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Bill O’Reilly: I’ll Flee The Country If Sanders Is Elected President (VIDEO) | Fox News blowhard Bill O Reilly really doesn t want the future to give us a President Bernie Sanders. That s no surprise; after all, O Reilly is obviously as far right as Sanders is left. However, O Reilly has taken his fear of another left-winger as president to a whole other level. In fact, he says that if Sanders gets in, he ll move to Ireland.On a recent edition of the O Reilly Factor, the bloviating talking head said that things would be even worse than they are under President Obama, because Sanders would take all of Obama s policies and amp them up. He says that Sanders would dismantle current social programs, specifically Obamacare in the sense that it would be Berniecare and it would be much more than it is now. That s when he said he ll be leaving the United States if forced to live under such rule. And you know, look, I m fleeing. If Bernie Sanders gets elected president, I m fleeing. I m going to Ireland. And they already know it. I shouldn t say it publicly because that will get Sanders more votes. But I m not going to pay 90 percent of my income to that guy. I m sorry. I m not doing it. Well, I got news for ya, Bill-O. Look at the clown car that makes up your side of the aisle. It s gonna be either Bernie or Hillary for the next eight years, if the good people of this nation have any sense at all. So, you better be packing your bags and getting your affairs in order. Go ahead, leave. One less right-wing talking head stoking fear and hate in the minds of ignorant viewers.Watch the comments below:Featured image via screen capture from Raw Story | 1real |
Trump Sends Crazy-Time Tweet To The Wrong Account After Losing His Sh*t Over World Leader’s Remarks | Donald Trump retweeted fake news videos in the early hours of the morning and for that, he was widely condemned. The White House responded to say that it doesn t matter if the former reality show star posted fake videos about Muslims because the threat is real! Scary, huh? A backlash ensued after Trump retweeted three times from a woman who was convicted of a hate crime in the U.K.The current occupant of the White House is upset because British Prime Minister Theresa May responded to Trump s widely condemned retweets this morning, saying, It is wrong for the president to have done this. In a statement, Downing street further said, Britain First seeks to divide communities by their use of hateful narratives that peddle lies and stoke tensions. They cause anxiety to law-abiding people. Members of British Parliament also condemned Trump s retweets.So naturally, Trump lashed out on Twitter at our ally s leader. The problem is that he tweeted to the wrong Theresa May, a person who only has 6 followers, causing that Twitter user to receive nearly 9,000 notifications.We took a screen capture because we knew (and he did) the Dotard would delete it. Here s Trump s full tweet to the totally wrong person. Finally, Trump tweeted the correct Theresa May, writing the same message: Don t focus on me, focus on the destructive Radical Islamic Terrorism that is taking place within the United Kingdom. We are doing just fine! .@Theresa_May, don t focus on me, focus on the destructive Radical Islamic Terrorism that is taking place within the United Kingdom. We are doing just fine! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 30, 2017Wrong! We are not doing fine when the so-called leader of the free world tweets to the wrong world leader, even though he is addicted to Twitter and still cannot tweet correctly. And now that he has corrected his tweet, he sounds just as idiotic as he did this morning when he started tweeting out fake videos in order to promote his ban on Muslim countries.What a fuckin moron.Photo by David Becker/Getty Images | 1real |
WATCH: Ted Cruz Tells Social Worker He’s Going To Deport Her If He Becomes President (VIDEO) | During a Cruzin to the Caucus campaign event in Iowa on Thursday night, Ted Cruz was questioned by a young woman who is concerned that she may be deported if Cruz is elected president.According to the Washington Post, Ofelia Valdez is a 30-year-old woman, who works as a special needs social worker and activist. Her parents brought her into the United States when she was a child illegally. She tells Cruz that she is currently safe from being deported because of President Obama s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. The program mandates that homeland security focus their attention on high priority individuals who have come into the United States illegally. High priority targets are people who have a violent criminal record. DACA makes it so that government agencies are not wasting resources going after people who more than likely were brought here by their parents, and have lived here for most of their lives. I think of myself as a part of this community and you know, first day of presidency, you decide to deport, you know, people like myself, you know, it s just very difficult, said Valdez.Cruz has vowed to reverse the executive orders made by the President during the Obama administration. It doesn t seem to matter what those executive orders are, Obama made them so they are bad. So Cruz responds, essentially telling the woman that he would deport her, should he become president. If you re a DACA recipient, you were brought here illegally, and violating the law has consequences. One of the problems of our broken immigration system is that it is creating human tragedies and there are human tragedies when people break the law, Cruz says.Cruz then goes on to list a number of other nations that he seems to think have a singular, hegemonic system for immigration, that represents the entire world. This is met with thunderous applause from the other attendees at the event.You can watch a video from the event below.Featured Image Credit: Screenshot via YouTube | 1real |
VIOLENT NPR EMPLOYEE Who Is Also A Refugee ARRESTED, Charged With ASSAULT For Blocking Betsy DeVos From Entering DC School | On Monday Politico reported that a protester who had blocked Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos from entering a school on Friday has been charged with assault for impeding/assaulting US government cabinet member. The man has been identified as Bilal Ahmed Askaryar, a refugee from Afghanistan. Politico obtained the police report on the case.It turns out that refugee is also a contributor with NPR. As we ve mentioned last month, the Trump administration plans to slash funding for NPR, the publicly funded liberal news outlet.Police report from Politico:Below is the video from the incident on Friday where protesters prevented DeVos from entering the school. In the video you can also see Askaryar getting arrested for committing assault.Via: GP | 1real |
U.S. auto safety advocacy group names Obama-era official to top post | (Reuters) - U.S. auto safety advocacy group Center for Auto Safety has appointed an official with a track record in federal government consumer protection agencies as its new executive director, the industry body said on Tuesday. Jason Levine, who spent about six years at the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission during the administration of former president Barack Obama, succeeds Clarence Ditlow, who died in November last year. Levine has also served in the Federal Election Commission and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The Center for Auto Safety was founded in 1970 by consumer rights advocate Ralph Nader and Consumers Union. | 0fake |
Wealthy financiers could gain from Trump's proposed tax cut for small businesses | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - High-income Wall Street financiers could be unintended winners from a section of U.S. President Donald Trump’s tax-cut plan that is meant to help mostly small, “mom-and-pop” businesses. Trump called on Wednesday for a new “pass-through” tax rate of 25 percent that could mean big savings for owners of sole proprietorships and partnerships who now pay 39.6 percent. But it could also mean a windfall for partners in private-equity, venture-capital and hedge funds, unless Congress can figure out a way to block them from taking advantage of the new rate. Ron Wyden, top Democrat on the tax-writing Senate Finance Committee, said Democrats supported a pass-through rate for small businesses, such as “a cleaner, a garage, a restaurant.” He said Trump’s plan, however, would create “a whole new set of wealthy individuals being able to dodge their taxes through this new provision.” At issue is the taxation of the roughly 95 percent of American businesses that are not public corporations. Non-public pass-through businesses, such as sole proprietorships, limited liability companies and partnerships, pay no income tax themselves. Instead their profits “pass through” directly to their owners, who pay tax on them at the individual tax rates. A small fraction of those business owners pay the top individual tax rate of 39.6 percent, higher than the current top corporate income tax rate of 35 percent. Those business owners have long complained that the disparity is unfair, especially in view of the fact that many multinationals pay much less than the 35 percent statutory corporate tax rate by exploiting abundant loopholes and tax breaks available to large, global corporations. Republicans have been eager to address the issue. Trump’s plan proposes a new tax rate of 25 percent for the pass-through income of “small and family-owned businesses.” The problem, according to the plan’s critics, is that financial entities such as private-equity, venture-capital and hedge funds are all partnerships whose wealthy partners would see substantial tax savings on large portions of their income unless congressional tax writers find a way to exclude them. ‘GOOD’ VERSUS ‘BAD’ PASS-THROUGH INCOME The White House document that spelled out Trump’s plan signaled that the administration was aware of the potential problem but would leave addressing it up to Congress. The document said: “The framework contemplates that the (congressional tax) committees will adopt measures to prevent the recharacterization of personal income into business income to prevent wealthy individuals from avoiding the top personal tax rate.” Trump’s plan also proposes cutting the top corporate tax rate to 20 percent from 35 percent and cutting the top individual tax rate to 35 percent from 39.6 percent. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said two weeks ago that the administration would ensure partners at services firms such as accounting, law and financial firms would not benefit from a new, lower pass-through rate. A Treasury Department spokesman did not respond to a request for comment on the pass-through rate or plans to exempt certain categories of firms. Frank Clemente, executive director of Americans for Tax Fairness, a liberal advocacy group, said the idea that a new pass-through rate would help small business was “simply a hoax.” Tax experts said it would be difficult for congressional tax writers to exempt partners at services firms from using the new pass-through rate. “There has always been talk of how to carve out ‘good’ pass-through income from ‘bad’ pass-through income. The problem is it’s exceedingly hard to do and there is no way to draw clear lines that won’t be manipulated,” said Seth Hanlon with the Center for American Progress, a liberal group. Victor Fleischer, a law professor at the University of San Diego, agreed it would be “challenging.” “Still, I think it can probably be done,” Fleischer said. | 0fake |
Venezuela defends rights record at U.N., says opposition 'back on path of rule of law' | GENEVA (Reuters) - Venezuela s foreign minister defended his country s record on Monday, rejecting as baseless reports by the United Nations human rights office that found grave violations by its security forces against protesters. Earlier, U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra ad al-Hussein warned that the government of President Nicolas Maduro may move to further crush democratic institutions and that crimes against humanity may have already been committed by his security forces. The opposition in Venezuela is back on the path of rule of law and democracy, we will see dialogue emerging thanks to the mediation of our friends, Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza said to applause at the U.N. Human Rights Council, where Venezuela is one of 47 members. (This story corrects quote in 3rd paragraph following U.N. interpretation error) | 0fake |
A Timeless Thanksgiving Address From Ronald Reagan: “As a measure of our gratitude, let us rededicate ourselves to the preservation of the land of the free and the home of the brave” [Video] | Except for the walls part, this is a really timeless address to Americans on Thanksgiving from a great leader: My fellow Americans, let us keep this Thanksgiving Day sacred thanking God for the bounty and goodness of our nation. As a measure of our gratitude, let us rededicate ourselves to the preservation of the land of the free and the home of the brave. | 1real |
This Single Anecdote Tells You EVERYTHING You Need To Know About Trump Voters | While pundits have been busily dissecting exactly what went wrong for Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election, it s becoming increasingly clear that in our post-fact world, it was lies, propaganda and the unwillingness of the mainstream media to point out the difference that propelled Donald Trump toward the presidency.The Atlantic spoke to people in Elkhart, Indiana, which has boomed since Obama took office in 2009. Unfortunately, residents of Elkhart seem not to know it, and neither do most Trump voters. Despite the fact that the U.S. economy has been on a constant trajectory of growth, almost since the day President Barack Obama took office, the vast majority of Republicans thought the economy has been horrible under Obama. Who can blame them? That s all Donald Trump and Fox News have been saying. The funny thing is, though, that immediately after the election, nearly half of Republicans thought the economy was getting better.In Elkhart, even the people who would acknowledge that things are getting better for them refuse to give Obama credit for it. They do seem willing to give Trump credit, though, despite the fact that he s done nothing yet. These two paragraphs from the article are going viral and they offer a big glimpse into the minds of Trump supporters:Andi Ermes, 39, offered a number of reasons for disliking Obama. She said Obama didn t attend the Army-Navy football game, even though other presidents had. Obama has actually attended more Army-Navy games than George H.W. Bush. She said that he had taken too many vacations. He has taken fewer vacation days that George W. Bush. She also said that he refused to wear a flag pin on his lapel. While it is true that Obama did not wear a flag on his lapel at points during the 2007 campaign, it was back on his suit by 2008. Ermes told me the news sources she consumes most are Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, and a local conservative radio show hosted by Casey Hendrickson.Perhaps unsurprisingly, Ermes sees the biggest signs for hope in the economy in Carrier deal struck by Donald Trump, which will keep 1,000 jobs in the U.S. He s not even president yet and already he s helping the economy, she said.Of course, the Carrier deal was just another Trump lie. Far fewer than the originally touted 1,000 jobs were saved in the Carrier deal, which was just a tax break. President Obama, on the other hand, saved 1.2 million jobs with very little fanfare.Featured image via Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images. | 1real |
All 100 Senators Contacted Russian Government This Week | Attorney General Jeff Sessions found himself at the center of controversy this week because he answered a question about the Trump campaign’s contacts with the Russian government without talking about his contacts as a United States Senator. [The assumption made by the media, the Democrats, and even some Republicans was that even routine contact with the Russian government is burdened by suspicion of collusion. Not since the McCarthy era have suspicions reached such levels. But if Sessions ought to resign, perhaps the entire Senate should quit. Because on Monday — two days before the Washington Post broke the highly scandalous story that Sessions had met the Russian ambassador twice in the course of his duties — every single United States Senator had formal contact with the Russian government. And not just any functionary: they had contact with Russian President Vladimir Putin himself. Worse (apparently) still, they initiated the contact with the Russians. The contact was a letter, signed by the entire Senate, urging Putin to release a valuable library of Jewish religious texts that was seized by earlier Russian regimes and which has been the subject of a legal and diplomatic dispute in recent decades. Senate Letter Re Chabad — 2017 — Without Hatch Signature by Breitbart News on Scribd, Senator Orrin Hatch ( ) provided the final signature on the letter, and tweeted proudly about his support for the effort: For the last year, Hatch has led his colleagues in an effort to recover the texts, including a letter signed by all 100 Senators. ( ) pic. twitter. — Senator Hatch Office (@SenOrrinHatch) February 28, 2017, None of that means Sessions should have misled Congress — but the point is, again, that he did not. Ordinary contact with foreign governments is such a routine part of the job that he did not think to mention it, just as no one mentioned the Putin letter this week, even in the heat of debate about which senators might have met the Russian ambassador, and when and why. Joel B. Pollak is Senior at Breitbart News. He was named one of the “most influential” people in news media in 2016. His new book, How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak. | 0fake |
Father Of Orlando Shooter Says His Son Got ‘Angry’ When Seeing Two Men Kiss (VIDEO) | The shooter responsible for a mass shooting that is being investigated as an act of terrorism has been identified as Omar Mateen of Port St. Lucie, Florida. Mateen s father was contacted by MSNBC, where he spoke out against the mass shooting that took 50 people s lives at Pulse, a gay nightclub located in Orlando, late Saturday night. The extremely high death toll makes this incident the largest mass shooting in United States history. There are dozens of people who have been hospitalized with injuries, experts have said that they expect to see the death toll increase over time.It has been confirmed that the shooter used both a handgun and an AR15 type rifle. Mayor Dyer: 50 dead in Pulse nightclub shooting. @ChiefJohnMina Suspect had handgun and AR15 type rifle. Orlando Police (@OrlandoPolice) June 12, 2016 We are saying we are apologizing for the whole incident. We weren t aware of any accident he is taking. We are in shock like the whole country. This had nothing to do with religion. The father of the shooter says that he saw his son become angry when he saw two men kissing in downtown Miami a couple months ago. Here is the MSNBC report on the story:WATCH: Father of shooter in Orlando club tells NBC News: We are apologizing for the whole incident https://t.co/SJiy3pFAYJ TODAY (@TODAYshow) June 12, 2016So far a motive for the shooting has not been released by investigators. Investigators have not yet determined whether the shooting is an act of domestic terrorism or whether Marteen was acting in collusion with an international terrorist organization.Fatriana Evans was outside of Pulse when the shooting began. She told the Associated Press: Some guy walked in and started shooting everybody. He had an automatic rifle, so nobody stood a chance. I just tried to get out of there. Featured image from Gerardo Mora/Getty Images | 1real |
Why Scared Misogynists Are Trolling Emma Watson (TWEETS) | Emma Watson has been in the news lately and it s not because of her acting. She s a staunch feminist and a human rights activist, taking a strong position on the rights of refugees. She recently made news when she gave an extraordinary speech at the United Nations, advocating for the rights of women around the world. She also recently tweeted in solidarity with the refugees coming to Europe in search for safety after years of war and torment in Syria.That was more than enough for anti-feminist and anti-refugee trolls to attack Thomson by using her humanitarianism against her. There is a petition circulating that challenges Watson to live in a camp in Calais, France. Entitled Spend one week in a Calais migrant camp for feminism (without bodyguards), the petition states: In order to show how safe current migration is to Europe, particularly regarding the cause of feminism (I reject wholeheartedly the notion that North African and Middle Eastern migrants are unsafe, and rapists), Emma Watson should spend a week s holiday in a Calais migrant camp, without guards of course, to show how safe, and how pro feminism these migrants are. It all started with one simple humanitarian tweet:#refugeeswelcome Emma Watson (@EmWatson) September 7, 2015The tweet has since garnered plenty of responses for and against Watson s stance. Some ignorant people have chosen to lump all the refugees into a single category by citing the attacks on France:Remember this @EmWatson? #RefugeesWelcome They killed innocent people in #Paris, Emma. How do you sleep at night? pic.twitter.com/LYqfoWuh4i JEB DELENDA EST (@rsmccain) November 15, 2015Others however, have shown support:@rsmccain @EmWatson if we abandon the innocent refugees we abandon compassion and create more extremists Chris France (@france_chris) November 15, 2015Since the petition was created a week ago, over 12,000 people have signed it with 15,000 being the goal. Here s what a troll had to say about Watson: Ever since she was invited to give a widely praised speech at the UN on the topic, she has become a poster girl of modern feminism. Her simultaneous embrace of female equality, mass migration and the misogynistic non-western cultures brought with it, is widely seen as typical of left wing activists today. In this context, the petition can be interpreted as an expression of frustration with the contradictions of modern liberal feminism, rather than merely a personal attack on Ms. Watson. Watson, who is best known for her role as Hermione in the Harry Potter films, was made a Goodwill Women s Ambassador by the United Nations in 2014 and has been passionately using her platform to advocate for the betterment of humanity. At only 24 years old, she s already making a difference. We need more people like Emma Watson and we need to support her.Featured Image Via Wikimedia Commons. | 1real |
One more Republican defection would doom Senate healthcare bill | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump turned up the heat on Friday on fellow Republicans in the U.S. Senate to pass a bill dismantling the Obamacare law, but with their retooled healthcare plan drawing fire within the party even one more defection would doom it. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has planned for a vote next week on revised legislation, unveiled on Thursday, and he has his work cut out for him in the coming days to get the 50 “yes” votes needed for passage. Republicans control the Senate by a 52-48 margin and cannot afford to lose more than two from within their ranks because of united Democratic opposition, but two Republican senators already have declared opposition. “After all of these years of suffering thru Obamacare, Republican Senators must come through as they have promised,” Trump, who made gutting Obamacare one of his central campaign promises last year, wrote on Twitter from Paris, where he attended Bastille Day celebrations. The top U.S. doctors’ group, the American Medical Association, on Friday called the new bill inadequate and said more bipartisan collaboration is needed in the months ahead to improve the delivery and financing of healthcare. Hospital and medical advocacy groups also have criticized the bill. “The revised bill does not address the key concerns of physicians and patients regarding proposed Medicaid cuts and inadequate subsidies that will result in millions of Americans losing health insurance coverage,” AMA President Dr. David Barbe said, referring to the government insurance program for the poor and disabled. A major test for McConnell’s legislation expected early next week is an analysis by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, which last month forecast that the prior version of the bill would have resulted in 22 million Americans losing insurance over the next decade. A day after that CBO analysis was issued, McConnell postponed a planned vote on the legislation because of a revolt within his own party, including moderates and hard-line conservatives. While the bill’s prospects may look precarious, the same could have been said of healthcare legislation that ultimately was passed by the House of Representatives. Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan called off a vote in March in the face of a rebellion involving the disparate factions of the party but managed to coax enough lawmakers to back it and engineered narrow approval on May 4. Vice President Mike Pence sought to shore up support among the nation’s governors at a meeting in Rhode Island, but a key Republican governor, Ohio’s John Kasich, came out strongly against the revised bill, saying its Medicaid cuts were too deep and it does too little to stabilize the insurance market. Kasich’s opposition could put pressure on Rob Portman, a Republican senator from Ohio, who has not yet taken a position on the bill. If the current Senate legislation collapses, some lawmakers have raised the possibility of seeking bipartisan legislation to fix parts of Obamacare but leaving intact the structure of the Affordable Care Act, Democratic former President Barack Obama’s signature legislative achievement, commonly known as Obamacare. “There are changes that need to be made to the law,” Dick Durbin, the No. 2 Senate Democrat, told MSNBC, citing “a bipartisan appetite to tackle this issue.” Moderate Susan Collins and conservative Rand Paul already oppose the revised Senate bill. Other Republican senators have either expressed concern or remained noncommittal, including Portman, Mike Lee, Shelley Moore Capito, John McCain, Dean Heller, John Hoeven, Lisa Murkowski, Jeff Flake, Ben Sasse, Cory Gardner, Todd Young and Thom Tillis. Republican Senators Lindsey Graham and Bill Cassidy floated an alternative plan. The new version was crafted to satisfy the Republican Party’s various elements, including moderates worried about Americans who would be left without medical coverage and hard-line conservatives who demand less government regulation of health insurance. A provision championed by Republican Senator Ted Cruz and aimed at attracting conservatives would let insurers sell cheap, bare-bones insurance policies that would not have to cover broad benefits mandated under Obamacare. But two major health insurance groups, America’s Health Insurance Plans and the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, called on McConnell to drop the Cruz proposal, saying it would undermine protections for pre-existing medical conditions, raise insurance premiums and destabilize the individual insurance market. The bill retained certain Obamacare taxes on the wealthy that the earlier version would have eliminated, a step moderates could embrace. But it kept the core of the earlier bill, including ending the expansion of Medicaid that was instrumental in enabling Obamacare to expand coverage to 20 million people, and restructuring that social safety-net program. John Thune, a member of the Senate Republican leadership, said in order to complete work on the bill by the end of next week, Senate leaders would have to try to formally begin debate on Tuesday or Wednesday, a move that requires a majority vote. | 0fake |
Trump Finally Delivers On Promised Phone Call To Soldier’s Wife, Says The Most Disgusting Thing EVER | After two days of controversy over Donald Trump s lack of response, attention, or even seeming to notice the four soldiers who died in an ambush in Niger nearly two weeks ago, he finally called the pregnant widow of one of the fallen soldiers, Sergeant LaDavid Johnson. At Miami International Airport, where she awaited the remains of her 25-year-old husband, Myeshia Johnson took the president s 5-minute call.On hand with Myeshia Johnson was Congresswoman Frederica Wilson, the US Representative from Johnson s district. Wilson has been critical of Trump s response or lack of one for longer than this has even been in the national spotlight. Sgt. Johnson s body was left behind after the ambush, and not recovered by the military for two days after the operation. Many questions remain about the ambush, the operation, and the planning that went into the entire effort. Some consider Trump s bluster on calling military families and his attack on President Barack Obama to be a distraction from those questions that have arisen.According to Rep Wilson, the phone call was insensitive and insane, and if accurate, what she conveyed from Sgt. Johnson s widow is possibly the worst thing anyone has ever said to the widow of a soldier, let alone the worst thing a president has said. Trump told Mrs. Johnson, He knew what he signed up for But when it happens it hurts anyway. Those are the words of a man who has either never suffered a loss or has never cared about one.The call was first reported by Ross Palombo, the Washington Bureau Chief for an ABC affiliate in Miami. After Palombo tweeted about the Congresswoman s account of the call, he was contacted by the White House, only for officials to chide him and tell him that the affair was none of his business:BREAKNG: Top White House official tells me about @realDonaldTrump comment to soldier s widow The President s conversations with the families of American heroes who have made the ultimate sacrifice are private. @WPLGLocal10 Ross Palombo (@RossPalombo) October 18, 2017This kind of response is, unfortunately, just what America has come to expect from the disgusting Donald Trump and his cohorts in the White House.Featured image via Mark Wilson/Getty Images | 1real |
How McConnell kept Republicans in line to win Senate tax bill | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - When Republicans tried to repeal and replace Obamacare over the summer, they acted like “a bunch of free range chickens”, said Republican Senator John Kennedy. “Everybody was upset, tired, mad, people drawing lines in the dirt.” Not this time. Republican leader Mitch McConnell and the rest of his party’s Senate leadership brought party members into line this week and finally won passage of a sweeping tax overhaul early on Saturday. Late arm-twisting and deal-sweeteners for wavering lawmakers allowed them to push through legislation that aims to slash corporate taxes and cut personal taxes. Democrats complained it was a bad deal for middle-class and poor Americans and would irresponsibly raise the national debt by $1.4 trillion over the next decade. But they were outnumbered and Republicans’ discipline, in short supply for much of this year, saw the bill through. The debate revealed how the Republican Party is undergoing a transformation under President Donald Trump. Republicans who fight above all for a balanced budget no longer wield the power they once had. “I feel somewhat like a dinosaur,” deficit hawk Bob Corker admitted on Friday afternoon. Hours later, he was the only Republican to vote against the bill. Fear also played a role. The risk of a backlash from wealthy donors and conservative supporters if the party failed to deliver on another campaign promise ahead of mid-term elections next year helped party leaders get the legislation approved in a 51-49 vote. “I think after failing twice on healthcare, folks went back home and talked to the real people of America,” said Kennedy. “And they were told, ‘Look, we sent you up there to fix our problems. Fix them or we’ll find somebody who will.’” McConnell needed 50 of the 52 Republicans in the Senate to back the tax bill, knowing Vice President Mike Pence was on hand to provide the tie-breaking vote if needed. McConnell could only count on 43 votes on Wednesday night. Nine other Republican members were wobbly and he had no support from Senate Democrats. McConnell and his allies went to work, offering a wide range of late concessions to holdouts to get a political victory after months of frustration. The bill still needs to be reconciled with a different version approved by the House of Representatives, but the Senate bill is expected to remain largely intact. Led by Corker and Jeff Flake, a small group of fiscal conservatives were at first upset that the Senate bill was going to increase fiscal deficits and the national debt. Early efforts to get their support went slowly. “It’s been pretty hard to make them happy so far. We’re going to keep working on it, as we always have, and we’ll get to the finish line,” Senator Orrin Hatch said on Thursday night. Flake came around when he was able to win two concessions. First, he got a commitment from Senate leadership and the Trump administration to put a time limit on allowing companies to write off the full value of new capital investments. Second, Pence assured Flake the administration would work with him on fair and permanent protections for illegal immigrants who came to the United States as children. Two other fiscal conservatives, James Lankford and Jerry Moran, also came on board. Although Corker refused to yield, the others’ votes were enough to ensure victory. Senator Ron Johnson demanded and won amendments to further ease the tax burden on “pass-through” businesses. “I was just kind of biding my time ... And then Senator Portman came over and said ‘What can we do’?”, Johnson said of a Thursday night vote. Even moderate Senator Susan Collins, who helped scuttle Obamacare repeal efforts earlier this year, agreed to vote in favor of the tax bill. Representing voters with a high state tax burden in Maine, Collins was against her party’s plan to end the deduction of state and local property taxes. Under an amendment she pushed, taxpayers would be allowed to deduct up to $10,000 a year. Collins also said she was assured by Republican leaders that they would take steps soon to mitigate damage caused by the repeal of a fee linked to the Obamacare “individual mandate”, which requires some Americans to buy health insurance. McConnell also got lucky in that Trump didn’t make his job any harder. Unlike his conduct in the Obamacare debate, Trump largely stayed on message, proclaiming the tax bill would help the middle class and businesses. Although incorrect, he also claimed it would be the biggest tax cut ever. Trump met with Republican senators on Capitol Hill for lunch this week, a gathering described as thoughtful and positive. “Nobody called anybody names or talked about anybody’s native American heritage, or anything,” said Kennedy, referring to Trump’s habit of picking fights with perceived enemies. Democrats were furious, saying Republicans were throwing money at the rich and that the bill was handled too fast. “If the economy grows or shrinks. If it creates jobs or loses them. Who knows? Certainly no one here. No one could know, because it hasn’t even been read, let alone thoughtfully considered,” said Senate Democratic leader Chuck Shumer. | 0fake |
Singer Jennifer Holliday pulls out of Trump inauguration event | LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Broadway star Jennifer Holliday said on Saturday she was pulling out of a concert celebrating the inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump, citing an online article that cast the performance as a “betrayal” of her gay and lesbian fans. The Tony Award-winning singer, best known for her roles in the Broadway musicals “Dreamgirls” and “Your Arms Too Short to Box with God,” announced the cancellation in a letter first published by The Wrap, an entertainment industry news website. “I sincerely apologize for my lapse of judgment, for being uneducated on the issues that affect every American at this crucial time in history and for causing such dismay and heartbreak to my fans,” Holliday said in the letter, which was released to Reuters by her representatives. Holliday was not scheduled to perform at Friday’s inauguration itself but at an event at the Lincoln Memorial the night before called the “Make America Great Again! Welcome Celebration.” Also scheduled to appear are country music star Toby Keith, rock band 3 Doors Down and Oscar-winning actor Jon Voight. The Trump transition team referred questions to the Presidential Inaugural Committee, which did not comment directly on Holliday’s letter. “As Americans from across the country unite to celebrate the 58th Presidential Inaugural, we are humbled by the outpouring of support we are receiving and are honored to have so many world-class performers taking part in this historic celebration of freedom and democracy,” Boris Epshteyn, director of communications for the Presidential Inaugural Committee, said in a written statement. In a column for the Daily Beast website, entertainment reporter Kevin Fallon called Holliday a gay icon for her work on Broadway and said that Trump had surrounded himself with politicians who vocally oppose lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights. “For the gay community that has bolstered Holliday’s, in her own words, embattled and difficult career, and cheered on her recent successes, the news (of Holliday’s planned performance) feels like a betrayal. It is heartbreaking,” Fallon wrote on Friday. In her letter, Holliday wrote that she had originally agreed to perform for Trump as a “bi-partisan songbird” who had sung for four presidents, both Republican and Democratic, dating back to Ronald Reagan. “I was honestly just thinking that I wanted my voice to be a healing and unifying force for hope through music to help our deeply polarized country,” Holliday wrote. “Regretfully, I did not take into consideration that my performing for the concert would actually instead be taken as a political act against my own personal beliefs and be mistaken for support of Donald Trump and Mike Pence,” she said. In addition to her career on Broadway, Holliday has found success on the pop charts and as a Gospel singer. She won a Tony Award in 1982 for her role as Effie White in the original production of “Dreamgirls” and two Grammy Awards later that decade. | 0fake |
Russia says U.S., Ukraine reject its U.N. proposal for Eastern Ukraine: TASS | MOSCOW (Reuters) - Moscow s ambassador to the United Nations said the United States and Ukraine have told Russia they will not work on a Russian proposal to deploy United Nations peacekeepers in eastern Ukraine, the TASS news agency reported. Russian President Vladimir Putin this month suggested armed U.N. peacekeepers be deployed to eastern Ukraine to help protect ceasefire monitors from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and to help end a conflict between Ukrainian troops and Russia-backed separatists, which has killed more than 10,000 people since 2014. Putin originally said the peacekeepers should be deployed along the line of contact between Ukrainian government forces and pro-Russian separatists, but later said they could also be deployed in other areas where OSCE inspectors work. However, Washington and Kiev also want peacekeepers to be deployed along those parts of Ukraine s border with Russia which Kiev does not control. TASS cited Vasily Nebenzia, Moscow s U.N. ambassador, as saying on Monday the United States and Ukraine had formally told Russia in the United Nations Security Council that they were unwilling to work on Moscow s draft resolution on the subject because they had too many objections to it. The U.S. and Ukrainian delegations said after the first discussion that they were not ready to work on the (Russian) text in future, Nebenzia was cited as saying. (They said) they had significant objections and that, possibly, the Ukrainians would have a counter proposal to deploy peacekeepers to Donbass (eastern Ukraine). Moscow was not abandoning its own proposal, however, said Nebenzia, saying it would continue to advance it when the conditions were right. Ukraine has advocated an alternative plan that would ban any Russian nationals from taking part in a peacekeeping mission which it wants deployed along the part of its border with Russia which it does not control, an idea Moscow has so far baulked at. | 0fake |
Supreme Court divided in immigration detention dispute | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A divided U.S. Supreme Court struggled on Wednesday with how to resolve a dispute over whether immigrants detained by the U.S. government for more than six months while deportation proceedings take place should be able to seek their release. The case takes on additional importance with the expectation that President-elect Donald Trump will ramp up immigration enforcement, placing more people in detention awaiting deportation, when he takes office on Jan. 20, as he pledged during his election campaign. During a one-hour argument, the court’s four liberals appeared to support requiring that immigrants held more than six months be automatically eligible for hearings in which they could argue for their freedom while their deportation cases unfold. Conservative justices were skeptical. The shorthanded court could be heading toward another 4-4 deadlock, divided along ideological lines. A 4-4 split would leave in place an October 2015 ruling by the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that upheld a lower-court injunction requiring a hearing after six months of detention. The justices potentially could issue a narrow decision sending the case back to lower courts without resolving the question of whether hearings are required. The Obama administration, which asked the justices to decide the case, has said hearings can be permitted in certain instances but opposed a blanket rule requiring them. The long-running class action litigation brought by the American Civil Liberties Union includes some immigrants who were held at the border when seeking illegal entry into the United States and others, including legal permanent residents, who have been convicted of crimes. The case also could affect long-term U.S. residents who entered the country illegally. Liberal justices asserted that hearings should be required in order to meet the U.S. Constitution’s promise of due process. “You can’t just lock people up without any finding of dangerousness, without any finding of flight risk, for an indefinite period of time, and not run into due process,” said Justice Elena Kagan “We are in an upended world if we think 14 months or 19 months is a reasonable time to detain a person,” added Justice Sonia Sotomayor. Conservatives including Chief Justice John Roberts said the court had been asked to decide only whether the immigration laws in question required the hearings and not whether there was a potential constitutional violation. The case would have to be litigated further in lower courts for that issue to reach the justices, Roberts said. The lead plaintiff is Alejandro Rodriguez, a legal immigrant from Mexico who was working as a dental assistant when he was detained for three years without a hearing. Rodriguez was placed in removal proceedings based on prior convictions for drug possession and joyriding. Although he was released eventually, the case brought on his behalf continued. | 0fake |
null | It's in the Clinton pockets under the cover up of the Clinton Corrupt Criminal Cartel Charity Foundation that pays for her brother's wanna be ownership of some property and Chelsea's "medical apartment" in NYC, OR it's in a secret account in the Camen Islands or wherever they keep secret money now days. | 1real |
Don’t Miss This Once in a Lifetime November Supermoon | This November full moon will be unlike any other you have ever seen.
