title stringlengths 1 456 ⌀ | text stringlengths 1 143k ⌀ | label class label 2
classes |
|---|---|---|
Trump Votes Are Being Flipped To Clinton | Trump Votes Are Being Flipped To Clinton There have already been multiple reports of faulty electronic voting machines The Alex Jones Show - October 28, 2016 Comments
The election fraud is already being documented with many votes for Donald Trump flipping to Hillary Clinton. NEWSLETTER SIGN UP Get the latest breaking news & specials from Alex Jones and the Infowars Crew. Related Articles Download on your mobile device now for free. Today on the Show Get the latest breaking news & specials from Alex Jones and the Infowars crew. From the store Featured Videos FEATURED VIDEOS A Vote For Hillary is a Vote For World War 3 - See the rest on the Alex Jones YouTube channel . The Most Offensive Halloween EVER! - See the rest on the Alex Jones YouTube channel . ILLUSTRATION How much will your healthcare premiums rise in 2017? >25% © 2016 Infowars.com is a Free Speech Systems, LLC Company. All rights reserved. Digital Millennium Copyright Act Notice. 34.95 22.46 Flip the switch and supercharge your state of mind with Brain Force the next generation of neural activation from Infowars Life. http://www.infowars.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/brainforce-25-200-e1476824046577.jpg http://www.infowarsstore.com/health-and-wellness/infowars-life/brain-force.html?ims=tzrwu&utm_campaign=Infowars+Placement&utm_source=Infowars.com&utm_medium=Widget&utm_content=Brain+Force http://www.infowarsstore.com/health-and-wellness/infowars-life/brain-force.html?ims=tzrwu&utm_campaign=Infowars+Placement&utm_source=Infowars.com&utm_medium=Widget&utm_content=Brain+Force Brain Force – 25% OFF 34.95 22.46 Flip the switch and supercharge your state of mind with Brain Force the next generation of neural activation from Infowars Life. http://www.infowars.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/brainforce-25-200-e1476824046577.jpg http://www.infowarsstore.com/health-and-wellness/infowars-life/brain-force.html?ims=tzrwu&utm_campaign=Infowars+Placement&utm_source=Infowars.com&utm_medium=Widget&utm_content=Brain+Force http://www.infowarsstore.com/health-and-wellness/infowars-life/brain-force.html?ims=tzrwu&utm_campaign=Infowars+Placement&utm_source=Infowars.com&utm_medium=Widget&utm_content=Brain+Force Brain Force – 25% OFF 34.95 22.46 Flip the switch and supercharge your state of mind with Brain Force the next generation of neural activation from Infowars Life. http://www.infowars.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/brainforce-25-200-e1476824046577.jpg http://www.infowarsstore.com/health-and-wellness/infowars-life/brain-force.html?ims=tzrwu&utm_campaign=Infowars+Placement&utm_source=Infowars.com&utm_medium=Widget&utm_content=Brain+Force http://www.infowarsstore.com/health-and-wellness/infowars-life/brain-force.html?ims=tzrwu&utm_campaign=Infowars+Placement&utm_source=Infowars.com&utm_medium=Widget&utm_content=Brain+Force Brain Force – 25% OFF 34.95 22.46 Flip the switch and supercharge your state of mind with Brain Force the next generation of neural activation from Infowars Life. http://www.infowars.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/brainforce-25-200-e1476824046577.jpg http://www.infowarsstore.com/health-and-wellness/infowars-life/brain-force.html?ims=tzrwu&utm_campaign=Infowars+Placement&utm_source=Infowars.com&utm_medium=Widget&utm_content=Brain+Force http://www.infowarsstore.com/health-and-wellness/infowars-life/brain-force.html?ims=tzrwu&utm_campaign=Infowars+Placement&utm_source=Infowars.com&utm_medium=Widget&utm_content=Brain+Force Brain Force – 25% OFF 34.95 22.46 Flip the switch and supercharge your state of mind with Brain Force the next generation of neural activation from Infowars Life. http://www.infowars.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/brainforce-25-200-e1476824046577.jpg http://www.infowarsstore.com/health-and-wellness/infowars-life/brain-force.html?ims=tzrwu&utm_campaign=Infowars+Placement&utm_source=Infowars.com&utm_medium=Widget&utm_content=Brain+Force http://www.infowarsstore.com/health-and-wellness/infowars-life/brain-force.html?ims=tzrwu&utm_campaign=Infowars+Placement&utm_source=Infowars.com&utm_medium=Widget&utm_content=Brain+Force Brain Force – 25% OFF 34.95 22.46 Flip the switch and supercharge your state of mind with Brain Force the next generation of neural activation from Infowars Life. http://www.infowars.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/brainforce-25-200-e1476824046577.jpg http://www.infowarsstore.com/health-and-wellness/infowars-life/brain-force.html?ims=tzrwu&utm_campaign=Infowars+Placement&utm_source=Infowars.com&utm_medium=Widget&utm_content=Brain+Force http://www.infowarsstore.com/health-and-wellness/infowars-life/brain-force.html?ims=tzrwu&utm_campaign=Infowars+Placement&utm_source=Infowars.com&utm_medium=Widget&utm_content=Brain+Force | 1real |
China Openly MOCKS Trump By Turning Him Into A Rooster, And It’s HILARIOUS (IMAGES) | It s not looking as though relations between Donald Trump and China are going to get better any time soon. Not only has Trump been crushing relations every which way with the nation since the start of his campaign, but now it looks as though China is letting us know what they think of him.To help ring in the Chinese New Year, and with 2017 being the Year of the Rooster, China s Shanxi province has turned Trump into a giant rooster.The giant Trump Rooster statue features a rooster that looks startlingly like the president-elect. It has his infamous hair, angry scowl on its face, and even has the same hand gestures.Check the statue out here:#TrumpRooster welcomes #ChineseNewYear in Taiyuan, N China's Shanxi province https://t.co/quosHmdMgQ pic.twitter.com/UHA7iAi7DX People's Daily,China (@PDChina) December 27, 2016Here s a closer look:TwitterTwitterTwitterTwitterYou know with Trump s rather fragile ego that this statue will undoubtedly piss him off, and we ll probably be hearing about it soon via the president-elect s medium of choice Twitter.Or, he ll see it as a tribute to himself and turn the whole thing around to mean that China sees this as the year of Trump, and who knows, maybe they do.Meanwhile the rest of us can look at it and laugh, because, well, it s pretty damn hilarious.Featured image via Twitter | 1real |
No, Mexico Doesn’t Have A Wall On Its Southern Border—But If Trump Wins It Might Build One | They're not crossing the Rio Grande, they're invading Mexico from the south. < No, Mexico Doesn’t Have A Wall On Its Southern Border—But If Trump Wins It Might Build One > November 6, 2016, 10:55 pm
Many people say Mexico has a wall on its southern border. It doesn’t . It should. And if it did, we Americans wouldn’t have to deal with all the Central Americans coming to our own border. It would be better for both our nations .
Some outlets are reporting Mexico is going to build a wall against migrants. [ Mexico builds its own wall against migrants , by James Fredrick and Jude Webber, Financial Times, September 14, 2016]. (The article is paywalled, but you can access it here ).
But the title is misleading. It’s not a literal wall, but a metaphorical “wall,” and not even an effective one.
The piece takes the view of a Central American planning to come to the United States and claims “Mexico already acts as a formidable barrier.” It also quotes a nun who runs a shelter for illegals in Mexico City . She moans: “Mexico has become a wall for migrants. The current [Mexican] policy is to arrest migrants to stop them from getting to the US border.”
Thus, the term “wall” is a metaphor for “some Central Americans get caught in Mexico and deported back to Central America.” Not very impressive.
The Mexican policy for dealing with its own illegals is a hodgepodge. Though Mexico doesn’t have walls on its borders with Guatemala and Belize, Mexican authorities do detain and deport illegal aliens . And the American government has reportedly put pressure on Mexico to do more. Nonetheless, plenty are still getting through. According to the article, Mexico deported a record 175,000 Central Americans last year, but the United Nations estimates 400,000 enter Mexico annually.
There is a pre-election “surge” of illegals on the U.S.-Mexican border, as migrants want to get in now regardless of who wins. If Hillary wins, they expect amnesty. If Trump wins, they expect The Wall . Illegal immigrants surging to US-Mexico border in race against #ElectionDay . https://t.co/VwFlS1BNRW pic.twitter.com/0OeeKvljLT
— FOX Business (@FoxBusiness) November 4, 2016
We’ve been told for some time now there is zero net Mexican immigration to the United States [ More Mexicans Leaving Than Coming to U.S., by Ana Gonzalez-Barrera, Pew, November 19, 2015] But this misses the point. Illegals coming across the southern border are coming from Mexico. As Mexico can’t or won’t stop them, we need a barrier on our border with Mexico.
Which brings us to another question. If Trump wins the election and builds The Wall, the Mexican government may be stuck with Central Americans who can’t continue north to the U.S. And they really don’t want that.
In 2012, after the election of current Mexican president Enrique Pena Nieto but before his inauguration, his coordinator Arnulfo Valdivia discussed the new administration’s goal in this area. The new Mexican president wanted “to create the necessary filters so that those who cross by the southern border [of Mexico] do not stay stranded in their attempt to cross to the United States. “Valdivia also said a goal was to “diminish the number of indocumentados [illegal aliens] who are concentrated on the northern border [of Mexico] without possibilities of crossing it, forming belts of poverty [in Mexico].”[ Peña quiere `patrulla fronteriza` mexicana , by Miriam Castillo, Milenio , October 9th, 2012]
In other words, if they cross Mexico and get to the United States, we don’t care, as long as they don’t stay in Mexico. And Mexico admits these illegals bring poverty. Indeed, Mexican authorities are quite cynical about this. A new report indicates the Mexican government is granting Haitians 20-day transit documents to reach the U.S. border, resulting in a 1,800% in illegal Haitians c rossing the border in 2016. As Duncan Hunter’s chief of staff Joe Kasper said, “Mexico doesn’t want them, but it’s entirely content with putting migrants—in this case Haitians—right on America’s doorstep.” [ DHS Documents Reveal How Mexico Is Helping Haitians Reach the U.S. Illegally , Numbers USA, October 11, 2016]. Remember this the next time somebody claims Mexico is our partner in securing the border.
But a President Trump who, like the Israelis, shuts down illegal immigration would force Mexico to build a border barrier if they don’t want to be flooded by Central Americans. This is no easy task, given the geographical situation. Mexico’s border with Guatemala alone is 541 miles long—about a quarter the length of the U.S.-Mexican border. It’s sparsely populated and crosses forested regions, rivers, lakes, farmland, pasture, valleys and mountains, some of which are in the 13,000 feet above sea level range.
But where there’s a will there’s a way. Some form of effective fencing could be done depending on the particular ecosystem, by utilizing natural barriers (such as mountains, rivers and valleys) as part of an overall border security plan.
And it’s already being suggested in the Mexican press. A bold editorial in Mañana , a newspaper from the Mexican border city of Reynosa, openly calls for a border wall with Central America Sí al muro fronterizo…Pero en el sur de México [“Yes to the Border Wall…But in the South of Mexico,” July 24, 2016]. It argues Mexico’s borders with Guatemala and Belize “only give us problems because these crossings are utilized for a new invasion, that of Central Americans who utilize our country to cross to the United States”. That’s very provocative language, using the term invasion ( invasión in Spanish).
The editorial also claims Central Americans are deported from the U.S. back to Mexico, even if they’re Central Americans and not Mexicans. The greatest number are supposedly deported to Reynosa, where they wait to try to enter America again. But while they wait, “Many of these migrants, not finding an honest way of earning a living, dedicate themselves to crime, resorting to assault, kidnapping and extortion, and in the worst of cases joining organized crime gangs.”
This Mexican editorial says deported Central American illegals commit crimes in Mexico! What intolerance! It might as well have been written by Trump!
Indeed, the editorial blames Central American illegals for much of the lawlessness of the border region: “Peace and tranquility have ended on the Mexican border and much of that has been due to the Central Americans who are deported from the U.S., backed up with false documents, who stay in Mexican territory.”
The editorial proposes a solution. “Trump’s idea [of a wall] is good [!], but more necessary than constructing a wall on the northern border of Mexico is to make one on the south/southeast border to stop the passage of Central Americans to both countries.” Furthermore, the Mexican government should also demand “migratory documents for the foreigners who enter our country.”
Though this editorial advocates a wall on Mexico’s southern border, not the American southern border, there’s no reason we can’t do both. And it’s unlikely the first will happen unless preceded by the second.
The editors of this paper have guts and are true Mexican patriots. But in order to help Mexican patriots, we need an American patriot in charge of our own country.
American citizen Allan Wall ( him) moved back to the U.S.A. in 2008 after many years residing in Mexico. Allan`s wife is Mexican, and their two sons are bilingual. In 2005, Allan served a tour of duty in Iraq with the Texas Army National Guard. His VDARE.COM articles are archived here ; his Mexidata.info articles are archived here ; his News With Views columns are archived here ; and his website is here . | 1real |
Trump attack on Lockheed Martin foreshadows war on defense industry | SEATTLE (Reuters) - Donald Trump on Monday widened his attack on defense contractors, slamming Lockheed Martin Corp’s (LMT.N) F-35 fighter jet program as too expensive as aides to the president-elect said he intends to keep pushing to cut the costs of military hardware. Trump’s latest Twitter broadside sent defense shares tumbling and fanned concerns that the incoming administration will reduce defense contractors’ profit margins and cut broader federal spending, threatening U.S. factory jobs even as Trump promises to boost manufacturing employment. “The F-35 program and cost is out of control,” Trump said on Twitter, echoing campaign promises to cut waste in federal spending. “Billions of dollars can and will be saved on military (and other) purchases after January 20th.” Last week, Trump targeted Boeing Co (BA.N) with tweets for “out of control” costs on new Air Force One planes, urging the federal government to “Cancel order!” The new administration’s focus is likely to be “wide-reaching and impact all of government as we look to come up with better deals,” Trump transition spokesman Jason Miller said. “We’re going to look for opportunities to go back through and make sure that we’re not getting taken advantage of.” Trump’s F-35 tweet drew support from U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain, who has voiced support for the fighter jet in the past. While a president cannot cancel a program after funds have been allocated, it can purchase less. “He can reduce the buy over time, next year, as we look at it again,” McCain told Reuters. But Trump’s off-the-cuff remarks bristled others in Congress. Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat from Connecticut, home to F-35 engine maker Pratt & Whitney, said the program supports 2,000 Pratt jobs and thousands more at suppliers. “The suggestion that costs are out of control is just plain wrong,” he said. Trump should “learn more about the facts” before discussing “arbitrary cuts in the program,” he added. “He’s the president-elect. What he says matters.” Lockheed shares fell 2.5 percent after being down 5.4 percent earlier. Shares of General Dynamics (GD.N), Northrop Grumman, BAE and Raytheon also fell, while United Technologies and Boeing shares were slightly higher. The F-35 has been dogged by problems, with the Pentagon’s chief arms buyer once describing as “acquisition malpractice” the decision to produce jets before completing development. That led to retrofits and helped escalate costs to an estimated $400 billion, prompting the F-35 to be described as the most expensive weapon system in history. The Pentagon’s chief weapons tester has continued to criticize it, but the jets are now in use by the U.S. Marine Corps and Air Force, and by six countries: Australia, Britain, Norway, Italy, the Netherlands and Israel. Japan took delivery of its first jet last week, according to a program spokesman. Australian and Japanese defense officials both said they have no plans to alter their commitments to the F-35. “We are very confident that the Joint Strike Fighter is the right jet for Australia, and for the United States and the rest of the world,” said Christopher Pyne, minister for Australia’s defense industry. Australia has ordered 72 F-35s, while Japan has agreed to purchase 42 fighters to replace its aging F-4 fleet. “We will have to watch Trump’s policies closely when he becomes president, but at this moment, we have no intention of changing direction,” Japan’s Minister of Defense Tomomi Inada said. Lockheed’s F-35 program leader, Jeff Babione, said Monday the company had invested millions to reduce the jet’s price by 60 percent from original estimates. “We project it to be about $85 million in the 2019 or 2020 timeframe,” he told reporters in Israel. The Pentagon is now paying about $102 million each for the conventional takeoff A-model, according to sources familiar with the program. The savings reflect larger quantities and the ironing out of technical issues. As a practical matter, it was unlikely the U.S. would unwind such a large program involving contractors in nearly every U.S. state and eight partner nations, Baird Equity Research analyst Peter Arment wrote in a note Monday. “But what is likely ... is the message to the industry of potentially more risk-sharing on costs,” he said. “This is potentially a new paradigm for the industry.” | 0fake |
Rihanna’s Fenty Line Debuts in Paris and Receives a Pop Star Welcome - The New York Times | PARIS — On an upper floor of the Hôtel Salomon de Rothschild, the manse formerly occupied by the banking Rothschilds, a line of sweating models fiddled with the rings in their lips and the septums of their perfect noses, and waited to have their lip gloss reapplied. They chatted among themselves, fanning one another with torn bits of cardboard in the close, sticky corridor and examining their nails, which had been sharpened to talons and encrusted with miniature gems. They received compliments with the languorous equanimity of court ladies, which for a night they were. Not for the first time, and surely not for the last, the thought occurred that the European fashion shows, with their ritual peregrinations from palace to palace, were not so different from the French court, which took its pomp and circumstance on the road at regular intervals. The thought occurred with particular force Wednesday evening because Rihanna — pop megastar, fledgling designer — had decreed that the look she wanted for this, her Fenty show for the German sportswear giant Puma, was Marie Antoinette “if she was going to the gym. ” Rihanna was in a chamber two rooms back. She was wearing a pink of her own design, twirling a long strand of pearls and receiving guests who had come to pay court: journalists executives Pinault, chairman and chief executive of Kering, which owns Puma. (“The collection is very interesting,” he said gamely, on his way to the salons downstairs where the show would eventually begin.) Attendants were barking out orders — “Nails, nails, we need nails! We’re losing nails!” — but Rihanna was serene and unusually humble for a reigning monarch, which, for the evening at least, she was. “I would never expect that I would be allowed in Paris to show a collection this early as a designer,” she said. “That wasn’t a thing that I expected at all. I couldn’t believe — I still right now can’t believe it happened. ” When the time came for the show to start, the models sashayed through, fanning themselves coquettishly, their chinoiserie boiler suits and filmy, frilly windbreakers dipping off their shoulders. The reaction from those outside the court, from the queen’s subjects, was rapturous (on Twitter, a sampling: “I love this” “LIFE GIVING” “The look of the century”) and the designer, who took the final lap herself, did so with a giant smile on her face. Earlier in the evening Rihanna had been asked if she related to Marie Antoinette and she nodded. “She was very dramatic,” she replied. | 0fake |
Black Designers in Focus at Fashion Institute of Technology - The New York Times | What do the satin leotard of the Playboy Bunny, Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis’s first wedding gown and a wool jacquard Savile Row suit from 2016 have in common? All were created by people of African descent, a new exhibition, called “Black Fashion Designers,” at the Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology will gently remind — or perhaps inform — its visitors. This is far from the first time F. I. T. which takes care to diversify its mannequins and hosted the Harveys Bristol Cream Tribute to the Black Designer in the 1980s, has honored minorities in the industry. But “a lot of contributions have been overlooked,” Ariele Elia, the assistant curator of costume and textiles, who conceived the show, said during a tour on Tuesday, the day before it opened. “We wanted to bring attention to the history that people have forgotten and show some of the new faces that people might not be familiar with. ” And name the names, which include, corresponding to the garments above: Zelda Wynn Valdes, Ann Lowe and Ozwald Boateng. Making no claim to comprehensiveness, the show nonetheless packs a wide cultural range into a relatively small space. It is easily navigated, should Ms. Elia be unavailable, with an app introduced by the booming voice of the Vogue contributing editor André Leon Talley, who served on the advisory committee (along with the longtime Ebony commentator Audrey Smaltz, one of many muses featured). “The show is about black makers, models and designers, as opposed to ‘black style,’ ” said Elizabeth Way, a curatorial assistant who worked with Ms. Elia, underscoring what might today be obvious but bears repeating: “There really isn’t a black style. ” Some designers draw consistently from ancient African traditions, like the Duru Olowu, whose ensemble opens the exhibition, and Mimi Plange, from Ghana and then California, whose quilting on a pink dress mimics the body art of scarification and who has been championed (among many other independent designers) by the first lady, Michelle Obama. “This is, like, our last tribute to Michelle,” Ms. Elia said with palpable wistfulness. There are items as casual as the printed shift designed by Laura Smalls that Mrs. Obama wore in July to do a “Carpool Karaoke” segment with the talk show host James Corden. And looks as formal as an evening dress designed by Eric Gaskins inspired by the painter Franz Kline, a white column adorned with what looked like big black brush strokes. “Done with tiny microbugle beads!” Ms. Way said. “He crushed them down into almost nothing. ” (In recent years, Mr. Gaskins has been known for crushing the hot klieg lights of the fashion industry down to almost nothing on his addictively candid blog, the Emperor’s Old Clothes.) Some pieces are familiar, thanks to show business celebrities, like a racy black lace gown by LaQuan Smith worn — barely — by Kim Kardashian to a yacht party in Cannes in 2015, and a and minidress by CD Greene that Tina Turner chose for her “Wildest Dream” tour in 1996. “She was having a problem showing up on stage, so she needed something that would really make her shine,” Ms. Way said. Perhaps intuiting their own obsolescence, stars are now requesting something that actually makes them light up, and the young “creative technologist” Madison Maxey has been working on such innovations at her lab in the Brooklyn Navy Yard. But her contribution here is subtler: a print on hemp whose belt incorporates recycled computer and headphone cords (radically revising the old phrase “waste not, no waist”). Ecological concern also crops up in a knit from yarn spun out of plastic ocean waste by Raw, the label by the musician Pharrell Williams. This is in a section devoted to protest through clothing that showcases Kerby ’s “They Have Names,” a homage to 13 unarmed black men who were killed by the police. “People are interested in this because it’s so timely,” Ms. Way said, “but we wanted to show that black designers have been working with activism for a very long time. ” Some of this activism centered around AIDS, which felled Karl Davis at 25 after only six collections, the last containing a sleek evening gown with Chanelesque back pockets that stands here as a sober monument to talent not fully realized. And in midcareer, Patrick Kelly, renowned not just for bright button embellishments but for his seizing back of racist figures like the pickaninny and golliwog, and Willi Smith, who found mass success designing for a new wave of working women, mixing patterns with joyful abandon. For a brief shining moment, after advancements in civil rights, there was also newfound freedom after hours at the disco, with its court costumers like Stephen Burrows, he of the lettuce edge (like the Toll House cookie, a happy accident) James Daugherty and Scott Barrie. “Designers were breaking away from structuralism of the ’60s, and getting into something more ” Ms. Way said, then made a sudden break from . “I think just really it was all about the music. ” But she acknowledged that in the current political climate the show’s title is a provocation — or, perhaps, an invitation. “You can say ‘black designers’ but that doesn’t give you any other information,” Ms. Way said. ”Except how much they’ve been left out. ” | 0fake |
BREAKING: TRUMP PICKS PENCE FOR VP…Why This Could Be YUGE For Conservatives | This could be YUGE news for conservatives who were on the fence about Trump..Gov. Mike Pence is dropping his re-election bid in Indiana to become Donald Trump s running mate.IndyStar has confirmed that Trump plans to announce Pence as his selection for vice president, ending a weeks-long vice presidential casting call during which Trump vetted a handful of high-profile Republicans.Trump s national campaign spokeswoman, Hope Hicks, said a decision has not been made. A formal announcement is scheduled for 11 a.m. Friday in Manhattan.The long-awaited decision upends the political landscape in Indiana and at least partially remakes the Trump campaign in Pence s image.In Pence, Trump has added a social conservative who GOP strategists say will reassure rank-and-file Republicans that Trump can be trusted to pursue their interests. Veteran political observers say Pence, a former U.S. House member and chairman of the House Republican Conference, will provide a disciplined counter to Trump s improvisational campaign style. Pence also brings fundraising power and credibility on a wide range of policy issues that are important to conservatives. How Governor Mike Pence will help Trump:Indiana Gov. Mike Pence would bring constitutional fidelity, conservative credentials, traditional faith, foreign policy, Washington know-how, and a calm, steady, Midwestern demeanor to a national ticket with Donald Trump, boosting the New York businessman with several types of voters that may prove to be the key to building an electoral coalition that could propel Trump into the White House.Pence was an Indiana talk show host who took on the party establishment to get into Congress. Once there, he was regularly a thorn in the establishment s side, routinely opposing the go-along-to-get-along establishment playbook. But he did so as a happy warrior who kept disagreement focused on policies, while being friendly and personable with his opponents.Over time, Pence became very popular among conservatives, and effective at communicating a conservative message through the national media.Pence repeatedly opposed George W. Bush s proposals to expand government. When Republicans lost the U.S. House in 2006, Pence took the ultimate anti-establishment step of running against John Boehner to be the leader of House Republicans. He lost that bid, but garners almost 30 voters against the future Speaker, making a name for himself as someone willing to oppose anyone who Pence believed would not lead as a conservative.Pence was regarded as an effective legislator under both Republican and Democratic presidents. Trump has no experience negotiating with Congress or experience with the vast complexity of the federal government. Pence could remedy all that.Pence is also an evangelical Christian with a model family.For a much more in-depth look at Governor Mike Pence and what he brings to a Trump ticket: BreitbartPence is set to officially become the vice presidential nominee during the Republican National Convention, which starts July 18 in Cleveland. He could become the first vice president from Indiana since Dan Quayle took office in 1989 under George H.W. Bush.Pence s departure for national politics sets up a scramble among Indiana Republicans to determine who will replace Pence to run against Democratic challenger John Gregg in the November gubernatorial election. Via: IndyStar | 1real |
HERO Praised By Media For Fighting Off Faisal Mohammad…Isn’t That What The Media Crucified Ben Carson For Suggesting? [VIDEO] | How long before the media is clammering all over this construction worker to get an interview with this hero? Yet when Ben Carson suggested victims faced with the same or similar situation react in the same way, he was called crazy by the media Byron Price isn t afraid of much, but, he didn t expect to come face-to-face with a determined suspect who was on a mission. Bryon was among the least injured, but, campus officials say his brave acts may have saved lives.When Bryon heard a commotion he went to see who was screaming and possibly break up a fight. When he stepped into a second-floor classroom he found the armed suspect who then turned and came after him. So when he came at him he said he ended up on his back. I said why d you go on your back. He goes, he goes, I don t care if he cuts my legs I didn t want him to cut my chest or my abdomen. He said he has to come at me if I m down and then if he has to bend over I got a chance at his eyes or his throat and it worked, said John Price, victims father.Byron was stabbed while trying to fight off the attacker. His father said another construction worker also grabbed a ladder to try to threaten the suspect and get him to leave.Byron was working on remodeling a waiting room on campus. He was just finishing up his work for the day when he noticed the commotion and went to investigate. His father said his son doesn t want any attention for his actions and attempts to save others, but he is proud of how he confronted danger without a second thought. As a man, you want to be the guy when it s your turn to rise up and do what you are supposed to do, no matter what, you do it. And then when your son s do it. Yea, I m proud of the boy, John said.Via: ABC30Contrast this hero s story to Ben Carson s comments on the Oregon shooter tragedy. This construction worker did exactly what Ben Carson suggested he would do, but somehow the media calls him a hero and Ben Carson irresponsible for suggesting such an act of valor.Here are two examples of the leftist media un-leashed:https://youtu.be/aFZvr8XLpDg | 1real |
Family history hounds Jeb Bush on campaign trail | When Jeb Bush stepped up onto the fabled soapbox at the Iowa State Fair on Friday, fairgoers pelted him with questions about the legacy of his brother, a former president. And his father, another former president. And one of his foreign policy advisers, Paul D. Wolfowitz, the architect of his brother’s war in Iraq. And about the war itself.
Under a blazing sun, Bush expressed irritation with what he called “the parlor game” of focusing on Wolfowitz and other past Bush administration advisers who have resurfaced for this Bush campaign.
“If I’m president, we will have a strategy on Day One to take out this grave threat to our national security and to the world,” he said. “I promise you that.”
This was supposed to be the week when Bush would finally lay out his own thoughts on how to combat the Islamic State terror group and put Hillary Rodham Clinton on the defensive — and wrest himself from his family legacy in the process. But over several days, it has become evident that his ideas on the subject are remarkably similar to George W. Bush’s ideas and that he firmly believes that Democrats — not his brother — deserve the blame for the unrest in Iraq and neighboring Syria.
His new struggles with the issue also come as he is fading in polls and being drowned out by the angry outsiders dominating the race.
According to Bush this week, the removal of Saddam Hussein from power “turned out to be a pretty good deal.” The 2007 troop surge was “an extraordinarily effective” strategy. By the time his brother left office, he said, the “mission was accomplished” in Iraq because security had been restored.
Bush also said he won’t rule out waterboarding in the interrogation of terrorism suspects, although he added, “I do think in general that torture is not appropriate.”
Bush faults President Obama for his unwillingness to talk directly about “radical Islamic terrorists” and Clinton for visiting Iraq only once as secretary of state. He said it might be necessary to deploy more U.S. forces to both Iraq and Syria — and that troops already on the ground should be embedded more closely with local forces.
As for questions about advisers, Bush told fairgoers Friday that he has a young team working at his campaign headquarters in Miami. Shrugging, Bush said any veteran GOP foreign policy advisers “had to deal with two Republican administrations” run by his brother and father.
“I mean, this is kind of a tough game to be playing, to be honest with you,” he said. “I’m my own person.”
In an interview Friday, radio host Hugh Hewitt asked Bush whether it’s easier or harder for him to talk about national security given his last name. Bush shot back: “It doesn’t matter. I’m the first candidate to have a view on this with enough detail for people to see what the world would look like if I’m president.”
But Democrats are eager to exploit Bush’s remarks this week to remind voters of his family ties. During a town hall in Dubuque, Iowa, on Friday afternoon, Clinton took aim at Bush’s criticism of her, noting that his brother signed an agreement as president to withdraw combat troops from the country by 2011.
“I do think that it’s a little bit surprising to hear Jeb Bush talk about this,” she said. “He expects the American people to have a collective case of amnesia.”
Later in the town hall, Clinton sought to single out Jeb Bush’s comments on women’s issues but mistakenly referred to him as “George Bush.”
“I get confused,” she said, seeming to relish her error. “Oh, well.”
Most Americans still believe the Iraq war was a mistake and are opposed to new military engagement — making Jeb Bush’s approach to national security risky. But polling suggests that his positions are popular among most Republicans, especially if it means raising doubts about Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state.
“Jeb is going to talk about the threat of radical Islamic terrorism and how to defeat it,” said Tim Miller, Bush’s campaign communications director. “If the Democrats want to talk about the past, that’s their prerogative, but the American people are looking for someone who will address today’s growing terror threat, and they didn’t get it from Obama/Clinton.”
[The world according to Jeb Bush]
Among his GOP rivals, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) has said that “it was a mistake to topple” Hussein, while New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie says it “makes no sense for us to be re-litigating yesterday.”
Businessman Donald Trump has it both ways, blaming George W. Bush for invading the country in the first place and Obama for pulling troops out in 2011. “The war should have never happened,” he told Fox News earlier this year. “Once it did happen, you should have left the troops in. It’s really a double fault.”
In Iowa — where Bush polled seventh in a CNN-ORC poll released this week — there are some Republicans who appreciate his approach and think his dynastic lineage is a positive attribute.
“He’s going to be our man because he’s presidential; he knows what’s going on,” said Belinda Schlueter, a 56-year-old homemaker. “He comes from a family that actually knows what the country’s all about and how the office runs. We need somebody there that knows what they’re doing.”
Bush launched his discussions of national security Tuesday in a speech at the Ronald Reagan Library in Simi Valley, Calif. He faulted Obama and Clinton for their “blind haste” to withdraw U.S. forces from Iraq, a “premature” decision and a “fatal error” that disrupted the fragile progress his brother helped forge in Iraq. He did not mention his brother’s role in starting the process for withdrawal.
While there are about 3,500 U.S. support troops in Iraq now, “more may well be needed,” Bush said. He endorsed deploying troops to work more closely with Iraqi forces, including as forward air spotters to help identify targets. “We do not need, and our friends do not ask for, a major commitment of American combat forces,” he said. “But we do need to convey that we are serious, that we are determined to help local forces take back their country.”
In Syria, he called for more active U.S. involvement in the brutal Syrian civil war — including a no-fly zone and the expansion of “safe zones” in the country.
On Thursday, at a national security forum in Davenport, Iowa, he said “Iraq was fragile but secure” when his brother left office in 2009. He added that the “mission was accomplished in the way that there was security there and it was because of the heroic efforts of the men and women in the United States military that it was so.”
That answer immediately prompted comparisons to George W. Bush’s 2003 “Mission Accomplished” speech on the deck of a Navy carrier that critics say prematurely declared the end of the Iraqi military campaign.
At the forum, Jeb Bush would not say for certain whether he would preserve the executive order Obama signed banning enhanced interrogation. Later Thursday, he told reporters that he would not rule out using waterboarding during interrogations of terrorism suspects.
Former House Intelligence Committee chairman Mike Rogers (R-Mich.), whose group hosted the forum, credited Bush with presenting “the most nuanced approach to a really hard problem.”
[Op-Ed: To defeat the Islamic State, the U.S. will have to go big]
Rogers, who is neutral in the GOP primary contests, said, “Campaigns now are [so] tapped in to 140 characters and Twitter, it’s very difficult to have a thoughtful conversation about national security.”
Peter Feaver, who advised George W. Bush on Iraq, applauded Bush for delivering “a detailed speech” and suggested he represented views “advocated by serious Democrats and Republicans.”
He pointed to a recent Washington Post op-ed co-written by Michèle Flournoy, Obama’s former undersecretary of defense for policy who has been touted as a possible defense secretary for Clinton. Writing with Richard Fontaine, a former foreign policy adviser to Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), Flournoy advocated a series of proposals similar to what Bush called for: to provide more military aid to Sunni tribes and the Kurdish peshmerga in Iraq; to embed more Special Operations forces with Iraqi security forces; to deploy forward air controllers to identify targets; and to build a stronger global campaign against the Islamic State.
After parrying questions lobbed at him by Iowans, Bush donned a red apron and flipped pork chops with Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad (R). Carl Owens, a hog farmer, stood off to the side taking in the scene.
“I don’t know if he’s like his brother and dad or not,” said Owens, 59. “I wasn’t too happy with them. Mr. Bush, the last president, look at the mess he got the United States into over there where we shouldn’t have been. Kind of like the Vietnam War. We shouldn’t have been there.”
