.Featured image via Olivier Douliery-Pool/Getty Images | 1real |
American Liar: Wingnut Icon Chris Kyle Wasn’t The Hero He Made Himself Out To Be | There s nobody your standard issue right-wing nutjob loves more than Chris Kyle. His story is the stuff of ammosexual dreams. Not only did he join the military to go fight terrorists, he scored more kills than anyone in Iraq. He also told some blatantly fictitious stories about things he did here at home, but his military career? Not even those darned lefties who think glorifying killing women and children for any reason is wrong could deny what s written in black and white. Ultimately, it seems, it s those same records that will cheapen the legacy of Chris Kyle.An investigation by The Intercept reveals that while Kyle does have a remarkable military record, it wasn t enough for his ego. In his book, American Sniper, Kyle said: All told I would end my career as a SEAL with two Silver Stars and five Bronze [Stars], all for valor. That s awfully impressive. Unfortunately, it s a lie. According to internal Navy documents, Chris Kyle received one Silver Star and three Bronze Stars. Why anyone would need to embellish a career already that impressive is truly baffling, but Kyle did. Is it really that big of a deal, though? So the guy told a little fibsky what s the harm in that? Apparently, when it comes to Navy SEALS and valor, there is little that is worse. According to The Intercept:Kyle was warned at least once before American Sniper was published that its description of his medal count was wrong, according to one current Navy officer, who asked not to be identified because he was not authorized to speak about the case. As Kyle s American Sniper manuscript was distributed among SEALs, one of his former commanders, who was still on active duty, advised Kyle that his claim of having two Silver Stars was false, and he should correct it before his book was published.Current and former Navy SEALs interviewed for this article, who agreed to speak on background because they feared being shunned by their close-knit community, did not dispute Kyle s heroism in combat, but saw the inflation of his medal count as significant because they consider battlefield embellishments to be dishonorable.Not only did Kyle lie, he was called on it. It may have been one thing if he could have claimed he thought he had medals or that, aw, gee there were so many I got mixed up, but that time came and went. Not only do Kyle s lies about shooting looters after Katrina or killing carjackers with his 2nd Amendment now get the pants on fire rating his military career is now in question as well. Who is to say that he didn t embellish other things? The man was obviously constitutionally incapable of telling the truth.Maybe it s a good thing. Maybe a few fewer women and children met their end with what Kyle called 180 grains of justice. Featured image by the Fort Worth Star-Telegram/Getty Images | 1real |
Kuwait court sentences MPs to jail terms for storming into parliament | KUWAIT (Reuters) - A Kuwaiti court handed several lawmakers jail terms on Monday for forcing their way into the parliament building in 2011 - a move that could cause political turbulence in the Gulf Arab region s most liberal state. Protesters burst into parliament in 2011 after lawmakers had been denied the right to question then prime minister Sheikh Nasser al-Mohammad al-Sabah about corruption allegations. Kuwait s al-Qabas newspaper said the court sentenced current MPs Jamaan al-Harbash and Waleed al-Tabtabai to five years and MP Mohammed al-Mutair to one year. An outspoken former parliament deputy, Musallam al-Barrak, who earlier this year finished serving a two-year prison sentence for insulting the country s ruler, was sentenced to seven years. The MPs have a considerable political following, especially among Kuwait s traditional tribes which have influence in areas outside the main cities. Kuwait avoided mass Arab Spring-style unrest though citizens held large street protests in 2012 after the Emir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber al-Sabah changed the electoral law. While Kuwait allows more freedom of speech than some other Gulf Arab states, the emir has the last say in state affairs. There have been a series of political trials and authorities have revoked citizenship of some Kuwaitis in the past several years that have drawn rebuke abroad and anger at home. | 0fake |
Newt Gingrich Attempted To Stiff Small Businesses, FEC Shot Him Down | Newt Gingrich, former House Speaker and now Trump-surrogate, apparently pulled a page out of the Republican presidential nominee s playbook when he attempted to stiff over 144 businesses (including dozens of small businesses) who helped him with his 2012 failed presidential campaign.Gingrich, who owes over $4 million in campaign debt, recently filed documents with the Federal Elections Commission to effectively detail a debt settlement that would end his presidential election committee, thus allowing him to escape paying the millions back to creditors and consultants who helped his campaign.Many of these small businesses manufactured lawn signs and organized TV spots for the Republican candidate, who four years later would be runner-up on Donald Trump s V.P. slot.Luckily the FEC wasn t having any of it rejected Gingrich s debt settlement, saying that his plan does not meet the requirement under federal election law because it contains no debt settlement agreements and must continue to file all required reports. So instead of the FEC taking action right now, Gingrich will have to complete the entire process of debt settlement plan procedures.Gingrich, who is worth anywhere between $7 to $30 million, has some nerve stiffing small business owners when they poured their resources into his failed presidential campaign. Perhaps this is why Trump didn t pick him: they both have gotten flak for stiffing honest, hardworking business owners.It s time Republicans take responsibility for their actions and pay their debts. While busy running small businesses into the ground, they have the gall to stand up on stages and podiums and proclaim to be saviors of small businesses.So many people have been hurt at the hands of Republicans, it s hard to keep track. But this election has shown the American people one thing: Republicans do not pay back their debts, and they will crush anyone to save a buck.Hopefully, the FEC denied Gingrich again and forces him to pay back his debts to those who helped him. If he were an honest conservative (fiscal responsibility?), this wouldn t even be an issue in the first place.Featured image via John Moore/Getty Images | 1real |
China's media calls Trump's withdrawal from Paris accord 'global setback' | SHANGHAI (Reuters) - China’s state news agency Xinhua described U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris climate accord as a “global setback” and rejected Trump’s claim that it would lead to many more jobs in America. In a commentary published on Friday, Xinhua suggested that no one country was now likely take up leadership of global efforts to fight climate change. China overtook the United States as the world’s biggest emitter of greenhouse gases in 2007 but analysts see the U.S. withdrawal as an opportunity for China to burnish its image as a global leader. “Trump’s decision to ditch the Paris deal will leave a fairly big shoe for a single country to fill,” Xinhua said, adding that major players such as China, the European Union and India had reiterated their willingness to step up efforts. Leaving the 2015 Paris accord would hardly translate into a substantial increase in new jobs as the fossil fuel industries were highly automated, Xinhua said. Noting that Trump said he had had “extensive discussions” with people on both sides of the climate debate, it said: “One can only assume that Trump has very good reasons to leave the Paris agreement, and that he knows the implications of U.S. retreat from the landmark deal”. Trump, tapping into the “America First” message he used when he was elected president last year, said the Paris accord would undermine the U.S. economy, cost U.S. jobs, weaken American national sovereignty and put the country at a permanent disadvantage to other countries such as China. The Global Times, an influential state-run tabloid, said in an editorial published on Thursday before Trump’s announcement that China was not interested in discussions about the leadership of fighting climate change and would focus on its own promises to reduce emissions. It called the withdrawal “reckless” and would “waste increasingly finite U.S. diplomatic resources.” “There are indeed some underprivileged people in the U.S, but their troubles are mainly caused by bad internal governance. Seeking external reasons for domestic woes is by no means what the world’s largest economy should do,” it said. | 0fake |
Brazil Congress advances bill to curb party proliferation | BRASILIA (Reuters) - Brazil s lower house of Congress on Tuesday gave initial approval to a bill to reduce the huge array of political parties that have made it hard to govern the country and contributed to corruption. The chamber voted 384-16 for the establishment of a minimum national vote threshold that parties must reach to get public funding and free radio and television time for their election campaigns. The requirement would be 1.5 percent of votes in 2018, rising to 3 percent in 2030. The constitutional amendment must be approved twice in each chamber of Congress by Oct. 7 to apply in next year s general elections. The proliferation of parties has forced Brazilian governments to forge unwieldy coalitions to stay in power by distributing jobs, influence and pork barrel spending, which critics say has provided fertile ground for graft. Small parties facing extinction opposed the vote threshold, which they said would favor larger established parties and hinder renewal of Brazil s scandal-plagued political class. The amendment also seeks to do away with the loose, ad hoc coalitions that parties often form on an election-by-election basis, regardless of ideology or platform. Brazil currently has 35 political parties, 28 of which are represented in Congress. One of them, the Brazilian Women s Party, has only one federal lawmaker, who is a man. Brazil s public funding model has encouraged the founding of new parties, several of them with no clear platforms. There are currently 67 requests to register new parties, according to Brazil s top electoral court. A sweeping three-year-old probe of endemic corruption in Brazil has uncovered a web of political bribes and kickbacks implicating dozens of politicians, including President Michel Temer and a quarter of his cabinet. Next week lawmakers will vote on a separate amendment creating a new fund of taxpayer money to finance campaigns. That amendment would also replace a system of party lists to elect congressmen with races in which individual candidates with the most votes would win office. | 0fake |
House Dems Erupt On House Floor, Publicly Shame Speaker Ryan Over Gun Laws | Last month, House Democrats publicly shamed their Republican colleagues on the floor when leadership (at the last minute) whipped up enough votes and shot down a provision that would have protected LGBT citizens from discrimination.Yesterday, House Democrats did the same thing this time to House Speaker Paul Ryan, and this time over gun legislation. Responding to the Republican s crocodile tears over the Orlando shooting, Democrats shouted, where s the bill, over and over again after observing a moment of silence for those killed on Sunday.Wearing rainbow ribbons on their lapels, Democrats resisted Speaker Ryan s gavel being ferociously banged.In the House, South Carolina Representative Jim Clyburn, the only Democrat from the state, called on the cowards in the Republican caucus to adopt three no-brainer measures aimed at improving America s epidemic of gun violence: closing the Charleston Loophole; banning those on a terrorist watch list from obtaining a gun; and banning those convicted of a hate crime from obtaining a gun.Three simple solutions which, had they been enacted when first proposed, could have saved over a hundred lives.But instead of passing meaningful legislation that could literally save lives, the GOP decided a moment of silence was the only thing on the agenda. Yesterday s moment of silence was the 11th in the last year and a half and won t be the last.Clyburn blasted the moment of silence, saying We just think having moments of silence every time something like this happens rather than fashioning some response to what maybe the causes of it is a problem. Thankfully, Democrats mustered up the backbone to call them out, but instead of facing the music, Paul Ryan walked out, dodging reporters and angry Democrats.Calling the Republicans tone deaf, Rep. William Clay of Missouri lambasted the GOP for turning their backs on American s safety, pointing out that The American people are crying out for commonsense solutions and common-sense gun legislation. Watch the exchange here via CNN:Featured image via Alex Wong/Getty Images | 1real |
Event 'consistent with an explosion' detected near missing Argentine sub-navy | BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) - An abnormal sound detected in the South Atlantic ocean around the time that an Argentine navy submarine sent its last signal last week was consistent with an explosion, a navy spokesman said on Thursday. Spokesman Enrique Balbi described the blast in the morning of Nov. 15 as abnormal, singular, short, violent and non-nuclear. A huge sea and air hunt is being conducted for the ARA San Juan, which went missing with 44 crew on board. | 0fake |
APOLOGY ISSUED After LA TIMES and NY TIMES Columnists Go After #SarahSanders: Mock Her Weight And Southern Accent | Wow! What a couple of hypocrites and haters! We ve included contact info for the two male liberal columnists below so you can let them know how tacky and disgraceful they are for mocking Sarah Sanders.UPDATE: HORSEY ISSUED AN APOLOGY AFTER BACKLASH BUT HIS CARTOON IS STILL IN THE ARTICLE! I want to apologize to Times readers and to Sarah Huckabee Sanders for a description that was insensitive and failed to meet the standards of our newspaper. It also failed to meet the expectations I have for myself. It surely won t be my last mistake, but this particular error will be scrupulously avoided in my future commentaries. I ve removed the offending description. David HorseySHE MUST BE GETTING UNDER THEIR SKIN:Two male, liberal columnists this week launched personal attacks against White House press secretary Sarah Sanders.DAVID HORSEY OF LA TIMES:Los Angeles Times columnist David Horsey mocked Sanders appearance (he later deleted this part), saying she looks more like a slightly chunky soccer mom who organizes snacks for the kids games. Rather than the fake eyelashes and formal dresses she puts on for news briefings, Sanders seems as if she d be more comfortable in sweats and running shoes, Horsey wrote on Wednesday. Yet, even if Trump privately wishes he had a supermodel for a press secretary, he is lucky to have Sanders. He s also a cartoonist. This horrible cartoon of Sanders is with the article: BIG MOTHER ???Please contact Horsey on twitter to let him know what a total jerk he is to mock a woman like this: David Horsey TwitterNY TIMES BASHES SANDERS TOO:Another columnist, the New York Times Frank Bruni, similarly went out of his way on Friday to bash Sanders for her personal characteristics, in this case her way of speaking.Bruni wrote that Sanders is serving a function other than communication, which turns out not to be her forte. To listen to her pronounce priorities is akin to hearing the air seep out of a flat tire, and she leaves half of the consonants on the curb, Bruni added parenthetically, mocking Sanders for her Southern accent.Bruni calls Sanders a phony: She s a bogus message to Middle America that Trump s White House is really a homespun, family-values kind of places. Please contact Bruni on twitter: Frank Bruni TwitterNice try, but Sanders is as real as they come. THAT S what bothers these two so-called journalists who just did a hit piece on a woman for her looks and her Southern accent NOT for the job she s doing as press secretary. Is this all they ve got? Nice try boys, we re even bigger fans now of this imperfect (who is perfect?) but incredible woman who stepped in and is hitting a home run for the Trump team Go Sarah! You got this!VIA: DAILY CALLER | 1real |
Trump’s Approval Rating Takes Game-Changing Turn In 11 Pro-Trump States (DETAILS) | Donald Trump s approval rating continues to plummet in its downward spiral, and it seems to be getting lower by the week. The latest bad news for the man baby in the White House will be that more Americans disapprove of Trump s job performance than approve in 31 states across the country. Here s the real kicker this includes 11 states that he d actually won in November!It turns out, not even Trump s most supportive audiences are willing to stand by him after watching him try to burn our country to the ground on a weekly basis. The states that have changed their minds about Trump include Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan and Florida, Ohio, Iowa, North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona and two states that shocked everyone Indiana and Texas.You can check out how the states are rating Trump below:Trump has been setting records left and right during his presidency and almost 100% of it is negative. Over the last three months, Gallup noted that the disgraceful POTUS approval rating (39 percent) has set records lows for a president in his second quarter.When many of those states might have supported Trump last year, it seems they re running in the opposite direction now. In Texas and Indiana, there is now a major difference between the states approval of Trump in November, and how the American people feel about him now. For example, in Indiana (where Vice President Mike Pence hails from), Trump had won that state by 19 points in November. Less than a year later, he is now one point underwater. In Texas, Trump had won by nine points last year. Now, he s nine points under in that state.This is not looking good for Trump at all, as he is consistently failing in each of these once pro-Trump states:What this tells us is that even Trump s supporters are getting tired of his bullsh*t and are regretful that they didn t put their vote behind a real presidential candidate. Any Republican who wanted to give Trump the benefit of the doubt is certainly having second thoughts now.To a normal leader, this would be devastating. Any respectable president would be panicking and consumed with how they are going to turn this around. But not Trump! Last week, Trump said that his ridiculously low approval rating of almost 40 percent was not bad at this time even though he d set a record low.Featured image via Win McNamee/Getty Images | 1real |
“Scary Stories In 5 Words” are terrifying tales for people short on time | Next Prev Swipe left/right “Scary Stories In 5 Words” are terrifying tales for people short on time Want to read something scary this Halloween but don’t have enough time for an actual book? Then the #ScaryStoriesIn5Words is just for you. Here are twelve of the spookiest.
