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Alarming Rise in Palestinian Attacks Since UN Anti-Israel Resolution - Breitbart | TEL AVIV — Israeli defense officials here have noted a sharp increase in Palestinian attacks since the United Nations Security Council passed an resolution on December 23, 2016 calling the West Bank and eastern Jerusalem “occupied Palestinian territories. ”[Avi Issacharoff at the Times of Israel notes: In September 346 attacks were recorded, in October 375, in November 420, and in December 344. Most of the December attacks occurred in the final week of the month. In the first week of January there were 169 recorded attacks, a pace that, if maintained, would lead to almost 700 attacks by the end of the month. Issacharoff writes that the increase in rock attacks could be linked to exam season in Palestinian high schools, although a similar increase was not recorded in previous years. There are several other factors that could be at play, he writes: The rock attacks were also linked to a series of anniversaries taking place around now, including that of Fatah’s founding and first terrorist attack on January 1, 1965, and of the assassination of Yahya Ayyash, Hamas’s chief bomb maker, on January 5, 1996. However, one cannot ignore the possible linkage to the UN Security Council resolution last month and Secretary of State John Kerry’s Mideast speech two weeks ago criticizing Israeli construction in the West Bank and eastern Jerusalem. The uptick in attacks also comes one week before the Palestinians are scheduled to attend a farcical Paris “peace” conference at which the international community, minus Israel, is slated to get together to set the future parameters of a Palestinian state. Some of the holiest sites in Judaism are located in eastern Jerusalem and the West Bank, including the Western Wall and Temple Mount in Jerusalem’s Old City the Cave of the Patriarchs and Matriarchs in Hebron, which was home to the oldest continuous Jewish community in the world until the Jews of Hebron were massacred and expelled the Tomb of Rachel in Bethlehem and Joseph’s Tomb in Nablus — biblical Shechem. I raised questions about the possible motivation for the deadly terrorist attack in Jerusalem on Monday. The attack, which killed four and wounded 17, was carried out in the eastern Jerusalem neighborhood of Armon Hanatziv, also known as East Talpiot, just after the UN and Kerry singled out Israeli construction in eastern Jerusalem. The Palestinians have a long and sordid history of responding to peace talks or international pressure on Israel with a terror campaign targeting Israelis. Arch terrorist Yasser Arafat personified that tactic when he responded to generous Israeli statehood offers in September 2000 by launching the deadly Second Intifada instead of accepting a Palestinian state or even making a . That intifada was kicked off with attacks before it morphed into a terrorist onslaught of shootings and suicide bombings. Within less than 48 hours of last month’s UN resolution, there was an immediate surge in Palestinian terrorist attacks targeting Jews in the West Bank and eastern Jerusalem. While it is still too early to evaluate, the spike in rock throwing attacks and other Palestinian terrorist incidents may be indicative of an alarming trend that could lead to the one word Israeli defense officials try to avoid using in their predictions: intifada. Aaron Klein is Breitbart’s Jerusalem bureau chief and senior investigative reporter. He is a New York Times bestselling author and hosts the popular weekend talk radio program, “Aaron Klein Investigative Radio. ” Follow him on Twitter @AaronKleinShow. Follow him on Facebook. | 0fake |
The True Scandal of 2016 Was The Torture of Chelsea Manning : | The True Scandal of 2016 Was The Torture of Chelsea Manning By Jeremy Scahill
November 10, 2016 " Information Clearing House " - " The Intercept " - A few days ago, we learned that Private Chelsea Manning attempted to take her own life last month for the second time since being sentenced to 35 years at the U.S. military prison in Leavenworth, Kansas. The whistleblower, who provided the collateral murder video, the Iraq and Afghan war logs, and the hundreds of thousands of classified U.S. State Department cables to Wikileaks, was convicted of espionage. As I waited to vote today, I found myself thinking of her languishing in misery in isolation and incarceration.
This election particularly in its closing stages has been dominated by controversies over emails, classified documents, and Wikileaks. Weve heard endlessly about Hillary Clintons private basement server, her 33,000 deleted emails, the phishing and leaking of John Podestas emails, including parts of Clintons much discussed private speeches to Goldman Sachs. Trump, for his part, suddenly discovered a great love for Julian Assange, though he does have trouble correctly spelling Wikileaks in his tweets of praise. Taken together with Trumps bizarre and consistent lauding of Vladimir Putin and leaks from the U.S. intelligence community, the country has been treated to an odd flashback of Cold War propaganda, including a fair dose of red-baiting from the Democrats. In the matter of Anthony Weiners computer, his wife Huma Abedins communications and the potential implications for Clinton, the FBI, whose overreach had not previously been of much concern to Democrats, suddenly became a deviant manipulator of the electoral process, while Trump and his supporters alternately praised the agencys professionalism and denounced it as part of the rigged system.
The U.S. public is now getting a taste of the way hacking, phishing, and an overwhelming dependence on fallible machines and networks can impact politics. But lets be clear: None of the disclosures in this campaign not one thing in any of the hacked emails or those declassified and released from Clintons private server has brought to light anything of greater importance than the documents Chelsea Manning provided to Wikileaks. She revealed war crimes, including murder and torture, dirty and duplicitous dealings of the U.S. and its allies, exposed liars, documented a secret history of Americas longest running war, and forced a much needed debate about the U.S. role in the world. And for that, she is being tortured.
The double standards of our society dictate that a perjurer like the director of national intelligence, James Clapper, faces no consequences for his crimes. Gen. David Petraeus gets a slap on the wrist, no jail time, and prestigious positions at universities for sharing classified information with his mistress. Only Gen. James Cartwright may face the inside of a prison cell for discussing classified information with journalists and he is a sacrificial lamb for the cause of exonerating Clinton and Petraeus from any true accountability by the Obama Justice Department.
But Chelsea Manning, whose motivation was noble, whose actions made our country better, faces the full wrath of the system. And it may end up killing her. When we talk about the high-tech scandals that marked this election, at the top of the list should be the torture of Chelsea Manning. | 1real |
SUPREME COURT AGREES TO TAKE ON Obama’s Un-American Plan To Shield Millions Of Illegals From Deportation | So far, the Supreme Court has not prevented one single unconstitutional act committed by Obama. Is there any reason to believe they will stop the invasion of illegals to save America and the American worker?The Supreme Court agreed Tuesday to review President Obama s plan to shield up to 5 million illegal immigrants from deportation, after lower courts blocked the president s sweeping executive actions from taking effect.The decision sets up an election-year clash over the controversial plan that many Republicans have likened to amnesty. The justices said Tuesday they will consider undoing lower court rulings that blocked the plan from taking effect. The Obama administration had appealed to the Supreme Court last fall.The decision to review the case may be welcome on both sides of the aisle. Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch, of Utah, issued a statement praising the court for taking it on and urging the justices to rule against the administration. President Obama s executive action is an affront to our system of republican self-government, Hatch said. The Constitution vests legislative authority in Congress, not the President. With his actions, President Obama has attempted to bypass the constitutionally ordained legislative process and rewrite the law unilaterally. The case probably will be argued in April and decided by late June, about a month before both parties presidential nominating conventions. The issue of illegal immigration has taken a center-stage role in the Republican primary battle, as Donald Trump calls for a wall between the U.S. and Mexico and candidates spar over who is toughest on the issue.The immigrants who would benefit from the Obama administration s plan are mainly the parents of U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents.But more than two-dozen mostly Republican-led states challenged Obama s executive actions after they were rolled out in 2014, and the plan has been tied up in litigation ever since.Critics say the plan is unconstitutional. Shortly before the administration took the case to the Supreme Court, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of the states in early November.Solicitor General Donald Verrilli Jr. later said in a court filing that allowing those rulings to stand would force millions of people to continue to work off the books, without the option of lawful employment to provide for their families. At issue is the Deferred Action for Parents of Americans program, which Obama said would allow people who have been in the United States more than five years and who have children who are in the country legally to come out of the shadows and get right with the law. Via: Fox News | 1real |
BREAKING: SAUDI DEPUTY CROWN PRINCE Secretly Rushed Into West Wing Of White House [Video] | PLEASE NOTE: No press allowed inside or anywhere near the meeting today with the Saudi Deputy Crown Prince: | 1real |
WATCH Barry Lose His Cool During Interview About Putin: “He’s Challenging Your Leadership Mr. President” | Wow! What s more shocking the fact that a member of the mainstream media finally crossed Obama s imaginary red line or that we have a sitting president who acts like a petulant toddler when confronted with his weak leadership?60 Minutes Steve Kroft is not letting Barack Hussein Obama off the hook when it comes to his failed leadership in the Middle East. Barry Soetoro, aka Barack Hussein Obama answers his questions much like a toddler would if confronted with misbehaving.Watch embarrassing interview here:The interview can be seen in its entirety on 60 Minutes, Sunday evening 7:30 pm EST. | 1real |
Man with knife shot at Amsterdam airport; suspect is known offender | AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - A Dutchman wielding a knife was shot by military police on Friday at Amsterdam s Schiphol Airport and taken into custody, an official said. There were no reports of other injuries. The suspect in the incident is a 29-year-old man from The Hague, police said in a tweet. The man is known to the police in connection with previous violent incidents. The man had made threats with a knife and was shot at the central plaza of Schiphol airport, an area with shops and restaurants, spokesman Stan Verberkt said. He was injured and has been taken into custody. No details of his condition were released. The immediate area around the incident was closed to the public, but authorities gave the all clear and the airport was operating as usual, he said. | 0fake |
SPINELESS: Paul Ryan Actually RAN AWAY From Reporters After Trumpcare FAIL (VIDEO) | Everyone knows Speaker of the House Paul Ryan has absolutely no backbone, but what he did yesterday was an entirely new low for the Republican Party.Yesterday was a disaster for the GOP to begin with. Donald Trump pathetically failed to gain enough votes for the disastrous American Health Care Act, and the GOP suffered a major humiliation as the glorious plan they ve been promising to implement and do away with Obamacare with for the past seven years deteriorates before their eyes. After such a horrible, embarrassing day, it was clear that Ryan didn t have it in him to face the press and answer the many critical questions that Americans have about Trumpcare.Ryan emerged from the failed discussions over Trumpcare, visibly frustrated and not in the mood to make nice with reporters. He gave a short statement in which he was clearly angry and uncomfortable: For seven and a half years, we have been promising the American people that we will repeal and replace this broken law because it s collapsing and it s failing families, and tomorrow we re proceeding. He ended his address abruptly, literally running off and away from reporters demanding answers. You can watch this disgusting behavior below, courtesy of the Rachel Maddow Show: This is clearly a sign that the GOP knows how badly they ve just failed, and they re aware of how pathetic the party looks right now. This could not be a more painful time for the GOP their disastrous reality television star of a candidate won the election and even though he s only been in the White House a little more than two months, he s f*cked things up more than anyone thought he would. With Trump s help, the Republican Party has done irreversible damage to its reputation and they only have themselves to thank. Ryan s cowardly behavior only solidifies the fact that the GOP is crumbling before our very eyes.Featured image via screenshot | 1real |
BREAKING: HILLARY CLINTON’S Comments On The ‘Rights’ Of The ‘Unborn” Will Send A Chill Up Your Spine [Video] | The unborn person is how Clinton describes the baby in the womb. So if the unborn is a person then wouldn t it have rights? This interview with Clinton shows what a cold-hearted woman she is. She s all for late-term abortion like Obama is but we skewer Trump for being pro-life? The unfavorable ratings with women should be sky high for Clinton. In an interview with Chuck Todd on NBC s Meet the Press airing on Sunday, Clinton said that while it doesn t mean that you don t do everything possible to try to fulfill your obligations [to help the unborn person], it does not include sacrificing the woman s right to make decisions. SHE S JUST COLD Read more: Daily Caller | 1real |
In search of rebound, Trump ramps up attacks on Clinton | MANHEIM, Pa. (Reuters) - Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump closed out a rough week for his campaign on Saturday by escalating personal attacks on Democrat Hillary Clinton, questioning her stamina and saying she should be in prison for her handling of classified emails. After a week in which he drew wide criticism for a public feud with a former beauty queen, Trump sought to rebound with a highly negative attack on his opponent in the Nov. 8 election, with a second presidential debate against her looming in a week. At the same time, the New York Times reported it had obtained records showing Trump declared a $916 million loss on his 1995 income tax returns, a deduction so large that it may have allowed him to avoid paying any federal income taxes for years. Trump has refused to release his tax records, saying he is under a federal audit. At a rally in Manheim, Pennsylvania, Trump said he did not believe Clinton, who suffered a bout of pneumonia last month, was up to the task of being president. He tried to resurrect a tactic he employed against former Republican rival Jeb Bush, who Trump had derided as “low energy.” Clinton kept her pneumonia diagnosis private until she was seen nearly collapsing while getting into her vehicle at a ceremony marking the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in New York. Ticking off a list of world problems, Trump said, “She’s supposed to fight all of these things and she can’t make it 15 feet to her car. Give me a break.” “Folks, we need stamina, we need energy, we need people who are going to turn deals around,” Trump said. Trump has often told crowds who chant “lock her up” over her use of a private email server as U.S. secretary of state from 2009 to 2013 to instead help him defeat her. But on Saturday, Trump told thousands of supporters that Clinton’s handling of classified emails and destroying of 33,000 emails that she had deemed of a personal nature meant that “she should be in prison, let me tell you.” Trump did not stop there. He said he did not believe Clinton would be loyal to her supporters and chuckled, “I don’t even think she’s loyal to Bill, to tell you the truth. And why should she be, right? Why should she be?” In 1998, Clinton’s husband, former President Bill Clinton, was caught up in a sex scandal involving former White House intern Monica Lewinsky. Trump was widely seen as having lost his first presidential debate with Clinton last Monday although he cites online polls showing he won. In the days since the debate, Trump has been struggling to regain his footing, getting caught up in a back-and-forth with former Miss Universe Alicia Machado, who Trump had criticized for gaining weight. | 0fake |
‘I Inherited a Mess,’ Trump Says, Defending His Performance - The New York Times | WASHINGTON — President Trump on Thursday dismissed reports about his associates’ contacts with Russia last year and vigorously defended his performance in his first four weeks in office, in a contentious news conference that showcased his unconventional and unconstrained presidency. At a hastily organized White House event — ostensibly to announce a new nominee for labor secretary, R. Alexander Acosta — Mr. Trump engaged in an extended attack on the news media and insisted that his new administration was not a chaotic operation but a “ machine. ” Any challenges, he said, were not his fault. “To be honest, I inherited a mess,” he said. In addition to his cabinet announcement, the president revealed that he had asked the Justice Department to investigate government leaks and said he would sign an executive order next week restricting travel to the United States. He promised to produce by March a plan to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, followed by another plan to overhaul the tax system. But his news conference was dominated by an extraordinarily raw and angry defense of both his administration and his character. At times abrupt, often rambling, characteristically boastful yet seemingly pained at the portrayals of him, Mr. Trump kept summoning the spirit of his successful campaign after a month of grinding governance to remind his audience, again, that he won. For a president who has already lost a court battle, fired an acting attorney general and a national security adviser, and lost a cabinet nomination fight, Mr. Trump was eager to demonstrate that he was still in command. He attacked judges for blocking his original travel order and Democrats for obstructing his nominations. He denied being even when no one accused him of it. With the latest Pew Research Center poll showing that just 39 percent of Americans approve of the job he is doing, Mr. Trump at one point plaintively pleaded for understanding. “The tone is such hatred,” he said, referring to the commentary about him on cable television. “I’m really not a bad person. ” Mr. Trump disputed any contention that the White House was out of control or not fully functional, and boasted of a flurry of actions intended to create jobs, curb regulations and crack down on illegal immigration. “There has never been a presidency that has done so much in such a short period of time,” he said. “And we haven’t even started the big work yet. That starts early next week. ” The enactment of a temporary ban on refugees and all visitors from seven predominantly Muslim countries, he maintained, was “perfect,” despite widespread confusion and subsequent court rulings blocking it. “We had a very smooth rollout of the travel ban,” he said. “But we had a bad court. ” Mr. Trump offered his first account of his decision to fire Michael T. Flynn, his national security adviser, for misleading Vice President Mike Pence and others in the White House about the contents of a conversation with Russia’s ambassador in December. He said he was not bothered that Mr. Flynn had talked with the ambassador about American sanctions on Russia before arriving at the White House. “I didn’t direct him,” he said, “but I would have directed him, because that’s his job. ” The problem, he said, was that Mr. Flynn had told Mr. Pence that sanctions did not come up during the conversation, an assertion belied by a transcript of the call, which had been monitored by American intelligence agencies. “The thing is he didn’t tell our vice president properly, and then he said he didn’t remember,” Mr. Trump said. “So either way, it wasn’t very satisfactory to me. ” But he said reports that his campaign aides and other associates had contacts with Russia were “a joke” and “fake news put out by the media. ” The New York Times reported this week that phone records and intercepted calls showed repeated contacts between some of his associates and Russian intelligence officials in the year before the election. “Russia is a ruse,” Mr. Trump said. “I have nothing to do with Russia. To the best of my knowledge, no person that I deal with does. ” However, Mr. Trump said, all the pressure on Russia may ruin any future negotiations with President Vladimir V. Putin. “Putin probably assumes that he can’t make a deal with me anymore because politically, it would be unpopular for a politician to make a deal,” he said. Like presidents before him, Mr. Trump was peeved at a series of leaks, including about Mr. Flynn’s call and his own conversations with foreign leaders. In addition to requesting the Justice Department investigation, he confirmed that he might assign a New York billionaire, Stephen A. Feinberg, to conduct a broad review of the intelligence agencies. “He’s offered his services, and you know, it’s something we may take advantage of,” Mr. Trump said. But he added that it might not be necessary because “we are going to be able to straighten it out very easily on its own. ” Mr. Trump returned again and again to his contest with Hillary Clinton, replaying key events from the 2016 campaign and reviving his favorite attacks. He repeated a claim that Mrs. Clinton gave Russia access to American nuclear fuel supplies. “I’ve done nothing for Russia,” he said. “Hillary Clinton gave them 20 percent of our uranium. ” The State Department did sign off on the purchase of a Canadian company by a Russian state firm that gave Russia control of of America’s uranium production capacity, as did eight other agencies. But Mrs. Clinton was not in a position to approve or reject the deal when she was secretary of state, and it is not known if she was briefed on the matter. Mr. Trump spent much of the conference berating reporters and their news organizations. Clearly exasperated by coverage of him, he said he did not watch CNN but then gave a detailed critique of one of its shows. He cited specific articles in The Times and The Wall Street Journal that he called “fake,” even harking back to one from last year’s campaign. “The press is out of control,” he said. “The level of dishonesty is out of control. ” He added later, “The public doesn’t believe you people anymore. ” The acrimony grew so sharp at one point that CNN’s Jim Acosta felt the need to tell Mr. Trump, “Just for the record, we don’t hate you. ” But that did not assuage him. At one point, he called on Jake Turx, an Jewish reporter from Ami Magazine. “Are you a friendly reporter?” he asked. “I haven’t seen anybody in my community accuse either yourself or anyone on your staff of being ” Mr. Turx said. But, citing bomb threats against Jewish centers, he said, “What we haven’t really heard being addressed is an uptick in and how the government is planning to take care of it. ” Mr. Trump bristled, taking it as a suggestion that he was even though the reporter specifically said the opposite. “I am the least person that you’ve ever seen in your entire life,” Mr. Trump said. Mr. Turx protested that he was not suggesting otherwise. “Quiet, quiet, quiet,” Mr. Trump said. “See? He lied. He was going to get up and ask a very straight, simple question. ” Instead, Mr. Trump said, the question was “repulsive” and “very insulting. ” He later accused Democrats of posing as supporters and holding up offensive signs at his rallies to smear him. When April Ryan of American Urban Radio Networks asked whether he would meet with the Congressional Black Caucus to discuss his urban agenda, Mr. Trump again seemed piqued. “Do you want to set up the meeting?” he challenged her. “Are they friends of yours?” “I’m just a reporter,” said Ms. Ryan, who is . “Well, then, set up the meeting,” Mr. Trump said. That exchange and others included claims that were false or disputed. Mr. Trump told Ms. Ryan that he had planned a meeting with Representative Elijah E. Cummings, an Democrat from Maryland, but that Mr. Cummings had said: “It might be bad for me politically. I can’t have that meeting. ” Mr. Cummings later denied that. “I have no idea why President Trump would make up a story about me like he did today,” he said. “I was actually looking forward to meeting with the president about the skyrocketing price of prescription drugs. ” Similarly, Mr. Trump asserted that his Electoral College victory was the largest since Ronald Reagan’s. But he won fewer Electoral College votes than three of the four presidents since Reagan: Barack Obama, Bill Clinton and George Bush. When a reporter pointed that out, Mr. Trump brushed it off. “I was given that information,” he said. | 0fake |
BOMBSHELL! FBI Reopens Investigation on Hillary Clinton | BOMBSHELL! FBI Reopens Investigation on Hillary Clinton 10/28/2016 In today’s video, Christopher Greene of AMTV explains somebody very powerful just pulled the rug from under Hillary Clinton. 10/27/2016 TRUTH REVOLT http://youtu.be/PsVNKmb6jEc There’s a lot of accusations going around that the 2016 election is r ... Netflix Ceo: TV’s Future includes Hallucination Pills 10/27/2016 INDEPENDENT The future of TV might everyone taking hallucinogenic drugs, according to the head of Netflix. The thr ... | 1real |
Gr-r-reat? Why Amazon’s Whole Foods Deal Will Hurt Kellogg And Similar Brands - Breitbart | Market analysts are anticipating an increase in fresh food sales as a result of the Foods merger, according to a CNBC report. [Such a shift in the market would hurt brands like General Mills and Kellogg, according to the report. The transition from a mixed emphasis on processed and fresh foods to a greater emphasis on fresh products will hurt brands like Kellogg, who focus almost exclusively on processed foods. “I would say it’s the smaller brands that are going to be most affected. Conagra and the midtier companies are probably going to be the most hurt. There’s probably a lot of independent brands that are owned privately around the country that have the least pricing power and will be hit hard by this,” Bernstein analyst Alexia Howard told CNBC. It’s not good news “for the cereal companies, but it’s generally not good news for packaged companies. ” Shares of Kellogg Company and General Mills declined sharply when the Foods was announced. Market trends suggest that consumers are moving away from processed foods and towards fresh products. Analysts suggest that the Foods merger will serve to accelerate this market shift. “Shifts in the retail environment, particularly in North America, may pose risks broadly for processed food manufacturers, including General Mills. Consumers continue to drive away from processed foods,” wrote Piper Jaffray analyst Michael Lavery ahead of the merger. “We expect continued downward pressure on pricing from intense retail competition, driven by retailers like Walmart, Aldi and Lidl and online retailers, too. ” Other analysts have credited online information with inspiring the move away from processed foods, which many now argue are bad for the consumer’s health. Bernstein analysis Alexia Howard claimed that consumers have developed a mistrust of legacy brands such as General Mills as a result of online dialogue on the health ramifications of eating processed foods. “That’s allowing new challengers or small brands gaining market share, and you’re seeing a fragmentation of the industry. Consumers, particularly mothers of small children, have started to talk about what’s in our food,” said Howard. “It’s created a distrust of the legacy products. That’s what’s reduced barriers to entry and allow a lot of new brands to come up, and that’s another big challenge. ” As the food market evolves, processed food companies like General Mills and Kellogg may be forced to shift the focus of their production to introduce some fresh food offerings. Kellogg announced in November that it was pulling ads from Breitbart. com because its 45, 000, 000 monthly conservative readers were not “aligned with our values as a company. ” In response, Breitbart News, one of the world’s top news publishers, launched a #DumpKelloggs petition and called for a boycott of the ubiquitous food manufacturer. Shares of Kellogg have declined by 9. 3 percent since the #DumpKelloggs campaign began. Tom Ciccotta is a libertarian who writes about economics and higher education for Breitbart News. You can follow him on Twitter @tciccotta or email him at tciccotta@breitbart. com | 0fake |
Trump Plans To Turn Medicaid Into A Death Panel Program With Limited Funding | People who voted for Donald Trump and receive Medicaid are about to get some really bad news.For decades, Republicans have wanted to destroy Medicaid, a healthcare program that helps low income people with a combination of federal and state resources.The idea of block grants would mostly achieve this goal by slashing the amount of money the federal government provides and would shift the fiscal responsibility to the states.According to the New York Times,A block grant would be a radical change. Since its creation in 1965, Medicaid has been an open-ended entitlement. If more people become eligible because of a recession, or if costs go up because of the use of expensive new medicines, states receive more federal money.If Congress decides to create block grants for Medicaid, lawmakers will face thorny questions with huge political and financial implications: How much money will each state receive? How will the initial allotments be adjusted for population changes, for general inflation, for increases in medical prices, for the discovery of new drugs and treatments? Will the federal government require states to cover certain populations and services? Will states receive extra money if they have not expanded Medicaid eligibility under the Affordable Care Act, but decide to do so in the future?Also, Republicans could punish blue states by giving them less money while giving more money to red states.But once the money runs out, people will suffer regardless of which state they live in because that s what a block grant is. It s a set amount of money. States would have to decide if they want to spend more money on healthcare after the funding dries up. Basically, lawmakers will be deciding if you get medical care or not. In other words, death panels.Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker told Republicans in Congress that, States would most likely make decisions based mainly on fiscal reasons rather than the health care needs of vulnerable populations. Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards echoed the same concerns. Under such a scenario, flexibility would really mean flexibility to cut critical services for our most vulnerable populations, including poor children, people with disabilities and seniors in need of nursing home and home-based care, he said.Again, this is basically the death panels Sarah Palin was freaking out about when the Affordable Care Act passed, only these are real and would be run by the states because the federal government is forcing them to decide who gets care and who doesn t by imposing funding limits.Medicaid covers more than 70 million Americans across the country, many of whom are conservatives in some of the poorest states. That s 70 million people who are going to face great suffering and death over the next four years if Trump and Republicans have their way.Featured Image: Spencer Platt/Getty Images | 1real |
Death of millions of Yemenis in the "forgotten war" | Email
The Times made a reference on Thursday to the suffering of millions of Yemenis using the phrase "the forgotten war".
An18-year-old Yemeni girl's image catches the attention on the front page of the newspaper. Her malnutrition reduced her to a skeleton and she has disturbingly become emaciated as a result of food shortage.
This newspaper reported that Saida has been hospitalized in the port city of Hodeidah because of malnutrition while the city is under economic siege of Saudi Arabia. | 1real |
WATCH: MSNBC Host HILARIOUSLY Informs Republican Men Why They Should Pay For Prenatal Care | Republicans seriously need to pay attention in biology class.Because if they had, they would know that the reason women get pregnant in the first place is because of men.And that s why women need prenatal care to be covered by health insurance plans.But Republicans like Rep. John Shimkus think that men should not have to pay for prenatal care in their insurance plans, even though by doing exactly that they are protecting pregnant women and the fetuses they carry.During a committee hearing on Thursday, Shimkus openly whined about men having to pay for prenatal care and argued that insurance companies should only make women pay for it.Economist Austin Goolsbee expressed confusion over Shimkus objection and proceeded to explain to him how insurance works. If you look at any insurance product, everyone pays in because there s a risk that a small number of people are going to have a claim, Goolsbee began. So, there s a subsidy, if you want to call it that, from people who don t get in car accidents to people who do get in car accidents. That s the nature of insurance. Everyone is born, I think we can agree on that. The prenatal care is good for society, that we are covering prenatal care, that women can have babies in a healthy way, and to object that men shouldn t have to pay for things that are women s problems, young people shouldn t pay in for things that are old people s problems. Hopefully all the young people will be old people, eventually. As I say, that s how insurance markets work. I don t understand this objection. Indeed, that s how Social Security works. Each generation of workers basically subsidizes the retirement of workers who came before them. This way, senior citizens can retire and live comfortably while a younger person gets a job.Republicans can also look at prenatal care another way. If they are seriously going to force women to carry pregnancies to term, the least they can do is help make sure that the mother and fetus are healthy and getting the medical attention they need.The cost of prenatal care insurance would skyrocket if women were the only ones having to pay for it since the insurance pool would be smaller.MSNBC host Stephanie Ruhle, who has three children, also chimed in by informing Republicans that women don t impregnate themselves. Congressman Shimkus, if you are watching, unlike Tom Price, I m not a doctor. But I will talk science for a moment. Though it is women who need that prenatal care, men are involved in the process that requires them to need prenatal care, FYI. Here s the video via YouTube:Republicans should be ashamed of themselves for complaining so much about women s healthcare. Their mothers, sisters, daughters, and wives must be embarrassed.Featured image via screenshot | 1real |
The Ultimate Safe Space: Check Out This New Advertisement for “The Bubble” | SNL has a place to go where you’ll never be triggered and will always have a safe space just in case you are:
| 1real |
LATINO TRUMP SUPPORTER: “It was harder to come out as a Trump supporter than it was to come out as gay” [Video] | This guy is great! He describes how it was to be at a Trump rally and how the cops stood down. | 1real |
Trump still weighing whether to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital: Kushner | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump has not yet made a decision on whether to formally recognize Jerusalem as Israel s capital, his adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner said on Sunday, a move that would break with decades of U.S. policy and could fuel violence in the Middle East. He s still looking at a lot of different facts, and then when he makes his decision, he ll be the one to want to tell you, not me, Kushner said at an annual conference on U.S. policy in the Middle East organized by the Brookings Institution think tank in Washington. A senior administration official said last week that Trump could make the announcement on Wednesday. Kushner is leading Trump s efforts to restart long-stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, efforts that so far have shown little progress. Past U.S. presidents have insisted that the status of Jerusalem home to sites holy to the Jewish, Muslim and Christian religions must be decided in negotiations. The Palestinians want Jerusalem as the capital of their future state, and the international community does not recognize Israel s claim on all of the city. Any move by the United States to recognize Jerusalem as Israel s capital would fuel extremism and violence, Arab League Secretary-General Ahmed Aboul Gheit said on Saturday. A senior Jordanian source said on Sunday that Amman, the current president of the Arab summit, has begun consultations on convening an emergency meeting of the Arab League and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation before Trump s expected declaration this week. | 0fake |
Should I stay or should I go? U.S. civil servants gird for Trump | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Donald Trump’s surprise victory in the U.S. presidential election has set off a round of resume-polishing across Washington, as the nation’s federal civil servants prepare for a leader who has promised to freeze hiring and reverse many of the policies they have spent the past eight years putting in place. While anti-Washington rhetoric is a staple of U.S. politics, more than two dozen federal workers interviewed by Reuters said Trump’s divisive presidential campaign pointed to bigger potential problems than those that would normally come with a routine switch from a Democratic to a Republican administration. The New York businessman’s lack of political experience and contentious rhetoric have prompted some to assess whether they should leave government before he takes office on Jan. 20. As the Republican presidential candidate, Trump encouraged his supporters to harass journalists and attack protesters. He vowed to sue news outlets and women who accused him of sexual assault and said he would jail his opponent, Democrat Hillary Clinton. Trump’s conduct has caused some undercover agents to worry that their identities could be made public if they step out of line, said Susan Hennessey, a former attorney at the National Security Agency who has been urging people in government to keep working in Trump’s administration to help resist potential abuses of power. “I can’t and don’t blame anyone who feels they can’t stay,” she said. Other federal workers worry their integrity could be compromised if they work on cases that affect Trump’s vast business interests. Trump’s taxes are being audited by the Internal Revenue Service and the National Labor Relations Board is involved in a labor dispute at his Las Vegas hotel. Changes to tax laws or pollution rules could potentially impact some of his property holdings. “Do I get out or is it all the more important that I stay in to push back on the problematic things?” said one federal worker, who, like others interviewed for this story, asked not to be identified for fear of retaliation at work. A transfer of power always convulses Washington to some degree, particularly when it comes to the departure and arrival of political appointees in more than 4,000 posts. Those top officials oversee 2.7 million civilian workers, from park rangers to tax lawyers, who are expected to enact the president’s agenda and enforce laws passed by Congress regardless of their personal political views. But several workers told Reuters they’d rather leave government service than carry out orders they don’t agree with, pointing specifically at Trump’s vow to undo President Barack Obama’s policies on trade, immigration, health care and environmental protection. National security officials have printed out their resignation letters, ready to hand them in if Trump tries to revive policies such as waterboarding or mass surveillance of Americans they oppose on legal or moral grounds, according to more than 20 military, intelligence and Foreign Service officers, who all spoke on condition of anonymity. Regulators at the Environmental Protection Agency privately say they are looking for new jobs ahead of expected cutbacks at their agency, whose climate-change rules were criticized by Trump on the campaign trail. One manager is urging employees to stay on the job. “Sometimes democracy surprises you. And while the election results will no doubt bring many changes over the coming months, our job remains the same,” Sarah Dunham, director of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Atmospheric Programs, wrote to colleagues two days after the election. Misgivings apparently extend into the nation’s 1.5 million military service members as well. A survey released by the Military Times on Friday found that one in five service members said they will not re-enlist with Trump as Commander-in-chief. During his campaign, Trump promised to rescind two regulations for every new one his administration issues and freeze hiring at agencies that don’t cover public safety, public health or national defense. Republicans in Congress have pushed to erode job protections and scale back benefits. That would be a further blow for federal workers who have weathered furloughs, salary freezes and a three-week government shutdown in recent years. The civilian work force has shrunk by 4 percent since Obama’s first year in office, according to White House figures, and it could shrink further. More than one-third of federal workers will be eligible for retirement next year, according to a 2014 Government Accountability Office report. “This isn’t the worst thing that’s happened to us,” said a scientist who manages a fisheries laboratory in the Pacific Northwest of the expected changes. “It’s kind of continual.” There may be a silver lining for those who are trying to get a job working for Uncle Sam. Trump has promised to increase the number of border-security agents and immigration-enforcement officers as part of a crackdown on illegal immigration. And several managers said they were rushing to fill vacancies on their teams before Trump’s promised hiring ban takes effect. “Everybody seems to be scrambling to fill the positions they have open now,” one said. | 0fake |
5-Year-Old Girl Kills Herself After ‘Responsible Gun Owner’ Dad Leaves Gun On A Table (VIDEO) | Once again, the NRA s favored masturbatory aid is responsible for the death of a child. The terrorist group masquerading as a gun rights organization regularly informs us that keeping a gun in the home is probably the safest thing someone can do for his family next to hiring an army of ninja chimpanzees, but the truth is that both can lead to unintended and disastrous consequences the sort that took the life of 5-year-old Haley Moore on Saturday.Neighbors describe Moore s father, Eric (a retired veteran the NRA would normally use as the poster-ammosexual for gun safety), as being vigilant about keeping his guns out of the hands of his child the sort of thing we can expect the NRA to say about most parents who bravely decide to transform their homes into veritable armories but reality, unfortunately, reared its ugly head when he decided to take a shower at around 9:45 a.m., leaving a loaded .45 handgun on the table.Next door neighbor Joy Ursin told WVUE that she learned what happened when Haley s terrified older siblings informed her: The oldest kid, she told me because they came over to us when all this happened, she s traumatized, my sister, my sister shot herself. Ursin says she comforted the older children as their father called law enforcement after he finished his shower, that is. The gun should ve been locked up but at the same time, you should, I think that from an early age, getting children familiar with them and enough to know it s not a toy is the biggest thing, Labat said telling the news station that it s definitely sad when something like this happens. Unfortunately, this isn t the solution either. Not only does the simple act of keeping a firearm in the home increase the risk of harm coming to yourself or your family members, but Mother Jones noted in 2013 that For every time a gun is used in self-defense in the home, there are 7 assaults or murders, 11 suicide attempts, and 4 accidents involving guns in or around a home. While it is comforting for some to think that a child well-informed about the dangers of guns will not touch them, an ABC experiment in which children were exposed to hidden firearms directly after taking a NRA gun safety class ignored the danger and (for the most part) played with the guns they found anyway.Haley died from her injuries in the hospital, another victim of the NRA s jihad against sanity.It is unclear if Eric will be charged with a crime for causing his daughter s death, but we won t be holding our collective breath.Watch a report on the senseless and completely avoidable death below:FOX 8 WVUE New Orleans News, Weather, Sports, SocialFeatured image via Facebook | 1real |
NYC Police Brutally Arrest Postal Worker After Nearly Hitting His Truck (VIDEO) | For Glen Grays, a 27-year-old New York City postal worker March 17 was not a typical day. That s because Grays was arrested after criticizing a police officer s driving.Grays was making deliveries in the neighborhood of Crown Heights in Brooklyn when a car almost hit his mail truck. Grays then did what most drivers would do if they were in the same situation he yelled at the person driving the vehicle for his reckless behavior.What Grays didn t know is that the vehicle was an unmarked police car. It is at this point that four plainclothes police officers get out of the unmarked police car and begin to harass Grays. The incident was recorded by passersby on their cell phones. You can watch the video below.Grays was eventually ticketed with resisting arrest. He was then handcuffed and put in the back of the unmarked police car where he was taken away. It is not a crime for someone to voice outrage after almost being struck by a vehicle It is not a crime to state that you re angry at someone who almost hit you. That is not a crime, Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams said during a press conference on Tuesday.Adams wants the four police officers involved in the arrest to be investigated. They place handcuffs on an on-duty postal employee delivering the U.S. mail. If they would do that to him in his postal uniform, they would do it to any person of color in that community. When the police arrested Grays, they also left his mail truck unattended possibly violating several federal procedures. Adams thinks that the police should be punished for any violations of federal procedure that may have happened. I believe there were federal violations. Number one, leaving that truck unsecured. Number, two, interrupting the delivery of mail. There are clear NYPD procedures when you are arresting a federal employee. We don t know if even those basic procedures were followed. This the type of police misconduct that leads to the injuries, arrests, and deaths of so many people people of color in particular in the United States every year.Featured image from video screenshot | 1real |
MUST WATCH VIDEO! HERE’S THE MOST IMPORTANT AND DANGEROUS Thing Obama And Clinton Have In Common | Politics before anything else that s what Obama and Clinton have in common. Putting American safety before politics is what these people were supposed to do but they didn t. Shameful! | 1real |
Scott Baio Gets His A** Handed To Him By Erin Moran’s Family For Disgusting Comments About Her Death | Erin Moran s family just declared war on Scott Baio and he s whining like a little bitch about it.In the wake of former Happy Days star Erin Moran s passing, her former co-star Baio expressed his condolences via Twitter.My sincere condolences. #ErinMoran #HappyDaysFamily pic.twitter.com/5b0AbioZEc Scott Baio (@ScottBaio) April 23, 2017And then he decided to open his big mouth and speculate about what caused Moran s death. My thing is, I feel bad because her whole life, she was troubled, could never find what made her happy and content, Baio said on a radio show. For me, you do drugs or drink, you re gonna die. Baio had zero evidence of the circumstances behind Moran s death, so he should have kept quiet until the official cause was released. As it turns out, Moran died after a battle with cancer.Baio s baseless speculation angered her grieving fans, but especially pissed off her family members, who took to social media to roast Baio alive. Moran s brother Tony struck first.#scottbaio. Get on your knees and pray I never run into you. tony moran (@tmoran_mmyers78) April 25, 2017After discovering his error, Baio took to Facebook and blamed the media and claimed he was criticized because he s a Trump supporter. I m sure they re attacking me because I m a conservative, Baio remarked. These people never attack the press for getting the story wrong about heroin. They attack me. Well, Tony Moran wasn t impressed. In fact, he called Baio out for being a coward after Baio had his wife call him to apologize instead of doing it himself.#scottbaio. Your wife contacts me? Not u? You fucking scumbag coward piece of shit! tony moran (@tmoran_mmyers78) April 26, 2017Then Moran s cousin Roy jumped in.regardless of cause. that dick head should have handled it way different. now he needs to get handled. rip cousin https://t.co/rR4FgATivp Roy Moran (@moranclan) April 26, 2017Tony Moran wasn t done, however. He also slammed Baio on Facebook.A special shout out to Scott Baio. I already went on Twitter about you. I hope it finds you. You and my lil sis had a very very brief fling. She dumped you. 2 reasons. 1. She told me that you were more like a lil girl and not a man. 2. She told me that you were tiny. Ya know. Barely a man in the man region. True story! Scott, I d advise you to get on your knees and pray you never run into me.Well guys. Guess what? I was contacted by Scott Baio s wife. His wife! Fucking coward! I ve never met her. I do know the scumbag piece of shit Scott Baio tho. He was a piece of shit back then and still is. He had his wife contact me! Very apologetic and shit. Doesn t surprise me. It s too late you motherfucking pieces of shit! Go back under the rock you crawled out from under. There isn t one word I want to hear you speak. Makes me sick to my stomach.Scott Baio openly admitted in his Facebook post that he speculated on Erin Moran s cause of death only to find out that she had stage 4 cancer later on. He should have just personally apologized for his own words and actions rather than blaming the media. He knew damn well that an official cause of death had not been released yet. And he certainly should have spoken to Moran s brother personally instead of having his wife do it. Instead of handling Moran s death like a human being, Baio acted like a cowardly douchebag and he s getting the criticism he deserves. And he has only himself to blame.Featured Image: Screenshot | 1real |
WOW! This Video Might Explain Why #UnfitHillary Is Taking Weekends Off From Campaigning…Caught Grasping For Railings, Table, Chairs, ANYTHING To Hold Herself Up | Notice at the beginning of the video where Joe Biden hops out of his vehicle and briskly makes his way up the stairs for a photo op in front of his childhood home. The cameras catch his every move. But where is Hillary? It s pretty clear that this photo-op for Hillary was all orchestrated by Hillary and the press. The cameras were focused solely on Biden while Hillary limps up the stairs (the camera s catch her walking towards Biden, but only very briefly, as she appears to have some sort of physical disability that s preventing her from walking without assistance). Does anyone else think Joe Biden might be having some serious regrets about not running for President? It s somewhat ironic that Joe was likely pushed out of the way by the corrupt Clinton machine, only to have to cover for #unfit Crooked Hillary virtually months before the general election in his childhood home. Standing outside the home, Clinton embraced the owner with one arm while holding onto the railing on the front walk. Moments later, she pivoted and grabbed the railing with the other hand.Then she pivoted back, only to reach for the railing again with the other hand.Inside the house, she held onto a chair and moved to lean on the kitchen table.Earlier in the day, she was caught on camera stumbling while trying to make her way from the podium during a rally with Biden.Here s Joe Biden covering for #UnfitHillary again during her rally, as he was forced to catch her, as she was falling as she stepped down from the podium: American Mirror | 1real |
The teachable moment of Saudi Arabia’s economic threat against the United States | Back in the early days of the Great Recession, there was a lot of foreign policy pundit panic that China would somehow use its holdings of American debt as an economic lever to force Washington to kowtow to Beijing. Also back in those early days, I argued that this was nonsense. Seven years later, I like to occasionally bring up this fact, mostly because it’s one of the rare times I think I was unequivocally right.
