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CEO Who Threatened To Kill Trump With Sniper Rifle Says Life Has Been Turned Upside Down [VIDEO] | The former CEO of a local cybersecurity firm is talking first to 10News about his threat to shoot President-elect Donald Trump.Team 10 Investigator Allison Ash sat down with Matt Harrigan Tuesday afternoon. He tells Allison he s been getting death threats since the posts went viral and he and his family have relocated until the storm settles.Harrigan was the CEO of PacketSled until he resigned his position Tuesday morning. He said he s sorry for his words, and he wants his side of the story told.Harrigan wrote the series of Facebook posts on election night. They were words that he thought only his friends would see. He wrote, I m going to kill the president. elect and Bring it, secret service. He even mentioned getting a sniper rifle and targeting the White House once Donald Trump was living there.Harrigan said his Facebook friends shared the post on Twitter and that s how it went viral. He says, he s ashamed of what he wrote. I m incredibly apologetic, for that. I don t know, Harrigan said. It was [a] very, very dumb thing to do, and I regret it very much and I would take it back if I could. Harrigan said he was drunk when he wrote the absurd comments on election night before Donald Trump won the election. He said most of his friends knew he was just being over the top with his distasteful joke .At least one of those friends wasn t amused, sharing the disturbing messages outside their circle of Facebook friends. It started to trend very, very quickly and started spiraling and I was blown away, Harrigan admittedThe Secret Service spent two hours interviewing Harrigan inside his Del Mar home. They did not say whether criminal charged would be filed against the married father of two.Harrigan said his family has been forced out of their home by death threats from people unhappy with his remarks. Although he said the threats he made against Donald Trump were a joke , he is taking the threats against his family seriously. ABC 10 News | 1real |
Let Your Child Be Bored! | It’s scary to think that the lifestyle I lived through my youth will simply not exist for future generations.
Gone are the days of walking to your friend’s house and inviting yourself over to play or suffering through a busy dial tone and accepting you may not hear from that person at all that day.
I remember when we first got internet and how remarkable I found it to be able to converse on my computer with my next door neighbour on ICQ . I truly did live through the internet boom and I’m thankful for that, but it does make me think, how has this shaped who I am today, and are future generations really doomed?
Before the internet there was television, and it too played a heavy role in my upbringing. In the 1990s Dr. Teresa Belton , a visiting fellow at the University of East Anglia, studied the effects that television has on the imagination of 10-12 year old children, ultimately concluding that television negatively impacts their development: “T he ubiquity and ease of access to television and videos perhaps robs today’s children of the need to pursue their own thoughts and devise their own occupations, distracting them from inner processes and constantly demanding responses to external agendas, and suggests that this may have implications for the development of imaginative capacity.”
Another study examined the effects that television has on a child’s ability to imagine. Researchers found that children in a community with no television scored significantly higher on divergent thinking skills, a measure of imaginativeness, compared to two other communities, one of which had one TV channel and the other, four.
The scary part? Once the community gained access to television, their skills dropped to the same level as the other participants.
The obvious and alarming next question is, if regular children’s programming hinders their ability to imagine, what then is the internet doing to their young minds? And what did children do before television and the internet?
They were bored.
But since when is being bored a bad thing?
Neuroscientists have discovered that “when the brain is supposedly resting it’s actually more active. This suggests that daydreaming, or mind wandering as psychologists call it, must have a purpose” (source) .
Belton interviewed certain creative professionals to gain more insight into their childhood and found that being ‘bored’ played a vital role in their creativity as a child, and even now. One professional was writer and actress Meera Syal .
She remembers the days of gazing out her window at the rural landscape, and how ‘doing nothing’ prompted her to try new things like learning to bake cakes with the elderly woman next door. One habit she thanks her younger self for is writing in her diary, which she believes boredom inspired her to do and has helped manifest her writing career. “It’s very freeing, being creative for no other reason than that you freewheel and fill time,” she said.
According to the Wikipedia definition, imagination is considered to be the faculty or action of forming new ideas, or images or concepts of external objects not present to the senses, such as seeing or hearing.
Would it be safe to say that imagination can inspire the pursuit of knowledge?
While we learn best through experience, it’s still important to allow our minds to wander, to be bored. It’s from this place we can learn empathy.
Our world has become so fast-paced and our lives so busy, and we often feel we need to engage with it in order to feel useful, productive, even validated — the Glorification of Busy , if you will.
But allowing our brains time to process and imagine is still ‘doing something,’ even if it doesn’t feel that way. According to Belton, it is helping to shape a strong and resilient mind:
But to get the most benefit from times of potential boredom, indeed from life in general, children also need inner resources as well as material ones. Qualities such as curiosity, perseverance, playfulness, interest and confidence allow them to explore, create and develop powers of inventiveness, observation and concentration. These also help them to learn not to be deterred if something doesn’t work the first time, and try again. By encouraging the development of such capacities, parents offer children something of lifelong value.
So for parents, the next time your child needs something to do, allow them to create and play without the use of technology. I encourage you to remember the child you used to be, the one who found fun and joy out of things like playing with sticks in the field outside your home or imagining the ground was lava as you jumped from couch to couch.
This information is more than applicable to adults, too. Spend a day without your phone, computer, or TV and see where your mind takes you.
| 1real |
Why Even Sing? Anthem Singer Kneels During Performance | Alternative | (Before It's News)
A singer decided to kneel during her performance of the national anthem prior to an NBA preseason game in Miami.
As Denasia Lawrence approached midcourt, she unzipped her jacket, revealing the “Black Lives Matter” shirt she has underneath and dropped to her left knee as she began to sing. Her stated intention was to protest racial oppression.
If the anthem is a symbol of racial oppression, then why would she sing it at all?
“We’re being unjustly killed and overly criminalized,” Lawrence explained in a Facebook post from Saturday night. “I took the opportunity to sing and kneel to show that we belong in this country and that we have the right to respectfully protest injustices against us.”
According to Miami Heat staff, there was no advanced warning that Lawrence was wearing a Black Lives Matter shirt nor that she had plans to kneel.
“I didn’t get paid to sing the national anthem nor was this moment about any sort of fame,” Lawrence wrote. “Black Lives Matter is far larger than a hashtag, it’s a rallying cry.”
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Anti-Trump Women Marchers Threaten to Never Leave Washington, DC | Marching around without any clear direction, mission or destination — and without any clearly stated goal — the women marchers in downtown Washington, DC, threatened to never leave the nation’s capital as they protest newly inaugurated President Donald Trump. [“We won’t go away, welcome to your first day,” women marchers chanted near the White House. It’s ironic that they’re threatening to never leave, since many of the protesters are actually leaving tomorrow or the next day after having been bussed in from around the country and even from Canada. For them to actually stay and occupy Washington, D. C. would cost millions per day — an unrealistic possibility. It’s much more likely these protesters are going to catch their bus or their flight home in the next day or so and depart the national political stage without gaining any real ground. Part of the reason for their looming irrelevancy was evident in the disorganized nature of the march — which was actually more of a giant gathering downtown. Protesters did not have a clear message of what they were asking for — other than venting anger at the fact Donald Trump is the duly elected and inaugurated president of the United States — and did not even march in a coordinated way in any particular direction throughout DC other than to just wander around in groups of a few hundred chanting one thing or another like the aforementioned threat to never leave or another age old Democratic Party protester chant “This is what Democracy looks like. ” Sure, celebrities like Madonna and Ashley Judd and top Democrats like newly elected California Sen. Kamala Harris joined in with speeches but the largely incoherent message that asks for nothing reasonable — the only thing they seem to be demanding is that President Trump go away, something that will not happen — leaves the women marchers against Trump leaving Washington empty handed. | 0fake |
NYPD Commissioner OBLITERATES Ted Cruz’s ‘Fictional’ Knowledge Of Counterterrorism | In an op-ed that puts to rest any notion that Ted Cruz knows what he s talking about when it comes to terrorism and national security, NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton did not hold back.In the wake of the ISIS attack on Brussels, the Texas Senator went on camera to call for mass surveillance of Muslims in communities across the country as well as increased police patrols in those neighborhoods. Because spying on and treating Muslims like criminals is going to somehow prevent them from radicalizing.Not so, says Bratton, who wrote in his op-ed in New York Daily News that what Cruz believes about Muslims is fiction and that the outcome he seeks is a fairy tale. Recently, Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz called for police to patrol and secure Muslim communities before they become radicalized. We already patrol and secure Muslim neighborhoods, the same way we patrol and secure other neighborhoods, Bratton wrote.We do not patrol and secure neighborhoods based on selective enforcement because of race or religion, nor will we use the police and an occupying force to intimidate a populace or a religion to appease the provocative chatter of politicians seeking to exploit fear.Nor will we accept the fiction of Sen. Cruz s narrative as presented. Cruz repeated the false reports surrounding the NYPD Demographics Unit and my decision to abolish it because it wasn t serving any useful purpose. He tried to depict the demise of the unit, as other ill-informed observers have done, as a knuckling under to the forces of political correctness rather than the sensible administrative decision that it was. The fact is that the former administration had allowed the unit to dwindle down to two investigators. Why? Because the work of the unit, which was to map the ethnic makeup of the city to better understand the domain of the New York metropolitan area, was finished. The two remaining detectives simply had little to do.Bratton then dropped the hammer on Cruz. It is clear from his comments that Sen. Cruz knows absolutely nothing about counterterrorism in New York City. We have in this city, without a doubt, the most effective and extensive counterterrorism capacity of any city in this country and virtually any city in the world. Bratton went on to literally list the taskforces that work hard to provide counterterrorism for New York City, including the Joint-Terrorism Task Force with the FBI, Critical Response Command, NYPD Counterterrorism Bureau, NYPD Intelligence Bureau, and the NYPD Domain Awareness System.In the end, Bratton explained that over 900 police officers under his command are Muslims who work hard to keep the city and their own families safe from terrorists every day and schooled Cruz on the Constitution before cautioning him to actually do some damn research before opening his mouth again.Sen. Cruz s references to the discontinuance of the Demographics Unit shows he has been hoodwinked by a 21st century fairy tale that refuses to die. He uses it in tandem with his suggestions that the police create a looming presence to intimidate Muslim neighborhoods with a show of force.In New York City, we protect all communities from crime and terrorism yes, Muslim communities too because like us, they are Americans who own businesses, work hard, pay taxes and dream of a better life for their children. Over 900 of them work in my police department as police officers, many of them in counterterrorism and intelligence. Many of them have served in the military and fought for their country. We police our city not by campaign slogans or inflammatory rhetoric, but by an old piece of parchment called the U.S. Constitution and another called the Bill of Rights.Ted Cruz and others seem to be willing to sideline these principles because what they stand for shifts with the tide of the campaign and the shrillness of the name-calling. But as it has been said, when you stand for nothing, you will fall for anything. Sen. Cruz needs to do some homework before he speaks again.Enough said.Featured image via Flickr | 1real |
Radio Derb 10/28/16 | X Dear Reader! VDARE.com isn’t just a website. We are the voice of the Historic American Nation . Our goal is nothing less than to develop a full spectrum media network to speak up for our people during this difficult time for our country. Part of that means building institutions which are offline and in the real world. There’s something about a paper journal that suggests permanence, which inclines people to take it more seriously. And because the news cycle is so fast, some of the most important, substantial, and potentially influential writings fall through the cracks and don’t get the attention they deserve. For that reason, we’re proud to announce the creation of VDARE QUARTERLY, a print journal featuring the best material from our webzine. This will replace our yearly anthologies and ensure that the information and analysis you really don't want to miss will get in front of you as quickly as possible. However, we need your help. For us to unveil this exciting new product we need 600 magazines ordered to cover the print expenses. Fill out the form below to instantly receive a digital copy of VDARE QUARTERLY, and when we have the number of necessary subscribers it will go to print and your exclusive paper copy will ship directly to you! Depending on the package you choose, you will receive multiple paper copies (provided enough readers support the community effort). We encourage you to pass these around – they serve as an excellent gift for friends and family, while at the same time helping to build our community. VDARE QUARTERLY is aesthetically pleasing as well as ideologically powerful. But this isn’t just a service we are providing. VDARE QUARTERLY is a tangible manifestation of your investment in us, and in our country. A subscription is one of the most effective ways you can help us build our media network, expand our influence, and build the kind of movement we will need to take back our country and ensure our children have a recognizable America.
We count on your support! Yours sincerely, Peter Brimelow, Editor of VDARE.com VDARE QUARTERLY countdown: 167 already ordered, 433 still to go | 1real |
Leaked Documents Reveal The Truth About UFOs And Military Projects | Leaked Documents Reveal The Truth About UFOs And Military Secrecy # Grey 0
The military has claimed they have no interest in UFOs and say they do not investigate UFO cases. However, through the Freedom of Information Act, investigators have uncovered several documents that would indicate UFOs have been of interest, and that the most important files were most likely never made public. Tags | 1real |
Held Hostage in an Orlando Restroom, and Playing Dead to Stay Alive - The New York Times | ORLANDO, Fla. — As the sound of gunfire in the nightclub grew louder, a patron named Orlando and a female friend took cover in a cramped bathroom stall, contorting their bodies on top of the toilet so their feet could not be seen. The gunman burst into the bathroom, went straight to the stall next to them and shot the people inside. “People were screaming, begging for their lives,” Orlando, 52, said in a telephone interview, asking that his last name not be used out of fear of retaliation from terrorist sympathizers. The gunman, Omar Mateen, was silent, then left the bathroom. “He went out and started shooting outside again,” Orlando said. For three sickening hours on Sunday morning, a game of deception played out in a bathroom where the assailant holed up with hostages after killing dozens of people inside the Pulse nightclub. Orlando and his friend desperately tried to avoid becoming two more victims. Orlando said he listened as the gunman warned his hostages not to text anyone, took their cellphones, called 911 to calmly pledge his allegiance to the Islamic State, spoke about a need to stop American bombing in Syria and threatened greater bloodshed if the police moved in. Orlando described moments of surreal quiet as the siege went on and the killer fiddled with his weapon and used the sink and the hand dryer. Mr. Mateen checked on the bodies around him, Orlando said. At one point, Orlando switched positions and played dead, and he felt something poking him. He believed it was the gunman, checking to see if he was dead. Around 5 a. m. the police blew a hole in the wall, enabling some of the hostages to escape, and officers engaged in a fatal final confrontation with the assailant. Much of Orlando’s account corresponds with new information released by the police on Monday, other witness accounts and video evidence, which combined to paint a chilling picture of the hostage crisis that unfolded after the attack. The first bursts of gunfire, around 2 a. m. were captured on video by Amanda Alvear, the footage uploaded to Snapchat. In the video, she is recording herself and others as they dance to the last song of the evening at the popular gay club. Then she turns the camera toward her own face. She is staring into the lens as the first few shots are heard. They do not seem to faze her. But as they continue, unrelenting, roughly 20 rounds, the video abruptly ends. She was listed among the dead on Monday. Just before the shooting began, Ashley Summers and her friends went to their bartender, Kate, at Pulse’s back bar to order one more round — a vodka, soda and lime for Ms. Summers a vodka and Red Bull for one friend and a specialty drink for the other. One of Ms. Summers’s friends was polishing the credit card receipt with all sorts of pleasantries for the bartender — “sexy kitten,” “muah,” “you the best” — when the popping started. For 15 seconds, through the pulsing of the salsa music, they thought it might have been firecrackers, Ms. Summers said in an interview. But they eventually figured out it was gunshots. Ms. Summers said a friend pulled her to the ground. They felt glass shattering over their heads. They were near a back exit and crawled out. Concerned about what might be behind the white privacy fence out back, they turned left, into a storage area. But they heard more gunshots coming from that direction, so they went back out onto the patio and used some furniture to vault over the fence. They dashed to safety. “At that point it was shock, it was disbelief, it was fear, but it was urgency,” said Ms. Summers, a ballroom dance instructor. “There was knowing that we had to get out of there. ” Soon after Mr. Mateen first opened fire, he was confronted by an armed security guard who was an police officer, said John Mina, the Orlando police chief, at a news conference Monday morning. They exchanged gunfire. The security guard was then joined by an unknown number of police officers, the first to arrive on the scene. During these early rounds of gunfire, the police said, many patrons were able to escape. But the assailant retreated deeper into the club, eventually barricading himself in the bathroom, where some patrons had gone to hide. When the shots erupted, Norman Casiano dropped to his knees and crawled to what was apparently a different bathroom, seeking safety in a stall where many people were already crammed together. He tried to call 911, then his mother, shouting, “Mom mom mom mom!” into the phone before the call dropped. As Mr. Casiano, 25, and the others huddled together, a wounded man staggered into the bathroom and dropped to the floor. They urged him to try to stay quiet. At one point, as the gunman approached, Mr. Casiano said, he could hear shells clattering to the floor and the gun reloading. Then Mr. Mateen entered the bathroom. “Just firing, firing, firing,” Mr. Casiano said in an interview at his parents’ apartment, about two hours after he was released from the hospital on Monday afternoon. He was hit once in the back and felt a hot pulse of pain tear into him, as if his leg had been severed. He ended up being shot twice in the back, both bullets passing through his body, he said. Mr. Casiano said the gunman did not say anything, but laughed as people begged him not to shoot and assured him that they did not know who he was and had not seen his face. “All I heard was a laugh,” Mr. Casiano said. “He laughed like an evil laugh, something that’s just going to be imprinted in my head forever. ” It was, he said, “a laugh of like, ‘Ha, I did it. ’” When the gunman left the bathroom, Mr. Casiano tried to urge others to leave, he said, and was able to slip away and escape. He said he was in a hospital bed by about 3 a. m. two hours before the siege ended. Orlando’s escape took much longer. Hiding with his friend, he could hear the gunman drawing closer, the sound of each round getting louder. As he and his friend positioned themselves on the toilet, Orlando said, he also braced one foot against the stall door. Around this time, Mina Justice was asleep at home when she received a text from her son, Eddie Justice, she told reporters. He was also hiding in a bathroom at the club. “Mommy I love you,” the first message read. It came in at 2:06 a. m. “In club they shooting. ” Only two minutes later, he wrote, “I’m gonna die. ” Another 30 minutes would pass before he sent a text begging for help. “Call them mommy,” he pleaded. “Hurry,” he wrote. “He’s in the bathroom with us. ” Orlando said he never looked Mr. Mateen in the eye, but recalled his calm voice. At one point, after noticing that some of the hostages in the bathroom were texting, the gunman ordered them to surrender their phones. He spoke again, according to Orlando, asking the hostages, “Are you guys black?” “He said, ‘I don’t have an issue with the blacks,’” Orlando said. Early in the siege, the gunman called 911 to pledge his allegiance to the Islamic State, Chief Mina said. “He was cool and calm when he was making those phone calls to us,” he said. Orlando could hear the gunman speaking on the phone, presumably to the police. He spoke about how America should stop bombing the Islamic State. “He got mad and hung up,” Orlando said. He never heard Mr. Mateen mention gay people — he spoke only about the Islamic State and Syria, and about the damage he still intended to do. The gunman made several calls, and at one point, Orlando said, he told whoever was on the other line that there were people in the club with bombing vests as well as three snipers outside, ready to take out officers if they advanced on the club. “Our negotiators were talking with him, and there were no shots at that time,” Chief Mina said. “But there was talk about bomb vests, about explosives, throughout, and there were statements made about imminent loss of life. ” Near the end of the siege, Mr. Mateen began to shoot the hostages in the bathroom, Orlando said. By some miracle, he said, he once again avoided detection, but a person in the neighboring stall was not so lucky. A man who had just been shot crawled under the stall, grasping at both Orlando’s and his companion’s legs, pulling them down — and exposing their hiding spot. They played dead, “my face against the toilet bowl,” he said. In those moments, Orlando’s phone would not stop ringing, as friends called to see if he was safe. He worried that the rings would draw attention and give him away. As the final battle with the police began, Orlando could hear the gunman loading his weapon, at one point shouting, “I’ve got plenty of bullets. ” Then there were explosions and chaos. The police had blown a hole in the bathroom wall, but Orlando said his muscles were so cramped he could barely move. “My shoulders got caught,” he said. “A cop grabbed me and pulled me out through the hole. ” His female friend was also rescued. When he looked at his clothes, he was covered in blood, but it was not his own. He does not know if anyone else made it out of the bathroom alive. Mr. Justice, whose last text to his mother was just before 3 a. m. did not survive. His death was confirmed by the Orlando authorities early Monday morning. | 0fake |
Obamacare taxes stand if Senate fails to adopt health bill: Brady | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Nearly $1 trillion of taxes imposed by the Affordable Care Act will remain in place if the Senate fails to adopt legislation to dismantle the law known as Obamacare, the top Republican on tax policy in the House of Representatives said on Monday. House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady told reporters there are no plans to use future tax reform legislation as a secondary route for abolishing the Obamacare levies, should the Senate healthcare effort stall. President Barack Obama’s signature healthcare law is funded by a range of taxes on businesses, individuals and investments that Republicans have long sought to eliminate as part of their drive to demolish Obamacare. But failure to overturn the healthcare law could constrain the scope of tax reform, which President Donald Trump and his fellow Republicans have billed will be the biggest overhaul of the U.S. tax system since the Reagan era. “We have never planned to import that $1 trillion of taxes into the tax reform effort,” said Brady, one of six principals involved in closed-door discussions to reach agreement on a sweeping tax reform package. “Those taxes are a big drag on the economy, and I think, very harmful for local businesses and those who have healthcare, which is why it’s critical that the Senate complete its work.” Brady said tax reform legislation would have a harder time lowering taxes without healthcare legislation. House Republicans, including Speaker Paul Ryan, say that eliminating Obamacare’s taxes would make it easier for tax reform to include big tax cuts by lowering the revenue target that tax legislation would have to hit. Brady spoke just before the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office released a widely anticipated analysis of Senate legislation to repeal and replace much of Obamacare. The CBO report showed that the Senate healthcare bill would eliminate about $700 billion in Obamacare tax revenues over a decade. That is nearly $200 billion less than the tax cuts in the healthcare bill that passed the House last month, which reduced health coverage more dramatically and cut the federal deficit by less. Senate Republican leaders want to hold a vote on their bill this week. If the Senate approves the bill, the House and Senate would have to reconcile the differences and send a single piece of legislation to the White House for Trump’s signature. | 0fake |
Exclusive: London-listed NMC in talks to run struggling Saudi hospital - sources | DUBAI/KHOBAR (Reuters) - London-listed NMC Healthcare is in talks with the Riyadh government to take over the running of a struggling Saudi hospital, according to four sources familiar with the matter. A deal for the Saad Specialist Hospital in Khobar, one of the top cancer treatment facilities in the Gulf, would be a rare instance of a foreign group operating a Saudi hospital. It would be a test of Riyadh s plan to bring overseas investors into the healthcare sector under a reform drive, led by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, aimed at restructuring the kingdom s economy and reducing its dependence on oil revenue. The Saudi health ministry has asked interested parties to submit bids for the operational license by the end of this month, said the sources who declined to be named as the discussions are confidential. UAE-based NMC is involved in the process and is considered a frontrunner to win the contract, they added. The 750-bed hospital is owned by Saad Group, a conglomerate owned by billionaire tycoon Maan al-Sanea which also operated the facility. But in recent weeks the government has stepped in after the hospital become weighed down by financial problems, said the sources. The hospital had effectively ceased operating - with the emergency room the last unit of the facility to close last month - due to debts which meant it was unable to pay salaries or contractors, according to the sources. The government s intervention coincided with the detention of the al-Sanea by Saudi authorities for unpaid debts, sources have previously told Reuters. NMC Healthcare and the Saudi health ministry were not immediately available to comment. Saad Specialist is one of only two hospitals in the kingdom to have a cyclotron, used to help identify cancerous tumors. The ministry is keen to get it re-opened as quickly as possible. It approached NMC and other healthcare companies a few weeks ago about taking over the running of the facility and conducted a site tour for potential bidders, which number around 10, according to the sources familiar with the matter. The sources did not name any other potential bidders. Saad Specialist Hospital, which al-Sanea opened in 2001, gradually ground to a halt this year as staff began to leave, including doctors and nurses, because of non-payment of salaries, which in some cases dated back around one year, said the sources. In addition, contractors began to stop maintaining the high-tech medical equipment because of lack of payment, the sources said. At the peak of his business success in 2007, al-Sanea was ranked by Forbes as one of the world s 100 richest men, with his Saad Group owning interests in everything from banking to civil engineering. But his empire has been embroiled in a high-profile debt dispute since 2009 spanning courts in London to the Cayman Islands, and Saudi authorities have recently begun liquidating some of his assets. Al-Sanea was detained in October in the kingdom s Eastern Province and he has been held in a civil detention center in Khobar, sources previously told Reuters. His detention was a few weeks before Prince Mohammed launched a corruption crackdown in which dozens of Saudi princes and businessmen are being held. In an effort to get him released, Reemas Group, a financial consultancy hired by Saad Group, has outlined a proposed settlement covering $4 billion in debt, sources previously told Reuters. Reuters was not able to determine whether the plan includes any provision to repay hospital staff or contractors. NMC Healthcare has $800 million available to start investing in 2018 in the Gulf and other markets, its CEO Prasanth Manghat said this week. We want to look at opportunities in Saudi Arabia, he said. It is a very strong market and the reforms happening there will give the healthcare sector a lot of momentum. The government is looking to bring in foreign investors to the healthcare sector as part of its Vision 2030 plan. But progress has been slow. The health ministry has put on hold its tender seeking financial advisers for the privatization of 55 primary healthcare units in Riyadh, a financial source familiar with the matter told Reuters earlier this month. | 0fake |
China says Trump call with Taiwan president won't change island's status | BEIJING (Reuters) - U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s call with Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen was a “petty” move by Taiwan that does not change its status as part of China, China’s Taiwan Affairs Office said on Saturday. China will “unswervingly” stick to its position of opposing Taiwan independence, it said, in a statement released on the official Xinhua news agency. | 0fake |
Why the Election Is Close, and What Trump and Obama Have in Common - The New York Times | Donald J. Trump is in striking distance of winning the election with two days to go, and there’s really just one reason for that: He’s leading white voters without a college degree by a huge margin. In recent national surveys, Mr. Trump leads Hillary Clinton by 59 percent to 30 percent among that group. It’s larger than the lead that Mitt Romney had with those voters in the final polls in 2012. On their own, Mr. Trump’s gains among this group have been enough to cancel out four years of favorable demographic shifts for Democrats among Hispanic and white voters. He has even won supporters among some of the same white voters who backed Barack Obama in 2008. It suggests that Mr. Trump and Mr. Obama might have a little more in common than you might think — at least from a political standpoint. If Mr. Trump wins the presidency, that will ultimately be why. It has been a consistent pattern all year. Whenever Mr. Trump fights his way into a tight race with Mrs. Clinton, it’s because he manages to run up the score with white voters. In the past week, analysis of the early vote has already made it clear that turnout will be more than high enough for a Democrat to win a presidential election. Latino turnout will be high. Black turnout may not reach 2012 levels, but it will not be so low that one could reasonably blame black turnout for a Clinton loss. But Mr. Trump’s strength among the white working class gives him a real chance at victory, a possibility that many discounted as recently as the summer. He could win enough Electoral College votes without winning the popular vote, through narrow victories in Midwestern and Northeastern battlegrounds like Wisconsin and New Hampshire, where Democrats depend on support among white voters. Mr. Trump’s strength with that group could even be enough for him to win Florida, where Mrs. Clinton’s abundant support among Hispanic voters would otherwise all but doom a Republican. The conventional wisdom after 2012 held that Mr. Obama was a historically weak candidate among white voters, and that there wasn’t much room for the Republicans to make additional gains. To the extent that there was an argument for how Republicans could make big gains among the group, it was that they could rally the support of missing white voters — a group that in reality appears more Democratic than the white voters who do turn out in elections. But exit polls tend to undercount the number of less educated voters, and the national exit polls obscured Mr. Obama’s strength among white voters in the North. They showed him faring worse among white voters than any Democrat since Walter Mondale, but that was exclusively because of his weakness in the South. In many Northern states — like Iowa and Ohio — Mr. Obama did better among white voters than past Democrats. There was a lot of room for Mrs. Clinton to fall. She’s proving it. For many, it was very hard to imagine that Mrs. Clinton — a white Democrat who excelled among white voters in the 2008 Democratic primary — could lose voters who supported Mr. Obama in the 2012 election, or who approve of his performance today. It’s even stranger if one believes that racism is at the core of Mr. Trump’s appeal: If Mr. Trump’s supporters are animated by racism, then why did so many of them vote for Mr. Obama? Racism might well animate Mr. Trump’s base. But his appeal among some white Obama supporters suggests that Mr. Trump and Mr. Obama might have something in common. Mr. Trump has changed the story lines of the 2012 and 2008 elections — and tapped into many of the same issues and frames that helped Mr. Obama. In 2008, Mr. Obama depicted himself as an agent of hope and change: He ran against Washington, the establishment and special interests. In 2012, the Obama campaign attacked its Republican opponent, Mitt Romney, as a plutocrat who would outsource jobs and help the wealthy, not the middle class. Those are the kinds of reasons that white Democrats in places like Scranton, Pa. and Youngstown, Ohio, remained with the Democrats. In this election, Mr. Trump flipped that frame. He ran against the establishment — and against a candidate who embodies it far more than John McCain or Mr. Romney. He depicted Mrs. Clinton as someone who supports corporate — even global — interests over the middle class on issues like trade and immigration. The various allegations against Mrs. Clinton neatly complement the notion that she’s not trying to help ordinary Americans. Mrs. Clinton, meanwhile, has spent more time questioning Mr. Trump’s fitness for the presidency than emphasizing the traditional Democratic campaign message about the economy. Mr. Trump is expected to fall short of the presidency, in part because of his problems capitalizing on Mrs. Clinton’s deep weakness among white voters. There are probably many young white men without a degree, for instance, who liked Mr. Obama and don’t like either Mr. Trump or Mrs. Clinton. Regardless of the outcome, these voters will loom over American politics. Huge parts of the Republican Party’s establishment would undoubtedly prefer a candidate who’s friendlier to their views on immigration and trade. If Mrs. Clinton wins with strength among the well educated and Hispanic voters, much of the Republican establishment will conclude that those groups are in their electoral interest as well. But the voters receptive to Mr. Trump’s views on these issues would have pulled Republicans awfully close to victory, even with a deeply flawed candidate. They’re also among the voters likeliest to be skeptical of Mrs. Clinton in four years. It would be difficult for the party not to cater to them. Democrats would have the opposite challenge. Four years after demographic shifts were credited for Mr. Obama’s victory, the party would undoubtedly realize the extent to which they remain dependent on the support of voters whom they might have assumed they no longer needed. At the same time, their winning coalition would be better educated and more diverse than ever before. Without a Republican like Mr. Trump as a foil, it could be hard to devise an agenda and a message that would hold Mrs. Clinton’s coalition together. | 0fake |
HILLARY PANICS…Totally Freezes When Protesters Shout…Secret Service Jumps Onstage [Video] | Listen and watch Hillary freaks out and goes into phony mode with her politician speak This woman is nuts!Secret Service agents surround @HillaryClinton after protesters disrupt her rally pic.twitter.com/6JpsjPN6I8 POLITICO (@politico) August 4, 2016 | 1real |
Apparently Donald Trump Has An Imaginary Xenophobic Friend Named Jim | Now that we ve known Donald Trump well for a while now, we should all know that the man who occupies the Oval Office (for now) likes to make sh*t up. His mind even manufactures people, like his former spokesman John Barron, who was actually Trump. Since the campaign trail, though, Trump has been talking about his friend Jim, and much like John Barron, Jim doesn t appear to exist.A few weeks ago, the New York Times published an incredibly long and comprehensive list of all the lies Donald Trump has told, just since taking office. That was a few weeks ago, though before the G20 and before he claimed his son had a meeting with Russians about his campaign and that Trump Sr. knew nothing about it.Between Trump s regular pattern of lying and the fact that he already has a pattern of making people up, it shouldn t be a surprise that the media hasn t been able to find his friend Jim. Oh, and by the way, Jim is kind of a xenophobic asshole.The way Trump tells it Jim is a friend who loves Paris and used to visit every year. Yet when Trump travels to the city Thursday for his first time as president, it s unlikely that Jim will tag along. Jim doesn t go to Paris anymore. Trump says that s because the city has been infiltrated by foreign extremists.Whether Jim exists is unclear. Trump has never given his last name. The White House has not responded to a request for comment about who Jim is or whether he will be on the trip.Source: Washington PostThis isn t the first time Jim has complained about all the brown people in Paris. In February, Trump told an audience that Jim loved Paris, but alas, he doesn t go there anymore because Paris is no longer Paris. While anecdotes, often exaggerated, have long been a tool for political orators, we can t think of anyone who has made up an imaginary friend. That s just weird.Featured image via Sean Gallup/Getty Images | 1real |
Hillary Just Responded To Trump’s Pre-Debate Bullsh*t On Twitter, And It’s EPIC (TWEET) | After the release of the videotape showing Trump not only use derogatory language about women, but also profess to be a sexual predator, we re starting to notice the Trump campaign in a bit of tailspin.Trump s getting so desperate, in fact, that he just dragged out some women who allege they re victims of sexual abuse from Bill Clinton. What people need to remember is that, no matter if any of those allegations are true, Bill is not who is running for president. Trump is acting out of fear because he knows he s about to have his orange ass handed to him.Hillary s Communications Director Jennifer Palmieri released the official statement from the Clinton campaign regarding Trump s desperation:The statement read: We re not surprised to see Donald Trump continue his destructive race to the bottom. Hillary Clinton understands the opportunity in this town hall is to talk to voters on stage and in the audience about the issues that matter to them, and this stunt doesn t change that. If Donald Trump doesn t see that, that s his loss. As always, she s prepared to handle whatever Donald Trump throws her way. However, it was what Clinton tweeted next that shows us exactly why she will be the next President of the United States. Instead of jumping back at all the crazy that is Donald Trump, she instead tweets this:Remember. #Debate pic.twitter.com/rlMbTt5WwY Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) October 10, 2016Which is exactly what she will do.Donald Trump is currently self-destructing before our very eyes, and he has no idea what to do next.Hillary will stick to the issues and what s best for the nation as Trump takes the low road and tries to mudsling himself into the White House.This election has certainly been an interesting one, and something tells me it s only going to get worse before it gets better, and by gets better I mean, when Hillary wins on November 8th.Featured Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images | 1real |
Nigel Farage held at Heathrow on return from Trump visit due to ‘mysterious brown substance’ on nose | Monday 14 November 2016 by Benedict Farkerhausen Nigel Farage held at Heathrow on return from Trump visit due to ‘mysterious brown substance’ on nose
Nigel Farage has spent the day in the Heathrow Airport holding cells as officials quiz him on a mysterious, smelly brown substance found on his nose.