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— Steven Deng (@stevendengg) October 28, 2016
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What Is To Be Done? | What Is To Be Done? How to build a new anti-interventionist movement Share This
In the midst of an election in which the issues are largely ignored in favor of sensationalism and smears, the anti-interventionist voter is pretty much at sea. Hillary Clinton’s demagogic Russia-baiting of Trump as a Kremlin “puppet” augurs a foreign policy that will take us back to the arctic winter of the cold war, circa 1950 . On the other hand, the GOP nominee, for all his encouraging “America first” rhetoric and his stated unwillingness to get into another arms race with the former Soviet Union, would likely take us into other quagmires – ISIS, China, Iran – and, in any event, cannot be trusted.
So what is to be done?
The first thing is to disabuse yourself of the notion that any politician or political party currently prominent will magically get us out of the business of Empire. This isn’t to say that political action is wrong, or ineffective – far from it. What I’m saying is that it is up to us to build a movement out of which a new politics of peace and liberty can be nurtured and brought to maturity.
Our second task is to take stock of our assets: what kind of shape is the anti-interventionist movement in, and what are our prospects for future growth?
The first part of that question is easily answered: there is no anti-interventionist movement, as such, and there hasn’t been for quite some time. Oh sure, there are scattered organizations and individuals with a public platform, but none of these have a truly national presence.
Yes, Antiwar.com is one such voice with not insignificant reach, but we aren’t an organization – we’re a web site. We don’t have chapters, support groups, members, etc., and have quite deliberately avoided setting up any such network for the simple reason that we don’t have the resources to do so. Every movement has different components that specialize in various functions, and our specialty is education. That is, we give our readers the information they need in order to understand the problem, but as far as acting to eliminate the problem – that’s a mission we must leave to others.
The big problem is that there are no “others” – no action groups, no lobbyists, no real grassroots organizations that can respond to events as they occur, and mobilize the public against the War Party. The “movement,” such as it is, is top-heavy with thinktanks – the Cato Institute, the Center for the National Interest, the Ron Paul Institute , and the newly-organized student-oriented John Quincy Adams Society come to mind – and sorely lacking at the grassroots: essentially, a head with no body.
This isn’t because there is no potential for such a grassroots movement: indeed, the objective conditions are ripe – I would say over ripe – for such an undertaking. Polls consistently show that the American people are increasingly skeptical – and that is really too weak a word – of foreign entanglements, and basically endorse a foreign policy of minding our own business. This sentiment is one major – and deliberately overlooked – aspect of the populist “resentment” that catapulted Trump to the top of the GOP ticket and upended the political prognostications of the “experts.” The idea of putting America first – instead of, say, Europe, or the Saudis, or whichever country we’re supposedly ‘liberating” at great cost – has visceral appeal to ordinary Americans.
The astonishing fact of the matter is that, a few short years ago, the GOP was the spearhead of the War Party, with militant neoconservatives at its head – and is, today, the party of a man who said we were lied into the Iraq war, who wants to basically dismantle NATO, and who has adopted “America First” – a slogan resonant with historical meaning – as his campaign theme.
When I was a kid I used to play a game with a good friend of mine: what would we do if we had a million dollars? Of course, I’m really dating myself, because today, of course, a million dollars is chump change. In any case, this column is basically a reiteration of that game: what would I do if I had the resources to organize a real grassroots anti-interventionist movement?
Well, the very first thing I would do is to organize those millions of Trump voters attracted to his banner for precisely the reason the neocons and the foreign policy “experts” disdain him. Item number one on my agenda would be creating a grassroots America First movement, one with the following three components:
The America First Action (AFA) groups – the function of this organization is implied in its name. Its mission would be to respond to every move by the War Party to involve us in some foreign war by rapidly mobilizing people against it. At the first indication that such a move was in the works, congressional phone lines would be ringing off the hook with howls of protest. This is what happened when President Obama announced he was going to bomb Syria – and it worked , with very little central direction. Aside from telephonic harassment of congressional warmongers, AFA would organize meetings, rallies, lecture tours, media appearances, Internet trolling (my favorite!), and every other form of public activity, always focused like a laser on the War Party’s latest scheme.
The America First Political Action Committee – the electoral arm of the America First movement, AFPAC would help candidates from any and all political parties who oppose foreign wars and entangling alliances. This is one of our greatest weaknesses: currently, the War Party’s tame politicians are well-rewarded for their labors, while pro-peace candidates are routinely punished financially. The military-industrial-congressional complex takes care of its own – we must do the same. Yes, the war profiteers have tremendous resources but we can best them at their own game by appealing to the millions of Americans who are sick and tired of perpetual war.
The America First Lobby – while a different name would probably be best, I’m calling it a lobby because that is precisely its function. While practically every foreign government on earth has a Washington-based lobby, which meets with government officials and presses its case for more “foreign aid,” and often direct military intervention on their behalf – the American people have no such organization, no lobby to pursue and defend their interests. I would take as my model AIPAC, the notoriously powerful pro-Israel lobby, which practically storms Capitol Hill every time Bibi Netanyahu gives the signal. If only anti-interventionist Americans would do the same every time war clouds gather on the horizon, we would put an end to our foreign policy of constant warfare once and for all.
These three components of a newly constituted America First movement would be supplemented by subsidiary groups targeting specific constituencies. First and foremost, what’s needed is a student affiliate – it’s been a long time since we’ve heard “Hell no, we won’t go!” on the nation’s campuses. And what about abolishing draft registration? Hillary Clinton wants to force women to register for the draft – why isn’t this horrific proposal roiling the student bodies of universities and high schools across the country?
African-Americans suffer from our foreign policy of global intervention much more than most others: they are, too often, the cannon fodder that feeds the war machine, and if they return they come home to an economy drained by the diversion of vital resources toward war-making and away from productive job-creating and wealth-creating investment.
Racial minorities, women, rural communities – all these groups suffer inordinately as a consequence of an internationalist elite that sacrifices our sons and daughters on the altar of the war god. They can and must be won over to the cause of peace.
Such a movement isn’t a pipedream. It can be born – and it can prosper to the extent that it organizes itself according to a strategic vision that unites people of various political persuasions around a single issue – intransigent opposition to military intervention abroad.
“Peace” movements launched by the left have failed because they took a multi-issue approach: each and every leftist hobbyhorse was invoked to the point where the central issue – war and peace – was overshadowed. The organizers of these efforts, which have fallen by the wayside by the dozen, thought they were organizing a political party, which is why these movements never got off the ground. The one time they did manage to achieve some success – the antiwar protests of the 1960s – was when they junked the multi-issue approach, and focused on the single issue of getting us out of Vietnam.
The potential is there for such a movement today – but only if we cast aside our preconceptions and prejudices, and work to bring together elements that would naturally tend to split apart. Libertarians and Trumpists, Bernie Sanders supporters and “isolationist” conservatives, students at elite universities and rural folks who object to being used as cannon fodder – all must be united in a common cause to put America first, and rid ourselves of the albatross of empire.
It can be done. It must be done. But will it be done? I can’t answer that question: what I can say is that you, my readers, have the power to do it. Now, if only you have the will….
NOTES IN THE MARGIN
You can check out my Twitter feed by going here . But please note that my tweets are sometimes deliberately provocative, often made in jest, and largely consist of me thinking out loud.
You can buy An Enemy of the State: The Life of Murray N. Rothbard (Prometheus Books, 2000), my biography of the great libertarian thinker, here . Read more by Justin Raimondo | 1real |
ITALIAN CATHOLICS TOLD TO “PRAY SILENTLY” So As Not To “Offend” Muslim Refugees Living In Church [VIDEO] | Italian Catholics are essentially being told to pray silently (hide their religious convictions) to avoid offending anyone, while Muslims are living free of charge in their church? I can t be the only Catholic who has a problem with this Parishioners in the Italian parish of St. Anthony in Ventimiglia, a small town in northwestern Italy about four miles from the border of France, were ordered Saturday by a Catholic aid organization volunteer to pray the Rosary silently so the Muslim migrants living in the church would not be offended.With a population of about 55,000, Ventimiglia has been overwhelmed by Muslim migrants, receiving over 50 every day, many of which are housed in Catholic churches.ANSA reports a parishioner snapped back at the volunteer, telling him to bring migrants into another church. The parish priest, Don Rito, instead took the parishioners to another church close by where they could pray out loud.Migrants have been pouring into the little town on their way to France and locals feel overwhelmed. The mayor of Ventimiglia, Enrico Ioculano, said the situation is untenable. But the Italian government and Caritas seem to do little to help the burden; already in the first five months of 2016 it has cost the town 220,000, less than half of which will be funded by the government.Caritas is also doing little to allay the town s burden. While it helps migrants who want to file for refugee status, saying they have a special channel, in March the local director said the organization can only afford to provide for a few days those who are passing through, whether they stay for a day or weeks.The Lepanto Institute describes Caritas Internationalis as a confederation of 165 Catholic relief, development and social service organizations operating in over 200 countries and territories worldwide.It has been exposed by the American Life League as being part of the Marxist organization the World Social Forum, promoting communism, abortion, and homosexuality throughout the world.WATCH HERE:Via: Church Militant | 1real |
‘Prepare To Kill’: Conservative Trump Fan Declares Open Season On Anyone Who Punches Nazis (VIDEO) | If you have not yet heard, another Nazi got punched. Noted racist and anti-Semitic conservative radio host Michael Savage was leaving a San Fransisco Bay area restaurant on Tuesday night when a man approached him and began making fun of his strangely appropriate legal last name, Weiner. It is unclear what happened next the attacker says that Savage shoved him first while Savage says the opposite, but in the end, the pro-Trump radio host ended up on the ground. Savage says that another man attempted to intervene, but was punched in the face by the unnamed attacker. According to Savage s story, he was able to get up while being attacked and help the man who had just gotten punched while simultaneously calling the police and his lawyer (quite a feat while he is the victim of a vicious attack, huh?).Both men, neither of whom were hurt in the scuffle, stayed at the scene to give statements to police. Savage s lawyer says that he is investigating if a hate crime was committed because Savage s hateful views may have contributed to the attack.But if you listen to conservatives tell the story, Savage was viciously beaten by a hateful and violent liberal (the attacker s political affiliation is unknown) who refuses to tolerate right-wing viewpoints like that people in Chicago are ghetto slime, that non-white nations are Turd-World countries, that Jewish people are hook-nosed, and other views regularly espoused by the terrible people who support Donald Trump.One rabid Trump supporter, James Stachowiak you may remember him as the guy who made headlines when he said that black protesters (especially women and children) should be shot in the backs and that Hillary Clinton s place is in front of a firing squad says that Savage was beaten and bloodied in this attack. His solution, of course, is a bloodbath. Well people, I have the solution if you re approached by a group of people like they did to Mike Savage, Stachowiak says in the video he filmed while driving. He then fumbles around in his pants for a moment and pulls out a gun once again, while driving. And here s my solution. It s time to start capping these bastards, Stachowiak says. Lethal force, people. Lethal force. Prepare to kill in defense of your free speech and the way you believe. Every one of the people who attacked Mike Savage needs to be hunted down and taken out vigilante-style, Stachowiak says. That s right, I m condoning the killing of the people who attacked Mike Savage. While violence is never the answer, let s put this in context: a single person allegedly shoved Mr. Savage, so Stachowiak thinks the solution is to round up a posse and murder him (the single individual that Mr. Stachowiak says was a gang of violent liberals).This is the mindset of the common Trump supporter: shoot first, whether it s warranted or not, because no liberal life is more valuable than whatever passes for dignity to these folks. Watch Stachowiak s violent threats below:Featured image via screengrab | 1real |
NOT KIDDING: ARIZONA NEWSPAPER Concerned Border Fence Too High For Illegals To Cross Safely | When the fence keeps them from making it to the polls, the Democrats start complaining A mainstream Arizona newspaper is decrying the small section of the Arizona-Mexico border that has a 14-foot-high primary fence because it is too high for illegal immigrants to safely cross. The article, Border Fence Jumpers Breaking Bones, includes the claim that sections of the border with a 14-foot-high fence are as tall as a two or three-story house and tells the stories of several women who broke bones and were treated extensively to healthcare and surgeries at the expense of U.S. taxpayers. The writer never mentions any lives directly lost as a result of there not being a border fence in most sections, such as when Mexican nationals crossed into the U.S. and murdered father and husband Robert Rosas, a U.S. Border Patrol agent.The article in question was written by Perla Trevizo for the Arizona Daily Star. In the excerpt below, note the section s subtitle and the casual mention that the foreign woman had been deported multiple times prior:A DREAM ENDSFor some, the fence is a last resort.Maria Ibarra, 28 and also from Oaxaca, had tried crossing through Nogales and El Paso in April, but both times she was sent back to Mexico.This time she was determined to get through. She left her 10-year-old son with her parents in Oaxaca. He was born in South Carolina, where she lived for two years before going back to Mexico in 2006 so her parents and siblings could meet her son.Once there, she said, her son started losing his hearing in one ear and having seizures. All I wanted was an opportunity to fight my case, she said. She hoped her son could join her or maybe she could get a permit to visit the hospitals where he was first treated. But she already had a couple of deportations and a voluntary return to Mexico.Interestingly, the part about the woman hoping her son could join her is errant in not mentioning that once her son does join her in the U.S., the woman and her son would likely be permitted to stay because they would then be an incomplete family unit.The assertion that the border fence is as tall as a two or three-story house came from Fernando Valdez, Mexico s deputy consul general in Nogales, Arizona. He was quoted as stating, What surprises us is that people continue to jump from heights that can be the equivalent of a two- or even three-story house, he said. But we hear they feel pressured to do it because they are holding the line or they start insulting them, telling them to jump. The second part of his statement appears to be directed towards U.S. Border Patrol agents, but the writer left the intended direction of the assertion ambiguous. Of course, if that be the case, the Border Patrol routinely saves illegal immigrants lives, as the article inadvertently makes clear. Mexican authorities routinely demonize and attack U.S. Border Patrol agents, even in cases where agents have acted in self-defense against the violent narco-traffickers or other violent individuals.Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of the advocacy article is that the writer did not mention why a segmented border security fence exists. The fence, which contrary to left-of-center media assertions does not encompass most of the border, was built largely to stop violent criminals from their routine entering and existing of U.S. communities. Two instances come to mind, though in both cases the wall has yet to be built in those specific segments. In 2002, the FBI engaged in a sting operation in Sunland Park, New Mexico along the U.S.-Mexico Border. The effort was spurred by Mexicans routinely crossing the border and robbing trains of cargo. Mexicans would jump the small chain-link fence that served as the area s only border security and rob the train cars. They would then simply jump back across the fence and U.S. authorities were powerless to stop them. Mexican authorities, often corrupted by the criminal organizations behind the robberies and thefts, did nothing to stop the crimes.Two FBI special agents got separated from their group in the sting. One of them was a woman. The two agents were surrounded by dozens of Mexican nationals who beat them unconscious and caused severe injuries, including broken facial bones. A federal agent with knowledge of the incident spoke to Breitbart Texas on the condition of anonymity and said, There were indicators that the Mexican nationals were trying to drag the unconscious body of the female FBI agent back with them into Mexico. This writer previously covered the issue in 2013 and wrote, Only a few of the men were eventually prosecuted, as most were deported back to Mexico prior to prosecution. Unless something else happened or they moved, the men are still free and presumably operating in the area. The very nature of a fence is that it poses a difficulty or risk to unauthorized crossings in an area, such as in the recent issue of Barack Obama s White House raising the height of their fence to keep unwanted people from crossing. In Arizona s specific border situation, there exist two border sectors: the Tucson Sector and the Yuma Sector. Though the Yuma Sector is largely locked down with significant coverage of technology and a primary and secondary fence, the Tucson Sector is largely open. Most of the sector has no fence at all and can be freely crossed at the whim of any person in Mexico wishing to enter the United States. The video embedded below shows the reality of most of the Arizona-Mexico border.Via: Breitbart News | 1real |
Trump says he plans tax reform announcement on Wednesday | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump, signing executive orders calling for a re-examination of some Obama-era financial regulations, said on Friday he would have a major tax reform announcement next week. “We’ll be having a big announcement on Wednesday having to do with tax reform. The process has begun long ago but the reform will begin on Wednesday,” Trump said at the U.S. Treasury Department. | 0fake |