Today, however, I’m bringing it up because we’ve just witnessed Saudi Arabia exercise a weak echo of that gambit. The New York Times’ Mark Mazzetti reported late last week that the Saudi government has warned U.S. officials about the economic repercussions of a bill moving through Congress:
Saudi Arabia has told the Obama administration and members of Congress that it will sell off hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of American assets held by the kingdom if Congress passes a bill that would allow the Saudi government to be held responsible in American courts for any role in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. The Obama administration has lobbied Congress to block the bill’s passage, according to administration officials and congressional aides from both parties, and the Saudi threats have been the subject of intense discussions in recent weeks between lawmakers and officials from the State Department and the Pentagon. The officials have warned senators of diplomatic and economic fallout from the legislation.
The Los Angeles Times’ Michael Hiltzik provides some useful context behind Saudi concerns:
Since the Saudis long have been suspected of complicity in the attacks, it’s fair to say they’re the prime target of the legislation. But the Saudis’ immediate concern is that their U.S.-based assets could be frozen by a court for the lengthy period it would take for lawsuits for damages to make their way through the judicial system. That makes their representation about U.S. assets look a bit less like a threat than an expression of defensive strategy.
Regardless of the Saudi threat, the Obama administration’s resistance to this bill makes a bit more sense.
What’s interesting about all of this has been the American reaction to the revelation of the Saudi economic threat. Seven years ago, all China had to do was clear its throat on the matter and there were paroxysms of news coverage about threats to the U.S. economy.
This time around, there has been some minor hand-wringing, but most of the analyses have echoed what the New York Times’ Binyamin Appelbaum wrote about the threat:
If Saudi Arabia follows through on its recent threat to sell off its investments in the United States, the financial maneuver could be painful — mostly for Saudi Arabia…. Such a fire sale might roil financial markets or cause problems for companies that lost funding, but experts say it is hard to imagine a significant or lasting impact on the American economy. Global investors continue to shovel money into the United States; if the Saudis go, the experts say, others will take their place.
To elaborate a bit more, the current Saudi threat is way weaker than the implicit Chinese threat of seven years ago, because:
The one difference in the Saudis’ favor is that the kingdom is a U.S. ally, while China is viewed as a rival. This helps explain the administration’s position on this issue (though I suspect its concern is about the precedent this bill would set if it became law). The thing is, recent Obama interviews and news stories highlight the ways in which these ties are fraying. And the very fact that this threat got publicized is not going to improve U.S. attitudes toward Riyadh.
No, the most interesting thing about the revelation of this threat has been the lack of pundit panic in Washington. If anything, the response has been either a shrug of the shoulders or an insistence on calling the Saudi bluff.
Maybe this is just the fact that memories of 9/11 trump appraisals of economic statecraft. Or maybe, just maybe, Washington has learned not to panic as much about these kinds of empty threats. | 0fake |
Ellen DeGeneres Wasn’t Being Allowed Into The White House To Receive Her Medal Of Freedom (TWEET) | Tuesday at the White House, several people are set to receive the prestigious Medal of Freedom from President Obama. Those who will receive them include Tom Hanks, Michael Jordan and Ellen DeGeneres, among others.According to USA Today: For the last time in office, President Obama will bestow the nation s highest civilian honor on 21 individuals from a varying list of categories from science to sports to entertainment. There s been a slight snag with Ellen DeGeneres entry to the White House, however. The television host and entertainer extraordinaire seemed to have forgotten her ID, and security at the White House won t let her in.But instead of get freaked out over it, because it likely gets solved in a timely manner, DeGeneres did what she always does, make a joke out of it. So she tweeted this: They haven t let me in to the White House yet because I forgot my ID. #NotJoking #PresidentialMedalOfFreedom They haven't let me in to the White House yet because I forgot my ID. #NotJoking#PresidentialMedalOfFreedom pic.twitter.com/sHocwqChKV Ellen DeGeneres (@TheEllenShow) November 22, 2016Surely, by the time this article even gets published DeGeneres will have been allowed into the White House considering she is one of the individuals being honored. However, it doesn t make the whole situation any less funny, because even Ellen, as recognizable as she is, was told she couldn t enter without proper identification.So, kudos to White House security for playing it safe no matter what, and congratulations to Ellen on her much deserved award.FeaturedPhoto by Kevin Winter/Getty Images | 1real |
CNN GETS OWNED! Pundit Explodes On Biased Reporting About Trump [Video] | The look on their faces when the TRUTH hits them right in the jaw is PRICELESS! CNN gets owned . Again!#TruthHurtsDon t #StopBannon pic.twitter.com/ZRF2b4X8Rn Keep n It Real! (@JOMainEvent) November 15, 2016 | 1real |
JUST IN: THREE LIBERAL REPORTERS Bribed To Push “Trump Dossier” Propaganda | It s no wonder that Fusion GPS wants to block documents from coming out. The newest unsealed documents are explosive enough with the revelation that there was a payoff to three reporters to push negative news on Trump. Who are the three journalists? Well, Fusion GPS wants that to remain a secret Unsealed court documents reveal that the firm behind the salacious 34-page Trump-Russia Dossier, Fusion GPS, was paid $523,000 by a Russian businessman convicted of tax fraud and money laundering, whose lawyer, Natalia Veselnitskaya, was a key figure in the infamous June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower arranged by Fusion GPS associate Rob Goldstone.In short, D.C. opposition research firm Fusion GPS is the common denominator linked to two schemes used to damage the Trump campaign.PAYOFF TO THREE JOURNALISTS:Newly filed court documents confirm that Fusion GPS, the company mostly responsible for the controversial Trump dossier on presidential candidate Donald Trump, made payments to three journalists between June 2016 until February 2017.The revelation could be a breakthrough for House Republicans, who are exploring whether Fusion GPS used the dossier, which was later criticized for having inaccurate information on Trump, to feed anti-Trump stories to the press during and after the presidential campaign. The three journalists who were paid by Fusion GPS are known to have reported on Russia issues relevant to [the committee s] investigation, the House Intelligence Committee said in a court filing.REDACTED DOCUMENTS AND RESTRAINING ORDERS:But the recipients names, the amounts, and purposes of those payments were either redacted from the documents that Fusion GPS filed to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia or were not disclosed.Fusion has asked the court to issue a restraining order against the House committee, which is demanding documents from the company that, among other things, explain the payments it made to reporters. Most of the documents sought are banking records.Let s hope that the details come to light and all are held accountable for their corruption. | 1real |
4TH OF JULY HUMOR: Brutal Cartoon Shows Difference Between Liberals And Proud Americans | Boom!Courtesy of: comicallyincorrect.com | 1real |
Sociopathic Behavior And The Cure | Leave a reply
Diane Canfield – Since there is only love – there is a separation with some that have not been loved and do not know what love is. This behavior when to the extreme can play out as what is termed sociopathic behavior. What is really- lack of love and separation from Source.
One of the attributes of a sociopath is to accuse others of what they themselves are doing. This accomplishes two things for them, it takes the attention off of them and puts the victim in a defensive mode.
The victim then has to try to explain themselves when it is actually the sociopath that should be doing the explaining. This is a common mechanism that is used by someone with no conscious and no connection to Source.
They also feel they are above everyone else and untouchable. They may also be charming and likable by many. Yet few know the hidden secrets they carry and the way they manipulate others.
They do not operate on the same code of ethics that most of us do. They operate on service to self, while making it look like they are service to others.
Empaths are especially vulnerable to this because we have a tendency to “care too much”. We are the ultimate nurturers and support for others. This is the opposite of a sociopath that looks to use others for their own gain.
Energetically they feel chaotic and not peaceful. They may seem to always be on edge waiting for someone to find them out.
We can see this in all walks of life, in business, family and all places where there are high profile people.
The answer to this is to love ourselves enough to be able to spot this immediately when we see it. We can not “care enough” to fix this person. They have to at some point learn to love themselves enough to work on themselves and learn how to genuinely care for others without expecting anything in return.
The answer in the higher states is to have healing centers where they are shown what love is and how to love others – just for the sake of love. SF Source How To Exit The Matrix | 1real |
Germany says EU states must implement court ruling on migrants swiftly | BERLIN (Reuters) - German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel welcomed a ruling by the European Union s highest court which said EU states must accept refugees and asylum seekers, and urged swift action from member states. I always said to our eastern European partners that it is right to clarify questions legally if there is doubt. But now we can expect all European partners to stick to the ruling and implement the agreements without delay, Gabriel said in a statement. The court earlier on Wednesday dismissed complaints by Slovakia and Hungary about EU migration policy. | 0fake |
The Problems With Facebook’s Polarization Study | Yesterday, Facebook released a study in Science that pushed back on the idea of the “filter bubble“: that social media creates a kind of echo chamber in which users never see arguments from the other side, helping to insulate those users from substantive political debate. Taken to its extreme, the Filter Bubble might almost completely close users off to new ideas and information, leaving them in a digital world where their viewpoints go ever unchallenged — and contributing to political polarization.
“Facebook Use Polarizing? Site Begs to Differ,” the New York Times headline read. “You would think that if there was an echo chamber, you would not be exposed to any conflicting information,” a data scientist who worked on the study said, “but that’s not the case here.”
But looking at the study, I came to very different conclusions. It absolutely shows that the “filter bubble” exists among some users, and that Facebook and its algorithms play a significant role in creating that bubble. But I can only make that claim about a small number of users that are likely not at all representative of the broader Facebook population, because Facebook relied on such an unusual sample of its users. In other words, despite the buzz this study is getting, we still don’t have a very good sense of how Facebook and other social-media services might or might not contribute to polarization.
As pointed out by Nathan Jurgenson, the study only looks at people who self-identify their political orientation on the site. That means it only examines 9 percent of users, a number you’d only see if you read through the appendix, he notes. It also only looks at Facebook users who log in four to seven days a week, and who meet a few other criteria as well. That nudges the proportion of users examined in the study down to just 4 percent, or about 10 million users.
Are those 4 percent of users representative of Facebook’s user base as a whole? Well, they aren’t randomly sampled. We know that identifying your political affiliation is a fairly rare behavior, given that fewer than one in ten users bothers to do so. My guess is that those users are much more politically engaged and likely much more partisan than the average user, and that’s probably going to affect what they click on and whom they are friends with. But how and how much that matters, I cannot say.
There could also be something different about those Facebook users who log in frequently — maybe they post more or leave more comments. Again, we don’t know. But the point is that if you want to make any broad conclusions about a big population based on a study, you need a random, representative sample. You can’t survey three rich guys in Greenwich and declare that “America’s” favorite food is caviar.
Social-media experts and data scientists are taking Facebook to task for not making all this clearer. “At first, I read this quickly and I took this to mean that out of the at least 200 million Americans who have used Facebook, the researchers selected a ‘large’ sample that was representative of Facebook users,” writes Christian Sandvig of the University of Michigan. “The ‘limitations’ section discusses the demographics of ‘Facebook’s users,’ as would be the normal thing to do if they were sampled. There is no information about the selection procedure in the article itself.”
But even setting aside the sample issues, the study clearly does not show that those unusual users are exposed to a diverse set of viewpoints, nudged along by the Facebook algorithm. It shows that they see a fairly skewed set of viewpoints, with the Facebook algorithm contributing to the skew. Facebook filters out about 1 in 20 “cross-cutting” hard-news stories for conservatives and about 1 in 13 “cross-cutting” hard-news stories for liberals.
Facebook attempts to distance itself from filter-bubble accusations by noting that individuals isolate themselves, too, with self-identified conservatives clicking on 17 percent fewer “cross-cutting” news stories than would be expected if they clicked at random, and liberals, 6 percent fewer. The company used that finding to argue that it plays less of a role than individuals themselves. But that’s only true for conservatives — not for liberals.
And it’s not clear that Facebook can or should be arguing that it plays a smaller filtering role than individuals, given how the study was conducted in the first place and given that the two findings do not seem directly comparable. “I cannot remember a worse apples to oranges comparison I’ve seen recently, especially since these two dynamics, algorithmic suppression and individual choice, have cumulative effects,” writes Zeynep Tufekci of the University of North Carolina.
No, the filter bubble feels like a very real phenomenon, and Facebook has just shown that for some users, it contributes to it. On social media, we hear what we want to hear, see what we want to see, and click what we want to click. Don’t let Facebook tell you otherwise. | 0fake |
JUDGE DECLARES BABY NAME “Illegal” To Prevent Her From “Emotional Harm” | Does a judge have the right to determine what a mother and or father names their child? Don t think for one minute in this politically correct environment we re living in, this couldn t happen right here in the United States Some names are so bizarre, we can t believe they ve ever been given to children. But a recent landmark case just went a step further by telling a mother she can t give her newborn twins the names she chose.The mother, who is from Powys, Wales, attempted to name her offspring Cyanide and Preacher. She believed Cyanide was a pretty name for a little girl with positive implications since it s the poison that killed both Hitler and his follower Joseph Goebbels, according to Metro. She also argued that she had the right to name her own children. However, Justice Eleanor King ruled that the name could cause emotional harm to the child in the future. It is hard to see how the twin girl could regard being named after this deadly poison as other than a complete rejection of her by her birth mother, said King.The twins, now 8 months old, were reportedly conceived of rape. They were placed in foster care, along with their three half-siblings, due to the mother s history of mental illness and drug and alcohol abuse.Social workers from Powys County Council brought the case to the British Appeal Court. An injunction had previously been issued to prevent the mother from formally registering the names. This is one of those rare cases where the court should intervene to protect the girl twin from emotional harm, said King. Via: MSN | 1real |
Brazil police raid homes of two lawmakers in bribery probe | BRAS LIA (Reuters) - Brazilian police raided the offices and homes of two members of Congress on Wednesday in the country s latest corruption probe as the government makes a last-ditch effort to vote on an overhaul of the national pension system. Dubbed Operation pia, the probe centers on alleged bribery of civil servants and politicians in return for rigged bids on road work totaling 850 million reais ($258 million) in the state of Tocantins in central Brazil. Federal police said in a statement they were serving 16 search warrants and delivering subpoenas to eight people in connection with the probe. Dulce Miranda and Carlos Gaguim, lawmakers from Tocantins, are implicated in the investigation, police said. Gaguim denied any wrongdoing, noting the accusations against him are baseless. Miranda s representatives said she would cooperate with the investigation. President Michel Temer has said the lower house of Congress would vote by Tuesday on his proposed pension reform, which many consider crucial to reining in Brazil s surging public debt, or the debate will have to wait until next year. | 0fake |
Allen West Tries To Hide Desire To Exterminate Muslims So He Can Get Trump Appointment | Well, this came back to bite Allen West on the ass.The former Republican congressman from Florida apparently wants to be part of Donald Trump s cabinet. So he had to scrub and make up a pathetic excuse to explain a very racist post on his Facebook page.In celebration of Trump s choice of former General James Mattis to be Secretary of Defense, West posted a meme of Mattis with the caption, Fired by Obama to please the Muslims. Hired by Trump to exterminate them. Here s the now-deleted post via Twitter.Once in a while, the mask slips down and people like Allen West reveal their true thoughts. pic.twitter.com/zaREZ34VdF Imraan Siddiqi (@imraansiddiqi) December 11, 2016That s right. West literally cheered for Mattis because he expects him to commit genocide against 1.6 billion people who practice Islam.It s despicable and West should be automatically taken out of consideration for any spot on Trump s team.But in an effort to cover his ass, West has the editor-in-chief of his website take responsibility for the post and apologized for it. You know, because West is too cowardly to do it himself. As editor in chief, I must take full responsibility for this, although I was not the one who posted it, and it was posted without my knowledge, Michele Hickford claimed. I neither condone nor support the message included in the meme. This meme was not created by me or any of our writers. It was reposted from another source. The image has been removed. Its message was despicable, offensive to many, and a terrible error in judgment by the person who posted it. Furthermore, it does not reflect Col. West s beliefs, principles and values. Clearly, West is still incapable of taking responsibility for things himself, just like Donald Trump. And it s not like there isn t any proof that West hates Muslims and has no problem committing war crimes against them.Four of the men under his command in Iraq beat an Iraqi policeman in an effort to get information. West then threatened to kill the man by firing his pistol near the man s head. This is torture and to make it stop, the man gave meaningless information to his tormentors. West should have faced a court-martial but he was allowed to retire instead will full benefits.So Allen West has no business being put in charge of a government department nor should he be placed in any position of authority in our government at all. His hatred of Muslims disqualifies him and it would be an insult to humanity to appoint him.Featured Image: Wikimedia | 1real |
Rescued migrants say lucky to dodge Libyan coastal clampdown | ABOARD AQUARIUS RESCUE SHIP (Reuters) - Migrants rescued in the Mediterranean last week said they had been lucky to dodge increased sea and police patrols along the Western coast of Libya that have dramatically reduced arrivals in Italy since July. Last month, Reuters reported that an armed group was stopping departures from the city of Sabratha, which had been the main springboard for smuggling for the past two years, although some boats are still getting through. On Thursday, the Aquarius rescue ship, run by humanitarian groups SOS Mediterranee and Doctors without Borders (MSF), picked up two rubber boats carrying a total of more than 260 migrants who had left from Sabratha. If you are unlucky they will catch you ... there s so many ships in the sea, Buba from Sierra Leone told Reuters a day after being picked up. He declined to give his last name. If you are lucky you make it. Italy has led the European Union s strategy to try to bolster the capability of local authorities and especially the Libyan coast guard so that they can shut down the central Mediterranean smuggling route, now the main one to Europe. Arrivals in Italy of rescued migrants fell 50 percent in July from a year earlier, and declined more than 80 percent in August two months that had been peak periods during the previous three years. Overall, there have been more than 100,000 arrivals in Italy this year, a decline of more than 20 percent compared to 2016, official data show. In the Libyan waters, at Sabratha, there are plenty of police, said Umaru, another migrant from Sierra Leone. Using a slang word for police to describe the forces stopping the boats, Umaru said: When the karabouche (police) come they will take you to the jail. When they take you to the jail they will ask you to send money to let them free you. The Italy-EU strategy has been strongly criticized by charity groups, including MSF, because migrants returned to Libya by the coast guard are detained arbitrarily in filthy centers with no healthcare, little food and abusive jailers. Often they must pay a ransom for their freedom. Noor Cornelissen, the humanitarian affairs officer on the Aquarius, said it was common to hear stories from migrants who have been repeatedly returned to Libya. We talked to people who this has happened to, maybe two, three or even four times, she said. They find themselves in Libya, in captivity ... they have to pay ransom to get out, she said. They tell us that at that point it s just being bought and sold, bought and sold ... whether they are being held by officials or by informal groups or even by private individuals. | 0fake |
Naomie Harris: A Chameleon on Screen and Off - The New York Times | The British actress Naomie Harris, 40, might have splashed on the scene as the Bond girl Moneypenny, but these days she is banking on riskier roles. Her turn as a crack addict in the lauded “Moonlight” earned her supporting actress nods for the Critics’ Choice Awards, Screen Actors Guild Awards and the Golden Globes, on Sunday. So, too, her red carpet style will keep you guessing. Friend to cutouts, splashy prints, allover sequins, tuxedos and plunging necklines, Ms. Harris seems determined to avoid being typecast. And the fashion establishment appears to love her chameleonic quality. She sat front row at Christian Dior and Michael Kors, and she attended the Met Gala with Burberry. Of course, Ms. Harris doesn’t accomplish her sartorial variety on her own. She has been working with Nola Singer, also a close friend, for the last five years. “She loves to experiment,” Ms. Singer said of their choices. “It’s not so serious. If I tell her someone is a new designer, she gets excited. She gets that this is a kind of freedom. That’s beautiful about her. ” Ms. Singer, who is based in Los Angeles, styled many of Ms. Harris’s looks over the past year, but the actress also worked with Micaela Erlanger, Lupita Nyong’o’s for her “Collateral Beauty” press tour. With Ms. Singer, Ms. Harris has favored simple fitted silhouettes but often lets color do the talking. Witness a sequined goldenrod Ralph Lauren halterneck dress worn to the Hollywood Foreign Press cocktail party in November. “Every actress was at that event, and she really stood out, not because she was trying but because of that color, and because it flattered her figure — her arms! — without showing too much skin,” Ms. Singer said. No triceps dips were needed for the visual statement made by a Gucci silver metallic tuxedo at the Hollywood Film Awards the same month. Ms. Singer said the outfit, with its sharp tailoring and lion embroidered on the back, was a nod to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. “It was about women being empowered,” she said. Though Ms. Harris knows her way around a pantsuit (see also a white Emanuel Ungaro option at Variety’s Women of Power Luncheon, and a white Dolce Gabbana number worn to the TimesTalks event for “Moonlight”) occasionally she likes to go retro. In the navy Carolina Herrera ball gown she wore (with Christian Louboutin flats) to the Governors Awards in November, she was having an Old Hollywood meets modern practicalities moment. Less successful are her quirky moments. An orange Gucci minidress with a frilly black neckline that she wore at the British Independent Film Awards and a brown print Rodarte with white bust at the “Collateral Beauty” London premiere read on her lithe frame. Ms. Erlanger’s choice for the “Collateral Beauty” New York premiere was more on point: a neon floral Rosie Assoulin dress that ended above the ankle with Dick pumps. Sure it was December, but what’s a little chill when an campaign is at stake? More unexpected picks with Ms. Erlanger included an offbeat (perhaps dated?) Stella McCartney strapless black bodice with sheer skirt design for the Critics’ Choice Awards last month, and a winning gold sequined tunic and pants by Monse at the Gotham Independent Film Awards in November. And if her predictability is in her unpredictability, Ms. Harris is throwing another wrench in for awards season. She is going back to Ms. Singer but adding the New York stylist Laura Jones, known for her work with Alicia Keys, to her team. It will be Ms. Harris’s first time working with Ms. Jones. | 0fake |
WATCH: George Stephanopoulos SHREDS Kellyanne Conway With Facts About Trump’s Muslim Ban | Kellyanne Conway tried to baffle George Stephanopoulos with bullshit on Monday morning and got her ass handed to her with facts.Donald Trump s Muslim ban has caused worldwide chaos as airports across the country are detaining and blocking people traveling from seven countries, including green card holders who are permanent American citizens, children, and the elderly. For some reason, Trump and his team think these people are terrorism threats.But the ban not only violates constitutional rights, it is absolutely wrong about the seven countries listed because none of them are responsible for any deaths on American soil.And during an interview with George Stephanopoulos, Conway took a beating after she claimed that protesters against Trump s ban don t know the facts. I see all these protesters, Conway whined. I think if you actually surveyed them, they would probably get the facts wrong. They re being misinformed. Stephanopoulos then unleashed devastating facts, pointing out that Saudia Arabia, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates were left off the list even though those countries were home to the 9/11 hijackers. Trump mentioned 9/11 as a reason for the executive order. None of the deadly terror attacks in this country since 9/11 have been carried out by anyone from those seven countries. Eighteen of the 19 9/11 attackers came from Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates there is no ban from that country. Those countries also happen to be countries where President Trump has significant business interests. So why weren t those countries included? Conway responded by blaming President Obama, claiming that Obama banned Iraqi refugees for six months.But that s a lie because it appears there was only a delay in processing visa applications of Iraqi refugees in response to an actual threat. But there was no ban like Conway claims. Stephanopoulos even pointed out the inaccurate claim and informed Conway that there was a lot of media coverage at the time.Conway then whined about not getting bipartisan cooperation, which is quite hypocritical to expect since Republicans refused to work with President Obama for eight years. She also demanded that Democrats and Republicans collaborate with Trump on his tyrannical agenda, which she called an extraordinary accomplishment. I mean, Donald Trump has been on the job for, what, eight, nine, ten days. Barack Obama was here for eight years. The extraordinary accomplishments in just the first week truly are breathtaking. No reductive curating reporting, in my view, is helpful to the American public to understand. We re being very collaborative and very open. We would just like the same in return. Here s the video via Twitter.WATCH: @GStephanopoulos interviews @KellyannePolls about Pres. Trump s immigration ban, countries not included and comments from Republicans pic.twitter.com/uzCFvtUNEV Good Morning America (@GMA) January 30, 2017Is it wrong to wonder when a house is going to fall on this witch?Featured image via screenshot | 1real |
U.S. calls for special Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces talks - Russia accepts | Thu, 27 Oct 2016 15:29 UTC The United States has called for a special meeting with Russia over alleged violations of the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty - a landmark Cold War-era agreement. Washington wants the Special Verification Commission (SVC) to discuss the problems related to the treaty's compliance . The event is expected to take place in mid-November. The INF set up the Special Verification Commission as a way to deal with disputes surrounding the treaty. Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan can also attend the meeting because they housed intermediate range missiles before the disintegration of the Soviet Union and remain parties to the treaty. No SVC meeting has been convened since 2003. Russia welcomes the United States' offer. «We have responded positively», said Mikhail Ulyanov, the head of Foreign Ministry's Non-Proliferation and Arms Control Department. The treaty, which bans testing, producing, and possessing ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles with ranges between 500 to 5,500 kilometers, eliminated an entire class of missiles from Europe, and set up an extensive system of verification and compliance. Two years ago, the United States first asserted that Russia was in violation of the treaty , by developing a missile system that fell within the INF prohibitions. Last year, Rose Gottemoeller, the Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security, said that Russia risked provoking «military and economic countermeasures» if it continued to stonewall the INF issue. The US has not released any specifics about which exactly Russian missile is the source of the violation. It should be noted that if Washington cannot present compelling evidence of the Russian non-compliance, the United States could be seen by the world as the party that killed the INF Treaty . The only thing the State Department has said is that an unspecified Russian ground-launched cruise missile breaches the agreement. The issue has been in focus of US media outlets recently. For instance, an article published by The New York Times on October 19 said « Russia appears to be moving ahead with a program to produce a ground-launched cruise missile». According to the article, «the concern goes beyond those raised by the United States in July 2014, when the Obama administration said that Russia had violated the 1987 treaty on Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces». On the very same day, The Wall Street Journal chimed in saying «The US is escalating a dispute with Russia over its accusations that Moscow possesses banned missile technology» . On October 17, two top House Republican chairmen - House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mac Thornberry (Texas) and House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (Calif.) - wrote a letter to the US president saying «It has become apparent to us that the situation regarding Russia's violation has worsened, and Russia is now in material breach of the treaty» . Russia, in turn, has accused the US of violating the pact. According to Russia's officials, the Aegis Ashore missile defense system that the US has activated in Romania and plans to install in Poland represents a violation of the treaty. Aegis Ashore uses the naval Mk-41 launching system, which is capable of firing long-range cruise missile. This is a blatant violation of the INF Treaty provisions. The treaty bans launchers capable of firing intermediate range missiles. Mk-41s deployed in Europe may launch short and intermediate range cruise missiles deep into Russian territory . A US intermediate range weapon launched from Romania or Poland would require only a short flight time to reach beyond the Urals. Russia has also said that American armed drones violate the treaty. The US plans to arm tactical aviation in Europe with modernized B61-12 guided warheads will virtually nullify all the benefits of the INF Treaty from the point of view of Russia's security. The aircraft could fly from bases in Lithuania, Estonia and Poland to Russia's largest cities in 15-20 minutes - not that much longer than the flight time of the missiles scuttled by the INF treaty. If the US really wants the talks to produce a positive result, all these concerns should be part of the agenda. The SVC meeting will take place against the background of Russia's withdrawal from the plutonium disposal deal with the US because of Washington's non-compliance , recent movement of nuclear-capable Iskander missiles to Kaliningrad , rising tensions over NATO's ground forces to deploy near Russian borders in 2017, US withdrawal from the agreement over Syria and apparent disintegration of arms control regime. Only political unity among the major global powers can reverse the disintegration process. Non-compliance, technical or material, is not the only problem the INF faces. Russia and the US adherence to the treaty's provisions does not prevent other countries from efforts to acquire ground-based intermediate range nuclear capability. The treaty should become multilateral. Russia and the US could cooperate in an effort to reach this goal with the help of the United Nations. It may be kind of forgotten today as so many things have happened since then, but in October 2007 Russia and the United States issued a joint statement to call on all countries to join a global INF Treaty addressing the First Committee (Disarmament and International Security) of the UN General Assembly. Setting the existing differences aside, the parties could revive the process in an effort to involve other states. The SVC meeting may become a venue for addressing other issues related to arms control. The concerns are there. Candid talk is the best way to address the burning problems of mutual interest. The US has demonstratively refused to discuss the host of problems related to the ballistic missile defense in Europe. This stance is erroneous. The US should change its approach to the problem. The two great powers do need a venue for arms control dialogue. The reached agreement to restart contacts within the framework of SVC against the background of US presidential election gives hope that the tide may gradually turn. Comment: As usual, the U.S. blames Russia for what the U.S. is doing. And as usual, they provide no evidence or argumentation. They can't even say which Russian "missile" violates the treaty! Thankfully, these talks will give Russia the opportunity of bringing up the issue of the U.S.'s very real violation of the INF treaty. | 1real |
Just In Case: Preparing for the Evening and Day After Election 2016 | Just In Case: Preparing for the Evening and Day After Election 2016 Tweet
by James Wesley, Rawles | SurvivalBlog
There is a substantial risk that Hillary “Hitlery” Clinton will become our next President. She is notoriously anti-gun, and has made many promises to her gun-grabbing campaign donors to give “gun control” (read: civilian disarmament) her top priority.