We have all seen supermoons before, but this particular full moon will be the second in a series of three this fall. The moon will peak on Monday, November 14th and it will be closer to the Earth than any other since 1948. The full moon will not come this close to Earth until 2034.
The scientific term for a moon this magnificent is “perigree moon” which refers to when the moon is at its closest point to Earth in its orbit. When a perigree moon is full, it is known as a supermoon.
This month’s supermoon will appear 30% brighter and 14% larger than a normal full moon. This means that the night of November 14th will be one you will want to go outside for.
NASA reports that we will be able to see a “moon illusion” that will make the moon look exceptionally big when viewed through foreground objects like tall buildings.
The moon will reach the crest of its full moon phase at 8:52 a.m. Eastern time but it will look exceptionally big and bright all night.
Astronomers have been monitoring the moon closely in order to better understand our solar system. For the past seven years, NASA’s Lunar Reonnaissance Orbiter (LRO) has been mapping the surface of the moon as well as taking high-resolution photos to better understand the moon and Earth. Mapping the surface of the moon and learning about how it’s been impacted by collisions with asteroids can shed light on the Earth’s history as well.
If you miss this month’s supermoon, you will have one more chance to catch the last supermoon of 2016 on December 14th. Yet, the December supermoon will not be as magnificent as the one coming up in November so mark your calendars and go outside with friends and family to see this once in a lifetime show!
Ariana Marisol is a contributing staff writer for REALfarmacy.com. She is an avid nature enthusiast, gardener, photographer, writer, hiker, dreamer, and lover of all things sustainable, wild, and free. Ariana strives to bring people closer to their true source, Mother Nature. She graduated The Evergreen State College with an undergraduate degree focusing on Sustainable Design and Environmental Science. Follow her adventures on Instagram. | 1real |
Trump Accuses American Soldiers Of Stealing Millions Of Dollars Of Aid Money In Iraq (VIDEO) | From the very outset of Trump s improbable political career one thing has been abundantly clear: His contempt for the American soldier borders on pathological.While he occasionally gets goaded into praising the troops (with all the enthusiasm of a hostage held at gunpoint), the Republican nominee, who deferred his own military service in Vietnam a number of times, more often than not shows nothing but outright disgust for them. He famously accused John McCain of being a loser because he was captured and tortured by the North Vietnamese (while Trump was sitting out the war). He more recently used the military to avoid partaking in an uncomfortable primary debate and then refused to give veterans the money he raised until he was exposed.And now, in a moment that is sure to be Hillary Clinton s very next campaign ad, Trump accused unnamed Iraq War veterans of stealing millions of dollars from the U.S. government that was meant to help rebuild the war-torn country. If it s not immediately obvious, that would be a massive crime. Trump tossed around the accusation almost casually.Republican Presidential nominee Donald Trump, ladies and gentlemen: Iraq, crooked as hell. How about bringing baskets of money? Millions and millions of dollars and handing it out? I want to know, who were the soldiers who had that job? Because I think they re living very well right now. Trump, as could be expected, offers absolutely zero proof that this took place. Another conspiracy to add to his vault full of them.In fact, the soldiers who returned home from Iraq are not doing very well right now. Having served their country in a war without a clear objective, they got back to discover that the Republicans who sent them there now had no interest in helping them. Struggling with war injuries both physical and psychological, high rates of suicide and devastating unemployment, the veterans of the most wealthy nation on earth were kicked to the curb.In 2014, Senate Republicans unilaterally killed a sweeping $21 billion bill that would have expanded medical, educational and other benefits for these troops. Their reasoning? It s an entitlement that we cannot afford.Republicans have charged the bill was too expensive and disputed the way it would be paid for with overseas contingency operations funds used to fund the war in Afghanistan. And that, Republicans argued, wouldn t amount to real savings, since the money wouldn t have been spent anyway with the war winding down by year s end.If there were baskets of money sent to Iraq. It certainly doesn t seem like the troops who served there came home with any.Kudos to Donald Trump. In a week where one might have assumed accusing the President of the United States of helping ISIS was the lowest thing he could do, he managed to dig a little deeper. It s a wonder he has any supporters left.UPDATE: As expected, Donald Trump s campaign has rushed to do damage control. Spokesperson Hope Hicks claimed Trump was referring to Iraqi soldiers, not American ones. A blatant lie given the exact quote (go back and re-read it), but undermined even further by the fact that, as Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs noted, Trump has previously made a similar claim about American soldiers stealing money (as far back as 2015).He also suggested that some American soldiers charged with distributing money to fund the Afghan and Iraqi government embezzled it instead. I want to know who are the soldiers carrying suitcases with $50m? asked Trump. How stupid are we? I wouldn t be surprised if those soldiers, if the cash didn t get there. Trump doesn t even have the guts to stand by what he said. Sad!Featured image via Darren McCollester/Getty Images | 1real |
New Company Aims To Explore Intersection Of Technology, Other Thing - The Onion - America's Finest News Source | Pediatricians Ease Screen Time Guidelines New Company Aims To Explore Intersection Of Technology, Other Thing Intuihub officials say the particular thing needs to incorporate the latest technology if it wants to stay relevant. Close Intuihub officials say the particular thing needs to incorporate the latest technology if it wants to stay relevant. NEWS October 26, 2016 Vol 52 Issue 42 · News · Technology
SAN FRANCISCO—Explaining how their company was poised to usher in a bold new era of innovation, founders of local startup Intuihub told reporters Wednesday that their mission is to explore the intersection of technology and another thing.
“When you look at where the world is going right now, it just makes a lot of sense to take cutting-edge technology and incorporate it into this other thing,” said Intuihub co-founder Martin Fiske, who explained that the other thing will be modernized and streamlined once it is integrated with the latest technological breakthroughs. “We’re looking out at an exciting new frontier, one in which technology will be used to push the boundaries of what the other thing is capable of.”
“And we believe there’s no limit to what we can accomplish when we take technology and the other thing and put them together,” Fiske added.
Intuihub will reportedly employ groundbreaking advancements in technology to take the other thing in a variety of new and intriguing directions, including some directions, company officials promised, that have never before been imagined. According to the startup’s founders, their work will forever change the way people think about and interact with the thing.
Fiske, who reportedly began his career working solely with the other thing but soon realized that adding technology to what he was doing would “open amazing new doors for the thing,” told reporters that his company has an incredible opportunity to revolutionize both technology and the other thing. Five years from now, he said, the thing is likely to be completely unrecognizable by today’s standards.
He pointed out that Intuihub is already disrupting the entire landscape by using technology to make the other thing more accessible and convenient.
“Technology is evolving, and the other thing needs to evolve along with it,” said Fiske, noting that no other company focusing on the other thing is using technology the way Intuihub is. “The synergy between technology and this thing will be so strong that when the two come together, they may actually create a third thing, one that we believe could be truly world-altering.”
After describing their plans to launch a revolution that will change the lives of millions for the better, Intuihub founders confirmed they were also interested in partnering with brands to create more personalized experiences for the thing’s consumers. Share This Story: WATCH VIDEO FROM THE ONION Sign up For The Onion's Newsletter
Give your spam filter something to do. Daily Headlines | 1real |
WATCH: Joy Reid SKEWERS Trump For Whining About Jay-Z’s Language At Hillary Rally | Hillary Clinton enjoyed a performance by Jay-Z and Beyonce at a rally in Ohio on Friday night and Donald Trump complained like a hypocrite.During the rally, Jay-Z performed uncensored versions of songs, which included the N-word and other expletives. Of course, that means the Republican nominee had to make remarks about it during a rally on Saturday. I actually like Jay Z, Trump said in Florida. But, you know, the language last night. He used every word in the book. I won t even use the initials, because I ll get in trouble. They ll get me in trouble. The they Trump is referring to is the media.But the problem is that Hillary Clinton did not use any of those words herself, while Donald Trump has used words such as c*nt and p*ssy and has used curse words on the campaign trail.And Joy Reid reminded Trump of his own language during her show on Saturday.Now, Donald Trump has a problem with Jay Z s language, okay? a flabbergasted Reid began. Because Jay Z is a hip hop guy. I want to remind America, the guy who has a problem with Jay Z s language? This is his language. What followed was Trump s infamous grab them by the p*ssy remark that has plagued him since the audio was released early last month.Reid then went for the jugular. Jay Z has said a lot of things in his songs, but he s never said that, Donald Trump. We should perhaps talk to Melania, who wants to have this campaign against cyber-bullying which she can begin at home at the dinner table. Here s the video via VidMe.Once again, a hypocritical Donald Trump shoots himself in the foot by failing to keep his big mouth shut.The bottom line is that Hillary Clinton did not say those words during her rally, Jay-Z did. Trump, on the other hand, has no one to blame for his own words but himself.Featured Image: Screenshot | 1real |
Will it be representative government or thugocracy? | Will it be representative government or thugocracy? Exclusive: Erik Rush envisions Clinton using high court 'as a bludgeon' against liberty Published: 43 mins ago About | | Archive Erik Rush is a columnist and author of sociopolitical fare. His latest book is "Negrophilia: From Slave Block to Pedestal - America's Racial Obsession." In 2007, he was the first to give national attention to the story of Sen. Barack Obama's ties to militant Chicago preacher Rev. Jeremiah Wright, initiating a media feeding frenzy. Erik has appeared on Fox News' "Hannity and Colmes," CNN, and is a veteran of numerous radio appearances. Print
“ I feel strongly that the Supreme Court needs to stand on the side of the American people, not on the side of the powerful corporations and the wealthy. For me, that means that we need a Supreme Court that will stand up on behalf of women’s rights, on behalf of the rights of the LGBT community, that will stand up and say no to Citizens United, a decision that has undermined the election system in our country because of the way it permits dark, unaccountable money to come into our electoral system. ”
– Hillary Clinton
The first salvo from Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton (or rather, her answer to the first question posed by Fox News’ Chris Wallace to her and Donald Trump at the third presidential debate) was as chilling as it was an exemplar of hypocrisy.
Those on the left are quite fond of leveling the accusation against conservatives of employing “dog whistle politics,” rhetoric that allegedly contains hidden or esoteric derogatory messaging which targets a specific subgroup within the opposition. Ms. Clinton’s response to Wallace’s question (where they wanted to see the Supreme Court take the country, and their views on how the Constitution ought to be interpreted) however, was representative of this tactic.
While women’s rights and those of the LGBT community may seem to be a curious focus for the high court (since objectively, women wouldn’t appear to be particularly oppressed given that one has been nominated to run for president, and the LGBT community accounts for less than 5 percent of the American population), Clinton’s answer revealed the focus she believes the court should have once she becomes empress.
“Women’s rights” is of course “dog whistle” for unfettered abortion, even late-term abortion, which is essentially infanticide via dismemberment. “LGBT rights” is “dog whistle” for disenfranchising the majority of Americans who hold traditional values, primarily Christians. Leveraging a vocal minority of homosexuals, bisexuals and transgender individuals whom the left has whipped into a froth against Christians is the methodology that was employed to negate the political power of Christians in Europe and Canada. A direct assault via legislation in this area would not work in the U.S. (at least not at present); however, judicial rulings could effectively bring about the same result.
Let us leave aside for a moment the fact that judicial activism is unethical and skirts the Constitution and that Clinton’s overall objectives are manifestly evil. Hillary Clinton’s stated priorities for the Supreme Court are a clear indicator of her desire to use the court as a bludgeon against the Constitution and individual liberties, rather than allowing it to perform its designated function. The hypocrisy attendant to Clinton citing the rights of women and homosexuals when she is beholden via financial contributions to nations that institutionally persecute and murder members of these groups remains plain for all to see, despite being conveniently ignored by the press.
Clinton’s reference to “powerful corporations and the wealthy” and the malign influence of that sinister conservative organization, Citizens United, was of course another exercise in blatant hypocrisy. Clinton is quite wealthy, and corrupt or otherwise compromised powerful corporations have been instrumental in bringing about the designs of American socialists. Even if Citizens United were a vehicle for “dark, unaccountable money,” the scope of its influence would pale next to the subversive designs of the Muslim Brotherhood, with which Bill and Hillary Clinton have been partnered for decades, or the myriad tentacles of organizations funded by George Soros, the former Nazi collaborator dedicated to advancing oligarchical collectivism in America, someone with whom the Clintons also have a long association.
One need not attempt to decipher the thinly veiled intent behind Clinton’s debate rhetoric to discern what a Hillary Clinton presidency might look like. Her actions to date – and particularly those in the pursuit of seeking that office – should suffice quite nicely. Despite the craven complicity of the establishment press (mainstream media), there is ample evidence for even the most indolent news consumer to reach the conclusion that she and the Democratic leviathan supporting her, and which facilitated Barack Obama’s rise to power, are fundamentally malignant.
In recent days, we’ve become aware of all manner of unethical conspiracies and outright criminality that’s been brought to bear in getting Clinton elected, from Democratic officials tampering with the outcome of the illegal email server investigation, to the oversampling of key demographics in polling in order to enhance the public perception of Clinton’s popularity, to the recent revelation of criminally prosecutable actions on the part of the Clinton campaign, the Democratic National Committee and the White House.
The bottom line here is that Hillary Clinton represents a class of people who transcend even the loathed archetypal modern politician in their rapaciousness and amorality. What all Americans – not just voters, and not just Republicans – need to realize is that leaders at the highest levels in the Republican Party are every bit as culpable as the gutter operatives of the Democratic Party who pay miscreants to dress up as ducks, instigate fistfights at opposition rallies and, yes, even vote for their candidates.
The burning question is this: In the end, are we to be governed by the will of the people, or are we going to continue pretending that we have a representative government, when we are in effect being ruled by abject thugs operating behind a faux veneer of government?
Media wishing to interview Erik Rush, please contact . Receive Erik Rush's commentaries in your email BONUS: By signing up for Erik Rush's alerts, you will also be signed up for news and special offers from WND via email. Name * | 1real |
Italy's Northern League criticizes magistrates after bank accounts frozen | ROME (Reuters) - The leader of one of Italy s biggest political parties, the Northern League, criticized magistrates on Thursday after the Genoa court froze several of the bloc s bank accounts. Matteo Salvini, speaking to reporters at the lower house of parliament, said five of the party s bank accounts were frozen on Thursday, following a July conviction of party founder Umberto Bossi and others of illegal use of party funds. The court in Genoa in northern Italy has accepted a request by prosecutors in the fraud case to preventively freeze the accounts, a source close to the matter told Reuters. The magistrates are trying to outlaw a political party, Salvini said. They re trying to stop the advance of the League, which has reached a historic high. Salvini said he would meet with the party s lawyers on Friday to discuss how to fight the seizure. Bossi is no longer in frontline politics, but he remains an influential figure in the party. In July, the Genoa court said Bossi had used party funds to pay for family expenses. The ruling is being appealed and is not definitive. The League would win 15 percent of the vote if an election were held now, recent polls show, which is about three times higher than it faired in the 2014 European elections. That would make it the country s third most-popular party, and a national vote is due early next year. As hundreds of thousands of boat migrants have arrived in Italy in the past three years, the opposition Northern League has attacked the government s and the European Union s handling of the immigration crisis. At the same time, Salvini has tried to broaden the appeal of the party, which was founded to protest Rome s funneling of taxpayer money to the under-developed south. | 0fake |
The Hyperinflationary Death Watch | Home » Headlines » Finance News » The Hyperinflationary Death Watch
Every hyperinflation is unique. No one wants the chaos it will bring. We are not rooting for it. Monetary crisis is always part and parcel or a extension of the inevitable cycles of history. The DEATH WATCH has begun…
From Dr. Jeffrey Lewis :
An almost hysterical antagonism toward the gold standard is one issue which unites statists of all persuasions. They seem to sense – perhaps more clearly and subtly than many consistent defenders of laissez-faire – that gold and economic freedom are inseparable, that the gold standard is an instrument of laissez-faire and that each implies and requires the other. – Alan Greenspan
Every hyperinflation is unique. No one wants the chaos it will bring. We are not rooting for it. Monetary crisis is always part and parcel or a extension of the inevitable cycles of history.
The current path will at some point become yet another statistic. Like each currency collapses that has come before it, the next one will be burned into the viscera and the psyche of a generation. It should serve as a warning, though sadly it will likely be forgotten again as the collective memory fades.
Here is an excellent summary of the underlying process from the How Fiat Dies blog:
Isn’t the U.S. very different from Weimar Germany or Zimbabwe?
Each case of hyperinflation is unique, so if you are looking for differences you will always find them. You need to understand the common characteristics. Hyperinflation happens because government debt gets over 80% of GNP and deficit gets over 40% of spending. It does not matter how you get into that situation. Hyperinflation works the same if you lose a foreign war, a civil war, a dictator goes crazy, a government with excessive foreign debt, nationalizing too many businesses, rampant corruption, productive collapse, excessive regulation, a regime change, too many taxpayers fleeing high taxes, a massive depression, or whatever. It just matters that the government is spending nearly twice what they get in taxes and has already borrowed more than is reasonable. When they are in this situation they cannot borrow more, except from the central bank under their control. So they get the central bank to make money and “loan” it to them. When the reality is the only way they can pay back that “loan” from the central bank is by first getting another “loan” from the central bank, you are probably headed for hyperinflation.
Another problem is that people often compare the U.S. before hyperinflation to some country during hyperinflation, which is not a fair comparison. For example, after prices are shooting up and interest rates go up, no banks will be making 30 year loans. So people will say the fact that the U.S. is making loans shows that it is different than some country with hyperinflation. This is silly. Of course, a country that does not yet have hyperinflation is different from a county in the midst of hyperinflation. The real trick is recognizing the circumstances that lead to hyperinflation.
When a country gets hyperinflation, there are a number of stages it goes through.
Things are very different as hyperinflation progresses.
The Buffet Paradox
Watch as they do, not as they say.
Quote from Warren Buffet’s father, Howard Buffet:
“I warn you that politicians of both parties will oppose the restoration of gold, although they may outwardly seemingly favor it. Unless you are willing to surrender your children and your country to galloping inflation, war and slavery, then this cause demands your support. For, if human liberty is to survive in America, we must win the battle to restore honest money.”
The irony is nearly absurd. Warren Buffett and his partner Charlie are the archetypes of the ant-capitalist movement.
They are perceived to be the enemies of precious metals.
Why does this dynamic duo scorn precious metals?
Because they need the system in tact. Their survival depends on the mainstream buying it. They are to the mainstream culture, as Goldman Sacs is to their clients. There is no awareness; no punishment for recommending a flawed strategy for your clients that enriches your owners.
In essence, this is manipulation gone wild. It is what the bullion banks accomplish with their interventions. They move the price, paint sentiment, induce buying and scoop up the real assets.
Buffet is buying physical assets and infrastructure. Energy and transportation to move that energy. Essentially, he is dumping dollars. And it is perfectly rational from the mainstream perspective.
Simply follow the money. He is no different than you or I who, instead, dump dollars for hard assets and the infrastructure to store it.
Growth is the key, velocity is the myth.
Have you ever seen an economy in which it’s so easy to borrow, but so hard to earn?
That is the key – the juxtaposition of no growth and low interest rates. It is unsustainable – and as the system fails incrementally, the very medication applied will be increased.
We have billions of dollars of corporate buybacks pushing stocks higher. This is a far cry from real growth.
The socialization of the U.S. mortgage market – where privately issued mortgages (unbacked by government guarantees) have virtually vanished.
The unemployment number farce; if you remove enough potential workers from the count, the unemployment plummets toward zero. Orwell is twitching in his grave.
The U.S. economy contracted by 2% in the first quarter of 2014, managing to wipe out $100 billion in economic growth from the initial forecast for Q1 GDP.
But what is more compelling is that if one excludes the artificial stimulus to the U.S. economy generated from the Obamacare Q1 taxpayer-subsidized scramble, Q1 GDP would have contracted, not by 1%, but by 2%!
All of this comes with good intentions centered on the belief that intervention on this scale will magically lead to an economy that no longer needs extreme manipulations to sustain itself.
The monkey’s conclusion after the fish dies is that he should have done more sooner. This echoes all the way up to the most powerful money policy makers, including the infamous Ben Bernanke and his narrow belief that the first Great Depression could have been avoided if more aggressive monetary measures had been implicated.
The calm before the storm.
Today, we have the spectacle of stagnant wages and rising prices.
Currently, we don’t have hyperinflation. We have steady, grinding, and relentless inflation.
It’s not the inflation that makes you think of wheelbarrows. It’s the sort of inflation that quietly eats your grandchildren.
Growth is the life blood of all organic systems. If an economy is not moving forward, it is dying. Organic growth in this iteration has all but vanished. Short term pain for long term gain is an anathema. Long written off and socialized out of the vernacular. This is the ultimate signal of impending collapse. And it is right in front of us.
The next hyperinflation will very quickly become an historic anomaly difficult to relate with. Yet we can see the current experiment evolving right before our eyes. If only we dare to look and take action. 2017 Gold Pandas and 2017 Silver Pandas Are Now Available! Secure Your 2017 Panda Coins Today at SD Bullion! | 1real |
Elizabeth Warren Puts News Anchor In His Place For Defending ‘Racist’ Trump (VIDEO) | The things that Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump says and does seem completely indefensible, but ABC News Anchor David Muir somehow found a reason to protect Trump for one of his most horrific qualities: his blatantly obvious racism. And unfortunately for him, he did it in front of the WRONG person.On Wednesday night, Muir interviewed Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren at the Democratic National Convention to talk about her ongoing feud with the brash Republican nominee. In asking Warren about Trump s latest attack on her in which he (once again) called her Pocahontas, Muir basically baited the iconic liberal into calling Trump a racist and then criticized her for telling the truth when she did.When Muir asked Warren if Trump calling her Pocahontas was racist, Warren had responded: Donald Trump has proven that he is a thin-skinned racist Muir scolded her and said, But is that calling him a name, too? It was the wrong thing to say to Warren, because she fired back with pure logic and gave him the education that he so desperately needed. She said: No, it fits the facts. Come on. Then she provided, off the top of her head, a list of some of Trump s greatest, most racist hits: Look at what he has said about Mexicans. Look what he has said about Muslims. Look what he says over and over. As a matter of fact, you don t have to quote me on this. When he had rulings against him over Trump University he tried to attack the judge on the basis of his Mexican-American heritage. Muir should really be thanking Warren for helping him put a childish nickname and an actual prejudice and human rights offense into perspective. There is no defending Trump for all of the disrespectful things he has said about minorities, and we all need to be better educated in calling his bigot remarks out instead of brushing them off, or worse yet, likening them to smaller offenses.You can watch Warren school Muir in the clip below:Featured image via screen capture | 1real |
Conway: Dems Trying to ’Embarrass and Humiliate’ Trump’s Cabinet Picks - Breitbart | Wednesday on Fox News Channel’s “Fox Friends,” incoming aide to Donald Trump’s Kellyanne Conway said Democrats are using the confirmation hearings to “embarrass and humiliate” Trump’s cabinet nominees. Conway said, “This idea of humiliating and trying to embarrass qualified men and women who just wish to serve this nation is reprehensible. ” Defending Trump’s education secretary selection, Betsy DeVos Conway said, “Not one child who needs a better education benefited from any of those incendiary questions yesterday. But, of course, Mrs. DeVos held herself with the grace and elegance that we know her to have. ” Defending Trump’s pick to head Health and Human Services Rep. Tom Price ( ) Conway said, “He has these investments, apparently, are just a fraction of his overall portfolio and they were done by a broker. ” She added, “And by the way, this is another example of just trying to embarrass and humiliate an otherwise eminently qualified nominee. ” ( The Hill) Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN | 0fake |
HILLARY’S OVER-THE TOP REQUIREMENTS FOR SPEAKING | Private jets, lots of cash, presidential suites you name it! Unreal!Late last month an IB Times report showed that Goldman Sachs paid Bill Clinton some $200,000 for a speech ahead of an effort to lobby The State Department (then led by Hillary Clinton) on Export-Import Bank legislation tied to a $75 million purchase order from a Chinese company to a Goldman-owned aircraft manufacturer.The idea that the paid speech and the authorization of an Export-Import Bank loan to the Chinese firm were related was of course dismissed as preposterous by Goldman (draw your own conclusions) but what certainly isn t preposterous is the fact that the Clintons reap millions for speaking engagements and as you can see from the following, if you want a Clinton, a quarter-million in cash isn t all you ll need to budget for.THE FULL LIST IS HERE:Hillary Speaking FeesAs a reminder, Hillary is running for everyday Americans. Via: zero hedge | 1real |
Trump Planning ‘Football Stadium Rallies’ In Red States To Push Trumpcare Through | Amateur president Donald Trump loves Trumpcare, the GOP replacement for Obamacare even though everyone hates it. Conservative groups, liberals and hospitals are all opposed to Trumpcare. It benefits the wealthy while omitting the elderly and sick and if a health care plan doesn t help those who are not feeling well then what good is it? Well, if it helps to keep Republicans in power, then there s a chance that the sh*tty replacement plan will pass anyway. While most of Americans were sleeping, the House committee scored an initial triumph in their effort to scuttle former President Barack Obama s health care overhaul, using a pre-dawn vote, and while that took place, Congress members were literally giggling. That happened at 2:00 a.m.Meanwhile, Trump has warned Republicans that there will be an electoral bloodbath in 2018 if the bill isn t passed. Trump is so proud of the crappy health care plan that White House counselor Kellyanne Conway doesn t want Trump s name attached to it. They know it s that bad but eradicating former President Barack Obama s legacy is more important than the welfare of American citizens.Trump s newest move is to throw more rallies, just as one does after winning an election (wink wink). After the election, Trump went on a thank you tour, then instead of getting to work, the 70-year-old Twitter addicted ragey screamy guy held another rally in Florida.Jim Acosta, CNN s White House correspondent, tweeted, Trump confident health care will pass House but for Senate he plans football stadium rallies in red states to prod vulnerable Dems. Trump confident health care will pass House but for Senate he plans "football stadium rallies" in red states to prod vulnerable Dems. https://t.co/xr6Xvagf0k Jim Acosta (@Acosta) March 9, 2017And if that doesn t work, just blame Democrats.Trump told Tea Party groups at WH if GOP health care plan dies, he will let Obamacare fail and let Dems take the blame, I'm told. Jim Acosta (@Acosta) March 9, 2017We don t think Trump has thought this out even though OBVIOUSLY what this country needs is never-ending rallies to feed his massive ego. It s not just Democrats opposing the bill, it s Republicans, too. Trump, you cannot threaten us with more rallies. We think the dwindling number of supporters at his rallies is hysterical. Trump supporters stand to be affected more if and when Obamacare is dismantled.Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images. | 1real |
Before debate, protesters build 'wall of taco trucks' outside Trump hotel | LAS VEGAS - As Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump prepared to go head-to-head with Democratic rival Hillary Clinton in their third and final debate in Las Vegas on Wednesday, hundreds of hospitality workers and protesters gathered outside the hotel Trump co-owns near the Las Vegas Strip. Demonstrators waved signs and banners next to what organizers called a “wall” of taco trucks. That was a reference to Trump’s proposal to build a wall on the U.S. border with Mexico, as well as a riff on comments by Trump supporter Marco Gutierrez who said that without action on immigration reform, “You’re going to have taco trucks on every corner.” “We have fought for our rights and we don’t want Donald Trump to take them away from us,” said Las Vegas resident Miguel Faria. “If this man gets the presidency then everything will be ruined.” Several protesters wore sashes printed with the phrases “Miss Piggy” and “Miss Housekeeping,” using the names that Clinton has said Trump called a former beauty queen who had gained weight and who was Latina. The protest was organized by the Culinary Union, which represents about 57,000 workers in Nevada, the majority of whom are Latino. Luis Hernandez, a musician with the norteño band “Los Tigres del Norte,” encouraged Latino voters to head to the polls on Nov. 8. “We can’t just go on hoping someone will vote on our behalf,” he told Reuters. “We need to go out and vote because the Hispanic vote is going to make the difference in these elections.” Among the speakers at the protest was civil rights leader the Rev. Jesse Jackson, who said he hoped the candidates would stick to policies at Wednesday’s debate, instead of attacking each other. “We all as Americans live under one big tent. Hillary represents that higher ground. I hope that tonight they will not wallow in snake politics but will fly like eagles and take us all to higher ground,” Jackson told Reuters. According to Bethany Khan, the Culinary Union’s communications director, workers at the Trump International Hotel voted to unionize in December 2015 but still do not have a contract. Some protesters blamed that on Trump, who owns 50 percent of the property. “He says he’s the greatest negotiator but he’s not coming to the table to support the workers that give him money and make a profit for him,” said Maria Teresa Liedermann. | 0fake |
DON’T BELIEVE MEDIA LIES…Wildly Unpopular Hillary Gives Speech In NH…Here Are Uncensored Facebook Users Responses From Live Feed…LOL! | This Facebook user s comment about Donald Duck is in reference to new video that was just released today by Project Veritas, showing direct collision with Hillary Clinton and underground Dem group who admits to committing massive voter fraud: While you re at it Hillary, you may want to look into an assisted living arrangement. We re pretty sure neither one of you are in any shape to be without constant medical supervision | 1real |
BLM Activist & Daughter of 'Can't Breathe' Victim Eric Garner Just Read a Hillary Email That Has Her Furious | Getty - Andrew Burton
Since the 2014 NYPD officer-involved death of her father, Eric Garner, Erica Garner has been a prominent figure in the Black Lives Matter movement and a loud voice against police violence.