The UKIP interim leader had flown back into the country after spending much of the weekend cosying up to fellow man of the people, President-elect Donald Trump, in a Manhattan penthouse apartment painted gold.
Simon Williams, Home Office spokesman, said, “Our sniffer dogs are trained to smell even the tiniest remnants of illicit substances on clothing and suitcases.
“However, they were not needed this time as fellow passengers and staff were all able to notice this foul stench wafting through the cabin since the flight took off in New York.
“On inspection, Mr Farage’s nose was found to be thickly cased in a brown substance, which we are treating as a biological hazard.
Further traces were found on his tongue, and we’ve sent it off for further testing.”
A UKIP spokesman said, “In the human centipede that is diplomatic relations with the US, Nigel has valiantly shown his willingness to get on all fours and bury his face deep inside Mr Trump’s rectum for the good of Queen and country.
“The country needs the intimate knowledge Nigel possesses of this man, and we await a call from Number 10 wanting his expertise. Get the best NewsThump stories in your mailbox every Friday, for FREE! There are currently | 1real |
State Department website posts article on Trump's Florida resort | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. State Department website on Monday took down an article it published this month about President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort which had prompted criticism from prominent ethics experts that the piece represented use of public office for private gain. The original article was posted on April 4 on the “Share America” website, overseen by the State Department’s Bureau of International Information Programs. It was also shared on the websites and social media pages of several U.S. embassies, including those in the United Kingdom, Portugal and Albania, as well as the State Department’s Bureau of Economic and Business Affairs. Although it was posted weeks ago, the article surfaced on Monday when it was shared widely on social media. The State Department removed the article’s content around 7 p.m. on Monday, replacing it with a short statement saying its intention “was to inform the public about where the President has been hosting world leaders. We regret any misperception and have removed the post.” The article described the history of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida, and its size, status as a registered historic site, interior decoration and oceanfront location. “By visiting this ‘winter White House,’ Trump is belatedly fulfilling the dream of Mar-a-Lago’s original owner and designer,” socialite and cereal heiress Marjorie Merriweather Post, the article said. “Post’s dream of a winter White House came true with Trump’s election in 2016.” A White House official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the White House did not know about the article in advance, and declined to comment further. Norman Eisen, ethics chief under Trump’s predecessor, Democratic President Barack Obama, said on Twitter that the article violated a federal statute barring the use of public office for private gain. Richard Painter, a former ethics lawyer for Republican President George W. Bush, said on Twitter that the post constituted “use of public office for private gain pure and simple.” Scott Amey, an attorney with the nonpartisan Project on Government Oversight, said the post may not be an outright endorsement of Mar-a-Lago, but that “someone inside of the government should have said ‘no’ to the story and further helping Trump make money while serving in the White House.” The “Share America” article said that in 1973, Post willed the estate to the U.S. government, intending it to be used as a winter White House for the president to entertain foreign dignitaries. But Presidents Richard Nixon and Jimmy Carter never used the property, and in 1981 the government returned the estate to the Post Foundation because it was costing too much to maintain, according to the article. Trump, a businessman turned politician, bought the property in 1985, and turned it into a club open to dues-paying members 10 years later, it said. The club has a $200,000 membership fee, and Trump has hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at the resort. Trump’s frequent visits there have come under scrutiny due to their expense and questions of how he has handled sensitive national security information while there. Trump maintains ownership of his global business empire, though he has handed off control to his two oldest sons, an arrangement that ethics watchdogs said would not prevent conflicts of interest. | 0fake |
Australian Christian Aid to Hamas Remains Suspended After Investigation | CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — The Australian government said Thursday it had found no evidence that any of its donations to the Christian charity World Vision had been siphoned to Islamic militant group Hamas. [But Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said its World Vision funding in Gaza would remain suspended while Israeli charges against the global aid agency’s Gaza manager Mohammed remain unresolved. “DFAT has reviewed the management of its funding to World Vision in the Palestinian Territories. The review uncovered nothing to suggest any diversion of government funds. ” the department said in a statement. “Australia’s funding to World Vision in the Palestinian Territories remains suspended until we have considered the outcomes of the court case against Mr. and reviews being undertaken by World Vision Australia and World Vision International into this issue,” it added. Australian is the biggest single donor to World Vision’s humanitarian work in Gaza, providing more than $2 million in the past three years. Australia and Germany suspended funding in August after Israeli authorities charged with diverting around $50 million to Hamas to help build tunnels and purchase weapons. Israel’s internal security service Shin Bet alleged created fictitious humanitarian projects to get the funds to Hamas. The Shin Bet alleged he underwent Hamas training in the early 2000s and was “planted” by the group at World Vision in 2005, where he climbed the ranks to become director of the Gaza branch. has pleaded not guilty to all charges. Israel’s Justice Ministry declined to comment on ’s case because his trial was ongoing. World Vision welcomed Australia’s findings, adding that its own ongoing audit had not yet raised concerns about how money was spent. World Vision’s work in Gaza has been suspended pending the outcome of that audit. “We remain deeply concerned with this situation, and are saddened by the impact on Gaza’s children and their families,” a World Vision statement said. | 0fake |
Mexico presidential front-runner unveils planned cabinet | MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - The leftist front-runner for Mexico s 2018 presidential election on Thursday proposed a moderate U.S.-trained economist for finance minister, unveiling a planned cabinet made up of men and women in equal measure. Former Mexico City Mayor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador had a 12-point lead in one recent poll. He wants to overhaul Mexico s approach to the economy, security and education, vowing more support for the poorest but without new taxes or higher debt. For the finance portfolio, Lopez Obrador tapped Carlos Manuel Urzua, an academic who served as finance minister of the Mexico City government from 2000 to 2003 when the candidate, 64, was mayor of the capital. A veteran campaigner, Lopez Obrador was runner-up in the last two presidential contests. A self-declared nationalist, he hopes Mexico will elect him next July, reversing a Latin American trend towards right-leaning governments. If he wins, it could increase friction with U.S. President Donald Trump over his anti-migrant language and policies. Lopez Obrador, or AMLO as he is often known, proposed a cabinet of eight men and eight women, including a onetime interior minister for the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and a respected former supreme court judge. The naming of Urzua encouraged the view that AMLO would be a more pragmatic manager of Latin America s second biggest economy than critics have warned he would be. We see an AMLO administration as increasingly moderate from a macroeconomic perspective and the signaling of Mr. Urzua, who is not an extremist economist by any means, corroborates this view, Marcos Casarin, head of Latin America macro services Oxford Economics, said in emailed comments. An author, researcher and university professor, Urzua earned a PhD and Master in Economics from the University of Wisconsin and a degree in Mathematics from Mexico s Tecnologico de Monterrey. He is also a poet who writes about inequality. For interior minister, Lopez Obrador selected Olga Sanchez, a former Supreme Court justice who helped move the country s top tribunal in a more liberal direction during two decades in the job. For education, Lopez Obrador picked Esteban Moctezuma, who served as interior minister under former President Ernesto Zedillo. For energy, he named Rocio Nahle, a chemical engineer and lower house leader of his MORENA party. In the July 1 election, AMLO looks likely to face former finance minister Jose Antonio Meade for the PRI, and Ricardo Anaya at the head of a right-left opposition coalition. | 0fake |
Trump’s New York Times Meeting Ends In DISASTER As Crowd Greets Him With Boos (VIDEOS) | Donald Trump s Tuesday meeting with The New York Times was already controversial to begin with, and it ended in a similar fashion. Not only has the newspaper been a target of Trump s Twitter attacks after reporting true (but negative) coverage on him, but Trump abruptly canceled his meeting without notifying the paper, only to follow through at the last minute.But even after the meeting had happened, it wasn t the end of the volatile emotions surrounding Trump s visit. Upon exiting the meeting and walking through the main lobby of The New York Times building, Trump was met with loud boos from the crowd that tried to cover up the cheers. In the footage below, Trump can be seen walking through the lobby and waving to the crowd, who had very mixed reactions to the President-elect. Reporters were busy shouting questions to Trump, but the crowd drowned them out.CBS News tried to ignore the negative reaction as it tweeted: Donald Trump is greeted with cheers as he leaves meeting with the New York Times. However, the video clip accompanying that caption tells a different story. At the end of the video, the CBSN anchor corrected himself and said, Alright, so a mix of cheers, and some boos, I think. UPDATE: Donald Trump is greeted with cheers as he leaves meeting with the New York Times https://t.co/31saOhI0wR pic.twitter.com/tvAp4HPUyq CBS News (@CBSNews) November 22, 2016This is yet another first for America it has been unheard of for both a President-elect and Vice President-elect to be booed in public appearances and within days of each other! It s clear that Trump and Pence are the most controversial, divisive team the country has ever been faced with, and their level of disapproval is unprecedented.The media should certainly be latching onto this, instead of pretending that people are only cheering for Trump. To suggest that the American people are ready to accept Trump and Pence is dishonest. These videos show a nation that is divided and upset with this election, and the media should portray the truth of it regardless of whether Trump throws a Twitter fit or not.Trump leaves the Times pic.twitter.com/KU1pTaUjXt Michael Calderone (@mlcalderone) November 22, 2016Video: A mix of cheers, boos, and shouted questions as Trump leaves the NYT building https://t.co/23RicNJIWz Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) November 22, 2016Featured image via screenshot | 1real |
Kid Rock hints online he will run for U.S. Senate | DETROIT (Reuters) - Recording star Kid Rock, an outspoken supporter of Republican President Donald Trump, hinted in website and social media messages on Wednesday that he intends to run for the U.S. Senate in 2018, promising a “major announcement” to come soon. The 46-year-old Michigan native drew attention on Twitter and his Facebook page to a “Kid Rock ‘18 for U.S. Senate” website. It featured a photo of the goateed singer-songwriter wearing a leather jacket, dark glasses and white fedora, seated in a plush, star-spangled chair beside a stuffed deer above the tagline: “Are you scared?” The site also displays images of a T-shirt, baseball cap and bumper sticker emblazoned with the campaign logo, “Kid Rock for US Senate” and a box of alternating slogans, including, “In Rock We Trust,” “Party to the People” and “You Never Met a Politician Quite Like Me.” “I have a ton of emails and texts asking me if this website is real ... The answer is an absolute YES,” he said on his verified Twitter account. “Stay tuned, I will have a major announcement in the near future.” Reached by email, the musician’s spokesman, Kirt Webster, referred only to Rock’s Facebook page, which bore the same message. His music label, Warner Bros Records, also posted a website offering sales of Kid Rock for U.S. Senate merchandise. Born Robert James Ritchie in the Detroit suburb of Romeo, Michigan, he rose to fame in 1998 as his debut album “Devil Without a Cause” sold some 14 million copies. He gained additional celebrity through his courtship of actress Pamela Anderson and their brief marriage in the 2000s. While no mention was made in Wednesday’s online postings about Rock’s political affiliation or in which state he would run, he presumably would seek to challenge Michigan’s Democratic incumbent senator, Debbie Stabenow, who is up for re-election in 2018. The Capitol Hill-based newspaper Roll Call reported that Rock’s name surfaced as a possible candidate earlier this month during a state Republican Party convention in Michigan, which Trump carried in the 2016 presidential race, though no official decisions were announced. Stabenow seemed to shrug off the prospect of a political challenge from Rock, saying in a Twitter post: “I know we both share a love of music. I concede he’s better at playing guitar and I’ll keep doing what I do best: fighting for Michigan.” According to Roll Call, Rock endorsed Republican Mitt Romney for president in 2012 and initially supported Ben Carson for the Republican nomination in 2016 but switched to Trump when the former reality-TV star became the party’s nominee. Afterward, Rock released a line of pro-Trump merchandise, including a T-shirt that read “God Guns & Trump.” In April, Kid Rock joined fellow rocker and conservative activist Ted Nugent and former Alaska Governor and onetime Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin for a White House visit and dinner with Trump. Kid Rock would not be the first showbiz figure to make a leap into politics. Besides Trump, he would follow the likes of singer Sonny Bono, who served as a U.S. congressman from California during the 1990s; pro-wrestler and actor Jesse “The Body” Ventura, elected Minnesota governor in 1998; and comedian Al Franken, now serving his second U.S. Senate term from Minnesota. | 0fake |
LOU DOBBS Destroys Paul Ryan In Epic Rant: “Just get out of the way!” [Video] | Lou Dobbs rips on Speaker Paul Ryan because he s a do-nothing leader! As Dobbs says, There s no mystery why Paul Ryan has a history of poor leadership Remember this?Funding for Sanctuary Cities, benefits for illegal aliens, fully funded refugee programs, quadruples number of work visas for foreigners, release of criminal aliens, tax credits for illegal aliens, locking in huge spending increases, making America less safe and more Rep. Paul Ryan s first major legislative achievement is a total and complete sell-out of the American people masquerading as an appropriations bill.Too harsh, you say? Let the programs, the spending, and the implications speak for themselves.(1) Ryan s Omnibus Fully Funds DACAThough much of the public attention has surrounded the President s 2014 executive amnesty, the President s 2012 amnesty quietly continues to churn out work permits and federal benefits for hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens. Paul Ryan s bill funds entirely this 2012 executive amnesty for DREAMers or illegal immigrants who came to the country as minors.Specifically, Division F of Ryan s omnibus bill contains no language that would prohibit the use of funds to continue the President s unconstitutional program. Obama s executive action, known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), has granted around 700,000 illegal aliens with work permits, as well as the ability to receive tax credits and federal entitlement programs. A recent GAO report documented how this illegal amnesty program for alien youth is, in large part, responsible for the illegal alien minor surge on our southern border.In 2013, Paul Ryan said that it is his job as a U.S. lawmaker to put himself in the shoes of the DREAMer who is waiting and work to find legislative solutions to his or her problems.(2) Ryan s Omnibus Funds Sanctuary CitiesFive months ago, 32-year-old Kate Steinle was bleeding to death in her father s arms. She was gunned down in broad daylight by a five-time deported criminal alien whose presence in the country was the direct result of San Francisco s refusal to comply with U.S. immigration law yet Paul Ryan s omnibus rewards these lawless Sanctuary Cities with federal grants. Division B Title II of Ryan s omnibus funds various grant programs for the Department of Justice (pages 167, 168, and 169) and contains no language that would restrict the provision of such grants to sanctuary jurisdictions.In a Congressional hearing, Steinle s father demanded Congressional action and recalled his daughter s dying words: Help me, Dad. (3) Ryan s Omnibus Funds All Refugee ProgramsDespite broad support amongst Republican lawmakers for a proposal introduced by Rep. Brian Babin (R-TX)to halt all refugee resettlement, Ryan s appropriations bill will fund President Obama s refugee resettlement operation and will allow for the admission of tens of thousands of refugees with access to federal benefits. Division H Title II of Ryan s bill contains appropriations of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and contains no language that would restrict the program. Nor are there any restrictions for the program in Division K of Ryan s bill, which provides funding for the Department of State, which oversees refugee admissions.Ryan is not one of the 84 cosponsors of Babin s bill to halt the refugee operation, and he recently told Sean Hannity that he does not support halting resettlement because, We re a compassionate country. The refugees laws are important laws. Similarly, this outcome represents a legislative win for Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), who told Sean Hannity he d hate to use Congress s power of the purse to deny funding for Obama s resettlement operation.(4) Ryan s Omnibus Funds All of the Mideast Immigration Programs That Have Been Exploited by Terrorists in Recent YearsAlthough multiple immigrant and visa programs in recent years have been exploited by terrorists (such as the F-1 student visa, the K-1 fianc e visa, and our green card and refugee programs), Ryan s proposal does nothing to limit admissions from jihadist-prone regions. As Senators Shelby and Sessions of Alabama noted in a joint statement: The omnibus would put the U.S. on a path to approve admission for hundreds of thousands of migrants from a broad range of countries with jihadists movements over the next 12 months, on top of all the other autopilot annual immigration. (5) Ryan s Omnibus Funds Illegal Alien ResettlementOn page 917 of Ryan s omnibus a section titled Refugee and Entrant Assistance funds the President s resettlement of illegal immigrant border crossers.(6) Ryan s Omnibus Funds the Release of Criminal AliensSenior legislative aides tell Breitbart News that Ryan s bill does not do anything to change the enforcement priorities that Jeh Johnson established a little over a year ago that would shield entire categories of criminal aliens from immigration law, nor does it include language recommended by Sessions and Shelby to deny the expenditure of funds to issue visas to countries that refuse to repatriate criminal aliens. (7) Ryan s Omnibus Quadruples H-2B Foreign Worker VisasDespite Ryan s pledge not to move an immigration compromise with President Obama, tucked 700 pages into Ryan s spending bill is language that would resuscitate and expand a controversial provision of the Schumer-Rubio Gang of Eight plan to increase the H-2B visa program.The provision would quadruple the number of H-2B visas for unskilled guest workers, for a total of more than 250,000, writes immigration attorney Ian Smith. The Americans who fill these jobs are typically society s most vulnerable including single women, the disabled, the elderly, minorities, teenagers, students, and first-generation immigrants, Smith explains.A recent BuzzFeed expos revealed how this program allows businesses to discriminate against American workers and deliberately den[y] jobs to American workers so they can hire foreign workers on H-2 visas instead. As one GOP aide told Breitbart News, This provision is a knife in the heart of the working class, and African Americans. (8) Ryan s Omnibus Funds Tax Credits for Illegal AliensRyan s bill preserves the expansion of the President s expiring child tax credits without any accompanying language to prevent illegal aliens from receiving those tax credits. While Sen. Sessions attempted to include language in the bill that would prevent illegal immigrants from receiving tax credits, his recommendation was rejected.(9) Ryan s Omnibus Locks-In Huge Spending IncreasesThe bill funds the Obama-Boehner budget deal, which eliminated spending caps, and will increase both defense and non-defense spending next year by $25 billion more each.(10) Ryan s Omnibus Fails to Allocate Funds to Complete the 700-Mile Double-Layer Border Fence That Congress Promised the American PeopleNearly a decade ago with the passage of the 2006 Secure Fence Act, the American people were promised a 700-mile double-layer border fence. However, funding for the fence was later gutted and, as a result, its construction was never completed. Despite heightened media focus over the past six months about Americans desire for this barrier to illegal entry, Ryan s bill does not require that funds be allocated to finish the construction of the 700-mile double-layer fence.A vote could occur as early as Thursday after midnight, giving lawmakers and the public only one full business day to review the 2,242 page package. The Ryan-Pelosi package represents nothing short of a complete and total betrayal of the American people.Yet Ryan s omnibus serves a second and equally chilling purpose. By locking in the President s refugee, immigration, and spending priorities, Ryan s bill is designed to keep these fights out of Congress by getting them off the table for good. Delivering Obama these wins and pushing these issues beyond the purview of Congress will suppress public attention to the issues and, in so doing, will boost the candidacy of the Republican establishment s preferred presidential contenders, who favor President Obama s immigration agenda.What may prove most discouraging of all to Americans is that recent reports reveal that conservatives in the so-called House Freedom Caucus are praising Ryan even as he permanently locks in these irreversible and anti-American immigration policies. According to Politico, the House Freedom Caucus will give Ryan a pass even as he funds disastrous policies that prioritize the interests of foreign nationals and global corporatists above the needs of the American people whom lawmakers are supposed to represent. Via: Breitbart News | 1real |
Russia detains Norwegian citizen over suspected spying: RIA | MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia has detained a Norwegian citizen it suspects of spying, the RIA news agency reported on Tuesday, citing a Moscow court which sanctioned the individual s detention. Media reports said Russia s FSB security service had caught the Norwegian taking secret documents about the Russian Navy from a Russian citizen. | 0fake |
FEEL THE BERN: Supporters Line Up At 4:30 A.M. To See Trump…In Bernie Sander’s Home State | It would appear that socialism is not the only answer in the ultra-liberal state of Vermont Tonight s Donald Trump rally in Burlington Vermont has all the makings of a doozy political event. Burlington Vermont is ground-zero for Democrat Bernie Sanders and both Trump supporters and Bernie s political protesters have plans on attendance.In essence Trump is quite popular and viewed very favorably by the general citizenry of Vermont. However, the professional political apparatus in/around government enterprise is quite hostile (openly so) toward the Trump campaign. Yes, Trump is walking in to Mordor to show his supporters what fearless campaigning looks like in person .BURLINGTON, Vt. Hours before Donald J. Trump was set to hold a rally in the Flynn Center here, a crowd of supporters, hecklers and curious observers braved freezing temperatures to get a glimpse of the Republican presidential candidate who dared to set foot on the traditionally liberal turf of Senator Bernie Sanders.Wearing Make America Great Again hats and hoodies, dozens of people some of whom had arrived as early as 4:30 a.m. snaked around the block along Burlington s Main Street in the hope of getting one of the theater s 1,400 seats. The Trump campaign distributed more than 20,000 tickets to the event, sending the theater s administrators and the local police department into a frenzy on how to handle the huge overflow.Those bundled up outside just wanted to see the billionaire businessman in the flesh. Surprisingly, some were fans of both Mr. Trump and Mr. Sanders, the Vermont senator seeking the Democratic nomination, and were trying to decide which one to back. I think he s smart, and he has the best chance of winning support and maybe flipping the state, Daniel Nadeau, 22, of St. Albans, Vt., said of Mr. Trump. Bernie is my No. 1 choice, and Trump is No. 2. They re not that different. Voters who were on the fence between the seemingly polar-opposite candidates said that both communicated well with working-class people and made strong cases for how they would boost the economy, despite their differing policy ideas.For entire story: Conservative Treehouse | 1real |
Who Paid Hillary Clinton $21.7 Million to Give Speeches? | Who Paid Hillary Clinton $21.7 Million to Give Speeches? American Renaissance, October 31, 2016
There are legal limits on the amount of money a corporation can contribute to a political campaign, and the contributions are not tax-deductible. However, if a corporation pays someone to give a speech, there is no legal limit on what the company may pay, and the speaker’s fee is tax-deductible as a business expense. It is a very effective way to put money into the pockets of politician–no doubt with the expectation of future benefits.