Obama to deliver statement on economy Tuesday, after inversions move | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama will deliver a statement at 12:15 ET on Tuesday on the economy following Monday’s Treasury Department announcement on corporate tax inversions, the White House said. The U.S. Treasury Department took new steps to curb tax-avoiding corporate “inversions” late on Monday that threw a series of proposed mergers into question, including Pfizer Inc’s $160 billion agreement to buy Allergan Plc. | 0fake |
The Cavs That LeBron James Assembled Are Getting Clobbered - The New York Times | OAKLAND, Calif. — Before excuses are made for LeBron James, before the bulk of the blame for consecutive horror shows at Oracle Arena is heaped on a supporting cast of Cleveland Cavaliers that has turned to dust when removed from a comfy Eastern Conference refuge, it must be reiterated that this was the team the King himself courted. This was the crew James left Miami for, the one he reconfigured with leverage upon returning home and then stood by approvingly when a coach with an impeccable (albeit limited) N. B. A. record was dismissed for a replacement with no record at all. That is not to say that Tyronn Lue, who slid over into David Blatt’s seat midseason, is the primary reason — if a reason at all — that the Cavaliers are down, two games to none, against the Golden State Warriors in the N. B. A. finals and, thus far, are embarrassing themselves. Losing in the finals to a Golden State team that won a record 73 games, if that is the inevitable result, would be no disgrace. But if the series continues this way, and so far it has not been remotely competitive, the epitaph for the Cavaliers’ season should be: This is the team James wanted, and assembled. After waiting outside the interview room for Lue to finish with reporters on Sunday night, James sat down, removed his sunglasses, picked up the microphone as if he were hosting a charity event and took responsibility for Game 2’s obliteration of his team on top of the beating it took in Game 1. He called himself out for carelessness with the ball, for committing seven of his team’s 17 turnovers in Game 2, for not making life easier for his overwhelmed teammates. “I’m not disappointed in our guys or frustrated,” he said. “I’m one of the guys who kind of always wants to shoulder the blame and take the blame when we don’t play as well as we should. It’s just who I am, and I’ve got to be better. ” Sloppy as he was, James was still the best performing Cavalier, with Richard Jefferson, a role player, as the . Against the Warriors, that was a formula for the disaster Game 2 became in the third quarter, with the Cavaliers sending most of the East Coast to bed early with an unconditional, emotionless surrender. After Game 1, Lue said it was mandatory that the Cavaliers pick up the pace on offense. After Game 2, James cited the turnovers and the Cavaliers’ inability to get back and set up their defense. This sounded good, but, well, whatever. The Warriors scored only 14 points to the Cavaliers’ 11, and who cannot see that the Cavaliers, on defense, have no clue how to deal with the Warriors in their sets? The Warriors had 55 assists in the two games here. The Cavaliers had 32. This disparity speaks to an athletic Golden State defense of interchangeable parts but also to Cleveland’s lack of the same and its poor defensive habits. When the ball and bodies start moving, the Cavaliers look like children scrambling to find a seat in a game of musical chairs. Klay Thompson takes two dribbles toward the lane, kicks it out to a scorching Draymond Green, and the Cavaliers’ rotation is too slow, or nonexistent. “He drove and kicked, and their defense was collapsing,” said Green, who torched the Cavaliers for 28 points, with five . Collapsing was the right characterization, literally and figuratively. Forget Stephen Curry. Green and Andre Iguodala, who both play at forward, look like point guards, shredding Cleveland’s defense with pinpoint passing for uncontested shots at the rim. On the Warriors’ last possession of the third quarter, the ball whipped around the perimeter, touching the hands of all five players before Thompson nailed a 3. The Cavaliers should have sued for whiplash. “These guys put you in so many mental positions where you have to figure it out, and they make you pay for it when you don’t,” James said. He has always been a willing and able defender, but what can we say about Kyrie Irving, who habitually loses his man, and J. R. Smith, who loses his focus and occasionally his mind? Irving was supposed to carry an offensive load in this series, ease the burden on James. He has taken 36 shots and made 12. Kevin Love was forced out of the game with a possible concussion after taking an inadvertent elbow to the head from Harrison Barnes. There was more to the story. Love had his back to Barnes, bracing to rebound a attempt by Thompson. He was also allowing Barnes to leap over him, another illustration of how difficult it has been for the Cavaliers to hide Love’s lack of athleticism. Love is just one example — although the most egregious — of what can happen when a player, even the very best player, enjoys the kind of executive leverage James has had since rejoining the Cavaliers in the summer of 2014. The denials from his camp and the Cleveland front office have naturally been vehement. They say James did not insist on trading Andrew Wiggins, the No. 1 pick of that year’s draft, to Minnesota for the overrated Love, a deal that deprived the Cavaliers of a superior young athlete James might have mentored. Nor, they contend, did James badger the Cavaliers’ general manager, David Griffin, into trading for the compulsively erratic Smith — who scored a combined 8 points in the two games here — or point a thumb down on the status of Blatt after publicly emasculating him during the 2015 playoffs. But agents who have had business with the Cavaliers speak of Griffin’s telling them he would get back to them after checking matters with James. League people remind you that Michael Jordan never had such power in Chicago and, based on the personnel decisions he opposed, probably would not have won six titles if he did have it. James has been and remains a superb player spokesman for the league in ways that Jordan never was. On Saturday, speaking of Muhammad Ali, he said, among other things gracious and smart, “I would never compare myself to Muhammad Ali because I never had to go through what those guys had to go through back in those times. ” He can and has affected his community in ways that his predecessors could not, thanks to staggering wealth and corporate support. But the one thing he — or any player — should never be is in charge of a franchise. He was not in Miami, where Pat Riley ruled, and James just happened to win two rings. Let’s remember that the Warriors looked ragged and lost in recent consecutive blowouts in Oklahoma City. But based on what we saw here, the Cavaliers had better win both games in Cleveland, or summer vacation will begin by early next week. And that is when we will learn how James really feels about the team he chose, the players he pushed for. Will he accept the blame then, or put the cool sunglasses back on and turn an executive thumb down? | 0fake |
THUG ANNIVERSARY GETS VIOLENT IN FERGUSON: Cellphone Captures Shocking Video Of Protester Blocking Traffic Being Mowed Down By Car…Shots Erupt [VIDEO] | Nothing good can come out of a protest over a thug who was shot to death by a cop defending his own life in a town that was ravaged, looted and burned by more out-of-control thugs. All of these acts were inspired by our racist President and his former, lawless Attorney General Eric Holder. How many more innocent lives will be lost or businesses destroyed over the lie that Michael Brown was innocent and had his hands up when he was shot? Gunfire broke out after a car mowed down a protester in Ferguson, Missouri on the second anniversary of the fatal shooting of Michael Brown. Several people were injured, at least one person seriously.***WARNING***Extremely Graphic Video***The Tuesday night protest took place near and in the street, and the demonstrators sometimes impeded traffic, but retreated from the roadway when warned by police.The man was reported to be badly injured, and was taken by a private car to a hospital, Cowan told The Chicago Tribune.Police responded to reports of gunfire, but found no evidence that anyone had been hit by a bullet, said Ferguson PD spokesman Jeff Small.The 2014 death of Brown at the hands of Darren Wilson, a white Ferguson police officer, was the catalyst for the Black Lives Matter movement. Via: RT | 1real |
Откуда в Черногории и Сербии взялись "русские агенты" | 0 комментариев 0 поделились Фото: AP
Комментировать сообщения о высланных россиянах отказался глава правительства Сербии Александр Вучич. "Не все в вашем вопросе неверно, одна часть не точна. Я не хотел вам отвечать не только по той причине, которую уже назвал, но и еще из-за одной вещи - потому, что об этих делах я говорить не имею права по закону", - сказал он белградскому телеканалу N1.
Новость о депортации российских граждан совпала с неожиданным приездом в Белград секретаря Совбеза РФ Николая Патрушева. Сербские эксперты убеждены, что главная цель визита - обсуждение ситуации в Черногории.
Прокомментировать ситуацию Pravda.Ru попросила переводчика и журналиста, члена Изборсского клуба, специалиста по внешней торговле, консультанта по вопросам экономического сотрудничества Сербии и России Слободана Стойичевича
- В Сербии и Черногории уже несколько дней раскручивают скандал об участии россиян в подготовке терактов в Черногории. Кому и зачем это понадобилось?
- Это, естественно, игра еврофанатиков, которые засели во власти в Сербии. Их не устраивает то, что народ поголовно сейчас встал перед дилеммой: а что дальше? Потому что в последнее время власти так называемой республики Косово поставили вопрос ребром о продолжении переговоров между Косово и Сербией, а еврофанатики во власти в Сербии сейчас не знаю куда дальше идти и что делать.
Их сейчас больше устраивает раскручивание афер и разных историй с участием якобы русских агентов для отвода глаз от настоящих проблем. Вернее, от тупика, в который они попали со своей ошибочной еврофанатской политикой. Можем этого ожидать и в будущем, что они так же будут действовать.
И приезд российских политиков - это еще один повод, чтобы продолжить раскручивать разные теории заговора с участием России. Все это делается для отвода глаз народа от насущных проблем, то есть, и дальше заводить все в тупик. А в этом время власти Республики Косово в переговорах с Европой выдвинули ультиматум перед сербским государством.
- Насколько далеко они готовы пойти?
- Это зависит от того, как народ среагирует на эти якобы проблемы с "российскими агентами". Это просто такой тактический прием, чтобы отвеcти глаза.
Ситуация с "российскими шпионами" зависит и от того, как среагирует Брюссель на заявку Косово. Если Брюссель одобрит политику Косово, что сильно затронет экономический потенциал Сербии, тогда будут раскручивать ситуацию и дальше, выдумывая проблемы.
Если успокоятся в отношении Косово, тогда сербские власти поубавят нападки на пророссийский электорат. Это просто тактический прием, ничего большего.
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Сербия променяет Россию на Евросоюз? Поделиться: | 1real |
Kurds stick with independence vote, 'never going back to Baghdad': Barzani | ERBIL, Iraq/ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Iraq s Kurds will go ahead with a referendum on independence on Monday because their partnership with Baghdad has failed, Kurdistan Regional Government President Massoud Barzani said on Sunday, shrugging off international opposition to the vote. In response, the Iraqi government asked the autonomous Kurdish region to hand over control of its international border posts, its international airports and called on foreign countries to stop importing Kurdish crude oil. It asked the neighboring countries and the countries of the world to deal exclusively with the federal government of Iraq in regards to entry posts and oil, according to a statement from Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi s office. The United States and other Western powers have urged Kurdish authorities in the oil producing region to cancel the vote, arguing that it distracts from the fight against Islamic State. Turkey and Iran have also kept up the pressure to stop the vote, with presidents Tayyip Erdogan and Hassan Rouhani speaking by phone and expressing concern that it will bring chaos in the region , according to Erdogan s office. Barzani, at a news conference at his headquarters near Erbil, dismissed the worries of Iraq s neighbors, committing to respect laws on international boundaries and not seek to redraw the region s borders. We will never go back to the failed partnership with Baghdad, he said, adding Iraq had become a theocratic, sectarian state and not the democratic one that was supposed to be built after the 2003 overthrow of Saddam Hussein. The vote, expected to result in a comfortable yes to independence, is not binding and is meant to give the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) a mandate to negotiate secession with Baghdad and the neighboring countries. Barzani said Iraq s Kurds would seek talks with the Shi ite-led central government to implement the expected yes outcome, even if they take two years or more, to settle land and oil sharing disputes ahead of independence. Abadi s government in Iraq regards the referendum as anti-constitutional and in a televised address on Sunday he said it could lead to ethnic divisions, exposing (the Iraqis) to disastrous dangers that only God knows. Earlier, Iranian authorities stopped air traffic to Iraqi Kurdistan s international airports at Erbil and Sulaimaniya in response to a request from Baghdad, Fars News Agency said. Iran also started war games at the Kurdish border. Speaking by telephone with Abadi, Iran s Rouhani voiced support for Iraq s national unity and territorial integrity, the state news agency IRNA reported. Iran fully supports Iraq s central government, Rouhani was quoted as telling Abadi. On Saturday, Turkey s parliament voted to extend by a year a mandate authorizing the deployment of Turkish troops in Iraq and Syria. Turkey has also vowed political, economic and security steps without specifying what they are, but Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim reinforced the message on Sunday. Turkey is the transit route of all crude exported by the landlocked Kurdistan region of Iraq. Turkey will never ever tolerate any status change or any new formations on its southern borders, he said in a speech in the capital Ankara. The KRG will be primarily responsible for the probable developments after this referendum. But Barzani said Ankara won t benefit economically should it close the border with Iraqi Kurdistan. Tehran and Ankara fear the spread of separatism to their own Kurds. Iran also supports Shi ite groups who have been ruling or holding key security and government positions in Iraq since the U.S-led invasion which toppled Saddam Hussein. Barzani said Kurds will keep extending their hand to Iran and Turkey, even if they do not reciprocate. He said he recently met in the Kurdish region Iranian Revolutionary Guard Commander Qassem Soleimani, who came to convince him to delay the vote. The KRG has resisted calls to delay the referendum by the United Nations, the United States and Britain who fear it could lead to unrest in disputed areas like multi-ethnic oil-rich Kirkuk, as well as distracting from the war on Islamic State. But the Iraqi Kurds say the vote acknowledges their crucial contribution in confronting Islamic State after it overwhelmed the Iraqi army in 2014 and seized control of a third of Iraq. Kurdish Peshmerga fighters who control Kirkuk were given instructions not to respond to any provocation meant to disrupt the vote, but they will defend the region if attacked from outside, he said. The U.S. embassy in Iraq warned its citizens that there might be unrest during the referendum, especially in disputed areas like Kirkuk, also claimed by the Iraqi central government. The Iranian military drills, part of annual events held in Iran to mark the beginning of the 1980-1988 war with Iraq, were launched in the Oshnavieh border region, according to Iranian State broadcaster IRIB. Turkey s military said on Sunday its aircraft launched strikes against Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) targets in northern Iraq s Gara region on Saturday after spotting militants preparing to attack Turkish military outposts on the border. | 0fake |
Desperate A**hole Jeb Bush Exploits Image Of Terri Schiavo To Score Points With Far-Right (VIDEO) | Jeb Bush has raised well over $120 million with his utterly disastrous presidential campaign, successfully proving that money doesn t always buy support. On the upside, a lot of really wealthy conservatives pumped millions of dollars into a trainwreck campaign money they ll never, ever see again.Currently, Jeb Bush is polling at four percent in Iowa, according to Nate Silver, and eight percent in New Hampshire.Knowing so much money is at stake, and that his campaign is perhaps the most pathetic effort on the GOP side, it s no wonder he resorted to a completely tasteless new commercial in which he exploits the image of Terri Schiavo to emphasize his pro-life record.TPM:Shiavo s husband, Michael, called the ad disgusting in a statement to the Tampa Bay Tribune. It is simply disgusting that Jeb Bush and his super Pac would exploit my wife s tragedy for his crude political gain, Michael Schiavo said in the statement. Shame on Jeb Bush. What the campaign video shows is that if he ever got his hands on the power of government again, he would do the same thing again, maybe next time to your family, the statement continued.In case you don t know, Schiavo was a Florida resident who, due to a heart attack, lapsed into an irreversible persistent vegetative state. Her parents wanted to continue to keep her alive, while her husband vigorously pursued her wishes to die with dignity. When the story hit the news, the GOP scrambled to diagnose Schiavo from afar, turning her into a source of pro-life demagoguery.So, as if Schiavo and her husband weren t humiliated enough by Republicans, Jeb Bush chose to resurrect his party s shameless exploitation of a family caught in one of life s most harrowing episodes. All for the purpose of desperately trying to lift his failing campaign. The fact that it won t work illustrates how pointless it is.The only thing more disgraceful was the time Republicans used images of 9/11, including victims leaping from the World Trade Center to their deaths.[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9u-f9-wfs6c&w=420&h=315]Featured image via video screen grab. | 1real |
WATCH: Rudy Giuliani Begs People To Search For Clinton Conspiracy Videos | On Sunday, Rudy Giuliani appeared on Fox News Sunday, where he decided to push the right-wing conspiracy theory that Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton is suffering from severe health problems. The right-wing myth was pushed heavily by Fox News Sean Hannity.Despite the fact that the conspiracy was debunked almost immediately, Giuliani insisted that Clinton is in fact at death s door with some kind of illness. He alleged that there is vast media conspiracy out to silence those who want to expose the truth about Clinton s health. She doesn t need to campaign. She has The New York Times, she has the [New York] Daily News, she has ABC, she has CBS, she has NBC. She has an entire media empire that constantly demonizes Donald Trump and fails to point out that she hasn t had a press conference in 300 days, 200 days, 100 days, I don t know how long, Giuliani said. Fails to point out several signs of illness by her. All you got to do is go online. All you have to do The show s host Shannon Bream interrupted Giuliani to say: Which her campaign and a number of people defending her saying there s nothing factual to the claims about her health, and that that s speculation at best. Here s where Giuliani really goes off the rails. He asks for viewers to look up videos from Clinton health truthers, rather than listen to what is reported on in the news. Go online and put down Hillary Clinton illness and take a look at the videos for yourself, Giuliani insisted.You can watch the segment from the broadcast below.Featured image from video screenshot | 1real |