Consider the guidance in this article just a contingency. You can simply ignore it, if Donald Trump is elected. (Since he is outspokenly pro-gun.) But if Clinton is indeed elected, then gun, ammunition, and magazine prices will surely start to rise immediately. And by the time she actually takes office, prices might well have already doubled or tripled, and shortages of some item–particularly standard military caliber ammunition and many 11+ round magazines–will be widespread.
To be ready for the possible Hill-ection, I recommend that you take the following steps:
Get Ready… Withdraw some substantial cash (but not more that $9,700 ), and keep it well-hidden, at home. Pay off your credit card balances, so that you will have your full purchase credit limit available. Consult gun show calendars , and make plans to attend local shows. Note that many gun shows are now run as three-day shows, open Friday through Sunday. Check the advertised hours closely, and call to confirm days and show hours with the gun show management, before traveling. You will want to be there on Friday , to avoid the Saturday mob scene. Expend a vacation day from your work, if need be.
Get Set… Make prioritized shopping lists Set bookmarks in your browser for ordering the particular items that you have in mind to purchase. Make detailed comparison price lists (or an electronic spreadsheet, if you are so inclined),in descending order of prices so you that won’t pay too much for what you buy. This research takes time , but that translates into saving money , so it is time well spent.
…Go! On Election Night immediately after announcement that Hitlery is the projected winner in the Electoral College, go online and place orders with Internet sellers that take orders 24 hours per day , such as : CDNN Sports , GunMagWarehouse , Brownells , KeepShooting.com , CheaperThanDirt , Midway , Cabela’s (now part of Bass Pro Shops), J&G Sales , Bud’s Gun Shop , Dan’s Ammo , Lucky Gunner , Able Ammo , Ammunition Store , Ammunition Depot , Cope’s Distributing , Centerfire Systems , and GlockPro . Our Editor At Large Mike Williamson recently mentioned that SlickGuns.com is now selling Federal .22 Long Rifle ammo for as little as 6 cents per round . (I suspect that .22LR will again become scarce and jump back up over 15 cents per round, if Hitler In Heels is elected.) Keep in mind that many manufacturers such as SIGArms , Beretta USA , and The Beta Company also take direct Internet orders. Stay up and complete as many of your planned orders as you can afford, late into the night. It you tarry and say: “I’ll do it tomorrow”, then you will probably be disappointed to to see “Out Of Stock” showing at many vendor web sites.
The Morning After Set your alarm clock, and start making calls to the mailorder vendors that don’t take Internet orders, starting right at 8 AM, Eastern Time. Be outside the door of your local gun shop before it opens. Bring lots of cash.
In The Weeks Following Attend guns shows in your state. If it is possible under your state and local laws, buy used private party guns , with no paper trail. If that is not an option in your state, then buy a pre-1899 antique cartridge rifle , such as a 7mm Model 1895 Chilean Mauser. These are exempt from paperwork, in most states.) Watch auction sites such as GunBroker.com and GunAuction.com closely, for guns that are on your purchase list. Concentrate on “Buy It Now” items , since the multi-day auctions will probably be bid up to stratospheric heights, in the panic period following election day.
What To Buy Start with your own needs, then with your children’s needs, and then with barter in mind, as follows: First Priority: Magazines and ammunition for your primary battle rifles Second Priority: Magazines and ammunition for your primary carry pistols Third Priority: Stripped AR-15 and AR-10 receivers (for later assembly)
saig Fourth Priority: Secondary firearms, plus magazines and ammunition, to match Fifth Priority: Magazines and ammunition for planned acquisitions that will expand your battery of guns–including guns for children and grandchildren Sixth Priority: Magazines and ammunition for barter or re-sale.
Note: Be sure to buy only either original military contract or original factory-made full capacity magazines– don’t buy aftermarket junk!
Any extra magazines that are intended for barter should be of the types that will be in the highest demand. Examples include: AR-15/M16, M14, Mini-14, AR-10, FAL, Glock, S&W M&P, Beretta, and SIG. In particular, I predict that 33-round Glock magazines , 30-round Beretta Model 92 magazines , 100-round Beta C-MAGs , and 40-round Mag-Pul AR-15 PMAGs will all be in particularly high demand.)
Potential Resistance In some families, a spouse might object to you making such purchases. Sit down and dispassionately show them the history of other “scare” and “ban”periods, and point out how much prices rose. (For example: stripped AR-15 lower receivers jumped from $60 each to $300 each, during the last big scare.) Tell them: “This is the equivalent of having the foreknowledge of what Dow Jones stocks will double or triple in price. It is wise to buy low and sell high.” If need be, promise your spouse that you will sell off half of what you plan to buy, after prices have doubled. That will leave the purchase cost of what you then retain, effectively at zero .
In Closing Don’t panic, but recognize that Hitlery Clinton will probably act swiftly to restrict privately-owned firearms and accessories, using Executive Orders. Her transition team might even prepare them before she takes office. Most likely would be an import ban on magazines that can hold more than 10 cartridges, for civilians. Another likelihood is an import ban on military style firearms and/or parts sets. Another possibility is reclassifying 80% complete receivers. She might also direct the BATFE to expand the definition of “Destructive Devices” to include semi-automatic shotguns with detachable magazines. (Such as the Saiga-12, which is already import banned.) Plan accordingly.
And regardless of the outcome of the upcoming election, you should have already spread out your guns, ammo, optics, and field gear between hidden places in several houses owned by members of your family, and in underground caches. DO NOT keep all your eggs in one basket! – JWR | 1real |
BREAKING: NORTHWESTERN FOOTBALL PLAYERS SHOT DOWN IN BID TO TOTALLY RUIN COLLEGE FOOTBALL | And the AFL-CIO is crying in their money pit wouldn t it be a great get to have college football players unionized? The players are students and not employees unless you want to bust this whole thing wide open and tell the truth about how players might be compensated. It s really pretty shocking that the NLRB decided to shoot this down since they re 3-2 Dem. The National Labor Relations Board rejected a bid by football players at Northwestern University to form a union. In an unanimous decision released Monday, the board said it lacked jurisdiction in the matter. By statute the board does not have jurisdiction over state-run colleges and universities, it said. The board is the main federal labor law enforcement agency. Its members are nominated by the president and it currently has a 3-2 Democratic majority.The announcement reverses a March 2014 decision by a board regional director, who ruled that the players were employees of the university, not students. Therefore, they had the right to form a union.While that ruling applied only to Northwestern athletes, it had major implications for college athletics generally, being the first time a student-athlete group has been granted collective bargaining rights. Other groups could have cited it as a precedent if they tried to unionize.Via: Washington Examiner | 1real |
Senate Intelligence committee leaders confirm Kushner testimony | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Republican and Democratic leaders of the Senate Intelligence Committee said on Monday that Republican President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, had voluntarily agreed to be interviewed in its investigation of Russian activities surrounding the 2016 U.S. election. They said timing for the appearance by Kushner, who serves as a senior adviser to Trump, had not yet been determined. “Mr. Kushner will certainly not be the last person the committee calls to give testimony, but we expect him to be able to provide answers to key questions that have arisen in our inquiry,” the committee’s chairman, Republican Senator Richard Burr, and top Democrat, Senator Mark Warner, said in a joint statement. | 0fake |
Like It Or Not, This Election Is A Referendum | Print
There is a sizeable faction in this country that is disgusted with the choices we have going into the 2016 General Election. While the choices are far from the quality a great nation like the United States deserves, they are what they are. No amount of complaining, abdication of responsibility, or indignation will change this reality.
But, like it or not, the outcome of this election will affect each and every one of us, and in ways that can never be rectified in our lifetimes, if at all. It is for that reason that this election is a referendum on the issues, not on the candidates. It is also for this reason that it needs to be reiterated – in no uncertain terms – that General Elections are not for electing your favorite candidate. They are for protecting the country from the worst candidate.
Right now, we have two candidates – arguably not the best the country can offer, who possess two extremely different visions for the country. It is about these differences – exclusively – that we must base our choices come Election Day. Put bluntly, this election isn’t about personalities, capabilities, soundbites or even criminality; it is about issues, and on these issues, we do have choices to make.
Yes, the names on the ballot give us pause. I will cede that point but offer this rebuttal for your consideration.
On the one hand, we have a politically untested, braggadocios businessman in Donald Trump who routinely makes statements before he thinks about the consequences of his words. But while many may have their principles insulted by the prospect of casting a vote for such an overt braggart, there is no question that he loves and appreciates the country that has allowed him to be so successful.
On the other hand, we have Hillary Clinton , a woman who has, but for a very short stint at a private law firm, always lived taking a taxpayer-funded government check. For getting on 30 years this woman has fed off the taxpayer feed trough, advancing her ideological agenda – one tilted to the whims of the Fabian Progressive that she is, admittedly, and establishing and engaging in bureaucratic corruption so extensive that she has been able to parlay her “public service” into an amassed wealth of hundreds of millions of dollars.
So, in personality and professionally, we have a stark and glaring choice in the people that are on the ballot. One, Trump, has a love of country but no political prowess, the other, Clinton, has decades of inside-the-beltway experience but a deeply seeded desire to “fundamentally transform” the nation from a Constitutional Republic to a Socialist Democracy administered by a Progressive oligarchy.
Larger than the personalities in this election, however, are two very important and critical issues; issues that these two candidates – as flawed as they are – have decidedly different ideas about.
We are standing at a moment where we control whether or not the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) remains a binding law or whether it gets repealed. Make no mistake, Hillary Clinton, if elected, will cement this incredibly unconstitutional law into the very fabric of our country for all-time. The only way Obamacare will be abandoned under a Clinton Administration is in deference to the establishment of a full-blown single-payer health insurance system administered by the Federal Government, i.e. nationalized healthcare.
Donald Trump, on the other hand, has made a cornerstone of his campaign the repeal of Obamacare. He has pledged to destroy the artificial barriers in the marketplace – barriers erected by insurance company-friendly politicians – that keep the free market from allowing competition that would dramatically lower premium costs for everyone. This, as a result – through competition in the free market – would make health insurance affordable for all.
So, the choice is abundantly clear – unless you are a Socialist or a Marxist – on who has already earned your vote on the issue of Obamacare. Unless you want your health insurance premiums to rise to unaffordability and the quality of your healthcare to take a downturn to that of a Third World country, you need to cast a vote for Donald Trump so that Hillary Clinton doesn’t make Obamacare permanent.
Then there is the matter of the United States Supreme Court. The direction of the nation, with regard to constitutionalism, hangs in the balance this election. With the next President of the United States most likely getting to nominate three, and possibly four, United States Supreme Court justices, we are at a crossroads as to whether we jettison the Constitution completely or return to being a “nation of laws and not of men,” of which John Adams spoke.
The US Supreme Court is seated to protect and defend the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights, exclusively. The justices are tasked with ruling on the constitutionality of law, not on the people effected by that law. As Bill of Rights were crafted to serve all of the people – regardless of race, creed, gender or economic class – serving the Constitution is, by that very act, serving the people.
Hillary Clinton, in the last debate, spoke of appointing Supreme Court justices who would be empathetic to the people and their causes. She talked of her selections being mindful of the people in the decisions they would be faced with making. She said she envisions a Supreme Court that “stands up on behalf of women’s rights, on behalf of the rights of the LGBT community, that will stand up and say no to Citizen’s United, a decision that has undermined the election system in our country” and that her nominees would be “in the great tradition of standing up to the powerful, standing up on behalf of our rights as Americans.”
But none of that – none of it – is what the US Supreme Court is supposed to engage in, as duly noted above. Women, the LGBT community, and even the political process are best served when the Constitution is best served and adequately protected. What Hillary Clinton proposed, in her answer, was to establish an activist special-interest Supreme Court bench that serves entities rather than the Constitution, a document that serves everyone equitably and equally when administered as the Framers intended.
In incredible and stark contrast, Donald Trump has pledged to nominate justices to the Supreme Court who would interpret the Constitution “the way the Founders wanted it interpreted.” In that short, simple response Trump said what each and every American should want to hear in an answer to that query. He will appoint justices that will serve and protect the Constitution, returning the Supreme Court to the rule of law.
So, again, unless you are a “social justice” activist with a Fabian Progressive bent, the choice is clear on who should get your vote regarding the issue of the US Supreme Court. Trump wants justices who rule on constitutionality, while Clinton wants justices who rule on a special-interest, social justice agenda.
In the worst case scenario; should Hillary Clinton win on November 8th, we can be guaranteed of two things. First, Obamacare and its never-ending rate hikes – not to mention the Progressive march to a single-payer health insurance system run exclusively by the Federal Government – will be here forever. Second, the US Supreme Court – and the whole of the federal courts beneath it – will be lost to at least one generation (maybe two) of Progressive-Liberalism; codifying countless new “social justice” laws and mandates onto the American people.
These are the issues that consume this election. To wit, this election is an ipso facto referendum on Obamacare and the direction of the US Supreme Court, nothing else; no personalities, no crimes, no sex scandals, nothing else.
This is why there can be no abdication by the American people of their responsibilities to vote. Yes, the candidates may not be the best our nation has to offer, but the issues are more serious than the personality, ethics and knowledge deficits possessed by either. Just because you may hate the choices doesn’t mean the issues become benign.
While Trump, if he should win, may end up having to surround himself with people more knowledgeable than he on most every matter, that is infinitely better than giving the Oval Office to Hillary Clinton, who has been slated as the “clean-up hitter” in the Progressive fundamental transformation of America.
It is for that reason that sitting this election out – refusing to vote because of the quality, demeanor, ethics or perceived personality deficits of the candidates – is an exercise of abdication of responsibility; to the country, future generations and the US Constitution. In the end, it is the most selfish thing an American can do at this point in American history. shares | 1real |
THE VIDEO HILLARY CLINTON Does NOT Want You To See | Spread this EVERYWHERE! | 1real |
Zimbabwe pastor on trial for subversion, faces 20-year jail term | HARARE (Reuters) - Zimbabwe put on trial on Monday an activist pastor accused of attempting to subvert the government, a charge that carries up to 20 years in prison on conviction, following protests last year against President Robert Mugabe s handling of the economy. Evan Mawarire, through his #ThisFlag movement, led a stay-at-home demonstration in 2016, the biggest protest in a decade, via a social media campaign that urged citizens to speak out against economic problems and government failure to pay workers. Mawarire was arrested again for subversion on Sunday as he stepped down from his pulpit after police accused him of circulating social media posts that accused the government of wrecking the economy. Appearing in maroon slacks at the High Court, the clergyman pleaded not guilty to two charges of subverting the government and two charges of inciting public violence. The latter carries a penalty of up to 10 years in jail. State prosecutor Chris Mtungadura said social media posts by Mawarire last year were meant to incite the population to overthrow the government. The state has lined up eight witnesses. He was exercising his constitutional rights of challenging the policies of government. This ... was done in a lawful manner, defense lawyer Harrison Nkomo told the court. Over the last few days, shortages of basic goods and fuel have emerged, resulting in panic buying by consumers. Shortages of cash, which started last year, have worsened, with some banks unable to provide money at all to customers. Prices of imported goods, including cooking oil and dairy products, have also risen, and businesses say they are being forced to buy foreign currency on the black market at a premium, raising fears of a return to hyperinflation. In 2009, the government adopted the U.S. dollar as its official currency, alongside the British sterling and South African rand, which helped to stabilize prices. But the U.S. dollar has disappeared from banks and on Monday, buying $100 on the streets through a bank transfer cost $150, up from $133 a week ago, in a sign that dollar bank balances are fast losing value. The domestic quasi-currency bond note introduced last year to try to ease the shortages is also in short supply as it has been sucked out of the banking system but can be found on the street. Although bond notes have a 1:1 face value with the U.S. dollar, one needs $1.20 in bond notes to buy $1. Mugabe, 93, has held power since Zimbabwe won independence from Britain in 1980 and critics accuse him of using the security forces to crack down on dissent. | 0fake |
Man Sets Himself on Fire in Latest Facebook Live Suicide - Breitbart | A man from Memphis, Tennessee, committed suicide by setting fire to himself while broadcasting the incident on Facebook Live, according to a report. [The man, who has been identified as local musician Jared McLemore, proceeded run inside a bar while on fire, Saturday, before dying of “severe” burns at a local hospital. “It was the most horrific thing I’ve seen,” said one witness, who added that McLemore targeted the bar because his worked there. “Court records show that McLemore threatened to kill his ex and was sentenced to probation on domestic assault charges last month,” reported NBC News on Sunday. “The community raised more than $18, 000 for the woman so she could attend trauma therapy and replace her audio equipment — which was damaged in the fire. ” One other man was also injured and taken to hospital after he was burned in an attempt to kick the lighter out of McLemore’s hand. He is expected to make a full recovery. This month, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that he would be hiring 3, 000 new employees to sort through violent content on the platform, following a spike in video suicides and murders on the site. “We know we need to do better,” said the company in a statement following numerous incidents, which included the revelation that one murder video had been on the platform for hours before removal. Earlier this month, police officers managed to save a teenager from a suicide attempt, which was being filmed on Facebook Live. In April, an Alabama man live streamed his suicide on Facebook Live following a relationship breakup, while a Thai father also streamed himself hanging his child before killing himself. In January, four people were arrested in Chicago after they filmed themselves torturing and beating a tied up disabled man, who was repeatedly forced to say, “f*ck Trump,” and, “f*ck white people,” while on Easter Sunday, Facebook user Steve Stephens filmed himself shooting and killing Robert Godwin Sr. before he evaded police for days — eventually committing suicide in a standoff. Charlie Nash is a reporter for Breitbart Tech. You can follow him on Twitter @MrNashington or like his page at Facebook. | 0fake |
German president says all parties have duty to try to form government | BERLIN (Reuters) - German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier said he expects all parties elected to parliament to be ready for talks to enable a government to be formed after talks on forging a new ruling coalition collapsed early on Monday. All political parties elected to the German parliament have an obligation to the common interest to serve our country, Steinmeier said in a statement he read out to media. I expect from all a readiness to talk to make agreeing a government possible in the near future, he added. | 0fake |
Two ex-Trump aides head to U.S. court on charges in Russia probe | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Paul Manafort, who served briefly as Donald Trump’s election campaign manager, and business associate Rick Gates are expected to make their first appearances on Thursday before the U.S. judge overseeing a criminal case brought by a special counsel investigating campaign ties to Russia. Manafort, 68, and Gates, 45, who also worked on the Republican’s campaign, pleaded not guilty before a magistrate judge on Monday to a 12-count indictment, ranging from conspiracy to launder money, conspiracy against the United States and failing to register as foreign agents of Ukraine’s former pro-Russian government. Also on Thursday, former Trump campaign foreign policy adviser Carter Page is scheduled to testify to the U.S. House of Representatives Intelligence Committee behind closed doors about his dealings with Russians. Page has repeatedly denied serving as an intermediary between Trump’s campaign and Russia, which had been under U.S. economic sanctions for several years at the time of last year’s election campaign. Monday’s charges were an opening salvo by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, whose investigators are probing allegations by U.S. intelligence agencies that Russia interfered in the election to undermine Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton to help Trump. The inquiry also will determine whether or not there was any coordination between Russians and associates of the Trump campaign. The Kremlin has repeatedly denied meddling and Trump has denied potential collusion between his associates and Russia, calling the investigations a witch hunt. George Papadopoulos, another former member of the Trump campaign’s small foreign policy team, pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI and will not face trial. A lawyer for Papadopoulos declined comment. Thursday’s hearing will be the first in the courtroom of U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson, who was appointed by former president Barack Obama and has handled a series of high-profile cases over the past few years. The 2 p.m. (1800 GMT) hearing is expected to focus on setting bail conditions. Manafort and Gates are under house arrest, released on unsecured bonds of $10 million and $5 million, respectively. Manafort, a longtime lobbyist, political consultant and lawyer, and Gates should be given stiff bail terms because of their “history of deceptive and misleading conduct”, their “significant financial resources” and the “potentially significant sentences” they face, prosecutors said in a filing Tuesday in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. A conviction on conspiracy to launder money alone could carry a sentence of up to 20 years in prison. Prosecutors also said there was a risk of flight. Manafort holds three U.S. passports and frequently travels abroad. Asked about the information in the filing, Manafort spokesman Jason Maloni said on Wednesday his client “looks forward to having these allegations tried before a judge and jury.” Kevin Downing, Manafort’s lawyer, did not respond to a request for comment ahead of the hearing. It is not clear whether Gates, who was represented by a court-appointed lawyer on Monday, has retained counsel. The charges did not state any direct connections to the Trump campaign or allegations of collusion. Downing said Manafort’s work for the Ukrainians ended in 2014, two years before he joined the Trump campaign in March 2016. Manafort served as campaign manager from June to August. In Tuesday’s court filing, prosecutors said Manafort and Gates had connections to Ukrainian and Russian oligarchs. Downing said earlier this week that there was no evidence the Trump campaign colluded with the Russian government. | 0fake |
WikiLeaks: Clintons Purchase $200 Million Maldives Estate | posted by Eddie Bill Clinton seen walking his dogs Buster and Frank at his mansion in the Maldives. This afternoon , WikiLeaks says sources in the Clinton Foundation inadvertently leaked the details of an apparently secret deal with Christie’s International Real Estate in New York. Several recorded phone conversations between Christie’s executives and Clinton board member, FrankGuistra, clearly show that a deal for “The Imperial Maldives” had been closed. “The Imperial Maldives” is a development of 185 water villas set above the turquoise waters of the North Male Atoll. According to the recordings, the agreed price was $200 million (U.S). Also according to the recordings, this deal began the morning after the last debate. The morning after Trump told Clinton he would appoint a special prosecutor and put her in prison. Mr. Guistra is heard to say, “Trump can drag his sorry orange ass down to the Maldives if he wants her so bad. There’s no extradition treaty!” [laughing] The Clinton camp is very tight-lipped at the moment and no comments from Clinton Foundation board members. WikiLeaks seems to suggest that the Clintons are feeling the pressure of a world-wide criminal organization becoming frayed at the seams, and are looking for a hideout until they can hatch their next diabolical plan for world domination. Or, those fuckers just need a real good vacation. source: | 1real |
EXCLUSIVE PICS: London on Terror Lockdown for New Years | London will be guarded by record numbers of police and fortified with concrete barriers ahead of New Year’s Eve to repel Islamist attacks. [In total, 3, 800 police officers will be on duty in central London, with thousands more in the rest of the capital. The barriers are being deployed to stop cars and trucks entering the centre of the city, where they could be used to ram and run over pedestrians in scenes similar to those seen in Berlin and Nice this year. More than 100, 000 are expected to line the banks of the River Thames to watch the fireworks tonight and welcome in the New Year. Ken Marsh, chairman of the Metropolitan Police Federation, told the Telegraph: “I can assure you that there is a big armed operation over London. There are more armed police this year than there have been ever before. There are far more bollards that have been put in place than ever before. ” British Transport Police also made that unusual announcement that armed officers will be patrolling trains and the underground tube network. The Metropolitan Police confirmed security plans for the capital’s New Year’s Eve celebrations had been “adjusted” in the last few days in light of recent Islamist terror attacks. Superintendent Phil Langworthy, from the force, told Sky News: “Clearly we have been looking at what has happened around the world in terms of Berlin, Nice etc … and have adjusted our plans and continue to adjust our plans. ” He added that there were “both overt and covert” measures in place for security. Attacks with trucks are increasingly coming in Europe. In July, Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel killed 86 people when he drove a lorry into crowds on Nice’s seafront promenade. Earlier this month, Anis Amri killed 12 people when he drove a hijacked lorry into a Berlin Christmas market. All pictures Rachel Megawhat Breitbart London | 0fake |
Comment on Rachel Maddow declares that a Trump presidency could have radical effects on her chosen profession by Anonymous | Posted on November 6, 2016 by DCG | 19 Comments
From Entertainment Weekly : Every four years, around this time, you start to hear them: the dissatisfied voters who threaten to move to Canada if their candidate loses. With the presidential election looming, such discussions have reached a fever pitch, but what about our political experts? Surely they’re not thinking of fleeing north, too?
EW sat down with Rachel Maddow a few weeks ago to pick her brain about the election and her broadcasting career, from hosting The Rachel Maddow Show (weekdays at 9 p.m. on MSNBC) to co-anchoring MSNBC’s primetime political coverage with Brian Williams. We asked her the same question that’s on a lot of liberals’ minds: If Donald Trump wins the presidency, will she pack up and move to Canada? Not a chance.
“First of all, my mother would kill me,” Maddow says, laughing. “My mother escaped Newfoundland in order to come here. Seriously, there’s nothing to make you appreciate the United States more than having an immigrant parent .”
Canadian connections aside, Maddow says she’s definitely staying, even if a Trump presidency could have radical effects on her chosen profession .
“Trump says that once he’s president, ‘ Media’s not going to get away with the stuff they get away with now. We’re going to change those libel laws! ’” Maddow says. “He blacklisted the freaking Washington Post from covering him. So who knows what it’s going to be like with Trump as president? Who knows how he’ll use his power to try and destroy the press? ”
Still, Maddow says she’s not going anywhere.
“If he does what he’s promising to do, I don’t know if any of our jobs will exist any more,” Maddow says. “But as long as someone will have me, I’ll do this job.” | 1real |
Trump RUNS SCARED From Russia Investigation, Hires ANOTHER High Profile Lawyer | Donald Trump s Russia problem just won t go away. In fact, the investigation is steadily expanding, and with the revelation that Trump himself is now personally under criminal investigation, Trump s number two man, Mike Pence, has hired his own lawyer. There are also reports that one of Trump s own lawyers, Michael Cohen, has lawyered up as well. Of course, there was also the revelation that Trump s own son-in-law and top adviser, Jared Kushner, is also under federal investigation by Special Counsel Robert Mueller for potential financial crimes. Now, it seems that Trump is more nervous than ever, and seems to believe that his own long-time civil litigation lawyer, Marc Kasowitcz, is no longer enough. Trump has now retained John Dowd, a high-profile attorney who has represented the likes of Senator John McCain (R-AZ).This addition is a major development. Dowd is experienced with keeping corrupt politicians out of jail. He is 76 years old and the ultimate Washington insider. This means that Trump s legal troubles are mounting, and the White House knows it. Dowd joins an already beefy team. In addition to Dowd and Kasowitz, Trump has also retained Mark Bowe and Jay Sekulow.Now, this is a risky move for someone as distinguished as John Dowd. Trump s intemperate Twitter rants and revealing public statements would make him an almost impossible to manage client. His own incriminating statements, along with his penchant for refusing to pay his bills have already made many high-powered Washington law firms to turn down the opportunity to represent the man baby president. Granted, the guy is getting up in age and already has a long career behind him. Perhaps he is not afraid of taking what is sure to be a losing case due to Trump s own foolish words and actions.Either way, this Russia investigation is no longer just smoke. There s fire there as well, and the people around Trump and in the White House know it. It would be a prudent decision for every single person working in the West Wing to lawyer up STAT, unless they want to spend the rest of their miserable lives in federal prison which is likely where many if not all of them belong.Featured image via Olivier Douliery-Pool/Getty Images | 1real |
Trump Vows to Never Change: 'I Am Who I Am' | On Saturday, Donald Trump threatened to revoke the credentials of The New York Times after the newspaper published a report detailing the "failing" effort by Republican Party operatives to "save Mr. Trump from himself."
On Sunday, the Republican presidential candidate doubled down, slamming the Times on Twitter and vowing to never change.
"The newspaper's going to hell," Trump told a rally Saturday at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, Conn. "They've got a couple of reporters in that newspaper who are so bad — I mean lack of talent. But it's going to hell.
"So, I think maybe what we'll do, maybe we'll start thinking about taking their press credentials away from them," the Republican nominee added, drawing cheers from the crowd.
"Maybe we'll do that. I think so. I think so.
"When they write dishonest stories, we should be a little bit tough, don't we agree?"
Many in the audience yelled "yeah."
The Times report, by Alexander Burns and Maggie Haberman, detailed efforts by staffers to keep Trump on script, focus more on policy and tone down his inflammatory rhetoric and combative style.
It was based on interviews with 20 Republicans, many of whom insisted on anonymity to avoid clashing with him," according to the Times.
The article also described a meeting Trump had with GOP political consultant Karl Rove and casino magnate Steve Wynn during the primaries — from which Rove emerged "stunned" that the nominee knew little about campaign basics.
Trump slammed the Times for using anonymous sources, saying "I don’t think they have any names."
In an overall attack on the press, Trump said that it was his biggest competitor in this campaign, not Hillary Clinton.
"I'm not running against crooked Hillary," he said. "I’m running against the crooked media.
"That’s what I’m running against, I’m not running against crooked Hillary."
Paul Manafort, the Trump campaign chairman, also pushed back against the media during an appearance Sunday on CNN.
"Contrary to the New York Times's nameless sources story, the campaign is moving forward and very strong," he said. "We raised over $132 million in the last two months."
He noted that Trump had visited key battleground states such as Pennsylvania, Ohio and Florida repeatedly and was "starting to get traction in those states."
However, recent polls have shown Trump's numbers sagging badly in those battleground states, notably hurt by his critical comments about the Muslim parents of a fallen US soldier, and what some saw as his suggestion that "Second Amendment groups" -- gun lovers -- take their dislike for Clinton into their own hands.
Manafort repeated the Trump claim that his Second Amendment remark was meant purely as an exhortation to vote.
But even one of Trump's top advisers, Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama, conceded Sunday that the candidate needed to communicate "more effectively."
"He's got to wrestle in his own heart, how does he communicate who he is, what he believes, the change he thinks he can bring to America," he said on ABC.
"He does need to communicate -- and I think he can -- more effectively."
The CNN interviewer also asked Manafort about mounting pressure on Trump to release his tax returns after Clinton released hers on Friday.
The channel broadcast video of Trump urging Mitt Romney, the Republican candidate in 2012, to release his returns at the time, saying, "If you didn't see the tax returns, you would think there is almost, like, something wrong."
Manafort repeated Trump's explanation that he is under audit by the Internal Revenue Service.
"When that's completed, he'll release the returns," Manafort said, adding that Clinton's returns showed income coming from "people who benefited from her State Department term as well," referring to her time as secretary of State.
"I haven't seen stories on that yet."
Trump has revoked the press credentials of several media outlets, including Politico, The Washington Post and The Huffington Post.
"I'm no fan of the Washington Post, although they have been much nicer lately, I must say," Trump said Saturday. "Maybe I'll let them back in. they’ve been much better."
He also ripped CNN for its coverage of him saying that President Barack Obama was the "founder" of the Islamic State — a remark he later said was sarcastic, "but not that sarcastic."
"CNN is so disgusting," Trump said. "Their ratings are going down big league.
"You know why? Because I refuse to be interviewed. And I get high ratings, what can I say?
"These people are so dishonest."
He later praised an article from The New York Post, which detailed his contributions as a developer to New York City.