Her energy has been channeled in a different direction over the past week, however, since she was named in a number of the Clinton staff emails that were included in the most recent WikiLeaks dumps.
In the emails, several staffers noted that they had an “ Erica Garner issue ” and seemed to be insinuating that she might retaliate or speak out against them if they didn't include her father's name when they talked about Tamir Rice, Michael Brown , and others associated with police violence. Image Credit: WikiLeaks
Clinton aide Maya Harris appeared to clear things up within the email thread by noting, “Eric Garner not included because he was not killed by gun violence.” (Garner died in police custody after being placed in a “choke hold.”) Image Credit: WikiLeaks
But if the Clinton campaign thought it had “an Erica Garner problem” before the emails were leaked, their problems multiplied when she caught wind of the things they had said: What are they talking about here? https://t.co/tgQH2VxuHZ — officialERICA GARNER (@es_snipes) October 27, 2016 What really pisses me off is that the Clinton camp won't just admit these emails belong to them... Fucking liars. — officialERICA GARNER (@es_snipes) October 27, 2016 These people will co opt anything to push their agenda. Police violence is not the same as gun violence. — officialERICA GARNER (@es_snipes) October 27, 2016 I'm vey interested to know exactly what @CoreyCiorciari meant when he said " I know we have an Erica Garner problem" in the #PodestaEmails19 — officialERICA GARNER (@es_snipes) October 27, 2016 Wouldnt yall like to know why the #Hillary campaign thought that I my objecting to them exploiting my dads death was a "problem" @mtaibbi https://t.co/i5cahlS6VZ — officialERICA GARNER (@es_snipes) October 27, 2016 I'm troubled by the revelation that you and this campaign actually discussed "using" Eric Garner ... Why would you want to "use" my dad? — officialERICA GARNER (@es_snipes) October 27, 2016
She thanked aide Maya Harris for setting everyone straight: I'm glad you had Maya on your team to explain why you wont be USING my dad in you fucking gun violence piece... Black woman saved your ass — officialERICA GARNER (@es_snipes) October 27, 2016
Then she blew the lid off the Clinton agenda: https://t.co/jzfUl0FbXF In this #PodestaEmails leak @CoreyCiorciari n @NickMerrill plot to use police violence victims to push gun control — officialERICA GARNER (@es_snipes) October 27, 2016
And blasted Podesta personally for his position regarding her father's death: Personelle equals policy @johnpodesta said that Eric Garner's killing was justified . And this is who we want to hold our nose and vote for? https://t.co/5nWnjxA7Nq — officialERICA GARNER (@es_snipes) October 27, 2016
Garner has been active in the continuing investigation into the NYPD officers who were involved in her father's death.
Although she has not endorsed a presidential candidate since Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders left the race, she has retweeted tweets by the Green Party's Jill Stein, which were critical of the Clinton campaign. | 1real |
The Clintons’ original email scandal: One million lost emails in re Monica and Filegate | Print
It’s funny how Clinton scandals always seem to get covered up by a loss of emails. Hillary’s current email scandal is not the first time this has happened to her or her hubby. During Bill Clinton’s tenure in the White House, a “glitch” (or person) turned off an automatic email archiving system causing the loss of around one million emails . The emails that just “happened” to disappear were the same ones Kenneth Starr was subpoenaing for the Monica Lewinsky scandal and that Congress was asking for in its investigation of “Filegate.”
Also coincidentally, the lost emails were from the server that controlled the email accounts of President Clinton and other potential witnesses in the above scandal. The people who discovered the emails were missing were threatened with jail if they spoke about the loss.
According to the House Oversight Committee report released in December 2000:
The White House installed an Automated Records Management System (ARMS) to store all email correspondence in one central place, and make it easier to respond to document subpoenas. Due to a misconfiguration in the system, e-mail to about 500 White House officials was never recorded. E-mail was first discovered missing in January 1998, but the extent of the problem was not realized until later that year.
Top White House officials were notified in June. Despite the fact that e-mail was being subpoenaed in a number of civil and criminal cases, including the Lewinsky affair and the Filegate scandal, the White House did not notify investigators that some of it was missing. In mid-February 2000, the ex-chief of White House computer operations, Sheryl Hall who had moved to the Treasury Dept. came forward with allegations that Clinton administration officials were involved in an e-mail cover-up. Betty Lambuth, working for a private employer under contract to the White House, charged that White House technicians had been threatened with loss of job, arrest, and jail if they revealed the problem.
The White House later said the problem was resulted from an“unintentional ‘glitch’ and blamed it on ‘human error,’ attributing the problem to a ‘disconnect’ between technicians and lawyers who, apparently, did not realize that the computer mistake might have an effect on the pending subpoena requests.”
Betty Lambuth, who worked for CEXEC, a subcontractor for Northrop-Grumman that ran and maintained the White House computer system, heard about the missing emails from one of her subordinates, Robert Haas. Hass audited the White House system in June 1998 because he and other technicians discovered that automated archiving system wasn’t scanning and storing Internet email sent to the server used by the Executive Office of the President. Lambuth testified under oath, that when she informed the White House, Office of Administration counsel Mark Lindsay told her, ”If I or any of my team who knew about the email problem told anyone else about it we would lose our jobs, be arrested and put in jail.”
She said Lindsay specified that she was not to tell even her private-sector boss, Steve Hawkins, who she said eventually removed her from her White House assignment when she refused to tell him about the e-mail problem. Lambuth said she and her co-workers dubbed the e-mail problem ”Project X,” [as a joking reference to the TV show “The X Files”] and because of the threats, she and her staff took to meeting in a park close to the New Executive Office Building and in a nearby Starbucks when discussing the matter.
Lambuth also told the court , a subordinate told her some of the emails deal with “Vice President Al Gore’s involvement in campaign fund-raising controversies” and “the sale of Clinton Commerce Department trade mission seats in exchange for campaign contributions.” The subordinate also told her the emails also contained “information on the White House’s improper gathering of FBI background files of long-ago Republican appointees and the Monica S. Lewinsky scandal”
A Northrop Grumman official, Joseph Vasta, testified that the Clinton-Gore White House intimidated the email contractor, into participating in the e-mail cover-up. “Vasta testified that it was made apparent that Northrop Grumman could lose its $50 million contract if it didn’t play ball with the Clinton-Gore White House.”
Not all of the White House emails were lost– just the ones on the Mail2 server. The officials served by the Mail2 server included Doris Matsui, Marsha Scott, Sidney Blumenthal, Cheryl Mills, Bruce Lindsey, Erskine Bowles, Rahm Emanuel, Nancy Hernreich, John Podesta, Ira Magaziner, Ann Lewis, Charles Ruff, Lanny Breuer, Paul Begala, and President Clinton.
If some of those names sound familiar, they should. People such as Sid Blumenthal and Cheryl Mills have been questioned as part of the present Clinton email scandal, and John Podesta is running Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign.
Bruce Lindsey, now the Chairman of the Board of the Clinton Foundation, was the foundation’s CEO from 2003 to 2013 during Hillary Clinton’s term as secretary of state which, according to Peter Schweizer’s best-selling book “Clinton Cash,” was a time when the foundation and the State Department were involved in cronyism.
As far as the historic documents and reports remaining on the web, news about “Project X” began to fade in October 2000 as the country approached the presidential election – perhaps, because liberal media were trying to protect then-Vice President Al Gore as he campaigned for a promotion (which sounds like the current Clinton email case, where the lefty media are doing their best to cover up the scandal). Betty Lambuth even testified that some of the missing emails involved possible Gore campaign fund-raising controversies.
Additionally neither the documents examined nor a subsequent internet search, turned up any mention that the Project X emails dealing with the possible Bill Clinton White House scandals have have ever been recovered and turned over to the national archives.
From Bill Clinton’s Project X to Hillary Clinton’s private server scandal, losing large volumes of important emails seems to run in the family. | 1real |
LIBERAL TEACHER’S Social Media Message Goes VIRAL: “Lots of white trump supporters in Las Vegas” Asks Liberals To “Pray Only Trumptards Died” | Anyone who is not yet convinced that liberalism is a mental disorder hasn t been on social media since President Trump s inauguration. Every day the hateful rhetoric is ramped up by liberals who are no longer able to function in everyday society since they ve been afflicted with Trump derangement syndrome.Hollywood celebrities are holding up severed heads of our President. Has been pop-stars like Madonna say things like they d like to blow up the White House. Black Lives Matter has inspired an entire league of overpaid professional NFL athletes to turn what was a movement against our brave law enforcement officers into an anti-American, anti-Trump movement. Only two days ago on the SNL Resistance show, Michael Che called President Trump a cheap cracker .This tweet by a woman who claims to be a teacher, mother, sister and woman may not even come as a surprise to anyone who follows the hatred vitriol the left spews every day on social media. Sadly, this woman didn t even have the common courtesy to keep her disgusting hate for anyone who doesn t agree with her politics in her shallow little head.Ann#TheResistance has deleted her Twitter account. If anyone knows this woman, it would be great if you could contact the school where she works, as it appears she is not stable enough to be left alone with children who may hold opposing political views. | 1real |
WATCH VETERAN Embarrass Trump Hater In Kansas City When She Can’t Explain Her Own Sign | This veteran exposes Trump hating protester in Kansas City when he asks her to explain why Trump is a racist, and why defending our borders as part of our national security is a bad thing.Trump supporter schools a protester in Kansas City #Trump2016 #MakeAmericaGreatAgainPosted by Jacob T. Honeycutt on Saturday, 12 March 2016 | 1real |
Donald Trump Adds K.T. McFarland to His National Security Team - The New York Times | WASHINGTON — Donald J. Trump filled two but influential White House staff jobs on Friday, while his candidate for secretary of housing and urban development, Ben Carson, continued to deliberate about whether to join the administration. Mr. Trump offered the housing job this week to Mr. Carson, a neurosurgeon who challenged him for the Republican presidential nomination. But despite expectations of a Friday announcement, Mr. Carson was “still pondering,” said a friend, Armstrong Williams. The ’s aides said Mr. Trump did not plan any more announcements until next week. For the politically sensitive post of White House counsel, Mr. Trump chose Donald F. McGahn II, a Washington election lawyer who pushed to deregulate campaign finance and election laws. The counsel’s job may be even more daunting than it was in previous administrations, given Mr. Trump’s business empire, with which he shows no inclination toward severing ties. For the equally critical job of deputy national security adviser, Mr. Trump chose K. T. McFarland, an aide in three Republican White Houses and a Fox News commentator. She has been highly critical of President Obama’s approach to combating terrorism — a view that aligns her with Mr. Trump’s choice for national security adviser, Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn. In rolling out the appointments, the Trump transition team lined up testimonials from big names in both parties. Former Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, regarded as a foreign policy hawk, praised Ms. McFarland, 65, as “one of our country’s most experienced, informed and wise foreign policy and national security experts. ” Mr. Lieberman, a Connecticut Democrat turned independent, was a Yale College and law school classmate of Ms. McFarland’s husband, Alan R. McFarland, a investment banker. Edwin Meese III, an attorney general under President Ronald Reagan, said Mr. McGahn, who was the general counsel for the Trump campaign, had “dealt ably with the intersection between politics, government ethics and the rule of law. ” C. Boyden Gray, a White House counsel to the elder President George Bush, said Mr. McGahn was well suited to the job because of his “serious prior relationship with the president” and his “working knowledge of government ethics and election law. ” A brash, conservative born in Atlantic City, Mr. McGahn learned the fine points of election law from a longtime Republican expert in the field, Benjamin L. Ginsberg. At the Federal Election Commission, where he served five years, including terms as chairman and vice chairman, Mr. McGahn was a powerful voice of opposition to what he often saw as intrusive government meddling in elections. He also spent nearly a decade as the general counsel to the National Republican Congressional Committee. Ms. McFarland’s national security experience dates to the Nixon administration, when she was an aide to Henry A. Kissinger. She was a staff member on the Senate Armed Services Committee, a speechwriter for Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger, and the principal deputy assistant secretary of defense for public affairs. She is a familiar presence on Fox News, where she has harshly criticized Mr. Obama over his handling of the Islamic State. “The president has stuck his head in the sand,” she said in September 2014 after the group had kidnapped and executed two American journalists. “To me, it’s a dereliction of duty,” she added. “What was this president doing? Well, he was playing a lot of golf this summer, but he clearly was not attending to the defense of the United States. ” In 2006, Ms. McFarland mounted a bid for the Republican nomination for the Senate in New York. The mayor of Yonkers, John Spencer, defeated her and went on to lose to the Democratic incumbent, Hillary Clinton. During the campaign, Ms. McFarland came under scrutiny for gilding her résumé — claiming, for example, that she had been the woman in the Pentagon when, in fact, two other women outranked her. The deputy national security adviser has one of the most demanding jobs in the West Wing, coordinating meetings of deputies and principals to formulate policies and organizing the vast flow of paperwork from the agencies to the White House. “That job is the ultimate policy and job,” said Peter D. Feaver, who served in the National Security Council under President George W. Bush. “It is all about reviewing policies, framing disagreements and teeing up decisions. It is supposed to be the place where bad ideas die, and so places a premium on analytical insight. ” “Her early work in the Reagan administration is more important than her recent work on TV,” he said of Ms. McFarland. As Mr. Trumps fills key staff positions, some of his cabinet decisions have become complicated. The search for a secretary of state has bogged down as rival factions argue for Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former New York mayor and a Trump loyalist, and Mitt Romney, the former Republican presidential nominee, who stridently opposed Mr. Trump during the campaign. Among those raising questions about Mr. Giuliani is Vice Mike Pence, according to people in the Trump transition who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive internal matters. Mr. Pence, they said, has favored Mr. Romney in internal discussions. Reince Priebus, whom Mr. Trump named as chief of staff, has said positive things about Mr. Romney but has been more circumspect, and has tried to offer perspective to Mr. Trump on both men. But other people, including Kellyanne Conway, who managed the campaign, have raised questions about Mr. Romney’s loyalty after he became one of the most vocal critics of Mr. Trump’s candidacy. Mr. Trump has remarked to people that he was surprised by the intense resistance to Mr. Romney. Mr. Romney and Mr. Trump spoke again in recent days, according to people briefed on the deliberations, and plan to speak again early next week. But some of Mr. Romney’s allies, who have no interest in seeing him apologize for criticizing Mr. Trump during the campaign, say privately that his chances of being chosen are dimming. With Mr. Carson, the delay appears to be less about fissures within the Trump camp than within Mr. Carson himself. “He’s still pondering, believe it or not,” Mr. Williams, his friend, said on Friday. “Dr. Carson is very methodical, just like he’s going through a surgery, planning every aspect. ” Mr. Carson endorsed Mr. Trump after ending his own campaign. But he has appeared conflicted about joining the administration. Last week, Mr. Williams was quoted as saying his friend was reluctant to take a job for which he had no experience and that “could cripple the presidency. ” Mr. Carson, however, then took to Facebook, where he has built much of his political following, to say his reasons for declining a cabinet job had been misreported. He was on Facebook again on Wednesday, explaining his change of heart. “After serious discussions with the Trump transition team,” Mr. Carson wrote, “I feel that I can make a significant contribution particularly to making our inner cities great for everyone. ” | 0fake |
Gambia Joins South Africa and Burundi in Exodus from International Criminal Court | Gambia Joins South Africa and Burundi in Exodus from International Criminal Court AFP, October 26, 2016
Gambia has announced its withdrawal from the International Criminal Court (ICC), accusing the Hague-based tribunal of the “persecution and humiliation of people of colour, especially Africans”.
The announcement late Tuesday comes after similar decisions this month by South Africa and Burundi to abandon the troubled institution, set up to try the world’s worst crimes.
Information Minister Sheriff Bojang said in an announcement on state television that the court had been used “for the persecution of Africans and especially their leaders” while ignoring crimes committed by the West.
He singled out the case of former British prime minister Tony Blair, who the ICC decided not to indict over the Iraq war.
{snip}
The withdrawal, he said, “is warranted by the fact that the ICC, despite being called International Criminal Court, is in fact an International Caucasian Court for the persecution and humiliation of people of colour, especially Africans”.
The ICC, set up in 2002, is often accused of bias against Africa and has also struggled with a lack of cooperation, including from the United States, which has signed the court’s treaty but never ratified it.
Gambia has been trying without success to use the court to punish the European Union for deaths of thousands of African migrants trying to reach its shores.
{snip}
South Africa’s decision followed a dispute last year when Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir visited the country despite being the subject of an ICC arrest warrant over alleged war crimes.
Earlier this month, Burundi said it would leave the court, while Namibia and Kenya have also raised the possibility.
{snip} | 1real |
Trump says 'things will work out fine' between U.S. and Russia | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump said on Thursday “things will work out fine” between the United States and Russia, a day after he said U.S.-Russian relations may be at an all-time low. “Things will work out fine between the U.S.A. and Russia. At the right time everyone will come to their senses & there will be lasting peace!” Trump said in a note on Twitter. | 0fake |
McConnell Promises 9/11 First Responders Will Get Healthcare Bill | McConnell said Congress will not leave for the holidays until there's a deal.The Senate and House earlier in the week passed a five-day extension, pushing the deadline for a final budget agreement to the middle of next week."We're certainly going to finish, both that and the tax bill," McConnell told Politico.Former "Daily Show" host Stewart targeted McConnell during a guest appearance on his former show on Monday. Stewart also pushed for the legislation by impersonating GOP presidential front-runner Donald Trump in bit on "The Late Show With Stephen Colbert." | 0fake |
Fmr Obama Official Reveals Pre-Inauguration Effort to Gather Intel on Incoming Trump Team - Breitbart | Back on March 2’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” Evelyn Farkas, deputy assistant secretary of defense under Obama, backed up a March 1 New York Times report revealing an effort to gather as much intelligence on Donald Trump and his campaign and transition team’s ties to Russia. “I was urging my former colleagues and, frankly speaking, the people on the Hill, it was more actually aimed at telling the Hill people, get as much information as you can, get as much intelligence as you can, before President Obama leaves the administration,” Farkas, now a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, said. “Because I had a fear that somehow that information would disappear with the senior people who left, so it would be hidden away in the bureaucracy … that the Trump folks — if they found out how we knew what we knew about their — the Trump staff dealing with Russians — that they would try to compromise those sources and methods, meaning we no longer have access to that intelligence. So I became very worried because not enough was coming out into the open and I knew that there was more. We have very good intelligence on Russia. So then I had talked to some of my former colleagues and I knew that they were trying to also help get information to the Hill. ” ( Fox News) Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor | 0fake |
Trump’s Granddaughter, 5, Sings in Chinese, and China Swoons - The New York Times | BEIJING — President Trump may not be known for his diplomacy, but someone in his family appears to be picking up the slack. That would be Arabella, his granddaughter. A video of her singing “Happy New Year” in Chinese has gone viral on social media in China. Arabella has been taking Chinese lessons. Arabella’s mother, Ivanka Trump, posted the song on her Instagram account on Thursday. “Arabella singing a song she learned for #ChineseNewYear. Wishing everyone an amazing year to come during these days of celebration,” Ms. Trump wrote on her account. Arabella appeared in a black cardigan with ornate pockets and skinny black pants, and she played with a Chinese marionette as she sang. On Weibo, China’s version of Twitter, more than 60, 000 people said they liked Arabella’s song. Some of them said they much preferred her to Mr. Trump, who has stirred the relationship over Taiwan and the South China Sea, among other things. “The granddaughter is much more sensible,” said one. Another Weibo user noted, “Her Mandarin is perfect. ” Some people were more critical: “So you want to get the Chinese off your back with just this song?” However, this was not Arabella’s first diplomatic coup this week. On Wednesday evening, she and her mother turned up at a New Year’s reception at the Chinese Embassy in Washington. A beaming Chinese ambassador, Cui Tiankai, escorted the pair around the party, as Arabella, decked out in red dress with a big bow at her neck, played with Chinese traditional arts that were on display. China’s official broadcaster, CCTV, showed the team at the reception on its news broadcast on Thursday. The usually stern newspaper Global Times almost gushed. “Her appearance at the Chinese Embassy, endowed with a certain political and diplomatic significance, could be invigorating to the . S. relationship,” the paper said of Ms. Trump’s embassy visit, with Arabella in tow. | 0fake |
FBI Investigators "99% sure" Foreign Entities Hacked Clinton's Server | Election WASHINGTON, DC - MARCH 23: Former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton speaks at the Center for American Progress March 23, 2015 in Washington, DC. Clinton joined a panel in discussing challenges facing urban centers in the United States. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images) FBI Investigators “99% Sure” 5 Foreign Intelligence Agencies Hacked Clinton’s Private Server Shane Ashton November 2, 2016 FBI Investigators “99% sure” 5 Foreign Intelligence Agencies Hacked Clinton’s Private Server. Hillary Clinton has a lot of explaining to do! As reported by Lou Dobbs on Fox News:
Breaking new developments tonight in the FBI investigation. Investigators are now, as I said to you at the outset, 99% sure that as many as five foreign intelligence agencies, were able to hack into the Clinton email server and did put national security in jeopardy. That according to FBI sources. A direct contradiction, of course, of president Obama’s assertion to CBS News just last October.
Previous reporting from FBI Director James Comey in his July 5 press conference concluded that there was no evidence that any foreign enemies had gained access to the server.
Perhaps the newly discovered laptop owned by former Congressman Anthony Weiner and top Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin contained new information that shows that foreign actors did indeed gain access to the server.
Republicans were dismayed at the original decision to not charge Secretary Clinton, arguing that just the mere presence of a private server put national security at risk. Director Comey argued that there was no evidence of intent to unknowingly share classified information. However, 18 U.S. Code § 798 – Disclosure of classified information states:
Whoever knowingly and willfully communicates, furnishes, transmits, or otherwise makes available to an unauthorized person, or publishes, or uses in any manner prejudicial to the safety or interest of the United States or for the benefit of any foreign government to the detriment of the United States any classified information […] Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.
This statute could be argued that intent is not necessary for prosecution, merely the making available of classified information is grounds for prosecution.
These new developments will be another boon to an already horrible week for the Clinton camp, as the new FBI investigation has led to the tightening of polls.
REGATED will cover the latest developments as they come along. The following two tabs change content below. Latest Posts Shane Ashton Shane Ashton is a writer for REGATED, interested in political theory, conservatism, and all things Boston. He is consistently seen at Fenway Park and has been known to sleep outside for World Series tickets. You can follow him on Twitter @ShaneRegated Latest posts by Shane Ashton ( see all ) | 1real |
Comment on 10 More Beautiful Images That Remind You We Still Live In A Beautiful World, With Beautiful People by 10 More Beautiful Images That Remind You We Still Live In A Beautiful World, With Beautiful People - Upside Down Media | Share on Facebook Share on Twitter It seems sort of funny to think we have to “restore faith in humanity,” but when we live in a day and age filled with so many controversial, sad, and downright wrong happenings in the world, we do, indeed, need stories to lift us up. advertisement - learn more In our day-to-day lives, we witness just how ungrateful and impatient humans, even, dare I say, ourselves, can be. Just last week I witnessed a totally zenned-out young woman coming out of a yoga studio to find someone had completely smashed in her car window to steal her purse. She was shocked, angry, sad, and ultimately, in her words, “at a loss for faith in humanity.” It reminded me how little trust we have in people because of situations like this. We can’t leave our car doors unlocked, never mind lock them and leave our belongings in plain site. We’re afraid to go for walks in the dark by ourselves, and even a jog in the middle of the day poses dangers, since, as recent news has reported, doing so has claimed the lives of two young women . We can’t have a civil political debate over dinner, nor even trust the government at all, with more leaks showing just how corrupt the system truly is. Racial equality has resurfaced in the worst way, with movements trying to prove to society why black lives should matter despite how self-evident that fact should be. Mass shootings at malls, movie theaters, children’s schools, universities, a gay nightclub, etc. wreak havoc on our nation continuously. Wildlife is diminishing due to deforestation and climate change at the hands of humans. Terrorism continues to shake our world to its core. This year, Earth Overshoot Day came the earliest it ever has, and that’s a bad sign for the planet. And this is all just a glimpse. Depressed yet? But in the words of American Beauty ‘s main character Lester Burnham, “…it’s hard to stay mad, when there’s so much beauty in the world.” Despite all the bad, there is still so much good, and whenever you think you have lost your faith in humanity, take a look at these wonderful photos that will undoubtedly warm your heart:
1. This man bought turtles from a food market and then released them back into the sea.
2. This officer talked a man out of committing suicide, and then eight years later, that very man, now a father of tw0, gave the officer an award at the American Foundation of Suicide.
3. This little boy risked his life to save a drowning baby deer from floodwater in Bangladesh.
4. These men cut lawns for people who aren’t capable of doing it themselves. Keep Evolving Your Consciousness Inspiration and all our best content, straight to your inbox.
5. This man gave his shoes to a homeless girl in Rio De Janeiro. 6. This man takes his sick dog to a lake every night to help his pain subside. 7. An officer asked protestors in Brazil to not “create episodes,” because it was his birthday. Then, a group of protestors surprised him with this: 8. This Pakistani waiter fed a homeless person because he couldn’t use his own hands. 9. An employee at Wendy’s removed an umbrella from an outside table to walk an elderly man to his car in the rain. 10. This Turkish bride and groom spent their wedding day serving food to 4,000 refugees.
The Sacred Science follows eight people from around the world, with varying physical and psychological illnesses, as they embark on a one-month healing journey into the heart of the Amazon jungle.
You can watch this documentary film FREE for 10 days by clicking here.
"If “Survivor” was actually real and had stakes worth caring about, it would be what happens here, and “The Sacred Science” hopefully is merely one in a long line of exciting endeavors from this group." - Billy Okeefe, McClatchy Tribune | 1real |
SHERIFF CLARK Tweets Most BLISTERING Response Ever After Barack Obama Boasted He Would’ve Beaten Trump In Election | President Obama said in an interview released Monday that he could have beaten Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump if I had run again. In his most pointed critique yet, Obama said Hillary Clinton s campaign acted too cautiously out of a mistaken belief that victory was all but certain. If you think you re winning, then you have a tendency, just like in sports, maybe to play it safer, Obama said in the interview with former adviser and longtime friend David Axelrod, a CNN analyst, for his The Axe Files podcast. The president said Clinton understandably . . . looked and said, well, given my opponent and the things he s saying and what he s doing, we should focus on that. Trump took exception to this critique, tweeting out later in the day that President Obama said that he thinks he would have won against me. He should say that but I say NO WAY! jobs leaving, ISIS, Care, etc. WPPresident Obama said that he thinks he would have won against me. He should say that but I say NO WAY! jobs leaving, ISIS, OCare, etc. Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 26, 2016Yeah right. He would have won the 2016 US Open golf if he had played too. Obama couldn't win N. Carolina for Clinton https://t.co/sn0XrCZo2z David A. Clarke, Jr. (@SheriffClarke) December 27, 2016Ouch! That s gonna leave a mark | 1real |
EU leaders agreed 'good progress' made in Brexit talks: Britain's May | GOTHENBURG (Reuters) - British Prime Minister Theresa May said on Friday she and fellow EU leaders agreed that Brexit divorce talks had made good progress , but that more work was needed to allow the start of negotiations on a future trading relationship. We ve agreed that good progress has been made. More does need to be done. But we re clear, and I m clear, that what we need to do is move forward together and that is how we can ensure that we are going to get the best deal for the United Kingdom and the European Union, May told reporters after a meeting of EU leaders in Gothenburg, Sweden. She said both sides still needed to move together to the point where sufficient progress had been made on divorce issues to allow negotiations to begin on Britain s future trading relationship with the bloc. | 0fake |
All animals replaced by CGI | November 16, 2016
British naturalists are concerned by a survey which suggests that nearly 80% of British mammals are, in fact, computer generated for John Lewis adverts. ‘It does explain some, rather odd, behaviour,’ said Chris Packham. ‘And also why London Zoo ordered those giant 4k screens last year – I did wonder why the badger enclosure offered me the chance to place a bet and the Nigerian antelope told me he could give me $37,000,000 if I gave him my bank details’. Share this story...