In the last three years, companies have paid Hillary Clinton $21.7 million to give speeches. Here is a list of her 92 speaking engagements, the companies that hired her, and how much she was paid. | 1real |
Conservatives Desperately Turn To Social Media To Blame Refugees For Orlando Shooting (TWEETS) | Early Sunday morning, Omar Mateen walked into a gay nightclub in Orlando and proceeded to murder 50 people, and wound over 50 more. He was allegedly set off by seeing two men kissing, and decided that was reason enough to commit the worst domestic terror attack since 9/11. Conservatives all over the place have been quick to jump on this, not as a failure of Islamophobia and their more guns everywhere mantra, but as a failure of policies that allow Middle Eastern immigrants and refugees here.Let s be clear: Mateen was not a refugee. He was a 29-year old U.S. citizen from New York who obtained his guns legally. His parents were Afghan refugees, though, who would have come to the U.S. under conservative icon St. Reagan. Mateen came to ISIS as a U.S. citizen living legally in the U.S., which is one way ISIS operates.But conservatives don t care about facts. We must find a way to make sure nobody blames anything we ve said and done for this! they cry. Middle Eastern refugees make a convenient scapegoat, so that s what they re doing.Take a look at what they re saying on social media. TONS of conservatives many of whom are Trump drones are blaming refugees for this whether they think Mateen was a refugee himself or not. Get a bucket and some aspirin handy. This will make your hair hurt if it doesn t make you puke first.Omar Mateen Registered Democrat. Let s import some more Muslim Refugees. Our whole world is upside down because of Islam. Daxton Brown (@daxtonbrown) June 12, 2016 Ramadan Massacre In Orlando Proves Donald Trump Was Right On Muslim Immigration Ban Now The End Begins https://t.co/GYuZRF54py Lorrona (@ibangel) June 12, 2016FBI now saying they first became aware of Omar Mateen in 2013. What about CIA? I say bullshit. Big gov t bullshit. pic.twitter.com/YxgGxnJOzu TexasLibertarian (@shootist2015) June 12, 2016 #GunControlNow ok fine, but why are we refusing to acknowledge the problem that is #RadicalIslam and continous influx of Syrian refugees? shreshtha wadhwa (@swadhwa1006) June 12, 2016LGBT folks. More Omar Mateen Islamic terrorists coming to Your Town , like Orlando , w/each Syrian Refugee group.#TrumpTrain #neverhillary Obama World of Oz (@Obamaisnuts) June 12, 2016 Omar Saddiqui Mateen is not the need for gun control, but the need for a refugee ban and a wall Leroy Bierfreund (@BierfreundLeroy) June 12, 2016@LindaSuhler Afghan refugee w US passport Omar Mateen a Muslim, shot 103 LGBT, notice both main support groups for HRC, are gays suicidal? Nu iOtwo (@nuiotwo) June 12, 2016Of course, we can always count on Donald Trump to congratulate himself and his formidable psychic powers after a tragedy like this: Appreciate the congrats for being right on radical Islamic terrorism, I don t want congrats, I want toughness & vigilance. We must be smart! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 12, 2016It didn t stop with Twitter. Search Omar Mateen refugee on Facebook and you ll see post, after post, after post like the ones that follow.However, below is a tweet that actually makes sense. Mateen s values are in line with our right-wing Christian values. It s a good bet that we have squillions of right-wing Christians condemning his values though, while preaching the exact same hate and bigotry against the LGBT community. They are hypocrites of the worst kind. If #omarmateen was motivated by radical Islam, his hatred of LGBTQ people is consistent with US religious right and religious freedom laws Captain Renault (@JohnMonch) June 12, 2016Xenophobia and Islamophobia are infecting our country, and it s stopping people from being able to think reasonably about this, and about how conservative ideology contributed to this. One publication, called Now The End Begins, has this headline on their top story: Ramadan Massacre In Orlando Proves Donald Trump Was Right On Muslim Immigration Ban An immigration ban would have stopped this? Please. Mateen was already here. However, the editor of that story showed himself to be a Trump drone, saying at the top of the story: The early morning Islamic terror attack in Orlando is now being called the worst mass shooting in United States history, with the death toll now at 50 and rising. Donald Trump said this would happen and has called repeatedly for a complete ban on all Muslim immigration. I say it s also time to start closing down the mosques as well. And do what with all those displaced Muslims? ISIS will have a field day recruiting them after that.Pamela Gellar, who can always be counted on to have one of the worst responses to any tragedy like this, wrote her own post in which she said:Yes, by all means, find any justification possible to deflect blame from all the directions it will come, because that s what conservatives do. These people are the reason ISIS can recruit within the U.S. Their ranting, raving and railing is what will make it worse.Featured image by Gerardo Mora/Getty Images | 1real |
Highlights: The Trump presidency on March 2 at 5:35 p.m. ET | (Reuters) - Highlights of the day for U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration on Thursday: U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions removes himself from any investigations into alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election because he was involved with Trump’s campaign. The Russian Embassy to the United States says it had regular contact with “U.S. partners” after the Washington Post reported that Sessions had failed to disclose meetings with Russia’s ambassador. FBI Director James Comey is tight-lipped when asked about investigations into any Russian meddling in the U.S. election during a closed-door meeting in Congress, the leading Democrat on the House intelligence committee says. Former neurosurgeon Ben Carson wins Senate approval to become secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, making him the sole African-American member of Trump’s Cabinet. The Senate votes to confirm Trump’s pick to head the Department of Energy, former Texas Governor Rick Perry, who has promised to focus much of his attention on renewing America’s nuclear weapons arsenal. Trump’s nominee to run the department overseeing the U.S. government’s health programs for the elderly and disabled wins the backing of a Senate committee, clearing the way for a full vote in the Senate. The United States says it carried out more than 20 precision strikes in Yemen targeting al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, in the first major operations against the group since a January raid by U.S. commandos. The White House is proposing to slash a quarter of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s budget, targeting climate-change programs and those designed to prevent air and water pollution like lead contamination, a source with direct knowledge of the proposal says. Trump says he wants a U.S. military buildup of more ships and planes to “project American power in distant lands,” making his case for a proposed $54 billion increase in defense spending that has U.S. lawmakers squabbling. The lead Syrian opposition negotiator at peace talks in Geneva says he hopes Trump will correct the “catastrophic” errors of his predecessor, Barack Obama, to become a reliable partner against “devilish” Iran. The Trump administration’s dollar policy is not clear, and the currency’s further near-term strength will depend mainly on the speed of Federal Reserve interest-rate hikes, according to a majority of foreign exchange strategists polled by Reuters. | 0fake |
MEDIA LIE EXPOSED: Hundreds Of Students Rally In Support Of Fired SC School Cop: Fight Back Against Cop-Hating, Race Baiting Media[VIDEO] | We shared our Game Changer story with you earlier this week, after a new video emerged allowing a more clear picture of the student physically attacking the school cop assigned to removing her from class.Now in a surprising turn of events (which will certainly be a huge disappointment to the leftist media and George Soros funded Black Lives Matter terrorist organization), the students are fighting back against a manufactured media event created to promote more cop hate and racial division in America.Well, this is interesting.MT Spring Valley Walkout for fields today #bringbackfields #bringfieldsback pic.twitter.com/UamWKU6AXN Oink Trotters (@OinkTrottters) October 30, 2015Students wore T-shirts that said #BringBackFields or Free Fields. #BringBackFields pic.twitter.com/6jbmEnuSrN Mina Rena . (@_cappex) October 30, 2015 He was a great guy, student London Harrell told local WISTV. He protected us and everything. He was our school resource officer. We always could depend on him and everything. Every time I saw him, he was always joking around with people. It was never like Oh, I m about to body slam you. Principal Jeff Temoney said none of the students would be suspended if they returned to class. We ve heard your voices, okay, Temoney said according to WISTV. We appreciate you taking time to do this, but again, as you know, we always focus on teaching and learning, so let s head on back to class. pic.twitter.com/LJiGyAXDUs John Cassibry (@JCass_12) October 30, 2015Principal Temoney released a statement several hours later about the walkout, which said students and staff were safe during the protest.Fields, who is white, was recorded on cell phone video using force on an African-American student during a school discipline incident. When shared on social media, the footage caused national outrage on the use of force in schools and by school resource officers. Fields was fired on Wednesday. Via: RTHere is how the original story was presented to the public:School officer uses force against black female student, slams her on floor (VIDEO) https://t.co/0bLck097Sw pic.twitter.com/6oFt3fluFH RT America (@RT_America) October 27, 2015Here is how we responded when a student reluctantly shared their video with others which allowed the other side of the story to be told. Click HERE for the other side of the story. | 1real |
The Doubt Machine: Inside The Koch Brothers’ War on Climate Science | [Photo: Before and after mountain top removal for coal extraction. Devastation brought to you by the Koch Brothers. Credit: Earth Justice.] =By= The Real News Network Editor's Note
We are at the point in Earth history, the breaking point. Humanity, (let’s be fair shall we?) western “civilization” has virtually killed the only home we have. There is no place for homeless humanity to go when this home becomes habitable only for cockroaches and similarly hardy beasts. Those in the worst offender nation, the United States, have allowed themselves to be pacified into disbelief that we are, or even can, destroy the only home we have. Much of that willing disbelief is founded on a welll orchestrated propaganda campagn carried out by the fossil fuel industry and the owners of it such as the Koch Brothers. The video below examines this decades long campaign that has been waged to lead a willing populace to the graveyard of humanity.
We are literally at a point where days matter in reversing course. We (humanity) does not have centuries to address this problem. We don’t even have decades. Some argue that if something significant is not done by 2017 to radically reduce the production of global warming gasses that it will be too late to avoid the worst that is coming at us. We are talking months – not years. Recognizing the urgency, many organizations and publications are devoting major effort to addressing the destruction of our world. The Real News Network is starting a Global Climate Change Bureau. The Greanville Post and Uncommon Thought Journal are dedicated to bringing you consistent news, analysis, and engagement opportunities focused on ACD ( Anthropogenic Climate Disruption ) – as Dahr Jamail argues, ACD clear puts the blame for the problem on humans. Please join us in this effort and send pertinent materials to Rowan Wolf at managing.ed@greanvillepost.com .
From The Real News Network
Scientists say Temperatures Will Rise to Critical 2° by 2050
The Real News Network is Building a Global Climate Change Bureau
2014 and 2015 each set the record for hottest calendar year since scientists began measuring surface temperatures over 150 years ago, and 2016 is shaping up to be even warmer. This will be the first time that we’ve seen three consecutive years with record-breaking temperatures.
A temperature increase of two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels will now be reached much sooner than earlier predicted according to a report by seven leading climate scientists.
“The 1.5°C target could be reached by the early 2030’s and the 2°C target by 2050” says the report that included Sir Robert Watson, former Chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The scientists say that even if all the pledges made by the signatory countries to the Paris agreement are fully implemented, climate will pass this dangerous mark in 34 years.
This is a threshold that most scientists have warned cannot be crossed without dire consequences, including a rise in sea levels of several feet that would flood many coastal cities in the U.S., longer droughts, more intense heat waves that cause a major disruption in the world’s food supply, and large migrations of people from countries of the global south.
It is also a point where it becomes far more difficult to reverse the warming trend. Some scientists suggest temperatures by the end of the century could rise as much as 4-6°C above pre-industrial levels. [1°C equals 1.8°F, so this is a temperature rise of 7.2-10.8°F]
The report titled The Truth About Climate Change says, “Much of the public believes that climate change is only going to happen by the end of the century,” and that this is a misunderstanding of the urgency. Unless there is a dramatic change in current public policy, most people alive today will live to see the 2°C threshold crossed.
The report continues: “Climate change is happening now, and much faster than anticipated.” Climate change related floods, droughts, more intense storms, heat waves, and wildfires have already had devastating effects on livelihoods, infrastructure, and lives.”
If the 2°C threshold is to be avoided, the report calls for far more aggressive targets than those set by the Paris Agreement and for that action to begin immediately. The report says, “To meet the 2°C target, global CO2 emissions should be net zero by 2060-2075.”
The threat is catastrophic, the science overwhelming. So why aren’t solutions to the climate change crisis at the top of the political agenda?
Why don’t we see millions of people in the streets demanding decisive action? Why isn’t this a major issue in the election debates? Why are politicians who deny the existence of human-caused climate change even elected to office?
The lack of American public engagement in the climate crisis is a global concern. If U.S. policy doesn’t change, human life as we know it and thousands of other species will not survive.
According to a Yale survey, 70% of Americans now believe global warming is real. If so, why isn’t there more political pressure to face up to the crisis?
Dig further into the numbers and the state of public opinion is more fully revealed. Of those who believe climate change is real, only half (53%) think that global warming is mostly human caused. One in three (34%) believe it is due mostly to natural changes in the environment. Only about one in ten Americans understand that nearly all climate scientists (more than 90%) are convinced that human-caused global warming is happening. Over half of Americans (58%) say they are at least “somewhat worried” about global warming, but only 16% say they are “very worried.”
Why are only 16% of people surveyed very worried about what 90% of scientists think is a catastrophic threat?
The Koch Brothers’ war on science certainly plays a major role in promoting doubt about the overwhelming scientific evidence of human-caused climate change. They spend millions financing witch hunts against climate scientists and funding “research” designed to confuse public opinion.
The Kochs and other billionaires with a vested interest pour hundreds of millions into the coffers of politicians willing to obstruct legislation that would regulate fossil fuel and promote a green sustainable economy.
Perhaps as responsible for the gap between public opinion and scientific evidence is corporate television news, “The gatekeeper of public consciousness.”
Firstly, they ignore the crisis. The report cited above was not the lead story on television newscasts. We can’t find evidence it was carried by any U.S. television news outlet at all .
According to a Media Matters report, the four major corporate TV networks aired a total 146 minutes of climate change coverage in 2015. ABC only aired 13 minutes of coverage and Fox’s coverage consisted mostly of “criticism of efforts to address climate change.”
The report continues: CNN aired almost five times as much oil industry advertising as climate change-related coverage in the one-week periods following the announcements that 2015 was the hottest year on record and February 2016 was the most abnormally hot month on record.
Only 16% of Americans are “very worried” about global warming because corporate TV news doesn’t want us to worry about it.
Larry Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell, says: While US foreign policy is mostly responsible for the growth of militant terrorist groups, the threat of a nuclear terrorist attack is existential. Think about what we’ll do when 500,000 people are killed in New York City. We will declare martial law nationwide. We will be the most draconian tyranny you’ve ever seen on the face of this earth. But still I consider climate change a greater danger because it is a threat to the very survival of the human race.
What are the reasons for corporate TV’s lack of interest in the major news story of the century?The obvious answers are pressure from certain advertisers, the interests of corporate ownership, and the political intrigues of the fossil fuel industry.
But I think it goes even deeper.
In 2009, two years after the Fourth IPCC Assessment Report said, “Warming of the climate system is unequivocal,” TV coverage of climate change was at its height – a whopping 205 minutes for the entire year. Even former Republican Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich appeared in an ad with Democratic Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi calling for action on climate warming.
Then something happened.
A large section of the elites looked at what it would really take to meet the target scientists said was necessary to mitigate and stop the terrible consequences of climate change. They said, “No way.”
The transformation required to drastically reduce the use of fossil fuels and move to a green economy would change who has power and how business is done. There is no way to achieve the necessary reduction in carbon emissions without serious government regulation, a strengthening of the public sector, and massive public investment. All this requires a reduction in the political power of the fossil fuel industry and the financial elites associated with it.
Gingrich renounced the Pelosi ad in 2011.
The majority of the billionaires who control the commanding heights of the economy and politics are more interested in short-term profits and immediate personal gratification than some “long-term” threat. They either fight against all climate change legislative action or support relatively weak measures to reduce carbon emissions – better than nothing, but far from what scientists say is required.
For most people of wealth it comes down to a simple calculation: My family and I will be ok . As the IPCC puts it: “Risks are unevenly distributed and are generally greater for disadvantaged people and communities in countries at all levels of development.”
People who understand the scale of the systemic risk are marginalized by corporate media and thus are marginalized in politics.
A critical task in engaging large numbers of ordinary people in fighting and voting for a rational climate change policy is breaking the corporate monopoly on daily video news. We must create an independent, uncompromising source of global climate change news and investigative reports.
The very first story ever produced by TRNN in 2007 was an interview series with George Monbiot on the urgent climate change threat. We produced a series titled “Who Cares About Bangladesh” soon afterwards.
We reported directly from the COP21 Climate Conference in Paris.
We did in-depth interviews with climatologists like Dr. Alan Robock and Dr. Michael Mann who both worked on the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Economist Robert Pollin has appeared in numerous interviews with specific proposals for a transition to a green economy.
We recently interviewed the esteemed actor Emma Thompson while she was onboard a Greenpeace vessel in the Arctic.
We’ve reported on environmental activism from all over the world.
We will soon be releasing the documentary “The Doubt Machine: The Koch Brothers War on Climate Science” narrated by Emma Thompson.
With our limited resources we have produced more than 535 reports on climate change since the fall of 2007 when we started our service. In 2015, we produced 1029 minutes of programming about climate change. That’s more than seven times of all the major networks combined .
We have produced more than 10,000 reports and interviews overall since we began our daily production. We also cover international and national news and now have a bureau in Baltimore reporting on the problems and solutions to the crisis of urban America. Millions of people have watched. We average 1.5 million views per month.
While we have worked hard to keep a focus on climate change, what we have accomplished is far from enough. We need a Climate Bureau with sufficient resources to become a major daily video climate news service for online and TV.
The power of daily video news is what shapes most people’s world view and the field is dominated by news organizations that will not seriously address the problem or are in fact, part of the “doubt machine.”
It is clear that a radical change in the way the world produces and uses energy is required. Currently, about 82% of energy produced in the world is obtained by burning fossil fuels. How we produce energy without burning fossil fuels will be critically important as the world population is expected to grow by 40% to 10 billion by 2050.
Please go to The Real News in order to read the rest of their plans for their new Global Climate Change Bureau (GCCB). | 1real |
Biden probably won’t beat Clinton. He should run anyway. | Joe Biden, in the (still unlikely) event he runs for president, probably won’t beat Hillary Clinton. He’s been a lackluster presidential candidate in the past, and there’s no clear path for him to win the Democratic nomination this time.
He should do it anyway.
The rationale — floated to me by a Biden lieutenant — is that the vice president could serve as a stalking horse. His entry would shake up the race and thereby lower the barriers for other, potentially better-positioned, candidates to join the fray.
This could turn the Democratic contest into a free-wheeling affair, and for the party there would be only upside: Either the more fragmented Democratic field would produce a better candidate than Clinton, or, more likely, it would sharpen Clinton on her way to the nomination.
The term “stalking horse” dates back some 500 years, to a time when hunters hid behind equines to sneak up on their prey. In politics, the term refers to a candidate who diverts attention from another and thus benefits a third. To switch metaphors, Biden jumping into the race could convince other aspirants that the water’s fine — and reduce their fears that taking the plunge would end their careers.
A Biden-scrambled race for the nomination could make a run more attractive to a dozen or more Democrats, most of whom have said they’re not running and some of whom have already endorsed Clinton. All are unlikely. Most would fail, and badly. But a Biden run should, at minimum, alter their calculations.
Previous nominees Al Gore or John Kerry could jump in, validating Mo Udall’s theory that presidential ambition can only be cured by embalming fluid. Mike Bloomberg could rejoin the party and put his billions to work in a shortened primary season. Populists such as Sen. Elizabeth Warren (Mass.) or, failing that, Sen. Sherrod Brown (Ohio) or Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York could reconsider.
Young candidates such as Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro or Sen. Cory Booker (N.J.) could bring racial and ethnic diversity to the race, as could former Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick. Those excited about Clinton’s history-making potential as a woman could get behind Sens. Amy Klobuchar (Minn.) or Kirsten Gillibrand (N.Y.).
Among governors, there’s John Hickenlooper of Colorado and New York’s Andrew Cuomo (who has a famous name if not much of a record), a pair of former Virginia governors, Sens. Tim Kaine and Mark Warner, and outspoken former Montana governor Brian Schweitzer.
It’s late in the cycle for new entrants, but not too late: A CBS News analysis finds that of the nearly 770 top Obama fundraisers from 2012, as few as 51 have committed to bundling big money for Clinton. Because Clinton has largely plugged in Obama’s campaign operation, plenty of Democratic operatives are available. And new candidates would be arriving just in time for the debate season, beginning Oct. 13 in Nevada and followed by others in November, December and January, with two more in either February or March.
Not least, there’s a clamor for Clinton alternatives from the political press corps, which has a long history of antagonism toward her. There’s also eagerness for alternatives among the Democratic faithful, demonstrated by the large crowds and enthusiasm for Bernie Sanders, even though he’s a professorial socialist who is about to turn 74.
Democrats are reasonably content with Clinton: In the latest Post/ABC News poll, 72 percent of Democratic-leaning voters said they were satisfied with their choice of candidates, and 24 percent very satisfied. But they could be more so: At this time in 2007, 83 percent of Democratic-leaning voters were satisfied, and 33 percent very satisfied.
Satisfaction could diminish as Clinton’s e-mail-server troubles continue. She’s scheduled to testify Oct. 22 before the House’s Benghazi committee, which has generated much of the e-mail-server controversy. The State Department is expected to continue dribbling out Clinton’s old e-mails the rest of this year as they are cleared for public consumption. And many of her e-mails are facing reviews to see whether they contained classified information. Clinton originally said that she did not use her private e-mail account to exchange classified information, but she has since retreated to saying that none of her e-mails had been marked as classified.
Even if she did nothing illegal, the potential for more damage to Clinton remains high. But there is one thing that can shift attention from the e-mail saga, inject energy into the Democratic side of the presidential race and strengthen Clinton or the eventual nominee: A stalking horse, of course.
Read more from Dana Milbank’s archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook. | 0fake |
No country for migrant stowaways caught on ferry between Ukraine and Turkey | COPENHAGEN (Reuters) - Twelve migrants, apparently from North Africa, have been sailing to and fro on a Danish passenger ferry between Istanbul and Odessa for the last seven weeks locked in four cabins, with no country willing to take them. According to the Danish DFDS ferry operator, Turkey and Ukraine both refuse to accept the men, who have been violent and threatening suicide. There has been a tendency to violence and aggressions and they have threatened to jump overboard... so there is no alternative to locking them inside the cabins, a DFDS spokesman told Reuters on Thursday. DFDS has hired Turkish guards and invited authorities from the United Nations aboard to question the men of which they believe at least six are Moroccans and four Algerian. The origin of the remaining two is still unknown. The Danish Foreign Ministry has opened negotiations with Turkey, Ukraine and, since the ferry is sailing under the Lithuanian flag, with Vilnius. The problem can be solved. All it takes is a quick decision from Ankara or Kiev, a source in the Danish Foreign Ministry with knowledge of the negotiations told Reuters. A spokesman for the Ukrainian border service said the men wanted to go from Turkey to Romania but got on the wrong ferry and ended up in Ukraine, where they cannot be taken in because they do not have documents. The problem is that Turkey doesn t want to take them, but Turkey should take them because they sailed from Turkey, he said, adding that in accordance with the bilateral agreement, the country that delivered these people should take them back. That s why they ve been cruising about on that ferry, he said. A Turkish foreign ministry official said the case was being followed with all related institutions . DFDS suspected that the young men, in spite of various security measures, boarded by hiding in a trailer that was loaded onto the ferry. According to the ferry operator, the best solution would be if Ukraine or Turkey agreed to take the migrants, or to get final confirmation as to where the men are from, so they can be sent back to these countries. It is completely unsound that we should handle thi, DFDS said. This is a situation the border controls should handle, not a transportation company. | 0fake |
Malawi 'vampirism' mania spreads as two die in mob violence | BLANTYRE (Reuters) - A wave of attacks in Malawi against people accused of vampirism has spread to its second-biggest city of Blantyre, where vigilante mobs killed two people, police said on Thursday. The lynch mob attacks began in mid-September in a country that is one of the world s poorest and where belief in witchcraft is widespread. Six people had already died in the attacks. In Blantyre on Thursday, mobs torched a 22-year-old epileptic man in Chileka, and another man was stoned to death ...after being suspected of being a blood sucker, said Ramsy Mushani, a national police spokesman. A Reuters reporter witnessed the first incident at a police checkpoint on a road leading to the city s airport. A family member confirmed the man was epileptic and that he was killed while walking home from a nearby hospital. Malawian President Peter Mutharika has been visiting parts of the country affected by the vampire scare, trying to prevent the deaths of innocent people. The United Nations and U.S. embassy have blacklisted several districts in Malawi as dangerous zones for staffers and nationals. Earlier this month the UN pulled staff out of two districts in southern Malawi. | 0fake |
NEW REPORT: OBAMAPHONE Program Stashed $9 BILLION In Private Bank Accounts…Exposes Massive Windfall For Phone Companies | Who could forget the Obamaphone Lady from Cleveland, OH, who unashamedly told an interviewer she was voting for Obama because all minorities in Cleveland get a free Obamaphone from Obama, and He s gonna do more! She actually woke up and admitted that she, and other minorities had been played by Obama in a follow-up video at the bottom of the page.The controversial Obamaphone program, which pays for cellphones for the poor, is rife with fraud, according to a new government report released Thursday that found more than a third of enrollees may not even be qualified.Known officially as the Lifeline Program, the phone giveaway became a symbol of government waste in the previous administration. Now a new report from the Government Accountability Office bears out those concerns.The report, requested by Sen. Claire McCaskill, Missouri Democrat, also says the program has stashed some $9 billion in assets in private bank accounts rather than with the federal treasury, further increasing risks and depriving taxpayers of the full benefit of that money. A complete lack of oversight is causing this program to fail the American taxpayer everything that could go wrong is going wrong, said Mrs. McCaskill, ranking Democrat on the Senate s chief oversight committee and who is a former state auditor in Missouri. We re currently letting phone companies cash a government check every month with little more than the honor system to hold them accountable, and that simply can t continue, she said. The program, run by the Federal Communications Commission, predates President Obama, but it gained attention during his administration when recipients began to associate the free phone with other benefits he doled out to the poor. Washington TimesThe Daily Caller reported:A massive portion of Obamaphone recipients are receiving the benefit after lying on their applications, according to a new 90-page report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO).An undercover sting operation showed ineligible applications were approved 63 percent of the time, and a review that found that 36 to 65 percent of beneficiaries in various categories had lied in easily-detectable ways but were approved anyway.The fraud reached unheard-of proportions because the Federal Communications Commission let the task of screening for eligibility fall to phone companies that profit off of enrolling as many people as possible.GAO undercover investigators applied for free government phones 19 times using criteria that should have been rejected, and we were approved to receive Lifeline services by 12 of the 19 Lifeline providers using fictitious eligibility documentation. All someone has to do to apply for free cell phone service is say that they are on another welfare program, such as food stamps or disability, known as SSI.When Congress considered reforms, phone companies took out daily full-page ads in publications read by Capitol Hill staffers. The wife of the CEO of TracFone, the largest beneficiary of Obamaphones, was a mega-fundraiser for former President Barack Obama.The cause of the fraud rates, shocking even by federal government standards, was always clear: The FCC allowed companies with a profit motive to sign up as many people as possible to determine eligibility.Phone companies swooped into housing projects in vans with neon flashing lights to register users. A woman approached by one such representative outside of a welfare office told The Daily Caller News Foundation Investigative Group the man encouraged her to enroll her two-year-old.The companies weren t checking eligibility, and the FCC wasn t ensuring they did or punishing those who didn t. Additionally, the FCC failed to provide many companies with the intra-government databases that would give them the ability to perform some checks, the GAO found.The Obamaphone Lady aka Michelle Dowry made an appearance on Alex Jones show where she admitted to finally waking up, as she discovered that Barack Obama s presidency was a giant hoax. The only thing that Michele and the rest of the the minority community Obama promised to help got during his 8 years in office was a tax-payer funded free phone: | 1real |
Donald Trump Is Going To Be Elected
| Donald Trump is going to be elected president.
The American people voted for him a long time ago.
They voted for him when The History Channel went from showing documentaries about the Second World War to Pawn Stars and Swamp People.
They voted for him when The Discovery Channel went from showing Lost Treasures of the Yangtze Valley to Naked and Afraid.
They voted for him when The Learning Channel moved from something you could learn from to My 600-lb Life.
They voted for him when CBS went from airing Harvest of Shame to airing Big Brother.
These networks didnt make these programming changes by accident. They were responding to what the American people actually wanted. And what they wanted was Naked and Afraid and Duck Dynasty.
The polls may show that Donald Trump is losing to Hillary Clinton, but dont you believe those polls. When the AC Nielsen Company selects a new Nielsen family, they disregard the new familys results for the first three months. The reason: when they feel they are being monitored, people lie about what they are watching. In the first three months, knowing they are being watched, they will tune into PBS. But over time they get tired of pretending. Then it is back to the Kardashians.
The same goes for people who are being asked by pollsters for whom they are voting. They will not say Donald Trump. It is too embarrassing. But the truth is, they like Trump. He is just like their favorite shows on TV.
Mindless entertainment.
Trumps replacement of Paul Manafort with Breitbarts Steve Bannon shows that Trump understands how Americans actually think. They think TV. They think ratings. They think entertainment.
We are a TV-based culture. We have been for some time now. The average American spends 5 hours a day, every day, watching TV. After sleep, it is our number one activity.