Material from AFP was used in this story. | 0fake |
CONFIRMED BOMBSHELL: SETH RICH Sent Over 44,000 DNC Emails To Journalist, Best Friend Of Wikileaks Founder…DC Police Officer Claims They Were Told To “Stand Down” On Case [VIDEO] | Just two months shy of the one-year anniversary of Rich s death, FOX 5 has learned there is new information that could prove these theorists right.Rod Wheeler, a private investigator hired by the Rich family, suggests there is tangible evidence on Rich s laptop that confirms he was communicating with WikiLeaks prior to his death.Now, questions have been raised on why D.C. police, the lead agency on this murder investigation for the past ten months, have insisted this was a robbery gone bad when there appears to be no evidence to suggest that.Wheeler, a former D.C. police homicide detective, is running a parallel investigation into Rich s murder. He said he believes there is a cover-up and the police department has been told to back down from the investigation. The police department nor the FBI have been forthcoming, said Wheeler. They haven t been cooperating at all. I believe that the answer to solving his death lies on that computer, which I believe is either at the police department or either at the FBI. I have been told both. When we asked Wheeler if his sources have told him there is information that links Rich to Wikileaks, he said, Absolutely. Yeah. That s confirmed. Wheeler also told us, I have a source inside the police department that has looked at me straight in the eye and said, Rod, we were told to stand down on this case and I can t share any information with you. Now, that is highly unusual for a murder investigation, especially from a police department. Again, I don t think it comes from the chief s office, but I do believe there is a correlation between the mayor s office and the DNC and that is the information that will come out [Tuesday].The Democratic National Committee staffer who was gunned down on July 10 on a Washington, D.C., street just steps from his home had leaked thousands of internal emails to WikiLeaks, law enforcement sources told Fox News.A federal investigator who reviewed an FBI forensic report detailing the contents of DNC staffer Seth Rich s computer generated within 96 hours after his murder, said Rich made contact with WikiLeaks through Gavin MacFadyen, a now-deceased American investigative reporter, documentary filmmaker, and director of WikiLeaks who was living in London at the time. FOX5DCHere is the tweet announcing the death of Gavin MacFayden only weeks before the U.S. presidential election:Gavin Macfadyen was mentor to Assange (and his closest friend in London), to WikiLeaks' Sarah Harrison, Joseph Farrell and many others. WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) October 23, 2016 I have seen and read the emails between Seth Rich and Wikileaks, the federal investigator told Fox News, confirming the MacFadyen connection. He said the emails are in possession of the FBI, while the stalled case is in the hands of the Washington Police Department.The revelation is consistent with the findings of Rod Wheeler, a former DC homicide detective and Fox News contributor and whose private investigation firm was hired by Rich s family to probe the case. Rich was shot from behind in the wee hours, but was not robbed. My investigation up to this point shows there was some degree of email exchange between Seth Rich and Wikileaks, Wheeler said. I do believe that the answers to who murdered Seth Rich sits on his computer on a shelf at the DC police or FBI headquarters. The federal investigator, who requested anonymity, said 44,053 emails and 17,761 attachments between Democratic National Committee leaders, spanning from January 2015 through late May 2016, were transferred from Rich to MacFadyen before May 21. FOX NewsWe reported on this story extensively. Here are some of our stunning findings over the past 10 months. It s pretty stunning that it took so long to find out about the e-mails on Rich s laptop: Conspiracy theories have been surrounding the murder of Seth Rich. They reached a new frenzy after the hacking of DNC e-mails led to the resignation of its chairwoman, Debbie Wasserman Schultz.Rich was beaten, shot and killed early on the morning of July 8 while he was walking home and talking on the phone to his girlfriend. Police have said they haven t determined if his murder was a botched robbery or something else. The killer or killers appear to have taken nothing from their victim, leaving behind his wallet, watch and phone.Wikileaks just confirmed murdered DNC staffer Seth Rich was the source of the DNC leak.Wikileaks released a series direct messages from US alleged Russian spy Guccifer 2.0 to actress model Robbin Young (according to Young).In the stream of texts the discussion leads to the DNC leaker.His name is Seth ** In November Julian Assange said Russia did not hack into the DNC servers. -h/t GP Here s the proof:Direct Messages from U.S. alleged Russian spy @GUCCIFER_2 to actress-model @robbin_young (according to the latter) https://t.co/uMsB9WgxRQ WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) April 8, 2017Actress Robbin Young claims she had given this information she received from Guccifer 2.0 to the authorities but, no one cared :https://twitter.com/Robbin_Young/status/850743524953702404Actress Robbin Young states that Guccifer 2.0 told her, i m eager to find facts about seth, i m sure it wasn t just a robbery. seth was assassinated. :Guccifer 2.0 said, "i'm eager to find fact about seth, i'm sure it wasn't just a robbery. seth was assassinated." #SethRich Robbin Young (@Robbin_Young) March 29, 2017In June 2016,the hacker Guccifer 2.0 claimed responsibility for breaking into the Democratic National Committee s servers, lifting opposition research the DNC had gathered, including a 200-page document focused on presumptive Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.The hacker s moniker is an homage to Guccifer, the nom de guerre of Romanian hacker Marcel Lazar who claimed a previous hack into Hillary Clinton s private email server and is now awaiting prosecution for cybercrimes. RTWhile Wikileaks Julian Assange was being interviewed by John Pilger, he brought up the death of Seth Rich. Watch Assange s strange and somewhat cagey reply.Here is part of the conversation:Julian Assange: Whistleblowers go to significant efforts to get us material and often very significant risks. As a 27 year-old, works for the DNC, was shot in the back, murdered just a few weeks ago for unknown reasons as he was walking down the street in Washington.Reporter: That was just a robbery, I believe. Wasn t it?Julian Assange: No. There s no finding. So I m suggesting that our sources take risks.Watch it again in slow motion below:Seth Rich s parents explain what happened only moments before his death. He was the Voter Expansion Data Director for the DNC. His parents say he was, Making sure everyone who wanted to vote, had the opportunity :Shortly after the killing, Redditors and social media users were pursuing a lead saying that Rich was en route to the FBI that fateful morning, apparently intending to speak to special agents about an ongoing court case possibly involving the Clinton family.More recently, Wikileaks s thousands of DNC emails and voice mails have piqued Reddit s interest, with Redditors combing through years of communications looking for any clue to Rich s murder.The theory is apparently based on Julian Assange s recent ITV appearance, where he scoffed at the idea that Russian hackers could be responsible for the data dump, and said that anyone within the Democrats organization could easily have sent Wikileaks the offending messages.Given that Rich as a DNC staffer presumably would have had some access to its servers, Reddit is absolutely positive Rich paid the ultimate price for exposing Debbie Wasserman Schultz and the DNC s crusade against Bernie Sanders. HeatstreetGo HERE for fascinating timeline of events leading up to the brutal murder of DNC staffer Seth Rich. | 1real |
Kenya's Odinga pulled out of election to avoid defeat: deputy president | NAIROBI (Reuters) - Kenya s opposition leader Raila Odinga decided not to stand in next week s presidential election to avoid defeat rather than for reasons of principle, the deputy president said on Tuesday. Odinga was due to face President Uhuru Kenyatta on Oct. 26 in a repeat of a presidential vote held in August but he withdrew his candidacy, saying the electoral commission had failed to institute reforms to guarantee fairness. Kenyatta won the Aug. 8 election by 1.4 million votes. The Supreme Court annulled the election citing procedural irregularities and ordered that it be held again. Odinga is running away from a humiliating defeat, deputy president William Ruto told journalists. He has to find this excuse and that excuse and the other excuse to try and justify his exit. He said the government wants Odinga to run but could not force him. Legitimacy is a matter that concerns us and it concerns us because we believe in a democracy, he said. The ruling party is confident Kenyatta can win and secure a second and final four-year term in office, Ruto said, citing their majority in parliament and regional governorships. Political turmoil connected to the elections has hurt Kenya s economy. The country has East Africa s richest economy and is a stable Western ally in a tumultuous region. Odinga says the election board has failed to meet conditions to guarantee fairness, including firing key personnel he blamed for mistakes during the last poll. Ruto said the board could agree to Odinga s demands as long as the election went ahead. On Sunday, the board ran adverts in national newspapers showing which demands it had agreed to and why others were rejected. It has agreed to more than half of opposition demands and says it cannot agree to others due to time constraints. Odinga has called for daily protests to force the reforms. His supporters have defied a ban by authorities on protests in the center of Nairobi, as well as in the port city of Mombasa and the western city of Kisumu, which is Odinga s stronghold. On Tuesday Odinga blamed police and ruling party supporters for disrupting a planned rally in central Kenya and told reporters that he was planning to travel around the country to direct protests in the coming days. We as NASA are very clear about what we want. We said we don t want to go for an election without proper reforms. We don t want to escort Jubilee to the altar, he said. If Jubilee wants, to have a proper contest, they will have it. Ruto said the protests were an attempt to create crisis and encourage international mediation that might lead to a power-sharing government, as happened in the wake of civil disturbances after an election in 2007 in which hundreds died. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch said on Monday at least 33 people were killed in Nairobi during a police crackdown on opposition supporters after the August vote. The police said the report was based on falsehoods. [L8N1MR39L] The opposition said in a statement it was disturbed by the death on Monday of a high school student in the western city of Kisumu, Odinga s stronghold. The security forces were trying to subdue people seeking a fair election, it said. Local police said a young man was killed by a bullet in unclear circumstances. Also in Kisumu, a two-year-old girl was hospitalized on Monday and had a bullet removed from her neck, doctors at the city s main hospital said. The girl was playing outside her home when she was struck with a stray bullet, her mother Lydia Kageha told Reuters. She said she could hear teargas canisters and gunshots in a nearby neighborhood where police and protesters had clashed. Police said they were investigating. A police spokesman said election board officials were attacked by hooligans in several towns in western Kenya on Tuesday and warned against interference with the board s work. | 0fake |
Michael Klare: Whose Finger on the Nuclear Button? | Here's something interesting from The Unz Review... Recipient Name Recipient Email =>
I was born on July 20, 1944, the day of the failed officers’ plot against Adolf Hitler. That means I preceded the official dawning of the nuclear age by exactly 369 days, which makes me part of the last generation to do so. I’m speaking not of the obliteration of two Japanese cities by America’s new “wonder weapon” on August 6th and 9th, 1945, but of the Trinity test of the first atomic bomb in the New Mexican desert near Alamogordo on July 16th of that year. When physicist Robert Oppenheimer , the “father of the atomic bomb,” witnessed that explosion, the line from the Hindu holy book, the Bhagavad Gita , that famously came into his head was: “I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.”
How apt it still remains more than seven decades later, at a moment when nine countries possess such weapons — more than 15,000 of them — in their arsenals, most of which are now staggeringly more destructive than that first devastating bomb, and as TomDispatch regular Michael Klare points out today, some of which are closer to possible use than at any point in at least a couple of decades. For those of us who lived through the years of bomb shelters, atomic movie monsters , the Cuban Missile Crisis (which left me, age 18, fearing I might be toast in the morning), the rise and fall of antinuclear movements, and nuclear nightmares of a sort I still remember vividly from my youth in a way I no longer recall the dreams of last night, it’s a horror to imagine that nuclear war is still with us; even more so, because, in Election 2016, we have a presidential candidate who is not only ignorant about those weapons in hard-to-believe ways, but who wonders why “we can’t use them,” and who might months from now have his finger on that “nuclear button” (or rather command of the nuclear codes that could launch such a war). Don’t tell me that this isn’t a living nightmare of the first order.
I find it eerie in the extreme and unnervingly apt that the Clinton campaign has brought back a living icon of our nuclear fears, the little girl from the 1964 election who appeared in the famous (or infamous) “ Daisy ” ad President Lyndon Johnson ran against Republican contender Barry Goldwater (who, in retrospect, seems like the soul of stability compared with you know whom). She was then seen counting to 10 as she plucked petals off a daisy just before an ominous, echoing male voice began the countdown to an atomic explosion that filled the screen. Now, that girl, Monique Luiz , a grown woman, is shown saying , “The fear of nuclear war we had as children, I never thought our children would ever have to deal with that again. And to see that coming forward in this election is really scary.”
She’s now 55 years old and, however the Clinton campaign may be using her, there’s still something deeply unnerving for those of us who had hoped to outlast the nuclear age simply to see her there more than five decades later. And if you think that’s unnerving on the eve of the most bizarre presidential election in memory, then read today’s piece by Michael Klare and imagine just how unsettling, in nuclear terms, the years ahead may prove to be. | 1real |
Exclusive: $6 for 38 days work: Child exploitation rife in Rohingya camps | COX S BAZAR/KUTUPALONG, Bangladesh (Reuters) - Rohingya refugee children from Myanmar are working punishing hours for paltry pay in Bangladesh, with some suffering beatings and sexual assault, the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) has found. Independent reporting by Reuters corroborated some of the findings. The results of a probe by the IOM into exploitation and trafficking in Bangladesh s refugee camps, which Reuters reviewed on an exclusive basis, also documented accounts of Rohingya girls as young as 11 getting married, and parents saying the unions would provide protection and economic advancement. About 450,000 children, or 55 percent of the refugee population, live in teeming settlements near the border with Myanmar after fleeing the destruction of villages and alleged murder, looting and rape by security forces and Buddhist mobs. Afjurul Hoque Tutul, additional superintendent of police in Cox s Bazar, near where the camps are based, said 11 checkpoints had been set up that would help prevent children from leaving. If any Rohingya child is found working, then the owners will be punished, he said. Most of the refugees have arrived in the past two and a half months after attacks on about 30 security posts by Rohingya rebels met a ferocious response from Myanmar s military. Described by the United Nations human rights commissioner Zeid Ra ad Al Hussein as a textbook example of ethnic cleansing , Myanmar s government counters that its actions are a proportionate response to attacks by Rohingya terrorists . The IOM s findings, based on discussions with groups of long-term residents and recent arrivals, and separate interviews by Reuters, show life in the refugee camps is hardly better than it is in Myanmar for Rohingya children. The IOM said children were targeted by labor agents and encouraged to work by their destitute parents amid widespread malnutrition and poverty in the camps. Education opportunities are limited for children beyond Grade 3. Rohingya boys and girls as young as seven years old were confirmed working outside the settlements, according to the findings. Boys work on farms, construction sites and fishing boats, as well as in tea shops and as rickshaw drivers, the IOM and Rohingya residents in the camp reported. Girls typically work as maids and nannies for Bangladeshi families, either in the nearby resort town of Cox s Bazar or in Chittagong, Bangladesh s second-largest city, about 150 km (100 miles) from the camps. One Rohingya parent, who asked not to be identified because she feared reprisals, told Reuters her 14-year-old daughter had been working in Chittagong as a maid but fled her employers. When she returned to the camp, she was unable to walk, her mother said, adding that her daughter s Bangladeshi employers had physically and sexually assaulted her. The husband was an alcoholic and he would come to her bedroom at night and rape her. He did it six or seven times, the mother said. They gave us no money. Nothing. The account could not be independently verified by Reuters but was similar to others recorded by the IOM. Most interviewees said female Rohingya refugees experienced sexual harassment, rape and being forced to marry the person who raped her , the IOM said. Across Bangladesh s refugee settlements, Reuters saw children wandering muddy lanes alone and aimlessly, or sitting listlessly outside tents. Many children begged along roadsides. The Inter Sector Coordination Group, which oversees UN agencies and charities, said this month it had documented 2,462 unaccompanied and separated children in the camps. The actual number was likely to be far higher , it said. A preliminary survey by the UNHCR and Bangladesh s Refugee Relief and Repatriation Commission has found that 5 percent of households - or 3,576 families - were headed by a child. Reuters interviewed seven families who sent their children to work. All reported terrible working conditions, low wages or abuse. Muhammad Zubair, dressed in a dirty football shirt, his small stature belying his stated age of 12 years old, said he was offered 250 taka per day but ended up with only 500 taka ($6) for 38 days work building roads. His mother said he was 14 years old. It was hard work, laying bricks on the road, he said, squatting in the doorway of his mud hut in the Kutupalong camp. He said he was verbally abused by his employers when he asked for more money and was told to leave. He declined to provide their identities. Zubair then took a job in a tea shop for a month, putting in two shifts per day from 6am to past midnight, broken by a four-hour rest period in the afternoon. He said he wasn t allowed to leave the shop and was only permitted to speak to his parents by phone once. When I wasn t paid, I escaped, he said. I was frightened because I thought the owner, the master, would come here with other people and take me again. Many parents also pressure their daughters to marry early, for protection and for financial stability, according to the IOM findings. Some child brides are as young as 11, the IOM said. But many women only became second wives, the IOM said. Second wives are frequently divorced quickly and abandoned without any further economic support . Kateryna Ardanyan, an IOM anti-trafficking specialist, said exploitation had become normalized in the camps. Human traffickers usually adapt faster to the situation than any other response mechanism can. It s very important we try to do prevention. Ardanyan said. Funding dedicated to protecting Rohingya men, women and children from exploitation and abuse is urgently needed. | 0fake |
Nonduality and the Consciousness of 'Things' - Thich Nhat Hanh | Nonduality and the Consciousness of 'Things' - Thich Nhat Hanh Share on Facebook Tweet
Do animals and plants have consciousness? Are electrons alive? Thich Nhat Hanh in dialogue with University of Virginia Astrophysicist Dr. Trinh Xuan Thuan. [watch video below] Caitlin Moran's Posthumous Advice for Her Daughter Caitlin Moran · 19,039 views today · My daughter is about to turn 13 and I’ve been smoking a lot recently, and so – in the wee small hours, when my lungs feel like there’s a small mouse inside them, scratching to... | 1real |
MUSLIM TEENS Stage Fake Terrorist Attack In MN Movie Theater…Guess Who They Blame? | Oh and as an added bonus, according to one of the Muslim teens, they snuck into the theater as well In addition to faking hate crimes against themselves, Muslims are now resorting to staging fake terrorist attacks to prove how Islamophobic America is. First there was Clock Boy in Texas, then The Muslim Hipsters in Arkansas, and now it s the Muslim Movie Goers in Minnesota. A group of Muslim teens did their best to make movie theater patrons think they were about to launch an attack with some purposely-suspicious actions recently.It turns out the Mall of America isn t just a place for angry black protesters; it s also a great spot for creating a false Islamophobic response. The City Pages reports that on January 1st a group of African Muslim teenagers, possibly from Somalia, went to a movie at the country s largest mall. They were all carrying backpacks and speaking with heavy accents and foreign tongues. They wanted to be noticed.Once the movie began, the 5 or so black Muslims got up and separated, taking seats away from each other. As you can imagine, the rest of the people in the theater thought this was a pretty unusual thing for them to do. In fact, most of the other moviegoers thought these Muslim teens were about to launch a jihad right then and there.Reportedly, as many as 15 movie patrons left the theater and called the police, fearing that radical Islamic inspired bloodshed was eminent. The police and mall security arrived and detained the Muslims. They explained to the officers that they got up and moved away from each other because they didn t want to be tempted to talk to each other during the film, which sounds like a complete load of shit.One of the Muslims, Akram Oromo, took video of the cordial police officers questioning him and his co-conspirators and posted it to his FaceBook page. He also pointed out how racist this intrusion was:Racism well never stop ima let u know that because this white people though this young Muslim teens going to blow up the movie theater because we all have a backpack. More than 15 whites start running from the theater like we about do some stupid shit they called police and moa security but they didn t find anything from usAccording to the video, in addition to freaking people out, Oromo and his friends also snuck into the movie without paying.// <![CDATA[ (function(d, s, id) { var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; if (d.getElementById(id)) return; js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = "//connect.facebook.net/en_GB/sdk.js#xfbml=1&version=v2.3"; fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);}(document, 'script', 'facebook-jssdk')); // ]]>Racism well never stop ? ima let u know that because this white people though this young Muslim teens going to blow up the movie theater because we all have a backpack. More than 15whites start running from the theater like we about do some stupid shit they called police and moa security but they didn t find anything from us #racism #muslims#freedom#AfricanPosted by Akram Oromo on Friday, 1 January 2016Islamic terrorists have struck on US soil recently. Radical Islamic groups have actually called for a hit on the Mall of America. It is not racist or Islamophobic for people to react to obvious Muslims acting in a very suspicious manner. That is called vigilance. Even Muslim apologist Barack Obama has said that Americans should keep their eyes open and report anything that doesn t seem right as a way to combat terrorism.It s my opinion that these Muslim teens did this on purpose with the goal of triggering a police response so they could cry about the unfair treatment they receive in the US. Terrorism is evolving, but so too is hate crime hoaxing. It s really quite simple: go to a public place, do something technically legal yet terribly suspicious, then sit back and reap the liberal media sympathy.Via: DownTrend | 1real |
Celebs Blast Trump after Syria Airstrikes: ’F*cking Hypocrite’ for Refugee Stance | Hollywood celebrities took to Twitter Thursday to weigh in on the airstrikes in Syria authorized by U. S. President Donald Trump in retaliation for an earlier chemical weapon attack by Syrian president Bashar . [While many of those celebrities who reacted to the strikes condemned the president and called him a “hypocrite,” a number of stars reacted with both shock and sadness. Actress Kerry Washington wrote simply that she was “heartbroken,” while actress Lena Dunham turned to prayer. Below is a sampling of Hollywood’s reaction to the American airstrikes in Syria. 🚽Bombing Syria Will,🙏🏻 Stop Assad Gassing His Ppl, BUT🚽Has NO Strategy, Or, Diplomacy‼️ TURKEY RUSSIA WINNERS‼️🚽IN HORNETS NEST, OVER HIS👨 — Cher (@cher) April 7, 2017, Wait. What?! Heart breaking. #Syria, — kerry washington (@kerrywashington) April 7, 2017, These two damaged creeps are committing mass murder and they shouldn’t even be allowed to own fish as pets. pic. twitter. — Patton Oswalt (@pattonoswalt) April 7, 2017, Hadnt seen the news. The only thing to tweet right now is a prayer for peace and safety. — Lena Dunham (@lenadunham) April 7, 2017, If you support bombing Syria because they were attacked with Chemical Weapons, but u supported banning Syrian refugees ur a fuckin hypocrite, — DL Hughley (@RealDLHughley) April 7, 2017, It’s sad that politicians can’t find money for education, clean water or healthcare but they can spend millions to ”send a message to Syria” — Trevor Noah (@Trevornoah) April 7, 2017, Trump on Syria: ”No child of God should suffer such horror.” BUT NO WAY, NOPE. THEY CAN’T COME HERE. — George Takei (@GeorgeTakei) April 7, 2017, What’s that? pic. twitter. — Margaret Cho (@margaretcho) April 7, 2017, Moved enough by innocent casualties to excuse bombing them, but not enough to accept refugees. War is a game of hypocrisy greed #Syria, — Lauren Jauregui (@LaurenJauregui) April 7, 2017, I just wish I could trust that this President is competent, — Mia Farrow (@MiaFarrow) April 7, 2017, he thinks he is on the apprentice — with his fake set in florida — like qvc — like palin had in alaska — a taped message audio — WTHF, — ROSIE (@Rosie) April 7, 2017, Follow Daniel Nussbaum on Twitter: @dznussbaum | 0fake |
Trump Called Edward Snowden a Traitor, Implied He Should Be Executed | The Daily Sheeple – by Melissa Dykes
Sure, Hillary Clinton is a banshee nightmare from Hell, but that really doesn’t mean Donald Trump is automatically amazing just because literally anything is better than Hillary. That’s a pretty low bar.
Trump has assured us he’ll give a lot more power to Big Brother as if we aren’t already living in an Orwellian nightmare as it is. He has said that he will grow the police state, boost the Patriot Act, and extend the neverending wars (he keeps mentioning Iran specifically, because no matter who becomes president, they all know they have to sing that same old “Which Path to Persia?” tune). Once I even heard the man say he expects the NSA to be listening in to all our phone calls… guess that makes it okay???
ಠ_ಠ
Trump has also called Edward Snowden a traitor and implied that he should be executed.
He also banned Snowden from Miss Universe… which I’m sure must’ve really broken poor Edward’s heart. Message to Edward Snowden, you’re banned from @MissUniverse . Unless you want me to take you back home to face justice!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 21, 2013
While Snowden may be a limited hangout, that’s beside the point here. Without Snowden, we wouldn’t have so much hard physical evidence of just how much our Constitution has been trampled, our 4th Amendment has been run over, and our privacy has been rendered nonexistent in the cybernetic technological control grid we now find ourselves living in.
How is exposing the tyrannical government’s crimes against the people a traitorous act worthy of death?
And this talk of “justice”?
Real justice would be someone standing up for the Constitution and Bill of Rights and challenging Big Brother and the NSA surveillance state, something neither Trump nor Hillary ever planned to do.
Then again, Trump is the same guy who said he would “take out” the family members of terrorists. Do you have a criminal in the family? How would you like to be killed because your family member is a criminal? Same logic fail.
Like this government is honest about who the real terrorists even are anyway. Come on. If we’re to believe Trump is that naive, he shouldn’t go anywhere near the oval office.
Then again, how does the saying go? Everyone that would make a truly good president is smart enough to realize they’d never want to be president? Not that presidents are really running anything in this country anyway…
Sigh. . @realDonaldTrump yes, I'm sure Edward Snowden would take it all back if he'd known he'd eventually be banned from @MissUniverse . | 1real |
Social service groups sue Illinois for $100 million over unpaid work | CHICAGO (Reuters) - Dozens of Illinois social service providers, starved of cash by the state’s long-running budget stalemate, sued Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner and six statewide agencies on Wednesday, seeking more than $100 million for unpaid work since July. The plaintiffs, who provide services for sex-abuse victims, the homeless, senior citizens and at-risk youth, are suffering “acute financial hardship” as a result of the unresolved budget fight, according to the lawsuit, filed in Cook County Circuit Court. It is the latest attempt at judicial relief by groups hurt by the state’s record-setting, 11-month budget impasse between the Republican governor and Democrats controlling the legislature. The coalition of 64 organizations, calling itself Pay Now Illinois, contended that Rauner’s June 2015 veto of appropriation bills amounted to an unlawful impairment of the their constitutional right to seek a legal remedy for non-payment by the state of their various contracts. “We’ve had to deal with this uncertainty now for the 11th month, over 300 days, without being paid,” said Andrea Durbin, chairwoman of Illinois Pay Now. “We’re seeking to be paid in full for the work we’ve done.” Rauner’s office expressed empathy but urged state lawmakers to approve a spending plan. “While we understand that frustration is driving many worthwhile organizations to seek solutions anywhere, including the courts, the only solution is for the General Assembly to pass a balanced, reform-oriented budget as soon as possible,” Rauner spokeswoman Catherine Kelly said. In another budget-related development, a plan to change how Illinois taxes its residents and businesses stalled in the House of Representatives after a successful lobbying push by Rauner. The proposed constitutional amendment would have stricken the state’s flat income-tax rates and allowed state lawmakers to impose new, multi-tiered tax rates tied to an individual or company’s level of income. Supporters said it would raise an additional $1.9 billion annually for the state. But facing a Wednesday deadline to pass the House, one of the measure’s sponsors, State Representative Christian Mitchell, said lobbying by the governor’s office convinced up to five Republicans whose backing was needed for passage to withdraw their tentative support. “It’s disappointing because this could have helped us with our budget crisis,” Mitchell, a Chicago Democrat, told Reuters. Rauner’s administration said the measure would cost the state 20,000 jobs in four years and lead to a migration of 43,000 high wage earners from Illinois. | 0fake |
Democratic debate: 's Reality Check team inspects the claims | (CNN) The Democratic candidates for president gathered in New Hampshire Thursday for their fifth debate, and CNN's Reality Check team spent the night putting their statements and assertions to the test.
The team of reporters, researchers and editors across CNN listened throughout the debate, selecting key statements and rating them either true; mostly true; true, but misleading; false; or it's complicated.
As in past debates, Hillary Clinton took on Bernie Sanders' voting record on gun control legislation. Thursday night, it came up regarding a debate over who is the true "progressive candidate."
Clinton said, "If we're going to get into labels, I don't think it was particularly progressive to vote against the Brady Bill five times. I don't think it was progressive to vote to give gun makers and sellers immunity," referring to Sanders' voting record.
So, regarding the Brady Bill, what is Sanders' record?
There were several votes in that bill's evolution, the first vote coming in 1991. Sanders voted against a draft that required a seven-day waiting period for background checks. A subsequent version of the bill returned to the House and Sanders voted against it. Then, in 1993, two more drafts returned to the House, and Sanders voted against those. Finally, later in 1993, the Brady Bill finally passed, but without Sanders' vote.
Sanders has defended his votes, saying that it constituted federal overreach.
Sanders also added, "I am absolutely willing, as I've said for many, many weeks, if not months, to take another look at that piece of legislation."
Though Sanders may have his reasons for voting against the Brady Bill, Clinton's claim that he voted against it five times is true.
The topic of big money influencing American politics was raised by Sanders, who said it was "undermining American democracy."
Clinton attempted to distance herself from perceptions her campaign is influenced by Wall Street interests, saying, "I think the best evidence that the Wall Street people, at least, know where I stand and where I have always stood is because they are trying to beat me in this primary."
It was a refrain she used in Wednesday night's town hall, too: "Everybody that I know who looks at what's happening in this campaign sees the same thing: The Wall Street interests, the money interests, the Republican political interests are spending a lot of money to try to defeat me."
Wall Street interests may be spending a lot in support of her opponents, but of all the candidates, Clinton is the leading recipient of donations from individuals in the securities and investments industry.
Clinton implies that Wall Street has no fondness for her. But given that her campaign received $2.9 million from securities and investment donors, the most of all the candidates, Republican or Democrat, our verdict is false.
Clinton accused Sanders of not telling voters the truth about his proposals, particularly his Medicare-for-all plan.
"I am not going to talk about big ideas like single-payer and then not level with people about how much it will cost. A respected health economist said these plans would cost a trillion dollars more a year. I'm not going to tell people that I will raise your incomes and not your taxes and not mean it," Clinton said.
Actually, according to that health economist, Gerald Friedman of the University of Massachusetts Amherst, Sanders' universal health care plan would cost nearly $1.4 trillion a year.
But Sanders has recently been upfront about how much it will cost. He released Friedman's assessment alongside his plan for Medicare-for-all last month.
Also, Sanders has acknowledged that the plan calls for a new 2.2% income tax on all Americans and a 6.2% levy on employers, as well as additional taxes on the wealthy. The Vermont senator, however, argues that ultimately middle class Americans will save money under his health plan because they will no longer pay premiums to private insurers.
Reality Check: Clinton on classified information in her emails
Clinton claimed she "never sent or received any classified material" when she was secretary of state, and the State Department is "retroactively classifying" information in her emails.
It is true that all the classifications we've seen in emails released by the State Department have been retroactive, meaning the State Department determined there was a need to classify the information as they were preparing the emails for release and so they "upgraded" it to classified.
The State Department also maintains that none of Clinton's official emails (of the 85% reviewed and released so far) contained information that was marked as classified when it was sent.
All of the classified redactions the public has seen so far have been the result of retroactive classifications, but the investigation into whether the information was classified during her time in office is ongoing. For that reason, our verdict is it's complicated.
During a back-and-forth about health care, Sanders pointed to his role in Congress during the creation of the Affordable Care Act.
"I am on the Health, Education, Labor Committee. That committee wrote the Affordable Care Act. The idea that I would dismantle health care in America while we're waiting to pass a Medicare-for-all is just not accurate," Sanders said, adding later: "I helped write that bill, but by moving forward, rallying the American people, I do believe we should have health care for all."
Sanders did indeed sit on the Senate panel that helped craft the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, and used his post to advocate loudly for a single-payer system in which insurance is provided by the government to all citizens.
Sanders wasn't alone; many liberal Democrats pushed for such a provision when crafting comprehensive health care reform. But the single-payer option proved to be divisive, and opposed by most Republicans.
That led to the development of alternative mechanisms to get more Americans insured: the establishment of marketplaces for Americans to purchase health insurance, and an individual mandate requiring all Americans obtain coverage.
When Sanders' preferred version of the bill failed to come up for a vote, he diverted his focus instead to securing the inclusion of billions of dollars in funding to community health centers.
But he remained skeptical of a bill that didn't include a single-payer plan. Indeed, in the months leading up to a final vote on the bill, Sanders voiced doubt that he could support the version that lacked such a system (ultimately, he did vote for the Affordable Care Act).
While Sanders played a major role in the debate over health care reform, and helped craft an $11 billion inclusion into the final measure, his claim to have "helped write" the measure misrepresents his part in creating the central pillars of Obamacare.
Reality Check: Sanders as the longest serving independent in the history of Congress
Sanders, a Vermont independent, stressed his longevity and independence on Thursday when he said, "I am the longest serving independent in the history of the United States Congress."
Sanders was first elected to the House of Representatives as an independent from Vermont in 1990 and assumed office in January 1991. He won his Vermont Senate seat in 2006. As a result, although he caucuses with the Democratic Party, Sanders has been an independent in Congress for 25 years.
This 25-year tenure is indeed the longest of an independent member of Congress.
Byrd was first elected to the House in 1932 as a Democrat. He entered the Senate in 1965 and switched parties to become an independent in 1970 after a clash with the Democratic Party leadership in the run-up to the 1972 presidential election. He left office in 1983, giving him 13 years as an independent.
Unlike Byrd, Davis, who had been an associate justice of the Supreme Court and was appointed by Abraham Lincoln, initially assumed office as an independent in 1877 and left office in 1883, giving him six years in Congress as an independent.
Sanders' 25 years in Congress is easily the longest span as an independent.
Sanders threw an elbow at some of the country's largest financial institutions.
"Six financial institutions in America today have assets of roughly $10 trillion, equivalent to 58% of the (gross domestic product) of the United States of America. That is a lot of money," Sanders said.
The six largest financial institutions are JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, as of September 2015, according to the Federal Reserve Bank.
So, doing the math: $9,845,804,000,000 (assets) / $18,128,200,000,000 (GDP) =.5431
Accordingly, the assets of the six largest institutions equal roughly 54% of the GDP.
Reality Check: Sanders 'endorsed' by New Hampshire newspaper
Asked by MSNBC's Rachel Maddow why his campaign put up an ad insinuating that he was endorsed by the Nashua Telegraph, Sanders said that his campaign was careful never to say he was "endorsed" by a newspaper.
"As I understand it, we did not suggest we had the endorsement of the newspaper. Newspapers who make endorsements also say positive things about other candidates and to the best of my knowledge that is what we did. So we never said, never said that somebody, a newspaper, endorsed us that did not. What we did say is, 'Blah blah blah blah' was said by the newspaper," Sanders said.
However, in the next clip, the ad said that The Valley News of Lebanon, New Hampshire, "endorsed" Sanders. That paper did not endorse Sanders.
The Clinton campaign and fact-checkers hit him throughout the day Wednesday and Thursday for the spot and the Sanders campaign eventually revised the ad to remove the "endorsed" language.
Discussing the need for reforms improving access to care at the Department of Veterans Affairs, Sanders said that a group funded by the Koch brothers is promoting the privatization of the agency. An organization called Concerned Veterans for America is sanctioned by the influential conservative siblings, Sanders said.
Wayne Gable, CVA's chief executive and trustee, is also a board member of a Koch-backed organization called Freedom Partners, according to a 2013 tax filing. That filing lists CVA as the business name of an affiliated organization called Vets for Economic Freedom Trust. The filing states the tax exempt group had $3 million in contributions and a nearly equal amount of expenditures, money allegedly spent advocating for "policies that will preserve the freedom and liberty that veterans and their families so proudly fought and sacrificed to defend."
The group produced an anti-Obamacare web video in 2013, "Government Health Care Equals Disaster," suggesting that the scandal at the VA was a prelude to a looming disaster prompted by the passage of the Affordable Care Act.