O’Keefe reported from Washington. Sean Sullivan in Iowa contributed to this report. | 0fake |
Suspected Istanbul airport bomber thought killed in Georgia: three sources | (This November 28 story corrects to add attribution to information in paragraphs 13 and 14) By Margarita Antidze TBILISI (Reuters) - A former Islamic State warlord suspected of masterminding a deadly attack on Istanbul airport in 2016 is believed to have been killed during a special operation in ex-Soviet Georgia last week, three sources familiar with the case told Reuters. Akhmed Chatayev, an ethnic Chechen, is highly likely to have lost his life during a police operation against a group of armed men on the outskirts of the Georgian capital Tbilisi last week, the three sources said. One Georgian special forces serviceman and three members of the armed group, which was suspected of terrorism, were killed in the operation. Four police officers were wounded and one member of the group was arrested during the 20-hour operation at the apartment block where the group was hiding. We suspect that one of the gunmen killed in the special operation in Tbilisi could be Akhmed Chatayev, Nino Giorgobiani, deputy chief of the state security service, told Reuters on Tuesday. She said that the final conclusions would be reached after experts had completed their work and the relevant United States agencies (had) joined the investigation. Two other sources, who did not want to be named, told Reuters it looked very likely Chatayev had been killed. There is every indication that one of them (members of the group) was Chatayev, said one of the sources. According to my information, Chatayev was there ... He blew himself up, said the other source. Chatayev was named by Turkish media and a U.S. congressman as the mastermind of the suicide bombing of Istanbul airport in 2016 which killed 45 people. His involvement in the airport bombing has not been confirmed by Turkish officials. A veteran of Chechnya s conflict with Moscow during which he lost an arm, he lived in Georgia s Pankisi Gorge, a remote area populated largely by people from the Kist community, ethnic Chechens whose ancestors came to mainly Christian Georgia in the 1800s. When, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Chechnya rose up in an armed rebellion against Moscow s rule, the Kist community were drawn to the fight. Thousands of refugees arrived from Chechnya, and some insurgents used the gorge to regroup and prepare new attacks. Chatayev was wounded and arrested in Georgia in August 2012 following a clash between the Georgian police and a group of militants, who were allegedly trying to cross the Georgian-Russian border and move to Dagestan. He was released from jail on bail and Georgian prosecutors dropped the case against him in January 2013, citing a lack of evidence, according to Civil.ge, an online news service. Soon after his release, Chatayev left Georgia, saying he intended to go to Austria to convalesce and by 2015, he had moved to Islamic State-controlled areas in Syria and Iraq, the news service reported. Chatayev was listed as a terrorist in 2015 by the U.S. Treasury which accused him of planning attacks against unspecified U.S. and Turkish facilities and added him to the U.N. Security Council s Al-Qaeda sanctions list, according to Civil.ge. He was also wanted by the Russian authorities. | 0fake |
Prince Harry Denounces Media Coverage of His Girlfriend, Meghan Markle - The New York Times | LONDON — Prince Harry on Tuesday attacked the “racial undertones” of British news coverage and social media harassment of his new girlfriend, the American actress Meghan Markle. In an unusual statement, the prince, the grandson of Queen Elizabeth II, said that a line had been crossed in the reporting of his relationship with Ms. Markle, 35, whose mother is black and whose father is white. “Some of this has been very public,” read the statement, issued in the name of the prince’s spokesman, Jason Knauf. “The smear on the front page of a national newspaper the racial undertones of comment pieces and the outright sexism and racism of social media trolls and web article comments. ” The role and behavior of the news media are a particularly sensitive topic for Prince Harry and his brother, Prince William. Their mother, Diana, died in Paris in a 1997 car crash when pursued by paparazzi. Both princes, who were then 12 and 15, have said that their mother’s death made them wary of the news media, though the royal family has generally been skillful in getting favorable coverage and suppressing scandal. But internet competition and social media activity have accelerated and coarsened coverage of the prince’s relationship with a divorced, biracial woman who was already in the public eye as an actress. Since articles surfaced about Ms. Markle’s dating Prince Harry, the British tabloids have expressed surprise that a “brunette” would be his type and accused her of not being British enough for him. The Daily Mail ran an article headlined, “Harry’s girl is (almost) straight outta Compton: home of her mother revealed — so will he be dropping by for tea?” The article then wove together various racial stereotypes, lamenting Ms. Markle’s mother’s “ ” Los Angeles neighborhood, Crenshaw, and its “tatty homes,” and listing crime statistics for the area. Newspapers have been digging up suggestive photographs of Ms. Markle and examining her past relationships, and some comments on their websites and on social media have been explicit and racist. The prince’s statement, which confirmed his relationship with Ms. Markle, expressed fears for her safety and privacy. It noted that his office had regularly fought to keep defamatory articles out of the newspapers — which he said had offered large bribes to her . The statement also condemned the way that the news media has invaded Ms. Markle’s privacy and harassed her mother. In one instance, a palace official said a photographer had chased an assistant to Ms. Markle through the garage of her home in Toronto. The photographer had to be physically removed and the police called, the official said. One article in the tabloid The Sun was about Ms. Markle’s appearing on Pornhub, an adult website, even though the “steamy scenes,” as the newspaper called them, were not pornography but taken from a television series she acts in, “Suits. ” The Sun also ran a headline above an interview with Ms. Markle’s estranged sister, saying, “Don’t fall for my little sis, Harry, she’d be the next Princess Pushy,” a reference to the unkind nickname for Princess Michael of Kent. One comment piece in last weekend’s Mail on Sunday, by Rachel Johnson, said of Ms. Markle: “Genetically, she is blessed. If there is issue from her alleged union with Prince Harry, the Windsors will thicken their watery, thin blue blood and Spencer pale skin and ginger hair with some rich and exotic DNA. ” Ms. Markle described herself as biracial in an August 2015 interview with Elle magazine, saying, “My dad is Caucasian and my mom is . I’m half black and half white. ” The essay also discussed some of the racism she has experienced as a result. Afua Hirsch, writing in The Guardian, said: “It’s a subtle point, easily missed. Meghan Markle, Prince Harry’s apparent new love, is a ‘glamorous brunette,’ ‘a departure from Prince Harry’s usual type’ and ‘not in the society blonde style of previous girlfriends,’ according to The Daily Mail. I think what they are trying to say is that Markle, actor, global development ambassador and lifestyle blogger, is black. ” Even more scandalous to the tabloids, wrote Ms. Hirsch, is that Ms. Markle is older and divorced and played somewhat “raunchy scenes” in “Suits” and that “her mother is visibly black, with dreadlocks. ” Ms. Markle, who graduated from Northwestern University in 2003, married in 2011 and divorced two years later, a fact that has also been the source of attention from the news media. Prince Harry has criticized the news media before, but never in such an angry and formal fashion. He has gotten into public trouble in the past, with leaked photographs of parties in Las Vegas or wearing a Nazi costume. “Prince Harry is worried about Ms. Markle’s safety and is deeply disappointed that he has not been able to protect her,” the statement said. “It is not right that a few months into a relationship with him that Ms. Markle should be subjected to such a storm. ” “He knows commentators will say this is ‘the price she has to pay’ and that ‘this is all part of the game,’” the statement continued. “He strongly disagrees. This is not a game — it is her life and his. ” Ms. Markle is best known for her role as Rachel Zane on the television legal drama “Suits,” and she played an F. B. I. agent in the series “Fringe. ” She has also been involved in charitable work with nongovernmental organizations. Ms. Markle became a global ambassador for World Vision Canada this year, traveling to Rwanda for its clean water campaign, and she has worked for gender equality and women’s empowerment. | 0fake |
Lebanese foreign minister: some forces trying to oust Lebanon leader - Ifax | MOSCOW (Reuters) - Lebanese Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil said on Friday some forces were trying to oust the leader of the country, Russia s Interfax news agency reported. Some sides are trying to use certain forces in order to displace the leader of Lebanon, Interfax quoted Bassil as telling his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov in Moscow. | 0fake |
TEXAS CHURCH SHOOTER: Years Before ‘Soft Target’ Attack, Gunman Tried to Carry Out Death Threats on CIA Linked Air Force Base | Shawn Helton 21st Century Wire The gunman named in a mass shooting that was said to have killed 26 people at a small church outside of San Antonio was convicted by the military several years before the tragic attack in 2012. This past week new information concerning the apparent First Baptist Church gunman 26-year-old Devin Patrick Kelley, revealed that the previously convicted Air Force airman was already well-known to authorities via his bad conduct discharge from the military in 2012. The recent acknowledgement in Kelley s case history, coupled with his unusually relaxed plea bargain deal, has only prompted more questions from those concerned about the most recent high-profile mass shooting in America.According to officials, the Sutherland Springs shooting at the First Baptist Church may have been caused by a domestic dispute involving Kelley and his ex-mother-in-law Michelle Shields. However, it turns out that Shields was not present at church services on the morning of the mass shooting, although her mother was named as one of the victims.A more precise motive in the deadly Sutherland Springs massacre has yet to be uncovered by authorities TEXAS CHURCH SHOOTING 8 years after the Fort Hood mass shooting, the First Baptist Church attack raises big questions. Its also worth noting, the recent church shooting echoes a scene in the 2015 Hollywood film Kingsman: The Secret Service. (Photo Illustration 21WIRE s Shawn Helton)The Texas Church ShooterWhile many in media have focused on the military s inability to log Devin Patrick Kelley s domestic violence court-martial case into a federal database, a police report from 2012 revealed that the gunman named in the First Baptist Church shooting had been previously caught attempting to sneak firearms onto a CIA linked military base in New Mexico where he was stationed. The El Paso police report concluded that after Kelley escaped the mental health facility believed to be Peak Behavioral Health Services Center in Santa Teresa, he sought to carry out death threats against his superiors at New Mexico s Holloman Air Force base.A CBS Affiliate from Dallas further explained the church shooter s lengthy criminal background: The information was contained in a police incident report after Devin Patrick Kelley briefly escaped in June, 2012 from a mental health facility in New Mexico where he had been committed. KPRC television in Houston first reported about the escape. Police in El Paso, Texas, where Kelley was caught after the escape, said in the report that an official of the mental health facility told them that Kelley was a danger to himself and others. The report says that Kelley had already been caught sneaking firearms onto Holloman Air Force base. It also says that he was attempting to carry out death threats that (Kelley) had made on his military chain of command. Moreover, a FOX News report just days ago revealed additional information concerning Kelley s violent threats at Holloman Air Force base: Former Air Force Staff Sgt. Jessika Edwards told The New York Times that Kelley would shake with rage and vow to kill his superiors when he was assigned menial tasks as punishment for poor performance. At one point, Edwards told the Times, she warned others in the squadron to go easy on Kelley, believing he was likely to come back and shoot up the place. Rather strangely, former Air Force Staff Sgt. Edwards still kept in close contact with the criminally convicted and discharged logistical readiness airman, stating that he asked her to be a job reference in 2015. Shortly there after, Kelley allegedly became obsessed with the polarizing case involving Charleston church shooter Dylann Roof. CHURCH SHOOTER What is the real motive in the First Baptist Church shooting? (Image Source: nbcwashington)The shocking claims of death threats prior to the Sutherland Springs church shooting taking place raises questions not only about the criminally convicted shooter Kelley, who was accused of a slew of abusive behavior but also the military s handling of the gunman s well-known history of violence from a prosecutorial standpoint.QUESTION: How did Kelley manage to get such a relaxed sentence considering he had several other major charges dropped including an additional incident where he allegedly pointed a loaded firearm at his wife?Furthermore, as the public and media are still bewildered over Kelley s ability to legally purchase guns following his 2012 military conviction due to his prior violent abuse, information concerning his alleged plot to kill military superiors has been completely underreported and by the looks of it, may have even gone unpunished.According to official reports, Kelley was sentenced to a year s confinement, reducing rank from an airman first-class (A1C) to airman basic. Additionally, after being convicted of crimes by a military court in 2012, he received a bad conduct discharge following an apparent plea deal.The NY Times added the following details regarding the military court case: Prosecutors withdrew several other charges as part of their plea agreement with Mr. Kelley, including allegations that he repeatedly pointed a loaded gun at his wife.He was ultimately sentenced in November that year to 12 months confinement and reduction to the lowest possible rank. His final duty title was prisoner. QUESTION: Did Kelley s plea agreement also include the exclusion of charges concerning his alleged death threat plot against military superiors at the CIA linked Holloman Air Force base?Moreover, if that wasn t a part of the plea, how was Kelley not dishonorably discharged due to the severity of charges he faced from military superiors?Although we ve been told this latest soft target shooting spree on American soil was carried out by yet another lone gunman, there have also been questions raised concerning a shooter allegedly firing from the roof top down on to church parishioners below.Watch and listen to shooting survivor Rosanne Solis, as she recounts what she witnessed during the First Baptist Church shooting . QUESTION: Is it also possible that Solis saw multiple shooters at the First Baptist Church? If not, how did Kelley swiftly move from the roof top location to ground level in a matter of a few minutes, assuming the account told by Solis is true?The Sutherland Springs mass shooting, along with other high-profile active shooter incidents this year and year s past have once again predictably sparked socio-political hot button issues concerning gun reform, background checks, mental illness and SSRI prescription drugs. This is something that has prompted critics to consider that there might be even more to the story.Below is a CNN video report discussing the lengthy criminal background of the First Baptist Church gunman. Note the strong emphasis in this report regarding Kelley s access to weaponry rather than a deeper analysis over how he received such a relaxed military conviction Drills, Dupes & Informants?A day after the suspicious San Bernardino shooting in 2015, San Antonio s nonprofit Alamo Community Group began practicing active shooter scenarios with employees. San Antonio is only 35 miles from where the Sutherland Springs mass shooting took place and a city that has been rigorously training for mass casualty scenarios for the last five years, holding active shooter drills with approximately one hundred officers a week over at least the last couple of years. Here s a passage from an ABC affiliate in San Antonio on the matter: Though it [the training] is simulated for active shooting scenarios, the training could easily be applied to many other mass casualty situations as well. In past two years, about 4,000 people have been involved in San Antonio s new rescue task force training program. As 21 WIRE has documented over the years, many so-called shooting/terror/attacks involve individuals being monitored by security services prior to an alleged act taking place. A place where a lone wolf graduates into the ranks of a known wolf. Although the military wasn t officially keeping Kelley under watch, his case profile does exhibit potential signs of a possible informant status due to the litany of charges he managed to avoid through a cushy plea deal with the military. Historically, government operators have often made use of low-life criminals, and mentally disturbed individuals to fulfill various roles in entrapment stings or sometimes as bona fide solo actors in an actual attacks. Links between security agencies, military facilities and alleged attackers with a criminal history should arouse suspicion if they become connected to any future crimes.In January of 2015, a strategic security service think-tank known as The Soufan Group, reported that a larger national security threat resides with those who ve had a lengthy criminal background with known ties to security agencies: The Soufan Group, a New York think tank, said a better term for lone wolves would be known wolves , given how many are already known to Western intelligence agencies before they strike. These individuals, acting alone or in small groups have been on the radar of various agencies and organisations, highlighting the difficulty of effectively monitoring and managing people at the nexus of criminality and terrorism, it said in a report this week Domestically in America, it has been well documented that the FBI created a counter-intelligence program known as COINTELPRO (similar in scope to the CIA s Operation CHAOS), not only as a way to influence, but also a way to disrupt and coerce both left and right-wing political factions from the inside out. The FBI program infiltrated countless groups and movements across the political spectrum.Over the past several years, the FBI has been routinely caught foiling their very own terror plots. Following one of America s most deadly mass shootings at the Orlando Pulse nightclub, reports revealed that the FBI had a close relationship with the suspected attacker through the use of a well-known confidential informant. Similarly, recent reports state that FBI, court filings have revealed how the agency allowed an alleged home grown ISIS attack to take place in Garland, Texas. 21WIRE had previously uncovered the suspicious nature of the cartoon/shooting event in Garland when it occurred.In 2015, another strange informant case/FBI sting attempted to persuade a group into attacking the Humphrey Scottish Rite Masonic Center in Milwaukee.QUESTION: Is it possible the FBI or any or intelligence agency played some part in the Sutherland Springs church shooting whether inadvertently or otherwise?FBI informants have reportedly played a central role in over 50% of all domestic terror cases in the United States since 2009. According to reports, informants might earn up to $100,000 per case, as they are meant to build relationships with persons of interest. While the Sutherland Springs shooting is not considered a terror case, it does fit the profile of possible soft target scenarios outlined by the FBI.Here at 21WIRE, we ve kept a running report on many known wolf actors and other suspicious intelligence informant cases:Tamerlan Tsarnaev (see his story here) Buford Rogers (see his story here) Jerad Miller (see his story here) Naji Mansour (see his story here) Quazi Mohammad Nafis (see his story here) Mohamed Osman Mohamud (see his story here) Timothy McVeigh (see his story here) Salim Benghalem (see his story here) Michael Adebolajo (see his story here) Daba Deng (see his story here) Elton Simpson (see his story here) Man Haron Monis (see his story here) Abu Hamza (see his story here) Haroon Rashid Aswat (see his story here) Mark Vicars (see his story here) Glen Rodgers (see his story here) Omar Mateen (see his story here) Samy Mohamed Hamzeh (see his story here) Tashfeen Malik (see her story here) Djamel Beghal (see his story here) Anjem Choudary (see his story here) Cherif Kouachi (see his story here) Said Kouachi (see his story here) Amedy Coulibaly (see his story here) Hayat Boumeddiene (see her story here) Salah Abdeslam (see his story here) Michael Zehaf-Bibeau (see his story here) Nidal Malik Hassan (see his story here) Abdelhakim Dekhar (see his story here) Abdelhamid Abaaoud (see his story here) Samy Amimour (see his story here) Isma l Omar Mostefa (see his story here) Mohamed Lahouij Bouhlel (see his story here) Anis Amri (see his story here) Esteban Santiago-Ruiz (see his story here) Abdulkadir Masharipov (see his story here) Khalid Masood (see his story here) Khuram Butt (see his story here) Youssef Zaghba (see his story here) Sayfullo Saipov (see his story here)According to pastor Frank Pomeroy, who was out-of-town at the time of the shooting with his wife Sherri, the hundred member First Baptist Church, is slated to be demolished sometime soon. However, prior to the demolition, the site will become a temporary memorial and the building will be scrubbed down and whitewashed, as white chairs will be placed inside to remember those who died.There are still a number of questions following the Sutherland Springs mass shooting tragedy *** 21WIRE associate editor Shawn Helton is a researcher and writer, specializing in forensic analysis of high-profile crime scene and counter terrorism investigations, and the deconstruction and analysis of the mass-media coverage surrounding those cases. He has compiled an extensive body of work covering a number of high-profile events since 2012.READ MORE DAILY SHOOTER NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire Daily Shooter FilesSupport our work by Subscribing and become a Member @21WIRE.TV | 1real |
Trump Congratulates Himself For His Own Press Conference And Twitter SHATTERS His Fragile Ego | Donald Trump blew his own horn after his first press conference in six months on Wednesday, and Americans swiftly told him to shut the hell up.During the conference, Trump attacked the media over a leaked dossier of unverified information that included a claim that he was videotaped at the Ritz Carlton hotel in Moscow paying prostitutes to pee on the bed in the presidential suite that President Obama once stayed in. The scandal has gone viral and is being dubbed Golden Showers. The dossier also alleges that Trump colluded with the Russians to attack Hillary Clinton among many other claims.Trump lost his shit during the conference when CNN reporter Jim Acosta asked him some questions, and at one point, threatened Buzzfeed with consequences for publishing the unflattering material.Soon after the press conference, Trump praised himself on Twitter and referred to CNN and Buzzfeed as fake news while declaring that people believe him instead of the press.We had a great News Conference at Trump Tower today. A couple of FAKE NEWS organizations were there but the people truly get what s going on Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 12, 2017Yeah, that did not go over very well at all and Twitter users threw the book at him.@realDonaldTrump You re a f*cking joke. Ben Berkon (@BenBerkon) January 12, 2017@realDonaldTrump Your news conference was a disgrace. Fake folder props. Cheering section. Bullying the media. Using the word crap. Mike Elgan (@MikeElgan) January 12, 2017@realDonaldTrump We get it! You love hooker piss but don t want Melanie to find out. Totally understandable! Say hi to Vlad! Jon Bershad (@JonBershad) January 12, 2017@realDonaldTrump The fact you call CNN fake shows superior ignorance. Well done! Tony Posnanski (@tonyposnanski) January 12, 2017.@realDonaldTrump Oh honey, I m sorry you ve gone over it in your head all day. But the more you cry FAKE NEWS the less people believe you Bess Kalb (@bessbell) January 12, 2017.@realDonaldTrump We know you don t like how CNN treats you, and it hurts, but it s silly to dismiss the whole nationally-renowned network. Bess Kalb (@bessbell) January 12, 2017.@realDonaldTrump Remember, Donald: When critical coverage gives you stress, don t undermine the freedom of the press! Bess Kalb (@bessbell) January 12, 2017@realDonaldTrump Amazing, after the amount of fake news you put out during the election. Scott Monty (@ScottMonty) January 12, 2017@realDonaldTrump oh sweetie your delusions about the fake news is becoming obsessive. i have bad NEWS for u you re the one thats fake hunny Diva (@sammypolsen12) January 12, 2017.@realDonaldTrump You are a national disgrace, #Trump. You are so not worthy of the office. An embarrassment. Ignorant, inarticulate, fraud Andy Ostroy (@AndyOstroy) January 12, 2017@realDonaldTrump 37% approval rating, sad! Jonathan Boucher (@jonbouch) January 12, 2017@realDonaldTrump Clapper just confirmed you were briefed about the dossier, which supports CNN s reporting. You should apologize to @Acosta. Scott Tobias (@scott_tobias) January 12, 2017@realDonaldTrump I m a person and I despise you with every ounce of my soul billy eichner (@billyeichner) January 12, 2017@realDonaldTrump James Clapper just confirmed that NONE of it is fake, still being investigated. He just told you this on the phone, liar. Stefanie Iris Weiss (@EcoSexuality) January 12, 2017@realDonaldTrump You know what s not gonna be FAKE? Your impeachment hearings. david nuzzy nussbaum (@theNuzzy) January 12, 2017@realDonaldTrump pic.twitter.com/p6FiNSi01W Krister Johnson (@KristerJohnson) January 12, 2017@GOP_Left_Me @KristerJohnson @realDonaldTrump pic.twitter.com/1WOkkXBNbv Dena Stowe (@kaystowe62) January 12, 2017Featured image via Joe Raedle/Getty Images | 1real |
Trump Royally F*cks Veterans By Considering Sarah Palin For Secretary Of Veterans Affairs | America s village idiot could soon be in charge of taking care of America s veterans.Donald Trump has been stocking his administration with racists and extremist government insiders but their collective IQ is not low enough apparently, so he is considering picking Sarah Palin as the next Secretary of Veterans Affairs despite the fact that she has zero experience running a department, has never been in the military, and quit her last government job halfway through her term.ABC News reports that Trump is seriously considering Palin for the post.NEW: Sarah Palin under consideration for Secretary of Veterans Affairs, sources tell @ABC News. @shushwalshe ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) November 30, 2016And yes, the Internet was horrified by this news..@ABCPolitics Like a bad dream. Ben Simpson (@bensmp) November 30, 2016@ABCPolitics @ABC @shushwalshe as a veteran I find this insulting Samuel Collie (@Dogboy48) November 30, 2016@ABCPolitics @ABC @shushwalshe How about an actual Veteran in charge of the Department of Veterans Affairs ConservativeCO (@DENVERSMKC) November 30, 2016@ABCPolitics @ABC @shushwalshe Someone please tell her it s Veterans not Veterinarians. Truth Hertz (@umussbekidding) November 30, 2016@ABCPolitics @ABC @shushwalshe @realDonaldTrump if this is true, don t do it. Veterans will revolt. Keep Palin away from the VA! Sarge (Retired) (@devildogplt2006) November 30, 2016@ABCPolitics @ABC @shushwalshe Veterans will suffer even more PTSD under batshit crazy. Barbara Cooper (@socal_paralegal) November 30, 2016@ABCPolitics @ABC @shushwalshe Sarah Palin can t even run her own house! #notmypresident @ K e v i a 0 4 (@NastyResister) November 30, 2016Our veterans deserve someone who can actually do the job, not a quitter who has no idea what she is talking about most of the time.Sarah Palin is totally unqualified to have any job in our federal government and Donald Trump is irresponsible for considering her for the post. This woman couldn t even handle being the Governor of Alaska, so appointing her to head one of the biggest departments in our government is absolutely crazy.By considering Palin, Trump isn t proving that cares about veterans, he is demonstrating how much he doesn t give a shit about them.Featured Image: Screenshot | 1real |
Advocates for Americans held in Iran worried by Trump's hard line | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Advocates for Americans imprisoned by Iranian authorities said on Friday they were concerned the Trump administration’s hard line on Iran would close off the chance for talks to secure the prisoners’ release. In a major shift in U.S. policy, President Donald Trump announced he would not certify that Iran is complying with a 2015 nuclear deal and warned that he might ultimately terminate the agreement. The administration also designated Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the dominant player in the country’s security, economy and politics, as a terrorist group, a move one expert said would make the group less willing to negotiate over the prisoners. Jason Rezaian, a Washington Post reporter who was detained by Iran for 18 months, said on Twitter that Trump’s Iran strategy “will only hurt American hostages being held in Iran.” “I hope I’m wrong, but it looks to me as though Americans being held hostage in #Iran were just abandoned by @realDonaldTrump,” Rezaian wrote, using Trump’s Twitter handle. The White House did not respond to a request for comment. A State Department official said the United States calls for the “immediate release” of U.S. citizens held “unjustly” in Iran. The seven known American citizens and permanent residents who have been detained in the last two years in Iran are businessman Siamak Namazi and his 81-year-old father Baquer Namazi; Princeton doctoral student Xiyue Wang; art gallery owner Karan Vafadari and his wife Afarin Niasari; Robin Reza Shahini, an Iranian-American from California; and Nizar Zakka, a Lebanese national with U.S. permanent residency. “My biggest frustration is still the U.S. government has no plan for how to resolve this, and my husband has been in prison for 15 months,” Wang’s wife, Hua Qu, told Reuters. She said the new U.S. sanctions made her “afraid” for her husband’s fate, because they show “that the relationship is deteriorating.” Wang was arrested in August 2016 while doing dissertation research and has been sentenced to 10 years in prison on espionage charges, allegations his family and university deny. “I don’t know when the U.S. government is going to engage Iran,” Qu said. “He is living in this terror everyday. He is in despair.” Karim Sadjadpour, an Iran expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, said on a conference call with reporters that designating the IRGC as a terrorist group would “make it far more difficult to have a direct line of communication with them.” “The IRGC is going to be in much less of a mood to engage in a serious negotiation with the United States after this,” said Sadjadpour, a friend of Namazi. In January 2016, the Obama administration secured the release of five Americans imprisoned in Iran by agreeing to a much-criticized prisoner swap after protracted direct talks with Iran. In the months following the swap, the Iranian government arrested several more Americans. The IRGC is typically the entity that has detained and interrogated the Americans, according to their family members and human rights groups. Jason Poblete, a U.S.-based attorney for Zakka, said the sanctions could be helpful “if it gets these parties talking to each other.” He criticized the Obama administration’s approach to Iran as not being focused enough on “the unconditional release of hostages.” “Anything that moves us to speaking clearly with one another, which is what the president’s doing, is much better than all this flimsy talk that had been taking place until now,” Poblete said. | 0fake |
Young patient | Anatomy lesson Published: 12 mins ago
Editor’s note: Do you need something to smile about? Every day, WND selects the best joke offered up by readers and contributors to its Laughlines forum and brings it to you as the WND Joke of the Day. Here is today’s offering:
A pediatrician in town always plays a game with some of his young patients to put them at ease and test their knowledge of body parts.
One day, while pointing to a little boy’s ear, the doctor asked him, “Is this your nose?”
The little boy turned to his mother and said, “Mom, I think we’d better find a new doctor!” | 1real |
Here's What I'll Do the Day After Election Day | License DMCA
I am currently working as hard as I can to see that Donald Trump is defeated, that Hillary Clinton is elected president, and that Democrats gain control of the US House and Senate. The day after the election, working with millions of grass-roots activists, I intend to do everything possible to make certain that the new president and Congress implement the Democratic platform, the most progressive agenda of any major political party in the history of the United States.
That agenda includes overturning the disastrous Supreme Court decision on Citizens United, raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour, expanding Social Security, breaking up "too-big-to-fail banks," making public colleges and universities tuition-free for the middle class, and rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure. It also includes pay equity for women, a new approach toward trade, aggressive action to combat climate change, raising taxes on the wealthy and large corporations, lowering prescription drug prices, a significant movement toward universal health care, and major reforms in our criminal justice and immigration systems.
If this election has taught us anything, it is that the American people are sick and tired of the economic, political, and media status quo. They are tired of a rigged economy in which millions work longer hours for lower wages while 52 percent of all new income goes to the top 1 percent. They are tired of billionaires like Trump and large profitable corporations not paying a nickel in federal income taxes while the middle class pays their fair share to support governmental services. They are tired of a corrupt campaign finance system that allows billionaires like the Koch brothers, Sheldon Adelson, and others to spend hundreds of millions to elect candidates who will represent the wealthy and the powerful. They are tired of corporate media that focus on political gossip and look at elections as personality contests, rather than provide for a serious discussion of the major crises facing our country.
The anger and frustration of the American people, all across the political spectrum, is palpable. They want a government that represents the needs of working families and not just billionaires. They want bold action to rebuild the shrinking middle class, not inside-the-beltway palliatives written by corporate lobbyists.
At a time of massive political discontent, when millions not only are contemptuous of the major political parties but are also actually giving up on democracy, we need a new administration that has both vision and courage. We need vision from the top to point the way toward a new America that is more inclusive and egalitarian -- which boldly addresses income and wealth inequality, poverty, and the needs of the uninsured. We need an administration that has the courage to take on the powerful special interests -- corporate America, Wall Street, the insurance and drug companies, the fossil fuel industry -- who stand in the way of real change and whose greed is destroying this country. - Advertisement -
There is no moral excuse for the top one-tenth of 1 percent owning as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent, for one family (the Waltons) having more wealth than the bottom 42 percent of our population, for the number of billionaires increasing by ten-fold since 2000 while we continue to have the highest rate of childhood poverty of almost any industrialized country on earth.
There is no rational reason why we remain the only major country not to guarantee health care to all as a right or provide paid family and medical leave, or why we have more people in jail than any other country on earth at the same time as we have outrageously high levels of youth unemployment in minority communities.
Too many Americans are living in despair and hopelessness. Too many of our brothers and sisters are turning to drugs, alcohol and suicide to avoid the painful economic realities of their lives. Too many others are turning to rage and bigotry as they try to make sense of their declining standard of living.
At a time of hateful political division, a new president can bring our people together by leading and appointing an administration that will fight for working people. We need a secretary of treasury who is prepared to take on the greed and illegal behavior of Wall Street, not someone who comes from Wall Street or will leave office to go to Wall Street. We need a trade representative who understands that our current trade policies have failed, and that we must adopt a trade approach that represents workers and not the CEOs of large corporations. We need an attorney general who is prepared to vigorously enforce antitrust laws and prosecute bankers and corporate leaders who break the law.
This is an historic and pivotal moment in American history. Now is the time for our next president to rally the American people against Wall Street and corporate greed and stand up vigorously for the declining middle class. - Advertisement - | 1real |
Inside Trump Defense Secretary Pick’s Efforts to Halt Torture - The New York Times | The body of the Iraqi prisoner was found naked and badly bruised in 2003, outside a detention center in southern Iraq run by United States Marines. The man had been beaten, deprived of sleep, forced to stand for long periods and interrogated by Marines about his alleged role in a fatal ambush of American forces. James N. Mattis, Donald J. Trump’s nominee for secretary of defense, was then a major general and the commander of the Marine division in Iraq responsible for the center. He quickly convened an inquiry into the death, which led to and banned the harsh techniques used at the prison. “General Mattis was all up in arms over this,” Ralph Dengler, then a lieutenant colonel, testified at a military hearing in January 2004. He added that the commander, who arrived hours after the discovery on a planned visit with his British counterpart, had immediately described the death as “the worst thing that happened” under his watch in the Iraq war. “I was surprised that he would have felt that strongly about it, considering many of the other deaths, including American deaths,” Colonel Dengler said. Colleagues say the general’s handling of the episode reflects his firmly held views against torture and prisoner mistreatment, which are shared by many military leaders and could put them at odds with the new commander in chief. Mr. Trump, in a New York Times interview in late November, said he had been surprised to learn that the man he was considering to lead the country’s 2. 2 million service members did not believe in torture. During the presidential campaign, Mr. Trump advocated bringing back the practice of waterboarding, adding that “only a stupid person would say it doesn’t work. ” General Mattis does not support abusive techniques, let alone waterboarding. “Give me a pack of cigarettes and a couple of beers,” he told Mr. Trump during their meeting in November, according to the “and I do better with that than I do with torture. ” The general’s beliefs were shaped by his military training, but also by his experiences in dealing with issues related to torture or mistreatment, according to an examination of his nearly career and interviews with former colleagues and friends. General Mattis led the United States Central Command from August 2010 to March 2013. Lt. Col. T. G. Taylor, who was General Mattis’s spokesman during much of that time, said in an interview that the commander had spoken of America as needing to hold the moral high ground. Failing to uphold important principles “makes it easier for a soldier or a Marine to ask, ‘What am I fighting for? ’” Colonel Taylor said. “That is something that General Mattis is keenly aware of,” he added. As a young officer, General Mattis would have been instructed in the laws of war, including the Geneva Conventions, which, among other protections, require humane treatment of prisoners of war. A Marine who enlisted in 1969 while attending college — part of an R. O. T. C. program during the height of the Vietnam War — he did not deploy to Vietnam. But, several friends say, he believed that American prisoners of war were more likely to be tortured by the Vietcong if the United States tortured enemy captives. In 2006, General Mattis supported Gen. David H. Petraeus of the Army and other military leaders in the development of a new counterinsurgency field manual that highlighted limits on interrogation tactics. “Torture and cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment is never a morally permissible option, even if lives depend on gaining information,” the manual said. “Lose moral legitimacy, lose the war. ” General Mattis later agreed in a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing that it was inappropriate for the military to support the use of abusive techniques on detainees — including waterboarding, forced nudity and sensory deprivation, tactics inflicted on prisoners during interrogations in secret C. I. A. prisons in the years after the 2001 terrorist attacks. Those techniques had been modeled on a military training program operated by the Joint Personnel Recovery Agency, which later fell under the general’s command. That program, Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape, also known as SERE, exposed United States soldiers and other service members to techniques that an enemy violating the laws of war might use so that Americans could be better prepared to resist them. The experience typically led trainees to conclude that tortured prisoners of war will say whatever they need to in order to stay alive, whether true or not. A recent investigation by The New York Times found that many terrorism suspects subjected to harsh tactics in C. I. A. jails or American military prisons had lasting mental health problems that were similar to those experienced by some American former P. O. W.s who suffered horrific abuses in Vietnam or Korea. As a commander in Afghanistan and later in Iraq, and as an overall leader of the American war effort, General Mattis often grappled with the consequences of the C. I. A. ’s treatment of prisoners and the harsh conditions at the military detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. They became a powerful recruiting tool for jihadis who threatened American forces in the field. Testifying at a Senate hearing in 2015 after his retirement, General Mattis opposed the release, before the end of hostilities, of prisoners who had fought against the United States. However, he added, they should be treated humanely, in accordance with international and domestic law. “I would go by the Geneva Conventions, and maintain them, with Red Cross oversight, until the war is over,” he told lawmakers. Torture is not effective in eliciting intelligence, the general felt. “For his whole career, he’s believed that it just doesn’t pay dividends,” said a retired senior United States military officer who is close to General Mattis but spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of alienating Mr. Trump. The “pack of cigarettes” reference, according to people who served with the general, reflects two tenets that are drummed into future military leaders: that information gleaned from torture is unreliable, and that can go a long way. “I’m not in his head, but what General Mattis was saying is that offering a modicum of friendship and humanity to someone in a desperate situation is more successful than physical torture,” Colonel Taylor said. Hope Hicks, a spokeswoman for Mr. Trump’s transition team, declined requests for more detail on the ’s discussions with General Mattis or on the source of General Mattis’s beliefs and any further thoughts Mr. Trump has had about the use of torture. General Mattis declined to be interviewed. Many American military leaders maintain that the Bush administration’s departure from established practices in allowing harsh coercive techniques — government lawyers had said they did not meet the legal definition of torture, and had declared that detainees were not protected by the Geneva Conventions — tainted the United States’ reputation while not yielding results. “Ineffective, war crime, against our values, moral high ground, et cetera,” Donald J. Guter, a retired rear admiral and the dean of the South Texas College of Law, said in explaining objections to brutal treatment. “A very practical reason is that it opens the door for our own troops to be tortured, and we have no basis to object. If we torture, we’ve lost who we are. ” The Department of Defense has clear policies on the humane treatment of detainees. For example, the Army field manual’s section on intelligence collection states: “Use of torture is not only illegal but also it is a poor technique that yields unreliable results. ” The manual adds, “Cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment is prohibited. ” As a commander in Iraq, General Mattis ordered several investigations into detainee abuse. One of the most significant concerned the 2003 death at a makeshift detention and interrogation center in an abandoned Iraqi Army barracks in southern Iraq, christened Camp Whitehorse. Prisoners were held by United States Marine reservists in extreme heat in a dirty, stone building that had been looted of all amenities by Iraqis during the invasion. The prisoner who died, Nagem Sadoon Hatab, had been arrested days earlier on suspicion of involvement in a deadly ambush of a United States Army convoy that led to the capture of Jessica Lynch, a private who was later rescued. Mr. Hatab was alleged to have killed American service members and sold an rifle taken from one of them. Mr. Hatab failed to stand up while being subjected to treatment — forced standing for 50 minutes of each hour, for up to 10 hours. The objective was to make the detainees tired, stressed and submissive for interrogators, witnesses later said in military court hearings. Like other prisoners at the center, Mr. Hatab was hooded and his hands were restrained behind his back with plastic ties. He was beaten severely by Marine guards after refusing to comply with the forced standing and . He also underwent questioning by a special Marine interrogation squad. A Marine guard later testified that he had often heard yelling, screaming and banging from the interrogation room, a converted bathroom. After midnight on June 6, 2003, Mr. Hatab was found dead in a courtyard where he had been left lying for hours, his body covered in his own feces. An armed forces medical examiner categorized the death as a homicide. Mr. Hatab had six broken ribs and had suffocated from a broken bone in his throat after being dragged outside by his neck, the examiner concluded. Eight Camp Whitehorse personnel were charged with crimes, including negligent homicide. But the investigator appointed by General Mattis, Col. William B. Gallo, later cited problems with the autopsy and could not determine which of the attacks on Mr. Hatab, if any, might have been lethal. In Colonel Gallo’s opinion, the treatment did not amount to torture, but the command had failed to provide adequate predeployment training in handling prisoners and in the law of war. Evidence, including certain photographs of the prisoner and a summary of an interrogation he underwent, had been lost or destroyed, complicating the investigation and prosecution. Two Marines, a major and a sergeant, were eventually convicted of lesser charges. Mr. Hatab’s death clearly had an effect on General Mattis. According to reports at the time, he ordered a review of the procedures for handling prisoners, which resulted in a ban of tactics, including the forced standing. Marine Corps personnel running detention camps were given more training, and a manual was compiled to explain each step of the process. Still, there were several other instances of prisoner abuse involving the division. Later, aiming to earn the trust of the Iraqi people after the first phase of combat had ended, General Mattis added an addendum to the motto of his Marines: “No better friend, no worse enemy. ” The addition was, “First, do no harm. ” | 0fake |
Turkey could break off ties with Israel over Jerusalem: Erdogan | ANKARA (Reuters) - President Tayyip Erdogan said on Tuesday Turkey could go as far as breaking off diplomatic ties with Israel if the United States formally recognizes Jerusalem as the Israeli capital, a move he said would be a red line for Muslims. U.S. officials have said Trump is likely to give a speech on Wednesday unilaterally recognizing Jerusalem as Israel s capital, a step that would break with decades of U.S. policy and could fuel violence in the Middle East. Israel captured Arab East Jerusalem in the 1967 Middle East war. It later annexed it, declaring the whole of the city as its capital, a move not recognized internationally. Palestinians want Jerusalem as the capital of their future state. I am saddened by the reports that the U.S. is getting ready to recognize Jerusalem as Israel s capital, Erdogan said. Mr. Trump, Jerusalem is the red line of Muslims. It is a violation of international law to take a decision supporting Israel while Palestinian society s wounds are still bleeding, he told a parliamentary meeting of his ruling AK Party. ...this can go as far as severing Turkey s ties with Israel. I am warning the United States not to take such a step which will deepen the problems in the region. Israeli government spokesmen had no immediate reaction, but Education Minister Naftali Bennett, a senior partner in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu s coalition government, brushed off Erdogan s comments. There will always be those who criticize, but at the end of the day it is better to have a united Jerusalem than Erdogan s sympathy, he said. | 0fake |
Tony Blair suggests a second referendum to reverse Brexit | Politics Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair says UK voters ‘have to build the capability to mobilize and to organize’ against Brexit.
Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair says Britain should keep its “options open” on whether or not to leave the European Union until after Brexit talks with the bloc are completed.
During an interview on Friday with BBC Radio 4's “Today” program, Blair described the EU referendum as “a catastrophe” and said UK voters should be given the option of a second EU referendum.
Britain should not withdraw from the EU until it becomes clearer how Brexit would impact UK’s economic, social and cultural future, Blair said.
"The bizarre thing about this referendum is that we took a decision but we still don't know the precise terms,” he said. “There’s got to be some way, either through parliament, or through an election, possibly through another referendum, that people express their view.”
The former premier, who was in office from 1997 until 2007, said it should be possible for the public to switch their verdict if it becomes clear the alternative negotiated by Prime Minister Theresa May is going to be worse.
Blair’s argument contrasts sharply with that of May, who has repeatedly said that “Brexit means Brexit” and that she’ll respect the referendum result. Blair had argued that Britain should stay in the EU before the referendum.
Economic growth in the UK is expected to slow significantly next year, due to uncertainty over of the Brexit vote.
Experts have warned that leaving the EU will severely hurt London’s position as a financial hub, unless the UK decides to keep its access to the single EU market by loosening its stance on immigration.
If the UK loses its access to the EU’s single market, the resulting increase in the costs of doing business and exporting to the EU would hurt Britain’s competitive position in Europe. Loading ... | 1real |
Trump says he’d be ‘neutral’ with Israelis and Palestinians | Email
Leading Republican presidential hopeful suggests Israeli-Palestinian peace accord may be impossible: ‘Sometimes agreements can’t be made’After being asked by a voter at a Charleston, South Carolina, town hall event hosted by MSNBC about what steps he would take to broker an accommodation between the sides in the conflict, the GOP contender vowed to give it “one hell of a shot” and called it “probably the toughest agreement of any kind to make.”But when pressed by host Joe Scarborough over whether he ascribed fault to either Israelis or Palestinians over the failure to reach a lasting accord, Trump declined to take sides.
“You know, I don’t want to get into it, because … If I win, I don’t want to be in a position where I’m saying to you and the other side now says, ‘We don’t want Trump involved,'” Trump said.
“Let me be sort of a neutral guy,” he continued. “A lot of people have gone down in flames trying to make that deal. So I don’t want to say whose fault is it. I don’t think it helps.”Trump also expressed skepticism over the possibility of achieving a two-state solution, given the conditions of the conflict and the need for any agreement to be sustainable over time.
“It’s possible it’s not makeable, because don’t forget it has to last — it’s wonderful to make it and it doesn’t work, but it has to last,” he said. “To make lasting peace there? Probably the toughest deal of all, but I’m going to give it a shot.”
Though he was not asked directly what he considers the most substantial obstacles standing in the way of a peace agreement, he suggested that growing hostility between the two peoples was contributing to the current stalemate, and what he considers the root of the conflict.
“A lot of people say an agreement can’t be made, which is okay. I mean, sometimes agreements can’t be made. Not good, but, you know, you have both sides really, but one side in particular, growing up and learning that these are the worst people,” he said. “I was with a very prominent Israeli the other day. He says it’s impossible, because the other side has been trained from the time they’re children to hate Jewish people.”In the past, Trump has questioned Israel’s commitment to peace, while at the same time suggesting the Jewish state does not have a negotiating partner in the Palestinians. He has also called Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “a good friend.”
At a presidential candidates forum hosted by the Republican Jewish Coalition in December 2015, the real estate magnate said, “I don’t know that Israel has the commitment to make it, and I don’t know that the other side has the commitment to make it.”
He made the same point in an interview with AP earlier that day: “A lot will have to do with Israel and whether or not Israel wants to make the deal — whether or not Israel’s willing to sacrifice certain things,” he said. “They may not be, and I understand that, and I’m okay with that. But then you’re just not going to have a deal.”
Trump’s comments Wednesday came hours after a dramatic upset in polls saw Trump fall behind Texas Sen. Ted Cruz for the first time in 31 consecutive polls, coming in at 26% of registered Republican voters nationally, two points behind Cruz at 28%. | 1real |
AMBASSADOR CHRIS STEVENS’ Fiancé Speaks Out About Hillary Leaving Him To Die: “If he was a friend, you don’t let a friend down” [VIDEO] | It s amazing that Hillary will likely never be held accountable for the deaths of four brave Americans in Benghazi. So many family members and loved ones will have to live the rest of their lives knowing they will never see these men again, while the person responsible is the front-runner in the Democrat party for President of the United States. You just can t make this stuff up Former Fianc of Ambassador Chris Stevens and actress and model Lydie Denier joined Steve Malzberg on Newsmax TV to discuss her memory of the late Libyan Ambassador.Ambassador Chris Stevens was murdered on September 11, 2012 in an Islamist terrorist attack.Lydie weigh in on Benghazi, and her piece: A Voice for Ambassador Chris Stevens. She told Steve Hillary should have done a better job.Lydie Denier: As far as Hillary Clinton, it would take more than six minutes to say how I feel. But, obviously you know how I feel. I think she should have done a better job for security. And, not ignoring his requests for security. If he was a friend, as she said, then you don t let a friend down. NewsMaxVia: Gateway Pundit | 1real |
'Study, pray, vote,' Pope tells Americans ahead of elections | ABOARD THE PAPAL PLANE (Reuters) - Pope Francis on Sunday advised U.S. Catholics who feel they are torn between two imperfect candidates for president to study and pray before they vote and to make sure to follow their conscience. During his traditional, freewheeling in-flight news conference with reporters on the plane returning from Azerbaijan, Francis was asked how he would counsel American faithful and what wisdom they should keep in mind. “You have asked me a question that describes a difficult choice because, according to you, there are difficulties with one and difficulties with the other,” the pope said, without naming Democrat Hillary Clinton or Republican Donald Trump. In posing the question, the reporter made allusions to Clinton’s support of abortion and Trump’s statements vilifying migrants and religious minorities. “During political campaigns, I never say a word,” the pope said. “The people are sovereign. I would only say, study the proposals well, pray and choose with your conscience.” But in the rest of his response, while stressing that he wanted to talk about a “fictional situation,” Francis appeared to be saying that the United States was among the countries that had become so politicized that it had effectively lost what he called a culture of politics. “When in any country there are two, three or four candidates who don’t satisfy everyone, it means that perhaps the political life of that country has become too politicized and that it does not have much political culture,” he said. “People say ‘I’m from this party’ or ‘I’m from that party,’ but effectively, they don’t have clear thoughts about the basics, about proposals,” he said. Last February, while returning from Mexico, the pope was asked if U.S. Catholics could vote for someone with Trump’s views on immigration, particularly on the candidate’s promise to build a wall at the border with Mexico. He said a person with such views was “not Christian.” Trump struck back, calling the pope’s comments “disgraceful.” | 0fake |
Trump Gets HILARIOUSLY Mocked For Looking Over His Wife’s Shoulder While She Voted | Donald Trump showed up to vote in New York City with his wife Melania and hilarity ensued.When the Trump s walked through the doors they were greeted by a round of boos and jeers. Clearly, New York voters are not Trump fans.But Trump s day got even worse when he tried to sneak a peek at Melania s ballot, apparently just making sure she votes for him.Well, a photo of the moment was captured and now the Internet is having a field day mocking the Republican nominee.This picture is everything. pic.twitter.com/m9Blodj90f Amanda Marcotte (@AmandaMarcotte) November 8, 2016 Donald Trump leads by example, closely poll watching as a suspected illegal immigrant attempts to vote. pic.twitter.com/dykNWdsUXx Dan Baulch (@DaRealDanBaulch) November 8, 2016trump panicked and had to copy melania s ballot. now both are voting for hillary pic.twitter.com/fiFO5tSrMh daddy s lil psycho (@tannermuro) November 8, 2016Melania, it s Trump .. no, Trump .. what re you .you re marking the wrong box. Melania. MELANIA pic.twitter.com/GD99GYRYNQ Andrew Lawrence (@ndrew_lawrence) November 8, 2016Trump wondering who Melania is voting for: https://t.co/O5hh8yqHl5 Michael Moore (@MMFlint) November 8, 2016s/o to this golden moment where Trump let us all know that he doubted his own wife would vote for him. pic.twitter.com/rDdUtlxvsu JamesMichael Nichols (@jamesmichael) November 8, 2016Trump reusing the strategy that got him through an Ivy League school. pic.twitter.com/0Gf8of9PFy cam (@goethelife) November 8, 2016Holy Shit! Is there nothing Trump won t allow a woman to do on her own? #ControlFreak @realDonaldTrump @HillaryClinton #usa #nyc #shame #yyc pic.twitter.com/W7kpWfKOzF Unite Alberta (@UniteAlbertans) November 8, 2016Either Trump doesn t trust her, or he s trying to work out how to vote pic.twitter.com/CimZAQl82a Rupert Myers (@RupertMyers) November 8, 2016Trust, but verify (via @AmandaMarcotte) pic.twitter.com/pzTvipeW1p Judd Legum (@JuddLegum) November 8, 2016In fact, Donald isn t the only male Trump who watched their spouse vote.Like father, like son pic.twitter.com/dqnoEZF4xf Nathan McDermott (@natemcdermott) November 8, 2016So not only did Trump get booed at his polling location, he feared that his own wife would vote against him. Talk about being a paranoid control freak. And it would be completely understandable if she didn t vote for her husband, especially considering he has treated women like shit his whole life.Featured image via screenshot | 1real |
Electromagnetic Control Grids, Division Mindsets, Healing Timeline | . Electromagnetic Control Grids, Division Mindsets, Healing Timeline I said it before, the way people are controlled is through setting them in opposition with each othe... Print Email http://humansarefree.com/2016/11/electromagnetic-control-grids-division.html I said it before, the way people are controlled is through setting them in opposition with each other. The only way people regain control is if they work with each other for a beneficial future. The only way this falls apart is if people are fighting each other over petty things.It’s all so much deeper than we are told. They didn’t just invent petty products’ for this “world” this “universe,” they introduced a whole spiritual soul-trading system by the use of electromagnetic frequency nets. The state of the original human is eternal, but with this system the population is recycled over and over in time.Active DNA is a physical thing that pulls information from what is called the “aether” (other realities) and manifests it physically in this reality. If DNA is targeted , i.e. by the system just mentioned, then other realities can also be manipulated in instances where the DNA is active. That is what this is all about: The Universe, time, and the Earth are naturally a multi-dimensional existence of which those other realities, times and planes were influenced because of the manipulation that took place here.To say it another way, the divisive control grid has had access to higher dimensions and therefore the soul-energy of Humanity, and the non-physical realms we are connected with.This is out of balance and cannot remain this way forever. It is leading up to a fulcrum of experience in which the forces at play must reach a completion of cycles.The way we can fix this is by becoming aware of the hidden knowledge which is literally the invisible energy of the mental and emotional bodies. We must see how Humanity is being manipulated, or blocked from our higher awareness.The off-the-wall explanation is that physical reality manifests out of the collective unconscious.Which also means that when each person on Earth clears their unconscious of all the debris and toxins stuck in their ‘fields’ then we all will experience life on Earth at a frequency which reflects that healing.To get to this healed “timeline” we have to go through a healing process. This process is cathartic and involves expelling the toxins of mind and body and is painful in and of itself.In previous times this has been a “washing machine” cycle where people get tossed in and every so many thousand years some people get out while the rest are recycled.This time may be the fulfillment of those cycles where the entire bunch gets released at once.The idea is that if people are not prepared for this they will experience the chaos of a simultaneous clearing and healing.Instead of painful healing spread out over months or years, it would all occur in a matter of days or weeks.This is the time to take steps to represent ourselves. The follow the herd mindset is how people are manipulated and controlled mentally and physically.We have to connect and work together, really work together, not just messaging and posting meme pictures which is just another way of control.To the credit of this process it can be said that truth is spreading so fast because of that ability to convert the topics and knowledge into meme images and other quick bits of information that can be shared and understood within seconds. Instead of minutes to hours of discussion or documentary, condensed images with captions can describe a complex situation to the fullest of its true exaggeration without having to explain hours of backstory and research.However, few people own it all. Fewer people still have advanced technology that allows for a “futuristic” existence without the problems people are challenged by today. And even fewer people than that have the knowledge of the true human history.What is not realized is that the shock of Humanity finding out about the origins of time and space is going to be far greater than figuring out that they were manipulated this entire time by people with greater knowledge.The real truth under all the supposition is a complete disconnection from every school of thought which is currently accepted. It’s completely beyond normal into the realm of paranormal, time loops, altered consciousness and DNA, soul-knowledge, eternity, quantum superimposition guided by imagination and attitude, and that it all happens right here… but is invisible to the 5-senses .Currently the development of that which interprets energy from beyond the 5-senses has been purposely ridiculed and categorized to push people away from finding the truth so easily. One could say this is for control as much as it is protection of the current system as much as it is for a challenge of their own spiritual values.To take this a step further, imagine we are in a simulator of sorts, designed by the intelligence behind the “Multiverse” (or even something more personal).If so, then what does it mean when people fight and hurt each other for material things? Do we say, they were just doing what they needed to or they are just in a simulator?Or is this is a way of seeing who would do what, in what kind of situations, in a way that cannot be repeated, or in a way that cannot be falsified without dumping self-responsibility?Or it may be a test, a manipulation, a challenge or a learning process all at once using confusion and fear to control Humanity.In truth we have the capabilities and tools to remove this mental confusion and fear. In reality the mind is naturally beyond polarity as it is capable of abstracting from eternity.Right now or minds are polarity based and this is the source of disturbance in our world. By doing so we are trading that transcendence, our true heritage, for a polarized world by being disconnected from that eternal source which is the emanation of the soul and spirit through our body.That is also why people say there are souled beings and non souled here because the other beings came from a Universe that is not connected with the source of this Universe. It is as if they cut across timelines to get to us.Our completion out of polarity, our expansion out of paradox and into eternal meaning, would not be the same as the non-souled. Actually one would cancel out the other, for if we reached completion and they did not then their occurrence of interjection would be experienced as a time loop which does not complete.If they reached completion and ours did not, we would experience the completion cycle of another Universe’s being which would not resonate or return “soul-knowledge” to the source people are connected with.This is in part why people are saying “ascension” is the way out. Because if the time loops are severed then it would be a planck time fractal repetition into infinite and those without the ability to navigate “hyperspace” would become one of with the void. If this is to happen or either way, one must learn to navigate the spiritual world because that is the real playing field.The big issue is not that we have stuff happening on Earth.The issue is that the real playing field, the spiritual planes, have been targeted and infiltrated as far as this imbalance goes. When we become aware of the knowledge of experience on the soul level we can bring harmony back to the overall system and when enough people do this “the grid” (or spiritual soul-trading system) cannot work with the harmonious energy.There is no way to use harmonious energy and manipulate it to serve a personal need, it always serves the whole. By Augtellez | 1real |
Angry Constituents HILARIOUSLY Shame Their GOP Reps For Being Too Cowardly To Face Them (IMAGES) | There are a lot of Republican members of Congress who can t stand even the prospect of having their town halls disrupted by protesters, even if those protesters are their own constituents. Some think that the disruption prevents meaningful dialogue with their real constituents, while others probably buy into Trump s narrative that the protesters are paid liberal activists.And some are just avoiding their constituents entirely, fearfully hiding behind telephones or just refusing to meet with them at all. And constituents have begun fighting back.In Pennsylvania, where Sen. Pat Toomey refused to meet with people opposed to repealing the Affordable Care Act. They had a meeting anyway and had an empty suit up on stage representing Toomey:No Toomey, no problem for Obamacare rally in Allentown, report says https://t.co/S7h2i6nVFo pic.twitter.com/zvTr2w86P1 lehighvalleylive.com (@lehighvalley) February 22, 2017Some have begun putting their senators and representatives faces on milk cartons, a la missing persons notices. These are framed like missing persons notices, too. One was posted to Twitter by an account calling itself Where Is Paul Cook, and their tweet has pictures of half-gallon milk jugs with Cook s photo on it and a big MISSING label across the top.Reports of these milk jugs spotted in local stores all over the 8th district #WhereIsPaulCook @RepPaulCook @VVDailyPress pic.twitter.com/RsVLAgCw9n Where Is Paul Cook (@WhereIsPaulCook) February 20, 2017Two others are missing persons ads in local papers, one for Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, and another for Sen. Richard Burr of North Carolina. Both start with LOST United States Senator. Both have nearly identical wording despite being in two completely different papers. The ad for Rubio is below:@IndivisibleTeam look at what appeared in the Palm Beach Post today. pic.twitter.com/r8VPpNzmnV Kira (@KiraCA76) February 22, 2017Then there s a group in New York State that s been taking out ads on billboards asking where Rep. Chris Collins is. He was the first member of Congress to endorse Donald Trump for President, and so of course Trump has been trying to butter him up since then. But Collins, like all the others, has been missing from town halls.This billboard just went up in Rep Chris Collins home district in Western New York. #NY27 pic.twitter.com/8OInIEVJan Jill a-go-go (@jillagogo) February 14, 2017In some places, where people want to prove that they re not part of these alleged paid liberal activist groups trying to stop meaningful dialogue, they ve resorted to things like holding up their drivers licenses at meetings to show that they really are upset constituents:Everyone holding up their CO driver s license to prove that it s all Coloradans wanting to talk with @SenCoryGardner ? pic.twitter.com/hIySskpeZA IndivisibleNOCO (@IndivisibleNOCO) February 22, 2017It s sad when constituents are reduced to things like this simply because their reps don t want to hear what they have to say, or know and understand that they re angry. Our Senators and Representatives in Congress are supposed to represent us, not the rich, not the corporations, us. It seems there are an awful lot of people who are legitimately trying to wrest that power back.Featured image via screen capture from embedded tweet | 1real |
Tillerson urges return to civilian rule in Zimbabwe | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on Friday urged a quick return to civilian rule in Zimbabwe after its army took charge earlier this week, and called events there a concern. Zimbabwe has an opportunity to set itself on a new path, one that must include democratic elections and respect for human rights, Tillerson told the foreign ministers from the African continent ahead of a meeting in Washington. | 0fake |
Tom Cotton Steps Up to Defend Populist Sen. Jeff Sessions | Sen. Cory Booker’s attack against Sen. Jeff Sessions was “disgraceful,” “” and motivated by political ambition, says Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton. [.@CoryBooker attacks on Jeff Sessions are so I his friend to be next witness. — Tom Cotton (@SenTomCotton) January 11, 2017, Cotton’s tweet refers to what has been described as Booker’s “imaginary friend. ” As National Review reported in 2013, Booker “invented a street character” named whom he frequently mentioned in his campaign stump speeches “for dramatic effect. ” “The central character in one of Booker’s stories — the drug pusher who the mayor has said threatened his life at one turn and sobbed on his shoulder the next — is a figment of his imagination,” National Review wrote. In a separate social media post, Cotton characterized Booker’s transparent political opportunism, testifying against his colleague to further his own “presidential aspirations,” as “disgraceful. ” “I’m very disappointed that Senator Booker has chosen to start his 2020 presidential campaign by testifying against Senator Sessions,” Cotton wrote on Facebook. “This disgraceful breach of custom is especially surprising since Senator Booker just last year said he was ‘honored to have partnered with Senator Sessions’ on a resolution honoring marchers. ” Cotton continued: Senator Booker says he feels compelled to speak out because Senator Session wants to keep criminals behind bars, drugs off our streets, and amnesty from becoming law. He’s welcome to oppose these policies and vote against Senator Sessions’s nomination, but what is so unique about those views to require his extraordinary testimony? Nothing. This hearing simply offers a platform for his presidential aspirations. Senator Booker is better than that, and he knows better. Cotton’s claim that Booker’s decision was motivated by his own political aspirations was echoed throughout the beltway. NBC’s Joe Scarborough noted that there was “a collective groan” — and Democratic lawmakers, in particular, were “irked” — as they watched Booker’s “obviously calculated” decision to “launc[h] his bid for the 2020 campaign” before the Senate Judiciary Committee. NPR’s Cokie Roberts described the maneuver as “ ”. Here’s how you know Cory Booker wants to run for president in 2020 https: . — Washington Post (@washingtonpost) January 11, 2017, The first press conference of the 2020 Iowa caucuses pic. twitter. — Dave Weigel (@daveweigel) January 11, 2017, Sen. Booker just declared he’s running in 2020 by smearing Sen. Sessions. Stay classy, liberals. — Brent Bozell (@BrentBozell) January 11, 2017, Ever shorter Cory Booker: #Booker2020. https: . — David French (@DavidAFrench) January 11, 2017, Booker’s opposition to Sessions is a fight that pits an established corporatist against a committed populist — in that “one of Wall Street’s favorite senators [Booker] [is] attacking one of Wall Street’s least favorite [Sessions],” notes the Washington Examiner’s Tim Carney. Carney writes: The top recipient of money [in the 2014 midterm election] from the financial sector was Sen. Cory Booker, who pocketed $4. 5 million from financial executives and PACs. Within that sector, Booker dominated among cash from real estate developers (almost 50 percent more than the Senate ). He also dominated in Wall Street money. Carney reports that Booker’s support for the policies of his corporatist donors has been . publications, Carney notes, have described Booker as “disturbingly tight with Wall Street and entrenched financial interests” — a politician who “shares a worldview with the financial elites who fund his campaigns,” and who “represents the interests of both Wall Street and Silicon Valley. ” By contrast, Sessions is as the intellectual of the conservative populist movement that emphasizes the need to enact an agenda that puts the interests of American workers first. Sessions, Carney writes, has clashed with the Silicon Valley tycoons and “Wall Street titans who have bankrolled Booker’s rapid rise” — most notably, on the issue of immigration, where Sessions has pushed for policies that prioritize the job and wage opportunities of working Americans over corporatists’ desire for cheap labor. In recent months, Cotton has seemed primed to take up Sessions’ mantle as the leader of this populist movement in the Senate. In particular, Cotton has become a vocal champion for American workers of all backgrounds against the policies lobbied for by corporate special interests and advanced by Washington politicians like Cory Booker, who represent the interests of the donor class. In a New York Times last month, Cotton wrote: Trump now has a clear mandate not only to stop illegal immigration, but also to finally cut the influx of immigrants that undermines American workers … For too long, our immigration policy has skewed toward the interests of the wealthy and powerful: Employers get cheaper labor, and professionals get cheaper personal services like housekeeping. We now need an immigration policy that focuses less on the most powerful and more on everyone else … In some quarters, proposals like these invoke cries of “nativism” and “xenophobia. ” But recent immigrants are the very Americans who have to compete with new immigrants for jobs. Far from being this proposal would give recent arrivals a better shot at higher wages, stable work and assimilation. Following Cotton’s clarion call for an immigration policy that benefits American workers, the Center for Immigration Studies’ Mark Krikorian wrote a piece titled “Immigration: As Sessions Moves On, Cotton Steps Up. ” In the post, Krikorian assured voters that as Sessions, Congress’s tireless advocate for an America First immigration policy, departs the Senate to join the incoming President’s cabinet, American workers should “fear not” as “Tom Cotton has reported for duty. ” | 0fake |
RABID PRO-AMNESTY LEGISLATOR Luis Gutiérrez On Paul Ryan For Speaker “He would work with Democrats in order to solve the problems of America” [VIDEO] | When you re a Republican and get a ringing endorsement from radical pro-amnesty carnival barker, Luis Guti rrez you should probably re-think your party affiliation Friday on MSNBC, Rep. Luis Guti rrez (D-IL) said Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI)doesn t want to be House Speaker because he would have to work with the extreme Republicans who want to take away the rights of gays, woman and minorities.Guti rrez said, Look, they cannibalize their own. First Cantor, then McCarthy, before that Boehner. That s why Paul Ryan doesn t want to be the Speaker of the House. He doesn t want to be the Speaker of the House because he understands that there are 35, 40 Republican members of the House that didn t come here to govern. They came here to destroy government. They came here to take the government down. They don t want to coalesce and work with the other side of the aisle. They want to take the country backwards. He continued, Yesterday I was at a hearing, the judiciary committee. What do they want to do now they have a new committee and a new investigation into Planned Parenthood. Why? Because they want to turn the clock back on women. They want women to go back to the 50s and that Mad Men series that we watch on cable TV where women didn t have rights. That s what they want to do, and that s why he doesn t want to take on the Speakership. They want to turn the clock back, and they have chaos. Look, if they can t do something as fundamental as pick a new leader, as fundamental as pick a new leader, and every time they pick a leader, they cannibalize that leader. How are they going to lead this nation? Complementing Ryan he continued, Let me just say this. smartest person, I believe, in the GOP conference and would be good for the country, would be good for the Republican Party, would be good for the House of Representatives because Paul Ryan is the kind of individual that will work with other people on the other side of the aisle, and I think that that s what need. He added, He would work with Democrats in order to solve the problems of America and that s exactly what the 35, 40 members, these extreme members, very vocal, organized, extreme members of the Republican caucus don t want. They don t want an American solution. They think, you know what, gay people should go back in the closet, women should be at home in the kitchen, and those Latinos and Asians, why don t we just make them invisible again or deport them altogether? That s their philosophy of government. They want to go back before there was a Voting Rights and a Civil Rights Act in America. When I was born in America in 1953, it was separate but equal. But let me assure you, it was separate but not real equal for people like me. That s the America they want to take us back to. and guess what? the vast majority of the American people are going to push back strong against that attempt to take us backwards. Via: Breitbart News | 1real |
Will Hillary Clinton Return The Artifacts She Took When Leaving The White House? | What the heck! Hillary and Bill really are the grifters I ve always said they were. Here s proof:Hillary Clinton bristled during Saturday s Democratic debate when she was asked about her role as First Lady, which put her in charge of the Clinton administration s White House floral and dining arrangements.But perhaps this Christmas season Clinton could actually return some of the items that she and her husband walked off with during their departure in 2001.As the White House s keyboards were losing their W buttons, so too was the First Lady making off with an historic haul in the form of gifts and presents from friends. Some actual White House artifacts ended up being part of the loot, according to Sally Bedell Smith, author of the 2007 book, For Love Of Politics. [The Clintons ] financial-disclosure forms revealed that they walked away with $190,027 worth of furniture, china, flatware, art, and other gifts, nearly half of it acquired in their final year. It also turned out that they took some property that actually belonged to the permanent White House collection. How did Clinton obtain these gifts, despite the fact that she was legally banned, as a United States Senator, from taking gifts over $50?She took advantage of her status as First Lady to get around the rules, and claimed that she got the gifts at White House during Christmas time, days before she was sworn in to the Senate.The Associated Press reported in 2001 that as A Senator, Mrs. Clinton Is Prohibited From Accepting Most Gifts Worth More Than $50. But Since The Presents Arrived While She Still Was First Lady, No Such Limit Applied. Read more: Breitbart | 1real |
On the money trail | Chennai, Nov 16:
The night of Nov 8
On the TV Prime Minister Narendra Modi is holding forth. Wife and I sit watching the whole thing with nary an emotion. We are speechless at what we hear. That is because we don’t understand Hindi. But the news scroll below, tells the story: Rs.500 and Rs.1000 demonetised. Wife looks at me quizzically. I look back at her quizzically. That is because we both don’t know what demonetisation means.
Eventually the penny, if that is the word, drops. We understand the two denominations are declared invalid from that midnight. Jee whiz! What do I with all the Rs.500 and Rs.1000 with me? But quickly gathering my wits and immediately taking charge, I ask the wife and daughter to bring all the Rs.500 and Rs.1000 stashed in the house, as if it was the time of reckoning and we had to finally confront our hidden truths. After some merciless minutes, we look at the pile in front of us: A sum total of four Rs.500 notes, and one Rs.1000 note. Of course, a few harmless 100s, 50s and 10s were in too.
Is that what we have in hand? I ask the wife plaintively. “Usually it is a lot less. But we made it a point to look around behind the cot, bureau and sofa. The 10s were picked from there only,” the wife said matter of factly. “You do remember your salary, right? A journalist’s salary and a person who has drank cyanide is difficult to save,” the wife adds in the conversational parenthesis.
The night ends in more unease: The fight against black money, it seems, will have some collateral damage. A journalist’s ego, for starters.
The morning of Nov 13
It is a Sunday. In need of cash for the week. Go to the ATM in the locality Find that the authorities, manfully rising to the emergency of the occasion, have helpfully put an easy to spot ‘out of order’ notice on the door.
Mentally thanking the banking guys for their thoughtful gesture, set out in search of another ATM and find one with only a few queued in front of it. Join the line only to quickly learn that 1) This ATM too is out of order 2) And the queue is actually for an ATM two streets away.
Cursing fate, join the line. Soon enough realise that even if the Indian economy is eventually straightened, it is impossible to literally straighten any queue in India. I mean we Indians just don’t have the ability to fall in a simple straight line. It is a skill that requires military training for Indians to acquire.
The line moves in every conceivable direction in every conceivable geometric formation. Improbable as it may sound, sometimes in the exact opposite direction to where the queue is actually headed towards. The line comprises an impressive motley: Some taciturn with thoughts. Some voluble with opinions. Some glued to their mobiles. Some staring into the distant nothingness. Some taking their troubles in stride. Some cursing their fate. But everyone feeling that they would be somewhere else than spending their time in a queue that seemed to move at the speed of larva turning into butterfly.
Those inclined to chat offer their views to no one in particular. “This is just the start. Modi will next ban gold and diamonds”, one man says with authoritative gusto. No one asks where he got that info from. He talks non-stop and seems to be the human/physical version of the WhatsApp fwds we are wont to receive on the many ‘groups’ we are part of. “Modi’s next target will be corrupt bureaucrats and politicos”. As a journalist, I realise that if I report from ‘Ground Zero’, these would be the ‘credible voices of the public’.
“It seems even the BJP is not happy with Modi,” says another in the silent gap that the previous man probably inadvertently left. “They have goofed up big time. All the new printed money are going to top politicos and industrialists. They all have been alerted before hand itself to exchange the notes,” he says with clinical finality. “An ATM is Ambattur is dispensing only old 500 rupees even today.” Where in Ambattur, I ask out of general curiosity, he replies, “my friend told me this”. I make a mental note that the guy is a very good journalist material.
But amidst differing opinions and moods, there is an easy bonhomie, a chatty friendliness descends on the scene. Every one has some opinion on how to tackle the black money scourge and what the Finance Minister should do. Never knew economics was such a popular subject with the general public.
The queue progresses at the speed of Indian economy, and I am kind of near the ATM, when someone, looking into his mobile, says “this week has to be the worst”. I wonder what is he having in his mind. Trump becoming the US President-elect. Currency crunch and other issues in India. What could get any worse than this?