More shockingly, we spend 8.5 hours a day staring at screens phones, tablets, computers. And more and more of the content on those devices is also video and TV.
If you spend 5-8 hours a day, every day, for years and years doing the same thing it has an impact on you. For the past 40 years, we have devoted 5-8 hours a day staring at a screen every day. And we havent been watching Judy Woodruff. We have been watching reality TV shows. That is what we love. That is what we resonate to. The Real Housewives of Atlanta.
The French may love food. The Italians may love opera. What we love is TV. We are TV culture. It defines who we are.
In the 1950s, early television was allowed, with many restrictions, to be an observational guest at political conventions. They were quiet flies on the wall, carefully and quietly commentating on what they saw way down below. They did not get involved in the process. Today, they ARE the process. Today, political conventions are nothing but carefully directed TV shows. Likewise debates. They exist only to entertain a TV audience. TV and entertainment now dictate everything political. It is a never-ending show. The biggest reality show on air.
And Donald Trump is great TV.
He knows how to entertain.
He understands ratings.
Hillary Clinton is crap TV.
She may be smarter, better prepared, a better politician. It wont matter. She is terrible entertainment.
Thats just how it is. Depressing, but true.
He is Kim Kardashian. She is Judy Woodruff.
Who gets better ratings?
Who would you rather watch for the next four years?
Honestly...
In 1825, the great French gastronom Brillat de Savarind said, Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you what you are. Today, in America, we can safely say, Tell me what you watch, and I will tell you what you are.
And what do we watch?
It isnt PBS NewsHour. | 0fake |
WATCH: President Obama Absolutely PUMMELS The GOP On Fox News | The Republican Party has been a thorn in the side of the president since he took office. They have challenged his policies at almost every corner and at times just for the sake of it, thus preventing the country from running smoothly. Even now, as the president is close to the end of his final term, the GOP is not letting up. In their latest attempt at obstructionism, the Republican Party is attempting to scuttle the president s nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court. President Barack Obama appeared on Fox News Sunday for the first time as president and had a few things to say about Republican obstructionism.Watch video here:[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zHqWf81IbDA]The president wants the GOP to simply do one thing, which is to give Judge Merrick Garland a hearing in order for the American people to be given an opportunity to see what his nominee is all about. The president said: I think that people will evolve as they get familiar with Judge Garland s record, as it becomes apparent that the overwhelming majority of the American people think that the president should nominate someone to the Supreme Court and the Senate should now do its constitutional job and give him a hearing Our goal is to just make sure that the senate does its job and treats him fairly. The Republicans want the next president to nominate a justice to the Supreme Court, hoping that a Republican president would appoint a conservative justice. The president went on to add that never has a Republican nominee for the Supreme Court not at least had a hearing. Yet, here are the Republicans yet again scuttling by preventing the president from doing his job and not doing their constitutional duties as well.The Republicans continue to obstruct but let s hope that they remain on the sidelines come November and we don t have to deal with a GOP presidential administration. Featured image via video screenshot. | 1real |
A LOOK INSIDE NORTH KOREA’S Lavish Underground Nuclear Bunker…Is This Why Kim Jong Un Is Unafraid Of Nuclear Conflict? [VIDEO] | A defector from North Korea is cautioning against underestimating Kim Jong Un when it comes to nuclear weapons and he says President Donald Trump may be key to stopping him.Song Byeok escaped from the North in 2002 and currently resides in South Korea. In a new interview, he told The Independent the threat of nuclear war is real as long as Kim Jong-un is in power. I think Kim Jong Un could wage nuclear war if his power is threatened and that is why he needs to be removed as soon as possible, he said.The 48-year-old defector used to create propaganda art for the regime, now he creates protest work. AoLThese pictures show the inside of Pyongyang s 360ft deep metro system that will double up as a nuclear bunker if war breaks out between North Korea and the US.Images show commuters using the world s deepest underground train system which includes two lines with a combined length of 18 miles beneath North Korea s capital.Construction work on the Pyongyang Metro started in 1968 and was inaugurated in 1973 by Kim Il Sung, the grandfather of current dictator Kim Jong-un.Watch this fascinating look into North Korea by photographer Andrew McLeod: And while it is usually busy with commuters, the depth of the subway system means citizens could also use it as a shelter should tensions between North Korea and America boil over into full-scale war.The trains are old carriages from Germany which were bought up by North Korea in 1999 as they were heading for the scrap heap. Pyongyang now claims the trains were built in North Korea, but despite attempts to conceal their origin, some old graffiti tags can be seen on the carriages.French photographer Eric Lafforgue captured these images during a trip to the hermit state and said there were only 17 stations on two lines.He said the fare was the equivalent of half a US cent You have to validate your ticket at one of these automatic machines. But they did not work the day I visited. Instead, a train attendant checked was checking the tickets by hand.For entire story: Daily Mail | 1real |
Libertarian Gary Johnson Tries His Luck in Las Vegas | Gary Johnson's presidential campaign of actually going places, standing in front of big crowds, and talking continues, moving from Miami on Wednesday to Las Vegas yesterday.
From the Las Vegas Review-Journal's account of his appearance before a "high energy" crowd with his usual framing of wanting to keep government out of the bedroom and the pocketbook:
Johnson told attendants that Libertarianism is about choice, noting he's pro-gay marriage and believes abortions should be the decision of the affected women. He called the death penalty "flawed public policy" and favors legalizing marijuana. In Nevada, "you have the chance to do it and you're going to do it," Johnson said of the November referendum that could legalize recreational marijuana for users over the age of 21.
They remain hopeful about reaching the Commission on Presidential Debates 15 percent in five polls threshold, even if perhaps not by the first one:
Weld raised the possibility that even if they can't reach the polling benchmark by the first debate, slated for Sept. 26, that if polling continues they could reach eligibility for a later debate. The last presidential debate is slated for Oct. 19 at UNLV. Coalition to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol spokesman Joe Brezny, who ran the Nevada campaign for Mitt Romney's presidential bid four years ago, said Thursday that he's supporting Johnson and Weld and noted of Republicans that he "watched some good people nominate the least electable person in mankind."....
Weld contended to cheers that the fiscal conservatism he and Johnson demonstrated in their gubernatorial tenures is just what's needed in Washington D.C. Johnson, meanwhile, pledged that if elected, he would present Congress with a balanced budget within the first 100 days of taking the White House.
• Montanan political analysts and watchers think Johnson could easily double his 3 percent from 2012:
Montana voters have shown in past elections that they will support candidates who do not represent the two major political parties. Just four years ago, Libertarian candidate Dan Cox received 6.5 percent of the vote in Montana's Senate race. Some political analysts speculated his strong showing prevented Republican Denny Rehberg from beating incumbent Sen. Jon Tester, a Democrat
• If he reaches $10 million in direct campaign donations, he runs the risk of being offered Secret Service protection. A campaign email today says that in just this month so far they've pulled $3 million from 92,000 distinct donors.
• Reporting from the Sun Journal in Maine on the nature of Johnson's appeal and the Libertarian Party's situation in the state. Johnson will be appearing in Maine on August 26:
"It was like he was saying everything in my brain," [Heidi] Sawyer said. "For me, Johnson represents fiscal conservatism, small government, not wasteful spending, a government where more money would go to classrooms and where they'd make sense." Sawyer, the creator of the popular Lewiston Rocks Facebook page, was intrigued. "Things like that perked my interest," she said. Sawyer said she's fiscally conservative but socially liberal. She's not opposed to gay marriage. "I don't care about what people do in their bedrooms," she said. The Libertarian Party isn't about foreign involvement, "fighting wars creating more conflict. I want to make sure we're not putting our nose where it shouldn't be." So, Sawyer became a Maine state volunteer coordinator for the Libertarian Party...
The Maine L.P. needs to have "10,000 registered voters who are enrolled in the party cast ballots in the General Election, among other provisions in Maine law," to maintain ballot status as an official party, according to the state government.
I reported earlier on Maine's difficult but ultimately successful fight to get on the ballot this year. | 0fake |
RIOTERS CHASE DOWN Trump Supporter’s Truck…Attack Him While Screaming “Peaceful Protest”…Throw Bricks | Portland rioters have been chasing a Trump supporters truck for 8 blocks. pic.twitter.com/ZjYr5c5h5x Just Call Me Mister (@MisterMetokur) November 11, 2016The rioters then track down the Trump supporter at another light, continue to attack him while screaming peaceful protest and throwing bricks:Portland rioters track down Trump supporter at another light, continue to attack him while screaming peaceful protest and throwing bricks. pic.twitter.com/zzG91B1aX8 Just Call Me Mister (@MisterMetokur) November 11, 2016 | 1real |
White House says supports congressional review of Russian hacking | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House said on Monday it supported reviews by Congress of Russian interference into the 2016 U.S. presidential election, saying intelligence agencies have been cooperating closely with lawmakers from both parties. “We certainly have long supported the principle of congressional review of this matter,” spokesman Josh Earnest told a news briefing. | 0fake |
Trump’s grandfather was a pimp and tax evader; his father a member of the KKK | Trump’s grandfather was a pimp and tax evader; his father a member of the KKK As they say, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree; Donald Trump's racism can easily be traced through his lineage. American Herald Tribune Trump’s grandfather was a pimp and tax evader; his father a member of the KKK
Most families of enormous wealth have a dark and sometimes scandalous, even monstrous past. Donald Trump’s clan is no exception to that rule. His grandfather was a pimp and a tax evader, his father a racist who would in the course of his life, clash with New York City Police as a member of the Ku Klux Klan and then as a wealthy real estate magnate, refuse to rent to people of color.
Donald Trump’s legacy is anything but a rags to riches story. His dad kicked the bucket with $250-$300 million in the bank. The man who wants to ban all people of a particular religion from travel, wasn’t born with a silver spoon in his mouth, his was white gold. The only thing more obnoxious than Donald Trump himself, is his family’s money grubbing, bigoted history. The Trumps: Three generations of criminals
Trump’s Grandfather: Pimp and Tax Evader
Donald Trump’s grandfather, Frederick or Frederich Trump, made his money from operating a decadent restaurant and hotel during the Gold Rush at Klondike in the Yukon.
That’s a nice way of saying it.
“Trump made his first fortune operating boom-town hotels, restaurants and brothels”, is more accurate, according to the CBC news report, “Donald says”. Author Gwenda Blair simply wrote, “”The sex.”
Trump’s grandfather was born in Germany, to parents who were employed by a vineyard. He moved to New York City in 1885 where he became a barber. After six years of this, Frederick Trump moved across the United States to Seattle, Washington, where he owned and operated what he referred to as a “decadent restaurant” that was actually called “Poodle Dog” in Seattle’s red light district. Interestingly, the name and concept that had already been established in San Francisco. (He named his restaurant after a dog but would later make money selling horse meat) Around this time Frederick Trump became a US citizen.
A Yukon Sun Newspaper writer described his business: “For single men the Arctic has excellent accommodations as well as the best restaurant in Bennett, but I – sex”.
Trump moved to Monte Cristo, Wash. in 1894, and then four years later, shortly after the Klondike gold rush began, he relocated again to Bennett, British Columbia. Here he ran the “Actic Restaurant and Hotel”. He would next build the “White Horse restaurant and Inn” in Whitehorse, Yukon.
An article published this year by Politico, explains that Frederick Trump sold off his investments and returned to Germany in 1901, as he sensed the end of the gold rush and a subsequent end to prostitution. The following year, he married his former neighbor, Elizabeth Christ in his native German town of Kallstadt. Then he came under heavy scrutiny by the German government,
The country had compulsory military service for men which had to be fulfilled by the age of 35. Donald Trump’s grandfather waited until he was 35 to go back to Germany. He had already amassed great wealth worth well more than half a million US dollars, or 80,000 marks. While his town council was eager to keep Trump and his money, who billed himself as a man who “avoided bars” and led “a quiet life”, other German authorities had a different plan, the Politico article explains. In their view, Trump had relocated to Germany in order to avoid both tax and military-service obligations.
“…the regional authorities refused to let Trump off the hook. Unlike his grandson, who would become too big to fail in business and, more recently, to ignore in politics, Friedrich Trump was not big enough to get away with being a draft-dodger. He and his wife, then pregnant with Fred, Donald’s father, would not be allowed to resume their German citizenship and it would not be extended to their daughter; instead, they were deported—the same fate that Donald would like to impose on undocumented immigrants in the U.S. today.”
The fact that Donald Trump has done so well in the Republican polls is quite amazing, as the party that we think of as conservative, would be expected to shun a man who created exploitative beauty pageants and was born rich strictly because of the nefarious activities of his ancestors.
Trump’s Father: a Lifetime of Racist Practices
Donald Trump has often said he made his money “the old-fashioned way,” and this is true, in that he prospered from racism.
A New York Times article published 01 June 1927, related Donald Trump’s father Fred Trump’s role in a Ku Klux Klan brawl that pitted 1,000 klansmen against 100 New York City Police in Queens. Though he wasn’t officially charged, Fred Trump was one of seven klansmen arrested during the incident. It probably wasn’t very shocking at the time as America’s racist practices were in full swing generations after Abe Lincoln freed the country’s African-American slaves. In fact the mid-20’s saw a peak in KKK activity. Donald Trump would later deny his father’s involvement in the KKK brawl in spite of the fact that it happened two decades before he was born. Fred Trump’s enthusiasm for racist practices never changed until he was forced to do so by the law.
Presidential Candidate Donald Trump joined his father’s real estate company in New York in 1971, and only two years later, the company was served with a civil rights lawsuit that was filed against the Trump organization because it refused to rent to Black people. The Urban League got wind of the racist rental policy and actually sent both Black and White people in to apply for apartments that belonged to complexes owned by the Trumps. What they proved, was that Black people were denied rentals across the board, and only Whites were approved. A Village Voice article by Wayne Barrett, published in 1979, blew the lid off the Trump organization’s brewing pot of racist practices.
“Three doormen were told to discourage blacks who came seeking apartments when the manager was out, either by claiming no vacancies or hiking up the rents. A super said he was instructed to send black applicants to the central office but to accept white applications on site. Another rental agent said that Fred Trump had instructed him not to rent to blacks. Further, the agent said Trump wanted ‘to decrease the number of black tenants’ already in the development ‘by encouraging them to locate housing elsewhere.'”
The article explains that Trump’s reaction was to claim that the suit was a, “nationwide drive to force owners of moderate and luxury apartments to rent to welfare recipients.”
“‘We are not going to be forced by anyone to put people…in our buildings to the detriment of tenants who have, for many years, lived in these buildings, raised families in them, and who plan to continue to live there. That would be reverse discrimination,’ he said. ‘The government is not going to experiment with our buildings to the detriment of ourselves and the thousands who live in them now.'”
Indeed, Trump’s wild, largely uninformed and unintelligent rants are the legacy of men who walked over the backs of other Americans to gain and secure their wealth. This may be symbolic to the American capitalist way, but it falls short of any form of greatness or real human success. As they say, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Related Posts: | 1real |
null | Which countries abstained? | 1real |
U.S. lawmaker to introduce bill to broaden CFIUS mandate beyond security concerns | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A Democratic lawmaker will introduce a bill on Thursday that seeks to broaden the powers of a U.S. government panel that reviews mergers for national security concerns, including giving it the ability to block a deal if it could cause job losses, but it faces an uphill battle in the Republican-controlled House. According to a draft copy of the proposed legislation reviewed by Reuters, the multi-agency Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) would be able to review a deal “to determine whether such transaction is of net benefit to the United States.” If the legislation passed, CFIUS would consider a proposed deal’s effect on employment, product innovation, and public health and safety, as well as national security, according to the draft reviewed by Reuters. It would also consider factors like whether a foreign company purchasing a U.S. company abides by U.S. rules concerning disclosure and transparency. But it is unclear whether the measure, which will be introduced by Connecticut Rep. Rosa DeLauro, has support from other lawmakers in the House. A spokesman for Republicans in the House Committee on Financial Services, which considered an earlier version of the bill in 2014, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Even if the DeLauro bill passed the House, there would need to be companion legislation passed in the Senate and then it would still need to get signed into law by President Barack Obama. There is currently no companion bill in the Senate, according to a source on Capitol Hill. DeLauro introduced her previous bill following the U.S. approval of China-based Shuanghui International Holdings Ltd’s $4.7 billion acquisition of pork producer Smithfield Foods Inc, but it never went to the full House for a vote. While the House bill does not target China specifically, it could have most implications for the country. In 2014, the last year for which data is available, CFIUS looked at more deals involving China than any other country for the third year in a row. It comes amid signs of increased concerns in Washington about a flurry of proposed takeovers of American companies by Chinese entities. Still, such sweeping legislation could be a tall order for the administration at a time of already tense Sino-U.S. relations. Earlier this month, 46 U.S. lawmakers, most of them Republicans, urged CFIUS to take a hard look at a bid by a Chinese company, Chongqing Casin Enterprise Group, to buy the storied Chicago Stock Exchange because of fears that the deal would give China access to the data of U.S. companies who use the exchange. In the past few weeks alone, CFIUS concerns have killed three proposed Chinese investments. On Tuesday, Western Digital Corp (WDC.O) said China’s Unisplendour Corp Ltd (000938.SZ) backed out of buying a stake in the U.S. company because CFIUS planned to probe it. | 0fake |
U.S. corporate tax cut goal in doubt, Trump dines with senators | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin cast doubt on President Donald Trump’s chances of cutting the corporate tax rate to 15 percent, while Trump met with six senators including three Democrats who set clear conditions for future cooperation with him on taxes. The president is cranking up a publicity campaign to build public support for his general goals of lower and simpler taxes, but no detailed tax plan has been completed or proposed by the White House or the Republicans in control of Congress. Even after months of discussion within the party, basic questions are unanswered, such as whether tax cuts should be designed so they don’t add to the federal deficit and debt, and how deeply business and individual rates should be cut. Mnuchin told a conference in New York hosted by CNBC on Tuesday that Trump, as the president has said for months, would like to cut the corporate income tax rate to 15 percent from 35 percent. Then Mnuchin, a top tax adviser to Trump, said, “I don’t know if we’ll be able to achieve that, given the budget issues, but we’re going to get this down to a very competitive level.” Later in the day, Trump held a dinner at the White House with the six senators. Reflecting his new willingness to engage with the political opposition, three Democrats attended the dinner. In contrast, Republican leaders in Congress have been trying for most of the year to write a tax bill while ignoring the Democrats. Also attending were Vice President Mike Pence, White House economic adviser Gary Cohn and Mnuchin. Pennsylvania Republican Senator Pat Toomey, one of the attendees, said on a conference call later that Trump talked about competitive business taxes, ending taxation of U.S. corporations’ foreign profits, and a middle-class tax cut. After the meal, Trump took some of the senators on a tour of the West Wing. Later, the Democrats expressed an openness to working with Trump on taxes, but stressed certain conditions. West Virginia Democrat Joe Manchin said in a statement he would continue to fight for a simpler tax code, but “we must do this without adding to our staggering debt”. North Dakota Democrat Heidi Heitkamp said in a statement the dinner was a “good discussion” and that she told the president any tax package must support working families and farmers. Overhauling the tax code was one of Trump’s main campaign promises in 2016, but he has made little progress toward it. After nearly eight months in office, he has yet to win passage in Congress of any major domestic policy legislation. Besides Manchin and Heitkamp, others at the dinner were Indiana Democrat Joe Donnelly and three Republicans: Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch and fellow tax panel Republicans John Thune and Toomey. Donnelly said in a statement, “Tax reform should include measures to support companies that invest in our workers and penalize companies that ship American jobs to foreign countries.” A major concern on tax cuts is the federal budget deficit. It would balloon if tax rates were cut too deeply without providing offsetting federal spending reductions and closure of tax loopholes, both politically difficult tasks. White House budget chief Mick Mulvaney told Fox News on Tuesday that he hoped tax reform would not be revenue neutral, suggesting he is not overly concerned about the deficit and the national debt, now about $20 trillion. “We need as big and as a dramatic tax reduction and tax reform as we possibly can get,” Mulvaney said. Mnuchin declined to say what business tax rate was achievable. He said he was “incredibly hopeful” a tax plan could be enacted this year, adding it could be retroactive to January. Asked if Trump would hold out for a 15 percent corporate rate, White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said: “The president is prepared to push for as low of a rate as we can get.” Republican Paul Ryan, the Republican speaker of the House of Representatives, said last week that “the numbers are hard” to make Trump’s 15-percent corporate tax rate target work. Ryan set his own goal at around 22.5 percent. Trump’s legislative affairs director, Marc Short, said at a Christian Science Monitor event, “We think that what’s best for the American people is a 15-percent corporate rate right now.” Financial markets rallied after Trump’s election victory last November in anticipation of rapid tax cuts, especially for corporations, but those expectations have faded. “The likelihood of passing sweeping corporate reform has diminished,” Jack Ablin, chief investment officer at BMO Wealth Management, said in a research note. Democrats, who generally oppose tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, will have negotiating clout in Congress in early December to resist tax changes they oppose, also potentially including a corporate rate cut. Trump may visit as many as 13 states to sell his planned tax cuts to voters in coming weeks, the White House said. The U.S. Senate will begin tax overhaul hearings this week. Republican Senator John Kennedy, a budget committee member, told Reuters he wanted tax plans “with specificity” and expressed frustration at the slow pace of the tax debate. “No more platitudes. Let’s see some meat on the bone,” Kennedy said. “And I’m tired of screwing around. ... The American people are tired of screwing around.” | 0fake |
Italy's ruling PD slides further in polls as election nears | ROME (Reuters) - Italy s ruling Democratic Party (PD), hit by internal divisions and a banking scandal, is continuing to slide in opinion polls, with a new survey on Saturday putting it more than six points behind the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement. The survey by the Ixe agency, commissioned by Huffington Post Italia, comes just days before parliament is expected to be dissolved to make way for elections in March. It gives the center-left PD just 22.8 percent of voter support, down almost five points in the last two months, compared with 29.0 percent for 5-Star, which has gained almost two points in the same period. Silvio Berlusconi s center-right Forza Italia (Go Italy!) is given 16.2 percent, with its right-wing allies the Northern League and Brothers of Italy on 12.1 percent and 5.0 percent respectively. This bloc is expected to win most seats at the election but not enough for an absolute majority, resulting in a hung parliament. With the PD s support eroding in virtually all opinion polls, several political commentators have speculated that its leader Matteo Renzi may choose or be forced to announce he will not be the party s candidate for prime minister at the election. Renzi has given no indication so far he will take this step. The PD has split under his leadership, with critics complaining he has dragged the traditionally center-left party to the right. Breakaway groups united this month to form a new left-wing party called Free and Equal (LeU), which now has 7.3 percent of support, according to Ixe. The PD s popularity seems to have also been hurt by a parliamentary commission looking into the collapse of 10 Italian banks in the past two years. The commission s findings have put the PD on the defensive, allowing the opposition to claim a conflict of interest involving one of Renzi s closest allies who was active in trying to save a bank where her father was a board member. | 0fake |
BREAKING UPDATE: [Video] ROOKIE COP IS TERMINATED AFTER FABRICATING STORY ABOUT BEING HIT BY GUNFIRE NEAR BOSTON | A rookie police officer in Millis who said Wednesday that someone shot his cruiser before it crashed and burst into flames fabricated the story, police said.The officer, 24, said he was traveling on Forest Road when he saw a red or maroon pickup truck traveling in the opposite direction. He said when the two vehicles met, the driver opened fire on the police cruiser, police say. My cruiser s been shot at. I m at Forest Road. It s going to be a dark maroon pickup, the officer radioed to dispatch at 2:17 p.m.The officer said he spun around, and in an attempt to avoid the gunfire and seek shelter, he slammed into a tree and the cruiser burst into flames. We have determined that the officer s story was fabricated. Specifically, that he fired shots at his own cruiser as a plan to concoct a story that he was fired upon, Millis Police Sgt. William Dwyer said. The evidence indicates the shots were not fired by a suspect, and there is no gunman at large in or around the town. A massive manhunt for the alleged gunman was launched. The neighborhood was immediately locked down while police units, including a SWAT team, K-9 officers and a Massachusetts State Police helicopter combed the area.Residents who were told to stay indoors or couldn t get home because of the lockdown said they were dumbfounded that the story may have been made up. With all these police officers actually getting hurt in this world, why he is doing that I don t know, Nancy Haney said.Dwyer said the officer is new to the force and has not yet attended the police academy. He said the officer will be terminated, and his name will not be released until the investigation is complete. Via: WCBV TVHERE IS THE ORIGINAL STORY:A Massachusetts police cruiser crashed and caught fire after it was struck by gunfire Wednesday afternoon, and now police are looking for the gunman.The incident occurred at approximately 3:00 p.m. in the town of Millis, about 20 miles southwest of Boston, according to Massachusetts State Police.Shepard Smith reported that police have confirmed that an officer was in the vehicle when it was struck by at least one bullet. The officer then ran his car off the road and crashed it, causing the vehicle to catch fire.Police have said they are not aware of any injuries at this time.Shep reported that witnesses say they saw a white man fire a gun from a dark-colored, possibly maroon, pickup truck.State and local police, along with fire investigators, are taking part in the investigation and search for the gunman.Via: FOX News | 1real |
A New Reason to Party: Custom Suiting for the Suitor and His Pals - The New York Times | Two months ago, Charles Granatell’s house in Wyckoff, N. J. was filled with camaraderie. His best friend from college, Mike Canfora, was getting married. Mr. Canfora flew in from Seattle, others drove in from Massachusetts and Manhattan, and some lived nearby. Eight of the 10 groomsmen were there. A TV loudly projected the Giants N. F. L. game. Paper plates containing sandwiches, pasta, salad and steak, food that had been catered, were strewn about. Wine and beer were consumed. Then Dana Manganelli, a stylist who routinely makes house calls for Mr. Fox Suits in Montclair, N. J. arrived. The mood changed to an almost giddy quality as the eight groomsmen piled into the den, unzipped the garment bags, pulled out their custom suits and proudly showed one another their individualized linings. “We’ve looked forward to this day for months,” said Mr. Canfora, 27, who flew in with his fiancée, Jenna Campana, 28, for this second and final fitting before his wedding, which was Oct. 8 at the LaPlaya Beach Golf Resort in Naples, Fla. “Women have so many events. Other than the bachelor party, guys don’t have another opportunity to get together and celebrate. ” The scene was a familiar one. In fact, it was an encore performance. On Aug. 5, these same men huddled around Mr. Granatell’s swimming pool, drank their favorite beer, ingested a similar meal, smoked some stogies and were fitted for wedding suits by Justin Fox, who owns Mr. Fox Suits. Women aren’t the only ones having fitting parties to celebrate their special day. And as the demand for these increases, suit fitters and online rental companies are embracing this new transition by creating environments to meet clients’ and individual needs. “I opened my own shop last September, and my first gentlemen’s fitting was in January,” Mr. Fox said. Since then, he estimates he has done more than 20 events 10 have been groom gatherings. “So I developed ‘Suits Scotch’ nights from this growing trend,” Mr. Fox said. “Evenings like this give men an experience. It’s like a Tupperware party for guys. ” Lewis Malivanek, creative director of Knot Standard, a company on West 24th Street in Manhattan, agreed. “Group groom fittings have become surprisingly popular over the past few years as custom clothing becomes more important and more affordable to the consumer,” he said. “Now we have these parties once or twice a week. ” The company recently moved to a bigger space with the goal of accommodating these larger male celebrations. Some perks include drinks served by a bartender from a recently purchased antique bar, TV, couches and lounging area. On weekends, bagels are served, and on weeknights, food is catered. “Men are realizing they don’t have to rent a tux or go to Brooks Brothers to buy something that’s made to fit everyone,” he added. “These are fitted for them and can be worn to other events. That’s very appealing to them. And they’re personalized. We had one recent party where everyone used their football team colors for the lining. This is them creating what they want to wear, and brides are giving them free rein, which is great for something that’s mostly planned by the woman. ” Many brides are pleased to see their other half’s fashion involvement. And it removes pickup, and pressures. “Having everyone get their suits handed to them took so much stress off of me,” the new Ms. Canfora said. “Rental is only for three days. Every day it’s late you’re charged. Because we’re a destination wedding, these guys would have had to pick it up in Florida on Thursday and drop it off on Sunday. There’s 10 guys. Do you think all 10 guys are going to drop it off? No. ” Then there is the factor. “They’re going to forget and accidentally pack it,” Ms. Canfora added. “Even though it’s not my responsibility, I feel responsible, and I didn’t want anyone to be charged more. It’s enough that they’re paying to travel and stay in Florida. ” Bang for the buck is also a consideration. “Why rent something that doesn’t really fit for $250 to $300, which you can only wear once, when you can own a custom suit for $500, which I can wear to work or another occasion?” said Mr. Granatell, 31. Mr. Granatell and the others did indeed pay about $500 each for their custom suits. For some grooms, seeing themselves for the first time in their suits, standing in front of a mirror, with all of their friends watching and clapping, is the equivalent to a bride’s “Say Yes to the Dress” moment. “It’s like unveiling the wedding gown,” said Kendall Michaelis, a senior stylist at Knot Standard. “You’d never feel that from a rental. Rentals are not personal in any way. When they do it as a group, it’s more special and real, and this is their moment. ” Last year, the Black Tux was a mostly online rental service in Santa Monica, Calif. In April, it opened its first showroom in Chicago. Another followed in June in Santa Monica, and one in Dallas is in the works. “Groom gatherings were a now they take place more than once a week,” said Dan Wenhold, the company’s director of retail sales. “Millennials have a desire to have a physical connection to retail and to each other. ” To meet this growing demand, the company developed a strategy. It closes early for the private parties. It serves beer or whiskey and pizza. It has hired more staff members for with clients and added dressing rooms for simultaneous fittings. Over the next several months, Mr. Wenhold plans to add pool and shuffleboard tables and other activities — all of which will be free. Not everyone wants to host a party. Some men are accompanied by only their fathers or fiancées. “Few grooms will spend $1, 500 to $3, 000 for a tux,” said Ronald Rothstein, an owner of Kleinfeld Bridal, which after three years closed its men’s division last year and replaced the space with women’s shoes. “If he does, he’s going to Bergdorf or Saks. I can make $2, 000 for a tuxedo or $15, 000 on one bride’s dress. But other than the bachelor party, this is one of the only ways for men to get the same experience women do, so I understand why this has become popular. ” Rentals are a generalized measurement item, sometimes poorly fitting and shapeless. “In the past, I went on my own to the Men’s Wearhouse or Joseph Bank, which are all the same,” Mr. Canfora said. “You open a contract, you get fitted and you leave. You never see your tux until you pick it up. And it’s all the same tux wherever you go to pick it up: New Jersey, Seattle or Florida. It’s convenient. That’s why people do it. But there was never a level of excitement like this. This was really bonding for all of us. ” Customization allows for a number of advantages. “Everything is styled and created just for you,” Ms. Michaelis said. Knot Standard offers six price ranges, from $795 to $3, 000, paired with 20 different measurements specific to body type. “We help you pick out fabrics, colors, linings, buttons, threading, collar and pockets. ” Then there’s the opportunity for names, dates and personalized messages. “We can add your wedding date to the inside of your collar, or monogram your wedding invite inside the tux, or add a message to the waistband,” she said. “I’ve even seen short messages on the inside zipper of the pants. Everyone likes these additions. ” In the end, however, a good consumer purchase is nothing compared to the memory it creates. After Ms. Manganelli did last looks, the men lined up outside for an iPhone photo shoot. A sense of coolness and pride encompassed them. There were slaps on the backs, and lit cigars. “This adds to the wedding process,” Mr. Granatell said. “This suit is special. Every time I open my closet and I see the suit hanging there, I’m going to think of Mike, the wedding and this experience. When I get married, I’d want to do the same thing. Renting, you have you give it back, and then it’s gone. I’ll have this for the rest of my life. ” | 0fake |