Unfortunately, the CVA has a glossy, yet glitchy website and there is not much documentation of the group's financials and its staff post-2013. According to the Guidestar charity finder, the organization has not yet filed its IRS 990 form for 2014. Furthermore, its affiliated group, Vets for Economic Freedom Trust is not a verified exempt organization, according to the IRS exempt check search tool.
Sanders is correct in describing the group's Koch lineage and its intent. Our verdict is true. | 0fake |
Army Approves Construction of Dakota Access Pipeline - The New York Times | DENVER — The Army approved the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline on Tuesday, paving the way for an infrastructure project that has been surrounded by protest and controversy. Robert Speer, the acting secretary of the Army, announced the decision to Congress, saying he was ready to offer the pipeline’s owner a easement on a disputed patch of land. The move drew outrage from opponents, including the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, whose reservation in North Dakota sits less than a mile from the proposed pipeline route. And it drew cheers from supporters, who said the planning process for the completion of the $3. 7 billion project had already lasted too long. The chairman of the Standing Rock Sioux, Dave Archambault II, responded to the decision by vowing to fight it in court. “As native peoples, we have been knocked down again,” he said in statement. “But we will get back up, we will rise above the greed and corruption that has plagued our peoples since first contact. ” The pipeline is set to run under the Missouri River near the reservation. It is opposed by many members of the tribe. Construction of the route has become a global rallying point for environmental and tribal activism, drawing thousands of people to a sprawling protest camp and sometimes prompting clashes with authorities. They had objected to the pipeline’s path running so close to the source of the tribe’s drinking water, noting that any spill could poison water supplies for it and others downstream. Members of the tribe also said the pipeline would cross through sacred ancestral lands. The move comes two weeks after President Trump ordered an expedited review of the pipeline, part of his administration’s goal of supporting fossil fuel development and lowering barriers for major infrastructure initiatives. The project would carry 470, 000 barrels of oil a day. In the decision, Mr. Speer said he would halt the preparation of an environmental impact statement meant to assess the effects of the pipeline, adding that he had sufficient information to support approval. The move will allow for the completion of the last mile and a half of the project, connecting oil production areas in North Dakota to a crude oil terminal near Patoka, Ill. The pipeline is owned by Energy Transfer Partners. The decision prompted immediate outcry from people within the protest camp, which now numbers about 400 people, according to Manape LaMere, 38, a leader living by the route since October. “All of our hearts are broken,” said Linda Black Elk, part of the protest’s healer council, in an emotional video live from the camp. “I’m just going to ask you guys to keep us all in your prayers. Pray for the water. Pray for the people. Pray for the water protectors. Pray for the tribe. ” The decision left some feeling whiplashed. Two months ago, under the Obama administration and in the face of global protests, the Army said that it would explore alternative routes for the pipeline. In a statement on Tuesday, Gov. Doug Burgum of North Dakota, a Republican, applauded the Army’s decision. “This is a key step toward the completion of this important infrastructure project, which has faced months of politically driven delays and will allow for safe transport of North Dakota product to market. ” | 0fake |
So you think SUVs are safe? Shocking video | Report Copyright Violation So you think SUVs are safe? Shocking video Back in the 70's everybody was driving rear wheel drive cars in the worst of snowstorm. My dad was even going hunting and fishing with his Chevrolet because that all there was back then. Now every SUV ad tries to sell us the lie that SUVs are safer in the snow and you just can't drive in the snow without one. Re: So you think SUVs are safe? Shocking video SUV's are fine...the idiot driver was going to fast and went into the snow filled shoulder. Drivers fault...not the SUV. "I don't give a tuppenny fuck about your moral conundrum, you meat-headed shit-sack." ~Bill the Butcher "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." ~Arthur C. Clarke "He's a nut-bag! Just because the fucker's got a library card doesn't make him Yoda!" ~David Mills ~ Se7en "THE PLANET IS FINE! THE PEOPLE ARE FUCKED" ~George Carlin RIP Anonymous Coward | 1real |
Scott Walker: Wall on Canadian Border Worth Reviewing | Republican presidential candidate Scott Walker says that building a wall along the country's norther border with Canada is a legitimate issue that merits further review.
Republican candidates have generally taken a get-tough approach on deterring illegal immigration, but they usually focus on the border with Mexico.
The Wisconsin governor was asked whether he wanted to build a wall on the northern border, too, during an interview Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press."
Walker says law enforcement officials in New Hampshire brought up the topic of building a wall along the U.S.-Canadian border during a recent town hall meeting. He says they raised some legitimate concerns, so it's a "legitimate issue for us to look at."
The U.S.-Canada boundary is the longest international border in the world at 5,525 miles long. | 0fake |
Spicer says he let Trump down with comments comparing Assad and Hitler | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - White House spokesman Sean Spicer said on Wednesday he had let down President Donald Trump with his “inexcusable and reprehensible” comments comparing the use of poison gas by Syria’s president to the atrocities of Adolf Hitler. “I made a mistake. There’s no other way to say it. I got into a topic that I shouldn’t have and I screwed up,” Spicer said during an event at a museum in Washington. “On both a personal level and a professional level that will definitely go down as not a very good day in my history,” he added. Spicer triggered an uproar at a White House briefing on Tuesday while discussing chemical weapons use by the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, saying that even Hitler did not use chemical weapons during World War Two. The comments drew sharp criticism on social media and elsewhere for overlooking the fact that the Nazis killed millions of Jews and others in gas chambers. Eighty-seven people, including children, were killed in last week’s chemical weapons attack in Syria. Offered a chance to clarify his remarks during Tuesday’s briefing, Spicer attempted to draw a distinction between the two different uses of deadly chemicals. Later on Tuesday, he apologized for his handling of the topic, which came on the Jewish holiday of Passover and as Christians prepare to celebrate Easter. On Wednesday, Spicer said the comments were “inexcusable and reprehensible” and all the more painful because they were made at a time sacred to Jews and Christians. He said it also was disappointing from a professional standpoint, especially after what he said were “an unbelievable couple of weeks” of Trump’s presidency. He noted that Trump had bombed a Syrian air base in a forceful response to chemical weapons use by Assad’s government and said Trump’s hosting of Chinese President Xi Jinping last week had produced “tremendous progress.” “Your job as the spokesperson is to help amplify the president’s actions and accomplishments,” Spicer said. “And when you’re distracting from that message of accomplishment ... it’s disappointing because I think I’ve let the president down.” | 0fake |
Putin, wary of political tumult, shuns Russian Revolution centenary | MOSCOW (Reuters) - Vladimir Putin stayed away from events marking the centenary of the Russian Revolution on Tuesday, an event that changed the world but has awkward associations for the former KGB operative who was trained to keep a lid on dissent, not celebrate it. In the Soviet era, missile launchers rumbled across Red Square on Nov. 7, Soviet leaders watched from atop the mausoleum of Vladimir Lenin father of the Bolshevik Revolution and the anniversary of the uprising was a public holiday. Red Square did host a military parade on Tuesday, but it was mainly a stylized historical re-enactment of a Soviet 1941 Second World War event and gave only a brief nod to the famous uprising. It was not shown live on state TV, and featured merely a brief segment on the 1917 revolution with Red Army soldiers. The centenary, Putin s spokesman said, was a routine working day for the president who had several Kremlin meetings. Accused by the opposition of having metamorphosed into a cross between a Soviet-style autocrat and a Tsar and eyeing possible re-election next year, the 65-year-old Russian leader has spent years preaching stability while denouncing uprisings in the former Soviet Union and the Middle East. Riot police have cracked down on a string of anti-government protests this year, carrying out mass detentions, and opposition leader and fierce Putin critic Alexei Navalny has been jailed three times for breaking public protest rules. Putin, in his quest to weld a proud national identity, has cherry-picked parts of Russia s Soviet past, like its World War Two victory and its success in space. But while he does not stress Communism s role in those feats, he has sometimes struck an ambivalent tone, once calling the 1991 Soviet collapse the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the twentieth century. In rare comments on the subject ahead of the centenary, Putin made clear he thought it would have been better if the 1917 Revolution had never happened, and that he believed there was nothing to celebrate. ... We see how ambiguous its results were, how closely the negative and, we must acknowledge, the positive consequences of those events are intertwined, Putin told a gathering of academics last month. Was it not possible to follow an evolutionary path rather than go through a revolution? Could we not have evolved by way of gradual and consistent forward movement rather than at the cost of destroying our statehood and the ruthless fracturing of millions of human lives? Putin chose his words carefully. The centenary may leave him with mixed feelings, but it remains a hallowed anniversary for the Russian Communist party and for many older Russians. Although it is the second largest party in the lower house of parliament after the pro-Kremlin United Russia party, the Russian Communist Party wields little real influence today and votes with the Kremlin on most major issues. But its supporters, who held a week-long series of celebratory events to mark the revolution s centenary and were due to rally in Moscow later on Tuesday, believe their time will come again. Capitalism is stumbling from one crisis to another, veteran Russian Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov wrote in a centenary congratulatory note to his supporters. We are convinced that the sun of socialism will once again rise over Russia and the whole world. | 0fake |
Russia-Gate Was All the Rage Across US Media – Where Did it Go and Why? | 21st Century Wire says Russia-gate was pushed by US media outlets everywhere only to disappear after the highly questionable chemical attack in the Idlib province of Syria. The fact is, the media drums over the Trump-Russia story soon fell silent after a US military strike was ordered on the Syrian government s Shayrat Air Base and a Massive Ordnance Air Blast Bomb (MOAB) was dropped on Afghanistan.The US media had been floating the blame Russia meme for months, and even more conveniently during this past 2016 US presidential election cycle, before morphing into the dodgy dossier that included unverified Trump-Russia claims. Now after two neocon approved US military missile strikes in Syria and Afghanistan, the heavily propagandized and unproven Trump-Russian narrative vanished from headline news as soon as war theater increased in the Middle East.More on the story from Consortium News below Consortium News Exclusive: For five months, there was a daily drumbeat on Russia-gate, the sprawling conspiracy theory that Russia had somehow put Donald Trump in the White House, but suddenly the scandal disappeared, notes Robert Parry.By Robert ParryDemocrats, liberals and some progressives might be feeling a little perplexed over what has happened to Russia-gate, the story that pounded Donald Trump every day since his election last November until April 4, that is.On April 4, Trump fully capitulated to the neoconservative bash-Russia narrative amid dubious claims about a chemical attack in Syria. On April 6, Trump fired off 59 Tomahawk missiles at a Syrian airbase; he also restored the neocon demand for regime change in Syria; and he alleged that Russia was possibly complicit in the supposed chemical attack.Since Trump took those actions in accordance with the neocon desires for more regime change in the Middle East and a costly New Cold War with Russia Russia-gate has almost vanished from the news.I did find a little story in the lower right-hand corner of page A12 of Saturday s New York Times about a still-eager Democratic congressman, Mike Quigley of Illinois, who spent a couple of days in Cyprus which attracted his interest because it is a known site for Russian money-laundering, but he seemed to leave more baffled than when he arrived. The more I learn, the more complex, layered and textured I see the Russia issue is and that reinforces the need for professional full-time investigators, Quigley said, suggesting that the investigation s failure to strike oil is not that the holes are dry but that he needs better drill bits.Yet, given all the hype and hullabaloo over Russia-gate, the folks who were led to believe that the vague and amorphous allegations were bigger than Watergate might now be feeling a little used. It appears they may have been sucked into a conspiracy frenzy in which the Establishment exploited their enthusiasm over the scandal in a clever maneuver to bludgeon an out-of-step new President back into line.If that s indeed the case, perhaps the most significant success of the Russia-gate ploy was the ouster of Trump s original National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, who was seen as a key proponent of a New D tente with Russia, and his replacement by General H.R. McMaster, a prot g of neocon favorite, retired Gen. David Petraeus.Consortium News continues here READ MORE TRUMP NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire Trump FilesSUPPORT OUR WORK BY SUBSCRIBING & BECOMING A MEMBER @21WIRE.TV | 1real |
Philippines frees four East Timorese to attend ASEAN meeting | MANILA (Reuters) - Philippine immigration authorities freed four East Timor delegates after holding them for 12 hours at Manila airport in a security clampdown ahead of the ASEAN and East Asia Summit next week. The four East Timorese were allowed into the Philippines but authorities kept their passports until a formal order is issued clearing their entry, said Rhoda Viajar, media relations of the ASEAN Civil Society Conference/ASEAN People s Forum. Immigration authorities said the four were held upon arrival on Saturday morning because they could not explain the purpose of their travel and were not able to establish financial capacity for the visit . The civil society conference organizers understand the more stringent security measures being implemented due to the upcoming ASEAN summit, Viajar said. She said they remain concerned about the possibility of similar incidents upon the arrival of many more participants from other countries . Since 2005, ASEAN leaders have held a dialogue with the region s top civil society groups to listen to development concerns and address critical issues such as poverty, health and education. Philippines security forces are deploying nearly 60,000 army and police personnel during the Nov. 10-14 ASEAN and East Asia Summit to ensure the safety of 19 world leaders and thousands of delegates from 10 Southeast Asian nations and 10 other dialogue partners, including U.S. President Donald Trump. We have not monitored any real and direct threat in the national capital region, but we are not complacent, national police chief Ronald dela Rosa told reporters after reviewing security preparations on Sunday. There could be threats but we are ready and we are up to the challenge. Police will deploy 400 mobile patrol cars, 200 motorcyles, 22 armored vehicles and 100 bomb-sniffing dogs to ensure the security and safety of leaders, officials and delegates to the biggest regional summit in Manila this year. Some areas will be completely locked down, such as where heads of state and governments will hold meetings. Main roads running from the former U.S. air force base about 90 kms north of Manila to the venues will be partly closed. Interior Undersecretary Catalino Cuy said there was no plan to jam mobile phone signals to prevent potential crude bomb attacks because this would cause inconvenience for state officials and security personnel. | 0fake |
Trump says he is only in early stages of considering lifting Russia sanctions | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump said on Friday he is only in the early stages of considering whether to lift U.S. sanctions on Russia, as British Prime Minister Theresa May, other foreign officials and U.S. lawmakers cautioned that such a move would be premature. With Trump expected to speak by phone on Saturday with Russian President Vladimir Putin for the first time since taking power a week ago, speculation has been rife that he is close to lifting sanctions imposed by then-President Barack Obama over Moscow’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea Peninsula in 2014. Such a move would likely cause consternation among European allies as well as many in the U.S. Congress who are also troubled by Russia’s intervention in the Syrian civil war and by U.S. intelligence agencies’ finding that Moscow meddled in the U.S. election campaign. “As far as the sanctions, (it is) very early to be talking about that,” Trump said, while insisting that he wanted to follow through on his campaign pledge to pursue better relations with Russia. His caution on the Russian sanctions came in response to a question at a joint news conference at the White House with May, the first foreign leader to visit the president since his inauguration. May made clear Britain wants to continue sanctions until Putin carries out the requirements in a ceasefire agreement arranged in Minsk, Belarus, in 2014. This view is shared by European allies who fear Putin could become more expansionist if he feels Trump will not intervene. “We believe the sanctions should continue until we see the Minsk agreement fully implemented. And we’ve been continuing to argue that inside the European Union,” May said. The boisterous Trump and reserved May took pains to demonstrate a readiness to maintain the “special relationship” between the United States and Britain, something that is particularly important for May as she steers Britain out of the European Union. They posed for photos before a bust of Winston Churchill in the Oval Office and Trump accepted an invitation from Queen Elizabeth to visit Britain later this year. The two leaders held hands briefly as they walked down the White House colonnade to their news conference in the East Room. Later, they lunched on beef shortribs in the State Dining Room. At the news conference, Trump showed flashes of the pugnacious willingness to dispense with formality that helped him win the Nov. 8 election, registering his displeasure when a British reporter asked him what he had to say to those who are “worried about you becoming the leader of the free world.” “This was your choice of a question?” Trump said with a half smile. Then, nodding toward May as laughter erupted, he added: “There goes that relationship.” On ties with Moscow, Trump has long bucked establishment Washington thinking by voicing a belief that, as he said on Friday, it would be a “tremendous asset” to have a positive relationship with Russia. A long-time Putin critic, U.S. Senator John McCain, who like Trump is a Republican, urged Trump not to lift the sanctions, saying that he should “reject such a reckless course.” “If he does not, I will work with my colleagues to codify sanctions against Russia into law,” said McCain, a long-time Putin critic. House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan, the top U.S. elected Republican, told Politico of the sanctions that “I think they should stay.” Former NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen, now an adviser to Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, urged caution against reversing sanctions without winning concessions from Moscow, saying that, “easing sanctions will only embolden Russia’s aggression in the region, putting the security interests of Ukraine and the United States in jeopardy.” The White House encounter between Trump and May was heavily scrutinized for signs on how the relationship would develop between the leaders of two key members of the NATO alliance, who are markedly different in style but who both owe their rise to power to a tide of anti-establishment feeling in their countries. “I’m not as brash as you might think,” Trump said at the news conference. “I’m a people person and I think you are too, Theresa. I think we’re going to have a fantastic relationship.” Trump, a wealthy real estate developer and former reality TV star, had never held public office when he was elected in November. May stepped in to lead Britain after the June referendum Brexit vote to leave the EU that prompted her Conservative predecessor, David Cameron, to resign. It was notable that Trump did not give much in the way of vocal support for NATO, which he has previously declared obsolete. It was left up to May to issue support for NATO in her opening remarks at their news conference, and to encourage Trump’s backing.”On defense and security cooperation, we are united in our recognition of NATO as the bulwark of our collective defense,” she said. “Today we’ve reaffirmed our unshakeable commitment to this alliance – Mr. President I think you confirmed that you are 100 percent behind NATO.” (This version of the story has been refiled to clarify in 14th and 15th paragraphs on McCain’s remark on Trump and lifting of sanction; clarifying to show that comment “if he does not” refers to rejection of “a reckless course.” | 0fake |
Heard of George Pataki? Every four years he thinks about running for president. | EDITOR’s NOTE: This story was originally published on May 1. It has been updated to include the news that Pataki has announced his presidential campaign.
The tall man in a blazer burst into the Chipotle in the middle of the afternoon. He had a smile, a TV camera following him and the jovial air of a man who expects to be recognized.
“George Pataki, from New York,” he said, shaking hands with the first two diners he met. “We’re doing the non-Hillary tour. We’re actually saying ‘hi’ to people.”
Then the tall man moved on, to quiz the next table about their food. (“Chicken burrito? I gotta try something new.”) When he was gone, the first two diners wondered: Who was that? Do they not have Chipotle where he lives?
“It’s like, ‘Oh, I’m from New York,’ ” said Aaron Lee, 22. “What are you doing here, then?”
Officially, what George E. Pataki was doing was flirting — for the fourth time in 16 years — with the idea of running for president of the United States.
A few weeks ago, Pataki was in New Hampshire: raising money, and telling people that he was close, close, close to making a decision. “I’m strongly leaning toward making the run,” he told a radio station in New Hampshire.
This happened three times before. Every other time Pataki flirted with running, he didn’t [On Thursday, the Republican ex-governor of New York announced that this time, he is actually is running].
Spring is the flirting season in American politics: in the early part of this year, more than 20 politicians were officially “considering” or “exploring” a run for president. The key to understanding this strange every-four-years ritual is to understand that there are two kinds of flirting.
For the big-name candidates, the presidential flirt is a useful, temporary, legal dodge. They will run. They are essentially running already. But they don’t want to admit it yet, because that would bring on tighter fundraising rules.
For the others — particularly the eight or so who have fallen out of the political spotlight — the flirt can be an end in itself. It allows them to experience some of the most pleasant parts of a campaign: audiences, media attention, a chance to raise money. And then it lets them escape before they have to face the less-pleasant parts. Such as getting crushed.
This time, apparently, Pataki is ready to take that risk.
“I make a joke that every four years, there’s the Olympics, there’s the World Cup and I come to New Hampshire thinking about running for president,” Pataki told a crowd of 15 people during a speech at a Sea-Doo and snowmobile dealership in Laconia, N.H.
Nobody laughed. Then Pataki said this election was different: “This time, in all honesty, I see things differently.”
Pataki, 69, has already lived a remarkable political life. The son of a postman, he unseated liberal icon Mario Cuomo (D) in a 1994 governor’s race — one of New York’s legendary upsets. Pataki then won second and third terms by large margins. He led New York through the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and the rebuilding of Ground Zero.
But he has not held office since 2007. Since then, his political star has faded somewhat.
“Who is Bloomberg?” a “Jeopardy!” contestant said in January while looking at a photo of Pataki.
The category was “New York governors,” and the clue was “He took New York into the 21st century.”
“No,” host Alex Trebek said. The other two contestants stared blankly at the same photo, without buzzing in, until time ran out.
Another sign: There used to be a museum about Pataki in his hometown of Peekskill, N.Y. It opened after he left office, complete with an exhibit where schoolkids could see Pataki’s gubernatorial desk.
Then, in 2013, it closed. Its leaders thought maybe more schoolkids would visit if it was a Web site.
“Basically, it would be like a monkey flying out of a unicorn’s [posterior]” if Pataki won the 2016 Republican nomination, said Florida-based GOP strategist Rick Wilson. If Pataki got into the GOP primary, he would face obstacles that go far beyond his meager name recognition. He is pro-choice. He signed strict gun-control laws. He let state government spending grow rapidly.
In recent polls, his best showing has been 1 percent.
“Let’s just say a meteor strikes the first debate and kills everyone except Pataki, who is stuck in traffic. Let’s hypothesize for a moment,” Wilson said. He thought. No. It still wouldn’t be Pataki. They’d find somebody else.
But despite those long odds, Pataki came to New Hampshire last month for his eighth flirting-related visit since September. He later made a ninth.
“I know I can appeal — not just to Republicans and conservatives — but to independents and intelligent Democrats as well,” Pataki told an audience of eight College Republicans at the University of New Hampshire.
This is the heart of Pataki’s pitch to voters. He’s a Republican who won big in a blue state. He’s a reformer who would tame Washington’s bureaucracy. “I go there today, and it’s like I’m on an alien planet,” Pataki said of Washington. “They are an insular world. They talk a language you don’t understand.”
In New Hampshire, Pataki’s crowds were not big. At the official opening of his super PAC’s office in Manchester, for instance, 25 people turned up. And one of them turned out to be an incognito staffer for Donald Trump. Think about that. If this was an intentional act of flirter-against-flirter espionage (which the Trump staffer denied), it might be the most pointless dirty trick in the history of American politics.
Nevertheless, wherever Pataki went, the crowds were pleasant and admiring.
“Under a Pataki administration,” one man asked him at a diner, how would Middle East policy change?
This is one of the things that makes flirting worthwhile: for an ex-politician, it is an unlocked door back into the American political arena.
That can mean new audiences for men used to audiences. The same College Republicans, for instance, had recently hosted a 2016 flirter whose odds are even longer than Pataki’s: former Virginia governor James Gilmore III (R). Gilmore left office in 2002.
“I mean, thank God for Wikipedia,” said UNH senior Elliot Gault, 22.
And the same kind of magic works on the news media. Before former Rhode Island governor Lincoln Chafee (D) announced he was exploring a presidential run on April 9, The Washington Post had not quoted him about anything in nine months.
In the weeks after that, The Post quoted him eight times. Er, nine.
“Clinton is just too hawkish,” Chafee said in an interview, repeating his signature attack line on the Democratic front-runner, former secretary of state Hillary Rodham Clinton.
The other great thing about flirting is the money. While you flirt, you can raise it. And if you don’t run, you can spend it anyway.
In 1999, for instance, Pataki flirted with a campaign, then gave up and endorsed George W. Bush. In 2007, he did it again. “I was very serious about it” that time, Pataki says now. “But: Mayor Giuliani.” The former New York City mayor was in the race, and Pataki didn’t think there was room for two New Yorkers. So he got out.
Both times, Pataki raised more than $1 million in donors’ money. Both times, the New York Times reported, Pataki spent it — giving to allied Republican candidates, paying for Pataki’s travels, and paying a circle of Pataki’s own advisers, strategists and fundraisers.
“I was very serious about it,” Pataki says. “But everywhere I went, people had committed to Mitt Romney.” He pulled the plug but still raised and spent more than $600,000 via a political nonprofit.
This year, Pataki is raising money again — for a super PAC called “We the People, Not Washington.” Among those leading the fundraising are several Pataki associates who got paid from the money he raised in past flirtations. Aides wouldn’t say how much he’d raised or spent this time.
“Because he was my friend, I wouldn’t feel cheated [if Pataki didn’t run]. I’m never one to say that a guy should be a suicide lunatic,” said Peter Kalikow, a New York real estate titan who donated to Pataki’s super PAC this year. In the last presidential cycle, Kalikow was a major backer of another long shot: pizza executive Herman Cain.
Pataki’s aides said they had a strategy ready if their man really got into the race. He’ll stand out in the debates with his genial wit and executive experience. Then he’ll surge in New Hampshire, by appealing to libertarian-leaning . . .
Perhaps we’re getting ahead of ourselves.
“When I heard the name, I was like, ‘Pataki. Pataki. Pataki.’ But I didn’t know that he was the mayor of New York,” Tony Coutee, 42, a crane operator who was at the second table Pataki visited in that Manchester Chipotle, said incorrectly. After Pataki left his table, Coutee said, “I Googled him and found out.”
While the two of them were talking, Pataki was into a full-blown, campaign-style restaurant schmooze. He bumped elbows with the grill man. He walked back to greet employees in the walk-in cooler (“He just shook my hand and I said I didn’t want to be on camera, and he asked if I was on parole,” one said, bewildered.) Pataki went through the line and loudly asked if he could leave a tip.
Then he came back and sat down with Coutee and Soto. “I’m trying the chicken burrito,” Pataki told them.
The two men quickly got up to leave.
“Kinda normal,” Soto said of this only-in-flirting-season interaction, a pseudo-conversation with a pseudo-candidate, who never said what he was running for. “But abnormal.”
Anu Narayanswamy in Washington contributed to this report. | 0fake |
Senior Republican lawmaker wants more sanctions on Russia | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A senior U.S. Republican lawmaker filed legislation on Friday that would sanction Russia for its violations of a decades-old arms control agreement, calling them a threat to global stability. Washington and Moscow have long questioned each other’s commitment to the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, which banned nuclear and conventional ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles with a range of 500-5,500 km (300-3,400 miles). Representative Ed Royce, chairman of the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, said in a statement that Russia President Vladimir Putin has disregarded Russia’s obligations under the INF Treaty for years. “His recent deployment of banned nuclear-tipped missiles poses serious threats to U.S. national security interests,” Royce said. “And it’s just one more example of Russian aggression that undermines global stability.” The U.S. military said in February that Russia had secretly deployed the ground-launched SSC-8 cruise missile in violation of the treaty. Russia has denied violating the treaty. Royce filed his measure as an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), a must-pass annual bill that sets policy for the Pentagon. The deadline for filing NDAA amendments was Friday. Royce’s filing also coincided with President Donald Trump’s first face-to-face meeting with Putin since he became the U.S. president in January. Trump promised a rapprochement with Moscow as he campaigned for president but many U.S. lawmakers, including many of his fellow Republicans, have sought to take a tough line against Russia. | 0fake |
Rapper Lil Wayne: “My Life Was Saved by a White Man. I Don’t Know What Racism is.” | 0 comments
After catching all kinds of flack from his liberal counterparts for his opinion that racism is not as major an issue as race-baiting Democrats make it out to be, rapper Lil Wayne has doubled down and clarified his stance in an astounding video, sharing his memory of the day a white police officer saved his life at 12-years-old.
Watch: | 1real |
BREAKING…AMERICA WAS PUNKED! No Direct Ties Between Trump And Russia…Intelligence Community Behind Assault On Trump [VIDEO] | Could this be the biggest FAKE NEWS story of 2016?An anonymous intelligence officer told NBC no direct link was found between PEOTUS Donald Trump and Russia.Nothing.The Screaming headlines were all Fake News.Senior news editor and writer, NBC Nightly News Brad Jaffey tweeted this video interview of Cynthia McFadden saying that Trump was NOT briefed on the addendum to the dossier originally generated as part of anti-Trump Republican opposition research.:https://twitter.com/BraddJaffy/status/819215244601991169https://twitter.com/BraddJaffy/status/819208142164754432NBC reported:A senior U.S. intelligence official with knowledge of the preparation for the meeting with Trump told NBC News that the president-elect was not briefed on the so-called two-page addendum to the dossier originally generated as part of anti-Trump Republican opposition research.Multiple officials say that the summary was included in the material prepared for the briefers, but the senior official told NBC News that the briefing was oral and no actual documents were handed to the Trump team.Intel and law enforcement officials agree that none of the investigations have found any conclusive or direct link between Trump and the Russian government period, the senior official said.We all got punched And the intelligence community was behind this assault on Trump. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper describes Russia s multi-faceted hacking campaign during the 2016 election:Gateway Pundit | 1real |
Trump is Being Killed in the Press for Saying System is 'Rigged.' Here's 90 Seconds of Democrats Saying It | Share on Twitter The Wildfire is an opinion platform and any opinions or information put forth by contributors are exclusive to them and do not represent the views of IJR.
The political class has been hammering Donald Trump for saying ahead of the November election that the system is “rigged.”
Thanks to the Washington Free Beacon, we have video evidence of Democrats saying the term “rigged” over and over, except without the feigned media outrage to go along with it. | 1real |
Carrier Makes APPALLING Announcement Less Than A Week After Trump’s ‘Deal’ | Donald Trump and all his cohorts are exalting him as a master of business following his deal with Carrier to keep roughly 1,000 jobs in Indiana (while still moving more than half to Mexico anyway). He did it by giving them a whopping $7 million tax break and other incentives, which told the rest of the corporate world that if they want more tax breaks, they should threaten to send jobs out of the country.So this might have saved some Americans jobs, and in the short term, that s a good thing. HOWEVER. There s a catch. Carrier has announced that it will raise its prices in January. A death spiral can begin with that, and it appears that it s something Trump only fleetingly considered.Carrier insists that their decision to raise prices has nothing to do with their decision to keep some jobs here. Indeed, they did announce their price increase a week before Trump reached a deal with them. The problem is that, if their prices go up and competitors prices don t, they ll find themselves at a disadvantage if they find they actually need the price increase to offset higher manufacturing costs. Then those saved jobs could disappear anyway.There are also global forces that have taken manufacturing jobs away from the U.S. that we can t stop no matter how many individual deals Trump manages to strike. Carrier, and others, may find themselves not just at a disadvantage with each other, but at a severe disadvantage with foreign competitors, even if Trump tries to slap a tariff on those imports (which won t work).As many people have noted, striking deals with companies one by one is not the way to improve our jobs market or our economy. And economists all over the political spectrum believe this is a seriously bad idea they destroy an economy from the inside out. Even Sarah Palin recognizes this as crony capitalism, and Sarah Palin is about as dense and clueless as they come. The government is not a business and Trump needs to stop acting like it is.Besides all that, other companies that game Trump to get bigger tax breaks could still raise their prices, and still basically do what greedy corporations do to enrich themselves and fuck the rest of us sideways with rusty chainsaws. We need broad economic policy and overhaul, not individual deals with manufacturers and huge tariffs on companies that offshore jobs.Whether Carrier was already going to raise prices or not, this little announcement shows one of the many dark sides of Trump s approach to saving jobs. In the end, it s not likely to work.Featured image by Tasos Katopodis via Getty Images | 1real |
null | When I attempt to share your stuff on Facebook it rejects it.Also some pop up tabs appear every timr I try to comment.Is your site safe? | 1real |
Texas County Uses Paper Ballots After Electronic Voting Glitch | Email
Chambers County Clerk Heather Hawthorne announced that all early voting in the county was once again on the iVotronic machines after one day of early voting using paper ballots. The emergency usage of paper ballots took place on Tuesday, October 25 while a software problem was being resolved. The vendor corrected the problem and reinstalled the corrected configuration in time for all ballots the next day, according to Hawthorne in a press release on October 27.
The situation was recounted by ABC 12 News: An error in the voting machine programming by Election Systems & Software (ES&S) caused votes for one statewide court of appeals race not to be entered when a voter tried to vote straight ticket in either party according to a release from Chambers County.
Chambers County, Texas, is a small county, having only 13 precincts and only four early-voting locations. County Clerk Heather Hawthorne told The New American 1,801 ballots were cast before switching to the paper ballots. Some of those 1,801 voters were warned to double check their ballots due to the software glitch. Because Chambers County is a Republican stronghold, the Republican candidate will be more adversely affected than the Democratic candidate by unintended under-votes. The question is how many unintended under-votes were there for these candidates and how close will that contest be?
There was a similar ballot problem in 2010 in Travis County, Texas, although the 2010 error was made on the paper ballots. A number of military absentee voters who were bona fide Texas residents were accidentally sent ballots for federal overseas voters. The ballots for federal overseas voters did not include local contests, such as ones for the Texas House of Representatives, and it was impossible to vote for that contest using the ballots provided. Republican Dan Neil lost by 16 votes. The final vote total was Donna Howard (D) 25,026, Dan Neil (R) 25,010 and Ben Easton (L) 1,518. Neil challenged the election total for a number of reasons, in addition to the ballot format, but the Texas Legislature, even though it was supposedly solidly Republican, seated Howard even though a very common practice in such close elections is to seat neither candidate, pay both candidates, and give both candidates equal access to the building and caucuses while the dispute is resolved or a new election is called.
In this case in Chambers County, the affected contest is a judicial contest. Hopefully, it will not be as close as the House District 48 race in 2010.