Posted: Nov 16th, 2016 by apepper Click for more article by apepper .. More Stories about: News In Brief 0 | 1real |
At least 12 dead in bus crash on excursion to Mexican ruins | MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Twelve people died and 18 were injured on Tuesday in Mexico s state of Quintana Roo when a tour bus lost control and rolled over during an excursion to ancient ruins. The bus was carrying 31 passengers, including citizens of the United States, Brazil and Sweden, authorities said. A child was among the dead. Quintana Roo is one of three states on Mexico s Yucatan Peninsula, which has popular tourist sites. Twenty-seven of the passengers had been traveling on Royal Caribbean cruise ships, spokeswoman Cynthia Martinez said. Our hearts go out to all those involved in the bus accident, Martinez said in a statement. We are doing all we can to care for our guests, including assisting with medical care and transportation. The tourists were headed to the archaeological zone of Chacchoben, an ancient Mayan ruin south of the resort town of Tulum, when the vehicle veered off the highway early on Tuesday. After the accident, passengers were taken to hospitals, bus company Costa Maya said in a statement. Five have been discharged and the injured were in stable condition, it said. The government of Quintana Roo said in a statement that it was investigating the cause of the accident. The U.S. embassy in Mexico said it was working with authorities to learn whether U.S. citizens were aboard the bus. Last year, 11 tourists were killed in a crash in Quintana Roo when their bus flipped en route to Cancun, the Associated Press reported. | 0fake |
Russia's 'White Book' on Syria shakes up UN Security Council | Russia's 'White Book' on Syria shakes up UN Security Council AP photo On Friday, Russia began distributing a curious document on behalf of the c hairing state of the UN Security Council - the "White Book" on Syria . The book contains the descriptions of the cases, when the US-led coalition was committing "errors," as John Kerry once said. However, those "errors" can be categorized as war crimes . The actions of the Syrian "moderate opposition" are also reflected in the document. The 'White Book" also contains statistics about the successful operations of the Russian Air Force and the delivery of humanitarian assistance to the civilian population in Syria, about the number of the liberated settlements, destroyed militants, as well as about the number of refugees, who returned to their places of permanent residence.The "White Book" was prepared by the Defence Ministry and the Foreign Ministry of Russia, as well as by specialists of the Institute for Oriental Studies.The "White Book" was translated into English and distributed for further reading.On 21 October the coalition attacked a funeral procession in near Kirkuk (Iraq). The pilots took the congregation of people for terrorists. As a result, dozens of civilians were killed. The recent attack of US pilots on the Syrian military near Deir-Ezzor also claimed the lives of dozens of soldiers. Later, US Secretary of State John Kerry, in a conversation with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov, said that it was a mistake, apparently believing that such a statement would be enough for an excuse."We have repeatedly said that such deadly attacks on settlements that have all attributes of war crimes, have become almost daily routine for the international lcoalition," an official representative for the Russian Defense Ministry, Igor Konashenkov said commenting o the attack of the funeral procession in Iraq. Pravda.Ru Read article on the Russian version of Pravda.Ru Kerry comes to Moscow to talk to Putin | 1real |
Matthews: Trump’s Speech What Putin Has Been Saying, ’America First’ Has ’Hitlerian Background’ - Breitbart | During MSNBC’s Inauguration coverage, anchor Chris Matthews stated he phrase “America first” has a “Hitlerian background to it,” and Donald Trump’s Inaugural Address was what Putin has been saying. Matthews said, “I’m thinking, when he said today, America first, it was not just the racial, — I mean, the — I shouldn’t say racial, the Hitlerian background to it, but it was the message. I kept thinking, what does Theresa May think of this, this morning, when she picks up the papers? … What if you’re Putin? You’re probably pounding the table, saying, that’s what I’ve been saying, Russia first, Russia first. This whole bullying message to him. ” Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett | 0fake |
Stark Choice for Syrians in Rebel Areas: ‘Doom’ or the Green Bus - The New York Times | BEIRUT, Lebanon — The buses once ferried Syrians to school, work and dates at Damascus cafes. Now they pull up at moments of defeat, when rebel fighters and civilians, besieged and bombarded, give up their territory to government forces and board the vehicles en route to an uncertain future. The buses, once a benign, even beloved feature of the urban landscape, have become a signature of the Syrian government’s strategy. In recent days, government warplanes dropped fliers on the districts of Aleppo, offering a stark choice to the estimated 250, 000 people trapped in that strategic city: “doom,” represented by a photo of a bloody body, or “redemption,” in the form of a green bus. Images of the buses are everywhere: on state television reports and websites celebrating the evacuations, and on opposition videos mourning what they call deportations. Women and children, or fighters with guns, peer from their windows. They cry, chant defiantly or stare into space as they leave areas that have long symbolized revolt against President Bashar like the recently emptied Damascus suburb of Daraya. Riders are usually offered a choice between two destinations, but as with so many aspects of the bloody and chaotic Syrian civil war, both options are bad. They can take the green buses to government territory, where many fear arrest and conscription, or to another area, where they face continued government airstrikes — like the ones that hit a school Wednesday and killed 22 children in Idlib Province. “Damn the green buses, I’m seeing them in my dreams,” said Jalal 36, a computer technician whose neighbors in Waer, a besieged district on the outskirts of the central city of Homs, recently debated whether to board the buses in the latest evacuation offer. Mr. Telawi was experiencing a certain déjà vu. Two years ago, he took a green bus with fellow fighters out of the Old City of Homs in a deal with the government, only to face another siege in Waer. “We have a phobia — a ‘bus complex,’” he said. “In our minds, they equal displacement. ” The buses first arrived in Syrian cities with much fanfare in 2009. Back then, they were a symbol of the modernization promised by Mr. Assad. At one point painted red and plastered with the logo of a cellphone company owned by a cousin of the president, they replaced rickety repurposed school buses and supplemented the small white vans known as “servis,” providing improved, affordable public transportation for students and workers. Osama Mohammad Ali, now an antigovernment activist trapped in Waer, speaks wistfully of riding the bus to law school in Homs on rainy days alongside people from every sect and walk of life. “The driver used to play Fairuz” — the Lebanese singer and diva — “and there was a kind of respect among us,” he said. “If I saw an elderly man standing, I would give him or her my seat. ” But when demonstrations demanding political reform broke out in 2011, the buses were used to transport state security officers or militiamen through Damascus traffic to beat up and arrest protesters. As the uprising turned to armed conflict, clashes left buses rusting in the streets. The steel carcasses sometimes served as barriers between government and rebel territory. Then, in a 2014 deal supervised by United Nations officials, the green buses evacuated the last rebels from the Old City district of Homs as the government took over the area. “We were all crying, ‘Is this the end of Homs men? ’” Mr. Telawi, the technician, recalled recently. “We thought we would be liberating Homs, but instead our end will be in the green bus. ” The buses have since been used again and again in the local surrender deals that the government has promoted in place of a national peace agreement. The Syrian government and its ally Russia portray the evacuations as an act of mercy, freeing people they contend are being used as human shields. Opponents of the government increasingly see the process as “ethnic cleansing,” as it has primarily displaced members of the Sunni majority. The United Nations has condemned the evacuations as a “forced displacement” of civilians, calling for residents to be allowed to “return voluntarily, in safety and in dignity. ” But as the stretched Syrian Army continues to expel civilians from areas, the United Nations and other agencies operating in the country risk being implicated in “a dangerous precedent,” Aron Lund, an analyst at the Carnegie Middle East Center, wrote recently. Armed groups, he continued, can “target and deport civilians with impunity in Syria, and perhaps elsewhere. ” When towns refuse the deals, bombardments intensify and sieges tighten. In August, south of Damascus, the last 1, 500 people in Daraya capitulated after an incendiary bombing of their last hospital. Some went to suburbs, others to Idlib Province. Abu Adnan, 50, was one of the bus drivers. He took 20 fighters and their families to Idlib, where many of them had never been before. They wept as they crossed the checkpoint on their way out of Daraya. “Even I started tearing up — the crying of men is so hard,” he recalled in an interview, asking to be identified only by his nickname to avoid repercussions for expressing sympathy. “I saw a gunman put some soil from Daraya in a plastic bag and smell it as if it was soil from paradise. ” The drive took 30 hours, he said, with the bus stopping at many checkpoints. At some, the rebel passengers threatened to shoot if security forces clambered aboard. At others, the security men cheered for Mr. Assad while the passengers cheered for Daraya and revolution. In September came evacuations from Waer, with hundreds departing for territory farther north. Mr. Ali, the law student, chose to remain under the blockade. “I can’t stand to see these buses now,” he said, but he noted that some people saw them as a means of rescue, to “take them from hell to start a new life,” perhaps fleeing to Turkey. Next, buses — white this time — took rebels and some civilians from the Damascus suburb of Qudsaya, where remaining residents chanted their support for the government as security officials welcomed the town “back into the lap of the country. ” And on Oct. 19, rebels and activists boarded green buses bound for Idlib from the Damascus suburb of Moadhamiyeh, where chemical attacks killed hundreds in 2013. Among them was a doctor named Muhannad, who helped collect evidence for the United Nations investigation into those attacks and who spoke on the condition that he be identified by only his first name, for safety. He, his wife and their son were hoping to smuggle themselves to Austria, where the doctor once worked. Staying home was not an option: He was wanted by 16 security branches, on charges of treating wounded fighters. “I’m inside Bus No. ” he said by phone. Asked about the atmosphere, he said, “One word: crying. ” More than 2, 600 people died in Moadhamiyeh during the war, he said. “We will never have the chance to read the Fatiha over our people,” he added, referring to a prayer of mourning. The green buses were also offered — or offered as a threat — on Oct. 21 to people in the besieged eastern sections of Aleppo, the ancient city split since 2012 between government and rebel territory. After the government encircled the rebel side over the summer, a reporter, Shadi Helweh, taunted the rebels on state television. “I swear to God, the green buses will be here,” he said. “We will take selfies with those mercenaries while they leave like rats. ” People in eastern Aleppo have much to flee: government and Russian airstrikes on hospitals, apartment buildings and schools dwindling supplies of food. But the green buses idled. Virtually no one came out, though Russia had declared a unilateral halt to airstrikes and promoted evacuations. The government and Russia accused rebels of blocking civilians from leaving. Rebels said no one should be evacuated unless humanitarian aid was also allowed in — and told residents that it was not safe to take the buses without international supervision. The United Nations called for a more comprehensive humanitarian pause — with aid deliveries and medical evacuations — but that did not come to pass. It is hard to know how many residents of Aleppo and other trouble spots would leave if they had reliable safety guarantees. Many, including older residents, say they just want to stay in their homes. Mr. Telawi, the technician who rode the green bus out of Homs in 2014 but refused to board again in Waer this year, remembered that when one of his friends had gotten on the bus, he had taken out an old ticket, stamped it with the machine as if for a normal ride, and kept it. “He said he’ll use it again,” Mr. Telawi recalled. “On the way back. ” | 0fake |
Trump Win Jitters New World Order Financial Markets | Trump Win Jitters New World Order Financial Markets November 02, 2016 Trump Win Jitters New World Order Financial Markets
(LONDON) - World stocks, the dollar and oil fell on Wednesday, while safe-haven assets such as gold and the Swiss franc rose as investors were rattled by signs the U.S. presidential race was tightening just days before the vote. Investors were beginning to rethink their long-held bets of a Nov. 8 victory for Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton amid signs her Republican rival Donald Trump could be closing the gap, deepening the recent decline across major stock markets. Asian stocks hit a seven-week low on Wednesday, while European bourses followed Wall Street's lead overnight and slid to a four-month low. Bonds rose alongside gold, the Swiss franc and Japanese yen, with the yield on 10-year U.S. Treasuries falling for the third day in a row. British gilts, which have recently been slammed by uncertainty surrounding the post-Brexit UK outlook, surged too.
"The lead up to the U.S. presidential election was always expected to be lively but the events of the last couple of days have seriously taken their toll on investor sentiment," said Craig Erlam, senior market analyst at Oanda in London.
Investor anxiety has deepened in recent sessions over a possible Trump victory given uncertainty on the Republican candidate's stance on key issues including foreign policy, trade relations and immigrants, while Clinton is viewed as a candidate of the status quo.
READ MORE: EUROPE IS HOPING FOR A CLINTON WIN BECAUSE THAT MEANS MORE DEALS WITH IRAN
Europe's index of leading 300 shares was last down 0.4 percent <.FTEU3>, having earlier hit a four-month low of 1,313 points. Britain's Britain's FTSE <.FTSE> and Germany's DAX <.GDAXI> fell 0.4 and 0.7 percent, respectively.
MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan <.MIAPJ0000PUS> dropped 1.1 percent to seven-week lows while the yen's rise to a two-week high helped push Japan's Nikkei <.N225> down 1.8 percent.
U.S. stock futures recovered earlier losses, pointing to a fall of only 0.1 percent at the open. This would still signify a fresh four-month low for Wall Street.
PRICING A TRUMP VICTORY
The tumultuous presidential race appeared to tighten after news that the Federal Bureau of Investigation was reviewing more emails as part of a probe into Clinton's use of a private email server.
While Clinton held a five-percentage-point lead over Trump, according to a Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll released on Monday, some other polls showed her Republican rival ahead by 1-2 percentage points.
Barclays strategists estimate that a rise in Trump's polling odds to 50 percent could see the S&P 500 fall 4-5 percent, and potentially as much as 10-11 percent if he wins.
This has unnerved markets and the CBOE volatility index <.VIX>, often seen as investors' fear gauge, rose to a two-month high above 20 percent.
The tension in markets came as the Federal Reserve holds its two-day policy meeting, with its statement due later on Wednesday. While traders do not expect a rate hike just a week ahead of the presidential election, they are looking for signs that the Fed will move in December.
Investors have grown increasingly confident in recent weeks that the Fed will follow through next month, attaching an 80 percent probability to such a move, according to fed funds futures pricing.
But currency traders have sold the dollar this week in part because they suspect Trump would prefer a weaker dollar given his protectionist stance on international trade, and in part because the uncertainty surrounding a Trump win might lead to a more dovish stance from the Fed in the months ahead.
The dollar fell again on Wednesday, after posting its biggest one-day fall on Tuesday in two months.
The euro rose 0.4 percent to touch $1.11 for the first time in more than three weeks. It is up about two percent from its 7-1/2-month low of $1.0851 hit last week.
Against the yen, the dollar fell 0.8 percent to 103.24 yen from three-month high of 105.54 yen set on Friday.
"If you had a long dollar position on the view that the dollar would gain because Clinton would win, you would surely close that position because her victory is less certain," said Koichi Yoshikawa, executive director of financial markets at Standard Chartered Bank.
Other safe-haven assets also rose. The Swiss franc hit a four-month high of 1.0750 francs per euro , its highest level since late June, while gold reached a four-week high of $1,297 per ounce.
Oil prices fell for the fourth day in a row, sliding to one-month lows. Brent crude futures fell more than 1 percent to $47.53 per barrel, and U.S. crude was down as low as $46.06 . Oil has lost 10 percent in the last two weeks.
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We believe Christians need and deserve their own global news network to keep the worldwide Church informed, and to offer Christians a positive alternative to the anti-Christian bigotry of the mainstream news media Top Stories | 1real |
Factbox: Sweeping U.S. Dodd-Frank financial law created new agencies, rules | (Reuters) - The Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, named for former Democratic lawmakers Senator Chris Dodd and Representative Barney Frank, was signed by former President Barack Obama in 2010 as a response to the financial crisis. Dodd-Frank is the most sweeping financial regulatory statute enacted since the response to the Great Depression in the 1930s. It created new regulatory bodies and directed already-existing agencies to write hundreds of regulations aimed at creating stability in the financial markets. Republican lawmakers, including President Donald Trump, have said that Dodd-Frank is burdensome for financial institutions, and many seek to repeal it in whole or part. Trump signed an executive order on Friday that did not mention Dodd-Frank by name. But White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer told reporters on Friday, “Dodd-Frank is a disastrous policy that’s hindering our markets” and the order would be the first step taken to review the law. Here are some of the Dodd-Frank law’s main provisions: The Financial Stability Oversight Council Dodd-Frank created the FSOC to monitor risk in the financial system and it was granted the power to deem institutions, including non-bank firms such as asset managers and insurance companies “systemically important financial institutions.” These firms are often called “too-big-to-fail” and subject to additional capital requirements. The Office of Financial Research Dodd-Frank created the independent Office of Financial Research within the Treasury Department to provide data and support related to risks in the financial system to relevant government agencies, including the FSOC. This data is used in part to assess whether a firm is a systemically important financial institution. Consumer Financial Protection Board Dodd-Frank created the CFPB, a federal agency that oversees consumer protection in the financial sector, including banks, payday lenders, credit unions, mortgage servicers and other companies. A federal appeals court ruled in October that the bureau’s structure is unconstitutional because its director, currently Richard Cordray, cannot be removed by the president without cause. That ruling was stayed and has not taken effect pending appeal. Volcker Rule A portion of Dodd-Frank known named for former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker prohibits commercial banks from also engaging in proprietary trading and restricts them from investing in hedge and private equity funds. The Volcker Rule also limits the liabilities that can be taken on by the country’s largest banks. The rule was delayed several times and took effect in July 2015. Some large Wall Street banks asked the Federal Reserve to grant them an additional five-year grace period to comply with the rule. Capital Requirements The law’s so-called capital requirements forced banks to fund themselves more by raising money from shareholders than by borrowing. Regulators used a variety of requirements to force banks to cut their reliance on debt, including by imposing tougher rules for riskier assets. The most stringent requirements fell on the biggest banks. Banks say the process has been costly. Living Wills Dodd-Frank required banks with assets of $50 billion or more to submit living wills to regulators. A bank’s living will is a kind of prepackaged bankruptcy plan that will guide its dissolution and liquidation without taxpayer assistance should it collapse. If these living wills are deemed insufficient by regulators, institutions get another chance to submit a new plan. At that point, if regulators again deem a living will insufficient, a bank can face sanctions. Swaps Push-Out Rule The initial swaps proposal prohibited banks active in swaps markets from receiving federal assistance. The rule was narrowed to apply to only swaps entities. A swaps entity is a swap dealer that is registered with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission or Securities and Exchange Commission. The rule does not apply to depository banks that have swaps divisions, which remain eligible to be insured by the federal government. Regulated Institutions A number of Dodd-Frank’s provisions were designed to direct agencies to regulate entities such as private equity funds and hedge funds for the first time. It also required a brand new regulatory regime for over-the-counter derivatives, which imposed capital and margin requirements, central clearing and trading transparency rules on the marketplace. | 0fake |
Melania Quite Possibly Tried To Troll The Press With Her Style Of Blouse At The Debate | Melania Trump, standing by her man despite being hurt and disappointed in her husband for bragging up a storm about sexually assaulting women, appeared at the 2nd presidential debate looking radiant in a modest, flowing, pink Gucci blouse. There s a small problem, though: The blouse is, literally, called a Pussybow silk-crepe de chine shirt. That s according to Gucci itself. Their description says: A pussybow blouse is one of the prettiest ways to embrace Gucci s new-found eclecticism. This fuchsia-pink design is cut in Italy from silk-georgette, and detailed with softly gathered shoulders and buttoned cuffs to maximise the vintage vibes. Tuck it into a knife-pleated skirt, finishing with statement accessories. [emphasis mine]Check it out below:OMG: Melania s #debate fashion: Gucci s pussy bow shirt H/t @politiquette pic.twitter.com/VQ0LpQp7NW Jay Newton-Small (@JNSmall) October 10, 2016Melania couldn t find a better style of blouse to wear, considering Donald Trump s comment about grabbing women by the pussy?Maybe she didn t know. Someone probably should have warned her, though, because the last 48 hours have been very painful for women all across America who actually have been grabbed that way. The right s defense of those indefensible words just makes it so much worse.Right now, there are definitely some who would call anyone who thinks this was tone-deaf overly sensitive, and worse, because of course they would. However, as the wife of the man in the hot seat for those comments, she could have stood to wear something else.Trump has been in a lot of trouble for bragging about sexually assaulting women, saying things like, I just start kissing them. It s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don t even wait, and Just grab them by the pussy. Anything you want. People bring up Bill Clinton s escapades, but that s nothing more than a deflection.Those words aren t the words of a simply uncouth man. Those are the words of a sexual predator someone who believes that women want him to take them sexually because he s a star, and who has no compunction whatsoever about acting on that thought.The Trump campaign insists this wasn t intentional on Melania s part. However, it could be seen as, at a minimum, trolling the press in an attempt to prove she s standing by her husband.Featured image by Scott Olson/Getty Images | 1real |
Republican Senators Bill to Defund UN Over Anti-Israel Resolution | On Thursday, Republican Senators Ted Cruz ( ) and Lindsey Graham ( ) introduced legislation that would defund the United Nations over the Security Council’s passage of UN Resolution 2334, which calls Israeli construction in the West Bank and eastern Jerusalem “illegal. ”[The “Safeguard Israel Act” states that the U. S. government will be prohibited from giving any money to the UN, or any of its affiliates, until President Barack Obama confirms the UN resolution has been repealed and can certify that he has done so. America provides the UN with 22 percent of its budget, contributing $8 billion to the largely organization annually. “United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334 falsely claims that Israel’s sovereignty over the eastern part of Jerusalem and Jewish communities in the West Bank are illegal under international law, and that the Old City of Jerusalem, along with the Temple Mount, the holiest site for the Jewish people, and the Western Wall are ‘occupied Palestinian territory,’” the Safeguard Israel Act states. The December 23 resolution 2334 passed nearly unanimously despite the Obama administration’s decision to break with tradition and abstain from voting instead of vetoing it. Because the United States is a permanent member of the UN Security Council, an American veto would have automatically stopped the resolution and prevented it from passing. “President Obama betrayed decades of robust bipartisan American support for Israel at the United Nations by permitting the passage of a biased resolution that condemns our close friend and ally,” Sen. Cruz said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” Thursday morning. “The Security Council’s resolution is only the latest example of the UN’s long history of obsessive hostility towards Israel. ” Sen. Graham said, “I begged the UN months before, don’t put me in this box. I think most Americans believe the United Nations has become more more . ” He added, “I’m a big internationalist, but we’re gonna stop the money until we get this fixed. ” The Safeguard Israel Act also notes that during his final address to the UNSC on December 16, outgoing UN Ban admitted UN bias against Israel when he stated, “Decades of political maneuverings have created a disproportionate volume of resolutions, reports, and conferences criticizing Israel. ” The legislation adds, the “United Nations passes more resolutions condemning Israel than any other country in the world. ” Last week, the House of Representatives passed a resolution on a vote objecting to the Security Council vote. Despite strong bipartisan support for the measure, at least 75 Democrats and four Republicans voted against it many of the opposing Democrats accused Republicans of introducing HR 11 to attack Obama unfairly in the last two weeks of his presidency. Rep. Jan Schakowsky ( ) Rep. David Price ( ) and Rep. Keith Ellison ( ) were among Democrats to vote against HR 11. Follow Adelle Nazarian on Twitter and Periscope @AdelleNaz, | 0fake |
App Store Users Torch CNN Over Liberal Bias... | RedFlag News | Welcome to RedFlag News, a 100% independent news-aggregation website. The views expressed herein are the views of the linked author exclusively and not necessarily the views of RFN or its advertisers. // Aggregated content may contain copyrighted material. Such material is made available for educational purposes only. This constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 of the US Copyright Law. If you believe there is a genuine DMCA copyright infringement, please contact us immediately so that your photography or content can be reviewed and, if necessary, removed. | 1real |
World’s Life Expectancy Cut By 4 Billion Years | 0 Add Comment
THE WORLD’s leading scientists have hastily revised Earth’s life expectancy after taking on board new data which has just come to light in the last 24 hours.
Huge, cataclysmic tremors felt on North America faultlines have led scientists from leading institutions to report that the planet, once estimated to live on for some 4 billion years in one form or another, may not live as long as once predicted.
“We are compelled to alter our projections for Earth’s life expectancy dramatically,” explained lead researcher at the Institute of Studies, Professor Thalia Ambrosio.
“While Earth’s vital signs initially looked normal enough, we’re now looking at 4 years tops,” Prof. Ambrosio added. “We’re raising the end of the world alert level from red to a tanned, leathery orange”.
This startling news has had a profound effect on the Earth’s population, with many asking what they can do to prolong the life of the planet.
However, scientists were quick to point out that the cut in life expectancy is not something that is likely to change.
“We know people are keen to help, but honestly, some people are under the impression moving to Canada will somehow help the planet which we must point out doesn’t really do anything,” Prof. Ambrosio concluded.