Mexico Senate committee OK's air transport deal with United States | MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - A key committee in Mexico’s Senate on Thursday ratified a deal with the United States that would boost competition in air transportation, a Senate spokesman said, paving the way for expansion of the world’s second largest cross-border market. The deal, which both governments have already signed and modifies a 1960 agreement, would open up new routes for airlines to fly between the countries and allow for an unlimited number of flights. Mexico’s full Senate must still ratify the agreement for it to take effect, which is likely to happen in the coming days. While some analysts have welcomed the deal, saying it would lower airfares by boosting traffic, Mexican airline workers have complained it would put the country’s airlines at a disadvantage. The United States, which has a fleet of 7,500 planes compared to Mexico’s 300, accounts for 65 percent of total flights in Mexican airspace, well above the 22 percent offered by Mexican carriers. Ratification would also remove the main hurdle to a closer tie-up between Delta Air Lines Inc and Grupo Aeromexico SAB de CV. The carriers have asked the U.S. government to grant them immunity from antitrust law so they can coordinate better flight connection times as well as prices, a request that cannot be granted until the aviation accord comes into force. Delta said last week its deal to buy up to 49 percent of Aeromexico is expected to close this summer. | 0fake |
EU getting closer to starting trade talks with Britain in December: Tusk | BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The chairman of European Union leaders said on Monday he was encouraged by the progress of talks on avoiding a physical border between Ireland and Northern Ireland after Britain leaves the EU, which brought closer the prospect of starting trade talks with Britain. London wants to start talks on the future trade deal with the EU as soon as possible to provide clarity for companies based in Britain on the terms of business after exiting the EU in March 2019. But the EU said it could only start such talks once sufficient progress is made in negotiations on the terms of the divorce - a financial settlement, citizens rights and the border between Ireland and Northern Ireland. Tell me why I like Mondays! Encouraged after my phone call with Taoiseach (Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar) on progress on Brexit issue of Ireland. Getting closer to sufficient progress at December EU summit, Donald Tusk said on Twitter. | 0fake |
PRESIDENT TRUMP’S Sr. Staff Member Omarosa Manigault Marries Democrat Pastor At Trump’s DC Hotel Amid Death Threats [VIDEO] | Omarosa Manigault, a senior staff member of President Donald Trump s administration and a former Apprentice cast member, got married in Trump s Washington DC hotel this morning.Omarosa has been a staunch defender of her boss President Donald J. Trump. The video of her appearance on The View, where she single-handedly destroyed Joy Behar and crew went viral the day after her appearance. Please enjoy:About 70 people attended the wedding in the hotel s Presidential Ballroom, which was followed by a brunch and reception.Donald Trump and other White House senior staff remained at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida following Chinese President Xi Jinping s visit and after the US airstrike on Syria. The couple exchanged vows at an intimate private ceremony and the celebration went forward without incident despite Omarosa s concerns about death threats.Last week, Omarosa received $25,000 worth of merchandise from Kleinfeld Bridal after appearing on the television show Say Yes to the Dress, The Hill reported.The former reality television star postponed and relocated her upcoming wedding to Pastor Newman because of concerns about her safety and backlash from her fianc s church.She was supposed to get married on March 25 at the church her fianc oversees, The Sanctuary @ Mt. Calvary, in Jacksonville, Florida.But sources close to Omarosa revealed to DailyMail.com that an onslaught of death threats and safety concerns caused her to delay her nuptials and move the ceremony to Washington, DC.Via: Daily Mail | 1real |
Boiler Room EP #71: ‘One Million Mark’ | Tune in to the Alternate Current Radio Network (ACR) for another LIVE broadcast of The Boiler Room starting at 6 PM PST | 9 PM EST for this special broadcast. Join us for uncensored, uninterruptible talk radio, custom-made for barfly philosophers, misguided moralists, masochists, street corner evangelists, media-maniacs, savants, political animals and otherwise lovable rascals.Join ACR hosts Hesher, & Spore along with Andy Nowicki of Alt Right Blogspot, Jay Dyer from jaysanalysis.com, Jamie Hanshaw author of Weird Stuff, Branko Mali of Kali Tribune, Randy J of 21Wire and Daniel Spaulding of Soul of the East for the 70th episode of BOILER ROOM. Dim the lights, dawn the headphones and indulge in some Boiler Room with the crew. .Please like and share the program and visit our donate page to get involved!BOILER ROOM IS NOT A POLICTALLY CORRECT ZONE! LISTEN TO THE SHOW IN THE PLAYER BELOW ENJOY! Reference Links: | 1real |
BOMBSHELL: Devin Nunes’ Entire Net Worth Sunk In Company With Strong Ties To Russia | If today s fiasco, which came courtesy of House Intel chair Devin Nunes, wasn t enough to convince anyone that he can t conduct a credible investigation into whether or not Trump and his teams colluded with Russia, then this should be: Nunes has put almost his entire net worth into a winery with strong ties to Russia.How strong? Well, the Alpha Omega Winery has distributors all over the U.S., but just a few abroad. One of those overseas distributors is the Luding Trading Company in Russia. Luding is, in fact, Russia s largest distributor for alcoholic beverages. But they don t just operate in Russia they also appear to have a relationship with Vladimir Putin: The Luding Company and the Yerevan Ararat Brandy-Wine-Vodka factory sent greetings to Vladimir Putin, the president of Russia, on his 55th birthday and made a birthday present of bottles of the Noy, the Sovereign 55 cognac and the Vanatur and Varpet unique 1952 vintage wines, 1952 being the President s birth year. If Russia were truly a free, democratic state, then maybe this could be overlooked as nothing more than a large company wishing the leader of a country that had given them so much a happy birthday. But Russia, under Putin, is anything but truly free. With Luding being the country s largest distributor of alcohol, it s highly unlikely that Putin doesn t have his fingers in it somewhere. The fact that Nunes has his money sunk there is a pretty big deal.It s also odd that Alpha Omega Winery would have a relationship with Russia s largest distributor when they only have a relationship with one Western nation (Switzerland). They don t have any relationships with any other distributor in the EU, which means no relationships with NATO allies at all.Then there s the fact that Nunes is one of the people Trump called upon to refute news about the whole Russia scandal. That right there compromised the House s investigation into Trump and Russia because it blurs the lines between the intelligence community, the White House, and Congress.And Nunes actually did what Trump asked him to he started sending messages to reporters challenging the Russia stories. As the chairman of the committee investigating the Trump-Russia tie, he should never have done that.It appears more and more likely that Nunes was never acting independently in this investigation. And given that he s got business ties to Russia tenuous or not he should have recused himself from this investigation the instant it got underway.Featured image by Win McNamee via Getty Images | 1real |
What Does a Trump Victory Mean for Africa? | 2016 elections by Patrick Bond
Donald Trump is mostly bad news for Africa, including reduced U.S. aid and possibly more support for “imperial African adventurism" – unless, of course, Africa uses Trump’s lemons to make lemonade. His isolationism “could give Africans a chance to recalibrate what is now an excessive, self-destructive reliance on export of oil and gas, minerals and cash crops.” On climate policy, Trump is an unmitigated disaster. What Does a Trump Victory Mean for Africa? by Patrick Bond
This article previously appeared in Pambazuka News .
“ Trump will sabotage the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and similar strategies to solve global problems.”
The most catastrophic long-term consequence is climate change. This is because Trump is a denialist who will give the green light to widespread fracking, coal and oil exploration. Africa will be the most adversely affected continent. United Nations scientists estimate that 9 out of 10 small-scale farmers are unlikely to farm by 2100 due to drying soils and global warming, plus extreme weather will also cause 180 million unnecessary African deaths by then, according to Christian Aid.
Under Trump, we can safely predict that Washington will no longer seek to control United Nations climate negotiations, as did Barack Obama’s administration. The WikiLeaks Clinton emails and State Department cables revealed blatant manipulations of the Copenhagen and Durban climate summits. Instead, Trump will simply pull the US out of the 2015 Paris agreement, as did George W. Bush from the Kyoto Protocol.
By good fortune, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change annual summit is underway this week in Morocco. The only logical move, if the delegates have any spine, is to expel the US State Department and establish the machinery for a major carbon tax applied to products associated with countries – the US especially – which raise emissions and threaten the survival of many species across the globe.
“Trump will simply pull the US out of the 2015 Paris agreement, as did George W. Bush from the Kyoto Protocol.”
Trump also heralds a rise in US racism and xenophobia, parallel to the Brexit vote by the British white working class. In neither case will local solutions be effective for the simple reason that neither Trump nor Theresa May (UK Prime Minister) are interested in the income redistribution required to benefit their economies.
And African elites who have – with a few exceptions – climbed over each other to please Washington, won’t find themselves welcome in the White House.
Hopefully the contagion of Trump’s racism – which will make life for Africans much harder – will be met by a major resistance movement including Africans from all walks of life in solidarity with various groups that stand to be oppressed by the US – women, African-Americans, Latinos, Muslims, environmentalists, progressives of all sorts. This movement can shape up in the same spirit to those that gave solidarity during the fight against apartheid.
What are the likely economic consequences?
Consistent with his isolationism, world trade stagnation will continue. In the case of Africa, Trump is likely to retract benefits under the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act and reduce US aid.
That isolationism, in turn, could give Africans a chance to recalibrate what is now an excessive, self-destructive reliance on export of oil and gas, minerals and cash crops. Africa must focus on localizing its economies to be able to meet basic needs.
Trump’s hatred of what he terms the “globalists” is probably just hot electioneering rhetoric. It’s fair to predict that pro-corporate candidates will come forward as Trump allies to calm the crashing stock markets.
The “neoliberal” group of policy wonks who expressed disgust with Trump and favored Hillary Clinton will quickly make inroads into the new administration. They will ensure that the continuing US dominance in Western-leaning multilateral institutions is not disturbed.
We can simply anticipate more brazen US self-interest, as witnessed during the Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush regimes, with less of the confusing rhetoric promoted by Obama and his allies.
What US policies on Africa are likely to change? With what impact?
To be frank, we can only offer guesses. Trump said literally nothing about Africa during his campaign. He wants to “rebuild US military power,” which might include strengthening the Pentagon’s controversial Africa Command, known as Africom.
Economically, it is worth noting Trump’s close relations to the oil and gas industry which comes via Vice President Mike Pence. This suggests that multinational corporations in the extractive industries who desire more explicit imperial support for African adventurism will be served well by Trump’s bully-boy mentality.
What does this mean for multilateral institutions and how will this affect Africa?
The US’s role in the International Monetary Fund (IMF) will become nastier given the veto power it enjoys, holding more than 15% of the voting shares. Trump will probably hire a brutal neoliberal as his IMF executive director, someone who will tighten the screws on Africa using Washington’s veto power. The leaders of two big African economies are desperate for IMF credits: Nigeria ($29 billion) and Egypt ($12 billion).
In relation to the United Nations, an interesting question comes to mind: should the UN leadership now sitting in Trump’s Manhattan East Side neighborhood not develop a contingency plan to move UN headquarters out of the US? Trump promises to make life very hard for visitors who are Muslims, Libyans, Syrians and Mexicans – amongst others – so holding multilateral events in the US may soon be impossible.
The period ahead demands a very different multilateralism due to a number of expectations. The first is that Trump will sabotage the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and similar strategies to solve global problems, and wreck nuclear non-proliferation strategies such as the agreement that Obama painstakingly reached with Iran earlier this year.
And the second is that three of the BRICS’ nationalistic leaders – Vladimir Putin in Russia, Nahendra Modi in India and Michel Temer in Brazil – can be expected to establish much closer ties to Trump. This is likely to affect the balance of power between geographical regions, added to which are the drift of Pakistan, Turkey and the Philippines away from Washington. Trump’s hatred of China is another indeterminate factor.
Regardless of the geopolitical maneuvers, it’s time for a ‘multilateralism-from-below’ in which traditional progressive movements in civil society find common cause, because this is the most serious threat to humanity, the world economy and environment we’ve seen in living memory. Patrick Bond is Director of the University of KwaZulu-Natal Centre for Civil Society and a professor of political economy at the University of the Witwatersrand. | 1real |
Foreign powers could try to influence German coalition talks: spy chief | BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany s elections escaped the major foreign meddling that disrupted votes in the United States and France, but there is a risk powers could try to influence coalition talks, a top official with the domestic intelligence agency said on Thursday. Burkhard Even, head of counter-intelligence at the BfV agency, said Russian-backed media had spread low-level propaganda which did not have a significant impact on voters, but there was no sign of anything worse. The German parliamentary election ... was spared major attacks, but I must point out that even after an election such attempts are possible, for instance in trying to discredit (officials) or in trying to affect the forging of a new government, he told a conference in Berlin. Russia has denied meddling in other countries votes. German Chancellor Angela Merkel won Sunday s vote, but her conservatives lost ground, leaving her facing protracted talks to form a coalition government. The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, which has called for stronger ties with Russia and the lifting of sanctions on Moscow, won nearly 13 percent of the vote and moved into parliament for the first time. Russian-backed media such as Sputnik or RT published a large amount of propaganda before the vote, Even said. I don t think it affected the election as a whole ... or that the election outcome was affected by several percentage points, he said. But there was an attempt and the risks are enormous. And the risk is rising not diminishing. He did not go into details on the coverage. But Stefan Meister from the German Council on Foreign Relations this week said many Russian social media posters had abruptly stopped posting messages supporting the far-left Left party and switched to the AfD. Another researcher with the council, Sarah Pagung, also cited hundreds of tweets under the hashtag Wahlbetrug or voter fraud that popped up the day of the election and raised questions about the vote s legitimacy. Andreas Koenen, head of the cyber security directorate at the German Interior Ministry, told Reuters at the conference that German officials were closely tracking any attempts to influence the coalition talks. Things happen all the time. We re paying very close attention, he said. Separately, security officials said they were looking at one fake Tweet posted under the name of Michael Link, former director of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), who was just elected to parliament. The fake posting said 3.15 million new German citizens (a common euphemism for immigrants) had voted for Merkel s conservatives, citing what it called a report by OSCE election observers that it said had been leaked by Link. Facebook on Wednesday said it had taken down tens of thousands of fake profiles in the final month before Germany s election to ensure that social media network was not used as a platform to manipulate public opinion. [nL8N1M863G] | 0fake |
In Khartoum, protest against 'land grab' turns violent | Sudan This file photo shows people in the Jreif district of the Sudanese capital Khartoum protesting against the government's land policies.
Clashes involving police have erupted in the Sudanese capital Khartoum as hundreds of people demonstrated in protest against the government's land policies.
The peaceful protest turned violent after riot police fired tear gas canisters at the demonstrators in East Jreif district.
“Our land belongs to our ancestors and the government wants to give it to investors. We are protesting to save our land,” a protester said, regretting that the government had shown no intention of compensating the land owners in case their property was seized.
Some protesters pelted police officers and members of security forces with rocks. Others burned tires and tried to close off all the streets in East Jreif.
Police had a heavy presence with reports saying that 15 trucks of riot policemen armed with batons were deployed in the area.
People stage routine protests in Sudan, complaining about local grievances, but most of the demonstrations are crushed by security forces. A similar demonstration in East Jreif last year led to the death of a protester. Anti-government rallies in April also left two students dead.
There was no immediate report of possible casualties during the Wednesday rally in Khartoum.
A government decision to slash fuel subsidies in September 2013 sparked mass protests in Sudan. Thousands of people took to the streets in the capital and some other towns, calling for President Omar al-Bashir to step down. Human rights groups say about 200 people were killed, hundreds were wounded and more than 800 were arrested in the protests. The government challenges the figures. Loading ... | 1real |
Turkey must be in Syria's Idlib until threat over: defense minister | ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Turkey must be present in Syria s Idlib province until the threat from there toward Turkey is over, Defense Minister Nurettin Canikli was reported as saying by CNN Turk and other broadcasters on Tuesday. Turkey has said it will provide assistance to rebels it has long backed as it implements a de-escalation agreement to reduce fighting in Idlib. A Turkish army reconnaissance team scouted the region on Sunday before an expected military operation. | 0fake |
Lockheed Martin CEO commits to driving down F-35 fighter's costs | (Reuters) - Lockheed Martin Corp said its Chief Executive Marillyn Hewson gave U.S. President-elect Donald Trump a personal commitment to bring down the price of its F-35 fighter jet, after he heaped pressure on the aerospace company over the cost. Lockheed’s shares fell on Friday after Trump’s message on Twitter, and after he earlier tweeted that he had asked rival Boeing Co to “price-out” an older aircraft as an alternative. Hewson said in a statement tweeted by Lockheed that the company would “aggressively” drive down the cost of the F-35, which brought in about 20 percent of Lockheed’s sales last year. Trump’s transition team did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Lockheed shares ended down nearly 1.3 percent in Friday trading on the New York Stock Exchange. | 0fake |
Jeb Bush Receives Worst Endorsement Ever, Definitely Does NOT Want Anyone To Clap | Jeb Bush is desperate for people to support him and his fledgling campaign for the presidency, but he probably wishes the latest supporter of his campaign had kept his endorsement to himself.As you may recall, Jeb s brother George nearly destroyed the economy back in 2008 all while giving ridiculous tax breaks to the wealthy pricks who helped him crash it.Jeb Bush hasn t exactly been touting W s economic record, but one hedge-funder who has since become one of the most hated corporate tools in America is touting his support for Jeb s campaign.Last year, Jeb s biggest fan hiked the price of a crucial AIDS medication known as Daraprim to $750 a pill, a 5,000 percent increase from its original price, thereby guaranteeing that only rich patients would be able to afford the drug without fearing bankruptcy.Ferret face then went on television to defend the price hike in the most dickish way possible as if he s helping people by raising the price.And most recently, the greedy douchebag has been arrested by federal authorities for securities fraud and repeatedly dodged questions by lawmakers after being subpoenaed by Congress.As you have probably figured out, the Jeb endorser described is none other than professional asshole Martin Shkreli.Shkreli took to Twitter on Friday and posted a brief message announcing his support of the former Florida Governor who had to beg people to clap during a recent rally.@JebBush i m an avid supporter Martin Shkreli (@MartinShkreli) February 6, 2016Perhaps even more embarrassing if the fact that Shkreli rescinded his endorsement less than 24 hours later by blaming his alleged date for posting the tweet as a joke. My date made the tweet about Jeb Bush as a joke. I don t follow politics except for having a profound hatred for all politicians. Martin Shkreli (@MartinShkreli) February 7, 2016This creates a couple questions. First, who in this world would date a total asshole who screws around with people s healthcare? And second, how pathetic must Jeb Bush be if the only endorsement he can get is a fake one by the most hated man in America? | 1real |
OSCE sees increase in ceasefire violations in east Ukraine | (This version of the November 8 story corrects 1st and 8th paragraphs to add other Minsk signatories) By Andrea Shalal and Sabine Siebold BERLIN (Reuters) - An international security organization called on the parties in eastern Ukraine s conflict to pull back tanks and other heavy weapons, after five people were injured and a nine-year-old child was killed over the weekend. A shaky ceasefire between Ukraine and the region s pro-Russian separatists is regularly violated, and violations have spiked in recent weeks, Alexander Hug, principal deputy chief monitor for the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe s mission in Ukraine, said in an interview. The OSCE s 503 monitors in the region are now seeing a weekly average of 220 incidents involving heavy weapons, up from around 40 a week after a harvest ceasefire, with a total of 3,877 such weapons spotted this year in violation of the ceasefire. The warning signals of this uptick have been out there, Hug said. We have been warning through our reporting that the situation is gradually deteriorating again. If some of these military technical issues are not tackled now ... we may see an increase in violence towards the end of this year, Hug said. Once the ground froze in the region later this month, he said, it would be easier to move around tanks, heavy artillery and other equipment. Heavy weapons are the main cause of death in the conflict, which first broke out in 2014 and has claimed 75 lives and injured 346 so far this year, up some 3 to 5 percent from last year, Hug said. Over 10,000 have died since 2014. Kiev accuses Moscow of sending troops and heavy weapons to the region, which Russia denies. Hug urged the sides to implement decisions already made in the Minsk ceasefire agreement to withdraw heavy weapons from along the 500-kilometre (300 mile) line of conflict and disengage opposing forces, which are often staring at each other just 10 meters apart. All along the 500-km contact line where the fighting takes place, they are standing basically next to each other, and that is of course a recipe for more of the same, he said. Both sides were violating the ceasefire, Hug said. Returning fire is also a violation of the agreements. There is no exception to the non-use of weapons, he said. | 0fake |
With healthcare bill dead, Republicans turn to taxes | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - After failing to repeal Obamacare, Republicans in the U.S. Congress quickly pivoted on Friday to President Donald Trump’s next priority: overhauling the federal tax code, but their plan has already split the business community. Division among Republicans was the chief cause of the embarrassing setback on Obamacare, and similar fault lines have been evident for months in the Republicans’ tax plan, mainly over an untested proposal to use the tax code to boost exports. House of Representatives tax committee Chairman Kevin Brady conceded the demise of a Republican plan to roll back Obamacare could make the path to tax reform harder. “This made a big challenge more challenging. But it’s not insurmountable,” he told Fox News after Ryan canceled a vote on an Obamacare rollback bill. But Brady said he and House Speaker Paul Ryan are all-in on tax reform. Brady said House Republicans plan to begin moving on tax reform this spring and to pass legislation before Congress’s summer recess in late July. “We’re going to work with the administration to get this done,” he said. Trump has been unclear about his position on the most problematic feature of the House Republicans’ tax “blueprint,” a proposal known as the border adjustment tax that would cut taxes on exports and raise them on imports. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said on Friday that tax reform in many ways is “a lot simpler” than healthcare reform. “We’re able to take the tax code and redesign things and I think there is very, very strong support,” Mnuchin said at an event hosted by news website Axios. Comprehensive tax reform is a policy goal so complex that it has defied successive Congresses and presidents since 1986 when it was last accomplished under former President Ronald Reagan. The U.S. tax code is riddled with narrow subsidies and loopholes, many of them deeply embedded in the economy and defended by the interests they benefit, such as the mortgage interest deduction and the business interest deductibility. Brady’s panel has been working on a plan since mid-2016 that would cut the corporate tax rate to 20 percent from 35 percent, end taxing foreign profits for U.S.-based multinationals and cut other tax rates for businesses and investors. The plan has divided businesses, prompting import-dependent industries to warn of higher prices for consumer goods from clothing and electronics to gasoline. Brady has been adamant that border adjustment will be part of the House tax reform, saying earlier this week that the provision was “a given” for final legislation but would include a transition period for import-heavy industries. | 0fake |
21WIRE.TV Members Newsletter – Sept 9, 2016 | 21st Century Wire says If you have only recently joined us as a subscriber and member at 21WIRE.TV let me take this opportunity to say THANK YOU for coming on board your support is helping us to continue building and improving this independent media operation SEE OUR MEMBERS NEWSLETTER & GLOBAL REPORT HERESupport Our Work by Subscribing and Becoming a Member @21WIRE.TV | 1real |
U.S. conservatives cancel invitation for firebrand commentator | NEW YORK (Reuters) - A leading U.S. conservative conference rescinded its invitation to provocative commentator Milo Yiannopoulos and a publisher canceled his book deal on Monday after old internet videos of him recirculated in which he discusses pedophilia. Yiannopoulos, in a Facebook video post, denied he ever condoned pedophilia and said one video of him was edited to give a misleading impression. Yiannopoulos, a Briton who is celebrated by some arch conservatives, was banned from Twitter last year after making highly controversial statements. He has infuriated liberals with provocative comments on race, religion and sex and appears to delight in his ability to offend. The chairman of the American Conservative Union, which sponsors the annual Conservative Political Action Conference, or CPAC, said on Sunday the group rescinded an invitation to this year’s Wednesday-Saturday event “due to the revelation of an offensive video in the past 24 hours condoning pedophilia.” “We realize that Mr. Yiannopoulos has responded on Facebook, but it is insufficient,” Matt Schlapp, chairman of the union, said in the Twitter post. CPAC is a high-profile annual gathering of conservative activists. President Donald Trump is among the scheduled speakers this year along with Vice President Mike Pence, White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus and senior Trump adviser Stephen Bannon. Yiannopoulos is also an editor for the right-wing Breitbart News, which Bannon once headed. Earlier this month, the University of California canceled Yiannopoulos’ speaking engagement on the Berkeley campus when violent protests against his appearance broke out. Trump, in response, threatened on Twitter to cut off federal funding for the university. The latest controversy stems from a video in which Yiannopoulos seems to suggest the standard for pedophilia is whether the younger partner has gone through puberty. At another point in the video, however, Yiannopoulos says the established age of consent, which is 16 to 18 years old in the United States, is “about right.” In his Facebook statement on Monday, Yiannopoulos denied condoning pedophilia. “I find those crimes to be absolutely disgusting. I find those people to be disgusting,” he said, while expressing regret he used the word “boys” instead of young men while discussing the benefits of relationships between men with large age differences. Book publisher Simon & Schuster said it canceled the publication of Yiannopoulos’ book “Dangerous,” which was due out on June 13. “After careful consideration @simonschuster and its @threshold_books have cancelled publication of Dangerous by Milo Yiannopoulos,” spokesman Adam Rothberg said on Twitter. Yiannopoulos acknowledged in a separate Facebook post: “They canceled my book.” | 0fake |