“Alaistair Cook just scored a century,” I hear him say even as I enter the ATM room. | 1real |
UAE says Iran violates 'letter and spirit' of nuclear deal | UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The United Arab Emirates said on Friday it considers that Iran violates both the letter and spirit of the 2015 nuclear deal agreed between the Islamic Republic and world powers. Two years have passed since Iran s nuclear agreement with no sign of change in its hostile behavior; it continues to develop its nuclear program and violates the letter and spirit of that agreement, UAE foreign minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed al-Nahayan told the U.N. General Assembly. Therefore we support enhanced controls on Iran s nuclear program and continued assessment of the agreement and its provisions, he said. | 0fake |
Donald Trump’s Longtime Doctor Says President Takes Hair-Growth Drug - The New York Times | WASHINGTON — President Trump takes medication for three ailments, including a drug to promote hair growth, Mr. Trump’s longtime physician, Dr. Harold N. Bornstein, said in a series of recent interviews. The other drugs are antibiotics to control rosacea, a common skin problem, and a statin for elevated blood cholesterol and lipids. Dr. Bornstein, who spoke by telephone in four interviews over the past month, also said that Mr. Trump takes a daily baby aspirin to reduce the risk of a heart attack. Over all, he pronounced Mr. Trump healthy and his medical care “as exactly up to date. ” Dr. Bornstein granted the interviews after The New York Times asked him to discuss his role in Mr. Trump’s care and to clarify and expand on earlier statements he made about his patient’s health during the presidential campaign. In recent decades, The Times has interviewed presidents, presidential candidates and their doctors about their health. At 70, Mr. Trump is the oldest person to become president. White House officials declined to comment on Wednesday night on the information provided by Dr. Bornstein, and would not say whether he was still Mr. Trump’s physician. The disclosure that Mr. Trump uses a drug to maintain growth of his scalp hair, which has not been publicly known, appears to solve a riddle of why Mr. Trump has a very low level of prostate specific antigen, or PSA, a marker for prostate cancer. Mr. Trump takes a small dose of the drug, finasteride, which lowers PSA levels. Finasteride is marketed as Propecia to treat baldness. Dr. Bornstein said he also took finasteride and credited it for helping maintain his own hair and Mr. Trump’s hair. “He has all his hair,” Dr. Bornstein said. “I have all my hair. ” Dr. Bornstein, 69, has a private practice on the Upper East Side of New York, was educated at Tufts University for college and medical school, did his fellowship in gastroenterology at Yale, and was Mr. Trump’s personal physician since 1980. He said that he had had no contact with Mr. Trump since he became president, and that no one from Mr. Trump’s White House staff had asked for copies of the medical records that he has kept for the last 36 years, or called to discuss them. Dr. Bornstein said that Mr. Trump had gone to his East Side office for annual checkups, colonoscopies, and other routine tests every year since 1980. Before that, Mr. Trump was a patient of Dr. Bornstein’s father, Dr. Jacob Bornstein. At times in the interviews, Dr. Bornstein was moody, ranging from saying that Mr. Trump’s health “is none of your business” to later volunteering facts. He also meandered, referring to his longtime study of Italian and stories about medical schools floating cadavers to an island off the waters of New York. He said he liked the attention he got from friends now that he was publicly known as Mr. Trump’s doctor but disliked “the fun made of me” by the news media and strangers who have thrown objects at his office window and who have yelled at him on Park Avenue. Dr. Bornstein’s first brush with the public was in December 2015, when he released a hyperbolic letter about Mr. Trump’s health. “If elected, Mr. Trump, I can state unequivocally, will be the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency,” Dr. Bornstein wrote. He offered scant medical evidence for his prediction beyond saying Mr. Trump had no significant illness and nothing that required treatment outside of his office. Eight months later, Dr. Bornstein stirred controversy by saying he wrote the letter in five minutes while a limousine sent by Mr. Trump waited outside. A second letter in September 2016 was more sober, although it omitted a number of details that would be part of a customary summary of a patient’s health. The letter did say that Mr. Trump is weighs 236 pounds, has a normal blood pressure of and takes a drug called rosuvastatin (marketed as Crestor) to lower cholesterol and other lipids. Dr. Bornstein did not say how high the lipids were before the statin therapy, but he reported that the levels were in the normal range in recent tests: cholesterol, 169 HDL cholesterol, 63 LDL cholesterol, 94 triglycerides, 61. In both letters, Dr. Bornstein wrote that Mr. Trump’s PSA level was 0. 15. The low number led urologists not connected with Mr. Trump to say that he must have been treated for an enlarged prostate or prostate cancer. But Dr. Bornstein said in the interviews that Mr. Trump had had neither ailment and that his PSA level is low because of Propecia. In the interviews, Dr. Bornstein said he refilled Mr. Trump’s prescriptions for a tetracycline, a common antibiotic, to control rosacea. The skin ailment can cause easy blushing or flushing with visible blood vessels. It also can spread over the face, and sometimes the chest and back. In different forms it can resemble acne and cause bumps. Dr. Bornstein also addressed questions about Mr. Trump’s recent description of himself as a “germophobe. ’’ Dr. Bornstein said he had never discussed that phenomenon with Mr. Trump, but “we are very careful to keep the examining rooms spotlessly clean, which we do anyway. ’’ He added, “He always stands there and changes the paper on the table himself” after an examination. “Other than that, nothing. ” Dr. Bornstein said that he was sure that Mr. Trump was up to date on an H. I. V. test, which the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that all adults get at least once. He said if he became the White House doctor he doubted that he would include in Mr. Trump’s annual checkup any psychometric tests as a base line for potential dementia. Mr. Trump’s father, Fred, suffered from Alzheimer’s disease in his eighties and a number of experts have urged that older political leaders undergo such tests. Dr. Bornstein also said he had cared for Mr. Trump’s first and third wives, and occasionally for the second. “I am probably the only person in the world who has every phone number for him and all the wives,” Dr. Bornstein said. About a month ago, Dr. Bornstein said he told Mr. Trump’s secretary, Rhona Graff, “You know, I should be the White House physician. ” Past presidents like Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush brought their own doctors to the White House, but others have used a White House physician. Dr. Bornstein was invited to Mr. Trump’s inaugural, although he said it was not as pleasant an experience as he expected. He had to walk a long way to a spot where he thought there would be a chair — he said he has a painful back ailment and nerve damage to a leg — but when he got there, there was no chair. He stood behind a tree and “never heard anyone speak because I was so uncomfortable from my back and being cold. ” He felt, he said, “absolutely miserable. ” It seemed to take forever to leave because of the heavy security, he said. The situation was the same at an inaugural ball where there were no tables and chairs. So, he said, unable to chat comfortably with others, he and his wife, Melissa, returned to their hotel early. | 0fake |
’Hamilton’ Producer Lin-Manuel Miranda ’Sobbing’ After Obama Frees Domestic Terrorist Oscar Lopez Rivera | Hamilton producer Miranda is “sobbing with gratitude. ” Why? Because President Obama announced his decision to free Oscar Lopez Rivera, a Puerto Rican domestic terrorist serving 55 years in prison. [Rivera was a leader of the FALN Puerto Rico terrorist group who claimed responsibility for more than 120 bombings, including the bombing of a New York bar that killed four people in 1975 and wounded 60 others. Rivera’s freedom is a cause for leftist Latinos, something that Senator Bernie Sanders seized during his presidential campaign to rally Latino activists. “Oscar Lopez Rivera has served 34 years in prison for his commitment to Puerto Rico’s independence,” Sanders wrote on Twitter in May 2016. “I say to President Obama: let him out. ” New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio also celebrated Rivera’s freedom on Twitter. “Thank you @POTUS for freeing #OscarLopezRivera,” he wrote in English and Spanish. “Congratulations to all who fought for this day. ” Rep. Luis Gutierrez was also emotional about the news. “I am overjoyed and overwhelmed with emotion,” he said in a statement calling Rivera a “national hero. ” “It will be a blessed day when I can walk and talk with my friend in the fresh air, far from prison walls, and I am so looking forward to that day,” Gutierrez continued. According to the White House, Rivera was serving prison time for the following crimes after FBI officials discovered dynamite and blasting caps in his apartment: “I have no regrets for what I’ve done in the Puerto Rico independence movement,” Rivera said in 1998. “The onus is not on us. The crime is colonialism. ” Thanks to Obama, Rivera’s prison term will expire on May 17, 2017, allowing him to walk free. | 0fake |
Yemen's Hadi sees only a military solution to crisis: Arabiya TV | DUBAI (Reuters) - A solution in Yemen s two and-a-half year-old civil war will likely come through military rather than political means, the country s Saudi-backed president said, blaming the Iran-aligned Houthis of obstructing chances of peace. Speaking in New York on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly, President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi also told the Saudi-owned al-Arabiya channel that a plan to hand over control of the country s main port to a neutral party remained blocked by the Houthis and their ally, former President Ali Abdullah Saleh. The military solution is the more likely one for the Yemen crisis in light of the intransigence of the Houthi and Saleh coup militias which continue to take orders from Iran, Hadi said in the interview, according to a text provided by the Yemeni state-run Saba news agency. Despite that, the legitimate government continues to extend its hand for peace because it is responsible for the Yemeni people and for lifting the suffering from it, he added. More than 10,000 people have been killed in the war, which began in March 2015 when the Houthis advanced on Hadi s interim headquarters in the southern port city of Aden, forcing him to flee the country and seek Saudi military help. A Saudi-led coalition has since joined the fighting in a war that has also caused one of the world s worst humanitarian crises and shows no signs of ending soon. The Houthis deny having significant ties to Iran, and say the Saudi-backed coalition seeks to foment destruction inside and outside the region. Hadi accused former U.S. President Barack Obama of turning a blind eye to what he described as Iranian expansion that allowed the Houthis to seize the Yemeni capital Sanaa as he was only preoccupied with the success of nuclear talks with Tehran. But the position under the current administration is better because it stands on the basis that there should be pressure on the Houthis and Iran so their expansion in the region would stop. Hadi said the Houthis still had a chance to join the political process if they agreed to hand over weapons and formed a party to help pursue national reconciliation. The Houthis say they are willing to hand over their weapons to a national unity government formed to represent the whole country. | 0fake |
Fighting Ghost Fascists While Aiding Real Ones | By BAR executive editor Glen Ford A n architect of regime-change, coups, no-fly zones, rule of the rich and mass incarceration is about to become Commander-in-Chief, yet the bulk of what passes for the Left is “engaged in a 1930s-style ‘united front’ against a ‘fascism’ that was never a threat in 21st century America.” Donald Trump, the orange menace, didn’t have a chance of becoming president. Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, is a 21st century fascist and threat to life on Earth. “Trump’s anti-“free trade” stance and opposition to regime change and military confrontation with Russia and China drove most of the Republican-allied section of the ruling class straight into Hillary Clinton’s imperial Big Tent.” Hillary Clinton’s impending — and totally predictable — landslide victory on November 8 will prove only that there never was any danger of a “fascist” white nationalist takeover of the U.S. executive branch of government in 2016. That was always a red (or “orange”) herring, a phony “barbarians at the gate” threat that — as Wikileaks documents [3] confirmed — John Podesta and Hillary’s other handlers fervently hoped would convey “lesser evil” status to their manifestly unpopular candidate. There was nothing particularly devious or out of the ordinary in the Hillary camp’s favoring Donald Trump or, alternatively, Ted Cruz. It is standard Democratic Party practice to position themselves just to the left of the Republicans. In a duopoly electoral system, victory lies in where the cake is cut. By hugging close to the GOP’s flanks, national Democratic candidates can lay claim to a “center-left” spectrum of political space that encompasses a clear majority of U.S. public opinion on most issues. By this calculus, Democrats are supposed to win, unless they are tripped up on the closely related issues of race (failure to “stand up” to the Blacks) and foreign policy (failure to “stand up” to whoever is the designated foreign enemy). There was nothing particularly devious or out of the ordinary in the Hillary camp’s favoring Donald Trump or, alternatively, Ted Cruz. It is standard Democratic Party practice to position themselves just to the left of the Republicans. In a duopoly electoral system, victory lies in where the cake is cut. Race is the trickiest part of the equation, since white supremacy is embedded in the American political conversation, hiding just beneath the surface of most discourse on social and economic policy. “His overt racism probably weakened his appeal to whites.” Trump thought he could win by combining an overt white racist appeal with an anti-corporate message that laid the blame on Wall Street for (white) American job losses and falling living standards. He also calculated — correctly, it turns out — that in the wake of the 2008 economic meltdown, many white Americans were more upset about their own economic and social status than they were angry at Russians; that they wanted regime change at home more than abroad. Both of Trump’s central policies backfired, dooming his campaign. His overt racism probably weakened his appeal to whites, who have given majorities to national Republicans since 1968 but whose self-image is that they are not, as individuals, racist. (Certainly, white women found further reason to reject his candidacy.) Much more spectacularly, Trump’s anti-“free trade” stance and opposition to regime change and military confrontation with Russia and China drove most of the Republican-allied section of the ruling class straight into Hillary Clinton’s imperial Big Tent. At the national level, the duopoly system, as we had known it, virtually ceased to exist – a fact dramatically driven home by the near-universal corporate media rejection of Donald Trump, the candidacy they had done so much to create. The near-collapse of the duopoly system was the great fracture of the 2016 election, a potential historic opening to a far wider space of progressive political struggle, including on the moribund electoral level. With the ruling class gathered in one Big Tent, and the overt racists occupying the imploded shell of the GOP, the system itself was in disarray. What was once two vibrant parties of the ruling class, with a virtual monopoly on the totality of the electorate, had become one ruling class party plus a hollowed-out husk, at least temporarily occupied by white nationalists under the leadership of a narcissistic and incoherent billionaire, yet without enough funds to mount a competitive general election campaign. “The near-collapse of the duopoly system was the great fracture of the 2016 election.” I n these pages, we had been saying since last year that Donald Trump could not win; that Bernie Sanders’ fate would be sealed in the southern primaries; and that, although ruling class money would insure Clinton an election by landslide, it could not buy her legitimacy among a significant section of the Democratic “base,” who would now be pushed to the latrine area of her Big Tent. As we wrote on May 18 [4] of this year: “Outsized fear of Trump is hysteria. These days, the ‘brown shirts’ wear blue. Hillary is the candidate of Wall Street, War and Austerity – not Trump, the racist America Firster. And, he can’t win, anyway – not with tens of millions of ‘moderate’ Republicans and most of the party’s funders rushing into Hillary’s welcoming embrace.” But sadly, hysteria does reign in most of the “left” precincts of America. Those who did not hesitate to kick Hillary when she appeared to be “down” — in those heady days when they imagined it was possible she could lose to Sanders — are terrified to kick her when she is “up” and primed to take the helm of the hyper-power. They are engaged in a 1930s-style “united front” against a “fascism” that was never a threat in 21 st century America, where a different kind of dictatorship of the rich (but also a fascism) has made brown-shirts (and Klansmen) utterly superfluous. These trembling leftists refuse to oppose the modern manifestation of fascism, which is now firmly entrenched in power with Hillary as its champion, in favor of a crusade against an “orange” menace that did not have a ghost of a chance of seizing national power. They have made themselves perfectly irrelevant and useless — except, of course, to the fascists-in-charge. Source URL: http://blackagendareport.com/ghost_fascists_vs_real_ones | 1real |
Donald Trump Jr. adds Washington lawyer to legal team | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The president’s oldest son, Donald Trump Jr., has added a lawyer with congressional experience to his legal team, the lawyer told Reuters on Sunday. Trump Jr. has hired Karina Lynch of the law firm Williams and Jensen, Lynch confirmed in an email to Reuters. She did not respond to queries about what her role in the team would be. ABC News reported the hiring earlier on Sunday. Trump Jr. also hired Alan Futerfas as a lawyer after reports detailed meetings last year between Trump Jr. and a Russian lawyer. Trump Jr., his father’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort and Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and one of his senior advisers, met with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya in June 2016. That meeting was held in Trump Tower in New York after the lawyer offered damaging information about Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. A federal special counsel and several congressional panels are investigating allegations by U.S. intelligence agencies that Russia meddled in the 2016 U.S. presidential election and potential connections between Russian officials and the Trump campaign. Moscow has denied any interference, and Trump says his campaign did not collude with Russia. Lynch’s biography on her law firm website describes her as having experience on the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. She was also investigative counsel to Senator Charles Grassley, according to her law firm biography. The Senate Judiciary Committee said on Friday that Trump Jr. and Manafort had agreed to negotiate whether to be interviewed by the panel in its Russia investigation. | 0fake |
Lindsey Graham: Trump Should Be Treated With The Same Respect Republicans Gave Obama | We re wondering if Sen. Lindsey Graham (R) is OK. He just doesn t seem to be himself lately. The South Carolina Republican was so fiercely critical of alleged president Donald Trump, but that s all suddenly changed now. Graham, who once called Trump a jackass, praised the amateur president on Saturday as a leader who is open-minded and is even willing to reach out for help, even late at night, according to the Washington Examiner. What have I learned about our president? He s curious, he asks questions, and he knows no fear, Graham said in his remarks at the South Carolina Republican convention. And he s under siege unlike any president I ve ever seen in my entire life They don t believe he won; I do. Now Obama was somewhat hard for us, but I thought we were somewhat respectful, Graham added without one bit of irony whatsoever.Graham then went to on to disrespect former President Barack Obama by calling him a community organizer who apologized for America every turn all over the world. Let me tell you that you have a commander in chief that s not going to let this country get walked over anymore, he said.And that s really cute, don t you think? He said that of Obama who had 20 years of experience under his belt before taking the job as President while praising a former reality show star who had zero experience in politics. He calls and I m honored that he would call me and I want to help him, he said. He calls me when I m asleep and he calls me after I go to bed. I wish he would rest more. I gave him my phone number. So far so good. It s nice he has a cozy relationship with a man who just recently penned him a letter to assure him that he has no connections to Russia. Lindsey Graham requested that information. Trump s lawyers said in the letter that a review of the last 10 years of Trump s tax returns revealed that he has no income from Russia with a few exceptions. Here s the kicker: The law firm who sent the letter actually has deep ties to wait for it Russia. Lindsey Graham appeared to be that one Republican with a spine willing to call out the White House, but now he s rolling over while claiming that Republicans respected Obama. Democrats are just being big ol meanies to the man who is plagued in scandals while only 120ish days into the job.Trump, for the record, is the same man who dogged Obama for years, insisting that our first black President was actually a scary Muslim from Kenya. Obama did not have conflicts of interest. The biggest scandal at this same amount of time during Obama s presidency was that he put Dijon mustard on his hamburger. That was the big scandal featured on Fox News for a week. In contrast, Trump has a massive amount of conflicts of interest.Sure, Lindsey, we ll give Trump the same respect Republicans gave Obama. No problem!Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images. | 1real |
Defying Trump, California lawmakers vote to become 'sanctuary state' | (Reuters) - California lawmakers voted on Saturday to make the most populous U.S. state a so-called sanctuary by banning police from asking for the immigration status of people who have been arrested and limiting their cooperation with immigration officers. The measure was one of numerous bills passed on the last day of the legislature’s session this year, positioning California in opposition to conservative policies supported by the Trump Administration and the Republican controlled Congress. Illinois’ Republican Governor signed a bill last month protecting people from being detained simply because of their immigration status or because they are the subject of an immigration-related warrant. | 0fake |
Woman charged after trying to scale Buckingham Palace gates | LONDON (Reuters) - A woman who tried to scale the gates of Buckingham Palace, Queen Elizabeth s London residence, has been charged with being drunk and disorderly, police said on Sunday. Jessica Davey, aged 35 of west London, will appear at Westminster Magistrates Court on Monday, police said. She was detained by police on Saturday before she gained access to the palace grounds in an incident that was not treated as terrorist related. British police are on high alert after five attacks blamed on terrorism this year. In August a man wielding a sword outside the palace was charged under terrorism laws. Three police officers suffered minor injuries detaining him. | 0fake |
Puerto Rico rescue plan strains U.S. Republican caucus | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Leading Republicans on Tuesday outlined a plan to help Puerto Rico shed crippling debt and accused investor-allied groups of misleading lawmakers about the proposal. The rescue would steer creditors and holders of Puerto Rico bonds toward a new, independent board that would seek a fair way to write down an estimated $70 billion in debt. Banks, mutual funds, hedge funds and Puerto Rico citizens all hold paper issued by 18 entities on the U.S. commonwealth and many of those investors, if not all, would face a loss. Lawmakers in Congress are being lobbied - and attacked - by investor groups that are trying to protect their bottom lines. “They are deceitful,” said Rep. Rob Bishop, a Utah Republican who leads the House Natural Resources Committee. Bishop said accusations likening the Puerto Rico rescue plan to a government bailout were “crap,” and the plan had the virtue of “protecting taxpayers and not spending government money.” The rescue plan does, however, adopt some principles of bankruptcy law and that makes it controversial. Investors could be forced into a settlement over the objections of holdout bondholders under certain circumstances, according to a draft of the bill. Some lawmakers said allowing Puerto Rico to modify its bonds could mean chaos for municipal markets. “If they can do it for Puerto Rico, they can do it for every other state,” Rep. Tom McClintock said of the damage that the rescue bill would do. McClintock, a California Republican, said he was “very concerned” about the plan after a half-hour meeting Tuesday afternoon of Republicans on the Natural Resources panel. House Speaker Paul Ryan said in a statement that he supported Bishop’s effort because it “holds the right people accountable for the crisis (and) shrinks the size of government.” Ryan also said he liked the idea of an independent board settling investor disputes, adding that legislation passed last week to halt payments on Puerto Rico’s debt was “troubling.” The Republican Study Committee, a group of conservative lawmakers, said in a statement it was still reviewing the bill, but “we are encouraged that there appear to be some improvements.” Ryan will need the votes of many fiscally-conservative Republicans - and as is seen likely, some Democrats - if he is to get the rescue package through the House of Representatives. The plan will face a test on Wednesday when the Natural Resources panel begins to amend the plan during a law-writing session known as a “mark up.” An aide to House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi said her office was still reviewing the legislation. | 0fake |
U.S. high court could spur Congress on Puerto Rico debt crisis | WASHINGTON/SAN JUAN (Reuters) - As the U.S. Congress drags its feet on a bill to address Puerto Rico’s $70 billion debt crisis, it could get kicked into high gear by an unlikely source: the Supreme Court. The highest U.S. court is due to rule by the end of June on the validity of a Puerto Rico law that would allow the U.S. territory to restructure the chunk of its debt issued by public agencies, more than $20 billion, in a bankruptcy-like process. The court fight is playing out as the Republican-led Congress grapples with legislation that lawmakers hope will prevent the need for a bailout of the territory of 3.5 million U.S. citizens. The legislation is expected to put Puerto Rico’s finances under federal oversight through a control board and let the Caribbean island cut debt through a bankruptcy-like restructuring process. It would preempt the Recovery Act, the local restructuring law that was thrown out in U.S. courts before Puerto Rico asked the Supreme Court to reinstate it. Puerto Rico is not covered by federal bankruptcy laws that U.S. cities and public agencies can use, so some U.S. lawmakers view legislation as the only way to keep the debt crisis from worsening. But drafting the bill has been laborious. Some bondholders, including U.S. hedge funds, and Republicans are seeking to ensure that creditors get paid as much as possible of what they are owed. Congressional Democrats, the Obama administration and Puerto Rico itself are trying to prevent austerity that could threaten services on the island. An early draft of the bill by the House of Representatives Natural Resources Committee never made it to a vote, and the panel on Wednesday delayed unveiling the latest draft, citing the need for “a number of refinements.” Some Republicans oppose inclusion of a “cram-down” provision that would let Puerto Rico impose debt cuts on creditors who do not agree to them. A Supreme Court decision on Puerto Rico’s law could come as soon as Monday. The ruling could change the political dynamics for Republicans by resurrecting a law that is viewed as even less palatable to them than the congressional bill, according to congressional sources and experts who follow the debate. Many of the creditors lobbying conservatives in Congress to oppose the legislation, known as the Puerto Rico Oversight, Management and Economic Stability Act (PROMESA), would prefer to keep debt-restructuring talks out of a bankruptcy court, or at least avoid cram-down. That is because in the normal course of business they are entitled to full repayment, but in a bankruptcy proceeding they could be legally made to accept discounts. If the Supreme Court reinstates the Recovery Act, the congressional legislation might not seem so bad to creditors in comparison, said Melissa Jacoby, a University of North Carolina School of Law bankruptcy expert and professor. “It might alter the lobbying landscape,” Jacoby said. Puerto Rico has already defaulted on some of its debt, most recently the bulk of a $422 million payment owed by its primary government bank. The Recovery Act, if revived, would let the island restructure debt at public utilities like power authority PREPA and water authority PRASA, though the island’s legislature could try to expand it to cover other debts, Jacoby said. The Supreme Court’s March 22 oral arguments indicated the justices could uphold the law. Such a ruling could prompt creditors and Republican lawmakers to embrace the need to pass the PROMESA bill. The legislation is expected to carry more bondholder protections than the Recovery Act, requiring an attempt at consensual restructuring talks as a condition for any debt cuts. “Those very same players who are now blocking our (congressional) legislation will, all of a sudden, encourage the (Republican) majority to pass some legislation” if the Supreme Court revives the Recovery Act, said a Democratic House aide, speaking on condition of anonymity. The island’s moment of truth could strike by June 30. That is the date by which the Supreme Court is expected to rule and a day before Puerto Rico faces a $1.9 billion debt payment that its governor has said it cannot afford. Congress is aiming to pass legislation to address Puerto Rico’s crisis before that payment. Steny Hoyer, the second-ranking House Democrat, told Reuters the high court’s ruling “could have some effect” on PROMESA’s drafting process “depending on what the Supreme Court says about Puerto Rican authority to do whatever it needs to do.” A source close to major creditors said a ruling reinstating the Recovery Act could encourage Congress to pass legislation for a different reason: creditors would keep litigating different aspects of that law, perpetuating Puerto Rico’s economic uncertainty. Parish Braden, a spokesman for House National Resources Committee Republicans, said Congress ultimately must act regardless of what the Supreme Court does. “The ball is already in Congress’ court,” Braden said. | 0fake |
MEGYN KELLY Not Exactly Getting Warm Welcome At NBC: “People are p*ssed”…NBC “bit off more than they can chew when they hired Megyn” | NBC is canceling the third hour of Today to make way for new star Megyn Kelly, sources exclusively confirm to Page Six.We re told Kelly will take over either the 9 a.m. hour from Tamron Hall and Al Roker or will replace Hoda Kotb and Kathie Lee Gifford. If she takes over Hoda and Kathie Lee s 10 a.m. hour, they will move to the 9 a.m. hour, an insider said.We hear Hall will be leaving the network next month when her contract is up. Roker will continue his 7-to-9 a.m. duties.Kelly will start in September. Everyone has been left in the dark and no one knows why there s such a disruption when shows are doing so well across the board, an insider told us. Another insider adds: People are pissed. The third hour was beating every syndicated show across the board. They were in over their head and bit off more than they can chew when they hired Megyn. NYP | 1real |
Chances of Republican brokered convention up since Super Tuesday: PredictIt | NEW YORK (Reuters) - The chances that the Republican Party will decide its nominee for the November presidential election through a brokered convention have increased since Super Tuesday even as front-runner Donald Trump has racked up primary wins, according to two online betting sites. According to PredictIt, the probability of a brokered convention stood at 43 percent as of midday on Wednesday, following primaries in five states, including Florida and Illinois, the previous night. That was up from 35 percent on March 2, the day after Trump won contests in seven out of 11 states, according to the website, which is run by Victoria University in Wellington, New Zealand. According to Ladbrokes PLC, another online betting site, the chances of a brokered convention were 4-5 on Wednesday, down from evens on March 2. That means there is a 56 percent probability of a brokered convention, up from 50 percent. Trump’s chances of winning the general election dropped to 5/2 from 2/1 despite his victories on Tuesday night, but Ladbrokes attributed the result partly to a large single bet of nearly $20,000 that skewed the results. That gives him a 29 percent probability of winning, down from 33 percent. The billionaire New York businessman has emerged as the clear leader in the Republican race. On Tuesday, he scored big wins in primaries in Florida, Illinois and North Carolina, knocking out rival Marco Rubio and bringing him closer to the 1,237 convention delegates he needs to win the nomination. But he lost the crucial state of Ohio and left the door open for those in the party trying to stop him from becoming the Republican nominee for the Nov. 8 election. That means that Trump might fall short of the majority required, enabling the party’s establishment to put forward another name at the July convention in Cleveland to formally pick its candidate. Meanwhile, Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton’s chances of winning the presidency fell to 4/9 from 8/15. That increases her probability of winning to 69 percent from 65 percent following Tuesday’s primary victories in Florida, Illinois, Ohio and North Carolina. Those wins cast doubt on U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders’ ability to overtake her for the Democratic Party’s nomination. | 0fake |
The CIA Doesn’t Need To Spy On Free Thinkers, The Private Sector Does It For Free | 21st Century Wire says Here s something quite Pavlovian to think about. What if it were a goal of government and their security services to ensure that we feel we re being watched at every turn, in every-way feasible; but reality is not exact what we think it is and we re doing most of the censoring all by ourselves.Adam Garrie from The Duran takes us on an interesting journey in the below article. It also contains an important element of what we ve talked about on shows at 21st Century Wire and Alternate Current Radio s The Boiler Room regarding this fourth wall that people find it difficult to push through, which is fear . The fear of losing their job, loved ones, social acceptability, and so forth.More on this article from The Duran Adam Garrie The DuranEven prior to the release of Vault 7 from Wikileaks, people knew that so-called intelligence agencies in western states had the means to spy on their own citizens. Many also assumed that the typical illegality of such activities was of no consequence for agencies and individuals in those agencies who regard themselves as being above the law.Now that we know the CIA and other institutions have such abilities to digitally hack just about every household device from the smart phone and Smart-TV to the good old fashioned PC, the biggest question is, when do these deep state organisations implement these measures to spy on civilians and compromise their lives?The answer can be found without needing to resort to conspiracy theories nor even speculation. The answer lies in the private sector.Organisations like the CIA, MI5, FBI etc., need only do what the private sector isn t all ready doing for them and as it is, the private sector is doing a hell of a lot.If one wonders why major financial, academic, diplomatic, trading, banking, security and even artistic institutions in the West tend to have people on their payrolls who follow the western ideological narrative , there are two reasons.The first is that people are attracted to like-minded people and by extrapolation like-minded professions.But there is a second more devious reason. Those who think outside the western box, those who question more simply cannot get a foot through the door. Technically, one needn t have any view on Vladimir Putin to be on the board of a major western construction company, law firm, private bank or hedge fund. These professions do not involve knowledge of Russian politics or society. But those who have and even casually express a view of Putin or of the Arab world or of East Asia and Latin America that differs from the neo-lib/neo-con point of view, are blacklisted.Social media has made this blacklisting easier to do than ever. If two equally qualified candidates were applying for a high level position at a financial institution and one person had a picture of himself at a Hillary Clinton fundraiser on his Facebook and the other had a Save Palestine picture or a pro-Putin meme on his social media accounts, there would be no prizes for correctly guessing who would almost certainly get the job.In the words of George Carlin, It s a big club and you ain t in it .The punitive blacklisting of those who don t follow the CNN/BBC/NYT script has a double effect.First of all, it keeps those who think outside the box away from positions of power in the private sector and in most western countries, without a prominent position in the business or mainstream entertainment community, achieving political office is next to impossible.Secondly, there is a powerful deterrent effect. Many people would like to post pro-Putin, pro-Donbass, pro-Syria or pro-Palestine items on social media, but they are afraid that it could cost them their job, their bonus or even their friends. In the west such things can break-up families. It happens every day. At this very movement, someone in a western country is contemplating suicide because of being on the losing end of a divorce settlement. Very sad, yet very true.This Kafkaesque reality is achieved without the CIA needing to hack people s phones or computers. The private sector does the job for them.For every tabloid story about a woman losing her job because she posted a photo of her genitals on-line, there are many more people who are professionally compromised for posting photos of patriotic Russian or Arab leaders.Throughout the 20th century, the private sector has always been happy to do the bidding of the deep state. Hollywood was largely compliant with the red scare tactics of the 1950s and frankly, Hollywood producers did more to censor free-speech than the drunk and soon discredited Joseph McCarthy ever could have done.Why should the CIA waste time and money to read people s emails, when their much more local boss, or chairman of human relations can take a quick look at Facebook and achieve the CIA s goal far more easily?The answer is that they don t. The beauty of a police state is that unquestioning citizens are deputies of the secret police and they work for free. Some do it willfully and others do it unconsciously, but they do it nevertheless Continue this article at The DuranREAD MORE WIKILEAKS NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire WIKILEAKS FilesSUPPORT OUR WORK BY SUBSCRIBING & BECOMING A MEMBER @21WIRE.TV | 1real |
Trump’s Ex-Manager: He Didn’t Even Know What A Gold Star Family Is | Comments
Donald Trump, the draft-dodging Russophile who cloaks his xenophobia and bigotry in a veneer of false patriotism, reportedly had to ask what a Gold Star family was after he attacked the Muslim-American parents of war hero Capt. Humayun Khan. Trump has thus once again proven his patriotic rhetoric to be nothing but ignorant and self-serving bombast.
The Trump-Khan feud arose after Khizr Khan, Capt. Khan’s father, gave a powerful speech at the Democratic National Convention over the summer repudiating Trump’s hateful anti-Muslim rhetoric. Khan said that Trump had “sacrificed nothing” while he and his wife had paid the ultimate sacrifice for America, and famously held up his pocket-size Constitution and offered to lend it to Trump. Trump, who seems physically incapable of responding to criticism with anything other than blustering attacks, went on a tirade against Mr. Khan, adding for good measure that his wife Ghazala was not allowed to speak at the DNC because she is a Muslim.
When one of Trump’s advisers warned him against attacking a Gold Star family, Trump reportedly responded, “what’s that?” Paul Manafort, Trump’s campaign manager at the time, apparently had to repeatedly explain to the candidate that a Gold Star family is a family that has lost a loved one serving in war. In a surprising bit of pushback from a Trump campaign staff that seems to consist overwhelmingly of yes men, Manafort reportedly told Trump in response to his feud with Khan that the election “is about the American people, it’s not about you.”
That Trump has the audacity to criticize war heros like Capt. Khan and Sen. John McCain after using his privilege to avoid war and knowing nothing of their sacrifice, that he is so presumptuous as to adopt the mantle of fighting for America while knowing nothing about American institutions, is proof that he is nothing but an opportunistic demagogue who will say anything to appease his own ego. In stark contrast to Trump’s sleaze, however, Khizr Khan has, in the best American tradition, taken the high road.
Khan has continued to speak out for American values and against Trump’s hate-peddling. Last week he said that “there comes a time in an ordinary citizen’s life where you have to gather all the courage you have and you stand up and speak against tyranny and speak against un-American hate.” Khan has continued to get under Trump’s skin, with the nominee replying to that speech with the hackneyed lie that he opposed the Iraq war. Perhaps the reason Trump has been so irritated by Mr. Khan is that he has demonstrated so much better than Mr. Trump himself what it means to be a true American. Related Items: | 1real |
The CBO Caught Trump In Another YUUUGE Lie; Entire Premise For Repealing Obamacare Out The Window | Other than the wall and maybe the Muslim ban, the signature issue for Donald Trump the presidential candidate was repealing and replacing Obamacare, which he sold to his voters under the guise that it was about to implode this year, as a matter of fact.We are making great progress with healthcare. ObamaCare is imploding and will only get worse. Republicans coming together to get job done! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 11, 2017But while the Congressional Budget Office was scoring Trumpcare, and declared it a complete disaster which would result in tens of millions of people losing their health insurance, they completely put to bed the idea that Obamacare is about to implode.The paragraph isn t the easiest thing to read, especially if you have Donald Trump level reading skills, but here it is:Under current law, most subsidized enrollees purchasing health insurance coverage in the nongroup market are largely insulated from increases in premiums because their out-of-pocket payments for premiums are based on a percentage of their income; the government pays the difference. The subsidies to purchase coverage combined with the penalties paid by uninsured people stemming from the individual mandate are anticipated to cause sufficient demand for insurance by people with low health care expenditures for the market to be stable.Vox translated it this way:Translating from wonk-ese, the subsidies offered to lower-income people under ACA are scaled both to income and to the local price of health insurance. Which means that for heavily subsidized customers, the higher premiums don t drive people out of the marketplace. And there are enough young and healthy people who qualify for generous subsidies to ensure a stable long-term risk pool.Despite the report, Trump is still going along with the idea that Obamacare is set to implode. On Fox News on Monday, he said, It s a disaster if we let it go for another year, it ll totally implode. Here s that video:.@POTUS on #ObamaCare: It s a disaster. If we let it go for another year, it ll totally implode. pic.twitter.com/V0EmWafqHD Fox News (@FoxNews) March 13, 2017Really, that s not the least clever strategy in the world. If you tell people they are going to lose their healthcare anyway, they might be more amenable to eating the shit sandwich the GOP is trying to feed them in place of healthcare. We can t let the nation fall for it. Obamacare is not about to implode. We have time to make it better.Featured image via Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images | 1real |
The Beautiful Prehistoric World: Is Earth Now a Wasteland? | By Pao Chang
Earth is a beautiful blue planet that has gone through many changes. Some people believed that Earth used to be a world filled with mythical creatures and magic. Others believed it used to have a landscape that is more beautiful than the picture below.