Rudy Giuliani Turns Into A Blithering Idiot When Confronted By CNN Host (VIDEO) | During a live CNN interview with Rudy Giuliani, host Chris Cuomo held the former New York Mayor s feet the fire over his justification for Donald Trump s most recent controversial remarks. Giuliani asserted, like Donald did, that Hillary Clinton will abolish the Second Amendment. That s not legally possible but Giuliani ran with it.At one point, Cuomo asked Giuliani if Trump becomes President of the United States, is that going to be your position, is that he goes out, he ll says things and then you ll come on and say what he actually meant? Cuomo then brought up Trump s recent jaw-dropping claim that President Obama and Hillary Clinton founded ISIS. That remark is peculiar in more than one way. Trump is featured in at least two ISIS recruitment videos.However, Giuliani called Trump s claim legitimate political commentary. Cuomo responded, saying, But it s not true, then went on to compare Trump s remarks to his Second Amendment people threat toward Hillary Clinton. It s part of a pattern, Cuomo said. I don t control what comes out of his mouth. The man has blacklisted me, won t come on this show because he doesn t like answering questions about what he says. It s a pattern of the press exaggerating what he says, Giuliani said, likely attempting to blame the Liberal Media . He s saying my coverage is rigged, Cuomo said. Do you think my coverage is rigged? I think a lot of coverage is rigged, Giuliani responded. How is it rigged? Cuomo said. This comes out of his mouth and you have to apologize for it. I m telling you he didn t say words of violence! Giuliani declared. You say things in a lot of ways. This is what the man does, Cuomo remarked. He says things that are either casual or hyperbolic to impress the crowd. And then they go too far and he refuses to apologize and blames the media. It s happened at least 10 times that I can name right off the top of my head. Raw Story uploaded a few of the clips.[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAEnSJcAJJY][youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ijfm4SXc94][youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctK2taY5SH0]Giuliani said that Donald not releasing his taxes is a problem but not much of an issue compared to Hillary Clinton s handling of emails. Cuomo countered that, too, with facts Giuliani disregarded by making accusations which he could not back up. Giuliani, throughout the whole interview, stammered while trying to justify his candidate s appalling rhetoric.Donald does not have the ability to apologize and move on. That prompts each of his controversial remarks to linger on in the media. When he s held accountable for the words that come out of his mouth, he then blames the media for quoting him verbatim.Featured image via screenshot | 1real |
Phoenix TV Station Uncovers Soros Voting Machine Fraud |
Independent TV station, News Channel 3 in Phoenix has uncovered problems with the George Soros voting machines. The machines are set to rig the election in Arizona, which one of 16 states that are using George Soros’ voting machines.
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Exclusive: U.S. stopped Philippines rifle sale that senator opposed - sources | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. State Department halted the planned sale of some 26,000 assault rifles to the Philippines’ national police after Senator Ben Cardin said he would oppose it, Senate aides told Reuters on Monday. Aides said Cardin, the top Democrat on the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was reluctant for the United States to provide the weapons given concerns about human rights violations in the Philippines. News of the thwarting of the weapons sale was met with disappointment among the Philippine police and government on Tuesday, but they said alternative suppliers would be found. Police spokesman Dionardo Carlos said the Philippines had yet to be notified about the sale being stopped. The relationship between the United States and the Philippines, a long-time ally, has been complicated lately by President Rodrigo Duterte’s angry reaction to criticism from Washington of his violent battle to rid the country of illegal drugs. More than 2,300 people have been killed in police operations or by suspected vigilantes in connection with the anti-narcotics campaign since Duterte took office on June 30. The U.S. State Department informs Congress when international weapons sales are in the works. Aides said Foreign Relations committee staff informed State that Cardin would oppose the deal during the department’s prenotification process for the sale of 26,000-27,000 assault rifles, stopping the deal. U.S. State Department officials did not comment. Ronald dela Rosa, the Philippine national police chief and staunch supporter of the war on drugs, said he liked the American rifle, but suggested China as an alternative small-arms provider. “We really wanted the U.S. rifles because these are reliable,” he told broadcaster ABS-CBN. “But if the sale will not push through, we will find another source, maybe from China.” In October, Duterte told U.S. President Barack Obama to “go to hell” and said the United States had refused to sell some weapons to his country, but he did not care because Russia and China were willing suppliers. According to some U.S. officials, Washington has been doing its best to ignore Duterte’s rhetoric and not provide him with a pretext for more outbursts. An open break with the Philippines could create problems for the United States in a region where China’s influence has grown. | 0fake |
The Women Blazing a Trail Into Ice Hockey - The New York Times | BOSTON — During a men’s hockey game between Boston University and Providence College in early December, Brittany Miller sat in the press box near center ice. She tracked statistics and typed notes in her laptop. Across the rink, Theresa Feaster kept a close eye on the game, logging video of the action. They could have been mistaken for reporters or merely diligent fans. But Miller and Feaster are much more than devoted followers of their beloved teams. They are trailblazers. Last fall, Miller and Feaster became the first women to serve as members of an N. C. A. A. Division I men’s hockey coaching staff when they were hired by their alma maters. But Miller, Boston University’s director of hockey operations, and Feaster, the coordinator of hockey operations at Providence College, say their gender rarely comes up in conversations with coaches or players. “I’m just on the staff and come to work every day and work hard,” Feaster said. “That’s all there is to it. It’s not really something that crosses my mind. ” Miller and Feaster had noticed each other during games when they both worked as student managers, first as undergraduates and then as graduate students. But they did not formally meet until a meeting of the Hockey East Association, the teams’ conference, after both had been hired full time. “It’s nice to have someone else who worked hard as a manager and proved herself to her coaching staff,” Miller said. “It shows that Hockey East is really moving forward in hiring females. ” Each has been around hockey for as long as she can remember, though they came to their new jobs from opposite directions. Miller grew up on the ice, learning to skate at age 3 and playing competitive hockey through her high school years at Boston Latin School. Feaster did not play, but she began learning the game while bouncing around the minors with her father, Jay, and gained a newfound interest when his job as general manager of the Calgary Flames led to a connection to Providence while she was studying there. Miller, who had followed her older brother into the game and was coached by her father, started working as a manager at B. U. during the first semester of her freshman year, attending all of the Terriers’ practices and games while still managing a full class load. She was finishing up her master’s degree and working as an intern for a sports marketing research company in London last summer when she received calls from Coach David Quinn and the athletic director, Drew Marrochello. The Terriers had an opening on their coaching staff, and both men thought Miller was the perfect candidate. Now she is in charge of all of the teams’ travel logistics, ensures players handle their academic work and helps track statistics. Miller said Quinn and the rest of the staff had treated her as an equal since she accepted the job in September. “They trust me to do a good job, and they know that I can do this job just as good if not better than any guy,” she said. Marrochello said he had known early on that Miller would be successful in any endeavor she chose. “I’m frankly glad it is in hockey, in college sports,” he said. “I know she’s got a high ceiling. ” While Miller’s love for hockey has burned since her youth, Feaster’s was more like rekindling an old flame. As a young child in the Feaster was a regular at the rink and aboard the team bus when her father was the general manager of the Hershey Bears of the American Hockey League. Jay Feaster remembered his daughter sitting on the training table talking hockey with Mitch Lamoureux, a center who had played parts of three seasons in the N. H. L. but was by then a lifer on the wrong side of 30. “I’ll see that in my mind until the day I die,” Jay Feaster said. “It was like two players just sitting there having a conversation. ” As Theresa Feaster grew older, she would pepper her father, who helped the Tampa Bay Lightning win the Stanley Cup as their general manager in 2004, with questions about the game. But she did not think seriously about getting involved in the sport until she attended the 2012 N. H. L. draft. Jay Feaster was Calgary’s general manager at the time, and the Flames selected two players who ended up at Providence. Theresa Feaster introduced herself to Friars Coach Nate Leaman, told him that she was entering her junior year and asked if she could volunteer with the team. She was soon attending coaches’ meetings and helping the program with anything it needed. She made such a good impression that Leaman hired her full time in October. Her new role is similar to the one she had as a student. She works on video and statistics projects, makes travel arrangements and helps with administrative tasks. “I feel like every day I’m learning more,” Feaster said. “One of the rewarding parts of this job is you come to the rink every day and you know that you’re going to learn and you’re going to get better. I find that incredibly rewarding. ” Although Miller and Feaster are technically members of their programs’ coaching staffs, N. C. A. A. rules prohibit anyone in their position from working with players on the ice or sitting on the bench during practices or games. Still, they are interacting with the coaches and players daily and gaining valuable experience. Both women aspire to management roles and, possibly, the N. H. L. They would again be an anomaly: Few women have worked in roles in an N. H. L. front office, and none have been a general manager. Jay Feaster has spoken with his daughter about the grueling nature of hockey: the scarcity of positions, the long hours and the lack of job security. It is not an easy road, but if it is the one she chooses, she is off to a good start. “I give her a hard time about, ‘You’re too smart to be in this racket. Do you want to be in the hockey business? You’re too smart for that,’” Jay Feaster said. “But I’m very, very proud. ” | 0fake |
U.K. Set to Choose Sharp Break From European Union - The New York Times | LONDON — If British plans for leaving the European Union have been a dance of the seven veils, the British government removed one of them on Sunday, letting slip to news media that Prime Minister Theresa May is likely to choose to exit Europe’s single market and its customs union — a hard Brexit. Mrs. May is scheduled to make a speech on her plans on Tuesday, but the British weekend papers and Sunday news programs were briefed by Downing Street about the main lines of the policy, and some published selected quotations of what Mrs. May is scheduled to say. Officially, a government spokesman on Sunday called the reports “speculation” and emphasized only the extracts of the speech that were leaked by Downing Street itself, with Mrs. May calling for British unity “to make a success of Brexit and build a truly global Britain. ” Those extracts were not explicit on the single market or the customs union, but the Sunday newspapers, which receive their own briefings from the government before publication, took much the same line: that Britain is headed for a sharp break with Europe after a transitional period. Downing Street dislikes the term “hard Brexit,” but an outcome along those lines is not unexpected, because it flows logically from the priorities Mrs. May has set out, particularly about controlling the country’s borders. Being outside the single market could damage Britain’s important financial services sector and is likely to hit the value of the pound again, at least temporarily. A week ago, Mrs. May said in a television interview that Britain would not be able to keep “bits” of its European Union membership. That, too, was interpreted as a break with the single market, which requires freedom of movement and labor for all citizens of the bloc. “Often people talk in terms as if somehow we are leaving the E. U. but we still want to kind of keep bits of membership,” she said then. “We are leaving. We are coming out. We are not going to be a member of the E. U. any longer. ” She added, “We will be able to have control of our borders, control of our laws. ” She and her officials have made it clear that her two main priorities are ending the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice over British law, and restoring British control over its borders and immigration, including from the European Union. Those decisions mean that Britain could no longer be a part of the single market for goods, capital, people and services of the European Union, because the rules for that market are adjudicated by the European Court of Justice. The situation is similar for the customs union, which applies only to goods. Membership in the customs union would mean that Britain would have to obey European Union regulations on manufacturing standards and would be banned from making separate trade deals with countries — two of the most important reasons forces have cited for leaving the bloc. Another implication of leaving the single market and the customs union would be Britain’s desire to negotiate a new trade deal with the European Union as a special partner of some kind, but one different from those held by countries like Norway and Turkey. It would also seem to mean trying to negotiate a transitional deal with Brussels while the larger trade deal is being haggled out, which could take many years. Under a transitional deal, which would extend beyond the limit for negotiating the exit, Britain would presumably continue to have a relationship much like the current one, including paying into the European Union’s budget. In an article in The Sunday Times of London, David Davis, the minister in charge of the new Department for Exiting the European Union, wrote that Britain would consider ways to extend or smooth the exit process to provide certainty for businesses. “If it proves necessary, we have said we will consider time for implementation of new arrangements,” he wrote. “We don’t want the E. U. to fail, we want it to prosper economically and politically, and we need to persuade our allies that a strong new partnership with the U. K. will help the E. U. to do that. ” In a combative interview published on Sunday, the chancellor of the Exchequer, Philip Hammond, warned that, if no agreement could be reached on market access, Britain could change its economic model from “European style” taxation and regulation to regain competitiveness. “The British people are not going to lie down and say, ‘Too bad, we’ve been wounded,’” he said. “We will change our model and we will come back, and we will be competitively engaged. ” Those comments, from an interview with the German newspaper Welt am Sonntag, were interpreted as a warning that Britain could use its corporate tax as a form of leverage in Brexit negotiations. In a television interview on Sunday, Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of the opposition Labour Party, said that Mr. Hammond “appears to be making a sort of threat to the European community,” calling it “a recipe for some kind of trade war with Europe in the future. ” But Mrs. May’s speech on Tuesday, judging from the excerpts, is also meant to assuage European Union colleagues by committing Britain to a close, friendly and constructive future relationship. Britain would prefer a customs relationship with the European Union if one can be negotiated on British terms, which would mean limits on the bloc’s citizens working in Britain and the ability to do separate trade deals. European Union leaders have been largely dismissive of such efforts, but both sides are setting out hard positions before the real negotiations begin, sometime after Britain invokes Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty to officially begin the process of leaving the bloc. Mrs. May insists that that will take place before the end of March, even if it requires a vote of Parliament, setting off two years of complicated talks on extracting Britain from a union it joined more than 40 years ago. Mr. Hammond is known to have argued strongly inside the government for Britain to keep its access to the single market to protect its financial sector, which accounts for 10 to 12 percent of Britain’s economic output. Bankers and brokers in the City of London are sometimes reviled by many Britons but are also highly paid, so their tax receipts are important to the Treasury. If a significant number of them moved their operations to European Union cities or New York, the pressure on the British government’s budget to pay for health care, pensions, welfare benefits and military spending would increase substantially. Britain already runs a significantly higher yearly deficit than most European countries, about 4. 4 percent of gross domestic product, and its cumulative debt is estimated at nearly 85 percent of G. D. P. Mainstream economists — under fire for wrongly predicting an immediate recession after the Brexit vote last June — say those figures are likely to worsen as the pound falls and the economy slows from the delayed effects of Brexit and the uncertainty around it. Mrs. May has also emphasized an interest in working with the incoming American administration of Donald J. Trump, and her government trumpeted its success in arranging a Washington meeting with the new president before the end of February. But her officials were not likely to be happy to discover that Michael Gove, who strongly favored Brexit and whom she fired from the cabinet, had secured the first British interview with Mr. Trump, scheduled to be printed in The Times of London on Monday. That interview comes after Mr. Trump had a series of meetings with Brexit advocates like Nigel Farage, the former leader of the U. K. Independence Party, and Arron Banks, who gave millions to fund UKIP and an alternative “Leave” campaign in the June referendum. Both men are expected to attend Mr. Trump’s inauguration. | 0fake |
WOW! STERLING HTS, MI CITY COUNCIL Caves On Mega-Mosque Project In Middle Of Christian Neighborhood…Council Member CAUGHT On VIDEO Admitting Mosque Is Part Of “Religious War” | In September 2015, the Sterling Heights, MI City Council representing a city of 130,000 people in southeastern Michigan, denied the proposal for a mega-mosque in a residential neighborhood populated largely by Christian refugees who fled Islamic persecution in Iraq.Sterling Heights already has two mosques, but a third, the American Islamic Community Center, applied for a permit and was rejected after it was determined its proposed use was incompatible with the residential area. Too much traffic, too little parking, the city planning commission decided by a 9-0 vote against the mosque in September 2015.But in December, the mosque sued the city and the Obama Justice Department joined in, claiming the real reason the mosque was denied was because the city was caving to anti-Muslim bigotry in the community. A settlement deal was announced last night during a Sterling Heights City Council meeting.As expected, the attorney for the mosque developers claimed the reasons these mostly Christian refugees from Iraq are in opposition to a mosque being built in their residential neighborhood fake :Sterling Heights, MI residents spoke out against the proposed mega-mosque during a planning commission meeting where the residents were given an opportunity to have their views heard by the city council:Many of the Sterling Heights residents who live in the area of the proposed mosque are Christian-Iraqi refugees who fled persecution of Muslims in their native land. The last thing they want is an Islamic mega-mosque erected in their backyards. Before announcing the decision to go ahead with the proposed plan for building the mega-mosque in a local neighborhood, Sterling Heights City Councilman Doug Skrzyniarz claimed the primary reasons for going ahead with the plans were to avoid costly litigation while allowing officials to have more say in the mosque s layout. We have reduced our financial risk and we ve been able to have input on what the actual development is going to contain, Councilman Doug Skrzyniarz told the large crowd. But it s what he said next, that s NOT being reported by local or national news outlets that was even more telling and it happens near the end of the video: | 1real |
Clinton transmitted classified info to her lawyers | Clinton transmitted classified info to her lawyers Andrew McCarthy: There's no attorney exception to criminal law that prohibits such action Published: 27 mins ago
(National Review) — What was the legal rationale under which Hillary Clinton quite intentionally shared classified information with her lawyers, including David Kendall, Cheryl Mills, and Heather Samuelson?