The group of scientists confirmed they could go into specific details about just how the world will come to an end in the coming years, but will resist doing so because ‘you look worried enough as it is’. | 1real |
Philippine president sees biggest ratings dip, but popularity intact | MANILA (Reuters) - Trust and satisfaction in Philippine leader Rodrigo Duterte fell to the lowest of his presidency in the third quarter of this year, a survey showed on Sunday, although sentiment about his leadership remained positive overall. Net satisfaction, used by pollster Social Weather Stations (SWS) as a rating of the president s performance, was down 18 points from the second quarter to 48, classified as good in the survey of 1,200 Filipinos conducted in the last week of September. Duterte s net trust rating, which gauges public sentiment about his personality, was very good at 60 points, down from excellent 75 he achieved in the previous poll. The survey was conducted just a few days after thousands of Filipinos rallied to denounce Duterte, his anti-drug crackdown and what they called an emerging dictatorship. Thousands of Filipinos have been killed in the crackdown and other SWS polls conducted in September indicated doubts about the validity of official accounts of the 3,800 cases where police killed drug suspects. The SWS survey did not ask respondents to give a reason for the rating of Duterte, who took office in June 2016. Duterte s spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the survey results. Political analyst Ramon Casiple, head of the country s Institute for Political and Electoral Reform, said it was normal for a president s rating to fall during his time in office, but concern over the high death toll in his signature war on drugs will have weighed on sentiment. Activists accuse Duterte of inciting police to kill drug dealers and users, which he denies. Police reject allegations they are executing suspects and say deaths occurred because victims had violently resisted arrest. Casiple said that though the poll still showed Duterte had the support of Filipinos, he should take it seriously. This is a real diminution of his popularity and it serves as a wakeup call for him to stop it further going down, Casiple said of the poll. However, this is still a comfortable figure and far from the threshold of unpopularity. Based on SWS methodology for net trust ratings, a score of 70 and above is considered excellent, 50 to 69 is very good, 30-49 good and 10-29 moderate. While his political opponents chide him for his authoritarian style and intolerance of dissent, Duterte enjoys a cult-like following and support from millions of Filipinos, who see him as the best hope for change in a country with rampant crime and a yawning gap between rich and poor. | 0fake |
Jake Gyllenhaal to Star in Broadway Revival of ‘Sunday in the Park’ - The New York Times | Jake Gyllenhaal will return to Broadway next year in a brief revival of “Sunday in the Park With George. ” The production, a more fully developed version of a City Center benefit concert that Mr. Gyllenhaal anchored in October, will be the first show in 49 years at Hudson Theater, which is being reconverted into a stage after decades of other uses. Mr. Gyllenhaal’s concert performances wowed critics and sold out. “This is one of those shows that seems destined to be forever spoken of with bragging rights by anyone who sees it,” Ben Brantley wrote in The New York Times. Mr. Gyllenhaal’s City Center Annaleigh Ashford, will join him on Broadway. The production will be shorter than the usual Broadway run, at 10 weeks, with previews beginning Feb. 11 and the opening on Feb. 23 it will close on April 23. The show will be produced by Ambassador Theater Group, the British company that is restoring the theater for Broadway, along with New York City Center Jeanine Tesori, who produced the City Center staging and Riva Marker, who runs Mr. Gyllenhaal’s company, Nine Stories Productions. The short run in a theater will make it difficult to recoup capitalization costs, but a spokeswoman said that the company believed it could be done. The company has been eager to land a starry first production that would bring attention to the theater, which is on West 44th Street and most recently has been used as a hotel event space. The spokeswoman said that the Broadway staging would be “fully memorized,” unlike the concert, and that the show’s sets and costumes would be “deepened. ” “Sunday in the Park With George,” with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and a book by James Lapine, is one of the most beloved musicals in the canon, and in 1985 it won the Pulitzer Prize for drama. The show, inspired by the painting “A Sunday on La Grande Jatte,” has a first act imagining the artwork’s creation by the painter Georges Seurat, and a second act, set a century later, imagining the artistic struggles of the painter’s . The revival will be directed by Sarna Lapine, who is Mr. Lapine’s niece, and who will be making her Broadway debut as a director. She directed the City Center concert performance, and has been associate or assistant director on other Broadway shows. “Sunday in the Park” was first presented on Broadway in 1984 there was a revival in 2008. Mr. Gyllenhaal, whose only previous Broadway role was last year in the play “Constellations,” will play Seurat and his (Georges and George). Ms. Ashford, who won a Tony Award last year for her role in “You Can’t Take It With You,” will play Seurat’s lover, Dot, as well as their daughter, Marie. The rest of the cast has not been announced. Mr. Gyllenhaal, a frequent film star, previously agreed to star in a play, “Burn This,” that was to have opened the theater but postponed, citing unspecified scheduling conflicts. He was able to do “Sunday” instead because it requires less of a time commitment. | 0fake |
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 |
Florida Supreme Court strikes down new death penalty law | TAMPA, Fla. (Reuters) - Florida’s Supreme Court overturned a new state death penalty law on Friday because it does not require juries to unanimously recommend capital punishment, a ruling with potential implications for ongoing prosecutions and 385 death row inmates. Executions in Florida, home to the nation’s second-largest death row, have been on hold since the U.S. Supreme Court in January struck down the state’s death penalty sentencing laws. Friday’s ruling by Florida’s high court marked another step towards death sentence recommendations becoming unanimous jury decisions in all U.S. states. The U.S. Supreme Court’s 8-1 ruling invalidated how a judge sentenced Timothy Hurst to death for the 1998 murder of a fried-chicken restaurant manager. It found Florida gave judges powers that juries should wield in determining death eligibility. In response, the Florida legislature this spring rewrote its death sentencing laws, requiring at least 10 of 12 jurors to support capital punishment, instead of a simple majority. That law “is unconstitutional because it requires that only ten jurors recommend death as opposed to the constitutionally required unanimous, twelve-member jury,” the state’s high court found, adding that the law could not be applied to pending prosecutions. “It’s big,” said Marty McClain, a prominent Florida death penalty attorney involved in one of the cases. “There is no constitutional death penalty statute in place until it’s fixed.” Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi’s office said while it is “reviewing the ruling pending a possible rehearing, juries in current active capital trials must make unanimous decisions in capital cases as to the appropriateness of the death penalty,” a spokesman said in an email. Florida’s incoming House speaker, Republican Richard Corcoran, said his chamber would consider options and called the ruling an “effort to subvert the will of the people as expressed by their elected representatives.” Among U.S. states, only Alabama and Delaware also allowed for non-unanimous jury decisions at the time of the high court’s ruling. Delaware’s top court in August struck down its death penalty statute. The U.S. Supreme Court has directed a review in Alabama. “This is significant going forward,” said Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, noting that non-unanimous juries in Florida and Alabama imposed a quarter of U.S. death sentences in recent years. Florida’s Supreme Court vacated Hurst’s death sentence and ordered a new penalty phase hearing. It did not address the retroactivity of its findings for other cases. “There will have to be searching scrutiny in nearly 400 cases,” Dunham said. | 0fake |
U.S.'s Mattis says eyeing provocative Iran actions after Trump speech | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said on Friday he had not yet seen any provocative actions from Iran following President Donald Trump’s speech outlining a more confrontational approach to Iran and added there had been no change in U.S. military posture so far. “Right now, we keep an eye on the potential for more provocations from the Iranians but right now we have not seen that,” Mattis told reporters on board a military plane. “With the Iranians destabilizing record from Lebanon to Syria, from Yemen to Afghanistan, of course we watch for this,” Mattis said. “Right now we are not changing our posture.” | 0fake |
CHECK OUT TINY CROWD At Hillary Rally In MUST WIN State Of Ohio | My kids draw bigger crowds at their neighborhood lemonade stands! From GP: She [Hillary] will speak at Luke Easter Park at 1:00 PM ET.Hillary is speaking at the park in 25 minutes with her vice presidential running mate Tim Kaine.So far only a couple hundred supporters have turned out to see her.Crowd waiting for Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine at Luke Easter Park in Cleveland. pic.twitter.com/b8QMTGGCXN Tom Troy (@TomFTroy) September 5, 2016Hillary Clinton starts rally in Cleveland 80 minutes late, talks after coughing fit she attributes to allergies. pic.twitter.com/vW5GmvTfRX Tom Troy (@TomFTroy) September 5, 2016CLINTON IN CLEVELAND: Ted Strickland kicks off speeches at #Cleveland Labor Day festival. @WEWS pic.twitter.com/YnWLUtpsUx Tara Molina (@TaraMolinaTV) September 5, 2016Compare Hillary s lethargic, tiny crowd in Ohio today to Trump s massive and enthusiastic crowd in Canfield, Ohio on the same day:Thank you Ohio! #AmericaFirst pic.twitter.com/p68GAJdhwu Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 5, 2016 | 1real |
EXPOSED: How US-Backed War on Syria Helped ISIS to Expand Their Operations | ABC News PhotoDaniel Lazare Consortium NewsWhy are Islamic militants wreaking havoc from Brussels to Lahore? The best way to answer this question is by taking a close look at how The New York Times covered this weekend s liberation of Palmyra from Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi s Islamic State.The article, entitled Syrian Troops Said to Recapture Historic Palmyra From ISIS, began on a snide note. While the victory may have netted Bashar al-Assad a strategic prize, reporters Hwaida Saad and Kareem Fahim wrote that it also provided the Syrian president with something more rare: a measure of international praise. The article noted that Mr. Assad s contention that his government is a bulwark against the transnational extremist group has been bolstered, but added that his foes and some allies argue that he must leave power as part of a political settlement to end the war in Syria without, of course, specifying who those allies might be.Then it offered a bit of background: Lost in the celebrations was a discussion of how Palmyra had fallen in the first place. When the Islamic State captured the city in May [2015], the militants faced little resistance from Syrian troops. At the time, residents said officers and militiamen had fled into orchards outside the city, leaving conscripted soldiers and residents to face the militants alone. Since the Times claims to have several hundred surreptitious contacts inside Syria, the charge that Assad s troops fled without a fight may conceivably be correct. But it s hard to square with reports that the Islamic State (also known as ISIS, ISIL and Daesh) had to battle for seven or eight days before entering the city and then had to deal with a counter-offensive on the city s outskirts. But even if true, it s only part of the story and a small one at that.The real story began two months earlier when Syrian rebels launched a major offensive in Syria s northern Idlib province with heavy backing from Turkey and Saudi Arabia. Led by Al Nusra, the local Al Qaeda affiliate, but with the full participation of U.S.-backed rebel forces, the assault proved highly successful because of the large numbers of U.S.-made optically guided TOW missiles supplied by the Saudis. [See Consortiumnews.com s Climbing into Bed with Al-Qaeda. ]The missiles gave the rebels the edge they needed to destroy dozens of government tanks and other vehicles according to videos posted on social media websites. Indeed, one pro-U.S. commander told The Wall Street Journal that the TOWs completely flipped the balance of power, enabling the rebels to dislodge the Syrian army s heavily dug-in forces and drive them out of town. Although the government soon counter-attacked, Al Nusra and its allies continued to advance to the point where they posed a direct threat to the Damascus regime s stronghold in Latakia province 50 or 60 miles to the west.Official Washington was jubilant. The trend lines for Assad are bad and getting worse, a senior official crowed a month after the offensive began. The Times happily observed that [t]he Syrian Army has suffered a string of defeats from re-energized insurgents [which] raise newly urgent questions about the durability of President Bashar al-Assad s rule. Assad was on the ropes, or so everyone said. Indeed, ISIS thought so as well, according to the Associated Press, which is why it decided that the opportunity was ripe to launch an offensive of its own 200 miles or so to the southeast. Worn-out and depleted after four years of civil war, the Syrian Arab Army retreated before the onslaught.But considering the billions of dollars that the U.S. and Saudis were pouring into the rebel forces, blaming Damascus for not putting up a stiffer fight is a little like beating up a 12-year-old girl and then blaming her for not having a better right hook.So the U.S. and its allies helped Islamic State by tying down Assad s forces in the north so that it could punch through in the center. But that s not all the U.S. did. It also helped by suspending bombing as the Islamic State neared Palmyra.As the Times put it at the time: Any airstrikes against Islamic State militants in and around Palmyra would probably benefit the forces of President Bashar al-Assad. So far, United States-led airstrikes in Syria have largely focused on areas far outside government control, to avoid the perception of aiding a leader whose ouster President Obama has called for. The upshot was a clear message to ISIS to the effect that it had nothing to worry about from U.S. jet bombers as long as it engaged Assad s troops in close combat. The U.S. thus incentivized ISIS to press forward with the assault. Although residents later wondered why the U.S. had not bombed ISIS forces while they were traversing miles of open desert roads, the answer, simply, is that Washington had other things on its mind. Rather than defeating ISIS, it preferred to use it to accomplish its primary goal, which was driving out Assad.The BlowbackBut what does this have to do with Brussels and Lahore? Simply that America s fundamental ambivalence toward ISIS, Al Qaeda, and similar groups its policy of battling them on one hand and seeking to make use of them on the other is what allows Sunni terrorism to fester and grow.The administration is shocked, SHOCKED, when Islamists kill innocent people in Belgium but not when they kill innocent people in Syria. This is why the White House long regarded ISIS as a lesser threat: because it thought its violence would remain safely contained. Where Al Qaeda s principal ambition is to launch attacks against the West and U.S. homeland, Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes explained in August 2014, ISIL s primary focus is consolidating territory in the Middle East region to establish their own Islamic State. Since the only people in harm s way were Syrians, there was no cause for alarm. The rest of the world could relax.Hence the confusion when ISIS did the unexpected by striking out at Western targets after all. As the Times observed in a major takeout this week on Islamic State s Western operations, officials were slow to connect the dots because Euro-terrorism was not supposed to be ISIS s thing: Even as the group began aggressively recruiting foreigners, especially Europeans, policymakers in the United States and Europe continued to see it as a lower-profile branch of Al Qaeda that was mostly interested in gaining and governing territory. Turkish officials made essentially the same point last week in response to widespread complaints that they have done little to prevent Sunni terrorists from making their way to Syria. Not so, they countered. When they tried to return the jihadis from whence they came, they found that members of the European Union were none too eager to have them. We were suspicious that the reason they want these people to come is because they don t want them in their own countries, a senior Turkish security official told the London Guardian. Instead, they preferred to see them continue on their way. And why not? At home, they would only cause trouble, whereas in Syria they would advance Western interests by waging war against Assad s Baathist government.Thus, Brussels was unresponsive when Turkish officials informed it that they had detained a Belgian citizen named Ibrahim el-Bakraoui in the border town of Gaziantep on suspicion of traveling to Syria to join the jihad. The Turks deported him anyway, but the Belgians remained unconcerned until El-Bakraoui turned up among the suicide bombers at Zaventem airport.The same thing happened when the Turks intercepted a Syria-bound French national named Omar Ismail Mostefai. Paris was also unresponsive until Mostefai wound up among the ISIS militants who stormed the Bataclan concert hall last November, at which point its attitude turned distinctly less blas .In June 2014, Turkish security officers in Istanbul intercepted a Norwegian citizen traveling to Syria with a camouflage outfit, a first-aid kit, knives, a gun magazine and parts of an AK-47, all of which E.U. customs officials had somehow overlooked.Two months later, they intercepted a German citizen with a suitcase containing a bulletproof vest, military camouflage and binoculars that customs had also failed to notice. When they apprehended a Danish-Turkish dual citizen on his way to Syria, they sent him back to Copenhagen. But the Danes gave him another passport regardless so he could continue on his way. Everyone figured that what happens in Syria stays in Syria, so why worry?Now, of course, everyone is worried big time. With the AP reporting that Islamic State has armed and trained 400 to 600 fighters for its European operations, talk of ISIS sleeper cells is ubiquitous. Referring to the Brussels district where the March 22 bombing plot was hatched, Patrick Kanner, the French social-democratic minister of youth, warned ominously: There are today, as is well known, hundreds of neighborhoods in France that present potential similarities to what happened in Molenbeek. The implication was that the state of emergency should not only continue but deepen. As hundreds of neo-Nazis descended on Brussels chanting anti-immigrant slogans, paranoia took a giant leap forward as did its handmaidens racism and Islamophobia.But as much everyone would like to blame it all on Donald Trump, Marine Le Pen and others of that ilk, none of this is really their fault. To the contrary, the West s disastrous Syria policy is entirely the creation of nice-guy liberals like Barack Obama. Desperate to appease both Israel and the Sunni oil sheiks, all of whom for various reasons wanted Assad to go, he signed on to a massive Sunni jihad that has turned Syria into a charnel house.With death estimates now running as high as 470,000, which is to say one person in nine, the idea that massive violence like this could remain confined to a single country was absurd to begin with. Yet Obama went along regardless.Indeed, the administration is still unwilling to back down despite all that has happened since. When a reporter asked point-blank at a State Department press briefing, Do you want to see the [Damascus] regime retake Palmyra or would you prefer that it stays in Daesh s hands, spokesman Mark Toner hemmed and hawed before finally admitting that a takeover was preferable because we think Daesh is probably the greater evil in this case. (Exchange starts at 1:05.)But the next day he walked back even that mealy-mouthed statement. Refusing to endorse Palmyra s fall at all, he declared: I m not going to laud it because it s important to remember that one of the reasons Daesh is in Syria is because Assad s brutal crackdown on his own people created the kind of vacuum, if you will, that has allowed a group like ISIL or Daesh to flourish. Just because he s now, given the cessation of hostilities, willing and-or able to divert his forces to take on Daesh doesn t exonerate him or his regime from the gross abuses that they ve carried out against the Syrian people. Since Assad is the only one to blame, the U.S. doesn t have to ponder its own contribution to the problem. Instead, it gives itself a clean bill of health and moves on. Rather, it would like to move on if only ISIS would let it.But the more aid the U.S. and its allies funnel into the hands of Sunni terrorists, the more groups like ISIS and Al Qaeda will grow and the farther their reach will extend. The upshot will be more bombings and shootings in Paris, Brussels, and who knows where else. Racism and Islamophobia will continue to surge regardless of what bien-pensant liberals do to talk it down.The liberal center is engineering its own demise.***Daniel Lazare is the author of several books including The Frozen Republic: How the Constitution Is Paralyzing Democracy (Harcourt Brace).READ MORE SYRIA NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire Syria Files | 1real |
MARKET CRASH! Obama’s Speech 3 Days Ago: “Anyone claiming that America’s economy is in decline is lying” [VIDEO] | 1.5 TRILLION Net Wealth Lost In 15 Days!It s never about America, when it comes to this fraud. It s not about telling the truth about our economy or about the accepting responsibility for 93.8 million unemployed Americans. It s only about this egomaniac and his false legacy The stock market route is starting to get really expensive destroying $2.3 trillion from the market s top last year and $1.5 trillion in net wealth just this year.The giant companies that predominantly populate the Standard & Poor s 500 have fallen an average of 9.2% this year which when translated into dollars is real money. Real big money. The S&P 500 is down 8.1% this year already including another 2.3% Friday in what s been one of the worst starts to a year ever. Since the market peak on May 21, 2015, the market has declined 11.9%.Here s our Liar In Chief, who s clearly more concerned about his legacy than the actual truth:Latest on markets:The biggest wealth destroyers in the S&P 500 from the high have been gadget maker Apple (AAPL), pipeline company Kinder Morgan (KMI) and corporate software company Oracle (ORCL) crushing $224 billion, $63 billion and $49.6 billion in market value, respectively, from the May 21, 2015 top.S&P 500 STOCKS THAT DESTROYED THE MOST SHAREHOLDER WEALTH FROM THE MAY 21, 2015 TOPCompany, Symbol, % lost from high, $ market value erased from the high ($ billions)Apple, AAPL, -26.9%, -$224.4Kinder Morgan, KMI, -69.5%, -$63.5Berkshire Hathaway, BRKA, -22.7%, -$49.6Wal-Mart Stores, WMT, -13.3%, -$47.5Qualcomm, QCOM, -18.3%, -$46.4Source: S&P Capital IQ, USA TODAYThis year, most of the money is being shredded by the giant companies that many U.S. investors loaded up on during the bull including gadget maker Apple, online retailer Amazon.com (AMZN) and online advertising firm Alphabet (GOOGL).When it comes to destroying market value, Apple is in a class of its own. The company has erased a staggering $51.1 billion in investor wealth this year following its 8.8% decline this year to $96 a share. More than $200 billion in market value has been erased by just this one stock from the market high which is more than a vast majority of big companies are worth.Red hot retailer Amazon is down a whopping 16% this year after more than doubling in value in 2015. That means investors in Amazon are down $49 billion this year.Google s parent Alphabet is also taking the shredder to investors money falling 8.6% this year to $46.2 billion.When you see how much money is being erased by the biggest companies you can see why this sell-off is getting uncomfortable and expensive.Nothing s changed in the past 6 years. He s still lying. Too bad our friend, Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC) wasn t available for comment at this year s SOTU.S&P 500 STOCKS THAT DESTROYED THE MOST SHAREHOLDER WEALTH THIS YEARCompany, Symbol, % lost YTD, $ market value erased YTD ($ billions)Apple, AAPL, -8.8%, -$51.1Amazon.com, AMZN, -15.6%, -$49.3Alphabet, GOOGL, -8.6%, -$46.2Microsoft, MSFT, -7.8%, -$34.4JPMorgan Chase, JPM, -13.4%, -$32.7Facebook, FB, -9.9%, -$29.4Wells Fargo, WFC, -9.9%, -$27.5Citigroup, C, -17.4%, -$26.9General Electric, GE, -8.4%, -$24.6Bank of America, BAC, -14%, -$24.5Intel, INTC, -14%, -$24.5Cisco Systems, CSCO, -11.8%, -$16.2Home Depot, HD, -9.3%, -$15.6Source: S&P Capital IQ, USA TODAY | 1real |
Egypt to hike Cairo metro fares from next July: state newspaper | CAIRO (Reuters) - Egypt will raise the price of tickets on Cairo s loss-making metro system from next July, tripling the present fare for many commuters, the state-owned newspaper al-Ahram said on Sunday. Commuters will be charged a base fare of 2 Egyptian pounds (11 U.S. cents) for the first 9 stops, and an additional pound for 9 more stations, the newspaper, quoting Transport Minister Hisham Arafat, said. A maximum fare of 6 Egyptian pounds will be charged for commuters who ride one line from start to finish, though discounted rates for government workers and students will be maintained. Currently, commuters can cover an unlimited number of stops and can even switch lines for the same base fare of 2 Egyptian pounds. The move comes as part of an effort by the transport authority to cover operational costs after the floatation of the Egyptian pound, the newspaper said. The government angered Cairo residents, already hit by a sharp rise in living costs, when it doubled the price of metro tickets in March for millions of commuters, an increase which followed losses of 500 million Egyptian pounds which have put the network at risk, media reported in March. | 0fake |
‘I Can Watch It on TV’: Excuses for Republicans Skipping a Donald Trump Convention - The New York Times | A wave of prominent Republicans have announced their intention to skip the party’s national convention in Cleveland this summer, the latest sign that Donald J. Trump, who last week secured the delegates needed to clinch the Republican presidential nomination, continues to struggle in his effort to unite the party behind his candidacy. The list of those who have sent regrets includes governors and United States senators — almost all facing tough fights this year — and lifelong party devotees who have attended every convention for decades. Some are renouncing their seats like conscientious objectors. “I could not in good conscience attend a coronation and celebration of Donald Trump,” wrote one Indiana delegate, Josh Claybourn, in a blog post resigning his position. The coolness toward Mr. Trump amounts to a remarkable rebuke. A broad range of party leaders are openly rejecting the man who will be their nominee. And the July convention, usually a moment of public catharsis for political parties after contentious primaries, is shaping up to be another reminder of the disarray and disunity that is still rocking the Republican Party after a bitter fight for the nomination. Even the two Republicans in the convention’s host state of Ohio — Gov. John Kasich and Senator Rob Portman, who is fighting to hold onto his seat — say they do not know if they will set foot in the convention hall. Mr. Kasich, who only four weeks ago quit the presidential campaign and has not endorsed Mr. Trump, has no idea “what role if any he will have,” a spokesman said. He will be in Cleveland that week but has no plans, as of now, to partake in any official convention activities. Several other of Mr. Trump’s former rivals for the nomination have said they will not attend or have not committed. Jeb Bush, former governor of Florida, will not be there. Neither will Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. “I’m sure it will be fun, I’m sure it will be entertaining,” Mr. Graham said last week. “And I can watch it on TV. ” Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, who is a delegate as well as a former presidential candidate, has yet to decide. “T. B. D. ,” a spokesman said. “The schedule is still being firmed up. ” At least two former competitors of Mr. Trump’s are expected to attend: Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey and Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, who last week offered his services as a speaker should they be wanted. Among those staying away include some major corporations like Microsoft and . And some who do plan to be there might find the atmosphere somewhat uncomfortable. Mr. Trump has still not fully reconciled with Speaker Paul D. Ryan, the convention’s chairman, who said in early May that he was not ready to support the nominee and would relinquish the role if asked. Mr. Trump is also at odds with the head of the Republican Governors Association, Susana Martinez of New Mexico, who will lead her state’s delegation in Cleveland. Ms. Martinez has also withheld her endorsement, a slight that evidently prompted Mr. Trump to attack her performance in office last week. Scheduling conflicts seem to be a surprisingly common excuse for missing an event that was announced a year and a half ago. Others offered mushy noncommitments. “Just as they’re firming up the schedule, it kind of looks like there’s a lot of stuff for me to do,” said Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, explaining why he probably couldn’t make it. Asked if Mr. Trump had anything to do with his reluctance, Mr. Johnson, who is in a heated campaign, broke into a big smile and said, “Oh, of course not. ” Gov. Rick Snyder of Michigan, a state Mr. Trump has said he believes the Republicans can wrest from Democrats this year, also might have more important things to do at home. “Michigan has some pressing challenges right now,” a spokeswoman said last week, “and state issues are his foremost priority. ” Mr. Snyder is one of at least nine Republican governors who are noncommittal or skipping the convention: Mr. Kasich, Brian Sandoval of Nevada, Charlie Baker of Massachusetts, Bruce Rauner of Illinois, Larry Hogan of Maryland, Nikki R. Haley of South Carolina, Matt Mead of Wyoming and Nathan Deal of Georgia. “I don’t even want to be involved,” Mr. Hogan said in an interview in March. “It’s a mess. I hate the whole thing. ” Just about every Republican senator in a difficult race is staying away, fearful of what the association with Mr. Trump might do to reputations back home. Senator John McCain of Arizona will join four of the five living former Republican nominees in skipping the convention. “I’m in a very tough campaign,” he said last week, explaining his expected absence. Senators Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire and Mark S. Kirk of Illinois, two of the most endangered Republican incumbents, will also be nowhere near Cleveland that week. Mr. Portman, another senator in a tight race, said his time would be better spent holding a miniconvention of his own in Cleveland, which he plans to do with events for veterans, the homeless and his volunteers. “I’ve spoken at every convention since 1996,” he said. “Nobody listens, nobody covers it. ” This mass avoidance might seem, on its surface, to be yet another example of party elites snubbing Mr. Trump in the kind of rejection that he would welcome as a professed political outsider. But it also reflects a deeper and more dangerous problem for him: Mr. Trump’s popularity with Republicans remains uncomfortably low. The candidate’s own party generally delivers support in the 90 percent range. (Mitt Romney won 93 percent of his own party in 2012.) Mr. Trump’s support among Republicans, according to the latest NBC Street Journal Poll, was 86 percent. And the snubs keep coming from the upper echelons of the party and the rank and file. In New Hampshire, the former senator Judd Gregg was initially a delegate for Mr. Bush. But when Mr. Bush suspended his campaign, Mr. Gregg became unbound. He has instead opted to skip the convention, telling a local television station, “Don’t like large crowds. ” The Indiana delegate who renounced his place at the convention, Mr. Claybourn, would have been bound to vote for Mr. Trump on the first ballot, a step he said he simply could not stomach. “Donald J. Trump is the Republican Party’s nominee,” Mr. Claybourn said. “But he will not be my nominee, and I will not attend a convention celebrating his candidacy. ” | 0fake |
Iowa Cop Killer Was Mad At Police For Not Arresting Black Teens Who Sat During Anthem | Comments
Special to Occupy Democrats by Carlos Miller of PINAC News.
It was only last month that Scott Michael Greene accused a group of black teenagers of being “cop haters” because they did not stand for the National Anthem during a high school football game. This morning, he shot and killed two cops in cold blood as they sat in their patrol cars. Greene, 46, was arrested a few hours later after an intense manhunt.
Below is a video he posted on YouTube, along with a screenshot of his comment referring to the black teens as cop haters for not standing during the national anthem at high school game, which caused him to throw a fit of rage leading to him eventually being kicked out of the stadium.
He was angry at police after they had kicked him out of the football game for waving a Confederate flag in front of a group of black students in Urbandale on October 14, 2016. Two days later, he posted the infamous video to YouTube from the encounter titled, “Police Abuse, Civil Rights Violation at Urbandale High School 10/14/16.”
Of course, neither Trump nor his campaign have said anything about the killings except a tweet offering the old tired “thoughts and prayers.”
In the video, he tries to explain to the cops kicking him out that he was doing nothing more than expressing his First Amendment rights to wave the Confederate flag. He also said he was assaulted and had his flag stolen from him. However, police said he was causing a disturbance and that he would be arrested for trespassing on school property if he did not leave. They also returned his flag to him.
While they agreed he had a Constitutional right to wave the flag, they informed him that on school grounds, he was subject to school policies that did not allow the waving of the Confederate flag. Less than a week ago, he stated in the comments section of his video that he was “offended by the blacks sitting through our anthem” and referred to them as being “cop haters.” Now, he is a suspected cop killer. Greene has a long history of arrests, including one incident where he threatened to kill a black man after calling him a racial slur. He also went though mental evaluation and was placed on medication.
According to the Des Moines Register:
He was charged with a simple misdemeanor count of interference with official acts on April 10, 2014, when he resisted an attempt by officers to pat him down for weapons at an Urbandale residence on Colby Parkway, according to a criminal complaint. The officers wanted to search Greene after noticing that he had a pouch on his belt that resembled a holster.
Greene was “noncompliant, hostile, combative and made furtive movements toward his pockets” before the arrest, Officer Chris Greenfield wrote in the complaint. Greene pleaded guilty to the charge about two weeks later.
The complaint does not indicate why officers initially came into contact with Greene. But two days later he reportedly threatened to kill a man in the parking lot of the same apartment complex and he was charged with first-degree harassment, according to another complaint.
In that incident, Greene was accused of approaching a man in the parking lot and shined a flashlight in his eyes. Greene, who lived in the apartments, called the man the N-word and told the man “I will kill you, (expletive) kill you,” according to the complaint. Greene pleaded guilty to a lesser harassment charge on June 30, 2014, and was sentenced to one year of probation.
In a discharge report filed in June 2015 a probation officer wrote that Greene had received a mental health evaluation and “reports to have complied with the medication recommendations.”