The following two videos reveal some very interesting information about what Earth may look like tens of thousands of years ago or possibly hundreds of thousands of years ago. Did Earth use to have trees as large as small mountains? Are there actually no forests on Earth? Is Earth now a wasteland? The videos below might have clues to help answer these questions. Watch the videos and come up with your own conclusions.
The Prehistoric World Exposed – Ancient Structures That Will Blow Your Mind!!
There are No Forests on Earth! (ENGLISH VOICEOVER)
Source: OmniThought
| 1real |
ONE BRAVE MAN Is About To Reveal The Truth About What REALLY Happened In Ferguson…Black Lives Matter and The Media Are NOT Going To Be Happy [VIDEO] | Thanks to one very brave journalist and filmmaker, FERGUSON, a very important and extremely controversial play, is set to begin in New York City on October 19 and will run through October 30th.The New York version of FERGUSON is directed by Jerry Dixon.Much like the contentious real-life drama that played out on the streets of Ferguson, Missouri, when Michael Brown was shot dead by Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson, filmmaker Phelim McAleer s controversial retelling of what really happened that fateful day in the Ferguson the play, using only the Grand Jury testimony from the Officer Wilson trial, is sure to ruffle some feathers.Black Lives Matter has been perpetuating a lie about Michael Brown and how he was a victim of murder at the hands of a white police officer, who had no grounds whatsoever to shoot him.FERGUSON is a Verbatim Play it only uses actual Grand Jury testimony from eyewitnesses who saw police officer Daren Wilson shoot Michael Brown. Most of these eyewitnesses are minorities and yet their accounts are totally at odds with the stories spun by the mainstream media and activists.This is why it is so important to bring the truth to New York. Obviously the New York theatrical establishment won t support this play. They seem to really detest anything that challenges their cozy consensus world view.Ferguson the play, was the brainchild of journalist and filmmaker Phelim McAleer, who many know for his hard-hitting documentary Fracknation, that pulled the curtain back on a false narrative being pushed by liberal activists and politicians, and exposed the truth behind the lies Americans were being told about the dangers of fracking.Two years ago, when rehearsal began in Los Angeles for FERGUSON, McAleer found himself having to deal with 9 actors who walked out when rehearsals began, after reading the script (that is based on the verbatim Grand Jury testimony of the witnesses during the officer Wilson trial).What makes FERGUSON so compelling, is that not one word of the Grand Jury testimony is altered or changed. McAleer, who was determined to keep the show alive, explains how difficult it has been to get his play to the New York stage:McAleer tells viewers in the promotional video below, that the truth about what really happened in Ferguson is not what the mainstream media s been telling you.: The truth was so shocking to so many people, that 9 of the cast walked out during rehearsals in Los Angeles. I was determined that the show would go on, even though the cast walked out. And the cast walked out because what they wanted to believe, didn t match the truth that was in the Grand Jury documents. They were so convinced by the media, of one version of events, and the truth didn t matter to them, and they couldn t handle it. So that s why it s so important to bring this to New York. Phelim goes on to remind viewers of how Mike Pence was attacked by the cast and audience when he went to see Hamilton in New York.Despite the 9 members of the cast who walked out on the play in Los Angeles and the anger the play incited in many supporters of the Black Lives Matter movement, FERGUSON was very well-received by critics after its debut in Los Angeles.Watch:Phelim McAleer is asking for help to fund his FERGUSON production. Please consider making a contribution to this very worthy cause by clicking HERE to donate.FERGUSON made for a riveting spectacle and comes as a reminder both of the adversarial dramatic power that is inherent in any courtroom testimony and how even the dry language of a legal transcript can come alive when placed in the hands of skilled actors. Add a standing-room-only audience and the high stakes of this country s ongoing debate about race, police profiling and its use of lethal force, and you ve got the ingredients for an incendiary evening of theater. -LA WEEKLYHopefully, FERGUSON the play will cause Americans to understand what really happened in Ferguson through the eyes of the people who testified to what they actually saw that day and not through the lies of the mainstream media and the false narrative of Black Lives Matter leaders and activists. | 1real |
FEAR OF TRUMP: BUSH, OBAMA, CLINTON ALL BUYING PROPERTY IN NON-EXTRADITION NATIONS | Email
It appears Bill and Hillary Clinton are making plans to flee the country in the event Donald Trump wins this election.
Reports are circulating that the Clintons have transferred 1.8 Billion dollars from the Clinton Foundation to the Qatar Central Bank, via a facilitation/abatement of JP Morgan Chase & Company for reasons not revealed.
This move of such a large sum of money to the country of Qatar says in itself, Hillary Clinton knows she is going to lose the election, and she doesn’t plan to allow herself to be prosecuted for various high crimes and treason under a Trump Administration.
The country of Qatar happens to be one of a handful of countries that does not have an extradition treaty with the United States, thus would be a perfect place for her to run to in escaping justice.
Donald Trump has said many times during his campaign and at the Presidential debates that once he gets into office, he intends to prosecute her on various high crimes from her latest crimes of sending classified material via a personal e mail server. All the way to gun running to terrorist groups in Syria resulting in the deaths of 4 Americans in Benghazi.
Apparently, Hillary is not the only person in Washington who has made plans to escape justice under a Trump Administration. John Kerry has quietly been selling his property in the US for millions of dollars of late, with an announcement of the sale of his $25 million dollar Nantucket mansion in June 2016, as well as the sale of his yacht for $3.9 million in July 2016.
President Barack H Obama has also apparently been making exit plans with his purchase of a $4.9 million dollar seaside mansion in Dubai in January 2016, another non extradition country.
Snopes and other supposed fact checking sites have debunked both the story of Obama’s purchase of the mansion and the firing of Rear Admiral Rick Williams. However, over the last several months, these sites have been busted for lying in trying to debunk such information as the before mentioned, when in fact the information is true.
Snopes and other sites try their best to keep incriminating information from being believed, but the truth has a way of coming out on its own, as it always has. | 1real |
Something Big Is Underway On All Fronts: “Within The Next Few Weeks The Future Of The United States Will Be Decided” |
As of this writing, the increased U.S. troop presence in Eastern Europe includes a battalion-sized element of American troops being emplaced in the Suwalki Gap, Polish territory that borders Lithuania in a 60-mile stretch of corridor. The Russian Defense Ministry announced that 600 Russian and Belarussian airborne troops conducted training exercises in Brest, on the Belorussian-Polish border only a few miles from where the U.S. forces are deploying in Poland. This on the heels of Britain deploying 800 men, tanks, and jets to Estonia, along with pledges of Challenger 2 tanks, APC’s (Armored Personnel Carriers), and drones. Two companies of French and Danish Soldiers will join the British in the deployment to Estonia.
For the first time since 1945, Norway has violated its treaty with Russia (then the Soviet Union) not to station foreign troops on its soil. A company of U.S. Marines will soon be stationed for a 6-month deployment in Norway. The situation is heating up in Ukraine, according to a report on fort-russ.com entitled Ukraine Moves Massive Force up to Lugansk Frontline , published October 28, 2016 . The report reveals the Ukrainian Army is deploying 3,500 soldiers and 200 armored vehicles of the 15 th Motorized Infantry Brigade to Krasny Oktyabr in the district of Lugansk in Eastern Ukraine. For the first time in history, Romanian airspace is being patrolled by the RAF (Royal Air Force) of Britain.
In addition, the Ukrainian National Guard is deploying a tactical company equipped with 82 mm mortars and AGS-17 auto grenade launchers, along with APC’s and missile launchers. A separate reconnaissance battalion named the “Night Shades,” a nationalist volunteer battalion will be deploying to Lugansk as well. No doubt they will receive a “warm” reception, as the fighting has been ongoing in the region for more than two years. The area is a severe flashpoint, as the separatists are ethnic Russians of Ukrainian nationality who wish to secede in the manner that Crimea did…Russia annexed them after the popular vote to leave Ukraine. Now (since December 2015) the Congress gave the green light to send weapons and munitions to Ukraine; the “holdup” is due to Obama not wanting to jeopardize the election of Hillary Clinton, as the Russians have stated weapons to Ukraine means war with the U.S. and NATO.
Meanwhile the Varshankya-class stealth subs are deploying into the Black Sea as the Russian fleet is moving toward Syria. The Russian and Syrian armies continue to bomb and attack the al-Nusra/Jabhat Fatah ash-Sham fighters emplaced in the city of Aleppo. The mainstream media, meanwhile, is faltering in its attempt to create a “sacred U.S.-coalition crusade” to “free the city of Mosul,” as the offensive is not working quite as planned. There are also reports that the U.S. government has plans to “navigate” Islamic terrorists from Mosul into Syria, to cause more problems for Assad and the Russians; the mainstream media is notoriously silent on the collateral damages being caused by the U.S.-led Mosul attacks, in which U.S. aircraft are supporting with bombing missions.
Let’s be clear on this: The U.S. is beefing up conventional forces of American troops into Eastern Europe and convincing NATO countries to augment these deployments with soldiers and equipment. The Russians have been responding with opposing counter-deployments to offset the U.S.-NATO movements. The aggressive stance is being taken by the U.S.-NATO-IMF hegemony in its military buildup in Eastern Europe and the Baltic States, the very “backyard” of Russia.
The bottom line: the stage is being set to start WWIII on the slightest provocation.
The domestic perspective yields that just a few weeks after the ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) transfer from U.S. control to (basically) the UN on October 1, 2016, the U.S. has had a DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attack from hackers on October 21, 2016 affecting the east and west coast of the U.S. as well as Texas and part of Europe. Just one week before, on OCtobr 13, 2016 Obama signed an Executive Order for Space Weather anomalies just “in case” some “space weather anomaly” were to cripple the power grid and electrical infrastructure of the United States.
Something even worse that happened may really tie into this.
Last week it was reported by the U.S. Army that Major General John Rossi had committed suicide . Rossi had been slated to take over as the Commander of U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command, and the Army Forces Strategic Command. General Rossi was about to complete 33 years of service and was only 55 years old. He was “found” at Redstone Arsenal, and the Army just ruled it a suicide. The Daily Mail on dailymail.co.uk reported that a U.S. government official told USA Today: “It seemed that Rossi was overwhelmed by his responsibilities” as a potential reason for his suicide.
The problem is, he committed suicide on July 31, 2016…and it’s taken two months for the Army to rule it as being a suicide?
With the command assignment, Rossi would have been privy to every procedure and protocol to defend the United States against an ICBM (intercontinental ballistic missile) attack or an EMP (electromagnetic pulse) attack or event . He would know everything from the “top” down: that is, the Commander-in-Chief (Obama) would have to foster a one-on-one relationship with the man who would hold the key post to defending against a foreign missile attack.
Maybe this time the missile would not have been foreign, or if it was? It may not have been the leader of a foreign country to direct it against the United States.
It is almost impossible to believe that a Major General of the United States Army just receiving a top command post, a 55-year-old soldier…a general officer…with 33 years of service, a wife, and a loving family would “off” himself because of being “overwhelmed by responsibility.” Men such as Rossi (the highest-ranking member of the military to do such a thing) do not shirk responsibility: they meet it, head on. The whole thing stinks of a purge , in the manner that the entire military of the United States has been purged of hundreds of senior General Staff officers, Admiralty, and Senior Noncommissioned Officers…replaced by “yes” men over the course of Obama’s term.
The whole thing stinks of an assassination : no suicide note, no real press coverage, and nothing from his friends, family, or fellow soldiers. This occurs, and then Obama signs his Executive Order to “protect” us from the dreaded space anomaly that will take down our infrastructure. Could this have possibly been a suicide? Think of all of the heartache and grief his family is going through with his loss. What about the benefits and retirement that his family would lose with such an act? If he really committed suicide, then it was probably because he found out about something so heinous, so vile that would occur to the U.S. that he couldn’t live with it and probably couldn’t stop it.
Bottom line: Was he terminated when he wouldn’t go along with a false flag EMP-plan conceived by Obama to take down our grid, cripple our response time, and set the stage for martial law and the suspension of all rights under the Constitution of the United States?
As I have mentioned in the past, I repeat once again:
The next war will be initiated by an EMP device detonated above the continental United States followed by a limited nuclear exchange and then conventional warfare.
I never said that it wouldn’t be Obama who initiated the EMP device, and in all probability if he doesn’t initiate it…he’ll either provoke it, allow it, or request it. We haven’t even mentioned the voting (early voting) taking place where fraud is occurring in Maryland, Virginia, Illinois, and Florida, among others. The illusion of the vote: the joke of the year, but the joke is on us.
And Obama is the joker, setting the stage for the transfer of power. That transfer is not going to occur with the losing candidate (in either case) going gently into that good night. The stage is set for a war to begin. The stage is set for a false flag operation to take down our grid. The stage is set to steal the election for Clinton or declare it null and void. Within the next few weeks, the future of the United States will be decided…with or without the consent of the governed.
Jeremiah Johnson is the Nom de plume of a retired Green Beret of the United States Army Special Forces (Airborne). Mr. Johnson is also a Gunsmith, a Certified Master Herbalist, a Montana Master Food Preserver, and a graduate of the U.S. Army’s SERE school (Survival Evasion Resistance Escape). He lives in a cabin in the mountains of Western Montana with his wife and three cats. You can follow Jeremiah’s regular writings at SHTFplan.com or contact him here .
This article may be republished or excerpted with proper attribution to the author and a link to www.SHTFplan.com .
Related:
The Prepper’s Blueprint: A Step-By-Step Guide To Prepare For Any Disaster
Top Tier Gear: The Most Advanced Tactical Gas Mask In The World
The United States Is Pre-Positioning “Enemy Assets” In Preparation For A Rigged Election
A Foreshadowing Of Things To Come: “This Cyberattack Was Initiated By The U.S. Government… A Beta Test Done In Preparation For A False Flag”
Unrest and Martial Law? Leaked Military Drill Anticipates “No Rule of Law” After Election Results
How To Survive Occupied America: “Red Dawn Just Started… And You’re In It”
The Threat Is Real And Imminent: The Next World War Will Be Initiated By A First Strike Utilizing An EMP Weapon | 1real |
Iraqi and Egyptian Nationals Caught After Sneaking Across Open Border | One Iraqi national and one Egyptian national were apprehended by U. S. Border Patrol agents after the individuals from had illegally entered the U. S. from Mexico. U. S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) confirmed the concerning apprehensions to Breitbart Texas in a statement. CBP declined to confirm that the foreign nationals were men, though a source operating under the umbrella of their agency claimed they were both males to Breitbart Texas. [“USBP agents [U. S. Border Patrol agents] from Lordsburg Station apprehended two individuals, one Iraqi national and the other from Egypt, while on patrol Saturday at 2:15 p. m. local time along Arizona State Route 80. Records checks and interviews produced no derogatory information and the two individuals were placed into removal proceedings,” wrote a spokesperson for the agency. Breitbart Texas asked CBP again to specify the gender, as males from penetrating the U. S. border would clearly be more of a concern than elderly females, but the agency would not enlighten the public to these important details. The exact location of the apprehensions is unclear, as the Border Patrol agents were from the Lordsburg, New Mexico, station, according to CBP. Arizona State Route 80 runs in both New Mexico and Arizona, due to the location of the highway in New Mexico, the CBP statement would indicate that the foreign nationals had made it more than 15 miles into U. S. territory before being apprehended. Had the apprehensions been in Arizona, Lordsburg agents would likely have not been present. The stretch of the U. S. border south of the apprehension area is open and without sufficient barriers of any sort. The area immediately south of the U. S. border from the apprehensions, therefore being the most likely crossing point for the foreign nationals, is controlled by criminal group factions operating under the banner of the Sinaloa Federation or cartel. The Sinaloa has long been known as much more professional than other Mexican cartels operating in the border regions and therefore less likely to allow potential terrorists to cross in their territory. The Sinaloa’s reluctance to cross illegal aliens from has changed. Over the past two years, Breitbart Texas has reported on multiple cases where the Sinaloa clearly allowed and aided individuals from to cross into the U. S. — as any unapproved activity in Sinaloa corridors on U. S. soil is met with brutal retribution. A previous Breitbart Texas report revealed that one person traversing an Arizona Sinaloa corridor without permission was brutally assaulted. In that instance, a cartel scout noticed the trespasser and called a cartel strike team in to teach the person a lesson. The man spent hours in a U. S. hospital having shards of wood surgically removed from his rectum after the cartel team sodomized him with sticks and possibly other items (or body parts). Brandon Darby is managing director and of Breitbart Texas. He the Cartel Chronicles project with Ildefonso Ortiz and Stephen K. Bannon. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook. | 0fake |
Ted Cruz is toast: It’s not just that he won’t be president — his days in the Senate are numbered, too | I’m not sure when it started, but at some point the Republican Party ceded the business of governance to the Democrats. Maybe it began with the Tea Party movement or Fox News or the larger conservative media-industrial complex – I honestly don’t know. But it’s clear now that the GOP is no longer a legitimate governing party. A party that allows rank neophytes like Herman Cain and Donald Trump and Ben Carson and Carly Fiorina to run for the highest office in the country has lost its way.
If you look at how the Republican Party operates today, it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that governing just isn’t a priority – or internal pressures within the party make it impossible. Instead, the GOP has become what I previously called a self-perpetuating hype machine for conservative political entrepreneurs. Particularly at the national level, Republican candidates and legislators (many of them, at least) show no interest in compromise or serious policymaking, which is what you’d expect from a party of and for purists.
While the new GOP has been bad for the country, it’s been great for political celebrities, people looking to promote their personal brands. Ted Cruz is the most recent and obvious example of this approach to politics. Cruz has been a remarkably ineffective Senator. He has done nothing but bloviate and showboat on the Senate floor. He’s accomplished zero legislatively. His only practical contribution has been to obstruct and draw attention to his martyrdom (read: presidential) campaign.
Ted Cruz will never be elected president. If he manages to win the Republican nomination, he’ll lose in a landslide to a Democrat, whoever that happens to be. And because he’s so eagerly made a spectacle of himself in the Senate, he’s alienated all but the tiniest segment of his own party. Which means he has no political capital in Congress – hardly a concern for someone uninterested in legislating, however.
Cruz’s latest squabble with Rand Paul helps to illustrate Cruz’s intentions. In an interview with Fox News’ Brian Kilmeade, Paul basically wrote Cruz’s political obituary:
Ted has chosen to make this really personal and chosen to call people dishonest in leadership and call them names which really goes against the decorum and also against the rules of the senate, and as a consequence he can’t get anything done legislatively. He is pretty much done for and stifled and it’s really because of personal relationships, or lack of personal relationships, and it is a problem. I approach things a little different, I am still just as hardcore in saying what we are doing , I just chose not to call people liars on the Senate floor and it’s just a matter of different perspectives on how best to get to the end result.
Paul is right, of course, but he omits an essential point: Cruz has been ineffective by design. Managing relationships and respecting decorum only matter to people trying to accomplish things in the Senate – that’s not what Cruz is up to. Like the fanatical Tea Party wing of the House, Cruz is there to obstruct and self-promote. In all likelihood, Cruz will retire after a single term in the Senate. Now that he’s boosted his national profile and endeared himself to the insurgent elements of the base, he can pivot to the private sector and make more money as a professional conservative activist – as, for example, Jim DeMint did in 2012. Cruz ought to be seen as the grifter that he is. It was never about policy for him. When he leaves the Senate, he’ll be a hero to the fringe right. He’ll make a fortune on the conservative lecture circuit, telling rapturous audiences about his willingness to challenge the “Washington cartel.” It won’t matter that he accomplished nothing, changed nothing – it’ll be enough that he pretended to while he was there. The same is true of Carson and Trump and Fiorina and even politicians like Huckabee and Jindal: None of them will be president, but their over-the-top activism will ensure them a profitable career after politics. And that, I assume, is the whole point. The Democrats have their share of bad politicians, but you don’t see this kind of faux activism and exploitation in their party. | 0fake |
Jared Kushner, a Trump In-Law and Adviser, Chases a Chinese Deal - The New York Times | On the night of Nov. 16, a group of executives gathered in a private dining room of the restaurant La Chine at the Waldorf Astoria hotel in Midtown Manhattan. The table was laden with Chinese delicacies and $2, 100 bottles of Château Lafite Rothschild. At one end sat Wu Xiaohui, the chairman of the Waldorf’s owner, Anbang Insurance Group, a Chinese financial behemoth with estimated assets of $285 billion and an ownership structure shrouded in mystery. Close by sat Jared Kushner, a major New York real estate investor whose Donald J. Trump, had just been elected president of the United States. It was a mutually auspicious moment. Mr. Wu and Mr. Kushner — who is married to Mr. Trump’s daughter Ivanka and is one of his closest advisers — were nearing agreement on a joint venture in Manhattan: the redevelopment of 666 Fifth Avenue, the fading crown jewel of the Kushner family empire. Anbang, which has close ties to the Chinese state, has seen its aggressive efforts to buy up hotels in the United States slowed amid concerns raised by Obama administration officials who review foreign investments for national security risk. Now, according to two people with knowledge of the Mr. Wu toasted Mr. Trump and declared his desire to meet the whose ascension, he was sure, would be good for global business. Since the election, intense scrutiny has been trained on Mr. Trump’s company and the potential conflicts of interest he will face. But with Mr. Kushner laying the groundwork for his own White House role, the meeting at the Waldorf shines a light on his family’s business, Kushner Companies, and on the ethical thicket he would have to navigate while advising his on policy that could affect his bottom line. Unlike the Trump Organization, which has shifted its focus from acquisition to branding of the Trump name, the Kushner family business, led by Mr. Kushner, is a major real estate investor across the New York area and beyond. The company has participated in roughly $7 billion in acquisitions in the last decade, many of them backed by opaque foreign money, as well as financial institutions Mr. Kushner’s will soon have a hand in regulating. The Anbang talks, which have not previously been reported, began roughly six months ago — “Well before the ’s victory,” Mr. Kushner’s spokeswoman, Risa Heller, noted. That was, however, just as Mr. Trump clinched the Republican nomination. While the talks are far along, representatives for Mr. Kushner said some points remained unresolved. Ms. Heller declined to outline the financial terms under discussion. Mr. Kushner, who declined to be interviewed for this article, has hired a leading Washington law firm, WilmerHale, to advise him on how to comply with federal ethics laws should he join the White House staff as an adviser to the president. The firm has concluded that one potential sticking point, a federal law, is not applicable, though not all ethics experts agree. While the law prohibits federal officials from hiring relatives for agencies they lead, Mr. Kushner’s lawyers argue, among other things, that the White House is not an agency and is therefore exempt. As for conflicts of interest, Mr. Kushner would be required to make limited financial disclosures, which could give the public a clearer picture of his holdings. And, unlike Mr. Trump, who as president will be exempt from laws, he would have to recuse himself from decisions with a “direct and predictable effect” on his financial interests. Jamie S. Gorelick, a WilmerHale partner who served in the Clinton administration, said that while plans were not final, Mr. Kushner was taking significant steps to extricate himself from the family business. “Mr. Kushner is committed to complying with federal ethics laws, and we have been consulting with the Office of Government Ethics regarding the steps he would take,” she said. He will resign as chief executive of Kushner Companies, and though the law does not require it, she said he would divest “substantial assets. ” She did not name them, but Ms. Heller said they would include his stake in 666 Fifth Avenue. Just how meaningful that plan is remains to be seen. Mr. Kushner’s representatives declined to detail his personal financial interest in Kushner Companies’ properties, and they said he intended to keep his interest in other properties beyond 666 Fifth Avenue. He also has a stake, through a family investment vehicle, in a private equity firm run by his brother, Joshua, with investments of its own. Mr. Kushner, who turns 36 on Tuesday, has emerged as one of the most powerful figures in Mr. Trump’s orbit. Already he is involved in steering policy, making personnel choices and serving as the middleman between foreign leaders, the White House and the in ways that could affect his business, even as companies like Anbang see opportunity in entering into new ventures with the ’s . Mr. Kushner played a pivotal role in persuading Mr. Trump, who made the Wall Street powerhouse Goldman Sachs a bête noire of his presidential campaign, to appoint the firm’s president, Gary D. Cohn, as his chief economic adviser, according to several people involved in the transition. (Like a number of people interviewed for this article, they spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss internal matters.) Goldman Sachs has lent the Kushner Companies money and is an investor in a real estate technology company by Mr. Kushner and his brother. Mr. Trump has said that his an Orthodox Jew, will play a central role in dealings with Israel, describing him as so talented that he could help “do peace in the Middle East. ” Mr. Kushner’s company has received multiple loans from Israel’s largest bank, Bank Hapoalim. The incoming Trump administration will inherit a Justice Department investigation into allegations that the bank helped wealthy Americans evade taxes. Indeed, despite a lack of foreign policy experience, Mr. Kushner is emerging as an important figure at a crucial moment for some of America’s most complicated diplomatic relationships. Such is his influence in the geopolitical realm that transition officials have told the Obama White House that foreign policy matters that need to be brought to Mr. Trump’s attention should be relayed through his according to a person close to the transition and a government official with direct knowledge of the arrangement. So when the Chinese ambassador to the United States called the White House in early December to express what one official called China’s “deep displeasure” at Mr. Trump’s break with longstanding diplomatic tradition by speaking by phone with the president of Taiwan, the White House did not call the ’s national security team. Instead, it relayed that information through Mr. Kushner, whose company was not only in the midst of discussions with Anbang but also has Chinese investors. Ethics experts said that while the law is narrowly drawn, Mr. Kushner’s mix of roles leads inevitably to ethical questions. Matthew T. Sanderson, a lawyer at Caplin Drysdale and former general counsel to Senator Rand Paul’s presidential campaign, said deals like the one with Anbang “might not be illegal under the rules, but raise a strong appearance that a foreign entity is using Mr. Kushner’s business to try to influence U. S. policy. ” Without knowing details of Mr. Kushner’s holdings and divestiture plans, he said, the merits of his proposal are hard to assess. Even if he divests his stake in certain properties, Mr. Sanderson added, “it strikes me as a ” that “still poses a real issue and would be a drag on Mr. Trump’s presidency and cause the American people to question Mr. Kushner’s role in policy making. ” Like the Mr. Kushner built on the fortune of a successful father. In the 1980s, his father, Charles Kushner, took over the New construction business started by his own father, a Holocaust survivor from Poland. Charles expanded into office buildings and apartments, eventually assembling a $1 billion real estate business and becoming a leading Democratic donor, contributing to politicians in New Jersey and New York and winning appointment to the board of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. But the company was upended when Charles became engulfed in a nasty family feud over how the business’s proceeds were to be distributed. The fight, which played out in a federal courthouse in Newark, resulted in a plea deal for Charles, who in 2005 was sentenced to two years in prison for tax evasion, witness tampering and making illegal campaign donations. The family infighting was so bitter that, at one point, Charles hired a prostitute to seduce his videotaped the encounter and sent the footage to his sister. Jared, 23 at the time of his father’s conviction, had recently graduated from Harvard. He was studying for an M. B. A. and law degree at New York University in 2006 when he bought The New York Observer, at the time an influential weekly newspaper known for its coverage of the city’s elite and real estate. It is unclear exactly when he assumed control of the family business. The company now says he became chief executive in 2008, but contemporaneous news accounts rarely describe him that way until 2012. Nevertheless, Mr. Kushner quickly became the company’s public face as it expanded across the Hudson River into Manhattan, much as Mr. Trump had left Queens for the big city decades before. Charles Kushner was released from federal custody in August 2006. He immediately resumed a significant role in the business and remains heavily involved today. Still, it was with Jared as headliner that the company soon made its biggest play ever: $1. 8 billion for the skyscraper at 666 Fifth Avenue that would remain at the center of its story to this day. It was the highest price ever paid for a single office building in the United States — and more than three times what its seller had paid six years earlier. Around this time, Mr. Kushner met the woman he would marry: Ivanka Trump. “” the headlines blared, as the New York tabloids celebrated a match made in real estate heaven. Everything was looking up, until suddenly it wasn’t. Within a year after the deal, the overheated lending market seized up and Kushner Companies struggled to repay its considerable loans — and to hold on to 666 Fifth Avenue. To the rescue over the next few years came the Carlyle Group, a giant private equity firm Vornado Realty Trust, then a of two of Mr. Trump’s largest properties and Inditex, owner of Zara, the fashion retailer founded by Amancio Ortega, the Spanish tycoon who is one of the world’s wealthiest men. In the end, Mr. Kushner’s company survived, and he and Ms. Trump became fixtures on the international circuit. In August, they were spotted with Wendi Deng, an of Rupert Murdoch, on the yacht Rising Sun, owned by the entertainment mogul David Geffen. Several weeks later, they were photographed watching the United States Open tennis finals with the art collector Dasha Zhukova, wife of the Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich, a member of President Vladimir V. Putin’s inner circle. Since 2012, Kushner Companies has been on a buying spree. It has acquired at least 120 properties, mostly a mix of existing commercial and residential buildings in New York and New Jersey, according to data compiled by Real Capital Analytics, a research firm. Recent deals include the $340 million acquisition of the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ headquarters in the shadow of the Brooklyn Bridge, and $345 million for a nearby plot of undeveloped land. Mr. Kushner’s company also bought several floors of the old New York Times building for $295 million in 2015 from Lev Leviev, an Israeli who is chairman of one of the largest real estate development companies in Russia. Increasingly, the company is branching out across the country — to Philadelphia Baltimore Toledo, Ohio and Kansas City, Mo. In Chicago, it owns the building that houses the Midwest headquarters of ATT. In all, the company owns more than 20, 000 apartments and approximately 14 million square feet of office space. As the Kushners have expanded their businesses, they have also, by necessity, expanded their universe of investors and creditors. Lenders have included private equity giants like Blackstone, the French bank Natixis and Goldman Sachs. Another lender is Deutsche Bank, which recently reached a $7. 2 billion settlement with the Justice Department over its sale of toxic mortgage securities. But it remains under investigation over allegations that it disguised trades that helped Russian clients move money offshore. Beyond real estate, Mr. Kushner has moved into the Wall Street, health care and tech spaces. He has an indirect investment in Thrive Capital, a venture capital firm valued at about $1. 5 billion that is run by his brother, Joshua. The company has made more than 100 investments in dozens of companies, both in the United States and abroad. Among them is Oscar, a health insurance company founded in 2012 to take advantage of the Affordable Care Act, which Mr. Trump has vowed to dismantle. Oscar’s investors have included Li who is one of Hong Kong’s richest men, and China’s Ping An Insurance, which has close ties to relatives of former Prime Minister Wen Jiabao of China. The Kushner brothers have counted the Russian billionaire tech investor Yuri Milner and the Chinese billionaire founder of Alibaba, Jack Ma, as investors in another endeavor — Cadre, a real estate investment company they started with a friend. Goldman Sachs has invested in both tech ventures. But the money behind many of Mr. Kushner’s investments remains a mystery. While the company lists dozens of partners on its website, it does not disclose the individuals behind those companies. One of the newest Kushner projects — a luxury apartment tower that opened in November in Jersey City — got nearly a quarter of its financing, about $50 million, from Chinese investors who are not publicly identified. The investors are beneficiaries of a federal program that grants visas and a path to permanent residency in exchange for investments of $500, 000. The program, known as has become popular with real estate developers as a cheap form of financing in fiscal year 2015, the State Department issued 9, 764 of the visas — overwhelmingly to applicants from China. But the program, which must be renewed periodically by Congress, has lately come under fire. The Government Accountability Office has issued several reports raising concerns about what it termed the program’s insufficient background checks and lax safeguards against illicit financing. One applicant, the agency found, failed to report potential financial ties to a string of Chinese brothels. Then there are the Kushners’ continuing negotiations with Anbang’s Mr. Wu, one of the most politically connected men in China. In 2015, Mr. Kushner began pursuing a grand vision for 666 Fifth Avenue. The renowned architect Zaha Hadid was asked to come up with a design to resculpt the office building, adding apartments, a hotel and a mall and nearly tripling its height to 1, 400 feet. But the plan needed money, and while Mr. Kushner had managed to hang on to his family’s flagship building, it still had a lot of debt, with a $1. 1 billion loan coming due in 2019, and a good portion of the commercial office space vacant. Anbang, which got its start as an auto insurance company in 2004, had become one of the most aggressive Chinese buyers of United States real estate, and had begun investing in hotels. But it had encountered problems of its own its byzantine ownership structure had given rise to concern on Wall Street and in Washington. The Times reported last year that Anbang is owned by a few dozen companies, which in turn are owned by a number of shell companies that are controlled by roughly 100 people, many of whom have ties to a county in China that is the home of Mr. Wu, whose own power stems in part from marriage. In his case he married Zhuo Ran, a granddaughter of Deng Xiaoping, the leader who brought China out of the chaos of the Mao era. Mr. Wu also counts as a central business partner the son of a People’s Liberation Army marshal, and he has recruited several former government insurance regulators to serve on his board. Anbang’s structure has stoked such suspicion about its true ownership that some Wall Street firms, including Morgan Stanley, have opted not to advise the company on United States mergers and acquisitions because they cannot get the information needed to satisfy their “know your client” guidelines. Anbang’s deep ties to the Chinese state have also led to a break in presidential protocol. Presidents have long stayed at the Waldorf, but when Mr. Obama visited New York for the opening of a session of the United Nations General Assembly in September 2015, he decided to seek other accommodations. American officials were vague about the reasons for the change at the time a senior national security official cited security, counterintelligence and cybersurveillance concerns. National security concerns have also complicated Anbang’s efforts to acquire other properties in the United States. One deal, to buy the Hotel del Coronado in San Diego, fell apart in October amid concerns from the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, which comprises the heads of nine federal agencies and is charged with reviewing the national security risks of transactions involving foreign governments or companies. The Hotel del Coronado is near a naval base, and deals involving proximity to national security infrastructure typically receive heightened scrutiny. Anbang was, however, able to acquire the other hotels in the same collection. Last year, Anbang tried to purchase the Starwood Hotels chain, outbidding Marriott with a $14 billion offer. It was widely reported that the deal would be subject to review by the committee. But though the parties expressed confidence that it would pass muster, ultimately Anbang walked away from the deal before submitting the kind of detailed inside information that process would entail. And while Anbang’s planned $1. 57 billion purchase of Des Fidelity Guaranty Life, first announced in November 2015, was cleared by the committee, also known as Cfius, it stalled after the New York State Department of Financial Services demanded more information about Anbang’s shareholding structure. But Anbang was nothing if not savvy. Company officials had cultivated a relationship with Benjamin M. Lawsky, who had earlier led the financial services agency, from May 2011 to June 2015. It was Mr. Lawsky, by then a consultant, who introduced Anbang to Kushner Companies, according to people with knowledge of how the discussions came about. Mr. Lawsky declined to comment. Mr. Kushner led the negotiations, his spokeswoman, Ms. Heller, confirmed. Kushner Companies would disclose little else about the joint venture, except to say that Anbang would become one of the equity partners in the building’s redevelopment if an agreement is finalized. Anbang declined to comment. It was just coincidence that Mr. Kushner’s Nov. 16 dinner at the Waldorf with Mr. Wu took place the week after the election, Ms. Heller said, adding that it had been in the works for a while. By the time of the meeting, Mr. Kushner had decided to hand off certain business relationships, including the one with Anbang, to others at Kushner Companies, according to Ms. Heller, and it was for that reason that he invited his father and Laurent Morali, the president of Kushner Companies. She said he planned to sell his stake in 666 Fifth before the closing of any Anbang deal, but she declined to name the potential buyers or the price Mr. Kushner hoped to get. Ms. Heller stressed in her statement that the United States has “not found Anbang to be a enterprise” — an important technical point, given that the Constitution’s Emoluments Clause prohibits the acceptance of payments and gifts from foreign governments. Should it consummate its deal with Anbang, she said, Kushner Companies will seek any necessary approvals from the federal government. She expressed confidence that any deal would pass muster with the foreign investment committee, citing the fact that it did not block the Chinese company from buying the Waldorf Astoria. Come Jan. 20, when Mr. Trump is scheduled to be inaugurated, that committee will be made up of his cabinet members, and the process is such that the president has the final say. It is a process with which Mr. Trump has some familiarity. During the campaign, he repeatedly criticized Hillary Clinton for supporting, as secretary of state and member of the foreign investment committee, a deal that benefited donors to her family’s charitable foundation while giving the Russians control of about 20 percent of America’s capacity. On China, Mr. Trump has talked a tough game, accusing Beijing of currency manipulation and raising the possibility of a trade war. But whether that is only a negotiating tactic remains to be seen. The has his own financial entanglements with China: He owns a 30 percent stake in a partnership that owes roughly $950 million to a group of lenders that includes the Bank of China, and one of his biggest tenants at Trump Tower is another bank, the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China. With Anbang a magnet for controversy, Mr. Kushner has kept the negotiations under wraps. But a week after the Nov. 16 dinner at the Waldorf, Mr. Kushner’s father and Mr. Wu met at the hotel for lunch. After the elder Mr. Kushner departed, Mr. Wu was clearly elated. “I love you guys,” he exclaimed in English to his remaining entourage, according to one person present. | 0fake |
Episode #4 – DRIVE BY WIRE: ‘DC Rabbit Holes’ with Patrick & Shawn | MEMBERS can join co-hosts Patrick Henningsen and Shawn Helton from 21WIRE for the best morning commute show going, DRIVE BY WIRE , shown in full here at 21WIRE.TV .EPISODE #4 21WIRE writers Patrick and Shawn talk about the big Russian Investigation currently going on in Washington, as well as the recent London Attack and some of the chief anomalies present in that event, and also US troops in Syria MEMBERS CAN WATCH THE FULL EPISODE HERESUPPORT 21WIRE SUBSCRIBE & BECOME A MEMBER @21WIRE.TV | 1real |
Ernie Els: ‘We Would Not be Playing For the Money We Play For If It Wasn’t For Tiger’ - Breitbart | South African golfer and major champion Ernie Els looks forward to the return of Tiger Woods at the Farmers Insurance Open next week at Torrey Pines in La Jolla, California. [The smooth swinging Els, AKA The Big Easy, thinks it quite plausible that Tiger can work his way back to winning tournaments again, including major championships. Els, who won the last of his four major at the British Open at Royal Lytham St. Annes Golf Club in 2012 at age 42, points out, “If players like myself, Darren Clarke and Mark O’Meara won (majors) in our 40s, surely Tiger thinks he can do it too. I am sure it’s on his agenda. ” Els says he would love to see Tiger play like his old self and thinks that he can do it if he can get it going at some of his favorite tournaments. “Mentally, he is as strong as anybody but he needs to find some momentum at his favorite events and if he gets that, he can start believing again. I would love to see him play like he did back in the 90s, but I am not sure that is going to happen,” Els told reporters on Wednesday. Certainly, there are a number of events he likes and no one exemplifies the idea of “horses for courses” more than Tiger. Woods has dominated more golf courses than any golfer in the history of the sport. He’s won at least four times on the same course at seven different Tour stops: Cog Hill (former home of the BMW Championship) Firestone (WGC Bridgestone) Doral (WGC Cadillac) Muirfield Village (the Memorial) Bay Hill (Arnold Palmer Invitational) Augusta National (the Masters) and Torrey Pines (Farmers Insurance Open). The South African knows where his bread is buttered and who has held the spreader for the last couple of decades. “We would not be playing for the money we play for if it wasn’t for Tiger, so we have to thank him for that, for what he has done for the game and it can only be good if he plays well. ” Els praised Tiger for his achievements, observing that “It’s been 20 years since he won his first major at the Masters and it’s quite amazing what he has achieved. ” He added, Woods “has won 14 majors in that span and he was injured for at least three or four of those seasons, so it’s really a major for every year he has been healthy as a professional. That’s incredible. ” | 0fake |
The Comey Confrontation: In Our New Third-World America, Corruption Is A Feature, Not A Bug | 1real | |
Snowflake Trump Makes His Staff Create A Daily Newsletter | A couple of weeks ago, Donald Trump held his first cabinet meeting. They might have discussed policy or the goals of the floundering administration, but what the world saw was like something straight out of North Korea. Trump went around the room and each cabinet member heaped fawning praise on Dear Leader.It turns out that was far from an isolated incident. Trump s White House has a daily newsletter and its one and only purpose is to appease Dear Leader s fragile snowflake ego.There is already a White House newsletter called 1600 Daily after the White House address of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. It s already an upbeat, full of pictures and general public relations (and yes, propaganda) stories, online newsletter that s available to the general public.West Wing Reads, though, is different. It wasn t written by staff. Instead, it s a compilation of stories from the web mostly from right-wing sources such as Breitbart and Fox that are flattering to Trump.On Thursday, for example, a Forbes contributor argued the Congressional Budget Office was wrong in calculating that 22 million people would lose health insurance under Trumpcare. According to them, no one would lose insurance.Reality check! An analysis by Forbes contributor Josh Archambault reveals surprising flaws in the CBO s score of the Senate healthcare bill, which concludes 22 million more Americans will be without health coverage by 2026. As Archambault points out, the CBO score is based on an old, inaccurate 2016 CBO estimate of how many Americans will purchase Obamacare. If you use their January 2017 update, Republican legislation to repeal and replace Obamacare would result in only 2 million fewer on the individual market by 2026, and would actually result in no losses and even some gains in enrollment in the years preceding, Archambault estimates. Click here to read more.On Tuesday, the newsletter even quoted CNN, who Trump normally calls fake news, because they had a positive write-up about his Supreme Court justice, Neil Gorsuch.And they like to say that President Obama was arrogant.Featured image via Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images | 1real |
Money Laundering Scheme Exposed: 14 Pro-Clinton Super PACs, Nonprofits Implicated |
There’s a reason David Brock, founder of the liberal group Media Matters for America, chooses to house an unregistered professional solicitor in his office to raise money for his conglomerate of super PACs and nonprofits.