The voters who were affected by the Chambers County computer glitch were fortunate the errors were obvious enough for voters to notice and bring to the attention of the election officials. How many errors go undetected because they are not obvious to the voters or the election processes are not transparent? Errors such as this serve as a reminder of how important it is that voting have a paper trail and be a transparent process with plenty of paper documentation in case it becomes necessary to reconstruct precinct vote totals or other vital election records. Please review our Comment Policy before posting a comment
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Cameroon's Anglophones flee to Nigeria as crackdown grows | IKOM, Nigeria (Reuters) - When soldiers burst into her village in southwest Cameroon last month with guns blazing, small farmer Eta Quinta, 32, raced into the forest with three of her children. I found a canoe and I used it to cross over with my kids, not knowing where my husband and my (other) two kids are, she told Reuters across the border in Nigeria, where thousands of English-speaking Cameroonians have fled in past weeks. What began last year as peaceful protests by Anglophone activists against perceived marginalisation by Cameroon s Francophone-dominated elite has become the gravest challenge yet to President Paul Biya, who is expected to seek to renew his 35-years in power in an election next year. Government repression - including ordering thousands of villagers in the Anglophone southwest to leave their homes - has driven support for a once-fringe secessionist movement, stoking a lethal cycle of violence. The secessionists declared an independent state called Ambazonia on Oct. 1. Since then, 7,500 people have fled to Nigeria, including 2,300 who fled in a single day on Dec. 4 fearing government reprisals after raids by separatists militants killed at least six soldiers and police officers. The United Nations refugee agency UNHCR is preparing for up to 40,000 refugees. Quinta and her children walked for three days through the dense forests to reach a border crossing at the Agbokim Waterfalls. They remain without news of the rest of the family. There are many pregnant women in the forest, Quinta said as she held her sick two-month-old baby whose head was covered by a white wooly hat. I have friends in the forest and am not sure if I will get to see them again or their kids. At the end of World War One, Germany s colony of Kamerun was carved up between allied French and British victors, laying down the basis for a language split that still persists. English speakers make up less than a fifth of the population of Cameroon, concentrated in former British territory near the Nigerian border that was joined to the French-speaking Republic of Cameroon the year after its independence in 1960. French speakers have dominated the country s politics since. Cameroonian authorities say the English-speaking separatists pose a security threat that justifies their crackdown. The new arrivals in Nigeria live mainly with host families who have supported them with food, clothing and shelter. The integration, a UNHCR official said, was made easier by the pidgin English spoken on either side of the border. Food and medicine are in limited supply. Four people have died of sicknesses since coming to Nigeria and the refugees sometimes sleep as many as 50 to a five-by-seven meter room. Their anger has grown toward a government they feel no longer represents them, which could provide the separatists with easy recruits. We were walking for peaceful demonstrations ... but it s because of the killing of our innocent people that is why our own people have started reacting, said Tiku Michael, a businessman, farmer, father of six and now a refugee. Even ... God himself, he will not allow things to go (on) like that. | 0fake |
Marie Kondo and the Ruthless War on Stuff - The New York Times | Joy points upward, according to Marie Kondo, whose name is now a verb and whose nickname is being trademarked and whose life has become a philosophy. In April at the Japan Society in New York, she mounted a stage in an ivory dress and silver heels, made namaste hands at the audience and took her place beneath the display of a Power Point presentation. Now that she has sold nearly six million copies of “The Magic of Tidying Up” and has been on the New York Times list for 86 weeks and counting, she was taking the next logical step: a formal training program for her KonMari method, certifying her acolytes to bring the joy and weightlessness and trajectory of a life to others. The humble hashtag that attended this event was #organizetheworld. Upon entering the Japan Society, the 93 Konverts in attendance (and me) were given lanyards that contained our information: our names, where we live and an option of either the proud “Tidying Completed!” or the shameful “Tidying Not Yet Completed!” In order to be considered tidy, you must have completed the method outlined in Kondo’s book. It includes something called a “ tidying marathon,” which means piling five categories of material possessions — clothing, books, papers, miscellaneous items and sentimental items, including photos, in that order — one at a time, surveying how much of each you have, seeing that it’s way too much and then holding each item to see if it sparks joy in your body. The ones that spark joy get to stay. The ones that don’t get a heartfelt and generous goodbye, via actual verbal communication, and are then sent on their way to their next life. This is the crux of the KonMari — that nickname — and it is detailed in “The Magic” and her more recent book, “Spark Joy,” which, as far as I can tell, is a more specific “The Magic of Tidying Up” but with folding diagrams. She is often mistaken for someone who thinks you shouldn’t own anything, but that’s wrong. Rather, she thinks you can own as much or as little as you like, as long as every possession brings you true joy. Her book was published in the United States in 2014, quietly and to zero fanfare and acclaim. Kondo’s inability to speak English made promotional radio and appearances hard sells. But one day, a New York Times Home section reporter happened upon the book and wrote an article discussing her own attempt at her closets the book caught fire. Soon it was the subject of every kind of press: the adoring profile, the women’s magazine listicle, the feminist takedown, the personal essay, the of harrumph (“The Real Reasons Marie Kondo’s Magic Doesn’t Work for Parents”) the folding demonstration, the joke on “The Mindy Project,” a parody book called “The Magic of Not Giving a [expletive],” and another one called “The Joy of Leaving Your [expletive] All Over the Place. ” By the time her book arrived, America had entered a time of peak stuff, when we had accumulated a mountain of disposable goods — from Costco toilet paper to Isaac Mizrahi swimwear by Target — but hadn’t (and still haven’t) learned how to dispose of them. We were caught between an older generation that bought a princess phone in 1970 for $25 that was still working and a generation that bought $600 iPhones, knowing they would have to replace them within two years. We had the princess phone and the iPhone, and we couldn’t dispose of either. We were burdened by our stuff we were drowning in it. People had an unnaturally strong reaction to the arrival of this woman and her promises of magic. There were people who had been doing home organizing for years by then, and they sniffed at her severe methods. (One professional American organizer sent me a picture of a copy of Kondo’s book, annotated with green sticky notes marking where she approved of the advice and pink ones where she disapproved. The green numbered 16 the pink numbered more than 50). But then there were the women who knew that Kondo was speaking directly to them. They called themselves Konverts, and they say their lives have truly changed as a result of using her decluttering methods: They could see their way out of the stuff by aiming upward. At the Japan Society event, we were split into workshop groups, where we explained to one another what had brought us here and what we had got out of “The Magic of Tidying Up. ” Most of the women at the event could not claim “tidying completed!” status only 27 in the room did, or less than a third. One woman in my group who had finished her tidying, Susan, expressed genuine consternation that a bunch of women who wanted to become KonMari tidying consultants hadn’t even “completed tidying!” How were they going to tidy someone else’s home when they couldn’t even get their own in order? How could they possibly know how profoundly life could improve if they hadn’t yet completed their tidying? A woman named Diana, who wore earrings, said that before she tidied, her life was out of control. Her job had been recently eliminated when she found the book. “It’s a powerful message for women that you should be surrounded by things that make you happy,” she said, and her and everyone else’s faces engaged in incredulous agreement, nodding emphatically up and down, skull to spine and chin to chest. “I found the opposite of happiness is not sadness,” Diana told us. “It’s chaos. ” Another woman said she KonMaried a bad boyfriend. Having tidied everything in her home and finding she still distinctly lacked happiness, she held her boyfriend in her hands, realized he no longer sparked joy and got rid of him. During her lecture, Marie demonstrated how the body feels when it finds tidying joy. Her right arm pointed upward, her left leg bent in a display of glee or flying or something aerial and upright, her body arranged I’ and a tiny hand gesture accompanied by a noise that sounded like “kyong. ” Joy isn’t just happy joy is efficient and adorable. A lack of joy, on the other hand, she represented with a different pose, planting both feet and slumping her frame downward with a sudden visible depletion of energy. When Kondo enacted the lack of joy, she appeared grayer and instantly older. There isn’t a specific enough name for the absence of joy it is every emotion that isn’t pure happiness, and maybe it doesn’t deserve a name, so quickly must it be expunged from your life. It does, however, have a sound effect: “zmmp. ” Joy is the only goal, Kondo said, and the room nodded, yes, yes, in emphatic agreement, heads bobbing and mouths agape in wonder that something so simple needed to be taught to them. “My dream is to organize the world,” Kondo said as she wrapped up her talk. The crowd cheered, and Kondo raised her arms into the air like Rocky. She did not set out to become a superpower in the already booming world of professional organization. It just sort of happened to her, a natural outgrowth of a lifelong obsession with carefully curating her belongings. When she was a little girl, she read all of her mother’s homemaking magazines, and as early as elementary school began researching various tidying methods, so disquieted was her brain by her family’s possessions. Kondo recalls that the national library of Japan held a large collection of tidying, decluttering and organizing books, but it didn’t admit anyone under 18. Kondo spent her 18th birthday there. When she was 19, her friends began offering her money for her tidying services. At the time, she was enrolled at Tokyo Woman’s Christian University, studying sociology, with a concentration on gender. She happened upon a book called “Women With Attention Deficit Disorder,” by Sari Solden, and in it there was a discussion over women who are too distracted to clean their homes. Kondo was disturbed that there was little consideration that a man might pick up the slack in this regard, that a woman with A. D. D. was somehow broken because she couldn’t tidy. But, she conceded, buried in this outrageous notion was a core truth: that women have a closer connection to their surroundings than men do. She realized that the work she was doing as a tidying consultant was far more psychological than it was practical. Tidying wasn’t just a function of your physical space it was a function of your soul. After college she found work at a staffing agency but continued to take tidying jobs in the early mornings and late evenings, initially charging $100 per block. Eventually she quit her job, and soon, even working at tidying full time, the wait list for her services reached six months. When she enters a new home, Kondo says, she sits down in the middle of the floor to greet the space. She says that to fold a shirt the way everyone folds a shirt (a floppy rectangle) instead of the way she thinks you should (a tight mass of dignified fabric so tensile that it could stand upright) is to deprive that shirt of the dignity it requires to continue its work, i. e. hanging off your shoulders until bedtime. She would like your socks to rest. She would like your coins to be treated with respect. She thinks your tights are choking when you tie them off in the middle. She would like you to thank your clothes for how hard they work and ensure that they get adequate relaxation between wearings. Before you throw them out — and hoo boy will you be throwing them out — she wants you to thank them for their service. She wants you to thank that blue dress you never wore, tell it how grateful you are that it taught you how blue wasn’t really your color and that you can’t really pull off an empire waist. She wants you to override the instinct to keep a certain thing because an HGTV show or a magazine or a Pinterest page said it would brighten up your room or make your life better. She wants you to possess your possessions on your own terms, not theirs. (This very simple notion has proved to be incredibly controversial, but more on that later.) She is tiny — just . When I interviewed her, not only did her feet not touch the ground when we were sitting, but her knees didn’t even bend over the side of the couch. When she speaks, she remains and smiling she moves her hands around, framing the air in front of her, as if she were the director on “Electric Company” or Tom Cruise in “Minority Report. ” The only visible possessions in her hotel room for a trip from Tokyo were her husband’s laptop and a small silver suitcase the size of a typical man’s briefcase. She has long bangs that obscure her eyebrows, and that fact — along with the fact that her mouth never changes from a faint smile — contributes to a sense that she is participating in more of a pageant than an interview, which possibly is what it does feel like when American interviewers whose gargantuan feet do touch the ground come to your hotel room and start jawing at you through an interpreter. Her ankles are skinny but her wrists are muscular. When she shows pictures of herself in places she has tidied, before she starts, she looks like a lost sparrow in a tornado. On the other side, in the “after” picture, it is hard to believe that such a creature could effect such change. Her success has taken her by surprise. She never thought someone could become so famous for tidying that it would be hard to walk down the street in Tokyo. “I feel I am busy all the time and I work all the time,” she said, and she did not seem so happy about this, though her faint smile never wavered. She sticks with speaking and press appearances and relegates her business to her handlers — the team of men who pop out of nowhere to surround any woman with a good idea. She feels as if she never has any free time. I spent a few days with her in April, accompanied by her entire operation (eight people total). I attended her “Rachael Ray” appearance, where she was pitted against the show’s organizer, Peter Walsh, in what must have been the modern talk show’s least fair fight ever. Kondo was asked about her philosophies, and she relayed her answers through her interpreter, but when Walsh countered by explaining why an organizing solution Kondo offered was nice but didn’t quite work in the United States, his response was never translated back to Kondo, so how was she supposed to refute it? She stood to the side, smiling and nodding as he proceeded. Had she been told what Walsh was saying, she would say to him what she said to me, that yes, America is a little different from Japan, but ultimately it’s all the same. We’re all the same in that we’re enticed into the false illusion of happiness through material purchase. Kondo does not feel threatened by different philosophies of organization. “I think his method is pretty great too,” she told me later. She leaves room for something that people don’t often give her credit for: that the KonMari method might not be your speed. “I think it’s good to have different types of organizing methods,” she continued, “because my method might not spark joy with some people, but his method might. ” In Japan, there are at least 30 organizing associations, whereas in the United States we have just one major group, the National Association of Professional Organizers (NAPO). Kondo herself has never heard of NAPO, though she did tell me that she knows that the profession exists in the United States. “I haven’t had a chance to talk to anyone in particular, but what I’ve heard is that thanks to my book and organizing method, now the organizing industry in general kind of bloomed and got a spotlight on it,” she said, though I cannot imagine who told her this. “They kind of thanked me for how my book or method changed the course of the organizing industry in America. ” The women (and maybe three or four men) of NAPO would beg to differ. More than 600 of them descended on Atlanta for NAPO’s annual meeting in May. They refer to this gathering only as Conference, no article, the way that insiders call the C. I. A just C. I. A. I went along, too, in order to better understand the state of stuff in America, and to study Kondo’s competition. When you receive your Conference lanyard, you can add sticky ribbons to it that say anything from your level of participation in NAPO (chapter president, former board member, golden circle, NAPO Cares, etc.) to where you’re from (a choice of the 41 states represented) to what your state of mind is (Diva, Lazy, High Maintenance, Happy to Be Here, Really? Caution: Might Burst Into Show Tunes! ). Once you are completely categorized, you can enjoy Conference. At Conference, I met women who organize basements. I met women who organize digital clutter. I met women who organize photos. I met women who categorized themselves as “solopreneurs,” which, what’s that now? I met a woman who organizes thoughts, and please don’t move onto the next sentence until you’ve truly absorbed that: I met a woman who charges $100 per hour for the organization of thoughts. I heard the word “detritus” pronounced three different ways. I met a woman in camouflage (though the invitation begged us to confine ourselves to our native ) who carried a clipboard and called herself Major Mom, and instead of an organizer she calls herself a liberator, like in Falluja. I went to a seminar on closets and pantries that I hoped would be, I don’t know, more spiritual than it was, or at the very least address the problem of the cans of beans I keep buying and not using — why do I keep buying them? Why am I not using them? Beans are a superfood, after all, and cheap, too. I like beans. But the woman droned on and on and on about shelving units and the pesky corner cabinets, how they misuse valuable space, but luckily there is a drawer or something that could help you fill that space, too, because negative space inside a cabinet is a crime no organizer worth her drawer dividers should find herself guilty of. Conference was different from the KonMari events that I attended. Whereas Kondo does not believe that you need to buy anything in order to organize and that storage systems provide only the illusion of tidiness, the women of Conference traded recon on timesaving apps, label makers, the best kind of Sharpie, the best tool they own (“supersticky notes,” “drawer dividers”) and the best practices regarding clients who wouldn’t offer their organization goals in a timely manner. I heard about the crises in the industry: that clients who printed out Pinterest pages and said, “I want that,” had unrealistic expectations that the baby boomers are downsizing for the first time that there is a rising generation that isn’t interested in inheriting their parents’ old junk. While NAPO members don’t share any standardized method for organizing — the group offers certification classes, but each woman I spoke with has her own approach — they are fairly unified in their disdain for this Japanese interloper. They have waged a war through their fuming blog posts and their generally disgusted conversations, saying that she is a product only of good marketing, that she’s not doing anything different from what they’ve been doing since she was in diapers. They don’t like that there’s a prescribed order for tidying they think you have to yield to what your client wants done and has time for. They don’t like the tidying marathon, which on average is completed in six months sometimes organizing is a many years effort or an ongoing one. They don’t like that she hasn’t really addressed what to do with all your kids’ stuff and how to handle them. They don’t like that you have to get rid of all of your papers, which is actually a misnomer: Kondo just says you should limit them because they’re incapable of sparking joy, and you should confine them to three folders: needs immediate attention, must be kept for now, must be kept forever. At the show, I stood in front of the booth of a man advertising his cleaning service, which can tidy up crime scenes as well as hoarders’ homes, and I asked some women eating spring rolls what they had against Kondo. The nice ones, struggling for something that wasn’t overtly bitchy to say, said they appreciated that the popularity of her book has brought attention to their industry, which still lobbies to be recognized by the government as an official occupation. (Until that happens, the NAPO women will have to continue calling themselves “interior designers” or “personal assistants” they would prefer “productivity consultants. ”) But they also feel as if they’ve been doing this for years, that “she just has one hell of a marketing machine, but she’s doing nothing that’s so different from us,” at least three of them said to me. Yet each organizer I spoke with said that she had the same fundamental plan that Kondo did, that the client should purge (they cry “purge” for what Kondo gently calls “discarding”) what is no longer needed or wanted somehow the extra step of thanking the object or folding it a little differently enrages them. This rage hides behind the notion that things are different here in America, that our lives are more complicated and our stuff is more burdensome and our decisions are harder to make. “It’s a book if you’re a Japanese girl and you live at home and you still have a bunch of your Hello Kitty toys and stuff,” another NAPO member told me, which, while not the only thing a professional organizer told me that was tinged with an aggressive xenophobia and racism, it is the only one that can run in a New York Times article. They even hate Kondo’s verbiage. The word she uses, “tidying,” is annoying and arcane to them. “Tidying is what you do before your comes over,” said one woman, while her two friends nodded. In addition, what Kondo offers is limited. Ellen Faye, the president of NAPO, told me the night before: “You know, I have a client who got me the book, who said, ‘Here, Ellen, read the book.’ I did page through it. I think her first book is kind of like the grapefruit diet that there’s nothing wrong with just eating grapefruit. It’s not going to get it all done. I mean grapefruit’s great for losing weight, and what she says is great for bringing order to your life, but it’s not the whole picture. It’s just a narrow slice. ” Ultimately, the women of NAPO said that Kondo’s methods were too draconian and that the clients they knew couldn’t live in Kondo’s world. They had jobs and children, and they needed baby steps and and maintenance plans. They needed someone to do for them what they couldn’t naturally do for themselves. At the lounge, which included space for mindful coloring, I suggested to the organizers present that maybe the most potent difference between Kondo and the NAPO women is that the NAPO women seek to make a client’s life good by organizing their stuff Kondo, on the other hand, leads with her spiritual mission, to change their lives through magic. With her rigid tidying marathon directive (no baby steps, no “slow and steady wins the race”) she is a little like the grapefruit diet: simple and extreme and incredibly hard, the way Americans like our renewal plans. A woman who was coloring heard my theory and rolled her eyes. Her name was Heather Ahern, an organizer in Massachusetts for nearly 13 years, and she deals mostly with a clientele who were surviving something hard: divorce, death, loss — when, for example, their loved ones have no idea how to access any of their online accounts and delete them. “Do you know how many dead people are on LinkedIn?” she asked me. (The correct answer to this is not: I don’t know, all of them?) “For some of my clients, just making it better is O. K.,” she said. “They don’t want a perfect house. There is no perfect house. ” But Kondo would agree with that. “I guess it’s the process,” Ahern said of what bothers her most about Kondo. Ahern’s philosophy is about process as much as about results. “I see that my clients are just too fragile to do that,” she said. We got up to go back to our rooms to briefly abandon our casual for formal in preparation for the Black and White Ball, where the NAPO women would cut loose as much as their personalities would allow them by doing karaoke to Eminem and dancing to “Baby Got Back. ” Jenny Ning was about being one of Kondo’s only employees who had not yet finished tidying(! ). What could Kondo possibly think of an employee representing KonMari Inc. to her American base not having her own house in order? We’d been through a lot together, Ning and I. Kondo needed an interpreter to speak with me, so I spent a lot of my reporting time outside our interviews with Ning. We attended the events and meetings, clueless in our and I watched as she negotiated decisions about the certification program, which will cost around $1, 500 for a session, and a newsletter they were toying with. Last year, when Kondo visited San Francisco, she came to Ning’s studio apartment, and Ning said she felt very ashamed when Kondo opened her closet. Kondo would visit San Francisco again to introduce the consultancy and maybe even before, and Ning told me she wanted to tidy and to show Kondo the progress. I asked if I could come along and maybe help Ning complete her tidying. When Ning was little, she loved to collect things: stamps, stickers, pencils. She was never overwhelmed by her stuff. She thinks of her childhood bedroom as “very happy. ” But as she grew into adulthood, she kept buying clothing: far too much of it. She went to work in finance, but she found the work empty and meaningless. She would come home and find herself overwhelmed by her stuff. So she began searching for “minimalism” on the internet almost constantly, happening on Pinterest pages of beautiful, empty bathrooms and kitchens, and she began to imagine that it was her stuff that was weighing her down. She read philosophy blogs about materialism and the accumulation of objects. “They just all talked about feeling lighter,” she said, with one leg folded under her and another on the floor as she sat on her bed, which no longer sparks joy and which she would sell in the coming weeks. Ning wanted that lightness. And here, at this moment in the story, Ning began to cry. “I never knew how to get here from there,” she said. Ning looked around her apartment, which is spare. She loves it here now, but that seemed impossible just a couple of years ago. She found Kondo’s book, and she felt better immediately, just having read it. She began tidying, and immediately she lost three pounds. She had been trying to lose weight forever, and then suddenly, without effort, three pounds, just gone. One day, she was texting a friend, saying that she thought she could live her ideal life if only she could work as Kondo’s assistant. It happened that Kondo was in San Francisco and, even better, she was speaking across the street from Ning’s finance job. After the talk, Ning tried to speak with Kondo, but she walked away with only a KonMari business card from one of Kondo’s associates. She didn’t hear anything initially when she wrote to the address. Undeterred, she quit her job and arranged a trip to Japan. There, she finally talked to associates of Kondo’s who told her of their plans to expand into the United States. Could Ning help? Could she! Ning worked free for KonMari Inc. for five months, before landing a salaried position. She donated the suits that she wore to her finance job and hung up all of her yoga clothing in her closet, even though, technically, KonMari does not endorse hanging leisure wear, but that is all she wears now, and all I’ve seen her wear, from the yoga class we did together to the professional events we attended. Ning has thrown away her collections. She has gone to her family’s home in San Diego and thrown away whatever was left there too. She wiped her tears and leaned in and told me, like a secret, that she has kept one collection: the stickers. She asked me if I wanted to see her album. She pulled it out from under her bed, pages and pages of Snoopy stickers and stickers of frogs and cupcakes and bunnies in raincoats playing in puddles and Easter baskets. She smiled down at them and touched a few while I thumbed through the pages. She asked if I wanted to watch her KonMari her pantry, and I said yes, of course I did. I sat next to her shelf full of books with names like “Secrets of ” and “Move Your Stuff, Change Your Life” and “How to Be Idle” and “The Art of Serenity. ” We threw away expired gum and some Chinese healing herbs whose purpose Ning could no longer remember. A week later I was on another assignment, still using the same notebook from the Kondo story. As I flipped through it, passing through the pages of my notes from my time with Ning, I noticed that a tiny blue butterfly sticker had escaped her collection and landed on a page. When I saw the sticker, I froze and put my finger on it. I had had a sticker album, too. It had stickers that smelled like candy canes and purple. It had bubbly heart stickers and star stickers and Mork Mindy stickers and Peanuts stickers, too. I went abroad for a year to Israel after high school. While I was there, the boiler in my house in Brooklyn exploded and a soot fire destroyed all our possessions. “Everyone is O. K. but there was a fire,” my father said when I called. What happened after I got off the phone still confounds me: I returned to my dorm room, and when my roommate asked me how things were at home, I told her they were fine, and we went to sleep. In the middle of the night, I woke my roommate up, telling her that my house burned down. She told me it was a dream, and I kept telling her I had just forgotten to tell her. She didn’t believe me for days. I never saw my sticker album again. I never saw anything again. After the place was cleared out, my mother was able to save a few photo albums, because they were closed when the soot invaded the basement and covered and ruined all the surfaces. When I look at the pictures, I don’t ever notice how young or cute my sisters and I were. I look in the background for the items that lie in the incidental path of my mother’s Canon. I try to remember what they smelled like or why we owned them or where we put them. I try to think of what my life would have been like if I’d returned home to what I left behind, the way my friends were able to return to their homes to what they’d left behind and keep returning, after they finished college and after they got married and after they had kids. I try to think of who I’d be if I weren’t in the habit of looking at my home before I left it each day and mentally preparing myself for the possibility that nothing I owned would be there when I got home that night. I try to know what feelings my lost objects, which I forget more and more as the years pass, would evoke if I could hold them in my hands, KonMari style, like a new kitten. Some would bring joy and some would not, but I’m not someone who thinks that joy is the only valid emotion. I try to remember what I no longer can because, in terms of my possessions, it is as if I was born on my 19th birthday. The reason I bring this up is to tell you that you could not have any stuff at all, much less too much stuff, and still be totally messed up about it. The reason I tell you this is so that you know that that tiny butterfly sticker has been the same burden to me as any hoarder’s yield. Nostalgia is a beast, and that is either a good reason to KonMari your life, or a terrible one, depending on how you want to live. The last time I saw Marie Kondo, we were in a hotel room in Midtown, a different one, and still the only visible objects in it were that metal suitcase and her husband’s laptop. But one item had been removed from the suitcase: a spray bottle that she keeps around. She sprays it into the air and the scent signals to her that she is finished working for the day, that her obligations, which seem endless lately, are done. I told her that, to my observation, a company trying to grow the way hers was trying to grow seemed at odds with the personality of someone who required such extreme measures for peace in the first place. “I do feel overwhelmed,” she told me, and she gave me one note of a quiet laugh. People demand a lot of her, not really understanding that you don’t go into a business like tidying if you’re able to handle a normal influx of activity and material. The world really likes her for her quirks. They make for good headlines and they certainly sell books, but nobody seems to be able to truly accept and accommodate them. I think the NAPO women have Kondo wrong. She is not one of them, intent on competing for their market share. She is not part of a breed of “solopreneurs” bent on dominating the world, despite her hashtag. She has more in common with her clients. But when it comes to stuff, we are all the same. Once we’ve divided all the drawers and eliminated that which does not bring us joy and categorized ourselves within an inch of our lives, we’ll find that the person lying beneath all the stuff was still just plain old us. We are all a mess, even when we’re done tidying. At least Kondo knows it. “I was always more comfortable talking to objects than people,” she told me. At that moment, I could tell that if she had her way, I would leave the hotel room and she would spray her spray and be left alone, so she could ask the empty room if she could clean it. | 0fake |
Un conflit militaire entre la Russie et les Etats-Unis est-il possible ? | Opinion Un Su-25 à la base aérienne russe de Hmeimim, Syrie. Crédit : AP
La crise syrienne est bien plus dangereuse que les crises de la guerre froide, y compris que la célèbre crise des missiles de Cuba de 1962. Aujourd’hui, le potentiel de conflit dans les relations entre la Russie et les Etats-Unis est plus élevé que ce n’était le cas dans les années 1960. Rivalité systémique Une armée commune européenne pour éviter la désintégration de l’UE? Ce n’est pas un hasard si le politologue américain John Lewis Gaddis a qualifié la guerre froide de « longue période de paix » . Au premier abord, la période qui s’étend entre le milieu des années 1950 et le milieu des années 1980 était une époque de confrontation dure entre deux superpuissances aux idéologies irréconciliables.
En réalité, la confrontation entre l’URSS et les Etats-Unis suivait des règles strictes et ne s’est jamais approchée (malgré la rhétorique virulente) de la confrontation armée directe.
La possession d’armes nucléaires par l’URSS et les Etats-Unis n’était pas la cause principale de cette longue paix. Les dirigeants des superpuissances n’avaient aucune raison politique de lancer un affrontement direct. Les Etats-Unis et l’Union soviétique n’avaient pas de concurrents dans leur rôle de leaders des mondes capitaliste et socialiste. Lire aussi : Convoi de l’Onu bombardé en Syrie : la coopération russo-américaine se fissure
L’absence de motifs politiques était complétée par le manque de capacités techniques à mener une guerre directe. Situés dans deux hémisphères différents, l’URSS et les Etats-Unis ne pouvaient pas occuper leur territoire mutuel. Aucune partie ne disposait de la supériorité suffisante pour garantir la défaite de l’adversaire et remporter la victoire dans un conflit régional majeur.
L’idéologie soviétique, tout comme l’idéologie américaine, étaient intransigeantes devant l’adversaire. Les deux superpuissances affirmaient le principe de compétition entre le communisme et le libéralisme. L’Otan trouverait-elle la Russie plus dangereuse que Daech? Premièrement, cela signifiait que l’ URSS et les Etats-Unis se considéraient mutuellement comme deux entités égales. Deuxièmement, les deux parties étaient prêtes à suivre des règles. Troisièmement, une compétition suppose que l’adversaire dispose d’aspects positifs qui doivent être adaptés ou surpassés.
A la moindre escalade, les dirigeants soviétiques et américains s’empressaient de lancer des négociations et de discuter des conditions d’un compromis. Rivalité non-systémique
Après le démantèlement de l’Union soviétique en 1991, la donne a changé. La Russie et les Etats-Unis ont commencéà accumuler des motifs d’un conflit militaire. Les deux puissances nucléaires aux capacités comparables ont dû construire leurs relations dans le cadre d’un même ordre global mondial.
Les contradictions idéologiques réelles se sont justement fait sentir après 1993. Dès la fin de 1994, la Russie refusait officiellement à reconnaître les concepts américains de leadership et d’extension de la démocratie. Lire aussi : Le bouclier US en Europe serait-il dirigé contre la Russie et la Chine ?
En 1997, la Russie avec la Chine ont avancé l’idée d’un monde multipolaire. Cette idée a eu bien du mal à passer à Washington, qui prétendait au rôle de leader de l’ordre mondial en gestation. Il ne s’agissait plus de la coexistence de deux camps, mais de deux façons de construire un monde globalisé.
Toutes les administrations américaines étaient particulièrement irritées par deux facteurs. Le premier : le potentiel militaire conservé par Moscou. Le deuxième : la conservation par la Russie de son statut de membre permanent du Conseil de sécurité de l’ Onu , qui lui permet de bloquer les décisions de Washington ou de les rendre illégitimes. Syrie : la guerre des résolutions En dépit de la déclaration sur le « partenariat stratégique » , l’objectif de la politique américaine se réduisait à diminuer rapidement (et, idéalement, à liquider) le potentiel stratégique russe pour le ramener à un niveau suffisamment sûr pour les Etats-Unis.
Les élites russes , de leur côté, comprenaient parfaitement les raisons qui motivaient les actions des Etats-Unis. Moscou était particulièrement inquiet quant à la réforme du droit international entreprise par Washington.
À travers un enchaînement de précédents, la diplomatie américaine affirmait deux principes. Le premier : l’éviction forcée des dirigeants des États souverains (avec leur condamnation successive par un tribunal international). Le deuxième : le désarmement forcé des régimes dangereux (du point de vue de Washington) et, en premier lieu, la privation de ces régimes de leur potentiel militaire de destruction massive. Lire aussi : La Russie prête à abattre des avions américains en cas de frappe en Syrie
La guerre en Irak et les crises postérieures autour des programmes nucléaires de l’Iran, de la Corée du Nord et du Pakistan étaient perçues par Moscou comme le rodage d’un scénario de visant à confisquer des ADM à un pays à problème (du point de vue de Washington). Les dirigeants russes soupçonnaient que l’objectif ultime des Etats-Unis était d’utiliser ces approches à l’intention de la Russie.
Les nouvelles formes de coopération ont donné naissance à un nouveau type de conflits militaro-politiques. Après 1991, les Etats-Unis ont utilisé la force contre les pays qu’ils désignaient comme « Etats-voyous » , peaufinant ainsi leur modèle de guerre punitive contre des régimes donnés. Washington rompt le dialogue avec Moscou sur la Syrie : et après? Les dirigeants russes ne pouvaient que soupçonner que la Fédération de Russie était l’objectif final de ces actions. Moscou, quant à lui, s’adonnait régulièrement à des démonstrations de force pour contraindre Washington à chercher un compromis.
Un système de confrontation indirecte, mais rude, s’est installé entre la Russie et les Etats-Unis. Les crises en Yougoslavie, Tchétchénie, Géorgie et en Ukraine en sont des exemples.
À ces causes s’ajoute les progrès dans l’ armement . La création d’unités aéroportées autonomes, de systèmes de défense antiaérienne et antimissile, d’armes de précision, etc. rendent le scénario d’un conflit régional entre la Russie et les Etats-Unis plus réaliste du point de vue technique. On ne peut exclure l’éventualité que, dans les 10–15 prochaines années, la tentation d’y recourir grandisse pour les élites de ces deux puissances. Lire aussi : Gorbatchev : « Le monde a atteint une limite dangereuse » L’érosion de la dissuasion nucléaire
La forme future des conflits avec la Russie et la Chine est esquissée, pour la première fois, dans La stratégie militaire nationale des Etats-Unis en 1995.
Pour les experts américains, ces chocs pourraient prendre la forme d’une intervention de Washington dans un conflit entre Moscou ou Pékin avec l’un de leurs voisins – une sorte de Tempête du désert régionale dans un théâtre d’opérations limité. Bombes et diplomatie : un an d'opération russe en Syrie Sans compter qu’au cours des vingt dernières années, la Russie et la Chine ont accru leur capacité de défense et mis fin à la supériorité américaine dans les armes de précision. Les conflits en Géorgie, en Ukraine et en Syrie doivent être vus comme des tests, une « épreuve de force » pour un affrontement éventuel entre la Russie et les Etats-Unis.
Il est difficile de présager comment se terminerait un tel conflit s’il devait, hélas, se produire, mais on peut être certains qu’il mettra fin à l’ordre mondial établi, avec son système financier global et ses processus de mondialisation, ordre au sein du quel l’Onu joue un rôle central.
Sans doute, le monde reviendra alors à un modèle d’Etats-nations fermés et hostiles sans normes de droit international et à l’idéologie du culte de la force militaire. Après un affrontement hypothétique entre la Russie et les Etats-Unis, le monde rappellera plutôt le système de Versailles-Washington en vigueur de 1919 à 1938.
Texte original en anglais disponible sur le site de Russia Direct. Russia Direct est un média analytique international spécialisé dans la politique étrangère. Lire aussi : | 1real |
Factbox: Trump on Twitter (December 14) - Stock market, federal regulations | The following statements were posted to the verified Twitter accounts of U.S. President Donald Trump, @realDonaldTrump and @POTUS. The opinions expressed are his own. Reuters has not edited the statements or confirmed their accuracy. @realDonaldTrump : - Republican Tax Cuts are looking very good. All are working hard. In the meantime, the Stock Market hit another record high! [0859 EST] - As a candidate, I promised we would pass a massive tax cut for the everyday, working Americans. If you make your voices heard, this moment will be forever remembered as a great new beginning – the dawn of a brilliant American future shining with PATRIOTISM, PROSPERITY AND PRIDE! [1205 EST] - Today, we gathered in the Roosevelt Room for one single reason: to CUT THE RED TAPE! For many decades, an ever-growing maze of regs, rules, and restrictions has cost our country trillions of dollars, millions of jobs, countless American factories, & devastated entire industries. [1513 EST] - When Americans are free to thrive, innovate, & prosper, there is no challenge too great, no task too large, & no goal beyond our reach. [1527 EST] - In 1960, there were approximately 20,000 pages in the Code of Federal Regulations. Today there are over 185,000 pages, as seen in the Roosevelt Room. [1535 EST] - “Manufacturing Optimism Rose to Another All-Time High in the Latest @ShopFloorNAM Outlook Survey” [1620 EST] -- Source link: (bit.ly/2jBh4LU) (bit.ly/2jpEXYR) | 0fake |
Hillary Clinton poised to reveal VP pick | Miami (CNN) Hillary Clinton is poised to reveal her vice presidential candidate Friday in a message to supporters, people close to the search say, and is planning to make her first appearance with her running mate at a campaign rally in Miami on Saturday.
Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia has emerged as a leading contender after a methodical search, several Democrats close to the campaign say, receiving spirited backing from President Barack Obama and former President Bill Clinton.
In selecting the battleground of Florida to make her public announcement, Clinton is hoping to seize the spotlight from Republicans after their convention in Cleveland. She is set to visit Orlando and Tampa on Friday, but her new partner is not expected to join her until Saturday at a rally here at Florida International University, where the student body is more than half Hispanic.
Kaine speaks fluent Spanish, and last week, Clinton beamed at a Virginia rally as he declared: "Estamos listos para Hillary!" or "We are ready for Hillary!"
Clinton has yet to reveal her choice beyond her tight inner circle, fearful of it leaking before a well-orchestrated weekend rollout is set into motion. Her campaign, looking to build their email and text list, has offered supporters the chance to be the "first to know" their vice presidential pick, much like Barack Obama did in 2008.
The focus of her search in the final days also centers on Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, according to several Democrats close to the process, confident either Kaine or Vilsack would fit her chief criteria of being a strong governing partner and ready for the presidency.
"She's not going to be waffling at the 11th hour like (Donald) Trump," one Democrat close to the process said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the secrecy surrounding the selection. "By now, she knows who she wants and will be confident in her choice."
She also was considering Labor Secretary Tom Perez, who would be the first Hispanic candidate on the party's ticket, or Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey, who would be the first African-American vice presidential nominee. Democrats close to the process said Perez and Booker had considerable strengths, far beyond their diversity, but their limited experience in national security and government made them less likely to be selected.
The consensus, even among several Democrats close to other finalists, is that Kaine will be tapped as Clinton's vice presidential candidate. Yet others close to Clinton still cautioned against counting out Vilsack, who has the most state and federal governing experience and the longest personal relationship with Clinton.
For Clinton, the selection of a running mate opens a new and important chapter in her political life.
Her first presidential campaign ended long before any serious consideration of a running mate began, so this phase of her campaign is uncharted terrain, a moment where she can choose her own partner.
She was deeply involved in the selection of Al Gore to be her husband's running mate in 1992, but this choice is hers. Her husband favors Kaine, people close to him say, but one added this week: "He gets a say, but doesn't have a vote on this."
The weekend debut of the Democratic ticket is designed to build anticipation for the party's convention starting Monday in Philadelphia. After they are formally nominated, Clinton and her new running mate are expected to embark on a bus tour to key campaign battlegrounds, similar to the "First 1,000 Miles" caravan in 1992 that took the Clintons and Gores to eight states on their way to winning the White House in November.
For her part, Clinton has intentionally not informed anyone who has gone through the vetting process of her final decision, Democrats close to the process said, in hopes of keeping her choice a secret until the last possible moment.
Booker, who often fires up audiences for Clinton, appeared with other Democrats in Cleveland on Thursday to push back against Trump and Republicans, who have spent the week assailing her character.
"I don't know who the nominee is," Booker told CNN's Jake Tapper Thursday. "The good thing about it is she has tremendous choices."
But two Democrats close to Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and one close to Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio, both of whom were on Clinton's list of contenders, said Thursday they were all but certain they had not been selected.
Warren told Stephen Colbert on CBS' "Late Show" that she thought "if it were me, I would know it by now."
All the finalists have met with Clinton at different times, Democrats close to the process say, including Perez, Booker and Warren during one-on-one meetings last Friday at Clinton's home in Washington. But this week, the Clinton campaign had a meeting with top Warren aides, trying to work out a surrogate schedule for her for the rest of the summer and fall, leading Warren's team to believe she had not been chosen.
The selection of either Brown, Warren or Booker would influence the balance of power in the Senate. Their replacement would be named, at least initially, by a Republican governor in their state, and Clinton is intent on trying to win a Democratic majority in the Senate.
Clinton started this process before her primary fight with Bernie Sanders ended with what aides described as a "fluid" list, including several potential running mates. Several were eliminated, including Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro and James Stravidis, the former supreme allied commander of NATO and a retired four-star Navy admiral. | 0fake |
U.S. Congressional Delegation travels to Cuba this weekend | Their itinerary includes meetings with Cuban government officials, a possible meeting with Cardinal Jaime Ortega Alamino, possible meetings with representatives of Cuba's civil society, a visit to the U.S. Interests Section, and a meeting with other ambassadors to Cuba. The delegation will travel to Cuba on Saturday, and return Monday evening.
A spokesman for Sen. Richard Durbin, an Illinois Democrat, tells CNN, the delegation will seek "clarity from Cuba on what they envision normalization of relations to look like, and, "going beyond past rote responses such as 'end the embargo."
The spokesman says the congressional members, "hope to develop a sense of what Cuba and United States are prepared to do to make a constructive relationship possible. " The delegation will also, "impress upon Cuban leaders the importance of concrete results and positive momentum," and, "Convey a sense of Americans' expectations, and perceptions in Congress." Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont, who is heading the delegation Looking forward to #Cuba visit to discuss our relationship & potential collaboration w/ #RI's academic institutions http://t.co/AO5r782ea0 — Sheldon Whitehouse (@SenWhitehouse) January 17, 2015 | 0fake |
Entering U.S. as refugees would be hard for terrorists | Washington (CNN) Even before the debris from the Paris terrorist attacks was swept away, politicians began sounding the alarm that Syrian refugees could be a national security threat to the United States. The issue has dominated the U.S. political conversation during the week since gunmen and suicide bombers terrorized Paris on a Friday night.
All Republican presidential candidates called on President Barack Obama to renege on his pledge to admit 10,000 refugees fleeing Syria's brutal civil war into the U.S. and argued instead for a full stop, fearing terrorists could infiltrate their ranks.
Thirty-one governors have declared Syrian refugees unwelcome in their states and on Thursday the House passed a bill to bar refugees from Syria and Iraq from entering the U.S. Nearly 50 Democrats joined 242 Republicans to pass the bill, which the White House has threatened to veto. Sen. Ted Cruz, a Republican presidential candidate, suggested the U.S. only accept Christian refugees . Ben Carson, another candidate, likened refugees to "rabid dogs" threatening the neighborhood.
But those responses ignore one very important fact: the refugee program is quite simply the toughest way for a foreigner to legally enter the United States. There are other security gaps that would be easier for would-be terrorists to exploit.
Were any of the Paris attackers refugees?
As of now, none of the Paris attackers have been confirmed as having entered Europe as refugees.
In fact, most of the Paris attackers were European citizens born in France or Belgium. Two of them appear to have entered Europe through Greece although it doesn't appear that they came in through a refugee program.
Perhaps more importantly, the European refugee admission system is dramatically different from the U.S. system for Syrians, in large part because the U.S. is geographically separated from Syria. The U.S. has the opportunity to do far more vetting before refugees arrive on their shores.
How does a refugee get into the U.S.?
Refugees must undergo an 18- to 24-month screening process, minimum, that the United Nations' refugee arm oversees. And that's before individual countries even begin to consider a refugee's application and conduct their own additional interviews and background checks.
The screening process generally includes multiple interviews, background checks and an extensive cross-referencing process that tests refugee's stories against others and accounts from sources on the ground in their home country.
Throughout that process, U.N. officials and local government officials in temporary host countries like Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon look to determine the legitimacy of asylum seekers' claims and ensure that they meet the criteria of a refugee, including that they are not and have not been involved in any fighting or terrorist activities.
Refugees also have their retinas scanned and have their fingerprints lifted.
Christopher Boian, a spokesman for the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, called the process "stringent" and "long and complex."
"If at any stage in that process there is ever the slightest shadow of a doubt or the slightest whisper of suspicion, they are removed from the process. That is that," Boian said.
"The very, very few Syrian refugees who are accepted and referred for consideration for resettlement in another country -- there simply is no more closely scrutinized population on earth these days," he added.
That's because other countries have so far pledged to resettle just 159,000 of the more than 4 million Syrian refugees -- setting an extremely high bar for resettlement.
And refugees aren't automatically considered for resettlement: only the most vulnerable refugees -- such as torture victims, female heads of household, people with serious medical conditions and other especially vulnerable groups.
So after they go through that process by the U.N., the U.S. does an additional screening?
That's right. After a rigorous screening process and several interviews carried out by the U.N. refugee agency, refugees the U.S. agrees to consider for resettlement have to undergo an additional interview, medical evaluation and security screening.
According to one U.S. government official, there's an additional layer of vetting that's specific to Syrian applicants, including special briefings for interviewers and information from the U.S. intelligence community.
The security screening involves checks against several government agencies' databases and terrorist watch lists using biographic and biometric information. It's a process Mark Toner, a State Department spokesman, recently called "the most stringent security process for anyone entering the United States."
And Syrian refugees get an additional, more targeted layer of screening involving the U.S. Intelligence agency, according to a government official.
Sounds pretty rigorous. How does the refugee process stack up to other ways of getting into the U.S.?
The refugee program is simply the toughest way for any foreigner to enter the U.S. legally.
For most people, getting a tourist visa to enter the United States is much easier, but still requires an in-person interview and involves a typical background check. The process takes anywhere from a few days to a couple months.
But there's an even easier way to get into the U.S. if you're a citizen of one of 38 mostly European countries, including France and Belgium.
As a sign that the Obama administration agrees that there are gaps that need closing, one of the U.S. officials said, in the coming days the administration expects to announce plans for additional steps to be taken with European countries that participate in the visa waiver program.
Sen. Angus King, an independent from Maine who sits on the intelligence committee, said it "would be much harder" for a terrorist to get into the country through the refugee program than with a passport from one of the 38 countries in the visa waiver program.
"(The refugee process) would take 18 months to two years. Under the visa waiver program, it could take 24 hours," King told CNN in a phone interview. "The target of our work should be strengthening the visa waiver program."
"We do need to pay attention to whether the terrorists could infiltrate the refugee flow. I don't think it's something we should ignore, but the amount of vetting that goes on there already is very through," King added.
So is that program getting strengthened?
A bipartisan proposal to do just that is gaining momentum on Capitol Hill.
Noting that 20 million people each year use the visa waiver program to visit the United States, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-California, said in a Thursday news conference that a bill she is proposing with Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Arizona, would help guard against terrorists trying to exploit the program.
"Terrorists could exploit the program, could go from France to Syria, as 2,000 fighters have done, come back to France, use the visa waiver program and without further scrutiny come into the United States," said Feinstein, a senior member of the intelligence committee.
The Feinstein-Flake bill, which is set to be formally introduced after Thanksgiving, would keep foreigners who've traveled to Syria or Iraq in the last five years from using the visa waiver program. It would also mandate fingerprinting for all travelers entering the U.S. from visa waiver countries and requires all foreigners from those countries to have a modern passport that has an embedded e-chip that is more secure and includes an individual's biometric information and other data.
Flake, the bill's Republican sponsor, told reporters Thursday the refugee program could be strengthened to include better tracking of refugees once they arrive in the country, but said touted the rigorous process as something that shouldn't be a source of concern.
"On the front end, it is a very thorough vetting that they get. So of all the things that we ought to be concerned about, that is not at the top of the list," he said. | 0fake |
6 detained in raids in Belgium | Brussels, Belgium (CNN) Police detained six people in raids Thursday night as investigators raced to uncover the network behind this week's terror attacks in the Belgian capital .
The Belgian federal prosecutor's office didn't provide details about who had been detained in the Brussels raids, why they had been apprehended or whether they will face charges.
"It will be decided tomorrow if these people will remain in custody," the office said in a statement released late Thursday.
Two people were taken into custody in Brussels' Jette neighborhood, one person was detained in a different part of the capital, and three people were in a vehicle in front of the federal prosecutor's office when authorities apprehended them, public broadcaster RTBF reported.
So far, authorities have said they believe five men played a part in Tuesday's bombings in Belgium that killed 31 people and injured 330. Three of the attackers are dead. Two of them could still be on the loose.
Investigators are combing over evidence from surveillance footage and the explosives stash they seized from an apparent hideaway in a suburb.
Sweeps where investigators detain people first and ask questions later are likely to become an increasingly common tactic, CNN national security analyst Juliette Kayyem said.
"There will be lots more of them," she said. "They are going to be what's called overbroad. They are going to just try to find people or evidence that may stop the next terrorism attack, and they will figure out who they have under custody."
Khalid El Bakraoui, one of the terrorists who bombed a train near the Maelbeek metro station, is dead. Authorities believe a second unidentified person was also involved in that attack, a senior Belgian security source told CNN. But investigators don't know where that suspect is -- or whether he's dead or alive.
Surveillance footage shows the man holding a large bag at the station, according to Belgian public broadcaster RTBF. It's not clear if he was among the at least 20 killed in that blast, RTBF said.
Authorities have released a grainy image of another suspect who they believe is on the run.
That man, they say, shown in photographs wearing a black hat, was one of three attackers at Brussels Airport. Authorities say he planted a bomb at the airport and left. The other two men in the photographs are believed to be the suicide bombers.
Fair to ask whether 'we missed the chance'
Did Belgian authorities miss a chance to stop at least one of the suspects involved in the attacks?
Bakraoui had been sentenced to nine years in prison in Belgium back in 2010 for opening fire on police officers with a Kalashnikov during a robbery, according to broadcaster RTBF and CNN affiliate RTL. Needless to say, he didn't serve all that time.
"Given the facts, it is justified that ... people ask how it is possible that someone was released early and we missed the chance when he was in Turkey to detain him," said Jambon, whose offer to resign was rebuffed by Prime Minister Charles Michel.
Investigators suspect Abdeslam planned to be part of an attack by the same ISIS cell that lashed out Tuesday, a senior Belgian counterterrorism official told CNN's Paul Cruickshank.
Authorities looked Wednesday at the Brussels homes of the Bakraoui brothers. Those two searches "were not conclusive," the federal prosecutor's office said.
Homes were searched Thursday in several areas in and around the city, officials said.
One operation in the neighborhood of Schaerbeek stretched for hours into Friday morning. Investigators sealed off streets for several blocks. It was not immediately clear why such a large area had been cordoned.
Masked teams in hazmat gear could be seen exiting a building and heading toward a police van.
As investigations continue, a larger question looms: What could happen next?
Not long ago, Western authorities believed ISIS was focused on taking territory in Syria and Iraq, not lashing out elsewhere. But U.S. officials now think the extremist group has been sending trained militants to Europe for some time.
These men don't necessarily follow orders directly from ISIS headquarters. But they build on what they've learned, as well as a shared philosophy and approach, to develop their own terror cells and hatch their own plots.
How many more ISIS militants are in Europe, poised to attack? That's not clear.
For now, though, the top priority is tracking down the two men linked directly to Tuesday's terror. | 0fake |
White House budget chief expects delay in hitting debt limit | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - White House budget chief Mick Mulvaney said on Monday he expects the Treasury secretary to use extraordinary cash management measures after the government’s current debt ceiling extension expires on March 15. “The secretary of the Treasury actually makes the decision and I expect him to do what all previous secretaries of the Treasury have done, at least all the ones that I’m familiar with, to use those measures to extend that date,” Mulvaney said in an interview on Fox News. “But we will deal with it,” he said, “certainly” before Congress recesses in August. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said at his Senate confirmation hearing last month that he would like to see an increase in the debt ceiling “sooner rather than later” to avoid another standoff with Congress that could upset financial markets. The United States is one of few nations in which the legislature must approve periodic increases in the legal limit on how much money the federal government can borrow. Rather than setting a specific dollar limit on the debt, Congress in 2015 simply suspended the ceiling until March 15, allowing normal borrowing to continue. The debt ceiling will reset at the total debt level outstanding on that day, but Congress will need to approve a new debt ceiling or extension. As of Feb. 23, the federal debt stood at about $19.88 trillion, according to Treasury data. But analysts estimate that Treasury can continue to borrow and avoid a payment default for several months past March 15 even with no action from Congress as it deploys its extraordinary cash management measures. In the past, the Treasury has been able to stave off depletion of its cash reserves with steps such as temporarily halting investments in some pension funds for federal workers and suspending sales of certain securities to state and local governments. Although such steps are known as “extraordinary measures,” they are routinely used by Treasury during debt ceiling debates. In 2011, Standard & Poor’s downgraded the U.S. credit rating for the first time after a gridlocked Congress waited until the government was possibly within hours of defaulting on its debt to raise the ceiling. | 0fake |
More Fake News: Mainstream Media Lies About Trump ‘Evicting’ White House Press Corp | 21st Century Wire says Many mainstream news outlets have been abuzz about the headline going around saying that Trump may evict the press corp from accessing the White House, but when one looks deeper into what is being written in such articles it quickly becomes clear that there is nothing official stated about disallowing any press from the White House.Here s the facts: Incoming White House Press Secretary, Sean Spicer, while discussing potentially moving the press corps room from the James Brady Press Room, to the White House Conference Room in order to add more seating for press to cover President Trump in the White House said: If the plan goes through, one of the officials said, the media will be removed from the cozy confines of the White House press room, where it has worked for several decades. Members of the press will be relocated to the White House Conference Center near Lafayette Square or to a space in the Old Executive Office Building, next door to the White House.Look to the Blaze for how this is spun into a narrative which serves the dual purpose of agitating Trump s detractors into believing that he is going to suppress the freedom of the press and at the same time serves as a rouse to cause his ardent supporters to appear as though they are rejoicing at the potential of a Trump Presidency that would support suppressing the free press. When comparing the actual quotes with the editorial it is obvious that The Blaze and other mainstream media outlets are playing a wicked game of deceit to further the attempts at demonizing the incoming President.We can now see who the real Fake News culprits are.Below is one of the fake news articles circulating online this one was floated out by Glenn Beck and his dubious media organization The Blaze . The BlazePresident-elect Donald Trump s transition team is reportedly considering plans to evict the White House press corps from accessing the White House.According to a report from Esquire, which cited three sources with the transition team, Trump administration officials are seriously considering plans to evict the press corps from being able to access the White House, arguing that it would allow the press increased access to Trump. There has been no decision, incoming White House press secretary Sean Spicer told Esquire, adding that there has been some discussion about how to do it. More from Esquire:If the plan goes through, one of the officials said, the media will be removed from the cozy confines of the White House press room, where it has worked for several decades. Members of the press will be relocated to the White House Conference Center near Lafayette Square or to a space in the Old Executive Office Building, next door to the White House.Spicer, in his comments to Esquire, suggested that one of the reasons the administration is looking to evict the press from the White House is because they want to offer more members of the press the ability to cover Trump and the White House.Currently, there are only 49 seats in the White House James Brady Press Briefing Room, not enough to honor the hundreds, and sometimes, thousands of requests from journalists to cover Trump, Spicer said.However, a different, unnamed source told Esquire that the administration might have a different motive. According to the source, the administration is considering the move because of how the media covered Trump during the campaign and after his election victory.Trump has repeatedly lambasted the media for their coverage of him, regularly taking to Twitter to blast a news agency or a reporter by name. Most recently, Trump scolded CNN s Jim Acosta during his press conference See the rest of Glenn Beck s Fake News story at The BlazeREAD MORE ELECTIONS NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire 2016 Files | 1real |
Clinton Suggested US Should Rig a Foreign Election — But Don't Expect the Media to Care - Danielle Ryan | Citizen journalism with a punch Clinton Suggested US Should Rig a Foreign Election — But Don't Expect the Media to Care Originally appeared at RT
Hillary Clinton has spent a disproportionate amount of time lately complaining — without evidence — about “the Russians” interfering with the US election. But it turns out that interfering in foreign elections is totally fine if you’re the United States.
Clinton has used this notion of Russian interference as a non-stop talking point throughout her campaign. Any and all scandals she has faced have been blamed on Moscow, and she has used alleged Russian involvement as a convenient distraction. Her supporters have enthusiastically adopted the talking point. In light of the FBI’s decision to reopen the investigation into her use of a private email server, one congressman actually suggested that Russia may be behind the FBI’s decision. Yes, Russia has now infiltrated the FBI, which is working with Vladimir Putin to elect Trump and destroy Hillary. It’s all a massive conspiracy.
So, you would think given her apparent distaste for other countries supposedly meddling in the American electoral process, that Clinton wouldn’t have been caught on tape suggesting very candidly to a group of journalists that the US should have rigged a foreign election.
But she was. The tape is from a 2006 meeting Clinton held with the editorial board of the Jewish Press when she was running for re-election as senator for New York. Here is the quote in full, so there can be no accusations of taking it out of context:
“I do not think we should have pushed for an election in the Palestinian territories. I think that was a big mistake — and if we were going to push for an election, then we should have made sure that we did something to determine who was going to win.”
That’s right. Clinton suggested the US should have made sure the outcome of a Palestinian election went in its favor. She was referring to the 2006 election for the second Palestinian Legislative Council, which saw the US-favored Fatah lose to Hamas (45 seats to 74 seats).
This is one of those stories that will be largely ignored or played down by the American media, which favor Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump, and see it as their duty to get her elected. If Trump had made the same remarks, we would never hear the end of it. No doubt, some will try to water down the comment and imply that Clinton didn’t really mean what she said. But there is frankly no other way to interpret her words. This is Hillary Clinton casually suggesting that the US should have rigged a foreign election in its favor.
How else can you “determine” the outcome of an election before it happens? How else can you be “sure” who is going to win in advance? All the polling data in the world could end up being wrong — so unless you do something unsavory to fully ensure the outcome, then there’s no way you can be “sure” of anything. But don’t hold your breath waiting for journalists to push Clinton on what exactly she had in mind when she said the US should have done “something” about it.
Eli Chomsky, the journalist that released the tape, told the Observer that in the 2006 meeting with Clinton, he was surprised that “anyone could support the idea — offered by a national political leader, no less — that the US should be in the business of fixing foreign elections.” Chomsky’s bosses at the Jewish Press at the time felt the comments were not “newsworthy,” and so they weren’t published. In reality, he admitted, they simply didn’t want to offend Clinton should they need her “down the road.” Convinced it was in fact newsworthy, Chomsky held on to the tape for 10 years.
Clinton’s casual suggestion to influence an election in the US’ favor takes on more significance in light of the revelations that her campaign was working with the ‘neutral’ Democratic National Committee (DNC) to ensure she won the presidential nomination over Bernie Sanders.
Strangely enough, as the Observer also noted, in answering a question about the US talking to its enemies, the Clinton of 2006 sounded more like the Donald Trump of 2016. Asked if it was “worth talking to Syria,” she said that she didn’t see how it could hurt to talk to your adversaries, citing the fact that the US and the Soviet Union never stopped talking to each other. She continued: “But if you say, ‘they’re evil, we’re good, [and] we’re never dealing with them,’ I think you give up a lot of the tools that you need to have in order to defeat them…”
This is particularly odd because Clinton in recent years has been one of the biggest cheerleaders of the ‘Russia is evil and America is good’ ideology. But again, don’t expect Clinton to be questioned rigorously on any of this. American journalists only have 10 days left to get her elected. They’re not going to bother worrying about irrelevancies like the fact that she’s evidently totally fine with foreign election rigging.
You really couldn’t make this stuff up. Clinton spends months pretending to be outraged over Russia interfering in the US election (with no solid evidence), and then audio emerges of her unequivocally suggesting Washington should have rigged a Palestinian election. The level of hypocrisy and irony here is hard to fathom.
No doubt, one person who will enthusiastically pick the story up is Clinton’s opponent Donald Trump, who has been suggesting for months that she will somehow manage to rig the presidential election against him.
Clinton herself will probably find a way to pin the release of the tape on the Russians. | 1real |
Special Ed School Vouchers May Come With Hidden Costs - The New York Times | For many parents with disabled children in public school systems, the lure of the private school voucher is strong. Vouchers for special needs students have been endorsed by the Trump administration, and they are often heavily promoted by state education departments and by private schools, which rely on them for tuition dollars. So for families that feel as if they are sinking amid academic struggles and behavioral meltdowns, they may seem like a life raft. And often they are. But there’s a catch. By accepting the vouchers, families may be unknowingly giving up their rights to the very help they were hoping to gain. The government is still footing the bill, but when students use vouchers to get into private school, they lose most of the protections of the federal Individuals With Disabilities Education Act. Many parents, among them Tamiko Walker, learn this the hard way. Only after her son, who has a speech and language disability, got a scholarship from the John M. McKay voucher program in Florida did she learn that he had forfeited most of his rights. “Once you take those McKay funds and you go to a private school, you’re no longer covered under IDEA — and I don’t understand why,” Ms. Walker said. In the meantime, public schools and states are able to transfer out children who put a big drain on their budgets, while some private schools end up with students they are not equipped to handle, sometimes asking them to leave. And none of this is against the rules. “The private schools are not breaking the law,” said Julie Weatherly, a lawyer who consults for school districts in Florida and other states. “The law provides no accountability measures. ” McKay is the largest of 10 such disability scholarship programs across the country. It serves over 30, 000 children who have special needs. At the Senate confirmation hearing for Betsy DeVos, President Trump’s education secretary, she cited research from the conservative Manhattan Institute, saying that “93 percent of the parents utilizing that voucher are very, very pleased with it. ” Legal experts say parents who use the vouchers are largely unaware that by participating in programs like McKay, they are waiving most of their children’s rights under IDEA, the landmark 1975 federal civil rights law. Depending on the voucher program, the rights being waived can include the right to a free education the right to the same level of services that a child would be eligible for in a public school the right to a or teacher and the right to a hearing to dispute disciplinary action against a child. It’s not just Florida. Private school choice programs in Arizona, Colorado, Georgia, Oklahoma, Mississippi, Tennessee and Wisconsin also require parents to waive all or most IDEA rights. In several other states, the law is silent on the disability rights of voucher students. The Walkers obtained a McKay voucher midway through their son’s year, when the Port St. Lucie school district told them it planned to remove the boy from general education classes and place him in a “cluster” classroom for students with emotional difficulties. (Ms. Walker, and another parent quoted in this article, asked that their children’s names not be published to protect their privacy.) “He has more potential than that,” Ms. Walker said. The family, which is black, has filed a federal lawsuit accusing the district of racial discrimination and other wrongdoing, for disciplining their son harshly and refusing to place him in a classroom. The McKay program has not provided a simple alternative for the Walkers. They used an $11, 000 voucher to enroll their son in the Achievers Institute of Science, Art and Technology. But they were caught unaware, they said, when the private school charged them an additional $2, 400 in fees. (Achievers Institute has since gone out of business.) The boy now uses his McKay voucher to attend the Virtual Schools of Excellence. He visits a local “learning center” two to three days a week, and the Port St. Lucie school district sends contractors there to provide him with speech and occupational therapy. He completes the rest of his instruction online, at home. “We’re happy to the point where he’s safe,” Ms. Walker said, but she regrets that her son no longer receives the same intensive instruction in social cues that he benefited from in public school, before he became a voucher student. Federal law requires public school districts to assess the needs of students enrolled in private schools. But districts are not obligated to provide those children with the same services they would receive in a public setting — even if a child’s private school tuition is taxpayer funded through a voucher. Private schools that participate in McKay are not required to demonstrate that they use any type of specialized curriculum to meet disabled children’s needs. Still, many private schools say they go beyond the letter of the law in an effort to serve McKay students. Trina Angelone, chief executive of the Virtual Schools of Excellence, said the school employed teachers in both its online program and its learning center, even though this is not required by law. A disabled child “going to a typical public school classroom is going to be with maybe 20 or 25 students, using textbooks, following along at the pace of the class,” she said. “In the virtual space,” she said, “the child is really getting attention, moving at their own pace. ” But ultimately, there is no guarantee that students will receive the same level of disability services in private schools that they were entitled to in public school, a limitation that parents may not fully understand. The state affidavit that parents sign in order to receive a McKay scholarship, for example, says nothing about forfeiting IDEA rights and services. It also does not explain that parents are responsible for any additional fees a private school may charge on top of a voucher, which can range from $5, 000 to $23, 000. The Florida Department of Education website provides other materials with more detail on the legal implications of participating in McKay, but the documents are difficult to find and decipher. documents are often similarly opaque. In a statement provided to The New York Times, the Port St. Lucie school district said, “Every effort is made to fully inform parents of the difference between public school services and private school services when a child utilizes a McKay Scholarship. ” The Florida Department of Education declined requests for a phone interview. In an email, a department spokeswoman said there had been “very few complaints on this issue. ” Robyn Rennick, a board member of the Coalition of McKay Scholarship Schools, said that private schools should be transparent with families about the services they provide but that the onus was on parents to ask detailed questions. “This is a buyer’s market,” she said. “You go and say, ‘I love your big building, but what is the expertise of your teachers? ’” Many McKay recipients, it appears, do eventually end up back in the public school system. The average length of time in the program is 3. 6 years, according to data provided to The Times by the Florida Department of Education, and 85 percent of McKay recipients are in elementary or middle school. Families who leave the program sometimes do so after moving residences. Other times they conclude that their child’s needs would be better met in a public school. Carla Donaldson of West Palm Beach used a McKay voucher to send her son Zachary, who has autism spectrum disorder, to a private school that specializes in serving students. “I needed a break from the fight” for adequate services in a public setting, she said. Zachary blossomed there socially, his mother said. “Unfortunately, he did pay the price academically,” she said. When Zachary returned to public school in eighth grade, he had to work to catch up. “There is no perfect school,” Ms. Donaldson said. Some families find they do not have a choice about whether to continue at a private school. Last year, Lisa Siegel was surprised to learn that she had few legal options after her seventh grader, who received a McKay scholarship, was suspended and then asked not to return to a religious school in Davie, Fla. near Fort Lauderdale, after a series of behavioral incidents. Ms. Siegel’s son is on the autism spectrum. In public schools, IDEA guarantees parents the right to a hearing in which they can seek to overturn a disciplinary action if the child’s misbehavior was a manifestation of a disability. That is not the case in a private school. “You don’t have much recourse,” said Ms. Siegel, whose son is now at a public school magnet program for marine sciences. “I never in a million years thought that in this private educational setting that my child would not be protected by state and federal law. ” | 0fake |
Investors Flock To West Texas As $900 BILLION Oil Field Discovered In Permian Basin Wolfcamp | NTEB Ads Privacy Policy Investors Flock To West Texas As $900 BILLION Oil Field Discovered In Permian Basin Wolfcamp Oil explorers have been flocking to the Permian Basin in West Texas and New Mexico to tap deposits so rich that they can generate profits even at lower oil prices. by Geoffrey Grider November 16, 2016 In a troubled oil world, the Permian Basin is the gift that keeps on giving.
One portion of the giant field , known as the Wolfcamp formation, was found to hold 20 billion barrels of oil trapped in four layers of shale beneath West Texas. That’s almost three times larger than North Dakota’s Bakken Play and the single largest U.S. unconventional crude accumulation ever assessed, according to the U.S. Geological Survey . At current prices, that oil is worth almost $900 billion.