Trump to meet with CIA, FBI and DNI chiefs on Friday: spokesman | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Donald Trump planned to meet with the heads of the Central Intelligence Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence on Friday, a spokesman for the U.S. Republican president-elect said. Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Sean Spicer said CIA Director John Brennan, FBI Director James Comey and DNI’s James Clapper intend to attend the briefing with Trump on the U.S. intelligence agencies’ final report on the subject of Russian hacking of U.S. political groups and individuals. | 0fake |
Trump eyeing Mnuchin and Ross for economy jobs: Icahn | NEW YORK/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Longtime Donald Trump supporter and activist investor Carl Icahn confirmed on Tuesday that the president-elect is looking at Wall Street veteran Steven Mnuchin as his choice for treasury secretary and billionaire Wilbur Ross for commerce secretary. “Spoke to @realDonaldTrump. Steve Mnuchin and Wilbur Ross are being considered for Treasury and Commerce. Both would be great choices,” Icahn wrote on Twitter. Icahn, a close ally of Trump who was often praised by the Republican during the presidential campaign for his business acumen, also tweeted that both Mnuchin and Ross were friends and “two of the smartest people I know.” Mnuchin, a former Goldman Sachs partner and Trump’s campaign finance manager, has been considered a front-runner for the Treasury post for much of the past week since Trump’s stunning election victory. Mnuchin’s inclusion in Trump’s campaign team was questioned at the time by Stephen Bannon, now Trump’s chief White House strategist. In an interview on Breitbart News, Bannon asked Trump whether the then presidential candidate was “selling out to Wall Street”. The list to head the Treasury Department has also included JPMorgan Chase chief executive Jamie Dimon and Republican Representative Jeb Hensarling, chairman of the powerful House Financial Services Committee. Hensarling has said he would prefer to focus on a revamp of financial regulation, while Dimon, a lifelong Democrat, has denied interest in the job in the past. Ross, a billionaire investor, is a part of Trump’s economic advisory team. Calls to Ross were not immediately returned. Mnuchin walked through the Trump Tower lobby in Manhattan on Tuesday morning. He would not comment on personnel decisions but said the Trump team is “making sure we get the biggest tax bill passed, the biggest tax changes since Reagan. So a lot of exciting things in the first 100 days of the Trump presidency.” With Republicans retaining majorities in Congress, Trump will have a clearer shot at enacting major tax cut and reform legislation and rolling back the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial regulation law passed in the wake of the financial crisis. The new treasury secretary would play a key role in crafting such legislation, as well as managing potential new debt issuance of as much as $1 trillion if Congress agrees to Trump’s proposed infrastructure spending program. With such high stakes, Wall Street is more focused on the selection of the next treasury chief than it was during President Barack Obama’s choices for the post. “This time will be different,” Gregory Peters, senior investment officer at Prudential Fixed Income, said Tuesday at the Reuters Global Investment Outlook Summit in New York. “That role takes on greater importance.” Unlike current Secretary Jacob Lew, who is viewed investors to have taken a lower profile focused largely on international issues over the past year, the next Treasury secretary is expected to be a featured player in articulating and executing the Trump administration’s new economic policies and initiatives. A figure such as Mnuchin, with Wall Street experience, might be seen as better equipped to manage the relationship between Treasury and the banks that facilitate U.S. debt issuance. The last Wall Street insider to serve in the post was Henry Paulson, the former Goldman Sachs CEO appointed by George W. Bush and whose term was dominated by the bank bailouts of the 2008 financial crisis. Mnuchin, whose father was also a Goldman Sachs partner, worked at the investment bank for nearly two decades starting in the mid-1980s, a time when Wall Street was developing major financial innovations including new securitization techniques and collateralized debt obligations — instruments that would later contribute to the financial crisis. In 2009, he led a group of investors that purchased the assets of failed California-based mortgage lender IndyMac, for $1.55 billion that included a loss-sharing deal with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. After rehabilitating the operation and rebranding it as OneWest Bank, they sold it in 2014 for $3.4 billion to CIT Group Inc for $3.4 billion. | 0fake |
Sean Spicer Dreams Up Brand-New Fake Terrorist Attack To Defend Trump’s Muslim Ban | As if we didn t already have enough proof that Trump s administration is full of pathological, compulsive liars, along comes Sean Spicer with yet more. It s not his defense of Kellyanne Conway s mysteriously non-existent terror attack at Bowling Green that lands him on the growing mountain of lies. Rather, it s that he himself has referenced an imaginary terror attack multiple times.CNN put together a short list of Spicer s references to a terror attack in Atlanta that never happened:The first timeHere s what Spicer told ABC s This Week on January 29 while defending the President s travel ban: What do we say to the family who loses somebody over a terroristic (sic) to whether it s Atlanta or San Bernardino or the Boston bomber? Those people, each of whom had gone out to a country and then come back, Spicer said.The second timeThe next day, Spicer appeared on MSNBC s Morning Joe and also mentioned Atlanta while defending the travel ban: There was a very short period of time in which we had something to execute that ensured that the people of the United States were safe. Everybody s been protected, Spicer said. What happened if we didn t act and somebody was killed? Too many of these cases that have happened whether you re talking about San Bernardino, Atlanta Boston would you wait until you do? The answer is we act now to protect the future. The third timeAnd in his January 30 press briefing, Spicer once again alluded to an Atlanta terror attack. When asked by a reporter why some countries linked to terrorism aren t on the travel ban list, Spicer responded: Right, and we re reviewing the entire process over this period of time to make sure that we do this right. But I don t think you have to look any further than the families of the Boston Marathon, in Atlanta, in San Bernardino to ask if we can go further. CNN has been unable to reach Spicer for comment, but some speculate that he might actually be referring to Orlando. The only problem is, he keeps saying Atlanta and it s not like the Orlando massacre was a small, minor incident where such a misstep might be understandable. The last known terror attacks in Atlanta were at the 1996 Olympics, and at a lesbian club in 1997. Both happened at the hands of a right-wing American terrorist.In other words, they weren t attacks by radical Muslims. And there have been no other acts of terrorism in Atlanta. Yet here s Spicer, saying Atlanta over and over again to defend Trump s Muslim ban.The Orlando attack, by contrast, was a massacre, and it s not like nobody can remember it. Odd mistake to make, if that s what s even happening.Maybe he s talking about tighter security in Atlanta following last year s terror attack in Brussels? That s not especially likely, either. When he finally gets a story together, he ll talk to the press. Or he ll ignore anything that has to do with his references to Atlanta. But, like Kellyanne Conway, he said it, and then repeated it. It s hard to believe that s just a misspoken word.Read more:Featured image by Mark Wilson via Getty Images | 1real |
Trump could privatize nation's air traffic controllers | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The chances that the federal government could hand off the U.S. air traffic control system to private management are increasing, say advocates who report they are getting supportive feedback from President-elect Donald Trump and his team. U.S. Rep. Bill Shuster, who chairs the House of Representatives Transportation Committee, has met with Trump and incoming Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao to make his case for moving the nation’s 14,500 air traffic controllers and their mission out of government control and into a non-profit organization. Shuster and other privatization advocates argue that spinning off air traffic control into a non-government entity would allow for a more efficient system and rapid, cost-effective improvements of technology, in part by avoiding the government procurement process. The National Air Traffic Controllers Association, the union that represents controllers, came out in favor of Shuster’s legislation earlier this year. But he has run into bipartisan opposition in both the House and the Senate and push back from some of the nation’s airlines. Opponents say the U.S. system is so large that privatization would not save money, would drive up ticket costs and could create a national security risk. There also are concerns that airlines would dominate the private-company board and limit access to airports by business jets. The National Business Aviation Association, which represents thousands of corporate and individual business jet owners, strongly opposed Shuster’s bill earlier this year. “Our nation’s airspace and airport system should benefit the public and not be controlled by airline interests,” the organization said in April. The landscape might change once Trump, who campaigned on improving the nation’s infrastructure and is a regular user of his own private plane, occupies the White House on Jan. 20. Apart from Shuster, officials and lobbyists who work in infrastructure construction say the idea of privatizing air traffic controllers as part of an infrastructure bill is gaining steam, especially among those who are concerned that Congress will not be able to pass a separate sweeping transportation bill. Congress has been averse to spending money, but privatizing air traffic control systems would shift the cost of upgrades from tax coffers to air travelers, the kind of move that makes lawmakers view it as free instead of an increase in federal spending. “I’ve had some conversations with Trump transition folks and they seemed very interested in putting this in their larger infrastructure bill,” Shuster said. The air traffic control system is in need of expensive upgrades, including the multi-billion dollar implementation of “NextGen,” a system that would utilize GPS to direct aircraft instead of the outdated use of radar. In Shuster’s vision, the move would not enrich any particular company as air traffic control would be overseen by a nonprofit that reinvests any profits back into infrastructure improvements. Shuster first broached the subject with Trump two years ago, he said, and the two have discussed it several additional times. He met with Chao last week. It could take a strong presidential push for the privatization effort. Earlier this year, it failed to get even enough support from Republican members for a vote on the House floor. In February, Delta released a study arguing that privatization would cost air travelers more and would not achieve any savings. Many air traffic controller operations are funded through ticket taxes - which are levied on every flight. Historically, those taxes have been kept low by the government’s aversion to raising rates. But should the ticket tax become the control of an outside board, opponents are concerned that could drive up ticket prices. | 0fake |
Republican wins Montana special election despite assault charge | BOZEMAN, Mont. (Reuters) - Republican Greg Gianforte defeated a political novice to win Montana’s seat in the U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday, barely 24 hours after he was charged with assaulting a reporter who asked him about the Republican healthcare bill. A race that was expected to be a test of President Donald Trump’s political influence ahead of next year’s U.S. congressional elections was jolted by the charge against Gianforte, a wealthy technology executive who had urged voters to send him to Congress to help Trump. Speaking to cheering supporters in Bozeman after his win, Gianforte apologized for the incident and said he was not proud of his actions. “I should not have responded the way I did, and for that I’m sorry,” Gianforte said. “I should not have treated that reporter that way.” Gianforte beat Democrat Rob Quist, a banjo player and first-time candidate who had focused his campaign on criticism of the Republican effort to repeal and replace former President Barack Obama’s healthcare law. CNN projected Gianforte would win. With 96 percent of the vote counted, he led Quist by 51 percent to 43 percent. Gianforte prevailed despite being charged on Wednesday night with misdemeanor assault on Ben Jacobs, a political correspondent for the U.S. edition of the Guardian newspaper, who said the candidate “body-slammed” him during a campaign event in Bozeman. Gianforte’s victory is a boost for Republicans, who are worried Trump’s political stumbles and the unpopularity of the healthcare bill passed by the House will hurt their chances of holding on to a 24-seat House majority in next year’s elections. But the relatively close margin of the race in Republican-leaning Montana was encouraging to Democrats, who are already focused on next month’s hotly contested special House election in the suburbs of Atlanta, Georgia. Gianforte had been favored to win in Montana, where Republicans have held the lone House seat for two decades and where Trump won by more than 20 percentage points in the 2016 presidential election. The race had grown closer in the last week, however, as Quist focused on criticism of the House healthcare bill. Quist, wearing his signature cowboy hat, told supporters in Missoula, Montana, that the grassroots energy of his campaign would continue. “I know that Montanans will hold Mr Gianforte accountable,” Quist said. It was unclear if Gianforte’s assault had an impact on the vote. More than a third of the state’s registered voters had already submitted ballots before it happened, state election officials said, and some Gianforte supporters shrugged off the charges or said they did not believe published accounts. “I feel like, it’s all just propaganda, you know what I mean, it’s hard for me to believe anything the media tells me,” said Nathaniel Trumper, who cast a vote for Gianforte at a polling station in Helena. The assault occurred as Jacobs tried to ask Gianforte about healthcare, according to an audio tape. Fox News Channel reporter Alicia Acuna, who was preparing to interview Gianforte, said the candidate “grabbed Jacobs by the neck with both hands and slammed him to the ground.” Afterward, three state newspapers rescinded their endorsements of Gianforte. Some Republican lawmakers, including House Speaker Paul Ryan, suggested he apologize. Gianforte specifically addressed his apology to Jacobs. “Last night I made a mistake,” he said, adding: “I’m sorry, Mr Ben Jacobs.” Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel called Gianforte’s apology “a good first step toward redemption” and said she hoped he “continues to work toward righting his wrong.” Gianforte will take the House seat vacated when Trump named Ryan Zinke as secretary of the interior. Trump and Vice President Mike Pence recorded robocalls to voters on Gianforte’s behalf, and Republican groups poured millions into ads criticizing Quist for property tax liens and unpaid debts, which Quist said stemmed from a botched gallbladder surgery. Quist, who raised more than $6 million for his upstart bid, said the experience gave him insight into the economic struggles some people face. He campaigned last weekend with U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who won the state’s 2016 Democratic presidential primary against Hillary Clinton. Gianforte could face additional, more serious charges once prosecutors review the evidence, Gallatin County Attorney Marty Lambert told Reuters. Gianforte has two weeks to enter a plea to the misdemeanor citation issued by the Gallatin County Sheriff’s Office, according to Lambert, who said he would likely review the case before then to decide whether it should be treated as a felony offense, which would supersede the current charge. “There’s always the possibility that when we get the case and the details, that we might look differently at the charging decision,” Lambert said. | 0fake |
13 Killed in Texas as Church Bus and Pickup Truck Collide - The New York Times | Thirteen people who were on their way home from a church retreat in southwest Texas were killed Wednesday afternoon when their bus collided with a pickup truck, officials said. The bus, which was carrying 14 people, most of them parishioners in their 50s or older from First Baptist Church in New Braunfels, was traveling south on Route 83, about 100 miles west of San Antonio, when it collided with a Dodge pickup just before 12:30 p. m. according to Lt. Johnny Hernandez, a spokesman for the Texas Department of Public Safety, and Barron Casteel, the mayor of New Braunfels. The driver of the pickup, the truck’s only occupant, and one other were injured, Lieutenant Hernandez said. It was not yet clear how the crash occurred, he said. Mr. Casteel called the church a “pillar” of the community that has long been involved in youth programs. “It’s just awfully sad,” he said. “All of us will be affected because we’re a small town and we’re going to be part of those families who lost loved ones. ” The families were working to recover the bodies of the deceased, he said. In a statement posted on Facebook on Wednesday afternoon, the church said that the bus was carrying a group of older adults who were on their way home from a retreat at Alto Frio Baptist Encampment, which is about 130 miles from New Braunfels. “We are ministering to family members to help them deal with this tragedy,” the statement read. “Counselors will be on hand at the church tomorrow. If you’re a Christian, you can pray for those who lost their loved ones and for the church family. ” Gov. Greg Abbott and his wife, Cecilia, offered their condolences to the victims and their families. “We are saddened by the loss of life and our hearts go out to all those affected,” Governor Abbott said in a statement. “We thank the first responders working on the scene in the wake of this unimaginable tragedy, and ask that all Texans join us in offering their thoughts and prayers. ” The church is well known in New Braunfels for the youth activities it hosts, particularly Upward Basketball, a program that it runs out of its own gym, said Mayor Casteel, who grew up in the city and took office in May 2014. Even though he attended a different church growing up, Mr. Casteel said, he would sometimes attend Sunday school at First Baptist with his friends. He also went to summer camp with the church. “We still have that very feel we all know each other,” he said. The church, whose former minister also served as mayor, has long been a fixture in the city, which has about 75, 000 residents. “It’s been there forever,” Mayor Casteel said. | 0fake |
Tillerson used email alias at Exxon to talk climate: New York attorney general | NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, the former chairman and chief executive of Exxon Mobil Corp, used an alias email address while at the oil company to send and receive information related to climate change and other matters, according to New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman. The attorney general’s office said in a letter on Monday that it found Tillerson had used an alias email address under the pseudonym “Wayne Tracker” from at least 2008 through 2015. Wayne is Tillerson’s middle name. The letter was sent to a New York state judge overseeing Schneiderman’s investigation into whether Exxon misled shareholders and the public about climate change. In a statement on Monday, Exxon spokesman Alan Jeffers said, “The email address, Wayne.Tracker@exxonmobil.com, is part of the company’s email system and was put in place for secure and expedited communications between select senior company officials and the former chairman for a broad range of business-related topics.” Jeffers said the company had provided 2.5 million pages of documents in response to a subpoena from Schneiderman’s office and would respond to the claims in the letter in court filings. A State Department spokeswoman declined to comment on the matter. The letter, seen by Reuters, said Exxon had not previously disclosed the alias account. It asked the judge to order Exxon to explain whether documents from the “Wayne Tracker” email and 34 additional accounts assigned to other Exxon executives and board members had been preserved. The letter said that Exxon had produced some 60 documents bearing the “Wayne Tracker” email but never said it was used by Tillerson for relevant communications at Exxon. It asked the court to order Exxon to identify whether any other email accounts were used by Tillerson. “Exxon’s top executives, and in particular, Mr. Tillerson, have made multiple representations that are at the center of OAG’s (attorney general’s office) investigation of potentially false or misleading statements to investors and the public,” the letter said. The case is People of the State of New York v PricewaterhouseCoopers and Exxon Mobil Corporation, New York State Supreme Court, New York County, No. 451962/2016. | 0fake |
WATCH: President ‘No F*cks Left’ Obama Tears GOP Lies Apart Limb By Incredibly Stupid Limb | Fox News, Donald Trump, and the rest of the half-witted douche-canoes in the Republican Party are an embarrassment to our nation, and the president knows it. On Wednesday, tyrannical dictator-for-life Barack Obama blasted Trump, his Republicans compatriots and frenemies, and right-wing media, for propagating numerous myths about the American economy.If you turn on the aforementioned propaganda outlet thinly veiled as a news network on any day that ends in -day, you will hear among their assortment of lies that Barack HUSSEIN Obama has killed all the jobs in the country, increased the deficit, that he has increased the number of jobless leeches on welfare by such an alarming amount that the country can not survive, and that America is bankrupt (both morally and financially).The president addressed the assortment of untruths coming from the right. The primary story that Republicans have been telling about the economy is not supported by the facts. It s just not, Obama said, blowing the lid off the reason Republicans say and do the crazy things they do:Obama is right Republicans voters, and especially Trump supporters, simply do not care about facts. Unfortunately for them, the president was there to fact-check the hell out of their ridiculous attempts to malign him, issue by asinine issue. Though he didn t mention Trump by name, explaining that the billionaire 2016 nominee can advertise himself, simply preys on the prejudices and fears of the Stupid Part of America (a tactic that is unfortunately successful). If people are feeling insecure and they are offered a simple reason for how they can feel more secure, people are going to be tempted by it, Obama told the crowd of 2,000, adding that Trump s promises make no sense in the real world:There is nothing more awesome than watching the President destroying, one-by-one, the numerous lies regularly spouted by the Right. You can watch that below:Featured image via Getty Images (Spencer Platt)/Scott Olson | 1real |
Germany Forming EU Super Army Preparing For World War 3 With Russia | source Add To The Conversation Using Facebook Comments | 1real |
Florida School Overreacts To Prank By Pressing Felony Charges | Three 12-year-old girls have been charged with first-degree felonies in the latest example of America s insane rush to criminalize children:Three seventh-graders at Deltona Middle School are facing criminal charges after allegedly putting crushed red pepper flakes in their teacher s can of Mountain Dew, a Volusia County sheriff s spokesman said.The three 12-year-old girls were arrested are being held at the Volusia Regional Juvenile Detention Center.Two face charges of poisoning food or water and tampering with consumer products. The third faces charges of tampering with consumer products and being a principal to poisoning food or water.I m not defending the actions of these three students but let s get a little perspective here: It was red pepper. You know, the stuff you put on your pizza to give it a little (emphasis on little ) zing? Two weeks of detention, a week of suspension, one month of community service or even the drastic step of expulsion would have been a more reasonable course of action. Instead, they got this not-at-all-extreme response:One Florida law the girls are facing charges under makes it illegal to add poison, bacterium, radioactive material, virus, or chemical compound to food or drinks, intending to kill or injure another person. It is a first-degree felony. The students also face a first-degree felony charge under Florida s Anti-Tampering Act,which prohibits changing consumer products with reckless disregard for another person s health and safety.Again, we re talking about RED PEPPER which, last I looked, was not capable of killing or injuring a person unless ingested by the pound (and maybe not even then).This growing trend of criminalizing children for behaving like children stems from our War on Everything mentality. We used to look at problem children and think How can I help this kid grow into a productive adult? Now, we look at these same kids and think, Putting them in prison will be better for society. That s not just cruel, it s certifiably insane. But we re still doing it. We ve flooded our schools with cops and cameras and metal detectors and random locker searches all in the name of safety. At best, we re conditioning children to accept a police state in which those in authority can violate their civil rights without consequence. At worst, we re conditioning them to think of themselves as criminals. This is especially true of the minority students that bear the brunt of zero tolerance policies and are the primary beneficiaries of the School-to-Prison pipeline. Funny how that worked out, right?How s that old saying go? Get em while they re young and you ll have a customer for life? It s nauseating that we ve applied that to mass incarceration. Murika.Featured image via google plus | 1real |
In bid for history, Clinton fails to reach the mountaintop | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Hillary Clinton came closer than any other woman to winning the White House on Tuesday but fell short for a second time, a bitter disappointment for a pioneering but polarizing American political figure. Seeking to win election to the office her husband Bill Clinton held from 1993 to 2001, Clinton, 69, lost her battle for the Democratic presidential nomination to Barack Obama in 2008 and lost on Tuesday to Republican Donald Trump, 70. Trump told supporters at a rally early on Wednesday that Clinton had phoned to congratulate him on his victory. A Clinton campaign aide confirmed the phone call. In 2000, Clinton became the only first lady to win elected office, as a U.S. senator from New York. In 2009, she became the third female secretary of state. In July, she became the first woman to claim a major U.S. party’s presidential nomination. The presidency turned out to be a bridge too far. Accepting her party’s nomination in July, she embraced the historic nature of her candidacy, saying that “when any barrier falls in America it clears the way for everyone. After all, when there are no ceilings, the sky’s the limit. So let’s keep going. Let’s keep going until every one of the 161 million women and girls across America has the opportunity she deserves to have.” During four decades in public life, Clinton withstood such controversies as an FBI investigation of her use of a private email server as secretary of state, probes into past business dealings, her husband’s infidelity and an unsuccessful Republican effort to remove him from office. Two American women, Geraldine Ferraro in 1984 and Sarah Palin in 2008, were nominated by major parties as their vice presidential nominees, but fell short in the general election. After losing to Obama in the 2008 race, Clinton deferred her White House ambitions, and served as his secretary of state from 2009 to 2013. Clinton’s admirers consider her a tough, capable and sometimes inspirational leader who endured unrelenting efforts by political enemies to chop her down. Campaigning for her on Monday in Michigan, Obama called Clinton “a candidate who is smart, a candidate who’s steady, a candidate who’s tested - probably the most qualified person ever to run for this office.” Her detractors consider her an unscrupulous and power-hungry opportunist. She was detested by many Republicans and conservatives, and in 1998 during her husband’s presidency bemoaned a “vast right-wing conspiracy.” Against Trump, she portrayed herself as guarding the country from the threat she said he posed to American democracy. “As I’ve told people, I’m the last thing standing between you and the apocalypse,” Clinton told The New York Times in October. When she entered the race last year for the Democratic presidential nomination, she was considered such a prohibitive favorite that others in her party shied away from challenging her. But she was an establishment figure and a Washington insider at a time when voters were smitten with outsiders. She secured the Democratic nomination in July only after beating back a surprisingly stout challenge from U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders, who appealed to young voters and mustered the kind of excitement that Clinton sometimes failed to generate. As secretary of state, she dealt with civil wars in Syria and Libya, Iran’s nuclear program, China’s growing clout, Russian assertiveness, ending the Iraq war, winding down the Afghanistan war, and an unsuccessful bid to settle the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Congressional Republicans spent years investigating allegations of State Department security lapses related to a 2012 attack by militants in the Libyan city of Benghazi that killed the U.S. ambassador. She testified during marathon congressional hearings in January 2013 at the end of her tenure at the State Department and in October 2015, while already a candidate for president, facing Republican criticism of her handling of the incident. Another politically damaging issue came to light during the lengthy congressional investigation into the Benghazi attack: accusations that she broke the law in her handling of classified information while corresponding through the private email server for her government work as secretary of state. The U.S. Justice Department in July accepted FBI Director James Comey’s recommendation not to bring criminal charges against her, although he faulted her “extremely careless” handling of classified information. Comey announced 11 days before the election that the FBI was investigating a new collection of emails as part of its probe, but said two days before the election that a review of those emails produced nothing that would change the decision not to bring charges. Trump called her “Crooked Hillary,” said he would seek to put her behind bars if elected and encouraged his supporters to chant “lock her up.” Clinton called Trump as a racist hate-monger, a sexist and a tax-dodger enamored with Russian President Vladimir Putin. She defended her lengthy service in government, dismissing Trump’s contention that she had produced no real accomplishments. Born in Chicago on Oct. 26, 1947, Hillary Rodham Clinton was the eldest of three children of a small-business owner father she called a “rock-ribbed, up-by-your-bootstraps, conservative Republican” and a mother who was a closet Democrat. She attended public schools, then enrolled in 1965 at all-female Wellesley College in Massachusetts, where she headed the Young Republicans Club. Her political views changed during the 1960s civil rights struggles and Vietnam War escalation and she switched parties. At Yale Law School, she met a similarly ambitious fellow student from Arkansas, Bill Clinton, and they became a couple. She moved to Washington to work for a congressional panel in the impeachment drive against Nixon, who resigned as president in 1974 during the Watergate scandal. She moved to Arkansas to be with Bill, married him in 1975, and was hired by a top law firm. He jumped into politics, eventually being elected governor, at age 32, in 1978. She gave birth to the couple’s only child, daughter Chelsea, in 1980. As Arkansas’ first lady, she was a high-powered lawyer in the capital Little Rock and a Wal-Mart corporate board member. Most Americans were introduced to her during her husband’s bid for the 1992 Democratic presidential nomination. Bill Clinton said voters would get “two for the price of one” if they elected him. She unapologetically said she was not a woman who “stayed home and baked cookies.” After a woman named Gennifer Flowers accused Bill Clinton during the campaign of a sexual affair, Hillary Clinton appeared on TV with her husband and referred to singer Tammy Wynette’s song, “Stand by Your Man.” “You know, I’m not sitting here, some little woman standing by my man like Tammy Wynette,” she said, adding that she loved and respected her husband. “And you know, if that’s not enough for people, then heck, don’t vote for him,” she added. Conservative critics painted her as a radical feminist and a threat to traditional family values. Bill Clinton defeated incumbent Republican President George H.W. Bush in November 1992. As first lady from 1993 to 2001, unlike many of her predecessors, she was an active part of policymaking. Critics assailed her unsuccessful effort to win congressional passage of healthcare reform, deriding it as “Hillarycare.” She and her husband faced a long investigation into past business dealings but ultimately no criminal charges were brought. A real estate venture known as Whitewater faced scrutiny, spawning an independent counsel investigation that later encompassed Bill Clinton’s sexual relationship with a White House intern named Monica Lewinsky. Deputy White House Counsel Vince Foster, a figure in the Whitewater controversy and a close friend of the Clintons from Arkansas, was found dead of a gunshot in 1993. His death was ruled a suicide. In a 2003 memoir, Hillary Clinton blasted “conspiracy theorists and investigators trying to prove that Vince was murdered to cover up what he ‘knew about Whitewater.’” In 2000, the independent counsel investigation concluded there was insufficient evidence to show the Clintons had been involved in any criminal behavior related to Whitewater. In December 1998, the Republican-led House of Representatives voted to impeach a president for only the second time in U.S. history, charging Bill Clinton with “high crimes and misdemeanors” for allegedly lying under oath and obstructing justice to cover up his relationship with Lewinsky. The Republican-led Senate acquitted Clinton in February 1999. Hillary Clinton called the impeachment an abuse of power by Republicans with a “Soviet-style show trial” and condemned what she called “an attempted congressional coup d’etat.” She also said she “wanted to wring Bill’s neck” for the affair and upbraided him privately. Ultimately, she said, she decided she still loved him and remained after they went through counseling. She launched her own bid for elected office and won election in 2000 as a U.S. senator. The 2008 race for the Democratic presidential nomination pitted America’s foremost woman politician against the son of a black Kenyan father and a white Kansan mother. After vanquishing Clinton, Obama made history when he defeated Republican John McCain to become the first black U.S. president. | 0fake |