Professional solicitors are required to disclose their active solicitation contracts. Brock wants his unregistered solicitor, the Bonner Group, to keep its client list hidden for a very specific reason.
David Brock is laundering money
Related Stories Consumers Need Protection From New Consumer Protection Bureau Rule Here’s What The Markets Are Telling Us… Exposed: Profiteers Of Governing – And These Are The Ones Who Got Caught! Brock has seven nonprofits, three super PACs, one 527 committee, one LLC, one joint fundraising committee and one unregistered solicitor crammed into his office in Washington .
Uncovered records expose a constant flow of money between these organizations.
The Bonner Group, his professional solicitor, works off a commission. Every time money gets passed around, Bonner receives a 12.5 percent cut.
Follow the money
Nonprofits are required to disclose to whom they give cash grants.
But they aren’t required to disclose who gives them cash grants.
This weak system of one-way verification is being abused by Brock. He’s been cycling money between his organizations for years, and the Bonner Group’s 12.5 percent commission gets triggered after every pass.
Trending Stories Frustrated With Media Bias, Trump Campaign Takes Its Case Directly To Voters With Nightly Show On Facebook RNC Official Takes CNN Host To Task For Claiming There Is No Media Bias Hannity Proposes A Sendoff For Obama In The Event Of A Trump Presidency In 2014, Media Matters for America raised more than $10 million.
The Bonner Group was credited for raising these funds. Media Matters paid it a $1.1 million commission.
That same year, Media Matters gave a $930,000 cash grant to Brock’s Franklin Education Forum , an organization that shares office space with Media Matters.
In 2014, the Franklin Education Forum reported $994,000 in total contributions, and 93.6 percent of that total came from Media Matters.
Surprisingly, though, the Franklin Education Forum gave full credit to Bonner for raising that money. It paid the fundraiser a $124,250 commission in 2014.
Notice what happened?
Brock’s Media Matters gave a $930,000 cash grant to Brock’s Franklin Education Forum. Brock’s Franklin Education Forum credited the Bonner Group for raising those funds, triggering the 12.5 percent commission. Brock paid the Bonner Group a $124,250 commission to solicit a cash grant … from himself! It doesn’t stop there
After the Franklin Education Forum retained $869,750, it sent a $816,224 cash grant to Brock’s Franklin Forum .
Note: The Franklin Education Forum is a 501(c)3, and The Franklin Forum is a 501(c)4. They are not the same company.
The Franklin Forum 501(c)4 paid Bonner a commission in 2013 , so it’s safe to assume the fundraiser received a $102,028 commission in 2014. Unfortunately, it’s hard to tell for sure. It still hasn’t filed its taxes for 2014!
Let’s recap
Say, for example, you donate $1,062,857 to Media Matters for America. This is how David Brock would have used your charitable donation in 2014:
Media Matters would receive your $1,062,857 donation. The Bonner Group would earn a $132,857 commission. Media Matters would retain $930,000. Next, Media Matters would give what’s left of your entire donation , $930,000, to the Franklin Education Forum. The Bonner Group would “earn” a $116,250 commission. The Franklin Education Forum would retain $813,750. The Franklin Education Forum would then forward the remaining $813,750 to The Franklin Forum. The Bonner Group would “earn” a $101,718 commission. The Franklin Forum would retain $712,031. In the end, Brock’s solicitor would have pocketed $350,825, almost a third of your initial donation. That’s a far cry from the advertised 12.5 percent commission.
As bizarre as that scenario may sound, this is exactly what Brock did in 2014.
How can we be sure this is intentional?
Brock is the chairman for each of these organizations. How could he not know what’s going on?
He’s a hands-on chairman. According to their tax returns, Brock allocates time, weekly, to his organizations:
Media Matters: 31.50 hours per week Franklin Education Forum: three hours per week The Franklin Forum: one hour per week Furthermore, The New York Times reports that Brock shares a summer rental in the Hamptons with Mary Pat Bonner, the president of the Bonner Group.
Brock would have a hard time claiming ignorance on this. These transfers are intentional. He vacations with his solicitor. Case closed.
Still not convinced?
Brock didn’t even bother to give his organizations different phone numbers. They all share the same number.
What if …?
We even located the Bonner Group’s solicitation agreement with Media Matters on Florida’s Gift Givers’ Guide . Clarification on the commission can be found on page 2:
In English: Contractually, Brock has the option to exclude certain contributions from triggering the commission. In spite of this option, he intentionally chooses to trigger the 12.5 percent commission for money grants between his organizations.
Note: Yes, we are making the assumption that all of Brock’s organizations have the same solicitation agreement with the Bonner Group. Given that his organizations share the same address, board members and telephone number, we feel it’s safe to assume they also share the same solicitation agreement.
This barely scratches the surface
Utilizing public-facing tax returns, along with records submitted to the Federal Election Commission, we mapped out all the significant money transfers from 2014 that took place in Brock’s office:
Summary
This is all from just one year! No further commentary required.
We understand this may be hard to believe. We first came across this in July, and are still having a hard time wrapping our heads around it.
All of the data referenced in this article originated from publicly accessible sources. Check for yourself — we provided links to the source material in our article exposing the organizations operating in Brock’s office. These data have been sitting out in the open, gathering dust for years.
If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck.
We’ve spent months trying to find some sort of loophole to justify this activity. But there aren’t any loopholes. David Brock has something to hide. Just last month, The Daily Caller reported the following:
“Brock’s former long-time live-in boyfriend William Grey (whom Brock has thanked in several of his books) threatened to go to the IRS with damaging information about how Brock was running his Media Matters empire. What did Brock do? He paid Grey $850,000 to keep quiet. Brock reportedly had to sell his home in Rehoboth, Delaware, to come up with the money. This certainly seems to indicate that Brock was terrified about what the authorities would uncover.”
Adding to this, Fox News reported the following:
“Grey accused Brock of ‘financial malfeasance’ and threatened to undermine Brock’s fundraising efforts.
“‘Next step is I contact all your donors and the IRS,’ Grey wrote in an email dated May 19, 2010. ‘This is going to stink for you if you do not resolve this now.'”
We believe that the information presented in this article is what has Brock so terrified. We feel confident in saying, with close to absolute certainty, that David Brock is laundering money through his Media Matters conglomerate.
This article first appeared at The Citizens Audit .
The views expressed in this opinion article are solely those of their author and are not necessarily either shared or endorsed by the owners of this website.
What do you think? | 1real |
Rubio reignites Cuba debate with Senate hearing | While two of his potential Republican presidential opponents were dodging press and scrambling to clean up gaffes on vaccinations, Rubio on Tuesday presided over his first hearing as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Western Hemisphere Subcommittee.
He peppered two panels of witnesses with pointed questions on President Barack Obama's move to normalize relations with Cuba, which he called "disgraceful."
And immediately after the hearing, Rubio became one of the GOP's fiercest advocates for vaccinations since the issue emerged as a political football this week, asserting children should "absolutely" be vaccinated.
It was a senatorial move from a senatorial perch for the Florida Republican, who has told his staff to prepare as though he'll run for president in 2016, though he hasn't yet made a decision publicly.
The hearing highlighted two of his primary advantages in the potential presidential race: His measured, charismatic speaking style, and compelling personal story and heritage. But the hearing also hinted at the troubles ahead for Rubio, as he's vies for attention in a party crowded with rising stars and a different high profile issue seemingly each week. The U.S.-Cuba relations remain a less-than-glamorous storyline, and an initially packed hearing room cleared out midway through when most of the senators left to vote. And with the threat from ISIS taking center stage in the debate over U.S. foreign policy, and others with considerable foreign policy chops, like South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, contemplating a run, it remains to be seen whether the Cuba issue will be a sufficient launching pad to keep Rubio in the national spotlight. Rubio opened the initially full hearing with a series of assertive and pointed questions for a State Department official, seeking to pin her down on whether the U.S. would agree to limit its meetings with democracy activists as a condition for the U.S. government opening an embassy in Havana. "Can you categorically say we will never accept that condition?" he ultimately asked. "It's not a real condition," the official replied. While the questions were incisive, they came in stark contrast to Sen. Rand Paul's prickly interview with a CNBC host on Monday, during which he shushed her and yawned while she asked questions. The interview quickly went viral and drew him negative press. And Rubio's appeal as the son of Cuban immigrants for a party seeking to make inroads with Latinos was on display during the second panel, which featured witnesses delivering testimony almost entirely in Spanish, with the help of a translator. At one point, Rubio moved to ask a question after a witness had given her answer in Spanish, interrupting the interpreter. He apologized, adding, "I could understand." "I told Sen. Flake...not to worry about the translation. I'll let you know what they said later" he joked, drawing laughter from the audience. The senator's backers believe his experience on national security issues, and particularly his leadership on Cuba, could give him a leg up on the competition in the primary. Just last month, Rubio won high praise for his command of foreign policy issues at a Koch-sponsored panel that allowed him to differentiate himself from fellow 2016 contenders Sens. Rand Paul and Ted Cruz. He emerged as the administration's most ardent critic after Obama announced in late December plans to thaw diplomatic relations with Cuba. And he's kept up the heat on the issue since, appearing on local and national media and writing op-eds hammering the move. The subcommittee chairmanship, too, doesn't come without risks. If he ultimately decides to run for president, as is expected, he'll face questions about his ability to get things done on Capitol Hill. Leadership of a subcommittee raises the expectations to deliver with concrete results — and can underscore the limits of a first-term senator's power. | 0fake |
The Zika Virus Is Harmless. It Does Not Cause Birth Defects (Bill Gates Releasing GM Mosquitoes Anyway) | After nearly a year of causing hysteria, mass travel cancellations and unnecessary abortions it finally daunts to “journalists” and “experts” that the Zika virus is harmless. It can cause a very minor flue – two days of a low fever and uncomfortable feeling for a quarter of those infected – that is all. It does not cause, as was claimed by sensationalists in the media and various self-serving “scientists”, birth defects like microcephaly.
We told you so.
In February we wrote: The Zika Virus Is Harmless – Who Then Benefits From This Media Panic? .
The piece refereed to a Congressional Research Service report and various sound scientific papers. It concluded:
There is absolutely no sane reason for the scary headlines and the panic they cause.The virus is harmless. It is possible, but seems for now very unlikely, that it affects some unborn children. There is absolutely no reason to be concerned about it.
The artificial media panic continued and huge amounts of money were poured into dangerous insecticides to kill mosquitoes (and important pollinators) that did not do any harm. Indeed, generous use of some of these insecticides likely were the very cause of a blip in microencephaly cases in northeastern Brazil.
In March we wrote: Reading About Zika May Hurt Your Brain .
We listed 35 sensational “news” headlines about potential catastrophes related to a Zika epidemic. The common factor of those panic creating media wave – all those headlines included the miraculous little word may . The pieces were pure speculations with some quoting this or that “expert” who was hunting for research funds or lobbying for some pharmaceutical or pesticide conglomerate.
In June we added: Zika Virus Does Not Cause Birth Defects – Fighting It Probably Does .
New serious research found what some people in Brazil had suspected from the very start of the small and strictly locally limited jump in microencephaly cases in Brazil:
[D]octors in the Zika affected areas in Brazil pointed out that the real cause of somewhat increased microcephaly in the region was probably the insecticide pyriproxyfen, used to kill mosquito larvae in drinking water:
The Brazilian doctors noted that the areas of northeast Brazil that had witnessed the greatest number of microcephaly cases match with areas where pyriproxyfen is added to drinking water in an effort to combat Zika-carrying mosquitoes . Pyriproxyfen is reported to cause malformations in mosquito larvae, and has been added to drinking water in the region for the past 18 months.
Pyriproxyfen is produced by a Sumitomo Chemical – an important Japanese poison giant. It was therefore unsurprising that the New York Times and others called the Brazilian doctors’ report a “conspiracy theory” and trotted out some “experts” to debunk it.
…
But [s]cientist at the New England Complex Systems Institute also researched the pyriproxyfen thesis. They found :
Pyriproxifen is an analog of juvenile hormone, which corresponds in mammals to regulatory molecules including retinoic acid, a vitamin A metabolite, with which it has cross-reactivity and whose application during development causes microcephaly .
…
[T]ests of pyriproxyfen by the manufacturer, Sumitomo, widely quoted as giving no evidence for developmental toxicity, actually found some evidence for such an effect , including low brain mass and arhinencephaly—incomplete formation of the anterior cerebral hemispheres—in rat pups. Finally, the pyriproxyfen use in Brazil is unprecedented—it has never before been applied to a water supply on such a scale.
…
Given this combination of information we strongly recommend that the use of pyriproxyfen in Brazil be suspended pending further investigation.
Today the Washington Post finally admits that the Zika virus does not cause birth defects:
[T]o the great bewilderment of scientists, the epidemic has not produced the wave of fetal deformities so widely feared when the images of misshapen infants first emerged from Brazil.Instead, Zika has left a puzzling and distinctly uneven pattern of damage across the Americas. According to the latest U.N. figures, of the 2,175 babies born in the past year with undersize heads or other congenital neurological damage linked to Zika, more than 75 percent have been clustered in a single region: northeastern Brazil.
The wide areas where the flue virus occurred outside of the small area in Brazil saw no increase in birth defect numbers. The number of (naturally occurring) microcephality cases stayed constant despite a very large increase in (harmless) Zika virus infections. The numbers in Brazil also turned out to be partially inflated because of a lack of standard diagnosis criteria and unreliable statistics. A factor we had pointed to in our very first piece.
The WaPo piece today muses about several “possible” causes for the local increase in cases in northeastern Brazil that indeed happened. It quotes some of the very “experts”, like from the pharmaceutical industry influenced CDC, that were wrong on the issue since the very first panic headline. It strenuously avoids to even mention the most likely cause – the excessive local use of an insecticide that is supposed to cause birth defects – in developing mosquitoes. Thus the reporting is still void of journalistic ethics and irresponsible in its conclusions.
It did not take much effort to get this right. An hour or two of skimming through publicly available sources of good standing, some basic higher education and sound reasoning was enough. But instead of doing such basic inquiries “journalists” and media “served” panic and speculations by biased “experts”. Keep this story in mind for the next sensationalist onslaught of panic headline. There surely will be some “interests” behind those; just don’t expect unbiased facts and basic logic reasoning.
Source: Moon of Alabama
Via: Global Research
Yet, Millions of GMO Mosquitoes set to be released in Brazil & Columbia… Scientists are planning to release an army of millions of modified mosquitoes in areas of Brazil and Colombia.
They say the unusual approach is an attempt to provide “revolutionary protection” against mosquito-borne diseases such as Zika and chikungunya.
The mosquitoes are infected with a bug called Wolbachia which reduces their ability to spread viruses to people.
The $18m dollar project is funded by an international team of donors, including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation…
Source: BBC
Related: 6 Weird Things About Zika That Don’t Add Up — Must Watch! Depopulation: Zika Virus Funded By Bill Gates Zika Virus For Sale Online Courtesy of the Rockefeller Foundation FDA Approves Genetically Modified Mosquitoes to Combat Zika in Florida Zika Mosquitoes Same As GM Mosquitoes Released Off The Coast Of Florida Feds Going Door-To-Door In Florida Asking For Urine Samples Amid Zika Outbreak Is the Zika virus an offshoot of a secret U.S. Army ‘entomological warfare’ program? Zika ‘scarier than thought’: Top US officials push govt for $1.9bn emergency funding Zika Virus – The Latest Actor in the Fake Pandemic Play? Zika: Who Launched The Fake-Epidemic Story In Brazil? Zika Fear Falters as False Flag Fraud Fizzles GM Mosquitoes With Possible Link To Zika Virus Awaiting Release In Florida Zika Virus Outbreak May Be Result of Bioweapon – Ex-Russian Surgeon General Zika Freakout: The Hoax And The Covert Op Continue Eugenics WMD: Zika Virus Prompts Disturbing New Call For ‘No Child Policy’ | 1real |
Trump to Republicans: Act swiftly to replace Obamacare | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President-elect Donald Trump on Tuesday pressured fellow Republicans working to repeal Obamacare in Congress to pass a replacement for the healthcare law at the same time or soon after they vote to dismantle it. Trump told the New York Times he wanted a substitute for President Barack Obama's 2010 healthcare law done "very quickly or simultaneously" to the vote to get rid of it. (nyti.ms/2ia9qLk) The law, popularly known as Obamacare, has enabled millions of previously uninsured Americans to obtain health insurance, but Republicans condemn it as a government overreach. With Trump set to succeed Obama on Jan. 20, Republicans, who control both chambers of Congress, face a dilemma. They have a chance to make good on their promise to gut the law, but forging an agreement on a replacement plan has eluded them. If Congress does not put in place a substitute, millions of Americans with the insurance may be at risk of losing coverage. The law extended insurance coverage to uninsured Americans by expanding the Medicaid program for the poor and creating online exchanges where people can shop for health insurance plans. It also provides subsidies to help individuals and families afford those plans. House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan said on Tuesday that some elements of an insurance substitute likely would be ready when lawmakers vote to repeal Obamacare, but others would take longer. Some Republicans have said it could take up to two years to craft a replacement. Trump said a delay of that length was unacceptable, telling the Times: “It won’t be repeal and then two years later go in with another plan.” Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said Trump’s comments were “not inconsistent” with lawmakers’ plans. The Senate is set to vote this week on a timeline to draft legislation repealing Obamacare. If it passes, the House would vote next. But a vote to actually repeal the law would come later. Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said Republicans were mired in “internecine fights” and called on Trump to publish his own Obamacare substitute. Trump during the 2016 election campaign put forth general principles for health reform, such as removing the mandate that all Americans have insurance or pay a tax and expanding the use of tax-free health savings accounts, but he did not release a full plan. “If they are repealing, they have an obligation to show us a full replacement plan, not just a little piece of it,” Schumer said. “And once they show us that plan, we’ll give them our opinion of it.” U.S. Senator Lamar Alexander, a Republican who heads the health committee, said some Obamacare replacement steps need to be in place before March 1, when insurance companies will be deciding whether to offer plans for 2018. In a speech on Tuesday, Alexander said interim steps could include letting people use Obamacare subsidies to purchase other plans or giving states flexibility to determine which benefits insurance plans must cover. House Speaker Ryan said Republicans would like to pack whatever replacement provisions they can into repeal legislation. Because the Senate plans to use a budget procedure known as reconciliation, they only need majority support in the 100-member Senate where Republicans hold 52 seats. Republican Senator Orrin Hatch, who heads the finance panel, said Senate rules for the reconciliation process could make it difficult to put replacement provisions in the repeal bill. “If he can come up with something that would help push this forward, I’d be all for it,” Hatch said of Ryan. | 0fake |
Russia to limit U.S. military observation flights: RIA | MOSCOW (Reuters) - Moscow will limit the scope of U.S. military observation flights over Russia from Jan. 1 next year in retaliation for U.S. curbs on similar Russian flights over the United States, the RIA news agency reported on Wednesday. The United States has accused Russia of flouting the Open Skies Treaty, an agreement designed to build confidence between the countries militaries which entered into force in 2002, and said it plans to take measures against Moscow. The Wall Street Journal newspaper reported in September that this would include restricting Russian military flights over American territory in response to what it said was Moscow preventing U.S. observation flights over its heavily militarized Baltic exclave of Kaliningrad. The United States is reported to have been keen to restrict Russian flights over Alaska and Hawaii as well as limiting the distance of Russian observation flights. RIA on Wednesday cited Georgy Borisenko, a senior foreign ministry official, as saying Moscow would take reciprocal steps to respond to the new U.S. measures from Jan. 1 and limit the territory which U.S. observations flights can fly over. | 0fake |
Piles of Dirty Secrets Behind a Model ‘Clean Coal’ Project - The New York Times | DE KALB, Miss. — The fortress of steel and concrete towering above the pine forest here is a power plant that was supposed to prove that “clean coal” was not an oxymoron — that it was possible to produce electricity from coal in a way that emits far less pollution, and to turn a profit while doing so. The plant was not only a central piece of the Obama administration’s climate plan, it was also supposed to be a model for future power plants to help slow the dangerous effects of global warming. The project was hailed as a way to bring thousands of jobs to Mississippi, the nation’s poorest state, and to extend a lifeline to the dying coal industry. The sense of hope is fading fast, however. The Kemper coal plant is more than two years behind schedule and more than $4 billion over its initial budget, $2. 4 billion, and it is still not operational. The plant and its owner, Southern Company, are the focus of a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation, and ratepayers, alleging fraud, are suing the company. Members of Congress have described the project as more boondoggle than boon. The mismanagement is particularly egregious, they say, given the urgent need to rein in the largest source of dangerous emissions around the world: coal plants. The plant’s backers, including federal energy officials, have defended their work in recent years by saying that delays and cost overruns are inevitable with innovative projects of this scale. In this case, they say, the difficulties stem largely from unforeseen factors — or “unknown unknowns,” as Tom Fanning, the chief executive of Southern Company, has often called them — like bad weather, labor shortages and design uncertainties. Many problems plaguing the project were broadly known and had been occurring for years. But a review by The New York Times of thousands of pages of public records, previously undisclosed internal documents and emails, and 200 hours of secretly though legally recorded conversations among more than a dozen colleagues at the plant offers a detailed look at what went wrong and why. Those documents and recordings, provided to The Times by a an engineer named Brett Wingo, and interviews with more than 30 current or former regulators, contractors, consultants or engineers who worked on the project, show that the plant’s owners drastically understated the project’s cost and timetable, and repeatedly tried to conceal problems as they emerged. The system of checks and balances that are supposed to keep such projects on track was outweighed by a shared and powerful incentive: The company and regulators were eager to qualify for hundreds of millions of dollars in federal subsidies for the plant, which was also aggressively promoted by Haley Barbour, who was Southern’s chief lobbyist before becoming the governor of Mississippi. Once in office, Mr. Barbour signed a law in 2008 that allowed much of the cost of building any new power plants to be passed on to ratepayers before they are built. Seeing so many of the problems from the inside, at least one employee felt the need to speak up. “I’ve reached a personal tipping point and feel a duty to act,” Mr. Wingo wrote in a 2014 email, which was among several that he sent to officials of Southern Company and Mississippi Power, the state utility that runs the plant, alleging that the company had broken federal law and engaged in corporate fraud. “Hope is not a strategy,” he added. “This is a project with many misguided enemies, so why give them free ammo?” In their recorded conversations with Mr. Wingo, at least six senior engineers from the plant said that they believed that the delays and cost overruns, as well as safety violations and shoddy work, were partly the result of mismanagement or fraud. “It has nothing to do with the design, it has nothing to do with the technology, it just has to do with poor project management,” Landon Lunsford, an engineer at the plant, said during one recorded call with Mr. Wingo last December, when they discussed an email from Southern’s legal department telling senior employees to retain all emails because of a continuing S. E. C. investigation. The company will never admit the problems because they will attract more scrutiny from regulators, Mr. Lunsford said. “As long as they can talk away the results as attributable to something else other than just poor performance, the other public service commissions can’t hold them over the fire as much,” he added. Officials from Southern Company and Mississippi Power, which is a Southern subsidiary, said that they could not comment on Mr. Wingo’s allegations but that all decisions about cost and budget projections were made by consensus. They also said that Mr. Wingo’s accusations had previously been investigated by the company and could not be substantiated. Mr. Wingo was fired in February, a move that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration later ruled illegal. Ed Holland, the former chief executive of Mississippi Power, added that one of the project’s biggest mistakes was to start construction with little of the plant designed. “We still believe that from our investors’ standpoint, this was a wise investment to prove the technology,” he said in an interview. In the end, the Kemper project is a story of how a monopoly utility, with political help from the Mississippi governor and from federal energy officials who pressured state regulators in letters to support the project, shifted the burden of one of the most expensive power plants ever built onto the shoulders of unwitting investors and some of the ratepayers in the country. Kemper’s rising price tag and other problems will probably affect the Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed rules on new power plants, and also play into broader discussions about the best way to counter climate change. E. P. A. regulations in effect require new coal plants to have carbon capture technology but are being held up in federal court partly by arguments that the technology is not . The importance of this technology grows, as well, after President Obama said last week that the United States would join Canada and Mexico in pledging to reach a shared goal of generating 50 percent of North America’s electricity from sources by 2025, up from 37 percent today, with a power mix that includes wind, solar, hydropower, nuclear energy and coal or gas power paired with carbon capture technology. “The big question with clean coal has always been whether it’s a moonshot or a money pit,” said Charles Grayson, the director of the Bigger Pie Forum, which advocates fiscal conservatism in Mississippi and has been critical of the Kemper project for years. “The Obama administration and my state made a really bad wager in trying to use Kemper to make the economic argument for this technology. ” Coal represents a conundrum: It is among the dirtiest sources of fuel, producing roughly 45 percent of the emissions that contribute to climate change. And yet the world still relies on it for power, with more than a quarter of the electricity used globally coming from coal plants. Southern Company proposed a promising idea with the Kemper project. Providing a cleaner way to use coal, which is cheap and abundant in the United States, the plant also offered the means to preserve many jobs that are fast disappearing in this part of the country. Kemper County, with mostly roads cutting through clay hills and pine forest, has an average per capita income of $14, 837 and an unemployment rate roughly double the national average. To the region, the plant offered more than clean power: It promised hope, at least 12, 000 jobs and savings. As construction ramped up, the county took in over $8 million annually in extra tax money, which went toward repairing roads, bridges and schools, lowering local property taxes, and clearing debt. In the summer of 2005, as Hurricane Katrina toppled drilling rigs and uprooted pipelines in the Gulf of Mexico, the price of natural gas rose by more than 40 percent. In Mississippi, utility regulators saw the Kemper plant as a way to diversify its energy options in a state that relies on natural gas for nearly 80 percent of its electricity. The plant, which broke ground in 2010, would run on lignite, a type of coal that is difficult to process but is plentiful in the region. Most of the carbon dioxide produced by the plant would be captured, compressed, sold and piped to oil fields. There, it would be pumped underground in a process known as enhanced oil recovery, to help push up previously unrecoverable oil to levels where it could be reached. Though carbon capture technology is proven and widely viewed as a potentially important tool to slow global warming, the question has been whether it can be scaled up affordably. Before becoming governor, Mr. Barbour helped orchestrate the transfer of about $270 million in federal subsidies from a canceled coal plant in Florida to the proposed Mississippi plant. As governor, Mr. Barbour then signed the Baseload Act, which shifted much of the cost and risk of building power plants from investors to consumers, and allowed utilities such as Mississippi Power to charge ratepayers for projects before they were completed. Carbon capture has been considered a holy grail for decades. For Ronald Reagan, it was a solution to acid rain for Bill Clinton, an alternative to nuclear power. George W. Bush billed his FutureGen project as the world’s first coal plant but mothballed it when it became too expensive. As the emphasis on fighting climate change grew, the Obama administration hung many of its hopes on Kemper. Gina McCarthy, the E. P. A. administrator, cited federal support for the project as proof that her agency was not despite strict new rules on emissions. The Energy Department repeatedly wrote state regulators emphasizing the importance of the project. By 2012, though, “Miss Power,” as locals called the state utility, was facing mounting criticism about the plant. In May of that year, after the utility said that the Kemper project was $366 million over budget, it announced a plan to raise its customers’ rates by 13 percent. Campaigning for a seat on the Mississippi Public Service Commission, Thomas A. Blanton, an opponent of the project, ran television ads featuring an older woman eating dog food and warning of sacrifices that poorer people sometimes make to afford electricity. In cramped trailers where some of the poorest people in the state live, summer temperatures topped 110 degrees — potentially deadly for older residents who could not pay to keep their running. “You don’t want to pay to build my home, and I don’t want to pay to build your plant,” John Gooding, a cabinetmaker from Bay St. Louis, who lost his home in Hurricane Katrina, said during a public hearing about the rate hikes. “Some people are still living in trailers, and now you want to build a plant you can’t guarantee. ” Other critics piled on. Environmentalists called the plant the “Solyndra of clean coal,” a reference to the heavily subsidized but failed federal solar project. They asked whether the plant’s climate change benefits were overstated because the carbon it would capture from coal was going to be used to pump more oil. Why was Kemper being cited as a model worthy of replicating, they asked, given that other plants would not share one of Kemper’s main advantages: a plentiful supply of cheap coal nearby. Alleging that Southern Company and Mississippi Power had overstated the plant’s the Bigger Pie Forum sued to unseal project records. To help make their case that the Kemper plant would be competitive with natural gas, which is coal’s main competitor, utility executives predicted to investors and regulators that the price for natural gas would be higher than $11 by 2016. But gas remains less than $2 per unit, undermining the business case for the plant. The project did create jobs, but Mark Klinedinst, a retired economics professor from the University of Southern Mississippi, said that more were lost in the region as businesses laid people off to pay for the higher electrical bills caused by Mississippi Power rate increases from plant construction. The University of Southern Mississippi also raised annual tuition $236 per student, partly to offset its additional $1 million in higher electrical costs, he said. Mr. Wingo, 48, had lived paycheck to paycheck for years, working at small, struggling engineering firms. When he was hired in 2007 by a subsidiary of Southern, it was a big step up. He doubled his salary to become a midlevel manager to help oversee scheduling and some design decisions on a project that he believed would make history. Before long, Southern began flying him around the country to explain the project to others. He received glowing performance reviews and was awarded an annual $2, 000 “Southern Excellence” employee award. By 2012, though, Mr. Wingo had begun his transition to . About two weeks after state regulators renewed the license for the project to continue, Mississippi Power admitted to regulators that it had concealed cost overruns of about $366 million. In increasingly testy meetings and emails over succeeding months, Mr. Wingo told his supervisors that other scheduling information that Mississippi Power and Southern Company were providing to the public was infeasible and misleading. Ed Day, Mississippi Power’s chief executive at the time, tried to tighten control over what was shared. “I would like to remind everyone ‘again,’ no numbers, schedules, or information in general should be communicated to external parties until I review first,” Mr. Day wrote in an Aug. 8, 2012, email to senior staff. Others shared Mr. Wingo’s growing concerns. Tom Theodore, a scheduling consultant who worked on the Kemper project for about eight months in 2012, described the company’s stated schedule as little more than “a pretty picture to show everybody that we’re all doing wonderful as opposed to what reality showed on the ground. ” His predecessors had altered the software so it no longer automatically adjusted the final price and completion date to reflect problems as they emerged, he said. Greg Zoll, who had been hired by the state to be the project’s independent monitor, also grew skeptical. While engineering expenses and purchases went up, reported construction costs went down and scheduling timelines were shortened. “These trends are illogical,” he wrote in of one of a series of highly critical reports that he filed with regulators from 2012 to 2014. Documents show that in a rush to qualify for federal subsidies, Mississippi Power started construction with less than 15 percent of the plant designed, Mr. Zoll told regulators. Mississippi Power rejected Mr. Zoll’s criticism, responding that the delays were caused by glitchy software and shifts in design, and that the company was absorbing most of the additional costs. But Brandon Presley, now the chairman of the Mississippi Public Service Commission, which regulates utilities, said that the project was troubled from the start and he voted against it. “The train left the station,” he said, when, in a rush to qualify for millions of dollars in federal subsidies, the commission approved the project. He added that the problem was not the federal subsidies, which are necessary to develop innovative technology, but the failure by all parties to slow down and ask enough questions. On May 20, 2013, Mr. Day abruptly stepped down as chief executive. His replacement, Ed Holland, told regulators that Mr. Day had directed or allowed employees to withhold from regulators documents about cost overruns. That sparked public outcry because the information was withheld from the commission while it was deciding whether to reapprove the project. “I will see that it never happens again,” said Mr. Holland, according to news articles at the time. In February 2014, an argument erupted at the plant. Engineers told managers that the company should not promise to regulators and investors that the project would be done before the end of the year, emails and recorded calls show. Weeks later, the company did so anyway. The next day, the owner of the project’s scheduling firm sent an email saying that he could not in good conscience continue to work on a project that did not “fairly and accurately represent the work that still remains. ” Mr. Wingo wrote in a subsequent email to an official at PricewaterhouseCoopers, an auditing firm that was helping to manage the project, “This has really put the entire project at a crossroads. ” The other engineers in his division were in “utter disbelief” that the company had published a false schedule, he added. On March 10, Mr. Wingo called Mr. Fanning, the chief executive of Southern Company, to ensure the message reached him. “I’m glad you brought this to me,” Mr. Wingo said Mr. Fanning told him. “I plan to get to the bottom of this. ” Instead, Southern Company and Mississippi Power focused in subsequent months at least as much on damage control as they did on rooting out wrongdoing. In meetings, Mr. Wingo and other engineers said that they were told by plant managers that they needed to present an optimistic timetable for the project or the utility risked “financial Armageddon” of lost tax subsidies, spooked investors, possible bankruptcy, and harsh criticism from the news media, regulators and lawmakers. After Mr. Wingo provided company officials with a binder of documents corroborating his allegations, he said he was ordered to stop sending emails on the matter because they could become public through litigation. After he told his manager in an email that most project engineers agreed that the plant could not be completed by 2014, the manager continued telling executives that “to a man” all of the plant’s engineers thought that finishing by 2014 was feasible, Mr. Wingo said, and Mr. Lunsford, the engineer at the plant, reiterated in a recorded call that the manager’s comment was false. Mr. Wingo, who began speaking to reporters, refused an offer of roughly $975, 000 from the company to keep quiet, according to interviews and court records related to his claims. Southern was then granted a restraining order, later dropped, forbidding him from speaking publicly about the plant, court records show. Mr. Wingo said that he began recording his phone conversations in August 2014, hoping to protect himself. During those calls, at least two of Mr. Wingo’s colleagues said that they strongly disagreed with what one of them called “his grand conspiracy. ” A other engineers told Mr. Wingo that they shared his views. The Times contacted each of the engineers whose conversations were recorded and shared by Mr. Wingo. All declined to comment. The recordings include commiseration among colleagues, and ambivalence from engineers who vacillated between criticizing and defending the project. They include typical workplace grousing about bosses who workers say are in need of “Viagra for the brain” and are incapable of running even a Popsicle stand. They also reveal an internal struggle that Mr. Wingo faced: While still a believer in the possibility of clean coal, he was uneasy to find himself on the same side as environmental groups that oppose fossil fuels. “My enemy’s enemy is not necessarily my friend,” he said in one recorded conversation in February 2015. What troubled the engineers most was the poor quality of work: leaking gaskets, cracked ductwork, and pipes missing inspection records, valves and supports. Ryan Brown, a plant engineer, said during a phone call that he was having to “go back and do some sort of repair or rebuild” for every piece of work handed to him by the plant’s construction teams, which were under intense deadline pressure. In a call on Aug. 22, 2014, Mr. Wingo confronted one of his superiors, Brett Wingard, about photographs covertly taken by an inspector who was concerned about defective pipes at the plant. Mr. Wingard dismissed the threat, saying that the pipes were only in a section of the plant not yet in operation (part of the project is running on natural gas already). GPS information in the images indicates otherwise. Other workers recounted in phone calls to Mr. Wingo that they had discovered a large section of outdoor exhaust pipe that was glowing cherry red one night in September 2014 because gases were misdirected through it. “That’s so bad that it made people all over the company stand up and say this is ridiculous,” Mr. Lunsford said in an October call with Mr. Wingo. Several warned Mr. Wingo against being “a martyr. ” One engineer, Donald Falletta, told him in a phone call that jumping on a grenade “when there ain’t nobody else in the damn room don’t save nobody. ” In a call six months later, Mr. Falletta added that he too believed that managers were being “told to lie” about the pace of progress. In February 2015, Southern sued Mr. Wingo, alleging that he had agreed to a settlement but failed to comply with its terms, which included keeping quiet about the plant. Mr. Wingo said that he never signed or agreed to any settlement. Tim Leljedal, a spokesman for Southern Company, added that Mr. Wingo’s allegations had been thoroughly investigated by the company and by outside counsel and were found to be unsubstantiated. He added that with any project of this scope, detractors are inevitable. Shortly after the lawsuit was filed, Mr. Wingo’s colleague, Robert Adams, called him to say that he was leaving the company and to ask whether he would be legally allowed to speak publicly about the plant at that point. “Once we resign, do you think they will try to silence us?” asked Mr. Adams, who left the company shortly thereafter. In March, the company dropped its case against Mr. Wingo. “Hug that wife,” Donald Falletta said in a phone conversation congratulating Mr. Wingo. “She’s been through a damn ride. ” The utility was on a roller coaster, too. In February 2015, the state Supreme Court ruled that Mississippi Power had to repay ratepayers roughly $377 million for increasing rates by 15 percent in 2013 and 3 percent in 2014 without proper approvals. Utility officials responded that the requirement would bankrupt it, and several months later persuaded regulators to approve a new increase, 15 percent. Meanwhile, engineers discussed the pressure to hurry construction. One of them, Brent Duncan, recounted in a phone call that he told a scheduling contractor how discouraged he was that managers were being allowed to “screw” with the schedule and “then claim they can meet all these dates, and there’s no way. ” The engineers joked that Mississippi Power, eager to show progress to investors and regulators, overstated certain milestones. For example, it bragged of achieving the “first fire,” which involves the lighting of the gasifier, when what they did fell far short of the actual definition, according to Mr. Wingo. “We burned natural gas in a pilot” light, Brandon Davis, an engineer, said during one phone conversation. “I accomplish that every day in my garage. ” Some engineers wondered aloud whether accurate information was making it to the top. “By the time the message gets to Tom Fanning,” Mr. Lunsford said in a September 2015 call, “it’s so muddled and messed up that he’s not even hearing the truth. ” In March, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration alerted Southern that it had violated protections. The agency rejected the company’s claim that it was justified in firing Mr. Wingo because he could “not be trusted to support the chain of command. ” Mr. Wingo filed his claim against Southern Company under the Act. While that law does not lead to paying a cash bounty to successful Mr. Wingo declined to say whether he has also filed a claim with the S. E. C. under the Act, which does pay awards for successful cases. In April of this year, Southern informed the S. E. C. for at least the eighth consecutive month of a new delay and cost overrun, this time for $60 million, bringing the total spent on the Kemper project to about $6. 