The estimate lends credence to the assertion from Pioneer Natural Resources CEO Scott Sheffield that the Permian’s shale could hold as much as 75 billion barrels, making it second only to Saudi Arabia’s Ghawar field. Irving-based Pioneer has been increasing its production targets all year as drilling in the Wolfcamp produced bigger gushers than the company’s engineers and geologists forecast. “The fact that this is the largest assessment of continuous oil we have ever done just goes to show that, even in areas that have produced billions of barrels of oil, there is still the potential to find billions more,” Walter Guidroz, coordinator for the geological survey’s energy resources program, said in the statement. Oil explorers have been flocking to the Permian Basin in West Texas and New Mexico to tap deposits so rich that they can generate profits even at lower oil prices. A race to grab land in the Permian has been the main driver of a surge of deals in the energy patch and the industry’s main source of good news. Although the Permian has been gushing crude since the 1920s, its multiple layers of oil-soaked shale remained largely untapped until the last several years, when intensive drilling and fracturing techniques perfected in other U.S. regions were adopted. The Wolfcamp, which is as much as a mile thick in some places, has been one of the primary targets. ConocoPhillips , the world’s largest independent oil producer by market value, increased its estimate for the size of its Wolfcamp holdings on Nov. 10 to 1.8 billion barrels from 1 billion last year. A day earlier, Concho Resources CEO Timothy Leach told investors and analysts that two recent wells it drilled in the Wolfcamp were pumping an average of 2,000 barrels a day each. Diamondback Energy Inc. disclosed last week that it has been drilling 10,000-foot sideways wells in the Wolfcamp. Production from the wells has been as high as 85 percent crude, according to the Midland, Texas-based explorer. For Apache Corp., a slice of the Wolfcamp and another Permian layer known as the Bone Spring are major components of the 3 billion-barrel Alpine High discovery that the company announced in September. CEO John Christmann called Alpine High “a world class resource” during a Sept. 7 presentation at a Barclays Plc conference in New York. The Wolfcamp shale also holds 16 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and 1.6 billion barrels of gas liquids, the geological survey said in a statement on Tuesday. source SHARE THIS ARTICLE Geoffrey Grider NTEB is run by end times author and editor-in-chief Geoffrey Grider. Geoffrey runs a successful web design company, and is a full-time minister of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. In addition to running NOW THE END BEGINS, he has a dynamic street preaching outreach and tract ministry team in Saint Augustine, FL. NTEB #TRENDING | 1real |
Racist Sign Calls For Lynching Black People To Prevent Them From Getting Equal Rights | As predicted, Donald Trump s victory on Election Day has emboldened racist conservatives to start harassing and attacking minorities.And it s even happening in the deep blue state of California, where a woman spotted a sign hanging on the side of a building in the town of Pittsburg and snapped a photo of it.Twitter user James Thompson posted the image of the sign on the social media platform after his sister sent it to him.This picture was taken in Pittsburgh California. My sister texted this to me 10 minutes ago.Our democracy is being tested even in California pic.twitter.com/gDLKw54Lox James Thompson (@JETBallin) November 13, 2016The sign clearly promotes lynching to prevent African-Americans from getting equal rights. You can hang a n****r from a tree / Equal rights he will never see! it says.The FBI has been notified and local police have filed a lawsuit in an effort to force the owners of the sign to remove it.In the wake of Trump s surprising and depressing victory there has been a rise in the number of racist incidents in this country. In fact, there have been 139 reports of people being bullied by Trump supporters since the election night results.These incidents include the harassment of a Muslim teacher by a student in Georgia, and students designating water fountains white or colored at a Florida high school.Frankly, there are so many incidents that it s difficult to list them all. You can find a somewhat comprehensive tally here.This is what Trump s America looks like and it s scary. And this has all happend in the course of a few days as Melania Trump continues to tell the media that her focus will be on ending bullying. What exactly does she mean by that? Is she going to call out all bullying, including the racist bullying being perpetrated by her husband s own supporters? Or is she going to ignore those incidents and merely whine about people who criticize her husband. Because right now, she isn t even First Lady yet and her effort has failed miserably. And she only has her husband to blame.Featured Image: Twitter | 1real |
Theater Behind ’Trump’-Stabbing ’Julius Caesar’ Refuses to Back Down | NEW YORK (AP) — The Public Theater is refusing to back down after backlash over its production of “Julius Caesar” that portrays a Donald dictator in a business suit with a long tie who gets knifed to death onstage. [Delta Air Lines and Bank of America have pulled their sponsorship of the Public’s version of the play, but in a statement Monday the theater said it stands behind the production. It noted its staging has “provoked heated discussion” but “such discussion is exactly the goal of our theater this discourse is the basis of a healthy democracy. ” Other defenders included Scott M. Stringer, the New York City comptroller, who wrote letters to the heads of Delta and Bank of America, arguing that dropping their support “sends the wrong message. ” He writes: “Art matters. The First Amendment matters. Expression matters. ” He enclosed copies of the play with the letters. “I hope you enjoy it — it is a classic, in any age,” he wrote. This Caesar’s violent death at the hands of conspirators comes not long after comedian Kathy Griffin was widely condemned for posing for a photograph in which she gripped a bloodied rendering of Trump’s head. Though the Public’s version of William Shakespeare’s classic play is unchanged from its original, the production portrays Caesar with a gold bathtub and a pouty Slavic wife. Trump’s name is never mentioned, but backlash was swift. On Sunday, Donald Trump Jr. retweeted a Fox News story about the play and wrote, “I wonder how much of this ‘art’ is funded by taxpayers? Serious question, when does ‘art’ become political speech does that change things?” Delta responded by saying “artistic and creative direction crossed the line on the standards of good taste. ” Bank of America said the Public chose to present the play “to provoke and offend” without the bank’s knowledge: “Had this intention been made known to us, we would have decided not to sponsor it. ” “Julius Caesar” ends its run Sunday. The comedy “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” begins in the park on July 11. The National Endowment for the Arts, which Trump, a Republican, once proposed eliminating, said that while the Public’s Shakespeare programing has received its grants in the past none was awarded for “Julius Caesar” or for funds supporting the New York State Council on the Arts’ grant for the Public. Theater lovers were quick to point out that a national tour of “Julius Caesar” in 2012 by The Acting Company featured a Caesar played by a black actor in a modern business suit who had a resemblance to Barack Obama, a Democrat. Sponsors of the Guthrie Theater, including Delta, apparently had no objections when that show landed in Minneapolis. The Public has long protected its role as incubator of provocative and challenging works, unafraid to mount plays that comment on current events or update Shakespearian plays to explore modern themes. It’s had Trump in its sights before. It’s the institution that birthed the megahit “Hamilton,” whose cast members last year implored Vice Mike Pence to support diversity, and where Meryl Streep donned and a fat suit last summer to impersonate Trump at a gala fundraiser. Laurence Maslon, an administrator and arts professor at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, said it was disingenuous for large corporations that have backed the Public for years and enjoyed its downtown cool vibe to sound alarmed now. “You’ve got to know what you’re getting into,” he said, adding that the Public has “50 years of the most provocative, politically engaged work. ” He backed the “Julius Caesar” director, Oskar Eustis, saying he’s “nothing if not brave. ” The Public produced “Embedded,” Tim Robbins’ 2003 riff on the events leading to the war in Iraq that had actors portraying hawkish presidential advisers wearing masks with grotesque facial expressions. In 2006, Eustis dedicated the summer season in Central Park to three works that focused on foreign affairs — “Stuff Happens,” in which David Hare looked at the debates in Washington in the to the Iraq war, a militaristic production of “Macbeth” set in the early 20th century and a “Mother Courage” with a new translation by Tony Kushner that had references to tax exemptions for the rich. Maslon said he thinks any loss of funding the Public experiences from corporate defectors will be compensated for by donations from liberal groups and people worried about the apparent threat to artistic freedom. “I can imagine any sense that this political regime is imposing a kind of censorship and the free market can help correct it will probably be good for the Public,” he said. The Public isn’t the only theater project trying to address the advent of Trump. On Broadway, Jon Jon Briones, who plays the sleazy Engineer in a revival of “Miss Saigon,” makes a sarcastic reference to the Trump campaign slogan, “Make America Great Again. ” The recent play “Building the Wall,” by playwright Robert Schenkkan, imagined the country under Trump’s campaign promise to detain immigrants living in the country illegally. And filmmaker and activist Michael Moore is bringing a show taking on Trump to Broadway this summer. | 0fake |
NASA’s Juno Spacecraft Enters Into Orbit Around Jupiter - The New York Times | Ducking through intense belts of violent radiation as it skimmed over the clouds of Jupiter at 130, 000 miles per hour, NASA’s Juno spacecraft on Monday clinched its spot around the solar system’s largest planet. It took five years for Juno to travel this far on its $1. 1 billion mission, and the moment was one that NASA scientists and space enthusiasts had eagerly — and anxiously — anticipated. At 11:53 p. m. Eastern time, a signal from the spacecraft announced the end of a engine burn that left it in the grip of its desired orbit around Jupiter. Cheers and clapping erupted at the mission operations center at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, in Pasadena, Calif. which is managing Juno. “This is the hardest thing NASA has ever done,” Scott Bolton, Juno’s principal investigator, told the mission team a few minutes later. “That’s my claim. ” Status messages for each maneuver of the spacecraft came in as expected. The length of the engine firing turned out to be within one second of what had been predicted. Diane Brown, the program executive for Juno at NASA headquarters, described the performance as flawless. “To know we can all go to bed tonight, not worrying about what’s going to happen tomorrow, it’s pretty awesome,” she said at a news conference. Rick Nybakken, Juno’s project manager, held up a sheaf of papers as he celebrated the smooth execution of the maneuver. “We prepared a contingency communications procedure, and guess what?” he said, ripping the papers. “We don’t need that anymore. ” Juno is just the second spacecraft to enter orbit around Jupiter. NASA’s Galileo spacecraft spent eight years there surveying the planet and its many moons. But except for a probe that parachuted into Jupiter’s atmosphere, Galileo did not have the tools that Juno does to delve into what lies beneath Jupiter’s clouds. “We have a chance with Juno to go back and study the planet in its own right,” James L. Green, the director of planetary science at NASA, said during a news conference earlier on Monday. Jupiter, most likely the first planet formed after the sun, is believed to hold the keys to understanding the origins of our solar system. How much water it contains and the possible presence of a rocky core could reveal where in the solar system Jupiter was created and provide clues to the early days of other planets. Juno’s instruments are designed to precisely measure the magnetic and gravitational fields of Jupiter and the glow of microwaves emanating from within. That, for instance, will give hints about storm systems like the visible Great Red Spot, which has persisted for centuries, although it has been shrinking. “Juno is really searching for some hints about our beginnings, how everything started,” Dr. Bolton said. “But these secrets are pretty well guarded by Jupiter. ” Dr. Bolton repeatedly described Jupiter as “a planet on steroids” in discussing the unprecedented dangers Juno faced Monday night. Ensnared by Jupiter’s gravity, Juno accelerated quickly to its rendezvous with the planet, passing within the orbit of Callisto and Ganymede, two of the main moons, on Sunday. It zoomed past the other two, Europa and Io, on Monday. Juno has been on its own since Thursday, performing a programmed sequence of actions. Around 10:30 p. m. on Monday, Juno passed over Jupiter’s north pole and through a region that Heidi Becker, the leader of Juno’s radiation monitoring team, described as “the scariest part of the scariest place. ” In this belt of radiation, electrons bouncing back and forth at nearly the speed of light could have knocked out the computer and other electronics. “They will go right through a spacecraft and strip the atoms apart inside your electronics and fry your brain if you don’t do anything about it,” Dr. Becker said. But a titanium vault built for Juno proved up to the task of shielding its crucial systems. At 11:18 p. m. Juno’s main engine began firing to slow the spacecraft enough to be captured by the planet’s gravity. Juno also passed through the plane of Jupiter’s diaphanous rings. Although the mission planners had chosen a place that they thought would be clear, they could not be certain, and even a piece of dust colliding with a spacecraft moving at 130, 000 m. p. h. could have caused considerable damage. Juno traveled within 2, 900 miles of Jupiter’s cloud tops, passing through almost the exact spot that the navigators had aimed for after its 1. voyage. “Isn’t that incredible?” Mr. Nybakken said. Then Juno headed outward again, away from Jupiter. After the end of the engine burn, the spacecraft pivoted so that its solar panels were again facing the sun. Sunlight at Jupiter is one as bright as at Earth, and Juno’s three panels with 18, 698 solar cells generate a mere 500 watts to power the spacecraft and its instruments. “Now the fun begins, with science,” Dr. Bolton said. For now, Juno is on a orbit. Its scientific instruments, which had been turned off for the arrival at Jupiter, will be turned back on in two days. On Aug. 27, it will swing back for its first good look at Jupiter. Juno will fire its engine again on Oct. 19 to move to a orbit, when the science measurements begin in earnest. The spacecraft will have to make multiple flybys, Dr. Bolton said, before the scientists will be able to start answering questions like whether there is a rocky core at the center of Jupiter. “We’ll be hesitant to guessing the wrong answer until we see more information,” Dr. Bolton said. With a different vantage point from Juno’s polar orbit, the spacecraft’s cameras are likely to add to the number of known moons of Jupiter, now 67. “I expect that we will see some, and the number will keep going up,” Dr. Bolton said. The assault of radiation each time Juno zooms past Jupiter will take its toll on the electronics. As the mission progresses, the orientation of the orbits will pivot, and Juno will pass through the more violent portions of the radiation belts. On the 37th orbit, scheduled for Feb. 20, 2018, Juno is to make a suicidal dive into Jupiter, ending the mission, the same way that the Galileo spacecraft was disposed of in 2003. That is to ensure that there would be no possibility of Juno’s crashing into Europa, regarded as one of the likelier places for life elsewhere in the solar system, and contaminating it with microbial hitchhikers from Earth. Even in the best outcome, the mission might be extended a few months. | 0fake |
Trump and Brexit: Directed History Proceeds Apace? | Trump and Brexit: Directed History Proceeds Apace? By Daily Bell Staff - November 09, 2016
The American voters have Brexited, leaving behind their global dominance America has Brexited. It’s an imperfect comparison. The United States can’t leave itself. But on Wednesday, with the election of Donald Trump, it withdrew from a number of agreements it long ago entered, some more enduring than others. The American people have voted to leave behind the late 20th century consensus on free trade and open immigration. -SMH
The populism versus globalism meme is in full effect today and given the thousands of references to it currently, it’s an honor to have been the first publication to have identified this particular element of propaganda as you can see here.
We also predicted several times throughout the recent months that Donald Trump might win the election and then, as a populist, face a good deal of elite retribution.
Infowars has an article today dealing with this, and we wrote about it again yesterday as you can see here.
The difference between our interpretations and others is that we have a very difficult time believing that all of this is spontaneous.
Of course, Trump’s victory has unfolded in a logical way, providing justifications for those who believe that any inference that we are watching a scripted even is just so much “conspiracy theory.”
On the other hand, his victory immediately provides critics with opportunities to assert the benefits and superior moral value of globalism.
More:
The 1992 candidacy of Pat Buchanan was a bellwether for Trump, a call for “America First” paired with a move toward economic protectionism and closed borders.
Buchanan lost his bid for the Republican nomination, and his ideas were muted, ignored. Not by everyone – not by the populists who carried his banner, who marched sometimes with the Republicans and sometimes with the Democrats and sometimes with third-party candidates like Ross Perot.
But the GOP ignored them, and to a lesser extent, the Democrats as well. The parties agreed, more or less, and until tonight, they were comfortable in their agreement.
The American people have likewise voted to leave behind the nation’s global dominance and its global partnerships.
We can see in this excerpt the predictable references to populism and the characterization of the US’s current situation as one in which it is in the midst of repudiating its “global dominance and global partnerships.”
This doesn’t seem right to us. It just seems like rhetoric but we are fairly convinced that the next four years will feature this rhetoric both in the US and in Britain – throughout the West, in fact.
Again, we have a hard time believing it’s a coincidence. The idea from our point of view, as we have been stating over and over in the past few months, is that this rhetorical stance is the gateway to further elite, globalist consolidation.
It may seem strange to make a statement that the elite forces of this world intend to “win” by losing. But everything we understand about their employment of the Hegelian dialectic gives us a sense that this is just what’s going on.
Top banking elites functioning out of the City of London have never reigned overtly. They have always set up two opposing sides and then gradually steered the world in the direction they want it to go.
That direction is toward a globalist empire. It is simply incontrovertible. The two world wars of the 20 th century were evidently manufactured – the internet shows us that – and after both wars gigantic leaps towards globalism occurred.
After World War II, the UN was created along with the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. The control of the Bank for International Settlements that runs central banking was updated.
Now in Britain, Brexit is in force. And in the US Donald Trump has won. The “populists” are in power and we are given to understand this is a “peasant revolt” of the first magnitude.
But history shows us in the past few hundred years that important societal processes are strictly controlled. At a lower level, perhaps, you can be “free.” But events at the highest level are not free.
We simply cannot imagine that Trump made up`his mind to run for president and did so successfully as an independent candidate and without the silent acquiescence of those who remain in power behind the scenes.
Maybe we’re wrong, but let us state for the record, as we often do, that the world’s power base is located among trillionaires in London who invented and control the world’s central banks.
This group has been leading the way, worldwide, not for hundreds but probably for thousands of years, first in Sumer, then Babylon, then Egypt, then Rome, then Venice and finally in England where members intermarried with Royals.
Since the Civil War, anyway, this group has been tightening its grip on a every sector of the US from education to the military to politics and industry.
It has control in Europe too – and we would make the argument that at the very top, elites in Russia and China work together as well. This is one reason we continue to make arguments against the standard history of nuclear weapons.
We think it is a kind of shared lie around the world that will eventually prove clearly that the global narrative is a manufactured one on many levels.
To believe that this history – if you do believe it – has been turned upside down by a single election in the 21 st century is, for us, a bridge too far.
As we predicted more than a decade ago, the Internet, like the Gutenberg Press before it, has made the elite’s secretive control impossible to sustain. They need another way of influencing events.
The easiest way is to provoke a public argument over the merits of populism (versus globalism) and then to use directed history to ensure people get the message loud and clear that “populism” (read freedom and self-determination) doesn’t work.
For this reason we continue to expect a variety of catastrophes to continue and deepen – mostly from an economic and military standpoint.
We will also be surprised if Trump’s larger vision for the revitalization of the US is going to be especially successful. It will have to be discredited along with Brexit.
It could be that Trump – and Hillary – are unaware of these trends. Not everything has to be a gigantic conspiracy at all levels. But one way or another, first Brexit and now Trump seem to be creating a kind of “directed history,”
Conclusion: Add the sudden appearance of the populism vs. globalism meme and you have rhetoric married, sooner or later, to action. One or two of these elements would be coincidental. All three or not. These events seem arranged. | 1real |
In Florida, Donald Trump has a model for success | SARASOTA, Fla. (Reuters) - The pundits said he never had a chance: He was a high-powered U.S. businessman who had never run for office. He largely financed his own campaign. He took a hard line on illegal immigration and Obamacare. His attacks on Islam were controversial. Six years ago that businessman, Rick Scott, won Florida’s Republican primary for governor. He then went on to take the general election. Now in his second term, Scott is in many ways a prototype for Donald Trump’s U.S. presidential campaign. Scott’s success in Florida is something that should give serious pause to Marco Rubio, a U.S. senator from the state who hopes to use it as a springboard to unseat Trump as the leading contender for the Republican nomination to the Nov. 8 election. Florida’s March 15 primary, to select a wealth of delegates to the Republicans’ July nominating convention, is likely the final chance for Rubio, and perhaps the Republican establishment, to halt the furious advance of Trump, a billionaire businessman with homes in New York and Florida. Trump’s two leading strategists in Florida have strong ties to Scott, rebutting the commonly held presumption among Trump’s critics that his campaign is all about the former reality TV show host’s celebrity and popular appeal and not about tactics. “Nobody thought he had a shot. Nobody!” said Joe Gruters, a top Republican Party official in the state who was an early ally of Scott and who now co-chairs Trump’s Florida effort. “The establishment threw everything you can imagine at Rick Scott.” A first-term senator, Rubio has finished behind Trump in early-nomination contests to date. Rubio grew up in Miami, and his Cuban-American heritage could give him an edge with the state’s burgeoning Latino population. But Rubio is still climbing uphill in the state race. While he has benefited from the withdrawal from the race of another Florida son, ex-Governor Jeb Bush, he trails Trump significantly. A Quinnipiac University survey released on Thursday showed Trump with 44 percent of the Republican vote, with Rubio far behind at 28 percent. The good news for Rubio is that it’s the highest level of support he has had in the state, suggesting that he is moving upward when he needs it the most. But it may not be enough with many voters having cast early and absentee ballots. “When you have such a commanding lead like Trump has in all these states, you have the ability to focus on states like Florida where you know you can deliver the knockout blow,” Gruters said. While other Republicans campaigned in early-voting states, Trump served notice he was taking winning Florida seriously, methodically holding large-scale events across Florida, including one in October in Miami, home to both Rubio and Bush. When Bush and Rubio came to Florida at all, it was largely to raise money in closed-door fundraisers. “There’s a big difference between when you have 10,000 people showing up to a rally, hearing the battle cry and getting motivated,” Gruters said, “than when you are meeting people for $10,000-a-plate dinners where you exclude the rank-and-file members.” Bush’s campaign was in such poor shape near the end that when a Reuters correspondent visited his state campaign office in Tampa, it was deserted. All of the staff and volunteers had been sent to South Carolina for a primary vote in an unsuccessful last-ditch effort to rescue his presidential bid. Gruters is vice-chairman of the state Republican Party, making him perhaps the highest-ranking party official in the country to embrace Trump. He heads Trump’s Florida effort with Susie Wiles of Jacksonville, who ran Scott’s 2010 campaign. He said he sees strong similarities between Scott and Trump. “It’s not unusual for Florida to elect these non-establishment guys,” he said. Scott was the former CEO of Columbia/HCA, the healthcare giant that ultimately settled a massive billing fraud case brought by the U.S. government during his tenure. When he entered the 2010 Republican primary, the assumption was that it was Attorney General Bill McCollum’s race to lose. Financing his own campaign, Scott ran hard to McCollum’s right, supporting Arizona’s then highly controversial anti-immigration law and releasing an ad that ripped President Barack Obama for defending a possible mosque in New York near the site of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Like Trump, Scott portrayed himself as a businessman better suited to repairing the distressed economy than the Republican establishment was. “They both bring the same kind of attitude to government,” said Susan MacManus, a political science professor at the University of South Florida, “that a business person can run government better than professional politicians.” Trump has contributed $125,000 to Scott’s political-action committee since 2012. Some have speculated Scott could serve as Trump’s vice presidential nominee. But in what may serve as another lesson for Trump, Scott remains a highly polarizing figure. His relationship with the state legislature has been prickly — and his approval ratings have never crossed 50 percent. “He entered politics with half the state’s voters liking him,” MacManus said. “He’s never gone much beyond that.” Bush’s departure from the presidential race has left Rubio flying the establishment flag. His local supporters say it already has made a huge difference, both in terms of support and money. “(Bush) was dividing votes,” Tom Rooney, a U.S. congressman from Florida who is chairing Rubio’s campaign here, told Reuters. “We don’t have that issue anymore.” The Rubio campaign, in Florida as elsewhere, is not courting Trump’s voters. It believes they are unlikely to switch. Instead, Rooney said, the idea is to woo the 60-65 percent of the party that so far has not supported Trump. To that end, Rubio has been playing catch-up, opening new offices and securing a bevy of endorsements from local politicians. But Rooney concedes while Rubio has consoled himself with second-place finishes in places such as Iowa and South Carolina, that will not be enough in Florida, especially given that the winner gets all of the state’s 99 delegates. “When we get into the winner-take-all states,” Rooney said, “you can’t come in second and say you’re doing well.” (Reporting by James Oliphant; Editing by Howard Goller) This article was funded in part by SAP. It was independently created by the Reuters editorial staff. SAP had no editorial involvement in its creation or production. | 0fake |
With Just One Phone Call, Trump SHATTERS Our Relationship With China | Trump s brazen phone calls to various world leaders are upsetting diplomats, and with good reason. He s voicing admiration for some of the worst dictators in the world, such as the leader of Kazakhstan, and he wants to visit Pakistan. He also ruffled feathers in some circles when he issued a casual, offhand invitation to Britain s prime minister, Theresa May, following phone calls to nine other world leaders.His most recent phone call was to Taiwan, a country with which the U.S. has had no contact for nearly 40 years. In doing so, he may have upset the delicate balance that currently exists between us and China, because China thinks of Taiwan as a renegade province. Okay, so China isn t a country that we re totally in love with right now. The problem with Trump doing this, though, is that China is still a trading partner, and if he wishes to be able to negotiate a better trade deal with them, he d do well to respect them and the delicate nature of our relationship with them right now.But all Trump has proven thus far is that he s an idiotic, ill-prepared, complete dolt when it comes to handling the presidency, and especially foreign relations. There things he doesn t even know to think about before calling absolutely everyone on the planet. White House press secretary Josh Earnest actually begged Trump to go through proper channels, meaning the Department of State, when contacting world leaders.Otherwise, his willy-nilly phone calls like this can shake up, or even destroy, relationships that are already on shaky ground.Like our relationship with China.He certainly didn t try to make a friend out of China during his campaign, blasting them repeatedly for stealing our jobs and essentially saying he was going to strongarm them into a trade agreement that was more favorable to us. And now Beijing would actually be right if they were pissed at him for this.Trump needs finesse. He needs discretion. He needs a shit-ton of help here. He s going to destroy all of our alliances before he even takes office this way.Featured image via Ty Wright/Getty Images | 1real |
Sexist Political Criticism Finds a New Target: Kellyanne Conway - The New York Times | What powerful political woman is mocked for her clothes, is the target of pictures on Twitter depicting her as haggard and is routinely called a witch and a bitch? If you guessed Hillary Clinton, you’re right. But if you guessed Kellyanne Conway, you’re right, too. Misogyny, it seems, remains a bipartisan exercise. Whatever legitimate criticisms can be leveled at each woman, it’s striking how often that anger is expressed using the same sexist themes, from women as well as men. Mrs. Clinton “repeats her tacky outfits,” one Twitter critic sniped. The Inauguration Day outfit of Ms. Conway, a counselor to President Trump, looked like “a night terror of an android majorette. ” Mrs. Clinton’s hair has drawn relentless derision one Twitter user recently asked: “Why does Kellyanne Conway always look like she’s still drunk wearing make up from last night’s bender?” And both women have been repeatedly compared to witches from “The Wizard of Oz,” most recently in pictures shared on Twitter tying Ms. Conway to the witch killed under Dorothy’s house. The two women are at opposite ideological poles, but they stir up the same lingering cultural discomfort with ambitious, assertive women. “These sexist memes are not the purview of one party,” said Karen Finney, a senior adviser to the Clinton campaign. “We fear strong women and women with power. These attacks are meant to delegitimize that power. ” Ms. Conway has drawn scorn, and been disinvited from some news programs, for her references to a “Bowling Green massacre” that never took place and her defense of claims about the size of the crowd at Mr. Trump’s inauguration as “alternative facts. ” Yet some of the criticisms have taken on a distinctly sexualized tone. Witness the furor over her sitting on her knees on a couch in the Oval Office during a reception for presidents of historically black colleges. While she drew fire for disrespect, some of the criticisms included digs about her spreading her legs and raunchy allusions to oral sex, Monica Lewinsky and Bill Clinton. Representative Cedric L. Richmond, Democrat of Louisiana, told a joke that hers was a “familiar” position in the Oval Office of the 1990s, drawing a rebuke from none other than Chelsea Clinton. (Mr. Richmond apologized Sunday evening.) A “Saturday Night Live” skit riffed on Ms. Conway as a “Fatal Attraction” stalker, breaking into the CNN correspondent Jake Tapper’s house to seduce him into having her on his show. “There seems to be great resentment of both as power hungry and wanting to control men,” said Marjorie J. Spruill, the author of “Divided We Stand: The Battle Over Women’s Rights and Family Values That Polarized American Politics. ” “Whereas Hillary is called castrating or shrewish, Conway is often called a slut. The implication is that she is using femininity to control men. ” Ms. Spruill noted that Ms. Conway had leaned back to take pictures as a favor to the participants, but that some critics had cast the pose as a sexual . Ironies abound. Ms. Conway is loathed by many Clinton aides as the architect of a presidential campaign that they felt used overtly and implicitly sexist messages. Mr. Trump repeatedly denigrated women for their appearance and, after taking office, directed his female staff members to “dress like women. ” Many conservative women, from Sarah Palin to Ann Coulter, have emphasized their femininity to distance themselves from feminists, whom they accuse of hating men. In a recent interview at the Conservative Political Action Conference, Ms. Conway said she supported many feminist principles but said she would not call herself one because feminism is and identified with the left. “I think some of the reticence that might be coming across in not a huge chorus of defense of Kellyanne Conway in the face of these sexist comments is the feeling that she doesn’t have our back,” said Gillian Thomas, a senior staff lawyer of the Women’s Rights Project of the American Civil Liberties Union. “It’s a shame,” Ms. Thomas continued. “If women were more united and speaking up at this behavior, including when it’s perpetrated by the left, we’d all be a lot better off. ” Ms. Conway suggested in an interview with The Daily Caller that there would have been more outrage at the comments if she had been a liberal woman, adding, “And it is not just if I were a liberal woman, but if I were a one. ” Ms. Conway did not respond to a message left with her assistant requesting comment for this article. Still, Ms. Conway has spirited defenders on the right on social media who say she should be championed as an example of a groundbreaking woman in politics instead of mocked in sexist terms, and some liberal women in Facebook comments chided others for sexism. “Ladies Gents, I disagree with her as much as anyone,” wrote someone identified as Melissa Mae. “It would be nice to see comments sticking to valid points instead of ALWAYS going after women on the basis of ‘looks. ’” Mirya R. Holman, an assistant professor of political science at Tulane University who studies gender and politics, said, “This does mimic what conservative women have said in the past: ‘You liberals think you’re so enlightened, but we still get people saying vile things about us. ’” Jennifer Palmieri, the director of communications for the Clinton campaign, who memorably clashed with Ms. Conway at a postelection forum at Harvard, also sees echoes of the sexism that dogged her candidate in the attacks on Ms. Conway. She said she believed Ms. Conway should be held accountable for her actions. But she noted that while Stephen K. Bannon, Mr. Trump’s chief strategist, is portrayed as an “evil genius” who cannily promotes images of an America at risk from immigrants and foreign competitors, Ms. Conway is depicted as “crazy” for devising and promoting similar messages. “What I find really disturbing is because he’s a man, that’s really smart and strategic,” Ms. Palmieri said. “Why is there not a theory behind what Kellyanne does?” Whether the attacks come from the right or the left, they show a persistent anger toward women who step outside conventional roles. Social media has long enabled a thriving subculture of the violent disparagement of women, such as the GamerGate threats toward those who challenged the male bastion of video games. Much as latent racism surfaced during the presidency of Barack Obama, this election exposed a vitriol toward powerful women that continues to erupt, beyond the confines of Twitter or Reddit. “To me, the 2016 election was hopefully an opportunity to be reminded that we’re not in some kind of postgender society,” Professor Holman said. “There’s a smaller set of acceptable behaviors for women. ” Ms. Finney, a longtime Clinton aide, has watched those issues play out for more than 20 years in public life as Mrs. Clinton served as a for debates about women’s roles. She said she and conservative women would sit in green rooms awaiting television appearances and trade stories about how they were attacked. “There is this sense: ‘Are you kidding me? ’” she said. “‘Are we going back to this?’ Maybe we have to go back to go forward. ” | 0fake |
NYT’s GIVES “THUMBS UP” To New “Justice League” Movie, Starring Accused Sexual Predator Ben Affleck: “Better Than The Last One!” | The New York Times gave the accused sexual predator, Ben Affleck s new movie a thumbs up, but neglects to mention the sexual predator allaegations against him.Immediately after the Weinstein accusations started to come out, actress Hilarie Burton accused Ben Affleck of sexually assaulting her during a filming. Shanice Brim told Burton how sorry she was that Affleck sexually assaulted her, saying, It s infuriating that people never bring up all the gross, predatory things he s done. He also grabbed Hilarie Burton's breasts on TRL once. Everyone forgot though. Shanice Brim (@ShaniceBrim) October 10, 2017Actress Hilarie Burton responded, I didn t forget. I m so sorry that happened to you. It s infuriating that people never bring up all the gross, predatory things he s done. Shanice Brim (@ShaniceBrim) October 11, 2017Here s a video of Ben Affleck where he allegedly grabbed the actress breasts:https://t.co/wh2MpJVQzlGirls. I'm so impressed with you brave ones. I had to laugh back then so I wouldn't cry. Sending love. Hilarie Burton (@HilarieBurton) October 11, 2017Ben Affleck was also accused by one of Harvey Weinstein s victims of covering up sexual assault, after he made a comment about how saddened and angry he was at his bestie Harvey Weinstein for his actions:You want to play let's play #ROSEARMY pic.twitter.com/uqd26Z78gc rose mcgowan (@rosemcgowan) October 10, 2017Here s the Justice League star in another disgusting video where he s clearly objectifying the female reporter:[VIDEO] Ben Affleck objectifies female reporter, comments on her breasts, then makes fun of "retarded" people with cerebral palsy. #cringe pic.twitter.com/5OiBtYkkVB Austen Fletcher (@fleccas) October 12, 2017To add insult to injury, only days ago, Affleck appeared on MTV, where he gave a cringeworthy, and very arrogant interview about the new Justice League movie, along with his co-stars. The Mercury News published a story following his interview where they asked, Does Ben Affleck really want to stop people from writing him off as an arrogant male movie star who lacks the character or good sense to move past his difficult associations with sexual harassment? Does he really want people to believe he can be part of the solution to ending a Hollywood culture that long allowed rich and powerful men like Harvey Weinstein to sexually mistreat women?Does he at least want to save his new movie Justice League from more bad press, after critics gave it generally negative reviews?Then Affleck better shut up, especially after his latest cringe-worthy comments surfaced.For an MTV Justice League cast interview last week, the Batman actor jauntily chomped his way through a big wad a gum while cracking a couple jokes that appeared to reference the sexual misconduct engulfing his industry, the Huffington Post reported. We could use more women! Affleck said, perhaps trying to sound like he wanted to correct Hollywood s notorious gender disparity in movie narratives.But when his co-star Ray Fisher, who plays Cyborg in the film, was asked what would happen if Supergirl teamed up with the Justice League, the younger actor said in a very PR-friendly way, I think it would create a different dynamic. That s when Affleck, failing to read the room or to grasp his own lack of charm in this situation, blurted out. You following the news at all? He broke into a smile, chomping his gum some more, apparently thinking he was being very clever in referencing the sexual misconduct crisis that has engulfed his industry.Here s the arrogant and NOT funny interview: pic.twitter.com/o3bMi4WWQ5 (@stormpiIott) November 13, 2017Even the hard-core leftist publication Slate, gives their readers a list of movies they beleive will be affected by the Weinstein scandal and those who were close to the accused rapist, who are also facing sexual misconduct charges. The New York Times, however, has chosen to ignore Affleck s bad behavior in their review, however. We re pretty sure that given their history of bashing conservatives, if Affleck wasn t a mega-Democrat donor, his name would ve been the focus of the New York Times headline From Slate Justice League (debut- November 17) The Justice League press tour was going to be plenty difficult even before the Weinstein scandal went wide: As the movie underwent a director switch and major reshoots, rumors flew that Warner Bros. might be looking to bump an erratic Ben Affleck from his perch as Batman. Now, Affleck has been implicated in the Weinstein scandal by actress Rose McGowan, who claims the actor knew that Weinstein had assaulted her two decades ago, even though his recent statement on the matter pled na vet . McGowan s tweet Ben Affleck fuck off went viral and prompted renewed scrutiny of the actor s own behavior; Affleck has since apologized to actress Hilarie Burton for groping her during a long-ago TRL appearance.NYT s Justice League, the newest DC Comics superhero jam directed by Zack Snyder, is looser, goosier and certainly more watchable than the last one. The bar could scarcely have been lower given that the previous movie, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, was such an interminable slog. The superhero and villain dynamic is much the same (slayers going to slay, etc.), but there are a few fresh faces now and Wonder Woman has more to do than play backup. The story is a confusion of noise, visual clutter and murderous digital gnats, but every so often a glimmer of life flickers through.The last time he fronted a movie, Superman (Henry Cavill) seemed to die, a plot twist that not even the most credulous viewer could buy. So, of course he s back in this one, eventually, although first the band needs to get together. Having seen trouble on the horizon, Batman, a.k.a. Bruce Wayne played with a sepulchral growl and bespoke stubble by Ben Affleck takes the lead on this enterprise. He s the insistent manager as well as the scowling host, the guy with the cool digs, smooth rides with blinking screens ( critical damage reads one with great comic-book sincerity) and suave butler (Jeremy Irons as Alfred). He s also pretty much of a yawn.The pumped-up Mr. Affleck again fills out the bat suit from ripped stem to stern, but his costume remains grievously larger than Batman s (or Bruce s) personality. Bat-Bruce clearly has some kind of unrequited thing for Wonder Woman, a.k.a. Diana Prince (Gal Gadot, a charming super-presence), which leads him to stammer like a teenager. (She s got other things on her mind.) He has money and a modest sense of humor, including about his wealth, which inspires one of the movie s few decent laughs. Mr. Affleck, a generally appealing actor who can plumb the depths when pushed ( Gone Girl ), needs something more substantial (or just more jokes) if his Batman is ever going to work.Cyborg isn t as buoyant a presence, which makes sense for a character who s been partly cobbled together from scraps and a sob story that Mr. Fisher puts across with bowed head and palpable heaviness. The hoodie he sometimes wears, which can t help but evoke Trayvon Martin, imparts a larger meaning that the movie doesn t or can t explore. Like the references to a coming world catastrophe that suggestively shudders with wider implications, the hoodie suggests filmmakers who are still struggling to keep an eye on the offscreen world while spinning a fictional universe that can somehow offer a brief escape from it. | 1real |
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