Watch this confederate flag obsessed cop-killer’s YouTube video: | 1real |
PA Archbishop Accused Of Using Mafia-Like Tactics Against Lawmaker | Philadelphia s archbishop Charles Caput is accused of using mafia-like tactics against a state lawmaker who stands in support of child victims of sexual abuse.In an email to Pennsylvania state representative Jamie Santora, the archbishop accused the elected official of betraying the church. The email went on to say that Santora would suffer consequences for supporting legislation designed to provide victims of child sexual abuse with the justice they deserve.The bill which provoked the vicious message from Caput would extend the amount of time that child sexual assault victims have to bring claims against their abusers.Under the state s current law a victim of sexual assault only has until his or her 30th birthday to file a claim against the abuser. The legislation, which passed the state s lower house in April, would extend the deadline until the victim s 50th birthday.According to The Intellectualist, Caput is heading up a lobbying effort against the bill.The email provoked the wrath of state lawmakers on both sides of political aisle.Republican state legislator Mike Vereb, who is also a Catholic, accused the archbishop of using mafia-like tactics against lawmakers, saying: This mob boss approach of having legislators called out, he really went right up to the line. He is going down a road that is frankly dangerous for the status of the church in terms of it being a non-profit. The Catholic church has no business engaging in any type of lobbying activity. In order to maintain its tax-exempt status, a church is strictly prohibited from engaging in political activity.The letter that Caput sent out is a prime example of the kind of religious bullying the Establishment Clause was put in place to prevent.Given the Catholic Church s history of child sexual abuse, Caput s email accusing Santora of betraying the church would indicate that the church is aware that many more victims exist.It seems clear that the church would prefer those victims never receive the justice they deserve.Image credit via Michal on Flickr | 1real |
HOMELESS WOMAN Beaten By Thugs For Hillary After Protecting Trump’s Hollywood Star Speaks Out For Millions Of Forgotten Americans…A MUST READ | The woman s name is Denise Scott. You can donate to her here.All funds will go to provide Denise care: Immediate & Affordable Housing Health Assessment and Medical Treatment Food Supplies Winter and Summer Clothing / Shoes / Hygiene Products Personal Identification Registration as Needed (Licenses, SS Card, Birth Certificate, etc.) Employment AssistancePlease donate here and pass it on.After Trump saw this horrible video, he asked his attorney to find this woman, he said he wanted to give her a gift..@DiamondandSilk @realDonaldTrump someone please help me locate this woman as Mr. Trump has a gift for her Michael Cohen (@MichaelCohen212) October 28, 2016The homeless woman seen in this video has allegedly now been identified on Twitter and other social media outlets as Denise Scott..@sandra48050139 with everyone's love and help, this woman will have the last laugh on these thugs Michael Cohen (@MichaelCohen212) October 28, 2016In 2013, Denise Scott met up with Chris Mack, an outreach worker with JWCH Institute in Los Angeles Skid Row neighborhood. Denise Scott may be homeless and she may have been forgotten, even ignored by our society, but she believes in Donald J. Trump and she s not afraid to stand up and defend him. She believes Americans need to take care of their own citizens before allowing illegal aliens to flood our country looking for handouts from our government.Denise Scott may be homeless, but she represents a portion of the silent majority in America who are sick and tired of watching politicians putting their own interests and those of special interest groups and lobbyists before the American citizens who elected them.Denise Scott shouts angrily over the way America has forgotten her. We don t need no more illegals comin over here! she screams from a Skid Row sidewalk littered with chicken bones, paper plates and discarded clothes. Fix the problems in this country! I need a place to live! Christopher Mack, a lead community outreach worker for a health clinic in the heart of Los Angeles Skid Row, squats next to her. He softly tells her to calm down, to breathe, to remember to see her case worker in the morning about housing.He also wants to know if she has health insurance.But Scott, who will turn 61 soon and has lived on Skid Row for 18 months, is in no mood to hear sweet talk. She s bone thin. Her sweater is ripped and riddled with holes. Her clothes and important papers are squashed into various size bags all around her. Tears of frustration drip down her face. I m not a racist, she tells Mack apologetically, But I can t go to Mexico to get a house and you can t find me a place to live here. Today is not Scott s day, Mack determines. She is too angry. Despite the fact that she and many others will qualify for health insurance by the end of the year under requirements of the Affordable Care Act, finding a place to live, not health care, is Scott s priority. So Mack will try again another time.The encounter demonstrates how difficult it can be to provide health coverage to some of the most destitute, even those who qualify for free or subsidized plans. Some of them say that simply trying to survive or find a roof over their heads takes precedence even over caring for their own health. Daily News | 1real |
Migrants Who ’Fled War’ Use Welfare to Holiday in Homelands | Migrants granted leave to remain in Switzerland on the basis that they risk death in their homelands are using welfare money to fund holidays back home, the Basler Zeitung reports. [The Swiss newspaper notes that thousands of migrants each year are heading to Eritrea for their holidays each year despite their having supposedly fled the northeast African nation in fear of their lives. Although a large proportion of Eritreans in Switzerland have been refused asylum, authorities are powerless to deport them because their homelands are deemed to be too dangerous by the country’s refugee policy. While there are no direct flights to Eritrea, the Basler Zeitung says it found that up to fifty people a day are leaving Switzerland in order to holiday in the African country. It typically costs around 599 Swiss Francs (£475) in January or 650 Swiss Francs (£516) in high season for a return journey to Eritrea according to the German language daily, which notes that taxpayer stipends to migrants must be quite generous as the vast majority of Eritreans residing in Switzerland live on welfare. Stating it to be unlikely that more than a small handful of migrants would “abuse the asylum system” the Swiss Secretariat for Migration (SEM) told the Basler Zeitung that it’s difficult to work out the number of Eritreans who are taking holidays in their country of origin due to the lack of direct flights. Of the nearly 50, 000 applications to travel abroad filed by refugees, asylum seekers and people in Switzerland who have temporary residence permits between 2010 and 2014, 97. 5 per cent were successful. Noting that around 15, 0000 of these passes were granted to Eritreans, the Basler Zeitung asks whether the sheer volume of migrants venturing back to the northeast African country suggests it is really “a mere matter of individual cases” or whether it implies the situation is a “mass occurring phenomenon”. In September Breitbart London reported that migrants granted asylum in Germany have been using welfare payments to holiday in the countries they fled, again supposedly in fear of their lives. | 0fake |
Wireless Brain-Spine Connection Overcomes Paralysis in Monkey - The New York Times | Monkeys with spinal cord damage that paralyzed one leg quickly regained the ability to walk with a wireless connection from the brain to the spinal cord below the injury, scientists reported Wednesday. The achievement is yet another advance in the rapidly moving field of technological treatments for spinal cord damage. In recent years, scientists have achieved brain control of robotic hands in monkeys and humans, helped a paralyzed man regain some use of a hand through a chip implanted in his brain, and used electrical stimulation of nerves to enable paralyzed rats to walk again. The new system is unusual because it concentrates on the lower body, and allows a monkey — and perhaps in the near future a human — to use a wireless system rather than be tethered to a computer. It utilizes new developments in brain recording and in nerve stimulation. It does require a computer to decode and translate brain signals and send them to the spinal cord, but computer technology makes a wearable device feasible. Grégoire Courtine, a specialist in spinal cord repair at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Lausanne, said he hoped the system he and his colleagues developed could be transferred “in the next 10 years” to humans for therapy that would aid in rehabilitation and “improve recovery and quality of life. ” But, he emphasized, the goal is better rehabilitation, not a science fiction fix for paralysis. “People are not going to walk in the streets with a interface,” in the foreseeable future, he said. Andrew Jackson, at Newcastle University, who has worked on upper body paralysis and was not involved in the study, said the research was “another key milestone” in research on treating paralysis. Dr. Jackson wrote a commentary on the research in the journal Nature, which published the report of Dr. Courtine, Marco Capogrosso, Tomislav Milekovic, both at the Swiss institute, and an international team of scientists. Among the reasons that the system is not a miracle fix for paralysis is that it relays only impulses to extend and bend the leg at the right time to fit into a gait, not other, more subtle movements involving change in direction or navigating obstacles. Humans present different challenges, as well, for instance, in terms of balance in rather than walking. The research was conducted with collaborators in China, Dr. Courtine said, because Swiss restrictions on animal experiments at the time would not allow the work. Now that the work is proving successful, he has permission to proceed with similar experiments in Switzerland, he said. Dr. Courtine has written about ethical issues involved in such experiments with primates and emphasized that 10 years of research in rodents was necessary to prepare for the work in monkeys. One of the reasons that only one leg was paralyzed is that animals can function even without the use of one leg and retain bladder and bowel control, whereas complete severing of the spinal cord can be devastating for an animal’s quality of life. Further, he said, this kind of work, with all its promise for human beings that have suffered spinal cord damage, cannot be pursued in people without testing in other primates first. The brain recording and the stimulation of the spinal cord involve devices that are already in use in humans for other purposes. Only the brain decoding software has not been used with people. David Borton, of Brown University, and one of the primary authors of the new report, developed the wireless sensor with colleagues when he was doing doctoral work before he started working with Dr. Courtine. Combined with micro electrodes, it records and transmits impulses in the part of the brain where signals to move the leg originate. He said that one of the reasons the system may be helpful in rehabilitation is that it strengthens remaining connections between parts of the spinal cord and the injured limb. There is a saying in neuroscience, he said, “neurons that fire together, wire together. ” The brain recording device was combined with electrical stimulation to an area just outside the spinal cord that conveyed signals to the reflex system. Walking is only partly under brain control. The spinal cord has its own system for receiving input from the legs and responding. Humans don’t think about walking most of the time, and it’s not that the brain is running the activity below conscious awareness. The spinal cord and reflex system are running much of it. Dr. Courtine had used electrical stimulation before to train paralyzed rats with spinal cord injuries to walk again. But that work didn’t involve the brain, and one crucial part of these experiments was timing. “If the brain says it wants that limb to move, it must happen within milliseconds for that connection to strengthen,” Dr. Borton said. | 0fake |
Here's why creating single-payer health care in America is so hard | The Hillary Clinton campaign is taking some hard knocks from liberals over its maladroit attacks on Bernie Sanders’ single-payer proposal. In one sense, the knocks are well-deserved. Even if single-payer markedly lowers medical expenditures, proponents such as Larry Seidman estimate that a tax increase of at least 8 percent of GDP would likely be required to finance it. That’s a heavy political lift. It’s about as much as the entire federal income tax on individuals.
Yet as proponents rightly observe, these taxes would replace many visible and invisible ways we now provide to support a health sector that consume more than 17 percent of our economy. The experience of peer industrial democracies suggests that a well-designed single-payer system would be more humane and markedly less expensive than what we have right now.
Such a system would certainly be less convoluted and bureaucratically hidebound. Aggressively deploying government power to rein in prices, a well-designed single-payer system would be more fiscally disciplined, and would probably be more effective in targeting resources to best promote public health. Sanders deserves credit for noting the real virtues of a well-executed single-payer system.
In another way, though, Clinton's critique raises uncomfortable questions that deserve greater attention. It’s commonplace (though true) to note that single-payer is beyond the current boundaries of American politics. But what if, by some miracle, liberal Democrats won comprehensive victories that created a window of opportunity in which single-payer becomes realistically possible?
Imagine what would happen were President Bernie Sanders to sweep into office backed by a Democratic congressional majority similar to what President Obama enjoyed in 2008. Imagine further that President Sanders were sufficiently fortunate and skilled after that victory to enact a single-payer system. I wonder how different our policy dilemmas would really be from what we now face in implementing the Affordable Care Act.
As I have written at length in the Journal of Health Politics, Policy, and Law (and draw upon here), an American single-payer system would be more complex and kludgy than many proponents have considered or admitted. The source of these problems resides in American politics rather than the technocratic or ideological premises of our health care system. A different system operating through the same political mechanisms would produce similar complexity and kludge.
The pitch for single-payer is admirably simple: We cover every (legal) resident. We mail a Medicare card to everyone. Everyone is covered. That’s a lot easier to explain and market than it is to explain the convoluted structures of Medicaid and state marketplace plans.
This is also a caricature of how such a single-payer plan would be passed and how it would touch the lives of millions of Americans. Single-payer would immediately raise myriad intricate and divisive transition issues. It would potentially uproot thousands of critical arrangements President Obama, Speaker Pelosi, and Sen. Reid struggled to leave intact.
After all, ACA’s sales pitch to the healthy and insured was, "If you like your insurance, you can keep it." This pledge proved politically damaging when it could not be fully kept for several million people. Single-payer would be far more disruptive to even more people.
It’s telling that no fully articulated single-payer bill was ever drafted as an alternative to the ACA. Such a bill would have been no less complicated, and would probably have been more encyclopedic than the ACA was. A huge reform that creates millions of winners creates millions of losers, too.
As with ACA, the biggest winners would be relatively disorganized low-income people in greatest need of help. The potential losers would include some of the most powerful and organized constituencies in America: workers who now receive generous tax expenditures for good private coverage, and affluent people who would face large tax increases to finance a single-payer system. At least some of these constituencies would need to be accommodated in messy political bargaining to get single-payer enacted. And states would have a role to play, too, potentially replicating the messy patchwork we got with ACA reforms.
Single-payer would require a serious rewrite of state and federal relations in Medicaid and in many other matters. It would radically revise the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), which strongly influences the benefit practices of large employers. Single-payer would require intricate negotiation to navigate the transition from employer-based coverage. The House and Senate would be in charge of this tension, and at risk of the negotiations among key legislators and committees who hold sway.
Single-payer would be openly or quietly opposed by virtually the entire supply side of the medical economy. We saw this dynamic during the political knife fight over ACA’s "public option." Early versions of the public option would have allowed consumers shopping in the state marketplaces to buy into some public insurance modeled on Medicare.
Many stakeholders who supported other aspects of ACA noisily or quietly wanted to see the public option dead. Community hospitals, medical groups, pharmaceutical and medical device companies feared precisely the outcome liberals hoped to see: a viable public insurance product that gained broad acceptance and market share, and that used Medicare’s tremendous market power to discipline providers.
These constituencies understood and dreaded the heavy hand of government across from them at the bargaining table. These constituencies helped to kill the public option. They would be a force to be reckoned with in any political process that seeks to implement a single-payer system.
Given our polarized judiciary, there would be legal and constitutional challenges, too. Whatever fine print of the ACA found its way to the Supreme Court, the real fight concerned the propriety of an expansive federal government that seeks to regulate and humanize a national health care market. Constitutional conservatives reject this vision of American government. A single-payer system would engage even more contentious issues of federalism and the reach of national government.
Some progressives hope that single-payer could provide an attractive replacement for the grubby, path-dependent logrolling that now dominates our $3 trillion health care political economy. No viable single-payer program will replace these grubby politics. That’s logically impossible, because such a program must be produced through that very same process. Barring a historically comprehensive defeat of Republicans at every level of American government, advocates for expanded health coverage will face this discomfiting reality.
Passing a single-payer plan requires precisely the same interest group bargaining and logrolling required to pass the ACA. The resulting policies will thus replicate some of the very same scars, defects, and kludge that bedevil the ACA.
Progressives should still push for basic reforms that improve our current system. I supported the public option in 2009. I still do. I hope it resurfaces in some form, particularly for older participants in the state marketplaces. It may open a pathway to a true single-payer. If it doesn’t — which I suspect it will not — it might still provide a valuable alternative and source of pricing discipline within our pathological health care market.
Whatever policy one supports, we must actually consider how this imperfect and messy process will actually play out. There’s no immaculate conception in American politics. | 0fake |
HYSTERICAL! TRUMP TO GERMANY’S MERKEL on Obama’s Wiretapping: “At least we have something in common” [VIDEO] | Trump to Merkel on Obama s wiretapping at least we have something in common https://t.co/aEfJefkbZW pic.twitter.com/5BztA5Kx52 WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) March 17, 2017 | 1real |
Colombia and FARC Reach Deal to End the Americas’ Longest War - The New York Times | Colombia’s government and the largest rebel group in the country have reached a deal to end more than 50 years of conflict, the two sides announced Wednesday, paving the way for an end to the war in the Americas. For four years, the Colombian government and the rebels have been locked in negotiations. Time and again, they have emerged from the negotiating table to assure a weary public that another impasse had been eliminated, another hurdle cleared. This time, the two sides declared that a final deal had been clinched. “Today begins the end of the suffering, the pain and the tragedy of war,” President Juan Manuel Santos said in a nationally televised address after the agreement was announced. “Let’s open the door together to a new stage in our history. ” The agreement, reached in Havana where the talks took place, effectively signifies the end of the last major guerrilla struggle in Latin America. It outlines a timetable in which the rebels, known as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, will abandon their arms. It also sets out a pathway in which former fighters will enter civilian life again — and in some cases, run for office. But to most Colombians, the deal is simply a promise that the war, which has lasted 52 years, claimed some 220, 000 lives and displaced more than five million people, is at last coming to an end. Peace in Colombia now looks more likely than ever, but a big hurdle still needs to be cleared before the deal is ratified. Mr. Santos, who has staked his legacy on a deal, must now sell it to his people, who will be asked to vote in an referendum. Rallying against that approval is Mr. Santos’s predecessor, former President Álvaro Uribe, whose term ended in 2010 with the FARC diminished. Mr. Uribe is widely credited with the military gains that forced the rebels to the negotiating table. But he is now leading a growing campaign against the deal, saying it amounts to an unjust amnesty for the rebels. “They will spend zero days in prison, they will be awarded with political representation,” Paloma Valencia, a senator in Mr. Uribe’s party, said of the rebels. “This deal breaks the rule of law. ” Still, others hailed the deal as a major step for a country of 50 million people whose growing economy has long been hampered by the simple fact that the state does not control all of its territory. “It’s an enormous opportunity for the country to create a democratic state, which will allow us to live in peace,” said Maria Emma Wills, a political analyst at the National Center for Historical Memory, a government research group. She warned, “The deal has strong political opposition, and the next job is going to be public advocacy for it. ” The war remains one of the most emotionally charged issues in Colombia, characterized by kidnappings and the massacre of civilians caught between the rebels and the military. Waves of Colombians left the country fearing the violence. Few who remained were untouched by it. The rebels and the government had been inching toward a final deal for months. In June, the two sides announced a and said that the rebels had agreed to lay down their arms. A month before, the government and the FARC declared that they had reached an agreement to release child soldiers from rebel custody, another step that helped push the negotiations toward their final stages. Now the two sides say they have settled many of the last sticking points that kept them at loggerheads for years. But even if the deal is approved by the public, its success is anything but guaranteed. Will it be accepted by all rebels, who vowed to bring a Marxist revolution to Colombia but are being asked to accept far less? How will thousands of guerrillas — many of whom were kidnapped as children and know only life in the jungle — find their way into mainstream society, and will they be accepted there? And perhaps most crucially: Will the rebels give up not only their weapons, but their control of the lucrative drug trade as well? The State Department calls the FARC a terrorist organization that “controls the majority of cocaine manufacturing and distribution within Colombia, and is responsible for much of the world’s cocaine supply. ” The FARC’s top commander, Rodrigo Londoño, who uses the alias Timochenko, helped set the group’s policies for “the production, manufacture and distribution of hundreds of tons of cocaine,” and for the killing of hundreds of people who interfered, the State Department adds. Two FARC peace negotiators were named in a 2006 federal indictment, charged with helping to make the organization a narcotics powerhouse responsible for more than “60 percent of the cocaine sent to the United States. ” Still, the peace deal makes promises to reshape a Colombia. In a nod to longstanding grievances among the rebels, the government promised to make significant investments in rural areas, which the rebels say have long been neglected at the expense of cities like Bogotá. Far more contentious, however, has been the subject of what will become of the rebels themselves. For decades, the FARC financed its insurgency by kidnapping people and holding them for ransom, a business that terrorized thousands, including a former presidential candidate who was held for years. The agreement tries to resolve past grievances with the stroke of a pen: Under a transitional justice system, all but the most grievous crimes may be resolved with reduced sentences. Silvio Hernández, whose son Erik was a soldier killed by the rebels in combat in 2011, said he felt the agreement would not bring justice. “The FARC are not going to pay for the crime against my son,” he said. “It’s good that we are reaching peace, but this leaves me with many doubts. ” | 0fake |
Donald Trump’s white fascist brigade: His rallies are now a safe space for racism | At least a half-dozen attendees shoved and tackled the protester, a black man, to the ground as he refused to leave the event. At least one man punched the protester and a woman kicked him while he was on the ground. All of the attendees who were involved in the physical altercation with the protester were white. The protester appeared to be shouting “black lives matter” and later removed his sweatshirt to reveal a shirt with those words. At least one attendee shouted “all lives matter” as the protester was eventually led out by police officers on the scene…
Mercutio Southall Jr., the man who was assaulted, offered these additional details:
The Black Lives Matter protester attacked during Donald’s Trump’s Birmingham rally said he was punched, kicked and called “n****r” while a group of eight or nine people were on top of him…” He said people encircled him, and he was being pushed and punched from every direction. Someone hit him from behind, and the next thing he knew, he was at the bottom of pile. He was kicked in the stomach, and the chest, both men and women. “I got enough people off of me that I was able to get up a little bit,” he said. “Somebody got behind me and started trying to choke me out.”… Southall said he was repeatedly called a “n****r” and “monkey” and told his life doesn’t matter.
“Maybe he should have been roughed up, because it was absolutely disgusting what he was doing,” Trump said on the Fox News Channel on Sunday morning. “I have a lot of fans, and they were not happy about it. And this was a very obnoxious guy who was a trouble-maker who was looking to make trouble.”
In their current state of outrage about anti-racism protests at America’s colleges and universities, “political correctness,” and Black Lives Matter activism, movement conservatives are refighting the Culture Wars of the 1960s and 1980s. Once more, the university is their enemy both because of the American right’s deeply rooted anti-intellectualism, as well as how it is one of the few spaces where women, gays and lesbians, and people of color are (incorrectly) imagined as having a voice and some pittance of power.
Because conservatives exhibit a high degree of social dominance behavior, any threat to what they view as “the natural order of things” is met with fear, a sense of victimization, and feelings of hostility. This dynamic helps to explain the right-wing’s current obsession with “political correctness” and “safe spaces.” It also reveals the glaring difference between how movement conservatives and liberally minded people understand the world, and the language they use to describe it.
As originally used and intended by liberals and progressives, a “safe space” is one where non-whites, gays and lesbians, women, the differently-abled, and other stigmatized groups and individuals, can be momentarily free from harassment, marginalization and discrimination.
Liberals use the phrase “political correctness” to describe a basic principle that individuals should try to treat one another with dignity and respect.
Conservatives (who of course practice their own type of ideological orthodoxy as “political correctness”) are enraged by these notions because they view them as a limitation on their ability to demean, harass and abuse other people.
Moreover, conservatives are especially upset by “political correctness” because it is often an assertion of agency and a demand for respect from marginalized groups against dominant, white, male, institutional authority. The divergent reaction to “safe spaces” and “political correctness” from conservatives and liberals also signals to another socio-political fact. American society is structured around maintaining, promoting, and protecting unearned advantages, life opportunities, and resources for white people. As viewed through the lens of the color line, almost every aspect of American life is a “safe space” for white people. This “safe space” for whiteness is reinforced by many factors, including, but not limited to, the mass media, residential and housing segregation, racially homogeneous interpersonal social networks, as well as a racist “criminal justice” system. And when this protective bubble of white privilege is pierced, or in any way challenged, many white folks respond in extremely negative, hostile, and immature ways. When people tell and show you who they really are, you had best pay close attention. When Black Lives Matter protesters exercised their constitutionally protected right of free speech at Hillary Clinton’s and Bernie Sanders’ rallies earlier this year, they were not physically assaulted by those in attendance. In contrast, when Black Lives Matter and other protesters have intervened at Donald Trump rallies they have been met with thuggish violence by his public. It is also telling that Donald Trump’s supporters began to triumphantly yell “all lives matter” while Mercutio Southall Jr. was taken away by police. This slur is a rejection of the basic principle driving Black Lives Matter: African-Americans should have same the full and equal human rights, protections, and freedoms as whites. Any other civic arrangement should be unacceptable in a country that purports to be the greatest country on Earth. To stand against Black Lives Matter is to agree that black people should in fact be second class citizens in their own country. Consequently, it has become abundantly clear in recent months that “All Lives Matter” is the new “White Power!” for the Age of Obama. Research on political attitudes, values, and American history has repeatedly demonstrated the many ways that conservatism and racism is now the same thing in post-civil rights era America. The rise of the Tea Party, the GOP’s extreme rightward shift, vicious and ugly racially driven animus and conspiracy theories towards Barack Obama, the efforts to destroy the gains of the civil rights movement, and now the Know-Nothing-like xenophobia and prejudice against non-white immigrants and Syrian refugees are current events as an example of the Republican Party’s white supremacist orientation and brand. [This is seen online as well. The YouTube clip of the fracas in Birmingham, Alabama, has hundreds of comments—many of them are overtly racist, use racially violent anti-black language, lie about how “Black Lives Matter” is a “terrorist organization,” and deploy the slogans “White Power” and “All Lives Matter” interchangeably.] And because he appeals to the most strident, immature, and reactionary part of the American right-wing id, Donald Trump’s rallies are safe spaces — for nativism, white racism, and increasingly, violence. | 0fake |
Iceland’s Pirate Party To Make History And Win Election | The Pirate Party – a party comprised of activists, anarchists, and hackers – looks set to win Iceland’s general election this month.
The win will mark an historic occasion that Western and European leaders thought would never happen.
Icelandmonitor.mbl.is reports:
A new opinion poll conducted by the Social Science Research Institute of the University of Iceland for Icelandic daily Morgunblaðið indicates that over one in five voters will be voting Pirate a week tomorrow.
The data is from 14-19 October and puts the Pirate Party in first place with 22.6%, a point and a half ahead of the centre-right Independence Party (currently in power). These figures would give each party fifteen MPs in Iceland’s 63-seat national parliament (‘Alþingi’).
The top two parties have already either implicitly or explicitly ruled out working together in a coalition.
Iceland’s Pirate Party already made history back in 2013 when they received 5.1% of the vote and returned three MPs – Iceland is currently the only country in the world where the Pirate movement has elected MPs sitting in a national legislature.
Next week’s election look set to blow even this impressive record out of the water, with the Pirates’ potentially winning outright, increasing their number of MPs five-fold, and commanding a strong mandate to form a government.
If there were general elections today, whom would you vote for? – Social Science Research Institute of the University of Iceland, 14-19 October | 1real |
Minnesota Republican: Gay People Are Mentally Ill, Need Treatment For ‘Unhealthy Sexual Addiction’ (AUDIO) | He probably believes pray the gay away is the treatment, too.There is no law forcing straight people to seek such treatment, so this is clearly about stealthily trying to cure gay people when they do not need to be cured at all.But Minnesota GOP Rep. Glenn Gruenhagen thinks gay people have an unhealthy sex addiction that needs to be fixed.During an interview on WCCO Radio with Chad Hartman last week, Gruenhagen declared that gay people are mentally ill and should be forced to undergo treatment for their unhealthy sexual addiction. Claiming that he has gay friends and friends who were former homosexuals, Gruenhagen fretted about the number of Americans who have an STD in this country, which the Centers for Disease Control says is about one-third of the population.Hartman then sought clarification. You are telling the millions of people in this country who are homosexual and the rest of their lives are no different than me or yours but that the reason they have described themselves as homosexual is because they have an unhealthy sexual addiction? Hartman asked.After being given a chance to reverse himself, Gruenhagen didn t backtrack. Yeah, he replied. You can go on the Internet and there s treatment for sexual addictions right here in Minnesota, whether it s pornography or unhealthy sexual behavior. You can receive treatment for that and be free from those compulsions. Here s the audio via Raw Story.What Gruenhagen is likely talking about is dangerous conversion therapy which can cause lasting psychological damage and even be fatal. That s why it is opposed by the American Psychological Association.But Gruenhagen isn t just attacking gay people, he also thinks being transgender is a mental illness, too, and he has sponsored a bill in the Minnesota statehouse that would force them to use bathrooms corresponding to their biological sex. Such bills have been popular with Republicans as of late, with North Carolina being the latest red state to embarrass themselves with such a law on the books.Gruenhagen s proof that LGBT people have a mental illness comes from outdated versions of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, which was updated in 1973 and 2012 to declare that being gay or trans is no longer considered a mental disorder.Republicans really need to stop being so obsessed with gay sex and it makes one wonder what Gruenhagen is hiding in his closet. After all, the lawmakers who fight homosexuality the most usually seem to be those who have homosexual attractions themselves. If that s the case, then Gruenhagen is the one who needs therapy, not to convert, but to stop living in denial.Featured image via Facebook | 1real |
Mexico's Pemex fires warehouse workers for oil theft | MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexican state oil company Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex) said on Tuesday it would rescind contracts held by several workers at a warehouse and distribution center in the central state of Guanajuato as part of a strategy to combat oil theft. A Pemex official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said that four workers were let go for links to oil theft from the center in the city of Salamanca, where Pemex also has a refinery that can process 245,000 barrels per day of crude. In its statement, Pemex said it would file criminal complaints against the workers and investigate workers at others sites. Without exception, any employee linked to crime will be removed immediately, the company said. Mexico s government has estimated that oil theft by criminal groups costs Pemex at least $1 billion a year. | 0fake |
UNREAL! HILLARY CLINTON Plays Dumb On The High Cost Of Obamacare [Video] | At a campaign event Hillary Clinton talked to a small business owner who has been hit hard by Obamacare. The health insurance for her family has risen dramatically, and after babbling her final thought was I don t understand. Seriously, nothing like playing dumb about the biggest, worst piece of legislation unloaded on the American people in decades. A $400 increase, assuming you didn t have some terrible healthcare event, which it doesn t sound like you did, Clinton said at a campaign event in Virginia. I don t understand. | 1real |
BADASS ISRAELI Stabbed By Palestinian…Pulls Knife From Neck…What He Did Next Is STUNNING! | Wow! This guy deserves a medal of honor for his act of super-human strength and courage An Israeli man attacked by a Palestinian Tuesday allegedly pulled his assailant s knife from his own neck and then proceeded to kill the attacker.The 40-year-old Israeli was apparently collecting money for charity at a store in the suburb of Petah Tikva at the time he was assaulted. After receiving several wounds to the neck and upper body in what police described as a frenzied attack, he removed the attacker s knife from his own body and, together with the store owner, used the knife on the attacker.The man is currently hospitalized in moderate condition, the store owner received no injuries. Israeli police confirmed that the incident was a terrorist attack, countering earlier reports that it may have been the result of an altercation.Nati Ostri, a paramedic who helped treat the victim, said he was found on the floor of the store before being transferred to a local hospital. Via: Daily Caller | 1real |
Federal judge strikes down parts of Wisconsin voter laws | (Reuters) - A federal judge on Friday struck down a string of Wisconsin voting restrictions passed by the Republican-led legislature and ordered the state to revamp its voter identification rules, finding that they disenfranchised minority voters. U.S. District Judge James Peterson, ruling in a legal challenge to the laws by two liberal groups, said he could not overturn the entire voter ID law because a federal appeals court had already found such restrictions to be constitutional. But Peterson, in his 119-page ruling, said the requirements that Wisconsin voters show either a photo identification or go through a special petition process had unfairly burdened minorities and needed to be reformed or replaced before the November presidential election. “To put it bluntly, Wisconsin’s strict version of voter ID law is a cure worse than the disease,” the judge wrote. Peterson left the voting rules intact for the Aug 9. primary elections for federal, state and local offices, saying to change them less than two weeks in advance would be disruptive. But his ruling was expected to impact the November presidential election in Wisconsin, which could prove a crucial battleground state for Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump. Peterson also struck down as unconstitutional limits on in-person absentee voting, residency requirements and a ban on using expired student identification. Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker said in a tweet that he was “disappointed in the decision by an activist federal judge” and expected to file an appeal. A spokesman for One Wisconsin Institute, one of the two groups which filed the challenge, hailed Peterson’s ruling as “a huge win not only for the plaintiffs but for democracy itself.” Wisconsin is one of several Republican-led states that have passed such voter ID laws in recent years amid fear of fraudulent voting by illegal immigrants and others. Among the nine states with the strictest laws, insisting on state-issued photo identification for voters, are Georgia, Indiana, Texas and Virginia. A U.S. appeals court judge earlier this month ruled the Texas law discriminatory. The judge sent the case back to the lower court to examine whether the law had a discriminatory purpose and also asked the court for a short-term fix for the November general election. Republicans say voter ID laws are needed to prevent voter fraud. Democrats say the laws are really intended to make it harder for poor African-Americans and Latinos, who tend to vote Democrat, to vote. | 0fake |
BREAKING: Hillary’s “Popular Vote” Came From Over 3 Million Votes Cast by NON CITIZENS | EndingFed News Network | If anyone tries to tell you Hillary won the popular vote, she did not. Besides the “votes counted” vs. “votes cast” fact, there’s the NON-CITIZENS voting. A whopping three million of them. However, we shouldn’t be surprised since both Bill Clinton and Barack Obama told illegals it was A-OK to vote. According to Gregg Philips of votefraud.org, three million illegal aliens voted! This was voters fraud on a massive scale! Hillary is winning the popular vote by about 630,000 votes and there This is voters fraud on an unimaginably massive scale. We have verified more than three million votes cast by non-citizens.