As I outlined in last weekend’s column, we know that Clinton’s e-mails were replete with classified information. According to the FBI, the classified e-mails included intelligence graded at the most closely guarded level: eight top-secret e-mails, and seven designated as “special access program” (SAP) information. (While FBI director James Comey’s presentation understandably left this vague, the likelihood is that seven of the eight top-secret e-mails are SAP.) Under President Bill Clinton’s 1995 executive order, top-secret intelligence is information the mishandling of which “could be expected to cause exceptionally grave damage to the national security.” The SAP designation is added when the unauthorized disclosure of intelligence could compromise critical intelligence-gathering methods or imperil the lives of intelligence sources.
That is why access to this information is so tightly restricted, and its unauthorized disclosure is routinely prosecuted. | 1real |
Proof The Mainstream Media Is Manipulating The Election By Taking Bill Clinton Out Of Context | I woke up this morning to find a variation of this headline splashed all over my news feed:Here s Google:Naturally, my reaction was oh, s**t, what did Bill Clinton do to damage his wife s campaign now? Of course, the headline sounds really, really awful. It plays right into the idea that the Clinton Foundation is all about pay to play, just like Donald Trump has been saying all along. Unfortunately, it takes reading beyond the headlines, which is something most people don t do, to find out the real story and the real story is that there is no pay to play. It was natural for people who ve been our political allies and personal friends to call and ask for things. And I trusted the State Department wouldn t do anything they shouldn t do, Clinton told NPR in an interview that aired Monday morning. Source: CNNIn other words, people can ask for favors, but that certainly doesn t mean they ll get them. Leaked emails have shown that some Clinton Foundation donors have gotten meetings with Clinton and that others were turned down. There is zero evidence of pay to play. In other words, people might have asked for favors, but there s no evidence they got them.Now, let s talk about the foundation the media doesn t like to mention, the Trump Foundation. Trump hasn t given to his own foundation since 2008. He does collect money from others, though, and gives it in his name. He also takes from the charity and allegedly buys things like oil paintings and football helmets, all for himself, but out of charity money.New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said in a September 13 CNN interview that his office is investigating Trump s charitable foundation over concerns that it engaged in some impropriety as related to New York charity laws. The investigation launched amid reports from The Washington Post that Trump spent money from his charity on items meant to benefit himself, such as a $20,000 oil painting of himself and a $12,000 autographed football helmet, and also recycled others contributions to make them appear to have come from him although he hasn t given to the foundation since 2008. Source: Media MattersMedia Matters goes on to talk about the double standard and about how clearly the mainstream media is trying to promote Trump at the cost of Clinton s candidacy:Journalists have been criticized for the double standard in the ways they cover Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton. Earlier this month, cable news programs devoted 13 times more coverage to Clinton s pneumonia diagnosis as The Washington Post s reporting about the Trump Foundation. This week, both the Trump Foundation and Trump Organization stories were given short shrift by the broadcast news programs in favor of coverage of Donald Trump s Dr. Oz stunt.All of this biased coverage is hurting Clinton and helping Trump. Trump has seen major gains over the last few weeks, largely because the media covers every minor Clinton scandal (if you call getting sick a scandal ) while ignoring every scandal in Trump s closet, and trust me, there are a lot.Featured image via Ethan Miller/Getty Images. | 1real |
THE CASE AGAINST SEAN PENN: Why Do Americans Who Love Their Country Still Support Him? [VIDEO] | From claiming any American who speaks out against Hugo Chavez should be jailed, to a photo op and interview with one of the most brutal Mexican drug lords in history. Sean Penn has openly supported Cuba s brutal dictator Fidel Castro, and made known his radical opposition to capitalism by supporting the former occupy movement (now the #BlackLivesMatter terrorist group). Despite the fact that he was a gun owner, Penn came out one year ago against the Second Amendment.The journalistic coup of the two-time Oscar winner secretly interviewing El Chapo and posing for a handshake pic with the world s once-most-wanted drug lord is only the latest surreal saga in Penn s personal life. Since the early 2000 s, Spicoli has staked himself as one of the politically active stars in America whether or not anyone likes it.Scores of people however, have called for Sean Penn to be arrested for meeting the world s most wanted drug lord El Chapo while he was on the run and not turning him in to the authorities. Twitter users demanded Penn be questioned by investigators as to why he met with the violent cartel leader and did not help the military track him down.The double Oscar-winning actor and Mexican actress Kate del Castillo who brokered the meeting with the self-confessed biggest drug trafficker in the world are now under investigation in Mexico.His secret meeting with the notorious drug lord, is just one of many activist stunts by leftist actor Sean Penn.Penn s previous diplomatic doozies have led to eye-rolling Oscar jokes, dubious friendships with foreign leaders and accusations of hiring a PR team to show off his odd brand of good will.Here is Penn in a repulsive attempt to paint brutal dictators, Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro as leaders we should respect. Penn says, the demonization of these people is a myth :Here s a short look at Penn s past political antics.As America s violent response to the 9/11 attacks started escalating in 2002, Penn spent $56,000 to publish an open letter in the Washington Post urging President Bush to ease up on Middle East involvement. You lead, it seems, through a blood-lined sense of entitlement, Penn wrote to the president.Many others in Hollywood may have found Penn sentiments sensible but some of his specific recommendations, not so much.Among his peacetime prescriptions for the prez: I beg you Mr. President, listen to Gershwin, read chapters of Stegner, of Saroyan. But at least one world leader apparently agreed with Penn s prose: Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who used Penn s letter to trash Bush during some of his own speeches, according to The Telegraph.The Washington Post apparently wasn t a big enough forum for Penn s Bush bashing.Here s an excerpt from an interview with Piers Morgan where Penn explains his support for a second term for Barack Obama in a completely incoherent manner:Penn pulled off one major upset at the 2004 Oscars by nabbing the Best Actor statue for Mystic River, beating out Bill Murray in Lost in Translation as the expected winner.But the second shock came as soon as Penn opened his mouth following a standing ovation. If there s one thing that actors know other than that there were no WMD s it s that there is no such thing as best in acting, he said at the start of his speech, earning some scattered claps and cheers before beginning his long-winded thank yous.More than a decade later, his ill-timed political jab hasn t fared much better: The film site Next Movie cited Penn s speech as one of the worst in Oscar history.At first, Penn defensively denied rumors that he was close with the Venezuelan president, who reportedly took an interest in Penn thanks to his anti-Bush newspaper ads. You don t know that I have a friendship with Hugo Ch vez, you just read it in some piece, he told the Telegraph in 2007.Watch here at the 1:12 mark, where Penn talks about imposing a jail sentence on anyone who speaks out against Chavez:But over the years, Penn opened up about his Chavez love as many others accused the president of running his country as dictator. Penn admitted a relationship and told Bill Maher that American journalists who slam Chavez should be imprisoned.Penn sealed the deal upon Chavez s death from cancer in 2013, calling the president a friend in a statement and adding: Today the United States lost a friend it never knew it had. For entire story: NYDailyNews | 1real |
The debate moderators missed the opportunity to ask about a real Democratic divide | So far, none of the presidential debates — Democratic or Republican — have asked about K-12 education. That's a huge missed opportunity.
Education really is a divisive issue within the Democratic Party, and one on which Hillary Clinton has indicated she might take a different tack than President Obama.
Last week, Obama signed a new federal education law, the Every Student Succeeds Act. For the first time in more than two decades, it will scale back the federal government's role in education. While teachers unions and congressional Republicans both like the new law, it's received criticism from the left from those who say that states can't be trusted to safeguard the well-being of poor and minority students. (Clinton said in a statement that she supports the law, although it's not perfect.)
This would have been the ideal jumping-off point for a question about education policy:
President Obama just signed the Every Student Succeeds Act, which keeps the standardized testing requirement from No Child Left Behind but gives states more freedom to decide which schools are succeeding, and what to do about the ones that aren't. Do you trust states to make the right decisions without federal oversight? And how would you work within the constraints of the law to improve education in the US?
K-12 education has been almost entirely absent from the 2016 campaign trail so far. But Clinton's few public statements suggest that she might be friendlier to teachers unions than President Obama, who often antagonized unions with his competitive grant programs, support for charter schools, and push to evaluate teachers based in part on their students' test scores.
Clinton, who has been endorsed by both major teachers unions, has suggested charter schools cherry-pick their students. She opposes tying teacher pay to their students' test scores, saying there's "no evidence" that approach works. And she's said that getting more funding for traditional federal education programs, such as federal money to educate poor students and students with disabilities, would be a top priority.
Sen. Bernie Sanders, meanwhile, has hardly talked about K-12 eduction at all. And former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley was a strong supporter of charter schools while in office. This is a big and important division within the Democratic Party, one that debates repeatedly miss their chance to highlight. | 0fake |
WATCH: Giuliani CRUSHES MSNBC Host Foolish Enough to Call Trump a Racist | WOW: Rapper Lil’ Wayne Makes Stunning Statement… Leaves Hillary Fans Outraged
“I’ve known him for 28 years. The man likes white people, he likes black people, he likes Hispanic people, he plays golf with them. He opened up the first club in Palm Beach that allowed Jewish people, Italian people like me who couldn’t get into those clubs,” he said.
He went on to explain that Trump has done more for minorities over the last 30 years than many people, pointing out that he has opened facilities for them, hired them and promoted them . He added that Trump promoted the first woman to be the head of a construction company.
Giuliani then went on to say that it’s Democrat presidential nominee Hillary Clinton who has a problem.
“She should look in the mirror if she thinks we all have implicit bias. Hillary, I have news for you. I don’t (have bias). Maybe you do. I have no racial guilt. Not a single bit of it, which is why I’m willing to tell the truth about black crime and what has to be done about it,” he said.
To which Ruhle had no intelligent response. Instead, the host continued to hammer Giuliani about Bannon and Breitbart News.
The mayor let her know she wasn’t going to get anywhere, and criticized the mainstream media for its bias against Trump .
“Your station is completely left-wing and totally anti-Trump and totally anti-Republican with one or two exceptions. I’m one of the few Republicans that will come on here, because we don’t think we get anywhere near fair treatment on this station,” he explained. | 1real |
Man Wearing ‘Jewmerica’ T-Shirt Never Dreamed He’d See This Day - The Onion - America's Finest News Source | Man Wearing ‘Jewmerica’ T-Shirt Never Dreamed He’d See This Day Close Vol 52 Issue 44 · Politics · Politicians · Election 2016 · Donald Trump
SAND SPRINGS, OK—Feeling a mixture of intense pride and abject disbelief after news networks called the 2016 presidential election in favor of Donald Trump, local man Terry Williams, who is currently wearing a T-shirt adorned with the word “Jewmerica,” told reporters late Tuesday night that he never dreamed he’d see this day during his lifetime. “This is so incredible—not in a million years did I think I’d ever get to watch a historic moment like this,” said the unemployed 43-year-old, who has worn the T-shirt featuring the Star of David overlaid atop the United States flag throughout the 2016 election season as he closely followed Trump’s campaign for the presidency and encouraged voters like him to head to the polls by writing regular posts on white nationalist forums. “I won’t forget this feeling as long as I live. I’m so happy I might cry. Honestly, I’ve never been more proud to call myself an American.” At press time, a visibly elated Williams was reportedly searching for his “Trump That Bitch” hat to wear while watching Hillary Clinton’s concession speech. Share This Story: WATCH VIDEO FROM THE ONION Sign up For The Onion's Newsletter
Give your spam filter something to do. Daily Headlines | 1real |
Tony Blair helpfully describes Remain voters as ‘insurgents’ | Tony Blair helpfully describes Remain voters as ‘insurgents’ 28-10-16
TONY Blair has helped out British politics by calling Remain voters ‘insurgents’ who must ‘mobilise’.