Congo president says whoever killed U.N. experts will be punished | UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Congolese President Joseph Kabila told the annual gathering of world leaders at the United Nations on Saturday that he would ensure those responsible for killing two U.N. investigators earlier this year would be punished. Michael Sharp, an American who was coordinator of an independent sanctions monitoring group, and Zaida Catalan, a Swede, were killed in central Congo on March 12 while carrying out investigations for a report to the U.N. Security Council. The bodies of Sharp and Catalan were found in a shallow grave two weeks later. We are determined to ensure that light is shed on the exact circumstances of this crime and to ensure that this horrendous act ... will not remain unpunished, Kabila said. This is exactly what open public court processes have been working toward for several weeks now following the arrest of the majority of the suspects of these crimes, he told the 193-member General Assembly. Congolese authorities have arrested nine suspects in the killings but some Western governments and rights groups are skeptical that the real masterminds have been identified. An internal U.N. inquiry found that Sharp and Catalan were murdered by a group of Congolese, likely militia members from central Democratic Republic of Congo, but an absence of evidence does not preclude the possibility that others are involved. At a U.N. Security Council meeting last month, the United States, Britain, France, Sweden and Japan urged U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to establish a follow-up investigation to determine responsibility. Guterres has said he planned to discuss the establishment of a follow-on mechanism to the board of inquiry with Congo officials and council members. The most effective would be the integration of independent experts into the Congolese system. I do not know whether it will be possible or not, Guterres told reporters last week. Otherwise, we will take our own initiative: our colleagues in the Department of Political Affairs are making all the necessary consultations to put in place the system that can be as effective as possible for the truth to be known, he said. In the central Congo Kasai provinces, where Sharp and Catalan were killed, an insurrection by the Kamuina Nsapu militia, which demands the withdrawal of Congolese forces from the area, has driven 1.4 million people from their homes and killed more than 3,000 since August last year. Kabila said the country had fallen victim to terrorist attacks and that a mystical religious tribal militia is using the civilian population, including children as a human shield. Kasai poses Congo s biggest security challenge and is the scene of a growing humanitarian disaster in a country where militia violence since Kabila refused to step down in December has raised fears of a slip back into civil war. Kabila also told the U.N. General Assembly that Congo had so far registered 42 million of 45 million voters and that the National Election Commision would soon publish the electoral calendar and timelines. Despite this progress, challenges in organizing elections in my country remain great, both on the logistical level, as well as on the financial, security and legislative one, he said. I can affirm that we are most certainly moving towards credible, transparent and peaceful elections. He did not say if the vote would take place this year, as required by a deal with Congo s opposition that allowed him to stay in power beyond the expiry of his mandate last December. | 0fake |
Explosions rock Myanmar area near Bangladesh border amid Rohingya exodus | COX S BAZAR, Bangladesh/YANGON (Reuters) - Two blasts rocked an area on the Myanmar side of the border with Bangladesh on Monday, accompanied by the sound of gunfire and thick black smoke, as violence that has sent nearly 90,000 Muslim Rohingya fleeing to Bangladesh showed no sign of easing. Bangladeshi border guards said a woman lost a leg from a blast about 50 meters inside Myanmar and was carried into Bangladesh to get treatment. Reuters reporters heard explosions and saw black smoke rising near a Myanmar village. The latest violence in Myanmar s northwestern Rakhine state began on Aug. 25, when Rohingya insurgents attacked dozens of police posts and an army base. The ensuing clashes and a military counter-offensive have killed at least 400 people and triggered the exodus of villagers to Bangladesh. A Rohingya refugee who went to the site of the blast - on a footpath near where civilians fleeing violence are huddled in no man s land on the border - filmed what appeared to be a mine: a metal disc about 10 centimeters (3.94 inches) in diameter partially buried in the mud. He said he believed there were two more such devices buried in the ground. Bangladeshi border guards said they believed the injured woman stepped on an anti-personnel mine, although that was not confirmed. Two refugees also told Reuters they saw members of the Myanmar army around the site in the immediate period preceding the blasts which occurred around 2:25 p.m. Reuters was unable to independently verify that the planted devices were landmines and that there was any link to the Myanmar army. The spokesman for Myanmar s national leader Aung San Suu Kyi, Zaw Htay, said that a clarification was needed to determine where did it explode, who can go there and who laid those land mines. Who can surely say those mines were not laid by the terrorists? There are so many questions. I would like to say that it is not solid news-writing if you write based on someone talking nonsense on the side of the road, said Zaw Htay. The treatment of Buddhist-majority Myanmar s roughly 1.1 million Muslim Rohingya is the biggest challenge facing Suu Kyi, accused by Western critics of not speaking out for the minority that has long complained of persecution. The Nobel Peace Prize laureate has come under increasing diplomatic pressure from countries with large Muslim populations such as Turkey and Pakistan to protect Rohingya civilians. Myanmar says its security forces are fighting a legitimate campaign against terrorists responsible for a string of attacks on police posts and the army since last October. On Monday, Reuters reporters saw fires and heard gunshots before the explosions near the Myanmar village of Taung Pyo Let Way. Myanmar officials blamed Rohingya militants for the burning of homes and civilian deaths but rights monitors and Rohingya fleeing to neighboring Bangladesh say the Myanmar army is trying to force Rohingya out with a campaign of arson and killings. The number of those crossing the border into Bangladesh - 87,000 - surpassed the number who escaped Myanmar after a series of much smaller insurgent attacks last October that set off a military operation. That operation has led to accusations of serious human rights abuses. The newest estimate, based on calculations by U.N. workers in the Bangladeshi border district of Cox s Bazar, takes to about 174,000 the total number of Rohingya who have sought refuge in Bangladesh since October. The new arrivals have strained aid agencies and communities already helping hundreds of thousands of refugees from previous spasms of violence in Myanmar. We are trying to build houses here, but there isn t enough space, said Mohammed Hussein, 25, who was still looking for a place to stay after fleeing Myanmar four days ago. No non-government organizations came here. We have no food. Some women gave birth on the roadside. Sick children have no treatment. Hundreds of Rohingya milled beside the road while others slung tarpaulins over bamboo frames to make shelters against the monsoon rain. Among new arrivals, about 16,000 are school-age children and more than 5,000 are under the age of five who need vaccine coverage, aid workers said over the weekend. Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, who said on Friday that violence against Myanmar s Muslims amounted to genocide, last week called Bangladesh s President Abdul Hamid to offer help in sheltering the Rohingya, Dhaka said. Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi met Suu Kyi and other officials in Myanmar on Monday, to urge a halt to the violence. Suu Kyi s office said Marsudi expressed the Indonesian government s support of the activities of the Myanmar government for the stability, peace and development of Rakhine state . They also discussed humanitarian aid and the two countries would collaborate for the development of the state, Suu Kyi s office said without giving further details. There were more anti-Myanmar protests in Jakarta on Monday. Malala Yousafzai, the youngest winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, called on Suu Kyi to condemn the shameful treatment of the Rohingya, saying the world is waiting for her to speak out. In addition to tens of thousands of Rohingya, more than 11,700 ethnic residents had been evacuated from northern Rakhine state, the Myanmar government has said, referring to non-Muslims. The army said on Sunday Rohingya insurgents had set fire to monasteries, images of Buddha as well as schools and houses in the north of Rakhine state. It posted images of destroyed Buddha statues. | 0fake |
From batons to barbecues, Catalan vote exposes police divisions | SANT PERE DE TORELLO, Spain (Reuters) - As Spanish police wielded batons and fired rubber bullets at crowds attempting to vote in Catalonia s banned independence referendum on Sunday, the region s own police force gave many voters a much gentler reception. In Catalonia s pro-independence heartland, among the farming towns of Osona county north of Barcelona, the Catalan force made little attempt to remove people from polling stations despite being tasked with the same court order to shut them down. Local courts received several complaints on Sunday against the Catalan police accusing them of inactivity and failing to close polling stations, despite the court order, the region s High Court said in a statement. In Sant Pere and Osona s capital of Vic, crowds waited in orderly queues and cast their ballots in school halls, though the mood was jittery as photos of bloodied voters circulated via social media from the cities of Barcelona and Girona. More than 840 people were injured during Sunday s police crackdown, Catalan officials said. Spain s Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, however, praised the police for carrying out their duties and upholding the law. In Sant Pere, children ran along the street playing tag, young people passed around barbecued kebabs and flagons of red wine, and pensioners at a retirement home nearby sat by windows and waved Catalan flags. If we don t win today, we will never be able to do it. This is the opportunity, Ramon Jordana, a 92-year-old former taxi driver said as he dropped his vote into a ballot box that organizers had smuggled into the town in the dead of night. At the polling station in Sant Pere, a town of some 2,500 people close to the Pyrenees which symbolically declared independence from Spain in 2012, voters arrived before sunrise and Jordana cast the first vote at 9 a.m. Officers from Catalonia s regional police, the Mossos d Esquadra, had tried to enter Sant Pere and Vic s polling stations before voting began but crowds clustered around the entrances to stop them. They withdrew to applause and cheers. We won t use force to enter, but we ll stay outside all day in case at some point we can, one of the officers in Sant Pere told Reuters afterwards. He asked not to be identified. The two officers in Sant Pere chatted casually with locals outside the polling station, and one of them posed with a child for a photo. After a second attempt to enter the voting center, the crowd resisted and they retreated around a street corner. In Osona s overwhelmingly separatist-controlled municipalities, opinion polls show support for independence tops 80 percent on average, around double the overall support among Catalonia s 7.5 million population. The referendum has been declared illegal by Rajoy s central government in Madrid, which says the constitution states the country is indivisible, and it has dispatched police across Catalonia to seize ballot boxes and prevent people voting. However, national police and the Mossos have taken very different approaches, despite Spain s state prosecutor telling Mossos recently that they had been put under a single chain of command reporting directly to the interior ministry in Madrid. The Mossos are held in great affection by Catalans, especially after they hunted down Islamists accused of staging coordinated attacks in Barcelona in August which killed 16 people. In contrast, the Civil Guard national police were branded Rajoy s thugs on Twitter on Sunday. National police unions said officers had carried out an impeccable intervention to preserve the constitution and called the Mossos inaction scandalous . The national police are disappointed and indignant ... The Mossos presence has been insufficient, deliberately weak and embarrassingly neutral, the unions said in a statement. In Sant Pere, before voting got underway, the town s mayor, Jordi Fabrega, asked a crowd of about 200 people to guard the booth s entrance all day and to resist peacefully any attempt by police to enter. The moment we leave it unguarded, they will come, Fabrega said. The first count of Sant Pere s vote showed 80 percent turnout with 97 percent of voters supporting independence. High turnout will be key to legitimizing a yes vote, which the Catalan government says would lead to a declaration of independence from the regional parliament within 48 hours. Locals blocked streets with vans and construction trucks as word spread that national police, who have been drafted into Catalonia in their thousands, were en route to raid the polling station. If the police really want to get the ballot boxes, they will get them, said one Sant Pere voter, 66-year-old Carles, who declined to give his surname as he was worried the Spanish government would come after him. In the end, no national police turned up. Organizers said it had been no easy task to get to this point. Joan Vaque Casas, Sant Pere s head coordinator, said he had received a text message at about 2 a.m. to meet at a secret location to pick up the ballot box and voting papers. | 0fake |
Watch Dan Savage Destroy Ann Coulter For Her ‘Bullsh*t’ Obsession With Trump (VIDEO) | Ann Coulter is one of those blatantly offensive conservatives that most of us wish would just go away, but she continues to find a way to make herself seem somewhat relevant by spewing inflammatory remarks and hate speech on news shows.On Friday, Bill Maher had Coulter on Real Time, where she probably thought she was going to succeed in spreading her ignorant views and praise for Donald Trump. But Maher s show took another turn instead, Coulter was mercilessly bashed by one of Maher s other guests, sex columnist Dan Savage.Savage, being more than familiar with Coulter s anti-immigration stance (which basically makes Trump her political soulmate), called Coulter out and brutally exposed the stupidity behind her beliefs. He asked: Why do we want to throw these 11 million people out of the country? They contribute more to our economy than they take out; they pay more in taxes than they receive in services; illegal immigrants commit fewer crimes per capita Coulter cut Savage off, interrupting him with made up facts even though she claimed that his points were untrue and false facts. She added: Not only are they false facts, but if they are true facts then you need to go and elect people who will change the laws. Savage didn t let up. Referring to Trump s obsession with building a wall at the U.S.-Mexico border, Savage fired back and took Coulter s smug smile right off her face when he said, But your rationale for building this wall is bullsh*t. Coulter argued, No, the rationale is that he [would be] the commander-in-chief, he protects the borders. Those are the laws. Savage also made sure to rip the GOP as a whole just as hard as he railed against Coulter. Earlier in the conversation, Coulter made a comment that Savage should be the spokesman for Hillary Clinton because he was so judgmental and critical of the Republican Party. She once again passing off lies as facts, said, That s gonna be a big hit with the American people who are overwhelmingly voting for Trump. Savage didn t sugarcoat the truth for Coulter. He countered: No, the GOP base which is overwhelmingly rubes, idiots, sexists, racists are overwhelmingly voting for Trump. Truer words have never been said.You can watch Savage and Coulter s tense exchange below:Featured image is a screenshot | 1real |
OBAMA AND VALERIE JARRETT Finalize Executive Action Gun Control Proposal | It s almost as though we don t even have a Constitution Never let a crisis go to waste President Barack Obama s advisers are finalizing a proposal that would expand background checks on gun sales without congressional approval.White House adviser Valerie Jarrett says the president has asked his team to complete a proposal and submit it for his review in short order. She says the recommendations will include measures to expand background checks.Jarrett spoke Wednesday night at a vigil for the victims of the Newtown shooting, according to a summary provided by the White House.After the mass shooting in Roseburg, Oregon, Obama said his team was looking for ways to tighten gun laws without a vote in Congress. White House officials have said they re exploring closing the so-called gun show loophole that anti-gun advocates claim allows people to buy weapons at gun shows and online without a background check.The move comes following the deadly terrorist attack in San Bernardino, California, that left 14 people dead. All of the guns used in the massacre were purchased legally. Opponents of new gun control regulations have argued that the proposals being pushed by Obama would not have prevented the tragedy or recent mass shootings. Via: The Blaze | 1real |
Obama at Prayer Event: Christians did terrible things, too | President Obama called on people of faith to reject those who use religion to justify evil – and in doing so – reminded people about the terrible things done in the name of Jesus Christ.
Obama told a gathering Thursday at the National Prayer Breakfast that we have seen “professions of faith used both as an instrument of great good but twisted in the name of evil.”
“From a school in Pakistan to the streets of Paris we have seen violence and terror perpetrated by those who profess to stand up for faith – their faith – profess to stand up for Islam but in fact are betraying it,” he said.
He did not mention radical Islam or jihadists or Islamic extremists. He did, however, call ISIS a “brutal, vicious death cult that in the name of religion carries out unspeakable acts of barbarism.”
The president also issued a word of warning to Christians.
“And lest we get on our high horse and think this is unique to some other place – remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ,” the president said.
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He also chided the United States, “our home country.”
“Slavery and Jim Crow all too often was justified in the name of Christ,” he added.
Robert Jeffress, the pastor of First Baptist Church of Dallas and the author of the upcoming book, “Countdown to the Apocalypse: Why ISIS and Ebola Are Only the Beginning,” said there are two problems with Obama’s comparison.
“When Christians act violently they are acting in opposition to the teachings of their founder, Jesus Christ,” Jeffress told me. “They cannot cite a single verse in the New Testament that calls for violence against unbelievers. On the other hand, radical Islamists can point to a number of verses in the Koran calling for Muslims to ‘crucify the infidels.’”
On Wednesday a United Nations watchdog group reported that Islamic militants were crucifying Iraqi children and burying them alive. Others had been sold as sex slaves and boys as young as 18 had been used as suicide bombers, Reuters reported.
“They are following the example of their founder Muhammad who slaughtered and beheaded those who opposed him,” Jeffress said.
While the Crusades were terrible, Jeffress pointed out they were a response to hundreds of years of Muslim aggression – an issue he writes about in his book.
As you might imagine – the president’s remarks did not go over well among conservatives. My friend Michelle Malkin put it nicely:
"ISIS chops off heads, incinerates hostages, kills gays, enslaves girls. Obama: Blame the Crusades," she tweeted.
I was puzzled by something else President Obama said: "We are summoned to push back against those who would distort our religion for their nihilistic ends."
What did he mean by “our religion”? Whose religion? And why did he compare the Crusades to ISIS?
The Crusades ended some 700 years ago. Perhaps the president should be a bit more concerned with the Islamic jihad being waged in this century.
Todd Starnes is host of Fox News & Commentary, heard on hundreds of radio stations. His latest book is "God Less America: Real Stories From the Front Lines of the Attack on Traditional Values." Follow Todd on Twitter @ToddStarnes and find him on Facebook.
| 0fake |
FINGER-WAGGING GRANNY HILLARY CLINTON Blows Up At Activist Confronting Her At Rally [Video] | Hillary Clinton shows her true colors here with a finger wagging moment on the campaign trail: | 1real |
They Said What?!: Find Out What Mindy Kaling, Barack Obama, And Steven Spielberg Have To Say | Email Ever wonder what’s on the mind of today’s most notable people? Well, don’t miss our unbelievable roundup of the best and most talked about quotes of the day: “ My friends have somehow gotten it into their heads that I’m attracted to ghosts. So every day I’ll get texts saying, ‘I just met a great, handsome ghost I want to set you up with for marriage.’ I want to lay this rumor to rest: I think ghosts are as ugly as rats. ” —Mindy Kaling On ghosts “ The second my successor swears in, I’m going to start chasing my Secret Service members. And they know it. ” —Barack Obama On what he'll be doing on January 20 at 12:00 p.m. “ I just remembered another fact about Jaws . The shark’s mouth is called Jaws, not the shark itself. ” —Steven Spielberg | 1real |
Trump's tax writeoff shows his 'genius' at business, advisers say | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Donald Trump’s decision to take a $916 million loss on his 1995 income tax return showed his business acumen and “genius” at figuring out how to minimize his tax bill, two of the Republican presidential candidate’s advisers said on Sunday. “This is a perfectly legal application of the tax code. And he would have been fool not to take advantage of it,” said Rudy Giuliani, the former New York mayor who is one of Trump’s advisers. Speaking on the ABC program “This Week,” Giuliani said that as a business owner, Trump has a “fiduciary duty” to the investors in his real estate company to maximize profits. Giuliani compared Trump’s ability to come back from the nearly $1-billion loss to turnarounds made by Apple co-founder Steve Jobs and Winston Churchill, the former British prime minister who led the United Kingdom through World War Two. “It shows what a genius he is. It shows he was able to preserve his enterprise, and then he was able to build it,” Giuliani said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” The New York Times reported on Saturday that it had obtained Trump’s 1995 tax records and it quoted experts as saying that the $916 million loss he reported for that year may have allowed him to avoid paying federal income taxes for up to 18 years. Susanne Craig, one of the Times reporters who was bylined on the story about Trump’s tax records, said the tax documents arrived in a manila envelope in her mailbox at the Times with a return address of the Trump Organization. She said a lawyer for Trump had threatened the newspaper with legal action if it decided to publish the documents. The tax benefits outlined in the documents stemmed from financial deals Trump made that went bad in the early 1990s. The Trump campaign, in a statement on Saturday, said the tax document was obtained illegally and accused the New York Times of operating as an extension of the presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton, Trump’s rival in the Nov. 8 election. “I know our complex tax laws better than anyone who has ever run for president and am the only one who can fix them. #failing@nytimes,” Trump wrote on Twitter on Sunday. Chris Christie, the New Jersey governor and head of Trump’s presidential transition team, said that Trump’s records showed that the U.S. tax code was an “absolute mess” and that Trump was the best person to fix it. “There’s no one who has shown more genius in their way to maneuver about the tax code as he rightfully used the laws to do that,” Christie said on “Fox News Sunday.” But Clinton spokesman Brian Fallon said the tax writeoff “shows the colossal scale of his business failures” and that the wealthy real estate developer operates under a different set of rules than ordinary taxpayers. Clinton has repeatedly called on Trump to release his tax returns, as is standard procedure for modern presidential candidates. Trump has declined to release his tax records, saying he will not do so until an audit of his returns by the Internal Revenue Service is complete. The IRS has said that an audit does not bar an individual from sharing their own tax information. | 0fake |
Kellyanne Conway Immediately Regrets Defending Trump, Humiliates Herself On Live Television (VIDEO) | White House adviser Kellyanne Conway should have learned by now that whenever she tries to defend Donald Trump, she always ends up making a fool of herself instead.At this point in Trump s still budding presidency, it s become almost impossible to defend him. His approval rating is historically low and continues to plummet as he continues to f*ck up time and time again.Recently, Conway was made to regret her job as Trump s mouthpiece when she tried to argue that Trump was more approved of than the media. In an interview, Conway tried to beef up Trump s approval rating by dissing the media, and it went terribly wrong. Conway said: Why don t you throw up the mainstream numbers as well. Somebody can call me and let me know when the President s approval rating gets as low as the media s approval rating, and the Congress s and the party s. Conway must be just as ignorant as Trump because it s already been widely reported that far more voters (52 percent to be exact) prefer and trust the mainstream media over Trump. Only 37 percent would trust Trump over the media.Once again, Conway and her alternative facts have made America look like a joke. It s not just a stretch to say that Trump is more popular than the media it s a flat out lie because he can t even come close. Trump and his administration are so dishonest that if the media wasn t doing its job, the American people would be left in the dark. Thanks to the Trump administration, fewer Americans than ever have trust and faith in their government and have turned to the free press for answers.Conway s defense of Trump only further proves that America is being led by an administration with no dignity whatsoever. You can watch Conway embarrass herself below:Featured image via screenshot | 1real |
U.S. lawmakers want Russia sanctions over hacking, Ukraine, Syria | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Republican and Democratic senators said Tuesday they want to slap a wide range of sanctions on Russia over its cyber activities and actions in Syria and Ukraine, and force President Donald Trump to formally waive them if he has objections. Ten senators - Republicans John McCain, Lindsey Graham, Marco Rubio, Ben Sasse and Rob Portman and Democrats Ben Cardin, Robert Menendez, Jeanne Shaheen, Amy Klobuchar and Richard Durbin - introduced the legislation and said they hoped to add more sponsors and push Senate leaders to allow a vote. A sanctions bill with similar provisions is being written in the House of Representatives, led by Democrats Eliot Engel, the Foreign Affairs Committee ranking member, and Gerald Connolly, a panel member. The measures could set up a showdown with the administration of Trump, a Republican who takes office on Jan. 20 and has repeatedly praised Russian President Vladimir Putin and criticized intelligence officials for findings linking him to attempts to influence the 2016 presidential election. The Senate bill was introduced a day before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee holds its confirmation hearing for Trump’s nominee to be secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, who worked for years with Putin’s government as chief executive of Exxon Mobil. Cardin, the panel’s top Democrat, said Tillerson would be questioned about whether he would support the sanctions. “This is about protecting the security of America,” he told a news conference. The bill would impose visa bans and freeze the assets of people “who engage in significant activities undermining the cyber security of public or private infrastructure and democratic institutions” or those who aid such activities. It would also impose sanctions on those who engage with the Russian defense or intelligence sectors, which could affect international companies doing business with Russia. It also puts into law sanctions on Russia that President Barack Obama imposed via executive order late last month. U.S. lawmakers have long called for a tougher response to Russian annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea region and intervention in the Syrian civil war on behalf of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Their impatience has increased since intelligence agencies released a report Friday saying Putin ordered a campaign to try to sway the 2016 U.S. election in Trump’s favor. “We have to respond to Vladimir Putin’s behavior and if we don’t, he will continue unchecked,” McCain said. The bill also sets new sanctions over Ukraine and Syria, including putting into law four executive orders from the Obama administration sanctioning Russia over its actions in Ukraine. Among other things, it would mandate sanctions on large investments in Russia’s ability to develop its petroleum and natural gas resources. It would let the president waive the sanctions, but only if he certified that Russia is making progress on complying with international agreements and improving its record on human rights. Graham said he would push Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to allow the measure to come up for a vote, predicting strong bipartisan support in the Senate. Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer announced he supports the bill. “I’m not going to let 2017 go by and not challenge what Russia did. This is the best way to challenge them,” Graham said. A McConnell spokesman responded only that he had no scheduling updates. Lawmakers from both parties have raised questions about the decades Tillerson spent working with Russia’s government as an executive at the oil company, his ties to Putin and past criticism of U.S. sanctions on Russia. | 0fake |
Poland Establishing New Territorial Defense Force to Fight ‘Russian Threat’ | Politics Poland Establishing New Territorial Defense Force to Fight ‘Russian Threat’
Poland's right-wing government is creating a new military arm to counter the supposed Russian threat, as well as planning to double the size of Poland's armed forces Originally appeared at Sputnik
The Polish government has given a final go-ahead to the planned creation of a territorial defense force, which local media were quick to call the “personal army” of Defense Minister Antoni Macierewicz. Sputnik Poland discussed the issue with Polish politician and commentator Mariusz Olszewski.
“ Macierewicz is a very efficient politician and defense minister and his ability to place [the territorial defense force] under his personal command, rather that the president’s is nothing short of a political masterpiece, ” Mariusz Olszewski told Sputnik Poland.
He added that the new force was obviously meant for use inside the country against the so-called “death squads” trying to destabilize the political situation in the country.
“If this is really what is happening, then the government’s fears are fully justified,” Olszewski chuckled.
In the event of an armed conflict the territorial defense units will be called up to secure their designated areas, stamp out attempts to stoke up ethnic and religious conflicts and attempts to destabilize the country.
When asked whether it means that the Territorial Defense Force (TDF) would serve as a kind of “personal police” for the ruling Law and Justice party, Mariusz Olszewski said that it would rather serve the national security minister.
“The very list of threats the TDF is supposed to deal with looks a bit strange though as we have no internal threats, neither have we any regional or ethnic minorities here,” Olszewski said, adding that the real threat to the powers-that-be came from people who “use Western money to destabilize the country through media ‘death squads’ and challenge the constitutional order in Poland.”
“I am also worried by Ukrainian media saying that it could take the Polish army just five days to reach the border of the Second Polish Republic [prior to 1939 — Ed.]. This is exactly the kind of misinformation Western propaganda was spreading about Russian troops needing just 24 hours to reach Warsaw. Someone is trying to pit Eastern European countries against each other, to make people believe that war is imminent,” Mariusz Olszewski warned.
While admitting that security was something no country should ignore, he added that a country the size of Poland might need a territorial defense force, but only as a backup to the regular forces, “not as the mainstay of national defense as our defense ministry wants us to believe. This is either someone’s mistake or just a PR stunt.”
“Poland needs ground forces, an Air Force and, to a lesser extent, a Navy. As for territorial defense, it is just a smokescreen meant to hide what is really happening in our army,” Mariusz Olszewski emphasized .
The Territorial Defense Force (TDF) is a planned military reserve component of the Polish armed forces which is currently being formed.
Plans call for the force, once fully active, to consist of 35,000 part-time volunteers. Poland plans to deploy the new territorial defense units on its eastern border and to transfer the acting brigades there with an eye to becoming one of the largest NATO armies in Europe.
Defense Minister Antoni Macierewicz said that the deployment was aimed against Russia, describing it as a "measured, proportionate" response to "the prospect of aggressive Russian action."