7 billion. In May, the Obama administration said that it planned to cut spending on technologies by 3 percent in next year’s budget. Supporters of carbon capture say that Kemper’s problems are not representative of the entire industry, and that one part of the plant — the gasifier that converts cheap coal into synthetic gas — is primarily causing the delays. But critics say that the principal challenge of carbon capture is cost, and that the gasifier’s ability to use cheap coal has always been advertised as key to making the project affordable. As Mississippi Power and Southern Company have continued struggling to bring the plant online, Southern has repeatedly promoted in calls to investors its plans to help offset the project’s cost by selling the technology abroad. For now, Mr. Presley, the chairman of the Mississippi Public Service Commission, says he is taking a approach, hoping that when and if the plant finally comes online, it works as promised. Mississippi Power has said that every month of delay adds more than $20 million to the overall cost, but it will charge customers for extra costs from the plant only with approval by the commission. Mr. Presley will eventually have to grapple with what he called the “awful task” of not pushing the utility into bankruptcy while determining how much electricity customers, taxpayers and investors should pay for the billions of dollars in cost overruns. | 0fake |
Creator of Fake News Website to Donate Ad Revenue to Democrats - Breitbart | James McDaniel created a fake news website in February just for fun. In less than two weeks, UndergroundNewsReport. com had garnered more than 1 million page views and hundreds of dollars in advertising revenue. [McDaniel, a Florida native now living in Costa Rica, told PolitiFact that he plans to donate the $615 in ad revenue to the 2020 Democratic presidential nominee. The PolitiFact — which became part of Facebook’s “fact checking” team tasked to label “fake news” stories as they appear on the social media platform — uncovered McDaniel’s website while flagging fake news. UndergroundNewsReport. com ran wild headlines like: “Bombshell: WikiLeaks leaks ‘lost’ Clinton email“ “Obama tweet: Trump must be removed, by any means necessary“ and “Whoopi Goldberg: Navy SEAL Widow was ‘Looking for Attention. ’” McDaniel said that while he placed a warning on the website alerting readers that the news there was fake, he said most people were “willfully ignorant. ” Following harsh reaction to the story about Whoopi Goldberg and the Navy SEAL widow, McDaniel said is when the “fun” for him had stopped. “I might have carried on a bit longer because I was having fun,” McDaniel said, “but people took the Whoopi Goldberg story so seriously and it had gotten so big I thought I had better pull the plug. ” UndergroundNewsReport. com is still active. While his fake days are over, McDaniel said he wants to keep the website up as a “relic. ” Follow Jerome Hudson on Twitter @jeromeehudson | 0fake |
House Republicans Plan Secret Meeting To Discuss Overthrowing Paul Ryan | By Jason Easley on Tue, Nov 1st, 2016 at 9:38 pm The more things change, the more they stay the same. The House Freedom Caucus is planning a secret meeting, which in typical Republican fashion was leaked to the press, to discuss ousting Paul Ryan and demanding more ransom from GOP leadership. Share on Twitter Print This Post
The more things change, the more they stay the same. The House Freedom Caucus is planning a secret meeting, which in typical Republican fashion was leaked to the press, to discuss ousting Paul Ryan and demanding more ransom from GOP leadership.
Politico reported , “One of the most pressing questions preoccupying Washington is what the group will do about Paul Ryan. The Wisconsin Republican has said he intends to seek another term as House speaker but has rankled members of the group of several dozen Republican lawmakers that drove John Boehner out of the Speakership last year. The Freedom Caucus is also weighing proposals meant to empower its members, some at the expense of GOP leadership’s authority.”
There have been early rumblings that Speaker Ryan may be open to making a few deals on policies like tax reform with Hillary Clinton if she wins the election. One of the reasons why these deals may never happen is because of the ability of far right Republicans to cause trouble.
If Ryan’s Republican majority shrinks, he will be an even bigger hostage to the far-right wing of his caucus. The dysfunctional dynamic in the House is going to continue even if Hillary Clinton wins the election. Ryan has run into the same hurdles that John Boehner faced. House Republicans are deeply divided and unable to agree on much of anything.
The fact that the Freedom Caucus is holding a secret meeting is a sign that nothing is going to change. If Paul Ryan doesn’t cave to their demands, they will force Ryan out of the Speaker position.
A group of House Republicans is plotting new ways to keep the House from working properly before a new president has even been elected.
This is a reminder that Washington is fine. It’s the Republican Party that’s broken. | 1real |
Iranian foreign minister urges regional cooperation after returning from Oman, Qatar | BEIRUT (Reuters) - Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif made an appeal for greater regional cooperation on Tuesday after returning to Tehran from a two-day visit to Oman and Qatar. Zarif s visit came with Qatar in the midst of a row with fellow Gulf Cooperation Council members Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates. Together with Egypt, they accuse Qatar of supporting terrorism, a charge it denies. We have repeatedly suggested a system of dialogue in the Persian Gulf, but unfortunately this has not been acknowledged by some countries, who see their future through tension, pressure and imposing on neighbors, Zarif said, according to state media. Qatar calls the economic boycott a siege aimed at neutering an independent foreign policy it says promotes peaceful regional reform and fighting terrorism. Another point of contention between Qatar and its fellow GCC members is its relationship with the Islamic Republic. Zarif said on Tuesday that the economic pressure regional neighbors have put on Qatar in recent months has brought about closer economic ties between Doha and Tehran, state media reported. Zarif s discussions in Oman and Qatar also focused on ending the conflict in Yemen as well as the situation in Iraq and Syria, where Iran is supporting the government of president Bashar al-Assad while Qatar has funded some armed opposition groups. With attention to the situation in Syria and that in the past, we had differences with Qatar; we need to have more dialogue, Zarif said, according to state media. But the political will exists to have a broader dialogue with all countries about ending the suffering of the Syrian people. The Qatari government announced it is restoring diplomatic ties with Tehran in August. Qatar recalled its ambassador to Tehran in January last year after Saudi Arabia cut ties with the Islamic republic, accusing it of failing to protect its embassy in Tehran and consulate in Mashhad against demonstrators who had ransacked them. The demonstrators were protesting Saudi Arabia s execution of a prominent Shi ite Muslim cleric convicted on terrorism charges. | 0fake |
SELF-ADMITTED SEXUAL PREDATOR Who Supported Wife, Enabler Of Sexual Predator “Worries” About Sexual Predator In White House [VIDEO] | The hypocrisy of these liberal entertainers is astounding. They will criticize and label a man a sexual predator with absolutely no proof or evidence, while simultaneously supporting a woman who is married to, and provides cover for a proven sexual predator Lena Dunham told a prestigious panel of women she is terrified that a predator will soon be moving into the White House, the socially aware celebrity.Dunham was discussing Donald Trump s surprise electoral victory during a panel at Glamour magazine s Women of the Year summit in Los Angeles. I think so many women are feeling scared, unsafe, ignored by the fact that somebody who is a predator, and is openly a predator, will soon be residing in the White House, the HBO star said. That s a very terrifying fact that we are all going to have to reckon with every single day. Heat Street In 2014, in her collection of personal essays, Not That Kind of Girl, Lena Dunham describes experimenting sexually with her younger sister Grace, whom she says she attempted to persuade to kiss her using anything a sexual predator might do. In one particularly unsettling passage, Dunham experimented with her six-year younger sister s vagina. This was within the spectrum of things I did, she writes.In the collection of nonfiction personal accounts, Dunham describes using her little sister at times essentially as a sexual outlet, bribing her to kiss her for prolonged periods and even masturbating while she is in the bed beside her. But perhaps the most disturbing is an account she proudly gives of an episode that occurred when she was seven and her sister was one. Truth Revolt | 1real |
Sweeping change in China's military points to more firepower for Xi | BEIJING (Reuters) - China s military is preparing a sweeping leadership reshuffle, dropping top generals, including two that sources say are under investigation for corruption. The changes would make room for President Xi Jinping to install trusted allies in key positions at a key party congress that begins on Oct 18. A list of 303 military delegates to the Communist Party Congress, published by the army s official newspaper on Wednesday, excluded Fang Fenghui and Zhang Yang, both members of the Central Military Commission. The commission is China s top military decision-making body. Reuters reported this week that the 66-year-old Fang, who accompanied Xi to his first meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump in April, is being questioned on suspicion of corruption. Three sources familiar with the matter said Zhang, the director of the military s Political Work Department, is also the subject of a probe. China s Defense Ministry did not respond to a request for comment. The personnel changes herald a clean sweep of the top-ranking generals heading up the department. All three of Zhang s deputies - Jia Tingan, Du Hengyan and Wu Changde - were also missing from the list of congress delegates. This is a very clear message: they re out, said Cheng Li, an expert on Chinese elite politics at the Brookings Institution. Their political careers have come to an end. On Friday, news reports carried by the People s Liberation Army Daily and the official news agency Xinhua abruptly referred to the navy s political commissar, Miao Hua, as the Political Work Department director, despite no official announcement of Zhang being replaced in his role. The department is in charge of imbuing political thought and makes military personnel decisions in a similar vein to the Communist Party s Organisation Department. The Political Work Department used to be headed by Xu Caihou, who along with a fellow former vice-chairman of the military commission, Guo Boxiong, was accused of taking bribes in exchange for promotions. Guo was jailed for life last year, while Xu died of cancer in 2015 before he could face trial. Also among the key omissions from the list published Wednesday were Du Jincai, who was replaced as the military s anti-corruption chief in March, and Cai Yingting, who left his post as head of the PLA Academy of Military Science in January. Taking into account officials who are likely to retire, as many as seven of the 11 spots on the military commission may be vacated, strengthening talk in Chinese political circles that the body may be streamlined. Xi, who is commander-in-chief of China s armed forces, currently chairs the commission, which also comprises two vice-chairmen and eight committee members. Two sources familiar with the matter said the commission may be cut down to Xi and four vice-chairmen, doing away with committee members and streamlining reporting lines. Li, the Brookings expert, said that among those likely to be central to the army s refreshed leadership were Li Zuocheng, who took over from Fang as chief of the Joint Staff Department last month, Miao and the three commanders of the army s ground, air and naval forces: Han Weiguo, Ding Laihang and Shen Jinlong. The fact that all five were newly-appointed this year and none were members of the Communist Party s 200-odd strong Central Committee, Li said, reflected the extent to which Xi was rejuvenating the leadership as part of his years-long drive to modernize the military and make it more ready for combat. This is really a major step from Xi Jinping to consolidate his authority to promote the young, those who have some professional experience, but are not corrupted, and certainly not belonging to the factions of Guo Boxiong and Xu Caihou, he said. | 0fake |
Brussels Trying to ’Pressure’ Hungary into Accepting Migrant Quotas, Relaxing Border Controls | The European Union’s unelected executive is trying to “pressure” Hungary into accepting compulsory migrant quotas and relaxing its tough new border control measures, according to the government. [“Hungary is ready for debates, but we are not going to yield an inch as far as the issue of immigration is concerned,” said a statement quoted by The Times. European Commission Frans Timmermans has levelled a number of charges at Hungary in recent weeks, principally concerning its resistance to compulsory migrant quotas, automatic detention of asylum seekers, and the planned removal of special privileges from the Central European University founded by billionaire open borders campaigner George Soros. The migrant quotas, imposed despite the opposition of several Central European countries, were overwhelmingly rejected by the Hungarian people in a referendum in 2016. The detention of asylum seekers until their claims are processed is said to be a security measure bogus asylum seekers left at large by the authorities having recently carried out terror attacks in Berlin and Stockholm. Budapest denies it is trying to shut down the Soros university, with new legislation only intended to ensure it operates on a level playing field with local universities. Responding to Timmermans, Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó denounced what he described as “pathetic accusations”. In a stunning rebuke to the bureaucrat, Szijjártó declared: “The First of the European Commission has attacked Hungary in the past two years because, despite the Commission’s and his own personal position, we have been able to give a successful response to illegal immigration. ” Hungary introduced robust and highly effective border controls at breakneck speed after German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s declaration that there was “no limit” on the number of migrants she would accept, which saw millions stream into southern and EU . Hungary’s measures slashed migrant numbers entering Hungary via the Serbian route from 200, 000 in 2015 to just 25, 000 in 2016 — actions for which the Hungarian government is privately thanked, according to Prime Minister Orbán. “[I]f we weren’t protecting Europe’s external borders, the Austrians and the Germans would be in big trouble,” the Fidesz leader told Kossuth Rádió. “[When] Hungary was unable to protect Europe’s external borders … millions of migrants marched through Hungary towards Austria and Germany. We put an end to this, and everyone in Austria and Germany is happy about that — although political doesn’t allow them to say so, or write about it,” he revealed. | 0fake |
THREATS TO BUSINESS TO REMOVE TRUMP SIGN Prompts Even Better Pro-Trump Display [Video] | Please go to the BEST MULCH Facebook page and give them a thumbs up!Thank you all for the overwhelming support! We have gone viral! Please feel free to stop by and take pictures with Hillary! She will be out from dusk until dawn!Originally I only had the TRUMP sign posted in front of my business, within 2 hours of the sign being placed out front we received a voice mail from a blocked phone number which is played during the video. I will not be bullied into removing the TRUMP sign simply because it offended someone. My Country is just as important as my business, I will assume that the sign was to large and to high for her to destroy or steal. The voicemail was what prompted me to make the sign more noticeable and take an even more dramatic approach by adding Hilary to the jail cell. #Trump2016 Video by: Michael J Makowski Multimedia | 1real |
BLACK FELON Brutally Beats Girlfriend, Grabs Cop’s Gun, Sticks Gun In Cop’s Back…Cop’s Partner SHOOTS, KILLS Felon…Cop Exonerated…Black Lives Matter Terrorists Erupt In MN…Burn U.S. Flag | Another case of the White man and an oppressive America holding down a black man with so much potential and promise Angry Black Lives Matter protesters in Minneapolis chanted I am a revolutionary! and set fire to the American flag after a Hennepin County attorney announced there will be no charges against police officers involved in the shooting death of convicted felon Jamar Clark.Crazed speaker at last night's #JamarClark rally completely loses his mind & screams at cameras. #BlackLivesMatter pic.twitter.com/o6rpNMHHPL Lee Stranahan (@stranahan) March 31, 2016Minneapolis protestors chanting "Shut It Down" to show support for woman-beating criminal #JamarClark pic.twitter.com/4p6lJe7utd Lee Stranahan (@stranahan) March 30, 2016As Breitbart News reported yesterday, an investigation found the shooting was justified. At a press conference early Wednesday morning, Attorney Mike Freeman contested one of the chief claims of the protesters; that Clark was handcuffed when shot. Freeman said Forensic evidence and video evidence both support the belief that Clark was not handcuffed at any time through the altercation. Coddled: the #JamarClark protestors are being allowed march on a main roadway. pic.twitter.com/8kmGhHTMRo Lee Stranahan (@stranahan) March 30, 2016A report issued along with other pieces of evidence showed that Jamar Clark had impeded the work of EMTs who were trying to help the girlfriend that he had assaulted and left unable to walk and with a bruised face.Clark then began calling paramedic Thompson a pussy and bitch and told (his girlfriend) Hayes that he was going to come see her. The paramedics loaded Hayes into the ambulance and locked the doors. (EMTs) Thompson and Haskell were very afraid at this point.The report explains that Minneapolis police officers Ringgenberg and Schwarze arrived at the scene and were told the person in the ambulance was assaulted by the person up on the curb (Jamar Clark) who was also interfering with the paramedics. Clark refused to obey the officers and then according to the report:Ringgenberg said he tried to move away from Clark to get in position to handcuff him. Ringgenberg felt his gun go from his right hip to the small of his back and told Schwarze, He s got my gun. Ringgenberg said he reached back to the top of his gun and felt Clark s whole hand on the gun. Ringgenberg repeatedly told his partner Schwarze, He s got my gun, he s got my gun. Ringgenberg recalled hearing Schwarze tell Clark to let go of the gun or Schwarze would shoot. Ringgenberg heard Clark say, I m ready to die. Ringgenberg said, That was the worst feeling ever because, it just, my heart just sank. Ringgenberg believed he was going to die at that point because he had no control over his gun. Ringgenberg felt that Clark didn t care what happened to him and remembered thinking that he didn t want his partner to die with his gun. After Ringgenberg heard the round go off he remembered being able to roll away.None of this evidence satisfied the hundreds of protesters who came out later that night for two rallies and marches that eventually converge in downtown Minneapolis.Mob at last night's #JamarClark rally raise fists, chant Black Panther Fred Hampton's "I am a revolutionary " pic.twitter.com/CsfKfbscfd Lee Stranahan (@stranahan) March 31, 2016After the groups merged, a number of speakers addressed the crowd, agitating them with anticapitalist, anti-American and anti white rhetoric. A number of the speakers made reference to the violent communist group the Black Panthers, who responsible for a number of deaths in the 1960s and 70s, including numerous shootings of police officers. The Minneapolis speakers also praised communist Angela Davis and queen of the Black Liberation Army Assata Shakur.Protestors burn US Flag in protest at #Justice4Jamar rally in Minneapolis. #JamarClark #BlackLivesMatter pic.twitter.com/XZbExY8R4s #BlackAugust (@Delo_Taylor) March 31, 2016Protesters burn U.S. flag outside Minneapolis 4th Precinct #JamarClark #BLMhttps://t.co/RD2xPNVK56 Ruptly (@Ruptly) March 31, 2016Via: Breitbart News | 1real |
Science Will Suffer Under Trump’s Travel Ban, Researchers Say - The New York Times | Researchers, academic officials and science policy makers are expressing alarm at President Trump’s order barring entry to the United States to people from certain predominantly Muslim countries, saying it could hinder research, affect recruitment of top scientists and dampen the free exchange of scientific ideas. The executive order, issued on Friday and clarified somewhat over the weekend by administration officials, potentially affects thousands of students and researchers from Iran, Iraq and five other countries. Foreigners fill the undergraduate and especially graduate ranks at many American universities, and newly minted Ph. D. s from overseas flock to the United States for research and teaching positions in academic laboratories. Mary Sue Coleman, the president of the Association of American Universities, said that by one estimate, there were about 17, 000 students from the seven countries at American universities. “I’m concerned about it hampering our ability to recruit outstanding graduate students,” said Samuel L. Stanley Jr. the president of Stony Brook University on Long Island. Dr. Stanley spent the weekend monitoring the work of immigration lawyers in a successful effort to release a Stony Brook graduate student from Iran, Vahideh Rasekhi, who was en route to Kennedy Airport when the order was issued and was detained after she landed. “Immigration into the United States is tremendously important to science,” said Soumya Raychaudhuri, a Harvard Medical School professor whose Iranian postdoctoral researcher, Samira Asgari, was barred on Saturday from boarding a flight to begin her job in his laboratory at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. “There are other countries competing for this talent pool, and walking away from that jeopardizes our standing. ” Some foreign universities, while condemning the ban, also pointed out that they still welcomed students and researchers from anywhere. The University of British Columbia announced the establishment of a task force, with an initial budget of 250, 000 Canadian dollars (about $190, 000) “to determine what assistance the university can offer those affected. ” Since the restrictions, some institutions, including the University of Pennsylvania and the University of California system, have advised students or faculty members from Iran, Iraq and the other affected countries not to travel overseas until further notice. The order could prevent many foreign researchers from making trips to attend conferences and other scientific meetings overseas for fear of not being able to return. The restrictions could also affect meetings in the United States, as some foreign scientists would not be allowed to travel here. The country’s largest general scientific organization, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, said it was worried that the restrictions might reduce attendance at its annual meeting in two weeks in Boston. Hundreds of foreigners normally attend the conference. “We are of course concerned that this issue may affect scientists and students traveling to Boston,” said Tiffany Lohwater, an official with the association. She said the organization was considering alternative measures, including free of sessions, for those who could not attend. Jennifer Golbeck, a professor of computer science at the University of Maryland, said her department had a number of Iranian students and researchers. Using social media, Dr. Golbeck in recent days has organized a database of people willing to shelter scientists and others who were in transit to the United States and were halted by the order. “There’s a lot of people from these seven countries,” Dr. Golbeck said. “And suddenly there’s this possibility that faculty members, students, postdocs and others who are outside the country for one reason or another suddenly can’t come back. ” Solmaz Shariat Torbaghan, an Iranian neuroscience researcher at New York University who was awaiting a green card, said the order would force her to soon make a decision: stay and take her chances, or move to Canada. “My partner and I just moved into a new place here, we are waiting for our furniture, and were hoping to have our parents visit us in a couple of months, which is not a possibility anymore,” she said. “Now, I don’t know what’s coming next. ” The uncertainty, she added, is not good for her research colleagues, either. “People in my lab are very supportive,” she said, “but in an experimental lab, people need to know they can count on you, that you’re not going to be suddenly gone and leave the project. ” The order may also affect work at some of the country’s most prestigious medical institutions. Eleven patients from the seven affected countries, which also include Syria, Sudan, Libya, Somalia and Yemen, were planning to travel to Johns Hopkins University for medical treatment within the next 90 days, said Pamela Paulk, the president of Johns Hopkins Medicine International. All have visas, she said, but now it is not clear whether or when they may come. “We are taking steps to see what the ban means for them,” she said. “Right now the ban is vague, and we don’t know if there will be health exceptions. ” She said that patients who travel from the Middle East to the United States for treatment generally have severe illnesses that cannot be treated in their home countries, and need complex treatments like neurosurgery, heart operations or bone marrow transplants for cancer or blood diseases. Some cannot afford, medically, to wait. Johns Hopkins may also lose at least one graduate student. Omid Zobeiri, 28, is an Iranian citizen who began working on his doctorate in biomedical engineering in September 2015 at McGill University in Montreal. His mentor and supervisor at McGill moved to Johns Hopkins last summer and hoped to take Mr. Zobeiri with her so he could continue the research he had begun in her laboratory. Mr. Zobeiri applied for a visa during the summer, but had not received one yet when the ban was announced on Friday. “After this ban, I basically give up right now, or wait some months,” Mr. Zobeiri said. “I don’t know my future. ” Kathleen Cullen, Mr. Zobeiri’s supervisor and a professor of biomedical engineering, described him as “phenomenally talented and a wonderful scientist,” and said he had been selected from among many applicants. She said his being kept out of the United States was “a major impediment and is slowing the pace of research in my group. ” | 0fake |
Opposition groups quit Iraqi Kurdish government over protests | BAGHDAD/ERBIL, Iraq (Reuters) - Opposition groups quit the government of Iraq s Kurdish region on Wednesday in protest at violent unrest in which at least three people were killed, with one group saying authorities had shown a flagrant disregard for life. In another test for the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in northern Iraq, the United States meanwhile called on authorities in the semi-autonomous region to respect press freedoms after it shut down a local broadcaster. The United Nations called for restraint on all sides. Tension has been high in the region since the central government in Baghdad imposed tough measures in response to an independence referendum on Sept. 25 called by the KRG in which Kurds voted overwhelmingly to secede. The move, in defiance of Baghdad, also alarmed neighbouring Turkey and Iran who have their own Kurdish minorities. Strains spilled onto the streets on Monday and Tuesday when Kurds joined protests against years of austerity and unpaid public sector salaries, with some burning down offices belonging to political parties. At least three people were killed and more than 80 wounded on Tuesday in clashes with Kurdish security forces in Sulaimaniya, local officials said. Some were injured when the crowd was shot at with rubber bullets and sprayed with tear gas. On Wednesday leading opposition movement Gorran withdrew its ministers from the KRG and Kurdistan Parliament Speaker Yousif Mohamed, a party member, resigned in response to the violence. Some have demanded the regional government s ousting. We urge the international community to confront the flagrant disregard for life, liberty and democracy shown by the authorities in #Kurdistan Region, Gorran said in a tweet. The Kurdistan Islamic Group (Komal), another opposition party with a smaller presence in parliament, also withdrew from the government. The U.S. embassy in Baghdad said on Wednesday it was worried about the closure of a local Kurdish broadcaster at the hands of Iraqi Kurdish security forces a day earlier. We are concerned by recent actions to curb the operations of some media outlets through force or intimidation, specifically yesterday s raid by Kurdistan Regional Government security forces of the NRT offices in Sulaimaniya, an embassy statement said. The United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) also said Kurdish authorities should respect media freedoms and that it was deeply concerned about violence and clashes during the protests. It called for restraint on all sides. The people have the right to partake in peaceful demonstrations, and the authorities have the responsibility of protecting their citizens, including peaceful protesters, UNAMI said in a statement. Kurdish Asayish security forces on Tuesday raided the offices of Kurdish private broadcaster NRT in Sulaimaniya province, and took the channel off the air. NRT s founder and opposition figure Shaswar Abdulwahid was also arrested at the Sulaimaniya airport on Tuesday. His family have asked for his release, amid local media reports that another NRT journalist was arrested in Sulaimaniya on Wednesday. In a statement on Tuesday, Kurdish Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani, who is on an official visit to Germany, told protesters that although he understood their frustrations, the burning of political party offices is not helpful . There were no major protests in the city on Wednesday. Security forces from the region s capital Erbil have been deployed to help quell the unrest in Sulaimaniya, security sources told Reuters. After Tuesday s unrest, curfews were imposed in several towns across the wider Sulaimaniya province, some have lasted through Wednesday. Local media reported smaller protests in towns across the province, including Ranya and Kifri. | 0fake |
Trump Just SHUT DOWN ALL Of The Department Of The Interior’s Twitter Accounts, Because Reasons | The Department of the Interior has a Twitter account just like pretty much everyone else these days, including government agencies. But it seems that those agencies aren t immune to censorship from our dear, sweet, thin-skinned, narcissistic Cheeto-in-Chief. The Department of the Interior was ordered to shut down its Twitter accounts Friday evening after the National Park Service had the gall to post two, ahem, unflattering tweets.The first has been flying around social media, and has to do with Trump s pathetically dismal crowds, particularly in comparison to Obama s crowds for both of his inaugurations:The second tweet made note of gaps in policy on the new White House website, including scrubbing the site of anything having to do with civil rights, LGBTQ rights, climate change and the ACA.Apparently, it was a Park Service employee who retweeted these things, and either Trump himself couldn t handle it and wanted to show them who s really boss now, or the Dept. of the Interior is afraid enough of Trump to not only delete those two tweets, but comply with an order to shut down their entire Twitter presence. The Washington Post got hold of the email with that order: All bureaus and the department have been directed by incoming administration to shut down Twitter platforms immediately until further notice. It would actually be understandable for them to delete the offending tweets and reprimand, reassign, or even fire the employee responsible. But to have to shut down their entire Twitter presence because of two goddamn tweets from one agency?Welcome to Trump s America.The department has dozens of official Twitter accounts across ten agencies, but that email was described as an urgent directive with which they had to comply.An official with knowledge of the incident sounds a bit like he s been cowed:A government official familiar with the stand-down said the agency is investigating whether the retweets were purposeful, errant or whether we ve been hacked. They were not reflective of Park Service policy, said the official, who requested anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the directive. The stand-down was precautionary until the agency completes a review of its Twitter accounts, the official said.This is terrifying. This is dictatorial behavior, not the behavior of an incoming president who believes in democracy.Featured image by Alex Wong via Getty Images | 1real |
Kenyan police disperse protests against election commission | NAIROBI (Reuters) - Kenyan police used tear gas and batons on Tuesday to disperse protesters who say election officials should be sacked before the re-run of a presidential vote because they favor President Uhuru Kenyatta. Several volleys of tear gas were fired near the election commission headquarters in central Nairobi, a Reuters witness said. When protestors regrouped, officers fired more tear gas and beat some with batons. By mid-afternoon calm had returned. Raila Odinga, who lost his presidential bid on Aug. 8, will get another chance after the Supreme Court annulled the election citing irregularities and ordered a fresh vote within 60 days. However, Odinga has accused the election commission, known as the IEBC, of being a puppet of Kenyatta s ruling Jubilee party and said he will not participate in the Oct. 26 re-run if election officials are not sacked and prosecuted. The court did not find any individual responsible but said institutional failings had led to irregularities and illegalities in the transmission of election results. The election commission has asked the opposition to call off protests until the IEBC has explained the various measures being taken to enhance the credibility and integrity of the vote. IEBC cannot begin the process of an honest election as long as those responsible for the irregularities and illegalities are still lurking in its corridors, Odinga told reporters. IEBC has refused to dismiss or suspend them. That is why we are today beginning these peaceful campaigns to force them out by public pressure so the process of a fair election can at last begin, he added. Last week Kenya s chief prosecutor ordered investigations into 11 election board officials including its chief executive, Ezra Chiloba, as well as a lawyer and campaigner who worked for Odinga. Speaking as protestors gathered outside his office, Chiloba said he would not resign. I have (a) responsibility before me and I have to discharge that responsibility, he told Kenya s KTN television network. Some Kenyatta supporters also took to the streets in Nairobi but there were no clashes between the two sides. In the port city of Mombasa, a crowd gathered at local election office, chanting: No reforms no elections. Chiloba must go! The Kenyan government in a statement accused mobs of hooligans of taking advantage of the protests to destroy property and said a number of criminals had been arrested and would be taken to court. Underscoring the rising tensions, a newly elected opposition lawmaker was charged with subversion at a court hearing in Nairobi on Tuesday. Paul Ongili Owino was arrested after a video clip of him speaking while campaigning for Odinga emerged on social media in which he called Kenyatta a son of a dog. The prosecution said those words were calculated to excite disaffection against the presidency . Ahead of Tuesday s demonstrations by the opposition National Super Alliance coalition, Kenyatta had said violence would not be tolerated. People are free to demonstrate but they must ensure that they do not destroy other people s property, he said. Let them not think that they will break into other people s shops and interfere with the daily routine of other Kenyans. That, we shall not allow, he said. In the western city of Kisumu, an Odinga stronghold where some 3,000 protestors gathered, one protestor, vegetable market vendor Hellen Aketch said: I will support anything that assures me of the validity and the safety of my vote in the upcoming elections. I have closed (my) business today and I am ready to do it again so long as some sanity is realized among those who hold public office. | 0fake |