We are joining . @TrueTheVote to initiate legal action. #unrigged
— Gregg Phillips (@JumpVote) November 13, 2016
If you haven’t checked out and liked our Facebook page, please go here and do so. Leave a comment... | 1real |
JUDGE JEANINE PIRRO Rips Into Hillary Clinton On Her History Handling Terrorism [Video] | Judge Jeanine rips into Hillary Clinton on her lame handling of just about everything to do with terrorism. She goes through several of Hillary s pitfalls and gaffes making the point that it s Hillary who s ill prepared to fight terrorism. | 1real |
WATCH: THE VIEW’s LIBERAL HAGS Attack Meghan McCain For Defending Flag On Her First Day As New Co-Host | Yesterday, Vice President Pence made the decision to leave the Indianapolis Colts game after players on the opposing team kneeled during our national anthem.I left today's Colts game because @POTUS and I will not dignify any event that disrespects our soldiers, our Flag, or our National Anthem. Vice President Pence (@VP) October 8, 2017Today, Meghan McCain spent her first day as a co-host in the liberal lion s den, aka The View, defending the flag and attempting to explain why Americans are so offended when NFL players disrespect our flag by kneeling during the national anthem.Anyone who has watched The View since Donald Trump won the election knows, that the show is a safe space for angry liberal women to go, where they can justify their feelings of hate and frustration for President Trump, and anyone who holds an opinion that is counter to theirs. The View has become a laughing stock of mainstream America and is nothing more than a therapy session for women with Trump Derangement Syndrome (women who can t get over Crooked Hillary s loss in 2016 presidential election).Before we sign off, we d like to address the outrage by liberals over the cost for VP Pence to attend the Colt s game in his home state of Indiana. This awesome tweet by Rock Princess pretty much sums up the idiocy of the left and how they re using the cost of Vice President Pence s trip to his home state to distract from the disgust Americans have for the 49 ers who continue to disrespect for our flag:The price tag for transportation for Obama to Los Angeles for the Gwyneth Paltrow fundraiser cost taxpayers $1,011,051.30 cry more, losers https://t.co/a3o7pIoD2K RockPrincess (@Rockprincess818) October 9, 2017 | 1real |
The smug style in American liberalism
| There is a smug style in American liberalism. It has been growing these past decades. It is a way of conducting politics, predicated on the belief that American life is not divided by moral difference or policy divergence not really but by the failure of half the country to know what's good for them.
In 2016, the smug style has found expression in media and in policy, in the attitudes of liberals both visible and private, providing a foundational set of assumptions above which a great number of liberals comport their understanding of the world.
It has led an American ideology hitherto responsible for a great share of the good accomplished over the past century of our political life to a posture of reaction and disrespect: a condescending, defensive sneer toward any person or movement outside of its consensus, dressed up as a monopoly on reason.
The smug style is a psychological reaction to a profound shift in American political demography.
Beginning in the middle of the 20th century, the working class, once the core of the coalition, began abandoning the Democratic Party. In 1948, in the immediate wake of Franklin Roosevelt, 66 percent of manual laborers voted for Democrats, along with 60 percent of farmers. In 1964, it was 55 percent of working-class voters. By 1980, it was 35 percent.
The white working class in particular saw even sharper declines. Despite historic advantages with both poor and middle-class white voters, by 2012 Democrats possessed only a 2-point advantage among poor white voters. Among white voters making between $30,000 and $75,000 per year, the GOP has taken a 17-point lead.
Finding comfort in the notion that their former allies were disdainful, hapless rubes, smug liberals created a culture animated by that contempt
The consequence was a shift in liberalism's intellectual center of gravity. A movement once fleshed out in union halls and little magazines shifted into universities and major press, from the center of the country to its cities and elite enclaves. Minority voters remained, but bereft of the material and social capital required to dominate elite decision-making, they were largely excluded from an agenda driven by the new Democratic core: the educated, the coastal, and the professional.
It is not that these forces captured the party so much as it fell to them. When the laborer left, they remained.
The origins of this shift are overdetermined. Richard Nixon bears a large part of the blame, but so does Bill Clinton. The Southern Strategy, yes, but the destruction of labor unions, too. I have my own sympathies, but I do not propose to adjudicate that question here.
Suffice it to say, by the 1990s the better part of the working class wanted nothing to do with the word liberal. What remained of the American progressive elite was left to puzzle: What happened to our coalition?
Why did they abandon us?
What's the matter with Kansas?
The smug style arose to answer these questions. It provided an answer so simple and so emotionally satisfying that its success was perhaps inevitable: the theory that conservatism, and particularly the kind embraced by those out there in the country, was not a political ideology at all.
Learn more
How politics makes us stupid
The trouble is that stupid hicks don't know what's good for them. They're getting conned by right-wingers and tent revivalists until they believe all the lies that've made them so wrong. They don't know any better. That's why they're voting against their own self-interest.
As anybody who has gone through a particularly nasty breakup knows, disdain cultivated in the aftermath of a divide quickly exceeds the original grievance. You lose somebody. You blame them. Soon, the blame is reason enough to keep them at a distance, the excuse to drive them even further away.
Finding comfort in the notion that their former allies were disdainful, hapless rubes, smug liberals created a culture animated by that contempt. The result is a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Financial incentive compounded this tendency there is money, after all, in reassuring the bitter. Over 20 years, an industry arose to cater to the smug style. It began in humor, and culminated for a time in The Daily Show, a program that more than any other thing advanced the idea that liberal orthodoxy was a kind of educated savvy and that its opponents were, before anything else, stupid. The smug liberal found relief in ridiculing them.
The internet only made it worse. Today, a liberal who finds himself troubled by the currents of contemporary political life need look no further than his Facebook newsfeed to find the explanation:
Study finds Daily Show viewers more informed than viewers of Fox News.
They're beating CNN watchers too.
NPR listeners are best informed of all. He likes that.
You're better off watching nothing than watching Fox. He likes that even more.
The good news doesn't stop.
Liberals aren't just better informed. They're smarter.
They've got better grammar. They know more words.
Smart kids grow up to be liberals, while conservatives reason like drunks.
Liberals are better able to process new information; they're less biased like that. They've got different brains. Better ones. Why? Evolution. They've got better brains, top-notch amygdalae, science finds.
The smug style created a feedback loop. If the trouble with conservatives was ignorance, then the liberal impulse was to correct it. When such corrections failed, disdain followed after it.
Of course, there is a smug style in every political movement: elitism among every ideology believing itself in possession of the solutions to society's ills. But few movements have let the smug tendency so corrupt them, or make so tenuous its case against its enemies.
"Conservatives are always at a bit of a disadvantage in the theater of mass democracy," the conservative editorialist Kevin Williamson wrote in National Review last October, "because people en masse aren't very bright or sophisticated, and they're vulnerable to cheap, hysterical emotional appeals."
The smug style thinks Williamson is wrong, of course, but not in principle. It's only that he's confused about who the hordes of stupid, hysterical people are voting for. The smug style reads Williamson and says, "No! You!"
Elites, real elites, might recognize one another by their superior knowledge. The smug recognize one another by their mutual knowing.
Knowing, for example, that the Founding Fathers were all secular deists. Knowing that you're actually, like, 30 times more likely to shoot yourself than an intruder. Knowing that those fools out in Kansas are voting against their own self-interest and that the trouble is Kansas doesn't know any better. Knowing all the jokes that signal this knowledge.
The studies, about Daily Show viewers and better-sized amygdalae, are knowing. It is the smug style's first premise: a politics defined by a command of the Correct Facts and signaled by an allegiance to the Correct Culture. A politics that is just the politics of smart people in command of Good Facts. A politics that insists it has no ideology at all, only facts. No moral convictions, only charts, the kind that keep them from "imposing their morals" like the bad guys do.
Knowing is the shibboleth into the smug style's culture, a cultural that celebrates hip commitments and valorizes hip taste, that loves nothing more than hate-reading anyone who doesn't get them. A culture that has come to replace politics itself.
The knowing know that police reform, that abortion rights, that labor unions are important, but go no further: What is important, after all, is to signal that you know these things. What is important is to launch links and mockery at those who don't. The Good Facts are enough: Anybody who fails to capitulate to them is part of the Problem, is terminally uncool. No persuasion, only retweets. Eye roll, crying emoji, forward to John Oliver for sick burns.
The smug style has always existed in American liberalism, but it wasn't always so totalizing. Lionel Trilling claimed, as far back as 1950, that liberalism "is not only the dominant, but even the sole intellectual tradition," that "the conservative impulse and the reactionary impulse ... do not express themselves in ideas, but only in action or in irritable mental gestures which seek to resemble ideas."
The smug style has always existed in American liberalism, but it wasn't always so totalizing
Richard Hofstadter, the historian whose most famous work, The Paranoid Style in American Politics, this essay exists in some obvious reference to, advanced a similar line in writing not so well-remembered today. His then-influential history writing drips with disdain for rubes who regard themselves as victimized by economics and history, who have failed to maintain correct political attitudes.
But 60 years ago, American liberalism relied too much on the support of working people to let these ideas take too much hold. Even its elitists, its Schlesingers and Bells, were tempered by the power of the labor movement, by the role Marxism still played in even liberal politics forces too powerful to allow non-elite concerns to entirely escape the liberal mental horizon. Walter Reuther, and Bayard Rustin, and A. Philip Randolph were still in the room, and they mattered.
Sixty years ago, the ugliest tendencies were still private, too. The smug style belonged to real elites, knowing in their cocktail parties, far from the ears of rubes. But today we have television, and the internet, and a liberalism worked out in universities and think tanks. Today, the better part of liberalism is Trillings or those who'd like to be, at any rate and everyone can hear them.
On June 26, 2015, the Supreme Court found that denying marriage licenses to same-sex couples constituted a violation of the 14th Amendment. After decades of protests, legislation, setbacks, and litigation, the 13 states still holding out against the inevitable were ordered to relent. Kim Davis, a clerk tasked with issuing marriage licenses to couples in her Kentucky county, refused.
At the distance of six months, it is surprising that she was, beyond a few short-lived and empty efforts, the only civil bureaucrat to do so. One imagines a hundred or a thousand Kim Davises in the country, small administrators with small power, outraged by the collapse of a moral fight that they were winning just a few years prior.
In the days between the June decision and the July 1 announcement that the American Civil Liberties Union would represent four couples who had been denied marriage licenses by the Rowan County Clerk's office, many braced for resistance. Surely compliance would come hard in some places. Surely, some of the losers would refuse to give up. There was something giddy about it at long last, the good guys would be the ones bearing down with the full force of the law.
It did not take long for the law to correct Davis. On August 12, a judge ordered a stay, preventing Davis from refusing any further under the protection of the law. The Sixth Circuit, and then the Supreme Court, refused to hear her appeal.
Despite further protest and Davis's ultimate jailing for contempt of court, normal service was restored in short order. The 23,000 people of Rowan Country suffered, all told, slightly less than seven weeks without a functioning civil licensure apparatus.
Davis remained a fixation. Dour, rural, thrice divorced but born again Twitter could not have invented a better parody of the uncool. She was ridiculed for her politics but also for her looks that she had been married so many times was inexplicable! That she thought she had the slightest grasp of the Constitution, doubly so.
When Davis was jailed for five days following her refusal to comply with the court order, many who pride themselves on having a vastly more compassionate moral foundation than Davis cheered the imprisonment of a political foe.
The ridicule of Davis became so pronounced that even smug circles, always on the precipice of self-reproach, began eventually to rein in the excess. Mocking her appearance, openly celebrating the incarceration of an ideological opponent these were not good looks.
Kim Davis at a rally in September 2015 (Ty Wright/Getty Images)
But a more fundamental element of smug disdain for Kim Davis went unchallenged: the contention, at bottom, that Davis was not merely wrong in her convictions, but that her convictions were, in themselves, an error and a fraud.
That is: Kim Davis was not only on the wrong side of the law. She was not even a subscriber to a religious ideology that had found itself at moral odds with American culture. Rather, she was a subscriber to nothing, a hateful bigot who did not even understand her own religion.
Christianity, as many hastened to point out, is about love. Christ commands us to render unto Caesar what is Caesar's. If the Bible took any position on the issue at all, it was that divorce, beloved by Davis, was a sin, and that she was a hypocrite masquerading among the faithful.
How many of these critiques were issued by atheists?
This, more than anything I can recall in recent American life, is an example of the smug style. Many liberals do not believe that evangelical Christianity ought to guide public life; many believe, moreover, that the moral conceits of that Christianity are wrong, even harmful to society. But to the smug liberal, it isn't that Kim Davis is wrong. How can she be? She's only mistaken. She just doesn't know the Good Facts, even about her own religion. She's angry and confused, another hick who's not with it.
It was an odd thing to assert in the case of Christianity, a religion that until recently was taken to be another shibboleth of the uncool, not a loving faith misunderstood by bigots. But this is knowing: knowing that the new line on Jesus is that the homophobes just don't get their own faith.
Kim Davis was behind the times. Her beliefs did not represent a legitimate challenge to liberal consensus because they did not represent a challenge at all: They were incoherent, at odds with the Good Facts. Google makes every man a theologian.
This, I think, is fundamental to understanding the smug style. If good politics and good beliefs are just Good Facts and good tweets that is, if there is no ideology beyond sensible conclusions drawn from a rational assessment of the world then there are no moral fights, only lying liars and the stupid rubes who believe them.
When Davis was first released from county jail, Mike Huckabee went to meet her. But the smug style sees no true ideology there, no moral threat to contend with. Only a huckster and a hick: one to be ridiculed, and the other to be refuted. What more, the smug man posts, could there be to say about it? They're idiots! Look, look: This Onion article nails it.
Popular story:
Adlai Stevenson, Democratic candidate for president, is on parade. A band is playing. Onlookers cheer. He waves to the crowd.
A woman shouts: "Gov. Stevenson, you have the vote of every thinking person in this country!"
Stevenson replies: "Thank you, ma'am, but we need a majority."
The smug style says to itself, Yeah. I really am one of the few thinking people in this country, aren't I?
In November of last year, during the week when it became temporarily fashionable for American governors to declare that Syrian refugees would not be welcome in their state, Hamilton Nolan wrote an essay for Gawker called "Dumb Hicks Are America's Greatest Threat."
If there has ever been a tirade so dedicated to the smug style, to the proposition that it is neither malice, nor capital, nor ideological difference, but rather the backward stupidity of poor people that has ruined the state of American policy, then it is hidden beyond our view, in some uncool place, far from the front page of Gawker.
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Why have weddings and houses gotten so ridiculously expensive? Blame inequality.
"Many of America's political leaders are warning of the dangers posed by Syrian refugees. They are underestimating, though, the much greater danger: dumbass hicks, in charge of things," Nolan wrote. "...You, our elected officials, are embarrassing us. All of us, except your fellow dumb hicks, who voted for you in large numbers. You our racist, xenophobic, knuckle-dragging ignorant leaders are making us look bad in front of the guests (the whole world). You are the bad cousin in the family who always ruins Thanksgiving. Go in the back room and drink a can of beer alone please."
Among the dumb hicks Nolan identifies are "many Southern mayors" and "many lesser known state representatives." He cites the Ku Klux Klan "exclusively dumbass hicks," he writes. "100%," he emphasizes despite the fact that the New York Times, in an investigation of white supremacist members of Stormfront.org, found that "the top reported interest of Stormfront members is reading." That they are "news and political junkies." Despite the fact that if "you come compare Stormfront users to people who go to the Yahoo News site, it turns out that the Stormfront crowd is twice as likely to visit nytimes.com."
"They have long threads praising Breaking Bad and discussing the comparative merits of online dating sites, like Plenty of Fish and OKCupid," the Times reports.
In another piece, published later the same month, Nolan wrote that "Inequality of wealth or, if you like, the distribution of wealth in our society in a way that results in poverty is not just one issue among many. It is the root from which blooms nearly all major social problems."
He's right about that. But who does he imagine is responsible for this inequality? The poor? The dumb? The hicks?
Hamilton Nolan isn't stupid. He has even, lately, argued that even the worst of the rubes must be allies in class struggle. Yet the trouble is still swallowing what "motherfuckers" those people are.
Nolan is perhaps the funniest and most articulate of those pointing fingers at the "dumbass hicks," but he isn't alone. It is evidently intolerable to a huge swath of liberalism to confess the obvious: that those responsible have homes in Brooklyn, too. That they buy the same smartphones. That they too are on Twitter. That the oligarchs are making fun of stupid poor people too. That they're better at it, and always will be.
No: The trouble must be out there, somewhere. In the country. Where the idiots are; where the hicks are too stupid to know where problems blossom.
"To the dumb hick leaders of America, I say: (nothing). You wouldn't listen anyhow," Nolan writes. "My words would go in one ear and right out the other. Like talking to an old block of wood."
It's a shame. They might be receptive to his concerns about poverty.
If there is a single person who exemplifies the dumbass hick in the smug imagination, it is former President George W. Bush. He's got the accent. He can't talk right. He seems stupefied by simple concepts, and his politics are all gee-whiz Texas ignorance. He is the ur-hick. He is the enemy.
He got all the way to White House, and he's still being taken for a ride by the scheming rightwing oligarchs around him just like those poor rubes in Kansas. If only George knew Dick Cheney wasn't acting in his own best interests!
It is worth considering that Bush is the son of a president, a patrician born in Connecticut and educated at Andover and Harvard and Yale.
It is worth considering that he does not come from a family known for producing poor minds.
It is worth considering that beginning with his 1994 gubernatorial debate against Ann Richards, and at every juncture thereafter, opponents have been defeated after days of media outlets openly speculating whether George was up to the mental challenge of a one-on-one debate.
"Throughout his short political career," ABC's Katy Textor wrote on the eve of the 2000 debates against Al Gore, "Bush has benefited from low expectations of his debating abilities. The fact that he skipped no less than three GOP primary debates, and the fact that he was reluctant to agree to the Commission on Presidential Debates proposal, has done little to contradict the impression of a candidate uncomfortable with this unavoidable fact of campaign life."
"Done little to contradict."
George W. Bush and Al Gore during a presidential debate in 2000. (Tannen Maury/AFP/Getty Images)
On November 6, 2000, during his final pre-election stump speech, Bush explained his history of political triumph thusly: "They misunderesimated me."
What an idiot. American liberals made fun of him for that one for years.
It is worth considering that he didn't misspeak.
He did, however, deliberately cultivate the confusion. He understood the smug style. He wagered that many liberals, eager to see their opponents as intellectually deficient, would buy into the act and thereby miss the more pernicious fact of his moral deficits.
He wagered correctly. Smug liberals said George was too stupid to get elected, too stupid to get reelected, too stupid to pass laws or appoint judges or weather a political fight. Liberals misunderestimated George W. Bush all eight years of his presidency.
George W. Bush is not a dumbass hick. In eight years, all the sick Daily Show burns in the world did not appreciably undermine his agenda.
The smug mind defends itself against these charges. Oh, we're just having fun, it says. We don't mean it. This is just for a laugh, it's just a joke, stop being so humorless.
It is exasperating, after all, to have to live in a country where so many people are so aggressively wrong about so much, they say. You go on about ideology and shibboleths and knowing, but we are right on the issues, aren't we? We are right on social policy and right on foreign policy and right on evolution, and same-sex marriage, and climate change too. Surely that's what matters.
We don't really mean they're all stupid but hey, lay off. We're not smug! This is just how we vent our frustration. Otherwise it would be too depressing having to share a country with these people!
We have long passed the point where blithe ridicule of the American right can be credibly cast as private stress relief and not, for instance, the animating public strategy of an entire wing of the liberal culture apparatus. The Daily Show, as it happens, is not the private entertainment of elites blowing off some steam. It is broadcast on national television.
Twitter isn't private. Not that anybody with the sickest burn to accompany the smartest chart would want it to be. Otherwise, how would everyone know how in-the-know you are?
The rubes have seen your videos. You posted it on their wall.
Still don't get why liberal opinion is correct? This video settles the debate for good.
I have been wondering for a long time how it is that so many entries to the op-ed pages take it as their justifying premise that they are arguing for a truth that has never been advanced before.
We have long passed the point where blithe ridicule of the American right can be credibly cast as private stress relief
"It's an accepted, nearly unchallenged assumption that Muslim communities across the U.S. have a problem that their youth tend toward violent ideology, or are susceptible to "radicalization" by groups like the Islamic State," began an editorial that appeared last December in the New York Times. But "after all," it goes on, "the majority of mass shootings in America are perpetrated by white men but no one questions what might have radicalized them in their communities."
But this contention that Muslims possess superlative violent tendencies has been challenged countless times, hasn't it? It was challenged here, and here and here as far back as 9/11. The president of the United State challenged it on national television the night before this editorial was published. The Times itself did too. The myopic provincialism of anybody who believes that Muslims are a uniquely violent people is the basis of a five-year-old Onion headline, not some new moral challenge.
The smug style leaves its adherents no other option: If an idea has failed to take hold, if the Good Facts are not widely accepted, then the problem must be that these facts have not yet reached the disbelievers.
In December 2015, Public Policy Polling found that 30 percent of Republicans were in favor of bombing Agrabah, the Arab-sounding fictional city from Disney's Aladdin. Hilarious.
PPP has run joke questions before, of course: polling the popularity of Deez Nuts, or asking after God's job approval. But these questions, at least, let their audience in on the gag. Now liberalism is deliberately setting up the last segment of the population actually willing to endure a phone survey in service of what it knew would make for some hilarious copy when the rubes inevitably fell for it. This is not a survey in service of a joke it is a survey in service of a human punchline.
As if only Republicans covered up gaps in their knowledge by responding to what they assume is a good-faith question by guessing from their general principles.
It may be easy to mistake with the private venting of frustrated elites, but the rubes can read the New York Times, too. It is not where liberals whisper to each other about the secret things that go unchallenged. Poll respondents are not the secret fodder for a joke.
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This is the consequence of "private" venting, and it is the consequence of knowing too: If good politics comes solely from good data and good sense, it cannot be that large sections of the American public are merely wrong about so many vital things. It cannot be that they have heard our arguments but rejected them that might mean we must examine our own methods of persuasion.
No: it is only that the wrong beliefs are unchallenged that their believers are trapped in "information bubbles" and confirmation bias. That no one knows the truth, except the New York Times (or Vox). If only we could tell them, question them, show them this graph. If they don't get it then, well, then they're hopeless.
The smug style plays out in private too, of course. If you haven't started one yourself, you've surely seen the Facebook threads: Ten or 20 of Brooklyn's finest gather to say how exasperated they are, these days, by the stupidity of the American public.
"I just don't know what to do about these people," one posts. "I think we have to accept that a lot of people are just misinformed!" replies another. "Like, I think they actually don't want to know anything that would undermine their worldview."
They tend to do it in the comment section, under an article about how conservatives are difficult to persuade because they isolate themselves in mutually reinforcing information bubbles.
What have been the consequences of the smug style?
It has become a tradition for the smug, in editorials and essay and confident Facebook boasting, to assume that the presidential debates will feature their candidate, in command of the facts, wiping the floor with the empty huckster ignorance of their Republican opponent.
It was popularly assumed, for a time, that George W. Bush was too stupid to be elected president.
The smug believed the same of Ronald Reagan.
John Yoo, the architect of the Bush administration's torture policies, escaped The Daily Show unscathed. Liberals wondered what to do when Jon Stewart fails. What would success look like? Were police waiting in the wings, a one-way ticket to the Hague if Stewart nailed him?
It would be unfair to say that the smug style has never learned from these mistakes. But the lesson has been, We underestimated how many people could be fooled.
That is: We underestimated just how dumb these dumb hicks really are.
We just didn't get our message to them. They just stayed in their information bubble. We can't let the lying liars keep lying to these people but how do we reach these idiots who only trust Fox?
Rarely: Maybe they're savvier than we thought. Maybe they're angry for a reason.
As it happens, reasons aren't too difficult to come by.
During a San Francisco fundraiser in the 2008 primary campaign, Barack Obama offered an observation that was hailed not without some glee as the first unforced error from then-Senator Cool.
"You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania," Obama said, "and, like, a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate, and they have not. And it's not surprising then they get bitter. They cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."
It's the latter part that we remember eight years later the clinging to guns and religion and hate but it is the first part that was important: the part about lost jobs and neglect by two presidential administrations.
Obama's observation was not novel.
The notion that material loss and abandonment have driven America's white working class into a fit of resentment is boilerplate for even the Democratic Party's tepid left these days. But in the president's formulation and in the formulation of smug stylists who have embraced some material account of uncool attitudes, the downturn, the jobs lost and the opportunities narrowed, are a force of nature something that has "been happening" in the passive voice.
If the smug style can be reduced to a single sentence, it's, Why are they voting against their own self-interest?
This, I suspect, will one day become the Republican Party's rationale for addressing climate change: Look, we don't know how the dead hooker wound up in the hotel room. But she's here now, that's undeniable, so we've gotta get rid of the body.
Today, it is the excuse of American smug mind: Where did all of these poor people come from?
If pressed for an answer, I suppose they would say Republicans, elected by rubes voting against their own self-interest. Reagan, Gingrich, Bush all those Bad Factknowing halfwits who were too dumb to get elected to anything.
Well, sure. In the past 30 years of American life, the Republican Party has dedicated itself to replacing every labor law with a photo of Ronald Reagan's face.
But this does not excuse liberals beating full retreat to the colleges and the cities, abandoning the dispossessed to their fate. It does not excuse surrendering a century of labor politics in the name of electability. It does not excuse gazing out decades later to find that those left behind are not up on the latest thought and deciding, We didn't abandon them. The idiots didn't want to be saved.
It was not Ronald Reagan who declared the era of big government. It was not the GOP that decided the coastally based, culturally liberal industries of technology, Hollywood, and high finance were the future of the American economy.
If the smug style can be reduced to a single sentence, it's, Why are they voting against their own self-interest? But no party these past decades has effectively represented the interests of these dispossessed. Only one has made a point of openly disdaining them too.
Abandoned and without any party willing to champion their interests, people cling to candidates who, at the very least, are willing to represent their moral convictions. The smug style resents them for it, and they resent the smug in turn.
The rubes noticed that liberal Democrats, distressed by the notion that Indiana would allow bakeries to practice open discrimination against LGBTQ couples, threatened boycotts against the state, mobilizing the considerable economic power that comes with an alliance of New York and Hollywood and Silicon Valley to punish retrograde Gov. Mike Pence, but had no such passion when the same governor of the same state joined 21 others in refusing the Medicaid expansion. No doubt good liberals objected to that move too. But I've yet to see a boycott threat about it.
Early in the marriage equality fight, activists advanced the theory that when people discovered a friend or relative was gay, they became far more likely to support gay rights. They were correct. These days it is difficult for anybody in a position of liberal power whether in business, or government, or media to avoid having openly gay colleagues, colleagues whom they like and whom they'd like to help.
But few opinion makers fraternize with the impoverished. Few editors and legislators and Silicon Valley heroes have dinner with the lovely couple on food stamps down the road, much less those scraping by in Indiana.
If any single event provided the direct impetus for this essay, it was a running argument I had with an older, liberal writer over the seriousness of Donald Trump's presidential campaign. Since June 2015, when Trump announced his candidacy, this writer has taken it upon himself each day to tell his Facebook followers that Donald Trump is a bad kind of dude.
That saying as much was the key to stopping him and his odious followers too.
"Ridicule is the most powerful weapon we have against any of our enemies," he told me in the end, "but especially against the ones who, not incorrectly, take it so personally and lash out in ways that shine klieg lights on those very flaws we detest.
"If you're laughing at someone, you're certainly not respecting him."
"Anyway," he went on, "I'm done talking to you. We see the world differently. I'm fine with that. We don't need to be friends."
Ridicule is the most effective political tactic.
Ridicule is especially effective when it's personal and about expressing open disdain for stupid, bad people.
Political legitimacy is granted by the respect of elite liberals.
You can't be legitimate if you're the butt of our jokes.
If you don't agree, we can't work together politically.
We can't even be friends, because politics is social.
Because politics is performative if we don't mock together, we aren't on the same side.
If there is a bingo card for the smug style somewhere, then cross off every square. You've won.
I would be less troubled if I did not believe that the smug style has captured an enormous section of American liberalism. If I believed that its politics, as practiced by its supporters, extended beyond this line of thought. If this were an exception.
But even as many have come around to the notion that Trump is the prohibitive favorite for his party's nomination, the smug interpretation has been predictable: We only underestimated how hateful, how stupid, the Republican base can be.
A Donald Trump rally in Pittsburgh. (Jeff Swensen/Getty Images)
Trump capturing the nomination will not dispel the smug style; if anything, it will redouble it. Faced with the prospect of an election between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, the smug will reach a fever pitch: six straight months of a sure thing, an opportunity to mock and scoff and ask, How could anybody vote for this guy? until a morning in November when they ask, What the fuck happened?
On March 20, Salon's David Masciotra wrote that if Trump "actually had the strength to articulate uncomfortable and inconvenient truths, he would turn his favorite word 'loser' ??not on full-time professionals in the press, but on his supporters."
Masciotra goes on:
Journalists found that in the counties where Trump is most dominant, there are large numbers of white high school dropouts, and unemployed people no longer looking for work. An alliance with the incoherent personality cult of Donald Trump's candidacy correlates strongly with failure to obtain a high school diploma, and withdrawal from the labor force. The counties also have a consistent history of voting for segregationists, and have an above average percentage of its residents living in mobile homes.
The kicker: "Many conservatives, and even some kindhearted liberals, might object to the conclusions one can draw from the data as stereotyping, but the empirical evidence leaves little choice. Donald Trump's supporters confirm the stereotype against them."
Here's the conclusion I draw: If Donald Trump has a chance in November, it is because the knowing will dictate our strategy. Unable to countenance the real causes of their collapse, they will comfort with own impotence by shouting, "Idiots!" again and again, angrier and angrier, the handmaidens of their own destruction.
The smug style resists empathy for the unknowing. It denies the possibility of a politics whereby those who do not share knowing culture, who do not like the right things or know the Good Facts or recognize the intellectual bankruptcy of their own ideas can be worked with, in spite of these differences, toward a common goal.
It is this attitude that has driven the dispossessed into the arms of a candidate who shares their fury. It is this attitude that may deliver him the White House, a "serious" threat, a threat to be mocked and called out and hated, but not to be taken seriously.
The wages of smug is Trump.
Nothing is more confounding to the smug style than the fact that the average Republican is better educated and has a higher IQ than the average Democrat. That for every overpowered study finding superior liberal open-mindedness and intellect and knowledge, there is one to suggest that Republicans have the better of these qualities.
Most damning, perhaps, to the fancy liberal self-conception: Republicans score higher in susceptibility to persuasion. They are willing to change their minds more often.
The Republican coalition tends toward the center: educated enough, smart enough, informed enough.
The Democratic coalition in the 21st century is bifurcated: It has the postgraduates, but it has the disenfranchised urban poor as well, a group better defined by race and immigration status than by class. There are more Americans without high school diplomas than in possession of doctoral degrees. The math proceeds from there.
The smug style takes this as a defense. Elite liberalism, and the Democratic Party by extension, cannot hate poor people, they say. We aren't smug! Just look at our coalition. These aren't rubes. Just look at our embrace of their issues.
But observe how quickly professed concern for the oppressed becomes another shibboleth for the smug, another kind of knowing. Mere awareness of these issues becomes the most important thing, the capacity to articulate them a new subset of Correct Facts.