Both sides of the Brexit debate have thanked the former prime minister for framing it in loaded terms that will bring out the best in everyone.
Healthcare worker Helen Archer said: “Let’s see. So on one side we’ve got the Brexit crew already calling anything they don’t like treason and waving flags.
“On the left we’ve got the disturbed followers of a cultish messiah who want the result of a popular vote to be overturned, followed by the overthrow of capitalism.
“And a deposed ruler who started two unending wars for the sake of his ego is telling us it’s a war?
“Great. No problem. Just checking I know where we’re headed.”
Blair said: “My primary role, in and out of government, has been to boost sales for the UK arms industry and that will not change.”
Share: | 1real |
VIEWERS ARE SHOCKED To See American Flag Fall When Democrat Party Leader Mentions Hillary Clinton’s Name During Live MSNBC Interview [VIDEO] | Radical Democratic Chair Tom Perez was being interviewed by MSNBC s Joy Reid about what Democrats need to do to ensure they win more seats in Congress. Joy Reid asked her viewers, How do Democrats turn enthusiasm and better vibes, along with real anger at Donald Trump into the only thing that matters, winning elections? Reid then turned to DNC Chair Tom Perez for answers. As Perez started to speak from a location in Portland Oregon, where he was appearing with Bernie Sanders for an event, viewers can see people in the background setting up for an apparent event. (Only Democrats would have people setting up their stage who have absolutely no respect for our American flag.) Watch the people tasked with setting up the Americans flags, as they drag the flag (on right side of the screen) across the ground before attempting to set it up. As the interview continues, it s only fitting that while Perez is talking about the email list Hillary Clinton gave the DNC from her campaign, that our American flag (after being dragged across the ground) would fall onto the stage. Perez goes on to discuss Democratic values. Sorry Tom, but for most of us who ve been witnessing the childish, violent and unAmerican behavior of Democrats following Hillary s loss to President Trump, we all became keenly aware of your Democratic values. When our American flag fell to the ground, almost on cue while mentioning Hillary s name that pretty much summed up your party.Here s the Perez interview in its entirety. The Tom Perez interview happens at about 25-30 seconds into the show:Here s a tweet showing the moment the flag fell while Perez was speaking:Metaphor alert. pic.twitter.com/RAJU5qmdke T. Becket Adams (@BecketAdams) April 18, 2017DNC Chair Tom Perez was clearly not the best choice for the fractured Democrat Party following Hillary s blistering loss to President Trump. The day before his interview with Joy Reid on MSNBC Tom Perez was introduced by the leader of the Maine Young Democrats Claire Cumming. The video shows Cumming attempting to get the crowd excited by the mere mention of socialist Bernie Sanders, Regardless of why you showed up today, you showed up for a reason. Something compelled you to find the space and time to be here, and I want you to ask yourself what that reason is. The excitement quickly fell flat when she mentioned Tom Perez to the crowd. Watch the millennials boo Perez as Cumming appears to be surprised by their reaction to this name: | 1real |
DISGRACE: OBAMA Regime Caught WASTING $25 Million US Tax Dollars On Phony CLIMATE CHANGE In Country Where Citizens Are Starving [VIDEO] | It is truly a shame that our nation has $25 MILLION dollars to waste on phony climate change. That money could have gone a long way in helping children and adults who are suffering and dying of malnourishment. This President and the Democrats who support his phony war on climate change should be ashamed of themselves. A $25 million U.S.-funded project to help Guatemala combat global warming is being slammed as another taxpayer-backed boondoggle after a new audit highlighted a series of problems including numerous inaccuracies in the group s work and a failure to produce a required long-term plan.Without the plan, the government audit warned, the funds could be wasted. The grant for the Climate, Nature and Communities in Guatemala Program was awarded to the nonprofit Rainforest Alliance in February 2013 by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) as part of a broader effort to fight climate change abroad.Meanwhile, Guatemala is ranked as the 7th poorest nation in the world. Parentless children like Elvin USAID s Office of Inspector General, which issued the audit last month, said the program was set up to help organizations and small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Guatemala improve climate-change strategies and strengthen local NGOs so the country s environment could be conserved without future U.S. assistance. The report noted that as of February 2015, $10.5 million had been disbursed so far.The audit acknowledged the program was making some progress, but it also alleged a laundry list of violations including that the reported results were not accurate.The watchdog reported that data-testing revealed 22 errors in the accounting of whether the program was on track.One example given was that the Rainforest Alliance reported 162,356 hectares of land now devoted to timber and nontimber products such as cacao and honey. But a review found the group had counted the same hectares multiple times.The Rainforest Alliance also reported it had created 30,149 part-time and permanent jobs generated through new sustainable, productive activities undertaken by program-assisted community-based organizations and SMEs. However, the audit found 23,936 of those jobs may have lasted no more than a day.The audit also found that a required comprehensive sustainability plan on how the program will continue after USAID s assistance ends was not completed, despite it being required and the project having been underway for two years. Without a sustainability plan, the funds used to help the Guatemalan Government and other partners manage the country s natural resources to mitigate the harmful effects of climate change could be wasted, the report said.The report was first flagged by Judicial Watch, a conservative watchdog group which called the project an egregious waste of taxpayer dollars and par for the course with virtually all of the Obama administration s green ventures, which have largely failed after getting hundreds of millions in federal funds. Among other violations, the audit also found that while the Rainforest Alliance was supposed to contribute at least $3.75 million as a form of cost-sharing, the $1.79 million it reported as having contributed by December 2014 included $26,708 of U.S. funds it received under a separate project.The auditors also found that participants didn t undergo background checks, breaking a government funding rule that background checks must be performed on anyone seeking to participate in USAID-sponsored training. FOX NewsIf you d like to help one or more of these malnourished children in Guatemala, click HERE to donate. | 1real |
null | Field is correct about the 8a companies and Trump is correct about China . http://planet.infowars.com/politics/whats-the-truth-about-american-vote-fraud-anything-to-suspect As Curtis testifies they were downloading a lot of secret stuff from Nasa as well . Chinese controlling the vote in USA you couldnt make that up , no wonder they have all your industry . No one can deny this didnt happen they are all there at the testimony on video . | 1real |
Life: Chaos: This Coffee Shop Is Also An Art Gallery | Citizens of the four corners of the world, take heed, and behold what horror descends upon us. An unholy paradox has revealed itself. Within its walls, utter chaos reigns: This coffee shop is also an art gallery.
Insanity. There can be no godly reason for such an abomination.
Lo, for here the oceans shall fall out of sight and paintings shall be with coffee and coffee shall be with pastries. The coming and going of a restroom key affixed to a wooden ladle marks the only indication that time passes as the mind sits frozen, unable to comprehend.
How can it be so? What vile architect of insanity can have devised this place?
A Lumineers album plays in its entirety while patrons settle in to a collective nonchalance that suggests either total defeat or a complicity in this wickedness. They offer nothing, seated at their wooden tables, typing on MacBooks and drinking coffees as paintings leer from behind them. Elsewhere, a father turns to son, offering him a coffee as they admire a painting of Nighthawks reimagined with Coen brothers characters.
Truly, this is bedlam.
Above the lattes, art looms. A lone merchant stands behind a concrete slab where two tip jars enjoin visitors to choose between Sex Pistols or The Descendents, but for what are we tipping?
Hot, caffeinated broth sloshes above a chalkboard that favors a soup of the day and Wi-Fi password. A small sticker that says “$350” marks an oil depiction of a sunset, but on another wall, a sunrise on canvas bears no marking at all. Could the latter be mere decoration? And if everything has a price in this mayhem, could it be that the paintings in the bathroom are also for sale?
All sense has fled this place. The mind knows when it has confronted something that simply cannot be.
To comprehend such a chaotic nightmare is futile. The boundary between Earth and the netherworld is not separated by gates after all, but a door. And on that door, a sign that says “Open daily from 6 a.m. to midnight,” bidding all enter and willingly fall to madness. | 1real |
Turkey to investigate Galatasaray's 'Rocky' poster over coup links | ANKARA (Reuters) - The Turkish government has launched an investigation into a poster unfurled by fans of Istanbul s Galatasaray soccer team that pro-Turkish media said was clearly linked to organizers of the 2016 attempted coup. Just before Sunday s match kicked between Galatasaray and local rivals Fenerbahce, the home fans opened a giant red and yellow poster behind the goal showing Sylvester Stallone s famous fictional boxer Rocky , with the caption Stand Up and They look big because you are kneeling. Pro-government Turkish media linked the poster and its caption to the network of U.S.-based cleric Fethullah Gulen, whom Ankara accuses of masterminding the July 2016 failed coup attempt. Pro-government daily Takvim said the poster was a reference to a speech by Gulen, where he was quoted reading from a poem that ends with the words Stand Up Sakarya . Sakarya is a province in northwest Turkey. Prime Minister Binali Yildirim on Monday ordered authorities to carry out an investigation into the poster, sources from his office said. The game between Galatasaray and Fenerbahce, Turkey s biggest fixture, ended in a 0-0 draw after a match that was marred by violence in which a referee was injured. In a statement, Galatasaray said the accusations were a pathetic attempt to discredit the club, adding that the same poster was used at a match in May. We will use all our legal rights against any institution, person and social media account who tried to put the Galatasaray name next to that of the red-handed leader of the heinous terrorist organisation by using the choreography as an excuse, the club said on its website. Some 50,000 people have been jailed pending trial over suspected links to last year s failed coup and more than 150,000 have been sacked or suspended from their jobs in the military, public and private sectors. Rights groups and Turkey s Western allies have said President Tayyip Erdogan is using the failed coup as a pretext to crush dissent, but the government says the measures are necessary to fight the threats it is facing. Following the statement from Yildirim s office, Galatasaray s shares were down 4.89 percent as of 1535 GMT. Current league leaders Galatasaray are Turkey s most decorated soccer club, with 20 league championships, and became the first Turkish club to win a major European trophy when they won the 2000 UEFA Cup, the predecessor to the Europa league. | 0fake |
OOPS! Here’s Proof The Left Used “Schlonged” When Referring To One Of Their Own In 2011 [VIDEO] | I m sure it just slipped the feeble minds of the leftist media If it weren t for double standards, the left would have no standards at all.Take, for example, the current liberal outrage over Schlonggate: Donald Trump s use of the Yiddish word schlong to characterize Hillary Clinton s eventual loss to Barack Obama in her 2008 bid for the Democratic presidential nomination.Among the accusations hurled at Trump was that the use of this pejorative for penis was misogynistic. One critic with a vivid imagination even posited that it was a racial slur aimed at Obama.But it turns out that the taxpayer-funded NPR allowed that very term to be used four years ago in reference to another female politician, Geraldine Ferraro, to recall an almost identical political defeat. Talk of the Nation host Neal Conan used schlonged, moreover, in the same breath in which he mentioned Ferraro s untimely death, as noted by PJ Media s Michael Walsh.Here is the transcript.Sad news to report from this past weekend. Geraldine Ferraro died of blood cancer at the age of 75, the three-term congresswoman from Queens, the first woman to run for vice president of the United States in 1984, the first woman on a major party ticket to do so . And Chris Cillizza, that ticket went on to get schlonged at the polls, but that s a historic moment. [Emphasis added]Here s the Reverend Manning s hysterical take on Trump s use of the word schlonged | 1real |
BOOM! FIRST ANTIFA Coward ARRESTED For Not Removing His Mask…Berkeley Cops NOT Standing Down At Free-Speech Rally [VIDEO] | The video below is an excellent summary of what was reported by citizen journalists who attended the rally. Gavin McGinnis made his announcement on Twitter with a Youtube video (language warning):The morons have arrived. #BerkeleyProtest #DeportAntifa pic.twitter.com/lI4pQA4zlG The Columbia Bugle (@ColumbiaBugle) April 27, 2017https://twitter.com/Forever_Lucid/status/857686377818968070Here s a video of the first protester coward arrested for refusing to remove his mask.https://twitter.com/TheSaintPepe/status/857680259549974528Here is a LIVE stream provided by citizen journalist Tim Pool:Citizen journalist extraordinaire Lauren Southern, who is one of the scheduled speakers at the event is also live-streaming from the event. Click below to watch LIVE stream:Free speech rally https://t.co/if28BnBmmw Lauren Southern (@Lauren_Southern) April 27, 2017Southern explains why she won t back down from free-speech rally. Cancelling sends a message that violence works :Cancelling sends the message that violence works. This is why I'll be at MLK park tomorrow @ 2pm w/ @Gavin_McInnes & more. pic.twitter.com/zuiVV3AeH7 Lauren Southern (@Lauren_Southern) April 27, 2017 | 1real |
Russian suspect detained after arson attacks against last tsar film | MOSCOW (Reuters) - A Russian court ordered the detention of a man on Saturday on suspicion of trying to intimidate cinemas into not showing a new film about the country s last tsar, Russia s news agencies said. Police said earlier they had opened a criminal case following a series of arson attacks in protest over the film Matilda by award-winning director Alexei Uchitel. The film tells the story of a love affair between the tsar, Nicholas II, and half-Polish ballerina Matilda Kshesinskaya, who described the relationship in her memoirs. Interfax cited the court s spokeswoman as saying the man detained was Alexander Kalinin, leader of a radical religious group called Christian State - Holy Rus , on suspicion of pressuring the cinemas not to screen the movie. The court ordered that he be held in custody until Nov. 22, without charge. Christian State vowed to set cinemas on fire if they screened Matilda and a series of arson attacks connected with the film have been reported across the country. Matilda is to be released internationally in late October despite protests from religious conservatives who are offended by what they regard as a disrespectful depiction of a man the Russian Orthodox Church regards as a martyr. Some cinemas have said they will not be showing the film because of threats that they had received. A criminal case has been opened in connection with the fact (the cinemas) were forced not to show the film under the threat of violence against the spectators and causing harm and damage to the cinemas owners , the police said in statement, not naming the film or those detained or charged. The police opened the case in connection with the arson attacks related to Matilda , TASS news agency reported, citing a police source. On Thursday police said they had detained four men, including Kalinin, in connection with an arson attack related to the film. Three of the men had been charged with arson, including their alleged role in setting fire to two cars parked outside the office of Uchitel s lawyer. Other violent acts of protest against the film have included an arson attack on Uchitel s studio and a man driving a car into the facade of a cinema. | 0fake |