He also supports the idea of significantly boosting the Polish armed forces, from the current 80,000 servicemen to some 150,000. | 1real |
U.S. says 'deeply concerned' about Kenya ahead of election | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. government is deeply concerned about the political environment in Kenya as police and protesters clashed ahead of its presidential election on Oct. 26, the U.S. State Department said in a statement on Friday. It said that while the United States did not back any party or candidate, it fully supports the work of an election board, adding: Unfortunately, in recent weeks actors on all sides have undermined the electoral commission and stoked tensions. | 0fake |
Trump's faulty trade math may not make America greater, or richer | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - By U.S. President Donald Trump’s math, renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement and other deals will largely pay for the massive tax cuts his cabinet laid out earlier in the week. He is likely off by a factor of close to 10 - or more - according to trade and tax economists who say it does not make sense to think of the world in the two-dimensional, money-in-my-pocket or money-in-yours way that Trump did in a Thursday interview with Reuters. The president, for example, said that given the current $61 billion annual trade deficit with Mexico, the United States would be better off if the two countries did not trade at all, saying “You’ll save yourself a hell of a lot of money.” The former real estate developer’s economic assessment appeared to overlook the ways in which a total halt to trade between the two neighbors would ripple through both nations - changing prices, currency values, jobs and wages, arguably helping some industries but damaging others. The net impact of Trump’s calculations, which run counter to most widely accepted views of the benefits of trade, are hard to predict, said Claude Barfield, a trade expert at the conservative American Enterprise Institute. “These views about the trade deficit and its alleged negative impact...are nonsense, and are views he has held since the 1980s,” said Barfield. “It could happen,” he said of a hypothetical severing of ties between the United States and Mexico, “but the things you would do to make it happen would be hugely disruptive. You’d have to think what are the first- and second-order effects,” as industries reorganize and consumers adapt. In the case of Mexico, the American companies that exported a quarter of a trillion dollars of goods and services to that country last year would be out a customer, and likely cut jobs. Those American companies that tried to replace the $323 billion in Mexican imports would likely do so at a higher cost — assuming they are in the United States to begin with. There is no guarantee that if Trump were to seal the border with Mexico that it would “save” the United States any money, said Marcus Noland, a trade economist at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. It may simply reduce consumption through higher prices charged by domestic suppliers, or lead to increased imports from a different country. “Americans seem to really like guacamole,” Noland said, “but the idea that we are going to have giant greenhouses and lots of avocados and limes - the fact that we are purchasing them from the Mexicans rather than producing them at home tells you producing them at home is more expensive. We can stop trading with the Mexicans, and have $60 billion less in consumption.” Since consumption accounts for a large part of the U.S. economy, that is not an outcome Trump would want, though it would be one way, economists note, to achieve the trade balance the president and his advisers regard as important. Trump told Reuters: “There is no such thing as a trade war when you have a deficit.” Most economists disagree with the notion that the trade deficit matters much to a country as large and self-sufficient as the United States. Trade at that scale in particular is shaped by global savings and investment patterns that in recent years have favored the United States. By the statistics most widely accepted among economists, the U.S. position with the rest of the world has been steadily improving as investment flows into the country from abroad and supports millions of jobs. The current account deficit – which includes trade flows, investment, and other financial transfers across borders – has been shrinking for more than a decade and is now less than 2 percent of gross domestic product. As far as the impact of trade on the federal deficit - a separate concept reflecting how much the government spends and how much it collects from businesses and households - Trump said that he was not worried that his plan to cut taxes will result in a sea of red ink “because we will do trade deals that are going to make up for a tremendous amount of the deficits.” Economists, however, say any connection is circuitous, felt through channels like an increase in tax payments from new job holders or stronger corporate profits — but hard to estimate and likely small. Even if Trump achieved his wildest success, and eliminated the United States’ $500 billion trade deficit solely through increased exports that boosted gross domestic product on a dollar-for-dollar basis, it would do little to dent the estimated $7 trillion in government deficits his tax plan is projected to generate over the next decade. Alan Cole, an economist at the Tax Foundation, said that every dollar of gross domestic product generates about 17.6 cents in federal government revenue, meaning the $500 billion trade shortfall would translate into just $88 billion in new taxes. Even that, he said, is wildly generous. “You have to say where is the new production coming from, which people, which places?” Cole said. “Will it be new factories being built, and if so why haven’t they been built already?” | 0fake |
Trump Elected President, Thanks to 4 in 5 White Evangelicals | November 9, 2016 Trump Elected President, Thanks to 4 in 5 White Evangelicals
Exit polls suggest that “Never Trump” was never a likely outcome for white evangelical voters, who showed up to support Trump at their highest margin since 2004. Despite reservations expressed by many evangelical and Republican leaders, white born-again/evangelical Christians cast their ballots for the controversial real estate mogul-turned-politician at an 81 percent to 16 percent margin over Hillary Clinton. Evangelicals of color—who represent 2 in 5 evangelicals, but aren’t segmented out in most national political polls—largely preferred Clinton leading up to the election. But she ultimately underperformed among Hispanics and African Americans compared to President Barack Obama before her. “The story here continues to be continuity in the strength of evangelical support for GOP candidates, rather than greater intensity,” said Kevin den Dulk, political science professor at Calvin College. “I suspect there’s some underlying changes in polling responses that would make Trump’s evangelical support seem greater than it has in the past.” | 1real |
ISIS Operative Suspected in Paris and Brussels Attacks Is Identified - The New York Times | The United States government revealed the identity on Tuesday of an Islamic State operative believed to have been one of the overseers of last year’s attacks in Paris, as well as of the coordinated suicide bombings that tore through the international airport and a metro station in Brussels this year. The operative — who until recently was known only by his nom de guerre, Abu Souleymane — is a originally from Morocco whose real name is Abdelilah Himich, according to a statement issued by the State Department, which announced his designation as a global terrorist. The listing describes Mr. Himich as a senior fighter and “external operations figure,” a reference to his suspected role in planning attacks abroad for the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL. “Himich created the Tariq Ibn Ziyad Battalion in 2015, a European foreign terrorist fighter cell that has provided operatives for ISIL attacks in Iraq, Syria and abroad,” the statement said. “Himich was also reportedly involved in the planning of ISIL’s November 2015 Paris attacks and March 2016 Brussels attacks. ” The assault on multiple locations in Paris on Nov. 13, 2015, was led on the ground by Abdelhamid Abaaoud, a Belgian member of the Islamic State who traveled from Syria and maintained telephone contact with the various teams of attackers. He was killed in a police shootout days later. But evidence quickly emerged that Mr. Abaaoud and his team had been taking orders from and reporting back to inside the terror group. Among the first clues was the testimony of one of the hostages inside the Bataclan concert hall in Paris, who said he had overheard one of the suicide bombers asking the other, “Should we call Souleymane?” After the March 22 attacks in Brussels, the Belgian capital, the police recovered a laptop belonging to one of the plotters and discovered recorded chats between the attackers and their handlers in Syria, including Abu Souleymane and another commander who went by the nom de guerre Abu Ahmad, according to Brisard, who leads the Center for Analysis of Terrorism in Paris. French officials have refused to confirm that the “Souleymane” mentioned in these two episodes is indeed Mr. Himich. However, a joint investigation by ProPublica and Frontline identified Mr. Himich as one of the architects of the Paris attack and revealed that he had lived in Lunel, France, and was deployed to Afghanistan after enlisting in the French Foreign Legion. “He was promoted very quickly once he reached Syria and became the commander of a brigade of foreign fighters, and this is surely as a result of his background and his combat experience,” said Mr. Brisard, who described Mr. Himich as “the conceiver” of the Paris attacks. According to records consulted by Mr. Brisard, Mr. Himich joined the Islamic State in April 2014 and fought as one of the group’s snipers before being wounded in combat. He participated in at least one filmed execution, in which he crucified two victims, Mr. Brisard said. Mr. Brisard cautioned, however, that the Islamic State’s external operations arm, the unit responsible for inspiring and carrying out terrorist attacks abroad, was a team effort. Although Mr. Himich may have sketched the broad outlines of the plot, the planning passed through multiple hands. Records from the laptop seized in Brussels indicate that Abu Ahmad may have had a more direct role in “piloting” both the Nov. 13 and March 22 plots, Mr. Brisard said. Reached by telephone, the office of the chief prosecutor in Paris, which is leading the investigation into the French attacks, declined to comment on the State Department announcement. | 0fake |
German parties fret about Turkish voters as Erdogan makes mark | BERLIN (Reuters) - Nihan Sen s grandmother came to Germany in the 1960s but still speaks no German. By contrast, Nihan herself is a star of German youth culture, with 783,000 followers for her YouTube channel. Yet she acknowledges: I really do like a bit of Turkish television. She is not alone. Turkish broadcasters have an 84 percent market share among Germany s three million people of Turkish background, and 40 percent of them watch no German television at all, according to market researcher Data4U. As a captive audience of television broadcast from Ankara, Germany s Turkish citizens are caught in a tug-of-war for their loyalty ahead of a German national election on Sept. 24. Turkey s president, Tayyip Erdogan, has called on German voters of Turkish background to reject Germany s mainstream political parties, saying they are unfriendly to Turkey . The parties worry that Erdogan has more access to Turkish-speaking German voters than they do. Green Party co-leader Cem Ozdemir, the most prominent German politician of Turkish descent, has called for Germany s public media to start broadcasting a Turkish channel for the benefit of Turks, both in Germany and in Turkey. We need a German-Turkish broadcaster, he told the Rheinische Post newspaper in March. For years we ve neglected to help people from Turkey find a new political homeland, also politically, and now we re seeing the fruits of that. Traditionally, Turks in Germany have voted mainly for the Social Democrats or the Greens, the main center-left parties, which are known for being friendly to immigrants. But Erdogan has repeatedly urged them instead to reject both those parties, as well as Merkel s ruling conservatives. "The majority, because they only watch Turkish TV, are informed very one-sidedly," said Joachim Schulte, head of Data 4U, which specializes in polling Germany's Turks. Schulte believes Erdogan's call could sway 300,000 votes -- a quarter of the Germans of Turkish descent who are eligible to vote. For now, voters of Turkish descent who turn away from the Social Democrats and Greens have few other choices. Schulte said those who become disaffected are more likely to stay home than back rival parties. But that could still affect the outcome in an election that is likely to be hard fought for every vote. A change in Germany s citizenship law in 2000 means the number of ethnic Turks with the right to vote has nearly doubled over the past decade, increasing their importance as a bloc. Polls show most Turks in Germany backed Erdogan when voting as expatriates in Turkish elections. For Erdogan, having influence over voters in Germany provides a chance to settle scores with German politicians he sees as enemies, while burnishing his credentials at home as a defender of Turks everywhere. Germany s mainstream parties have been outspoken critics of Turkey s crackdown since a failed coup last year, in which thousands of Turks have been jailed, including around a dozen who hold German citizenship. Turkey also demands that Germany hand over asylum seekers it accuses of involvement in the coup. For the Social Democrats and Greens, losing the Turkish vote poses a real risk: even a small swing could weaken them in potential talks with the conservatives about setting up a government after the vote. In recent weeks, a new party, the Alliance of German Democrats, led by ethnic Turks, has campaigned with a poster of Erdogan. Friends of Turkey, it reads. Stand with them! So far the new party is polling below one percent nationally and fielding candidates only in North Rhine-Westphalia, the big Western state home to more than a fifth of Germany s population. The national prospects for a minority ethnic party may be limited in a country with a 5 percent threshold to win seats, but a party appealing directly to Turks could undermine the bigger parties. Our poster was a quote from Erdogan: he was criticizing German politics and saying we should vote for parties that are our friends, said party spokesman Ertan Toker. Unlike the other German parties that are always negative about Erdogan, we are not. We saw this as him encouraging us to vote. Among the causes the new party has taken up: making it easier for ethnic Turks in Germany, most of whom still don t have the right to vote, to gain it. That struck a chord for Rascha, a 17-year-old Turkish girl in Duisburg, North Rhine-Westphalia. I was born here and I still don t have a German passport, she said. The process for getting one is long and bureaucratic. There s a new party that wants to give all permanent residents voting rights. Turkish community leaders from the big political parties say Erdogan s interventions into German politics are undoing decades of work on promoting integration. The political climate is poisoned by this, said Cansel Kiziltepe, Social Democrat parliamentary candidate in Berlin s multi-ethnic Kreuzberg district, where the Social Democrats, Greens and conservatives are all fielding candidates with Turkish roots. President Erdogan has torn down what we have built up over decades. We get threats, e-mails as ethnic Turkish lawmakers saying we aren t sufficiently loyal as Turks , Kiziltepe said. But I am a German politician and I do politics for Germany and for all people who live here. Timur Husein of Merkel s Christian Democratic Union was categorical about his loyalties: I am German, only German, said the son of a Turkish father and a Croatian mother. For YouTube personality Nihan, who confessed her passion for Turkish TV during an interview with Social Democrat leader Martin Schulz, the worry was that some Turks would end up alienated from wider German society. What can we do to stop parallel societies from emerging? she asked Schulz. Schulz was reassuring. "It's not bad, or even hard, to have two identities. Why should you deny your roots?" | 0fake |
BOOM! SHAREHOLDER Confronts Liberal Starbucks CEO Over Damage To Stock Value After Saying He’ll Hire 10,000 Refugees…Questioned Why Schultz Ignored Obama’s Travel Ban [VIDEO] | Americans who are sick and tired of leftist CEO s using their public positions to attack President Trump and his efforts waged a huge boycott against Starbucks and the Starbucks brand: Kudos to this shareholder for standing up and confronting Schultz over his selfish decision to publicly shame President Trump in his efforts to keep terrorists from entering our country With Starbuck s stock underperforming, its about time someone questioned Starbucks s liberal agenda. Just don t expect the media to care.A conservative think tank, The National Center for Public Policy Research, confronted outgoing controversial Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz. As an owner of Starbucks stock, the group sent its General Counsel Justin Danhof to Starbucks s annual shareholders meeting on March 22. There, he questioned Schultz for his public liberal opinions that may have hurt the company s stock price.In reference to Schultz s Jan. 29 decision that Starbucks would hire 10,000 refugees, Danhof asked Schultz How much will Starbucks investors have to spend so that the company can properly vet refugees that the federal government admits it can t afford to vet? He also asked Schultz why he condemned President Donald Trump s immigration order but lacked the courage to speak out against the Obama-Clinton travel ban? Watch: | 1real |
Obama to deliver statement on the economy: White House | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama on Friday will deliver a statement “on the economy and new steps to strengthen financial transparency and combat money laundering, corruption, and tax evasion,” the White House said. Obama is scheduled to make the remarks at 12:05 EDT (1605 GMT) at the White House, it said in a statement. | 0fake |
Hillary Clinton accused of stealing furniture from the State Department | Email
Hillary Clinton swiped State Department furniture to decorate her Washington home, a former member of her security detail has alleged to the FBI.
“Early in Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state, she and her staff were observed removing lamps and furniture from the State Department which were transported to her residence in Washington, DC,” an agent on the detail told the FBI.
The agent “does not know whether these items were ever returned to the government,” according to FBI notes.
The agent was assigned to Clinton in 2009, at the start of her term, but was not on the detail when Clinton left in 2013.
The accusations were part of 100 newly released pages of interview notes of the FBI investigation into Clinton’s handling of classified material.
The department flatly denied the latest charges, saying Clinton took home only property that she owned. | 1real |
Illegal Migrant Abandoned in Desert Calls 911 for Help | A severely dehydrated illegal alien called 911 pleading to be rescued after becoming lost in the desert near the Arizona border with Mexico. Human smugglers apparently abandoned the man and left him to die. [Border Patrol agents from the Tucson Sector, including a Border Patrol Search Trauma and Rescue (BORSTAR) team, saved the Mexican national. The man was struggling to maintain consciousness when agents found him. The foreign national called 911 and told dispatchers he was lost in the desert, according to information obtained by Breitbart Texas from U. S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officials. The Pima Dispatch notified Border Patrol agents after officials determined that the 911 caller was in a remote area west of Sells, Arizona. Sells is in Pima County. The remote community is located in teh Tohono O’Odham Nation Reservation which borders the state of Sonora, Mexico. The caller provided enough information to dispatchers for them to determine his general location. Border Patrol agents found the man struggling for his life. BORSTAR agents responded with their emergency medical training, giving him immediate help. Agents called a Life Flight evacuation helicopter for transport. Life Flight flew the illegal migrant flown to a Tuscon hospital for treatment. A statement obtained by Breitbart Texas from CBP officials said the Mexican national would be processed for violations after being released from the hospital. The release from CBP notes: Unscrupulous smugglers often abandon migrants in the desert who fall behind. As a result, many perish every year. Border Patrol officials encourage anyone in distress to call 911 or activate a rescue beacon before becoming a casualty. In the fiscal year 2016 Tucson Sector Border Patrol agents rescued over 1, 400 persons with many of those rescues conducted in the western Arizona region. Breitbart Texas follows the plight of those left to die by human smugglers, including children. In this writer reported Border Patrol agents assigned to the El Centro Sector found a girl who had been abandoned by smugglers. The agents observed a group of illegal immigrants trying to cross the International Border illegally near Mount Signal. One of the individuals fled back into Mexico, and another jumped into a vehicle and absconded leaving the little girl alone. Officials later determined that the to be a Guatemalan citizen. Parents who turn their children over to callous human smugglers are risking the lives of their children, agents with CBP have warned. In order to escape, these traffickers will frequently abandon a child in a dangerous place to distract Border Patrol agents. If a person being smuggled falls behind for any reason, such as dehydration, injury, or exhaustion, the coyotes will simply leave them behind to die in the desert. Often times, the deaths of these migrants place financial hardship on small border counties near and along the U. S. border. These communities often bear the cost of having to dispose of human remains of illegal immigrants left by these callous human smugglers. Breitbart Texas reported that Brooks County, Texas, saw an increase in 2016 in the numbers of deaths of these aliens. “Finding the remains of 55 humans in this county of about 15, 000 people is overwhelming for a sheriff’s office with seven deputies,” then Benny Martinez told Breitbart Texas. “When a deceased immigrant is found, our office is tasked with recovering the remains, identifying the victim, and burying the remains. With our very limited resources, this is a daunting set of tasks. ” By year’s end, officials in the county had recovered the remains of 61 human smuggling victims. The area 80 miles north of the border has become known as the Brooks County killing fields. Bob Price serves as associate editor and senior political news contributor for Breitbart Texas. He is a founding member of the Breitbart Texas team. Follow him on Twitter @BobPriceBBTX and Facebook. | 0fake |
Trump Delays Decision to Withdraw from Paris Climate Agreement - Breitbart | President Donald Trump will decide whether to keep the United States in the Paris climate agreement after a meeting of leading industrial nations later this month. [White House press secretary Sean Spicer told reporters about the new timeline Tuesday. “The president has been meeting with his team for quite a while on this matter, and he will not be making an announcement regarding that agreement until after he returns from the ” Spicer said, referring to the Group of Seven meeting scheduled for May in Italy. He continued, “The reason that he’s seeking the advice of his team is to get options and then he’ll pursue the best one. But I’m not going to tell you which one that he’s going to do. ” Spicer’s announcement came the same day that a team of White House officials delayed discussions on whether to withdraw from the Paris agreement or stay in the global accord. President Trump promised to withdraw from the Paris agreement during his presidential campaign. Senior White House adviser Steve Bannon and Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt argued against staying in the Paris agreement. White House advisers Ivanka Trump, Jared Kushner, and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson argue that the United States should remain in the Paris accord. The other world leaders will lobby Trump to stay in the Paris climate agreement at the meeting. The leaders of all the other members — Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the European Union all support the agreement. Sean Spicer said, “The president wants to continue to meet with his team … meet with not just the economic piece, but his environmental team, and come to a decision on what’s the best interests of the United States, using the expertise that surrounds him. ” | 0fake |
Eight Republican candidates qualify for Thursday's debate; Trump uncertain | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Eight Republican candidates have qualified for the prime-time Fox News/Google debate on Thursday, with Donald Trump winning the center-stage spot as the top-polling candidate, Fox News announced on Tuesday. But Trump said on Tuesday he likely will not attend the debate. This will be the last one before the Iowa caucuses on Monday marking the first contest in the nomination race for the Nov. 8 presidential election. Trump has been engaged in a public spat with Fox News that began at a debate last August in which he said he was subject to unfair questioning by moderator Megyn Kelly. “Let’s see how much money Fox makes without me in the debate,” Trump told the news conference in Marshalltown, Iowa. Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, who failed to qualify for the main event in the last debate, made the cut this time. The other participants in the 9 p.m. EST debate will be Texas Senator Ted Cruz, Florida Senator Marco Rubio, retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, former Florida Governor Jeb Bush and Ohio Governor John Kasich. Former Hewlett-Packard Chief Executive Carly Fiorina, former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum and former Virginia Governor Jim Gilmore qualified for the 7 p.m. EST debate for low-polling candidates. After failing to qualify for a prime-time debate held earlier this month, Paul declined to participate in the so-called undercard debate. (Reporting by Eric Beech; Editing by Eric Walsh) SAP is the sponsor of this coverage which is independently produced by the staff of Reuters News Agency. | 0fake |
Poll Finds Americans' Support For Police Highest In Nearly 50 Years |
In the past year, Americans have seen police officers ambushed and assassinated, and they have watched as the thin line protecting citizens from criminals has been reviled by groups such as Black Lives Matter.
And now America is taking its stand.
A new Gallup poll shows that respect for the police has hit its highest point in almost 50 years.
Related Stories Video: Suspect Beats Female Officer Who Didn’t Use Weapon Out Of Fear Of Backlash Police Officer Issues A Moving Response To Kaepernick’s Protest NBA Anthem Singer Drops To Knee During Final Line To Protest Racial Inequality The poll, taken in early October, found that 76 percent of Americans have “a great deal” of respect for police and another 17 percent say they have “some” respect.
“Obviously, this violent rhetoric we have seen from BLM has backfired ,” wrote Andrew Mark Miller on Young Conservatives.
“People respect the cops more than ever and they clearly see what a difficult job they have,” he added.
Miller said the Black Lives Matter movement denies its true purpose.
“And don’t give me this nonsense about how BLM isn’t anti-police,” he wrote. “In fact, many BLM supporters have been out there saying we should eliminate the police force entirely .”
Miller said the bottom line is clear.
“This poll is a repudiation of the tactics the left has used to demonize law enforcement. No getting around it,” he wrote.
Trending Stories Frustrated With Media Bias, Trump Campaign Takes Its Case Directly To Voters With Nightly Show On Facebook RNC Official Takes CNN Host To Task For Claiming There Is No Media Bias Independent Voters Push Trump To The Front In Florida And Ohio The level of Americans supporting the police that was reflected in the 2016 poll had not been reached since 1967, when urban riots and protest-driven long, hot summers were making cities dangerous and 77 percent of respondents said they gave police “a great deal” of respect. Gallup began surveying Americans about the police in 1965.
The 2016 poll also shows a major change in attitudes from just a year earlier. The 2015 poll showed the highest level to date of Americans lacking confidence in their police officers, at 18 percent.
“The increase in shootings of police coincided with high-profile incidents of law enforcement officials shooting and killing unarmed black men. Despite the flaring of racial tensions after these incidents, respect for local police has increased among both whites and nonwhites,” Gallup reported in analyzing its results.
“The sharp increase over the past year in professed respect for local law enforcement comes as many police say they feel they are on the defensive — both politically and for their lives while they are on duty — amid heated national discussions on police brutality and shootings,” it added.
Gallup said future events could change the level of support enjoyed by police.
“It’s unclear whether the spike in respect for police will have staying power or if it reflects mostly a reaction to the retaliatory killings against police officers last summer,” it wrote.
What do you think? | 1real |
Iraq Report Prompts More Defensiveness Than Regret From Tony Blair - The New York Times | LONDON — His voice sometimes close to cracking, his expression strained and grim, former Prime Minister Tony Blair spent much of the past two days responding to the damning judgment of an inquiry into how he led Britain into the Iraq war, engaging in an extraordinary public mix of soul searching, regret and defensiveness. Judging by much of the media reaction, he would have done better to save his breath. “A Monster of Delusion,” read the headline over a picture of Mr. Blair in The Daily Mail on Thursday. The Sun, another British tabloid, described him as a “Weapon of Mass Deception,” a reference to the incorrect assertions by Mr. Blair and President George W. Bush before the invasion that Iraq had an arsenal of unconventional weapons. Nine years after stepping down from office, Mr. Blair — the most successful politician of his generation, who led the Labour Party to three consecutive general election victories with a centrist message — is widely loathed in Britain, his legacy defined overwhelmingly by the Iraq war and its bloody aftermath. He has few defenders, especially within his own party, which was split at the time by his support for the war and has since shifted leftward again, repudiating much of what he stood for. Mr. Blair is such a pariah on the left, said Steven Fielding, director of the Center for British Politics at the University of Nottingham, that “if he says ‘black,’ almost everyone else will say ‘white.’ ” Mr. Fielding added, “In the party he once led, to be described as Blairite is the greatest insult that can be leveled. ” More broadly, Mr. Blair has failed to rehabilitate his image since leaving office, and in some ways has added to his problems. Though he set up the Tony Blair Faith Foundation, intended to counter religious conflict and extremism, its work has been overshadowed by his business interests. Mr. Blair’s wealth, and his willingness to advise nations with poor human rights records such as Kazakhstan, has fueled another strand of criticism: that he was always too impressed by those with power and money. And his diplomatic work, trying to bring peace to the Middle East, ran up against the intractability of the conflicts in that region. “There will not be a day of my life where I do not relive and rethink what happened,” Mr. Blair said, referring to the Iraq war. “People ask me why I spend so much time in the Middle East today. This is why. This is why I work on Middle East peace, on the dialogue between faiths on how we can prevent young people growing up with hatred in their hearts towards those who look, think or believe differently from them. ” The 2. report released on Wednesday was a savage indictment of Britain’s involvement in Iraq, condemning it as ill prepared and poorly executed, and concluding that it was based on flawed and unchallenged intelligence. In confronting the charges against him, Mr. Blair spoke sometimes in confessional terms, acknowledging those failings with “more sorrow, regret and apology and in greater measure than you can know or may believe. ” But what he did not do was to accept the fundamental premise of many of his critics: that he had been wrong to sanction military action against Saddam Hussein. The view of many of the protesters who gathered on Wednesday waving placards reading “BLIAR,” and of relatives of some of those who died in the conflict, is that he is culpable for taking Britain into a disastrous war on false pretenses. There have been attempted citizens’ arrests of him on war crimes charges. As one of his Labour Party critics, Diane Abbott, said on Thursday, Mr. Blair’s reputation had “bled to death in the sands of Iraq. ” Mr. Blair was always unpopular among the left of the party, who felt he had gone too far in abandoning core principles for the center ground while embracing central elements of Thatcherism. Even they would admit that he was good at winning elections: He scored his third victory in 2005, after the invasion of Iraq. Mr. Blair presided over a generally healthy economy and helped build peace in Northern Ireland. But many Britons found it inexplicable that he chose to go to war alongside Mr. Bush. In 2003, Mr. Bush was unpopular in Britain, and so was going to war in Iraq. Mr. Blair has sought to address his critics previously, but not at such length and with such public emotion as he has since the publication of the new report on Wednesday. The gist of his response was that his job as prime minister was to make tough decisions and that while he regretted many of the consequences of this one, he stood by it as the best available option at the time. “The world is better off without Saddam,” Mr. Blair told reporters in London, adding that had the Iraqi leader been left alone, he would have remained a threat to peace. And, had Mr. Hussein survived until the Arab Spring of 2011, he would have clung to power “with the same deadly consequences as we see in the carnage of Syria,” Mr. Blair suggested. “I will never agree that those who died or who were injured made their sacrifice in vain,” said Mr. Blair, while acknowledging that some of the families of those casualties “cannot and do not accept this is so. ” In that he is correct. After the report’s publication, Sarah O’Connor, the relative of one victim, called Mr. Blair “the world’s worst terrorist. ” Reg Keys, another victim’s relative, described Mr. Blair as a “consummate actor” and said that his long public statement resembled “the ramblings of a madman. ” While the report, seven years in the making, provides a damning indictment of sloppy cataloging a host of policy and other failings, it does not accuse Mr. Blair of lying — a point to which the former prime minister returned frequently. Over the years, Mr. Blair has been accused by critics of deceiving Parliament and the public, and on Wednesday he said accusations of “bad faith, of lying or deceit or deliberate misrepresentation” should be laid to rest. “I did not mislead this country,” Mr. Blair said. “I made the decision in good faith on the information that I had at the time. ” His unequivocal support for Mr. Bush was essential to prevent the United States from pursuing a unilateral foreign policy, Mr. Blair argued, rejecting the characterization of himself as the president’s “poodle. ” He defended a message sent to Mr. Bush, before the decision to invade, including the phrase: “I will be with you, whatever. ” That statement was, Mr. Blair said, “not a blank check. ” Yet 13 years after Mr. Blair ordered British troops into action, his response to the latest inquiry is unlikely to bring closure because he is not budging on one central point. “What I cannot do and will not do,” Mr. Blair said, “is say we took the wrong decision. ” Mr. Fielding said history’s judgment on Mr. Blair’s premiership may be more positive, but that Mr. Blair has refused to do the one thing that might soften the damning verdict of his contemporaries. “If he was ever going to, this was the moment for him to apologize and say, ‘We should not have done this,’ ” Mr. Fielding said. “If he isn’t going to say this now, he will take this to his grave. ” | 0fake |
Jon Stewart Finally Comments On Donald Trump’s Lewd Locker Room Talk | Jon Stewart may no longer be the host of The Daily Show, but he still has plenty to say about Donald Trump – particularly concerning the lewd comments he said to Billy Bush during a bus... | 1real |
What DNC Donors REALLY think of African Americans | This Video is REALLY Disturbing...
Not just to African Americans but to Americans in General...
Many of The DNC Policies that pertain to African Americans are deeply insulting and condescending in implication.
Voter ID Laws are not restrictive to The average African American but are portrayed as impediments to them because of the Intellectual Entitlement Mentality of The Democratic Nation Party.
The Racism Game is a cover for manipulation of both minorities and the majority...
Divide and Conquer...
They Divide the Voting Block...
To Conquer The Election. | 1real |
BAHAHA! DONALD TRUMP SIGN-STEALER Gets A Verbal Beatdown [Video] | A Trump sign-stealer gets a verbal beatdown and discovers he s actually a Trump supporter! Bahaha! | 1real |
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