Everyone in the know has read "The Case for Reparations," but it was the reading and performed admiration that counted, praised in the same breath as, "It is a better history than an actual case for actually paying, of course..."
Pretend for a moment that all of it is true. That the smug style apprehended the world as it really is, that knowing or knowing, no inflection did make our political divide. That the problem is the rubes. That the dumbass hicks are to blame. They can't help it: Their brains don't work. They isolate themselves from all the Good Facts, and they're being taken for a ride by con men.
Pretend the ridicule worked too: that the videos and the Twitter burns and destroying the opposition made all the bad guys go away.
What kind of world would it leave us? An endless cycle of jokes? Of sick burns and smart tweets and knowing? Relative to whom? The smug style demands an object of disdain; it would find a new one quickly.
It is central to the liberal self-conception that what separates them from reactionaries is a desire to help people, a desire to create a fairer and more just world. Liberals still want, or believe they still want, to make a more perfect union.
Whether you believe they are deluded or not, whether you believe this project is worthwhile in any form or not, what I am trying to tell you is that the smug style has fundamentally undermined even the aspiration, that it has made American liberalism into the worst version of itself.
It is impossible, in the long run, to cleave the desire to help people from the duty to respect them. It becomes all at once too easy to decide you know best, to never hear, much less ignore, protest to the contrary.
At present, many of those most in need of the sort of help liberals believe they can provide despise liberalism, and are despised in turn. Is it surprising that with each decade, the "help" on offer drifts even further from the help these people need?
It is impossible, in the long run, to cleave the desire to help people from the duty to respect them
Even if the two could be separated, would it be worth it? What kind of political movement is predicated on openly disdaining the very people it is advocating for?
The smug style, at bottom, is a failure of empathy. Further: It is a failure to believe that empathy has any value at all. It is the notion that anybody worthy of liberal time and attention and respect must capitulate, immediately, to the Good Facts.
If they don't (and they won't) you're free to write them off and mock them. When they suffer, it's their just desserts.
Make no mistake: I am not suggesting that liberals adopt a fuzzy, gentler version of their politics. I am not suggesting they compromise their issues for the sake of playing nice. What I am suggesting is that the battles waged by liberalism have drifted far away from their old egalitarian intentions.
I am suggesting that open disdain for the people they say they want to help has led them to stop helping those people, too.
I am suggesting that in the case of a Kim Davis, liberalism resist the impulse to go beyond the necessary legal fight and explicitly delight in punishing an old foe.
I am suggesting that they instead wonder what it might be like to have little left but one's values; to wake up one day to find your whole moral order destroyed; to look around and see the representatives of a new order call you a stupid, hypocritical hick without bothering, even, to wonder how your corner of your poor state found itself so alienated from them in the first place. To work with people who do not share their values or their tastes, who do not live where they live or like what they like or know their Good Facts or their jokes.
This is not a call for civility. Manners are not enough. The smug style did not arise by accident, and it cannot be abolished with a little self-reproach. So long as liberals cannot find common cause with the larger section of the American working class, they will search for reasons to justify that failure. They will resent them. They will find, over and over, how easy it is to justify abandoning them further. They will choose the smug style.
Maybe the cycle is too deeply set already. Perhaps the divide, the disdain, the whole crack-up are inevitable. But if liberal good intentions are to make a play for a better future, they cannot merely recognize the ways they've come to hate their former allies. They must begin to mend the ways they lost them in the first place. | 0fake |
DEMOCRATS PUSH FOR BAN OF WORDS “HUSBAND” AND “WIFE” | ENOUGH ALREADY! A California Dem and two dozen others want to have gender neutral terms now. Everyone s equal now? Um, not really.More than two dozen Democrats have proposed legislation that would eliminate the words husband and wife from federal law.Those gendered terms would be replaced by gender-neutral words like spouse or married couple, according to the bill from Rep. Lois Capps, D-Calif. The Amend the Code for Marriage Equality Act recognizes that the words in our laws have meaning and can continue to reflect prejudice and discrimination even when rendered null by our highest courts, Capps said. Our values as a country are reflected in our laws. I authored this bill because it is imperative that our federal code reflect the equality of all marriages. The Supreme Court ruled in June that the 14th Amendment to the Constitution means all states have to license same-sex marriages, a ruling that effectively ended the same-sex marriage debate in America. Capps said her bill was aimed at taking the next step, which is to ensure the United States Code reflects the equality of all marriages. Via: Washington Examiner | 1real |
Southern California Fire Flared Up at 5 Acres. A Day Later, It Covered 25,000. - The New York Times | FONTANA, Calif. — The fire in Cajon Pass was first reported as a blaze along a highway 13 miles northeast of San Bernardino. So John McColly went about his business when he saw the smoke from Mountain High, a ski resort to the west of Wrightwood, where he works. Kevin Foree, a roofer working in Bellflower, southwest of the fire, heard about the blaze, but he figured he would have no trouble getting home to Victorville, to the northeast. But the speed of the Blue Cut Fire stunned even experienced fire officials. Fed by a buffet of shrubs squeezed of moisture and coaxed by the wind, the flames roared through 2, 500 acres, then 6, 500 acres in a matter of hours. Evacuations were ordered and major highways, including the interstate that links Los Angeles and Las Vegas, began to close. That, Mr. McColly said, was a signal that it was “time to go. ” The ski resort’s 40 or so employees joined thousands of other residents — many with their vehicles packed with whatever fit — fleeing the onrushing flames. About 82, 000 residents in an estimated 34, 500 homes were ordered to evacuate. By Wednesday, the fire had consumed more than 25, 000 acres, burning houses, businesses and outbuildings in its wake. (The official measurement lowered the estimate from about 30, 000 acres earlier in the day.) It was still raging out of control late in the day, and officials were warning residents to prepare for the worst. “There will be a lot of families that come home to nothing,” said Mark Hartwig, the San Bernardino County fire chief. Mr. Foree, a transplant from Northern California, was stuck overnight in a Red Cross shelter here. On Wednesday, still wearing his khaki shorts and work boots, he worried that his mother would run low on medication before he could get home. He marveled at the fire, which he said had taken even seasoned locals like his girlfriend’s family by surprise. “They have never seen anything like this,” he said. Mr. McColly, like many other evacuees from Wrightwood, found safety by heading west toward Pasadena. At midday Wednesday, the resort was still not threatened by the fire. Fire officials warned on Wednesday that explosive fires like this one were becoming more common. “It’s to the point where explosive fire growth is the new normal this year, and that’s a challenge for all of us to take on,” said Glenn Barley, the San Bernardino unit chief of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, also known as CalFire. The fire has been a jolt during a fire season that has been quieter than usual nationwide. Experts said this season has had about a quarter fewer fires start and acres burn for this point in the year. Nevertheless, several recently ignited wildfires are burning in California, although they have not moved as quickly as Blue Cut. The Chimney Fire, which began on Saturday, has burned 7, 300 acres in San Luis Obispo and was 25 percent contained. The Clayton Fire, near Lower Lake in Northern California, started the same day, and has burned nearly 4, 000 acres. It was 40 percent contained. And the Soberanes Fire, in Monterey County, has burned almost 80, 000 acres over nearly two months. The enduring drought may have played a role here, even as relief comes elsewhere. “You’ve had three, four years of drought that’s been going on, so the conditions in the mountains are just prime for a large fire,” said David Simeral, a climatologist and an author for the United States Drought Monitor. “You’ve got all the dry fuels, low humidity and winds, it’s a formula for fires spreading quickly. ” Richard Minnich, a professor in the department of earth sciences at the University of California, Riverside, said it was not so much the drought, but the weather of the day — coupled with a prevailing fire management strategy in which, he said, small fires are knocked down quickly but larger ones can grow more out of control — that had driven the fire. The low humidity, Mr. Minnich said, had dried out shrubs and bushes — known as chaparral — making them as flammable as a carpet. “It’s got a reputation for burning explosively,” he said of the chaparral, adding, “As soon as it’s blowing up like that, the capacity to stop the fire goes to zero. ” What no one disputes, however, is that, in less than 24 hours, the fire had turned people’s lives upside down. Outside the shelter here, Cathleen Coakley, 54, stood with her two small dogs. Sheriff’s deputies had canvassed her neighborhood in Lytle Creek on Tuesday, ordering everyone to leave, and she left almost everything behind, including five more dogs and five cats. “I want to go home. I want to check on my animals,” she said. “You just have to have faith that you will have a home to go to. ” | 0fake |
Tom Hanks Raps | Gary North has the video . 12:56 | 1real |
ACTING FBI DIRECTOR With Ties To Hillary Campaign Under Federal Investigation [VIDEO] | Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe is being investigated by the Office of U.S. Counsel violating the Hatch Act according to a new report by Circa News.The Hatch Act prohibits FBI agents from campaigning in partisan races. Photos of McCabe campaigning for his wife raised questions about McCabe s compliance with the law.Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe is being investigated by the Office of U.S. Special Counsel for violating The Hatch Act that prohibits FBI agents from campaigning in partisan races.The Office of U.S. Special Counsel, the government s main whistleblower agency, is investigating whether FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe s activities supporting his wife Jill s Democratic campaign for Virginia state senate in 2015 violated the Hatch Act s prohibition against FBI agents campaigning in partisan races. I am voting for Jill because she is the best wife ever, McCabe put on a sign that he photographed himself holding. The photo was posted on her social media page a few days before the election, in response to Dr. Jill McCabe s plea to help me win by posting photos expressing reasons why voters should vote for her, according to the complaint.Other social media photos in the complaint showed McCabe s minor daughter campaigning with her mother, wearing an FBI shirt, and McCabe voting with his wife at a polling station.Here is another social media photo of our acting #FBI director, #AndrewMcCabe breaking the rules by campaigning on social media. #Corrupt pic.twitter.com/hBCH29yErY Senator Dick Black (@SenRichardBlack) May 9, 2017The Hatch Act prohibits FBI employees from engaging in political activity in concert with a political party, a candidate for partisan political office, or a partisan political group. It defines prohibited political activity as any activity directed at the success or failure of a partisan group or candidate in a partisan election. An ethics expert told Circa the photos raised legitimate questions about McCabe s compliance with the law.Meanwhile, Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe s office released to Circa under the Freedom of Information Act documents showing McCabe attended a meeting with his wife and the governor on a Saturday in March 2015 specifically to discuss having Jill McCabe run for state Senate in Virginia as a Democrat. This is a candidate recruitment meeting. McCabe is seriously considering running against State Senator Dick Black. You have been asked to close the deal, the briefing memo for McAuliffe read.Watch Sean Hannity discuss McCabe s involvement in his wife s campaign as well as his ties to Hillary s campaign:Included in the governor s briefing package was a copy of McCabe s FBI biography. The biography made clear that Andrew McCabe was a senior executive who at the time oversaw the FBI s Washington field office that among many tasks supervised investigations in northern Virginia.At the time of the meeting, published reports indicate agents in the Washington field office were involved in both a probe of McAuliffe and of the governor s close friend, Hillary Clinton s and her private email account.h/t Gateway Pundit | 1real |
Republicans in House push for Congressional Budget Office cuts | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Conservative Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives are seeking to add an amendment this week to spending legislation that would slash the number of staff at the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. The budget research office, known as the CBO, has drawn recent Republican criticism, including from the White House, after it concluded that Republican proposals to replace Obamacare would lead to 23 million more Americans being uninsured if they became law. Representative Mark Meadows, head of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, said on Monday his colleague Morgan Griffith has offered an amendment to an appropriations bill the House is expected to take up this week that would cut the CBO’s staff of 235 by 89 employees, saving about $15 million. “They ought to be aggregators,” Meadows said of the CBO at a National Press Club lunch. “There’s plenty of think tanks that are out there. We ought to take a score from Heritage, from AEI (American Enterprise Institute), from Brookings, from the Urban Institute and bring them together for a composite score.” The Heritage Foundation is a conservative think tank based in Washington, as is the American Enterprise Institute. The Brookings Institution and Urban Institute are liberal-leaning think tanks based in Washington. The CBO is one of a handful of analysis units of Congress whose employees strive for political impartiality, providing dependable and neutral information that lawmakers can use when making often complex budget, tax and other decisions. Its staff includes economists, public policy analysts, lawyers and editors. In May, after Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney called the CBO’s healthcare analysis “absurd” and questioned its continued existence, Democrats defended the office, saying Republican attacks were irresponsible. “When Trump administration officials either disagree with or do not understand the impacts of their own policies, they prefer to attack the nonpartisan analysts who are doing their jobs with integrity and expertise,” Representative Steny Hoyer, a Democratic House leader, said at the time. The CBO was created in 1974 during a spending dispute between the Democratic-controlled Congress and Republican President Richard Nixon after he withheld funds for government programs that did not support his political positions. | 0fake |
Intelligence Officials SKEWER Trump For Politicizing Classified Briefings | The latest 2016 developments are completely unprecedented in our nation s history but Donald Trump doesn t care.Despite the fact that classified intelligence briefings are supposed to be kept confidential and neutral during elections, the Republican nominee broke established protocol on Wednesday night and opened his big mouth to make unfounded claims about those meetings.During the Commander-in-Chief Forum on NBC, Trump demonstrated in a single breath that he is totally unfit to be president when he told Matt Lauer that he could tell by the body language of those briefing him that don t like President Obama. I was very, very surprised. In almost every instance, and I could tell, I have pretty good with the body language [sic], I could tell, they were not happy. Our leaders did not follow what they were recommending. Not only is Trump trying to destroy the neutrality of the intelligence community, he is trying to use them for his own political gain.And intelligence officials both past and present were quick to slam him for it.Former CIA analyst Paul Pillar told the Washington Post that intelligence officers do not express political preferences during these briefings and they certainly do not use body language. Those selected for this task would have been the most professional of an elite corps of intelligence officers. One of the last things they would do is express either verbally or through body language preferences. Former CIA officer David Priess, who is experienced at delivering briefings was completely disgusting by Trump s claim. We ve had other presidential candidates mention that they got a briefing and talk in platitudes about it. We ve never had somebody talk about what happened in a session. Trump not only blabbed, he told a straight-up lie in order to claim that there is discord between the Obama Administration and the intelligence community, which could create a mistrust that could have serious consequences. In short, this attempt by Trump to score political points is dangerous.Former CIA Director Michael Morell agrees. This is the first time that I can remember a candidate for president doing a readout from an intelligence briefing, and it s the first time a candidate has politicized their intelligence briefing, he told NBC. Both of those are highly inappropriate and crossed a long standing red line respected by both parties. To me this is just the most recent example that underscores that this guy is unfit to be commander in chief. Donald Trump is clearly sowing discord between the intelligence community and the current administration at a time when we need both to work together to protect the American people. But that will only get harder because of Trump s unwillingness to keep his mouth shut by making claims he can t prove.Intelligence officials are trained to be neutral and to keep their personal political beliefs out of their assessments. Ultimately, the president has the final say on what action to take on certain intelligence whether intelligence agents agree or not.At this point, Trump has failed to build trust with the intelligence community and that could be a major problem for this country as we seek to prevent future attacks by ISIS. Donald trump is not helping, he is hurting and that is not the kind of president America needs.Featured image via Spencer Platt/Getty Images | 1real |
BOILER ROOM – EP #47 – Establishment Hitmen & Media Hacks | Tune in to the Alternate Current Radio Network (ACR) for another LIVE broadcast of The Boiler Room starting at 6 PM PST | 9 PM EST every Wednesday. Join us for uncensored, uninterruptible talk radio, custom-made for barfly philosophers, misguided moralists, masochists, street corner evangelists, media-maniacs, savants, political animals and otherwise lovable rascals.Join ACR hosts Hesher, & Spore along with Daniel Spaulding of Soul of the East, Andy Nowicki from Alt Right Blogspot, Patrick Henningsen of 21stcenturywire & ACR/21Wire contributor Randy J. In this broadcast listeners will be hearing us go around the BOILER ROOM on the typically unexpected variations of conversation including what we ve deemed Pre-Trump-Matic Stress Disorder, voting machine and facial hacking, Hollywood celebs who think Trump is Hitler, Beck getting away with threats of multiple stab wounds, the Orwellian use of the term establishment, our analysis of mainstream media behaving as disinformation operatives, Syria, Yemen, Libya and the Boiler Room break-down on the new bombshell video showing the LaVoy Finicum assassination in Oregon. Is the Federal narrative of Tinicum s death up against the ropes?! If you want to participate, bring something interesting to throw into the boiler Join us in the ALTERNATE CURRENT RADIO chat room.BOILER ROOM IS NOT A POLICTALLY CORRECT ZONE! LISTEN TO THE RECORDING IN THE PLAYER BELOW ENJOY! | 1real |
OBAMA RELEASES TOP IRANIAN SCIENTIST…LEAVES 4 AMERICANS TO FEND FOR THEMSELVES IN IRANIAN PRISONS As Part Of Nuke Deal | On Wednesday Barack Obama lashed out at CBS reporter Major Garrett after he asked him about the four Americans left behind to languish in Iranian prisons.Former Marine Amir Hekmati, Saeed Abedini and Vahid Salemi are being held in Iranian prisons. (Breitbart)Obama was defending his nuclear deal with Iran when Garrett asked him about the US hostages in Iran.https://youtu.be/rqdVAd25CHUObama: I got to give you credit Major for how you craft those questions. the notion that I m content as I celebrate with American citizens languishing in Iranian jails. Major, that s nonsense and you should know better.Of course, that is exactly what he did. The Obama administration did nothing to free American hostages during their talks with the Iranian regime.Now we know Obama released a top Iranian scientist as part of the deal but left the Americans to rot in hell in Iranian prisons. The Times of Israel reported:Mojtaba Atarodi, arrested in California for attempting to acquire equipment for Iran s military-nuclear programs, was released in April as part of back channel talks, Times of Israel told. The contacts, mediated in Oman for years by close colleague of the Sultan, have seen a series of US-Iran prisoner releases, and there may be more to come.The secret back channel of negotiations between Iran and the United States, which led to this month s interim deal in Geneva on Iran s rogue nuclear program, has also seen a series of prisoner releases by both sides, which have played a central role in bridging the distance between the two nations, the Times of Israel has been told.In the most dramatic of those releases, the US in April released a top Iranian scientist, Mojtaba Atarodi, who had been arrested in 2011 for attempting to acquire equipment that could be used for Iran s military-nuclear programs.No wonder he didn t want reporters talking about it!Via: Gateway Pundit | 1real |
Ukrainian aircraft maker tweets Air Force One offer to Trump | KIEV (Reuters) - The Ukrainian producer of the world’s largest aircraft has offered to build a plane for Donald Trump after the U.S. president-elect said an order with Boeing Co for a new Air Force One should be scrapped. “@realDonaldTrump May be it is better to consider #Antonov aircraft as Air Force One?,” Ukrainian state-owned firm Antonov tweeted directly to Trump on Wednesday. There was no immediate response from the future president, who is known for his unpredictable tweets On Tuesday, Trump took to Twitter to criticize alleged escalating costs for a new Air Force One from Boeing, which has built planes for U.S. presidents since 1943. “Costs are out of control, more than $4 billion. Cancel order!,” he wrote. Antonov’s offer appeared to have been in jest, but new orders from the United States or elsewhere would provide a welcome boost to its fortunes. The company, one of the Soviet Union’s top aircraft producers, has produced only around twenty planes since Ukraine gained independence in 1991. It is most famous for building the world’s biggest aircraft: the Antonov-225 Mriya (Dream) cargo plane, which was designed as part of the Soviet space program. The only one completed is still in use and can carry up to 250 tonnes over distances of up to 4,000 km (2,485 miles). Work to manufacture a second plane was started in 1988 and never completed, but Antonov has now found a potential investor in the Aerospace Industry Corporation of China (AICC). | 0fake |
Pennsylvania glitches did not cause ballots to be miscounted: officials | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Election officials in three Pennsylvania counties said they believed no ballots had been wrongly counted as a result of computer malfunctions, despite reports on Tuesday that touch-screen voting machines in the state were switching votes. Officials in Cumberland, Perry and Butler Counties in Pennsylvania told Reuters that they had no reason to believe the mistakes were affecting voters from one party more than the other, and that voters were catching the mistakes on “review screens” before their ballots were cast. | 0fake |
(Don’t Hold The Press) Jeb Bush Endorses Ted Cruz For President | 21st Century Wire says OK. As political endorsements go, this one is about as sexy as a box of Wheaties.This exciting development comes just hours after Cruz was declared the winner in Utah s GOP primary contest.Now if it was Barbara giving the honors, then we might be intrigued Of course, we should be so lucky Huff PostFormer Florida Gov. Jeb Bush is endorsing Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) for president, Politico reported. Bush, who dropped out of the race last month, confirmed the endorsement on Wednesday in an email from the Cruz campaign. Ted is a consistent, principled conservative who has demonstrated the ability to appeal to voters and win primary contests, including yesterday s Utah caucus, Bush said on Facebook.The statement also went out in an email to supporters from the Cruz campaign, the New York Times said. Jeeebbbbbbbb. For the sake of our party and country, we must move to overcome the divisiveness and vulgarity Donald Trump has brought into the political arena, or we will certainly lose our chance to defeat the Democratic nominee and reverse President Obama s failed policies, Bush said Continue this story at Huff PostREAD MORE ELECTION NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire 2016 Files | 1real |
New York protesters camp out at Goldman Sachs to oppose Trump | NEW YORK (Reuters) - Dozens of protesters gathered outside of Goldman Sachs Group Inc headquarters on Tuesday to rally against President-elect Donald Trump’s picking several former executives of the Wall Street bank for top jobs in his administration. Some of the 50 or so protesters wore swamp-monster masks in reference to Trump’s pledge to “drain the swamp” that he said Washington has become and get rid of special interests. About 20 of them brought sleeping bags, intending to camp outside 200 West Street until Trump’s inauguration on Friday. Goldman Sachs security guards sent employees and guests to entrances on the north side of the building on the rainy evening as protesters unrolled green sleeping bags on the southwest corner. In an emailed statement, Goldman Sachs spokeswoman Tiffany Galvin said the bank respects “every individual’s rights to assembly and free speech.” She declined to comment on the protesters’ objections to Trump’s nominations of ex-Goldman employees including Steve Mnuchin, Trump’s pick to lead the U.S. Treasury Department. Others include Gary Cohn, who had been chief operating officer before becoming Trump’s economic adviser, and Dina Powell, who left her position as Goldman’s head of philanthropic investing to do the same. Goldman Sachs had long been viewed as Wall Street’s most prestigious and profitable bank with so many executives leaving for high-profile government positions it earned the nickname “Government Sachs.” But in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, Goldman instead found itself blamed by politicians and activists for profiting from the implosion of the mortgage market. In response, the bank embarked on a public relations campaign to clean up its image and launched initiatives to help small businesses, prisoners and female entrepreneurs. But the string of Trump appointments has renewed some of public contempt it received during the Occupy Wall Street protests in 2011. (reut.rs/pJKyQX) Nelini Stamp, 29, an organizer with a group called Working Families, said she also participated in that movement and Trump’s appointments drove her to come back. “We’re here to make sure that people realize that Goldman Sachs is running our government,” Stamp said. Holding a sign with the image of a swamp monster biting down on a gold bar emblazoned with #GovernmentSachs and “foreclosures,” Ethan Cantor, 25, said it was his first time at a protest. The New Jersey native said Trump’s embrace of Goldman Sachs contradicted criticism the president-elect had leveled against Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton for speaking fees she received from the bank. “He used Goldman as a dig against Hillary,” said Cantor, who said he reluctantly voted for Democratic candidates in the last election. “One good thing about (Trump’s) campaign was that it was populist. Now he’s lying to his own voters.” | 0fake |
California's Death Penalty: Mike Ramos v. Kevin Cooper and Proposition 62 | Mike Ramos and Kevin Cooper: Who tells the truth?(image by public domain) License DMCA San Bernardino County District Attorney Mike Ramos obtained the controversial capital conviction of Kevin Cooper, whose "clemency" petition to Governor Jerry Brown gravely puts at issue the integrity of Ramos' office. Already campaigning to be the state's Attorney General in 2018, Ramos speaks out for Proposition 66, which promises to accelerate the death penalty. Ramos attacks opponents of the death penalty as deceptive. However, recognizing that the main problem is the California Supreme Court's automatic appeal bottleneck, Ramos at best carelessly misrepresents that Proposition 66 redirects first appeals to the courts of appeal.
This article presents excerpts concerning Kevin Cooper's case from the first part of an in-progress two-part paper, California's Death Penalty: People v. Masters v. The California Supreme Court's Carefulness Con . Earlier excerpts are presented in my OEN article, California's Death Penalty: The California Supreme Court's Carefulness Con . A further article will provide an in-depth presentation of People v. Masters , 62 Cal.4 th 1019 (2016).
If California's death penalty is not repealed in November by Proposition 62, next up on California's ready-to-kill list (now comprising about 12 inmates) is Kevin Cooper . In 2009, by a vote of 16-11, an en banc Ninth Circuit panel let stand Cooper's death sentence. However, in a voluminous opinion , [1] beginning with the statement that "[t]he State of California may be about to execute an innocent man," five of the dissenters passionately protested that the district court had not complied with the circuit's prior injunction to have a conclusive blood test performed.
To prove family-murdered-by-hatchet charges, the state introduced a T-shirt stained with Cooper's blood (plus other suspect evidence, such as mysteriously materialized cigarette butts). Cooper protested that the blood stain must have been added by the prosecution, using a sample kept in a test tube. When checked, the test tube was full, but had apparently been tampered with. Cooper claimed that the tube must have been topped up with someone else's blood. Sure enough, the blood of two people was found in the tube. In due course, the Ninth Circuit enjoined the federal district court to have the T-shirt stain tested for preservative, so as to conclusively determine whether it had come from the sample. The laboratory duly reported that the stain contained preservative. However, the district court then allowed the laboratory to reattribute its finding to likely laboratory contamination, without requiring a retest . [2] - Advertisement -
Besides such apparent fabrications, there were plain suppressions. Investigators paid no heed to witnesses who had seen three white people, at least one blood-stained, fleeing the scene in the primary victim's car. One of them had lost a T-shirt and a hatchet--his blood-stained pants were incinerated by the police. See From FBI Boss to Death Penalty Foe, Tom Parker's Quest to Free a Convicted Murderer , Santa Barbara Independent, Jul. 6, 2016: [H]aving put the Mafia behind bars, investigated dozens of homicides and sent two murderers to their deaths . . . during 45 years in law enforcement, Parker said he's seen too many corrupt homicide investigations to believe in the death penalty anymore. The worst of them, he said, is the Chino Hills murder case of 1983. . . "Kevin was a car thief and a burglar, but he doesn't deserve to be where he is," Parker said. "I'm convinced he was framed." . . . The courts have called the evidence against Cooper "overwhelming" -- spots of Cooper's blood in the Ryens' hallway and on a tan T-shirt by the road; bloody prints of prison-issue Keds inside and outside the Ryens' house; Cooper's cigarette butts in the Ryens' station wagon; and a hatchet sheath and prison uniform button at Cooper's hideout next door. But Cooper claims this was false evidence, planted and manipulated by the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department to convict him. He alleges that sheriff's deputies destroyed evidence and ignored leads pointing to three white men as the murderers -- including the initial statements of the Ryens' eight-year-old son, Josh, the sole survivor.
Victim relatives and friends, police, and prosecutors naturally insist that there is not even any lingering doubt as to guilt, [3] and they protest inordinate appellate delay. But to objective observers, Cooper's case raises deep concerns as to prosecutorial prejudice and California Supreme Court carelessness. The case is politically and racially highly charged, not only owing to the heinous nature of the purportedly black-on-white mass-murder, but also owing to the blind eye that police and prosecutor turned to the plain evidence of white culprits.
The incriminating evidence in Cooper is almost wholly physical, depending entirely on local police testimony for its foundation. Cooper would seem a sympathetic defendant, being a mere car-thief minimum security prison walk-out, lonely and homeward bound for the holidays. Cooper raises grave questions as to the police fabricating DNA and other physical evidence, while destroying, ignoring, or corrupting unfavorable DNA, other physical evidence, and witnesses. Cooper has raised the very highest level of international concern (continuing the above quote): - Advertisement - Last fall, the influential Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, an autonomous organ of the Organization of American States, recommended that Cooper be granted a reprieve, pending a new investigation. Citing in part Parker's allegations of "endemic tunnel vision," the commission concluded that the U.S. had violated Cooper's rights to a fair trial, due process and equality before the law. The U.S. is a signatory to the American Declaration, a treaty that guarantees those rights.
Cooper's last hope lies in an unorthodox "clemency" petition to Governor Brown, seeking not a pardon but an independent non-judicial investigation of the evidence, and a stay of execution pending its outcome. Commuting Cooper's sentence to life without parole does not seem a viable alternative, given that he has been tried twice, and Cal. Constitution, Art. 5, sec. 8 provides that "[t]he Governor may not grant a pardon or commutation to a person twice convicted of a felony except on recommendation of the Supreme Court, 4 judges concurring." Moreover, Cooper's incarceration for life would almost as loudly cry out for a conclusive finding as to whether the T-shirt blood stain was fabricated; and because Cooper's actual innocence is the underlying issue, a repeal of the state death penalty in November's election would not moot his petition, which the ABA extraordinarily supports: In a letter sent to Gov. Brown on March 14, the American Bar Association alleged Cooper's "arrest, prosecution and conviction are marred by evidence of racial bias, police misconduct, evidence tampering, suppression of exculpatory information, lack of quality defense counsel and a hamstrung court system." [4]
It seems a toss-up whether Brown will grant the petition, given that he previously gave absurd reasons for vetoing a simple bipartisan measure to mitigate a surfeit of prosecutorial misconduct. [5] To grant it would surely require that the T-shirt blood stain be retested for preservatives, and this would seem to risk scientifically confirming premeditated, deadly, and racial misconduct, implicating police and perhaps the crime laboratory and prosecutor's office. | 1real |
Iraq Kurds seek international help to lift sanctions imposed by Baghdad | ERBIL (Reuters) - Iraq s Kurdistan Regional Government on Monday called on the international community to intervene and help lift sanctions imposed by the central government in Baghdad in retaliation for a September referendum on Kurdish independence. The restrictive policies adopted by Baghdad against Erbil are in violation of Iraq s obligations and responsibilities under international and humanitarian law, the KRG said in a statement. We call on the international community to intercede in urging Baghdad authorities to lift the embargo, without condition, on international flights. | 0fake |
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