Anxious world leaders seek clarity on Trump policies | LONDON (Reuters) - World leaders offered to work with Donald Trump when he takes over as U.S. president, but expressed anxiety over how he will handle problems from the Middle East to an assertive Russia and whether he will carry out a number of campaign threats. Several authoritarian and right-wing leaders hailed the billionaire businessman and former TV show host, who won the leadership of the world’s most powerful country against the odds in Tuesday’s election. China, a target of Trump’s ire during his campaign, appealed for cooperation. Mexico also struck a conciliatory tone, despite Trump’s insults to Mexican migrants and pledges to build a wall to separate the two countries. South Korea urged him not to change policy on North Korea’s nuclear tests. Trump, who has no previous political or military experience, said after defeating Democrat Hillary Clinton that he would seek common ground, not conflict, with the United States’ allies. In the election campaign, he voiced admiration for Russian President Vladimir Putin, questioned central tenets of the NATO military alliance and suggested Japan and South Korea should develop nuclear weapons to shoulder their own defense burden. Putin was among the first to send Trump congratulations. Ties between Washington and Moscow have become strained over the conflicts in Ukraine and Syria, and allegations of Russian cyber attacks featured in the election campaign. “It is not an easy path, but we are ready to do our part and do everything to return Russian and American relations to a stable path of development,” said Putin, for whom an easing of U.S. economic sanctions would be a prize. Among other issues causing concern among allies are Trump’s vows to undo a global agreement on climate change, ditch trade deals he says have been bad for U.S. workers, and renegotiate the nuclear accord between Tehran and world powers which has led to an easing of sanctions on Iran. Iran urged Trump to stay committed to the Iran deal. President Hassan Rouhani said the nuclear accord with six world powers could not be dismissed by one government. German Chancellor Angela Merkel — denounced by Trump as “insane” for allowing more than 1 million migrants into the country last year — added a stern note in her message of congratulations which hinted at a certain unease. “Germany and America are bound together by values - democracy, freedom, respecting the rule of law, people’s dignity regardless of their origin, the color of their skin, religion, gender, sexual orientation or political views,” Merkel said. “On the basis of these values, I am offering to work closely with the future President of the United States Donald Trump.” In Britain, where Trump’s victory had echoes of June’s referendum in which voters showed dissatisfaction with the political establishment by voting to leave the European Union, Prime Minister Theresa May said the “enduring and special relationship” between the two countries would remain intact. But Scotland’s first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, who has often expressed distaste for Trump, said many people in the United States and across the world would feel “a real sense of anxiety.” Nigel Farage, a leader of the Brexit campaign who spoke at a Trump rally during the election campaign, tweeted: “I hand over the mantle to @RealDonaldTrump! Many congratulations. You have fought a brave campaign.” Some European officials however took the unusual step of openly denouncing the outcome, calling it a worrying signal for liberal democracy and tolerance in the world. “We’re realizing now that we have no idea what this American president will do,” Norbert Roettgen, the head of the German parliament’s foreign affairs committee, said. President Francois Hollande said France wanted to begin talks with Trump immediately to clarify his stance on international affairs. “This American election opens a period of uncertainty,” Hollande said. French officials had endorsed Clinton and warned that Trump’s “confused” foreign policy objectives were alarming for the rest of the world. “The U.S. is a vital partner for France and what’s at stake is peace, the fight against terrorism, the situation in the Middle East, economic relations and the preservation of the planet,” Hollande said. But like-minded right-wing European parties that are hoping to make inroads of their own in 2017 — a year in which Germany, France and the Netherlands hold elections, and Italy and Britain could also do so — hailed Trump’s victory. France’s far-right National Front leader, Marine Le Pen, said she hoped the same kind of upset would happen in France. “The Americans gave themselves a president of their choosing and not the one that the establishment wanted them to rubber-stamp,” she said. Mexican President Pena Nieto, who was criticized for receiving Trump in Mexico during the campaign, said he was ready to work with the president-elect. “Mexico and the United States are friends, partners and allies and we should keep collaborating for the competitiveness and development of North America,” Pena Nieto said. Trump has said he could tear up the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), saying that it has killed U.S. jobs, and he called Mexican immigrants rapists during his campaign. Sounding conciliatory, Chinese President Xi Jinping said Beijing and Washington shared responsibility for promoting global development and prosperity. “I place great importance on the China-U.S. relationship, and look forward to working with you to uphold the principles of non-conflict, non-confrontation, mutual respect and win-win cooperation,” Xi told Trump, who had pledged to take on China and to tax Chinese imports to stop currency devaluation. South Korea expressed the hope that Trump would maintain current U.S. policy of pressuring North Korea over its nuclear and missile tests. Seoul was concerned Trump may make unpredictable proposals to North Korea, a ruling party official said, quoting top national security officials. A Japanese government official, speaking before Trump clinched the election, urged him to send a message as soon as possible to reassure the world of the United States’ commitment to its allies. “We are certainly concerned about the comments (Trump) has made to date about the alliance and the U.S. role in the Pacific, particularly Japan,” the Japanese official said. In the Middle East, Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu, who had a poor relationship with President Barack Obama, said he hoped to reach “new heights” in bilateral ties under Trump. Obama and Netanyahu sparred over the issue of Israeli settlements, while Trump has said they should expand. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas also congratulated Trump, but analysts said his rule may be profoundly negative for Palestinian aspirations. And despite Trump’s negative rhetoric about Muslims during his campaign, including threats to ban them from the United States, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said he hoped the business magnate’s election would breathe new life into U.S.-Egyptian ties. | 0fake |
THE CARNAGE AND THE KINDNESS Of Good Samaritans After London Terror Attack [VIDEO] | The London terror attack was a horrific scene with injured bodies strewn everywhere after a vehicle plowed into pedestrians on the Westminster Bridge. While some simply walked by bodies on the street, others got down on their hands and knees to either administer CPR or to just offer encouragement and comfort for the victims until paramedics arrived.A heroic Team GB boxing coach jumped over a fence before fighting in vain to save a police officer killed in the London terror attack, it was revealed today.Tony Davis, who was visiting the Houses of Parliament for a press conference, put PC Keith Palmer in the recovery position and tried to resuscitate him.The coach from Darlington, County Durham, also revealed on TV how he put his raincoat underneath the officer to try to stem the blood as much as he could.Mr Davis was due to be at the Commons with students from the Hammersmith Boxing Academy in West London to launch a community project.And the former Army staff sergeant, who is a coach for the British Lionhearts boxing team, told ITV s This Morning how he reacted to the horrifying attack.Mr Davis, who served 22 years in the military, was leaving the press event with a group of boxers when he saw the attack taking place.He told the program: We were leaving the exit parallel to where the crash happened, I had my phone out to take footage for social media about the event. All of a sudden I saw a large chap brandishing two knives come through the gates and start attacking the policeman. At that point instinct kicked in, I leaped over the fence because that guy needed assistance. The police were holding their ground and that is when poor Keith got attacked. You start moving back with adrenaline pumping in.PC Palmer was one of at least four people who died in the terrorist attack at Westminster yesterday afternoon, which left 29 others injured.An unnamed attacker mounted the pavement on Westminster Bridge, mowing down pedestrians before he stabbed PC Palmer and was shot dead by police.As the maniac ploughed along the bridge in his two-ton Hyundai SUV, frequently mounting the crowded pavement, he mowed down pedestrians like ninepins.Of those who managed to dive out of his path, one woman ended up under a bus and at least two more leapt over the bridge parapet in a desperate bid to escape.Among those struck were three police officers returning from a commendation ceremony. Three French teenagers on a school visit were also targeted.A bloodied man who was injured on Westminster Bridge is comforted by a group of peopleThree were killed and many were left with catastrophic injuries amid a scene of horrifying carnage. The killer began his rampage at the south side of the bridge.A man appeared to have either jumped or been thrown from the bridge, and had fallen to concrete steps about 18ft below. He lay motionless with a dark pool of blood around his head and his leg obviously broken.Moving along the bridge, a bald man lay on the white line between the bus lane and main carriageway, clutching his head. One of the most harrowing scenes was the sight of a woman s legs poking out from under the wheel of a London double-decker bus. It appeared she was either struck by the terrorist or may have tried to dodge him, only to run into the path of the No 53.For entire story:Daily Mail | 1real |
Judge refuses to remove block on Trump sanctuary city order | (Reuters) - A U.S. judge on Thursday refused to revisit a court order that blocks President Donald Trump’s administration from carrying out a policy designed to threaten the granting of federal funds to so-called sanctuary cities. U.S. District Judge William Orrick III in San Francisco ruled that a recent memo from the Justice Department that appeared to narrow the scope of Trump’s executive order on sanctuary cities did not remove the need for a court-ordered injunction. Orrick wrote that the memo is not binding and the attorney general can revoke it at any time. A Justice Department spokeswoman could not immediately be reached for comment. Trump issued the order in January, shortly after he was inaugurated, directing that funding be slashed to all jurisdictions that refuse to comply with a statute that requires local governments to share information with U.S. immigration authorities. Sanctuary cities generally offer safe harbor to illegal immigrants and often do not use municipal funds or resources to enforce federal immigration laws. Dozens of local governments and cities, including New York, Los Angeles and Chicago, have joined the growing “sanctuary” movement. The Trump administration contends that local authorities endanger public safety when they decline to hand over for deportation illegal immigrants arrested for crimes. After Trump issued the sanctuary cities executive order, California’s Santa Clara County - which includes the city of San Jose and several smaller Silicon Valley communities - sued, saying it was unconstitutional. San Francisco filed a similar lawsuit. In a ruling in April, Orrick said Trump’s order targeted broad categories of federal funding for sanctuary governments and that plaintiffs challenging the order were likely to succeed in proving it unconstitutional. The Justice Department asked Orrick to revisit that ruling, after Attorney General Jeff Sessions issued a memo which said the only funds the government intended to withhold were certain grants tied to law enforcement programs. Orrick voiced skepticism at a hearing earlier this month. | 0fake |
WHITE HOUSE LEAKER Reportedly A #NeverTrumper, Top Aide For Reince Preibus | Sunday, GotNews reported that the primary source of the White House leak was traced back to Deputy Chief of Staff and #NeverTrumper Kate Walsh. The goal was to undermine the Trump Presidency and Administration.Walsh is being investigated as a primary person of interest and is said to have been distributing highly confidential information to The New York Times and others. From Got News: Everyone knows not to talk to her in the White House unless you want to see it in the press, says a source close to the president. The only question is whether or not she s doing it at the behest of [White House Chief of Staff] Reince Priebus or if she s doing it to advance herself in DC media circles. Walsh would have significant access as she controls the president s schedule. There s also reportedly a trove of e-mails where Katie Walsh and Reince Priebus discuss how to rid themselves of Trump, according to a former #NeverTrump consultant. The president and his allies have been deliberately feeding her fake information in order to find her network, says a source close to the president s family. It s been going well. Walsh was a #NeverTrump Republican during the campaign . . . a White House investigation is planned into Walsh, who couldn t be reached for comment.(Source: Gateway Pundit) | 1real |
Hyatt heir Pritzker opens Democratic bid to unseat Illinois governor | CHICAGO (Reuters) - Billionaire investor J.B. Pritzker, heir to the Hyatt Hotels Corp fortune, formally entered a growing Democratic field for Illinois governor on Thursday, labeling Republican Bruce Rauner a “failure” as the state’s chief executive. Pritzker’s bid pits him against Chicago businessman Chris Kennedy, son of the late U.S. Senator Robert Kennedy, and three other Democratic candidates in the party’s March 20, 2018 primary. “Governor Bruce Rauner is a failure. He promised a turnaround and all we got was a runaround,” Pritzker told supporters at a Chicago Park District gymnasium on the city’s crime-prone southside. Illinois, the country’s fifth-largest state, is immersed in one of the most politically turbulent eras in its 199-year history. Rauner has feuded with Democrats, who control the state legislature, over his insistence that a state budget be tied to a list of his policy demands that would weaken unions, impose legislative term limits, freeze property taxes and impose new rules on injured workers seeking compensation from their employers. With House Speaker Michael Madigan and fellow Democrats blocking that agenda, Illinois has been without a complete budget during Rauner’s first two years in office. The fiscal futility has left Illinois - the only state ever to go 22 months without a budget - with nearly $13 billion of unpaid bills as of Wednesday. “We’ve got to start by taxing the millionaires and billionaires first. We’re not going to middle-class families until we get people to pay their fair share,” Pritzker told reporters after his announcement. Pritzker, the 52-year-old brother of former U.S. Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker, is positioned as the wealthiest candidate in the race so far, with a net worth estimated by Forbes at $3.4 billion. Rauner, a former private equity investor, does not appear on the Forbes list, but enters a re-election bid with plentiful resources of his own. Last November, the governor released his 2015 tax returns that showed he and his wife had more than $188 million in taxable income. A month later, he steered $50 million in personal funds into his campaign account, state records show. The state Republican Party attacked Pritzker on Thursday by linking him to the long-serving Democratic House speaker and insisting Pritzker favored a reinstatement of the state’s 5 percent individual income tax. In January 2015, the state income tax dropped to 3.75 percent after a temporary 2011 tax increase lapsed. | 0fake |
Trump weighs 'half-blind' trust option for businesses: Politico | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team is considering the use of discretionary trusts to avoid conflicts of interest for Trump family members or administration officials, Politico reported on Wednesday. Such an arrangement would provide individuals with an alternative to selling off assets or placing wealth in blind trusts, which president-elects traditionally do. Trump aides have discussed the idea of discretionary trusts with the Office of Government Ethics (OGE), but it was unclear whether the set-up would be for Trump, his family or any of the wealthy individuals nominated to his Cabinet, according to Politico, which cited two unidentified sources briefed on the talks. Reuters could not immediately confirm the report. Among Trump’s many holdings are hotels and golf resorts from Panama to Scotland, besides a winery and modeling agency Federal law does not prohibit the president’s involvement in private business while in office but most presidents in recent decades have placed their personal assets in blind trusts so they do not know how their decisions influence their personal fortunes. Trump spokeswoman Hope Hicks told Politico no decisions have been made and that his team would release more details next month. Representatives for OGE declined to comment to Politico on the discussions. Discretionary trusts “could allow Trump or his family members to reap some of the legal benefits of a blind trust, but could also give them some insight into how the Trump businesses are faring while also allowing Trump and his family to continue to make money from those investments,” Politico said. Trump’s team has said he will address his business arrangements in January after cancelling a planned Dec. 15 news conference on the issue, which looms over the New York businessman as he prepares to assume office on Jan. 20. Executive branch officials and U.S. lawmakers, however, are subject to conflict-of-interest rules, and Democrats in Congress have called on Trump to divest himself of his vast business interests. Trump has said he would avoid the conflict issue by transferring control of his businesses to his oldest three children, but has given no details. Critics have said the “half-blind” discretionary trusts would allow Trump to sidestep conflict-of-interest rules and would be inappropriate, according to Politico. | 0fake |
Trump needs to accept waterboarding is prohibited torture, U.N. specialist says | GENEVA (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump needs to acknowledge that the extreme interrogation technique known as waterboarding is torture and therefore absolutely prohibited, the U.N. special rapporteur on torture said on Monday. “Without any doubt, waterboarding amounts to torture,” Nils Melzer said in a statement, adding that a U.S. revival of torture would be catastrophic because other countries would also “get back into the torture business”. “I urgently appeal to President Trump to carefully consider not only U.S. legal obligations, doctrine and tradition, but also the consolidated legal and moral views of the entire international community before allowing the re-introduction of methods or interrogation that are more closely associated with barbarism than with civilization,” he said. Waterboarding, in which a victim is subjected to simulated drowning to force them to confess or divulge information, was used by the CIA on three suspected militants detained in secret foreign prisons during President George W. Bush’s administration. But the technique was denounced as torture by President Barack Obama, other top officials, lawmakers and human rights groups. The U.S. Senate also voted to ban it in 2015. Trump said last week, however, he feels waterboarding works but he will defer to Defense Secretary James Mattis, who does not “necessarily believe” such techniques work. | 0fake |
The Kaiser CEO LOVES Obamacare – Thinks Aetna Did It Wrong | You ve probably seen the headlines that Aetna, one of the largest providers in the Affordable Care Act exchanges, has pulled out. Critics of Obamacare had nothing but schadenfreude. They told us Obamacare was doomed and this was proof. As it turns out, Aetna s move was less about the viability of Obamacare (as they claimed) than about a personal and political vendetta against the President, whose administration denied a merger between Aetna and Humana.The CEO of one of the largest providers in the network thinks Aetna is completely wrong. Bernard Tyson of Kaiser Permanente thinks Obamacare has been great for his bottom line and that if Aetna was in fact losing money, it was because they were bad at managing it.Tyson does understand that it s a tough market. People have been sicker than anticipated, which makes sense. If you give millions of people who haven t been able to afford medical care medical care, it will take a few years to bring their health up to that of people who have had insurance. Congress hasn t helped either. Republicans have blocked the assistance that was being offered to the insurance companies to help with the transition.But, according to Tyson, that DOES NOT mean that Obamacare is a failure. The idea that I would turn my back on a segment of the American population who really needs the coverage and the care I m in for the long haul, Tyson said. And I m cautiously optimistic that at some point, we begin to make sure we have the right regulations, meaning oversight, to make sure the market is behaving like it was intended. Kaiser has made a slight margin overall on its ACA plans, Tyson said. Centene Corp., Molina Healthcare and Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Florida similarly have found ways to make money on the exchanges. Narrow networks of hospital and doctors, as well as high deductibles, have worked for Medicaid plans like Centene and Molina. Florida Blue has relied on higher premiums than its peers.Source: Modern Health Care</blockquote>Another problem is that the insurers themselves may be pricing themselves out of the market because of the *drum roll* free market. There were conscious decisions made in the pricing of the product when it first started that did not hold logic to the marketplace, Tyson said. This is not rocket science. There s a pool of people to take care of, there s an underwriting process, and there were decisions made that I m going to consciously underprice, and what I m going to do is gain market share and over time it s going to work itself out. Here s the full interview. It s quite interesting, and if you live in a Kaiser market, it might be worth supporting them:Featured image via video screen capture. | 1real |
Mattis seeks Indian role in Afghanistan, vows to fight militant shelters | NEW DELHI (Reuters) - U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis held talks with Indian leaders on Tuesday, vowing to jointly stamp out militant sanctuaries and seeking India s greater involvement in helping to stabilize Afghanistan. The comments come as President Donald Trump s administration has stepped up pressure on Pakistan for more action against militant groups operating from its soil that are blamed for attacks in India and neighboring Afghanistan. Islamabad denies giving material support to the militants and instead accuses its arch-rival of trying to use Afghanistan as a base for anti-Pakistan activities. But Mattis, the Trump administration s first cabinet official to visit India, said the two countries would work together to fight terrorism. There can be no tolerance of terrorist safe havens, he said in a statement. As global leaders, India and the United States resolve to work together to eradicate this scourge. Washington welcomed Indian efforts to promote stability in Afghanistan, he added. New Delhi has committed $3 billion in development projects in Afghanistan and trains Afghan officers in India. But it has not sent soldiers in the international effort to restore peace. Our engagement in Afghanistan will continue, we shall expand our engagement, Indian Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said, following talks with Mattis. Defence ties between India and the United States have expanded rapidly, with New Delhi buying U.S. weapons worth $15 billion over the last decade, moving away from traditional supplier Russia. Military experts say U.S. weapons transfers aim at bolstering Indian capabilities to develop a counterweight against China s growing assertiveness in recent years. Indian and U.S. negotiators are now trying to move forward with a deal to supply the Indian navy with 22 Sea Guardian drone aircraft, whose June approval by the U.S. government was the first such clearance to a non-NATO ally. India wants the unarmed drones to help its navy lengthen the duration of its surveillance in the Indian Ocean, where Chinese naval ships and submarines make regular forays. Expanding naval cooperation with India was a top priority, Mattis said, adding that three-way exercises involving the United States, India and Japan boosted operational cooperation. The United States has been critical of China s build-up of military facilities in the South China Sea. But New Delhi turned down a U.S. suggestion of regional joint patrols with the Indian navy, for fear of a Chinese backlash. China looms very large for both countries, said Dhruva Jaishankar, a specialist on India-U.S. relations at Brookings India. The strategic underpinning of India-US defense ties is in the common concerns they have over China, over its revisionism. The Indian air force has also asked for 90 armed Avenger Predator drones that experts say could be deployed for cross-border strikes, such as targeting militant camps India says exist on Pakistan s side of disputed Kashmir. Such a sale would need White House and Congress approval, sources said. But Pakistan and, possibly, China could see the move as destabilizing. Dronemaker General Atomics is pleased the Indian government has won approval for the surveillance version of the drone, said Vivek Lall, its chief executive for U.S. and international strategic development. Not only will this platform enhance India s capabilities in the areas of maritime domain awareness and security, but the interoperability with one of the U.S. s most important strategic partners will contribute to security across the region. The two sides will also discuss Lockheed Martin s (LMT.N) offer to build F-16 fighter planes in India as part of Prime Minister Narendra Modi s drive to build a domestic military industrial base. We look forward to sharing some of our most advanced defense technologies, Mattis said. Sweden s Saab (SAABb.ST) is the other contender for the deal to supply at least 100 single-engine combat planes. | 0fake |
Taking Baby Steps to Get Off the Couch - The New York Times | If there is one thing Elaine Fludgate wants to emphasize, it is that she is not the neediest. Nope, not her. What she is, she said, is the luckiest, the most grateful: She was caught before she actually fell through the cracks. For 40 years, Ms. Fludgate, 62, has lived on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. Her most recent job was as an administrator for the Kimmel Center for University Life at New York University, where in 2013 she was a recipient of the college’s Award for outstanding work. She had a loving partner, Michael, by her side. Ms. Fludgate had a good life. But everything changed in late 2013, after Ms. Fludgate learned that her partner had liver cancer. She left her job to care for him, helping him until he died in March 2015. “The depth of my grief was really unbearable,” Ms. Fludgate said. “He was my life for 32 years. That was just us. So he’s gone, and I’m nothing. ” Ms. Fludgate retreated to her apartment, sitting at times in the dark, leaving her solitude only when her cats needed food. As her savings dwindled, Ms. Fludgate resorted to selling items like furniture and jewelry on eBay. She got rid of almost everything, hanging on to only a few items, including a sentimental pair of earrings she has had since she was 18. “It’s embarrassing,” she said. “I had a great job at a university. And then my life just fell apart. ” After seven months of painful grief, she finally forced herself from the couch, venturing to the Center at Lenox Hill Neighborhood House, an assistance center for older adults, to see what help it could offer her. “I realize you can only go so far deep into the rabbit hole,” Ms. Fludgate said. “So I came here, and I was truly a basket case. ” At the center, she was connected to the Service Program for Older People. She joined a bereavement group, was assigned a social worker and therapists and was prescribed antidepressants. “It was very cathartic to be with people who have experienced the hell of losing a loved one,” Ms. Fludgate said. Then in April 2016, eviction notices started appearing on her apartment door. “If I got thrown out, of course, I’d live in a women’s shelter on Park Avenue because I could tell people I was living on Park Avenue,” Ms. Fludgate said, her coping response characteristic of her humor, not haughtiness. Fortunately, in June, she successfully applied for disability and Social Security benefits, which included enough money to pay off her rental arrears, as well as mounting credit card debt. “It’s incredible, but I just want to get across how quickly, especially in this city, you come from the heights and then to get the depths of depression and the whole thing,” Ms. Fludgate said. She currently receives $1, 570 a month in Social Security, $154 in food stamps and a small stipend from a job as a counselor for seniors, a job that ends this week. Last summer, her caseworker at the Service Program for Older People asked Ms. Fludgate if she needed anything, but she said she at first felt too guilty and too proud to tell the truth. Before long, Ms. Fludgate acknowledged she could use help and expressed her desire for new furniture to spruce up her barren apartment. The caseworker, Carola Chase, contacted FPWA, formerly the Federation of Protestant Welfare Agencies, one of the eight organizations supported by The New York Times Neediest Cases. It secured a $1, 000 grant in Neediest Cases funds to allow Ms. Fludgate to buy a sofa, a chair and a console table. “It’s really made a big difference,” she said. “I have had people to my house since I got the new furniture. ” Little by little, her life had been improving. On the first day of this year, Ms. Fludgate lost her health insurance coverage and could no longer afford her medication or receive the services that helped her with her grief. She maintains regular contact with the new friends she made in her bereavement group and leans on them often for assistance. She said she was grateful for every bit of support. “If I had stayed sitting on the couch, I would have lost another 20 pounds, but you wouldn’t have got me anywhere,” Ms. Fludgate said. She is considering trying to the work force full time, she said. But she worries she is at the age where landing a job may be impossible. “I don’t have a goal,” Ms. Fludgate said. “I’m just trying to do baby steps. ” | 0fake |
Virginia governor vetoes bill defunding Planned Parenthood | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe on Tuesday vetoed a bill that would have blocked funding for Planned Parenthood, which provides abortions and other health services. The bill passed by the Republican-controlled legislature would have barred the state from providing funds to clinics that perform abortions not covered by Medicaid, the federal healthcare program for the poor. McAuliffe, a Democrat, said the measure would harm thousands of Virginians who relied on Planned Parenthood healthcare services and programs. He vetoed a similar measure last year. “Attempts to restrict women’s access to health care will impede the goal of making Virginia the best place to live, work, and run a business,” he said in a statement. Advocates for the law had said it would underpin organizations that provide the widest range of services. Planned Parenthood draws the ire of many Republicans because it provides abortions. Republican President Donald Trump has pledged to defund the organization. | 0fake |
AIR FORCE WILL EASE POLICY ON DISCHARGING TRANSGENDERS | As a side note, I m just curious when did the world agree to forfeit the rainbow (a sign from God to Noah that he would never again flood the earth) as the official symbol for the gay community?The Air Force announced policy changes Thursday that will make it more difficult to discharge transgender troops, a move that mirrors one made in March by the Army and puts the Pentagon a step closer to allowing transgender people to serve openly.Troops diagnosed with gender dysphoria or who identify as transgender are generally discharged from serving, based on medical grounds. Those decisions have been made by doctors and unit commanders. The new Air Force policy requires those decisions to be reviewed by high-level officials at Air Force headquarters. Though the Air Force policy regarding involuntary separation of gender dysphoric Airmen has not changed, the elevation of decision authority to the Director, Air Force Review Boards Agency, ensures the ability to consistently apply the existing policy, Daniel Sitterly, a top Air Force personnel official, said in a statement.The Air Force and Army moves follow a number of statements from top Pentagon officials about dismantling the policy allowing transgender troops to be kicked out of the services. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said this year in response to a question about transgender service that ability to perform military tasks should be the standard for eligibility.Air Force Secretary Deborah James expressed openness to allowing transgender troops to serve. From my point of view, anyone who is capable of accomplishing the job should be able to serve, James told USA TODAY. And so I wouldn t be surprised if this doesn t come under review. Via: USA Today | 1real |
OOPS! WAS ANTIFA TERRORIST Who Threatened Acid Attack On Trump Supporters Caught Violating His Probation Today? [VIDEO] | Antifa member, Paul Luke Kuhn who was busted by Project Veritas undercover journalists plotting Butyric acid attacks to disrupt Trump s inauguration party and subsequently arrested was spotted today at a DC protest today.Was he violating his probation orders following his arrest?Rebel Media s Jack Posobiec was live on the scene in D.C. reporting at a protest when he was assaulted by Antifa. The Antifa supporter who physically assaulted Posobiec was immediately arrested. After reviewing the footage, Antifa member, Luke Kuhn was immediately recognized. (A face that creepy is impossible to forget).VIDEO footage of assault where you can see Luke Kuhn clearly.Note the woman who is pretending to be a reporter with a notebook in her hand who tells the police officer, nothing happened when he rushes across the street after clearly seeing what just happened. Another friend of the violent leftist who sucker punched Jack Posobiec tells the police officer, It was self-defense. Lying, violent liberals wearing their little sister s bike helmets and masks. God help us if we ever need these men to actually defend our nation Jack Posobiec Assaulted by Antifa Terrorist pic.twitter.com/L2UvnJ2pKq Jack Posobiec (@JackPosobiec) April 23, 2017Here s a Twitter user telling the reporter Lacy MacAuley to lawyer up after she lied to the police officer telling him, nothing happened after Posobiec got sucker-punched on camera:This is the video of you yelling, "Nothing happened." You were an accessory. I'd lawyer up pronto if I was you. https://t.co/mcY9sisqPC Covfefing Michaela (@MichaelaAleach1) April 23, 2017Here is her arrogant response. Clearly she s living in the past (when Obama still reigned supreme, and when criminals had the upper hand over law enforcement). You re living in Trump s world now Lacy. You may want to lawyer up.Yes I am absolutely proud of this. Thanks for reposting this video. Because, guess what? Nothing illegal happened. No one was punched. https://t.co/XSEXFK7VmO Lacy MacAuley (@lacymacauley) April 23, 2017This is the video of you yelling, "Nothing happened." You were an accessory. I'd lawyer up pronto if I was you. https://t.co/mcY9sisqPC Covfefing Michaela (@MichaelaAleach1) April 23, 2017Let s hope this loser who threatened an acid attack on Trump supporters joins his little lying friends behind bars: https://twitter.com/Stello_Official/status/856254436641042432Jack Posobiec Assaulted by Antifa Terrorist pic.twitter.com/L2UvnJ2pKq Jack Posobiec (@JackPosobiec) April 23, 2017h/t Gateway Pundit | 1real |
Exploding E-Cigarette Engulfs Man in Flames on CCTV Footage | posted by Eddie More evidence has emerged that e-cigarettes can be bad for your health after a French nightclub manager suffered second-degree burns when the vaping device in his pocket dramatically exploded. Terrifying CCTV footage from outside the Toulouse club shows Amine Britel suddenly being engulfed by flames as he chats to fellow smokers. Two men rush to his aid, frantically attempting to put out the fire while Britel leaps about in panic.
Moments earlier, he could be seen vaping on the e-cigarette before placing it back in his trouser pocket. While the flames were brought under control within a matter of seconds, Britel was left with significant burns to his hand and hip area “I heard what sounded like a firecracker but ten times louder,” he said of the incident which occurred in late October. “After the shock of the explosion, I realized I had caught on fire.” He believes the e-cigarette’s hot battery came into contact with coins in his pocket and the resulting sparks caused the explosion. Though the name of the device’s manufacturer has not been disclosed, Britel confirmed he has reported the incident to the China-based firm.
The Toulouse case is the latest in a string of serious incidents involving e-cigarettes in recent years. In February 2016 a woman in Bayonne suffered burns when the device she was using suddenly caught fire inside her car. The flames went on to engulf and destroy three other nearby vehicles. In 2014 a man in Merseyside, England died when the e-cigarette charging in his bedroom exploded, igniting the oxygen concentrator he was using. Earlier this year a 19-year-old man working at a California convenience store was treated for burns when the e-cigarette he was carrying in his pocket exploded, propelled itself 15ft (6 meters) into the air and tore his pants to the knee. CCTV footage has also captured the moment a charging e-cigarette exploded right in the face of a barmaid in the UK in 2014. From Around the Web Founder of WorldTruth.Tv and WomansVibe.com Eddie ( 8981 Posts )
Eddie L. is the founder and owner of www.WorldTruth.TV. and www.Womansvibe.com. Both website are dedicated to educating and informing people with articles on powerful and concealed information from around the world. I have spent the last 36+ years researching Bible, History, Alternative Health, Secret Societies, Symbolism and many other topics that are not reported by mainstream media. | 1real |
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