Trump ‘Diversity Council’ Member Threatens to Quit If Trump Ends DACA…Bye, Bye! [Video] | A member of President Trump s Diversity Council is threatening to quit because he opposes Trump s cancelation of DACA. Bye Bye!Trump diversity council member tells @Acosta he may quit the council if Trump moves ahead to end DACA https://t.co/CCn90EgSdn CNN Newsroom (@CNNnewsroom) September 4, 2017 I want to remind him and his team that from an economic standpoint, and again, we re business people if you look at this from a purely economic standpoint again, none of these young people gets government benefits of any sorts so they re not costing us anything. They pay over $2 billion in taxes Is anyone else out there sick of the American people being told illegals cost nothing?DACA Will Cost Americans And Their Government A Huge Amount of Money.On average, people with college degrees pay more in taxes than they receive in government benefits. People without a degree consume more taxes than they pay to federal, state and local tax officials.In 2013, a Heritage Foundation study showed that amnesty for 11 million illegals would spike federal spending by $6,300 billion over the next five decades. That is roughly equivalent to $550,000 per illegal, or $10,000 per illegal per year, much of which will be spent when the immigrant becomes eligible for Social Security and Medicare. That cost estimate does not include the extra costs created when immigrants use their new legal powers as a citizen to bring in more low-skilled migrants.If those 3 million DACA people and their parents soon become legal residents or citizens, then Obama s DACA will cost Americans roughly $1,700 billion over the next 50 years, according to Heritage Foundation s numbers.Moreover, the DACA migrants add to the flood of illegal labor that has driven down wages for ordinary Americans, including urban youths and recent immigrants. Currently, Americans lose roughly $500 billion a year from their salaries because of the immigration tax caused by cheap labor according to the academies report.Via: GP | 1real |
About That Trump University Fine – There’s A Huge Catch; You And I Will Pay It | After Trump s latest Twitter rant over the performance protest, or rather, polite urging of Mike Pence, the true big story of the day had some daylight, but not near enough. Trump, who claims he never settles lawsuits, did just that on Saturday when he agreed to pay $25 million in the Trump University fraud suits. While that might seem like a bit of justice served, it was revealed on Sunday that it will be the taxpayers who will pick up the bill.To be fair, it s not Trump s fault. It s the fault of the US tax code, which, as usual, favors the wealthy you know, the people who can afford to pay $25 million in lawsuit settlements.Of course, the real cost to Mr. Trump is after tax, not before it. And most business settlements are fully tax deductible. The only part that arguably may not be here is the $1 million in penalties. But barring express non-deductibility commitments, many penalties can be deducted, too. In general, fines and penalties paid to the government are not deductible. Section 162(f) of the tax code prohibits deducting any fine or similar penalty paid to a government for the violation of any law. Despite punitive sounding names, though, some fines and penalties are considered remedial and deductible. That allows some flexibility. Companies often deduct compensatory penalties, a maneuver affirmed in a recent Circuit Court ruling. Some defendants insist that their settlement agreement confirms that the payments are not penalties and are remedial. Conversely, some government entities insist on the reverse. Explicit provisions about taxes in settlement agreements are becoming more common.Source: ForbesYes, that is tax code, but there are exceptions which the Justice Department can enforce. For example, Credit Suisse was forbidden from writing off its fine of $2.6 billion for tax evasion.This all brings us back to the fact that we still don t have access to Donald Trump s tax returns. He doesn t pay taxes at all and in fact, one year, he reported a near billion dollar loss.Trump supporters paint him in a passive light. After all, it s not his fault the tax code is so easy for the wealthy to manipulate. The fact is, though, it s wealthy people like him who have been writing the tax laws for decades. That s why they are able to pay far less, as a percentage of income, than most Americans.If you expect this will get better with Trump in office, let s hope you re not holding your breath. Trump was caught just last week promising a restaurant full of wealthy people that he would be lowering their taxes. Of course, he didn t need to be caught on a hot mic. Analysts have already figured out that Trump s tax plan will benefit the wealthy, and only the wealthy, all while putting the country deeper and deeper into debt.Featured image via Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images. | 1real |
Vote plus marathon spells super-busy Sunday for Berlin police | BERLIN (Reuters) - More than 1,500 police will be on duty in Berlin on Sunday, when Germany s capital faces the logistical challenge of organising an election expected to draw a large turnout - while ensuring its annual marathon also runs smoothly. Police, election officials and race organisers have been in close consultations about security arrangements, especially following a deadly truck rampage on a Berlin Christmas market last December as well as an attack on the Boston marathon in 2013. Officials with the Berlin police and the BKA Federal Criminal Police Office said they had no indications of any specific plots to attack either the race or the city s 1,779 polling stations. Berlin s state election office said letters had been sent to around 44,000 of the city s 2.5 million eligible voters warning that some 30 stations might be difficult to reach because of the marathon. The marathon is expected to end in early afternoon, while polls close at 6 p.m. local time. Voter participation is expected to exceed the 72.5 percent of 2013 largely due to a referendum about the fate of Berlin s Tegel airport that served the city through the Cold War. Voter participation was already relatively high in 2013, but we think it will be even higher this year because of high interest in the Tegel referendum, a spokesman said. | 0fake |
In Bolivia's bellwether city, anger at Morales grows | EL ALTO, Bolivia (Reuters) - In El Alto, a former shantytown high in the Andes that has mushroomed into Bolivia s second-largest city, students and professors are growing disenchanted with Evo Morales, the leftist president their protests helped put in power a decade ago. A sprawling settlement of nearly 1 million people on Bolivia s dusty Altiplano plateau, El Alto is a larger and more politically radical extension of the capital La Paz, which sits hundreds of meters below in a canyon. An uprising here in 2003 over the use of revenues from the poor South American nation s natural gas reserves helped force the resignation of U.S.-backed President Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada. Some 60 residents were killed in the upheaval. The protests were led in part from the campus of El Alto s public university UPEA and opened the way for Morales to take power as Bolivia s first indigenous president three years later. Now, students and teachers feel forgotten. Demonstrations, some violent, have broken out in recent weeks over what teachers and students call insufficient funding for the school, a potential obstacle in Morales plan to win a fourth term in 2019. The government has a pending debt, said Ramiro Limachi Apaza, director of UPEA S communications department and an El Alto resident who protested alongside Morales in 2003 in the so-called gas wars. Morales fulfilled protesters demands to nationalize the gas industry after taking office in 2006, promising to spread natural resource wealth in the country of more than 10 million, long one of Latin America s poorest. Bolivia s economy grew and thousands of Aymara peasants moved to El Alto. While El Alto generally remains poor, some immigrants became wealthy merchants, building glamorous, colorful homes known as cholets and hosting lavish parties. Lines of cable cars, inaugurated by Morales, whisk Bolivians between El Alto and La Paz, above the dizzying mountain traffic. Yet Limachi said the public university, which charges students next to nothing, has been unable to pay its teachers for three months. Morales administration, one of Latin America s few remaining hard-line leftist governments after the region turned to the right in recent years, says it increased spending on education by 25 percent since 2006. It questions UPEA s use of its funding and the number of students enrolled. Due to its history, the recent protests at UPEA have drawn national attention, especially as they coincided with a widely criticized court decision in late November allowing Morales to run for a fourth turn. Bolivia s constitutional court, padded with members of Morales MAS party, argued term limits violate human rights - defying the result of a referendum last year in which 51 percent of Bolivians said they opposed Morales running again. The ruling was criticized by the United States and raised eyebrows in urban areas across Bolivia where support for Morales is weakening. Mining communities, coca farmers and rural villages generally still support him. Across the sprawling city of El Alto, where new homes are being built every day, discontent had been creeping up for some time. Since 2015, the city has had an opposition mayor. It s quite disturbing that our demands are not being listened to, said Celia Quecana, a UPEA sociology student dressed in a traditional Aymara pollera, a flowing skirt worn in the Andes. She said that Bolivia s constitution guarantees funding for public universities. There s a lot of discontent that democracy, in the form of the Feb. 21 (2016) referendum, has not been respected, she said at the university, where trash had not been collected nor bathrooms cleaned for days. In judicial elections on Dec. 3, nearly 54 percent of Bolivians spoiled their ballots rather than voting, as a means of protesting against Morales. Vote null graffiti remains scrawled across walls in El Alto and La Paz. As El Alto has grown, so has the number of students studying at UPEA, the basis for the university s dispute with the government. UPEA says it now has 47,000 students, double the 2011 enrollment when the amount of funding it receives was determined. For Diego von Vacano, a Bolivian political scientist at Yale University, the UPEA protests have legitimate roots and touch on a major problem for Morales. The government did not invest in education, Vacano said. El Alto is one of the most radical areas of Bolivia. A government can quickly fall if it does not get the support of El Alto. The United Nations says Bolivia spent about 7 percent of its gross domestic product on education in 2014, its most recent data, a percentage that is high for Latin America, although one that had not changed much over the past decade. El Alto s explosive growth coincided with the end of a commodities boom felt in Bolivia through lower gas prices, which have halved since 2006. Bolivia s gas production peaked at an average 59.6 million cubic meters per day in 2014 and has fallen for the past two years, according to the government. The gas issue is incredibly important, it affects everything. We had received an impressive amount of money, but it s gone down for everyone, said Nelson Vila, a UPEA professor who was hospitalized after clashes with police in November. | 0fake |
WATCH THIS DEMOCRAT Call For Trump’s Impeachment With No Credible Reason Why [Video] | Spewing falsehoods has become the favorite pastime of Democrats It s really pitiful to watch Last night, following the release of the Washington Post fake news on Trump and Russia, several videos immediately came out repeating the same fake news. It s uncanny that the media could be so coordinated in their reports on President Trump Of course, we believe there s something to that.Two Congresscritters have come out to call for the impeachment of President Trump .With ZERO evidence of ANY wrongdoing, it s laughable One of our favorites is Maxine Waters but this next Congressman runs a close second. Al Green claims Trump was hobnobbing with the Russians Haha!Congressman Al Green just released a statement on why he believes President Trump should be impeached. This statement is laughable. Was Al Green elected because of his name? Voters can be that way, ya know This guy is the definition of clueless! Who elects these brainiacs?Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) has suggested impeachment during TV interviews, but Green is the first member of Congress to formally call for impeachment hearings.Green said Trump s own public statements showed he fired Comey over the Russia investigation, which he said was grounds for impeachment:Waters and Green are a total joke! These are just two of the jokers running Washington. This is truly scary. | 1real |
China issues guidelines to curb money laundering, terrorism financing and tax evasion | BEIJING (Reuters) - China s state council issued guidelines on Wednesday on improving supervision to curb money laundering, terrorism financing and tax evasion. China will step up monitoring of abnormal cross-border capital movements to crackdown on cross-border financial crimes, the state council said in a statement on its website, adding that it will implement U.N. Security Council resolutions against terrorism financing. | 0fake |
Sean Hannity Disrespects Family Of Slain DNC Staffer In Sorry Quest To Prove No Trump/Russia Link | Conspiracy-loving conservatives are once again all over last summer s murder of Seth Rich, a DNC staffer they believe leaked the DNC s emails to Wikileaks rather than Russia. They re yelling about it as loudly as they can because if it were true, then it would serve to demonstrate that there s no connection between Trump s campaign and Russia. This latest round of frothing over Rich s death began when Rod Wheeler, a legal commentator at Fox News, claimed he could confirm that Rich leaked those emails during an appearance Fox 5 D.C. Now Rich s family is demanding that Wheeler stop altogether, which should make others shut up too out of simple respect for them. But some don t seem to care.Rich s family sent a cease-and-desist letter to Wheeler, threatening legal action if he continued to spew his conspiracy theories about Rich s death. It seems, though, that Sean Hannity is either unaware of the family s wishes, or he just plain doesn t care. Chances are, it s the latter, since he wants to continue telling himself that Trump is his lord and savior and perfect in every way. He tweeted:Seth Rich was murdered last year in what officials believe was a botched robbery. Hannity has been screaming about it on Twitter ever since Wheeler claimed to know stuff on television, ignoring key facts and statements about the case is his desperation to prove that there was zero collusion between Trump s campaign and Russia.Rich s family blasted Wheeler for his statements, as well they should. A sudden death in any family is exceptionally traumatic. They said: Your statements and actions have caused, and continue to cause, the Family severe mental anguish and emotional distress. Your behavior appears to have been deliberate, intentional, outrageous, and in patent disregard of the Agreement and the obvious damage and suffering it would cause the Family Your improper and unauthorized statements, many of which are false and have no basis in fact, have also injured the memory and reputation of Seth Rich and have defamed and injured the reputation and standing of the members of the Family. Hannity should be castigated for his insistence on pushing this conspiracy theory to his not insignificant Twitter audience, as should Newt Gingrich and the Fox News network for pushing it on the air. This story has repeatedly been debunked, and the family wants everyone to shut it and let Rich rest in peace.If the story were true, it might be easier to understand why the media wouldn t leave it alone against Rich s family s wishes. But it s a vapid conspiracy that right-wingers like Hannity are pushing in a pathetic, desperate attempt to deflect attention away from the Trump-Russia connection.Featured image by Paul Zimmerman via Getty Images | 1real |
'Massive' French airstrikes hit Islamic State to retaliate for attacks | France's military launched "massive" retaliatory airstrikes against Islamic State sites in Syria on Sunday night, saying French aircraft struck a command center and training camp at Raqqa.
The French Air Force posted videos on its Facebook page of the planes embarking on the raid of the extremist group's de facto capital. The strikes come two days after the worst attacks in Paris since World War II. The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attacks at six sites that killed 132 people and wounded hundreds more.
The French Defense Ministry said the strikes targeted a command post, a training camp and a weapons depot, dropping 20 bombs on Raqqa. It said 10 fighter jets in the operation came from the United Arab Emirates and Jordan in coordination with U.S. forces.
Speaking in Turkey at the G-20 summit, French Foreign Minister Lauren Fabius said, "France has always said that because she has been threatened and attacked by (Isis) it would be normal that she react in the framework of self defense," The Financial Times reported. "It would be normal to take action. That’s what we did with the strikes on Raqqa, which is their headquarter. We cannot let (Isis) act without reacting.”
A U.S.-led coalition that includes France has been conducting airstrikes against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria since last year.
A group of anti-Islamic State activists in Syria called Raqqa Is Being Slaughtered Silently reported Sunday that at least 30 airstrikes had hit Raqqa "so far."
"No civilians hit so far, the hospitals are reporting. Electricity and water shut down. Panic among the civilians,” the group posted on its website. “Areas hit: Stadium, museum, hospital, government building (municipal).”
“It’s sad how it always falls on our heads. Pray for us,” the group said.
The group was created by 17 Syrian activists in April 2014 to document abuses by the Islamic State after the militant group took over and declared the northern Syrian city of Raqqa to be the caliphate’s capital.
Working anonymously for their safety, members of Raqqa Is Being Slaughtered Silently secretly film and report from within the city and send the information to local and outside news media. | 0fake |
Actress Sarah Wynter: GOP Wants to Allow Concealed Carry for the Blind, Mentally Ill | Actress Sarah Wynter has warned that Republicans’ push for national reciprocity of concealed carry permits will mean the blind and mentally ill will be carrying guns. [For those unfamiliar with the term, national reciprocity is legislation designed to fix the horrendous patchwork of laws that allow citizens with concealed carry permits to carry a gun for in their home state but force the very same permitted, citizens to travel defenseless in numerous other states. National reciprocity would treat concealed carry permits like a driver’s license, so that a permit to carry from any one state would be valid in every state. Wynter — perhaps best known for her roles in the television series Goliath, The Good Wife and Californication — suggests this about arming the blind and mentally ill. Besides being an actress, Wynter is a member of the Michael gun control group Moms Demand Action. She told Huffington Post: Congress just introduced a very dangerous bill called Concealed Carry Reciprocity that would allow all 50 states to permit stalkers, domestic abusers to carry hidden loaded guns in public — even the blind or mentally ill. We are encouraging people to call their constituents and vote no. Two things need to be pointed out before moving on: First, the mention of the blind and mentally ill is a straw man argument it’s a distraction that allows Wynter to claim to support the Second Amendment and gun owners — she claims both in the HuffPo piece — while also opposing legislation that is designed to allow gun owners to carry their firearms in more states for . Secondly, as with many gun control arguments, Wynter’s argument is tinged with just enough truth to give her plausible deniability. In other words, people with severe vision impairment can still legally use guns for and face no prohibition against obtaining a permit to carry in states like Georgia and others. Why shouldn’t a person with visual impairment be able to use a gun for ? Are they not made vulnerable by their impairment? And ask yourself this question: How many news stories have there been about visually impaired concealed carry permit holders just randomly opening fire or being involved in an unjustified shooting? The scenario suggested by Wynter leads people to believe that national reciprocity is about creating a society where blind people are literally walking around with guns. And it is really no surprise that she would make such a ludicrous suggestion, once you consider some of the other claims she makes in the HuffPo piece. For example, she claims there have been “220 school shootings” since 26 people were shot and killed on December 14, 2012, in the zone at Sandy Hook Elementary. Newsweek recently reported the FBI shows there have been but four mass school shootings since April 20, 1999, and Sandy Hook was one of the four. Moreover, Wynter claims universal background checks are the crucial, missing link for gun control efforts at the federal level. She did not explain that states that have universal background checks — California, Colorado, and Washington state — have also witnessed some our nation’s more heinous attacks in recent years. Moreover, she did not touch on the fact that France has universal background checks, yet terror attacks killed 142 innocents in Paris in 2015 alone. AWR Hawkins is the Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and host of Bullets with AWR Hawkins, a Breitbart News podcast. He is also the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart. com. | 0fake |
De Blasio’s Police Reform Pledges May Burden His Re-election Bid - The New York Times | As Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York turns toward his fight next year, an issue that galvanized his first run — achieving significant police reform — is suddenly becoming a liability. Caught in the gap between his soaring rhetoric as an outsider candidate and the realities of leading a city with a sensitivity to crime, Mr. de Blasio is disappointing many who once supported him, in a community he can ill afford to lose: the black voters who propelled him to office. “All I know is, in all our circles, folks have conversations and there’s a buzz going around about the disappointment,” said Bertha Lewis, the former leader of Acorn who served on Mr. de Blasio’s transition team in 2014, but has become a vocal critic. “There’s a growing enthusiasm gap. ” Throughout the mayor’s term, there have been opportunities for him to live up to his image and his promise as a police reformer. Instead, those issues have become magnets for dissent. Tens of thousands in extra pay for Daniel Pantaleo, the Staten Island officer who put Eric Garner in a fatal chokehold in 2014. Disciplinary records newly shielded from disclosure. Resistance to legislation in the City Council. Continuing fidelity to a “ ” model of policing. Frustration can be heard at New York Communities for Change, a social justice advocacy group and early endorser of Mr. de Blasio in the 2013 Democratic primary, and from a former aide, Kirsten John Foy, whose handcuffing at a Brooklyn parade in 2011 helped galvanize Mr. de Blasio’s views on the need for changes in police practices. Last month, Mr. Foy stood alongside Representative Hakeem Jeffries, a Brooklyn Democrat and a possible challenger to Mr. de Blasio in 2017, at a protest outside Police Headquarters. At the Council, a growing number of members have been refusing to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance at the start of meetings, in part, they say, because of the administration’s handling of policing issues. Councilman Jumaane D. Williams, who was detained along with Mr. Foy in 2011, began the effort, saying his decision to offer the silent protest came after he learned that Officer Pantaleo accrued overtime pay while on modified duty. “That’s what brought me over the edge,” said Mr. Williams, a Democrat from Brooklyn. “I had to do something. ” On the other side, members of the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association have orchestrated protests outside the mayoral residence at Gracie Mansion, and by the Prospect Park Y. M. C. A. where Mr. de Blasio regularly works out. In their view, he has already gone too far. Mr. de Blasio, seemingly cognizant of his potential vulnerability, has responded in recent weeks. After the city’s police tactics became an issue in the first presidential debate between Donald J. Trump and Hillary Clinton, the mayor seized the opportunity to emphasize his opposition to the overuse of the tactics during the administration of former Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, doing so on national television and local radio. On Friday, he said that he would press for changes to state law to allow greater transparency with police disciplinary records, a pledge that garnered a lukewarm response from reform advocates. The mayor moved swiftly last month to restrict overtime pay to officers on modified duty — like Officer Pantaleo — then headed to Harlem to bring his message to a gathering at the Rev. Al Sharpton’s National Action Network. In the speech, the mayor outlined his administration’s efforts to improve relations between the police and minority communities — fewer arrests retraining of officers on the use of force a commitment to reinventing community policing — while embracing demands for more in the future. “That’s the only way things change,” Mr. de Blasio said. “Keep those demands coming. Keep the pressure on. ” Mr. de Blasio has not yet announced new police reform initiatives. Phil Walzak, a top mayoral aide, said the mayor would do so during his campaign, but he declined to characterize them. “I don’t think at any point is anyone saying, ‘All done here,’” Mr. Walzak said. “There’s more to do. But this mayor is absolutely committed to real reform. He’s put real reforms in place, and there’s more to come. ” Mr. de Blasio is also facing pressure to embrace a distant and difficult goal: the closing of the Rikers Island jail complex. His campaign has stuck to a simple message when it comes to the police: Crime is down, even with far fewer of the arrests and police stops that fall heavily on black and Hispanic communities. Dan Levitan, a spokesman for the mayor’s 2017 campaign, said Mr. de Blasio had “proven New York City can improve relations while remaining the safest big city in America. ” Mr. Levitan pointed to poll numbers showing that Mr. de Blasio’s support remained high among black voters and had remained steady on questions of relations. Indeed, Mr. Sharpton said the mayor’s “basic supporters have been pretty much satisfied. ” Critics of Mr. de Blasio’s concede that there have been changes at the Police Department during his tenure. But they lament that the reforms have been unilaterally taken and directed by the police themselves. And they focus on the apparent absence of punishment for officers, even for those involved in the deaths of unarmed black men, like Mr. Garner and Ramarley Graham, who was fatally shot in his Bronx home in 2012. “When your training fails you in the field, there’s no accountability for that,” said Councilman Robert Cornegy, a Democrat who represents parts of Brooklyn. But, he added despairingly, the issue may not cost Mr. de Blasio at the polls because black voters are already “disaffected” in their hopes for police reform. “They’re disappointed,” Mr. Cornegy said of his black constituents, adding: “The community and the Caribbean communities love really hard, and, consequently, when they’re done, they’re done really hard. They’re not at a done period. ” Policing presents a tightrope for any New York mayor, perhaps none more so than Mr. de Blasio, who began his administration amid the high hopes of reformers and the skeptical eye of officers. Those tensions burst into public view starting in 2014 after street protests arose in response to a grand jury’s decision not to indict Officer Pantaleo in Mr. Garner’s death, followed by the killing of two patrol officers in Brooklyn and a de facto work slowdown by officers, as some turned their backs on the mayor while he spoke at the officers’ funerals. Mr. de Blasio has at times presented what he hopes will be a new model of community policing in ways that are likely to appeal to officers. “This is not social work this is crime fighting,” he said recently when asked of the program, in terms oddly reminiscent of the early administration of former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani. Representative Jeffries said the mayor’s resistance to the Council’s legislating police activity, his continued support of policing — a tactic that involves aggressively going after minor offenses to prevent major ones — and his embrace of a proposal to make resisting arrest a felony were “not the positions of a police reformer. ” “These are the positions,” he continued, “of someone who seems afraid to aggressively go at the police unions that defend the status quo. ” That feeling has been shared by some who worked in the de Blasio administration, and say they were drawn there by the promise of making deep changes to the criminal justice system. Dominique Day worked on justice initiatives at the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice until January. She said she left disheartened at the lack of zeal for changes, such as improving the quality of the information used in the increasingly interactions between New Yorkers and the criminal justice system. “You have this really exciting rhetoric of reform that has been embraced by almost everyone, including the police and prosecutors,” she said. “But in practice, it’s business as usual. ” | 0fake |
EPIC: New Yorker’s “Hillary Themed” Haunted House Has Libs Absolutely Furious | Before viewing the video, below, please be warned that its contents are truly disturbing. If you have children, have them avert their eyes so they aren’t forever scarred by the images of Clinton that decorate this person’s yard.
This house in Bellmore!!!
Posted by Brian Mc Kibbin on Thursday, October 20, 2016
The video of the house, posted on Facebook by Brian McKibbin, has gone viral, garnering over 2.5 million views in less than a week. Advertisement - story continues below
The house was decorated with signs calling Clinton a “traitor,”“liar” and “murderer.” The house also featured several large displays encouraging people to vote for Republican nominee Donald Trump.
It was unclear whether the person behind the decorations decided to do this for Halloween or just because he really doesn’t like Clinton . In any case, it really is an awesome display that works perfectly for both Halloween and the upcoming election.
While this house might be scary, the real nightmare would be Clinton actually being elected. That’s why you need to get out and vote. If your state has early voting, go vote right away.
We can laugh about this house’s anti-Hillary display all we want, but if she wins on Nov. 8, we won’t be laughing anymore. Advertisement - story continues below | 1real |
IT’S TRUMP OR…It’s The End Of America | The election is Tuesday. So it s time to make my final case for Donald J. Trump. My case is pretty simple it s Trump or it s the end of America.I was raised as a middle-class kid in the greatest country in world history. A country built around mobility, opportunity and economic freedom. A country that allowed this son of a butcher to become a successful business owner, media personality, best-selling author and TV star and producer. Only in America.I was taught by my wonderful, patriotic, true red, white and blue, salt-of-the-earth, American parents that certain specific things made America great. Here they are:Faith in God, prayer, love of country, family, a belief in American exceptionalism, capitalism, Judeo-Christian values, the Constitution, limited government, personal responsibility, economic freedom, the military and police. Well don t look now. But everything from that list above everything we believe in everything that made America great has been under full-scale assault for eight long years from multiple directions. And Hillary is here to finish the job. She already publicly stated she wants to be Obama s third term.The truth is we either send a strong message heard around the world and elect Trump, or the America we know and love is gone. Forever.Because if Trump doesn t win, no other Republican will ever be elected president again. President Hillary Clinton will make sure of that. Hillary will open the borders like never before to let in millions of illegal aliens who have no love for anything that made America great.Foreigners come here not out of a love for America, but for a love of the cradle-to-grave welfare state that America has become. Eighty percent of them (or higher) will vote Democrat forever more to keep the welfare checks coming. That s Hillary s plan.Don t believe me? See California. No Republican will ever again be elected to statewide office. This was the exact formula that destroyed California. Open the borders, let in millions of foreigners, make them dependent on government welfare checks and then train them to vote Democrat to keep the handouts coming.It worked!That was the experiment. Now Democrats are onto Plan B to turn the rest of America into California.Hillary will open the borders and tie the hands of border agents in order to flood the country with millions of new illegals. Hillary will legalize the 12 million to 15 million or so already here and give them the right to vote.Hillary will also enthusiastically import millions of Muslim refugees who have no love for America, capitalism, the Constitution, or certainly Judeo-Christian values. Some will become terrorists, almost all will require cradle-to-grave welfare. Then it s over for America.So vote. Drag your friends to the polls. Make phone calls to your entire address book. Leave no stone unturned.Think of the U.S. Supreme Court.Think of open borders.Think of your children s and grandchildren s future.Then vote for Trump like it s Trump, or the end of America.Because it is.Wayne Allyn Root is a best-selling author and host of WAR Now: The Wayne Allyn Root Show 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. daily at 790 Talk Now. His R-J columns run Wednesdays and Sundays. | 1real |
U.N. rejects Myanmar claim that it agreed to help build housing for refugees | YANGON (Reuters) - A UN settlement program, UN-Habitat in Myanmar, on Thursday rejected a state media report that it had agreed to help build housing for people fleeing violence in the northern Myanmar state of Rakhine, where an army operation has displaced hundreds of thousands. The development underscores tension between Myanmar and the United Nations, which in April criticized the government s previous plan to resettle Rohingya Muslims displaced by last year s violence in camp-like villages. More than 600,000 have crossed to Bangladesh since Aug. 25 attacks by Rohingya militants sparked an army crackdown. The United Nations says killings, arson and rape carried out by troops and ethnic Rakhine Buddhist mobs since then amount to a campaign of ethnic cleansing against the Rohingya. The state-run Global New Light of Myanmar newspaper said on Thursday that UN-Habitat had agreed to provide technical assistance in housing displaced people in Rakhine and the agency would work closely with the authorities to implement the projects to be favorable to Myanmar s social culture and administrative system . But Stanislav Saling, spokesman for the office of the U.N. resident coordinator in Myanmar, told Reuters in an email that no agreements were reached so far after the agency s representatives attended a series of meetings with Myanmar officials this week in its capital Naypyitaw. The UN-Habitat mission emphasized that resettlement should be conducted in accordance with the principles of housing and property restitution for refugees and displaced persons to support their safe and dignified return to their places of origin, he said, responding on behalf of UN-Habitat. UN-Habitat welcomed the interest of the Myanmar government in international norms and standards, he added. The United Nations principles state that all refugees or displaced persons have the right to return to property or land from which they were arbitrarily or unlawfully removed. Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi has pledged that anyone sheltering in Bangladesh who can prove they were Myanmar residents can return, but it remains unclear whether those refugees would be allowed to return to their homes. Rohingya who return to Myanmar are unlikely to be able to reclaim their land, and may find their crops have been harvested and sold by the government, according to Myanmar officials and plans seen by Reuters. Buddhist-majority Myanmar in August suggested that UN agencies such as the World Food Program have provided food to Rohingya insurgents, adding to pressure on aid groups which had to suspend activities in Rakhine and pull out most of their staff. Still, Soe Aung, permanent secretary at the Ministry of Social Welfare who attended the meetings with UN-Habitat, insisted that the agency had agreed to give assistance and the two sides will meet again on November 8. We have reached an agreement with the UN for technical assistance. We will discuss more details on how to proceed, he told Reuters. The Myanmar military said on Thursday that it will withdraw some of the security forces carrying out clearance operations in northern Rakhine and dispatch them to the state capital, Sittwe, as an auxiliary force. Thousands of refugees have continued to arrive cross the Naf river separating Rakhine and Bangladesh in recent days, even though Myanmar says military operations ceased on Sept. 5. | 0fake |
BILL CLINTON STEPS IN IT: Accuses FBI Of Serving Up A “Load Of Bull” | Oh boy! This is getting good! Bill Clinton is now accusing the FBI of serving up a load of bull in the comments about the investigation into Hillary s e-mails. How idiotic is it to publicly slam the FBI? I guess Slick Willy isn t so slick anymore. all we have to say about this is KEEP ON TALKIN SLICK WILLY!Bill Clinton is accusing the FBI director of serving up the biggest load of bull I ve ever heard marking the first significant public comments from the husband of the Democratic nominee on the scandal that s plagued his wife s campaign for over a year. First of all, the FBI director said, when he testified before Congress, he had to amend his previous day s statement that she had never received any emails marked classified, Clinton told journalists at an Asian American Journalists Association meeting in Las Vegas on Friday, making a strong defense for Hillary Clinton.He added, They saw two little notes with a C on it this is the biggest load of bull I ve ever heard that were about telephone calls that she needed to make. The State Department typically puts a little C on it to discourage people from discussing it in public in the event the secretary of state, whoever it is, doesn t make a telephone call. Does that sound threatening to the national security to you? VIA: NYP | 1real |
Re: BREAKING: Jury finds #OregonStandOff seven (including Bundy brothers) not guilty on all counts | BREAKING: Jury finds #OregonStandOff seven (including Bundy brothers) not guilty on all counts Posted at 7:30 pm on October 27, 2016 by Sam J.
At the beginning of 2016, protesters went to the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge to in what would result in a 41-day occupation of the Federal property. Ten months later, a jury found seven of these protesters not guilty. Jury verdict: ALL DEFENDANTS FOUND NOT GUILTY. #OregonStandoff
— Amanda Peacher (@amandapeacher) October 27, 2016 MORE: All Malheur defendants found NOT GUILTY of conspiracy. https://t.co/qikRMSirZD pic.twitter.com/xnfkPZP4Cz
— KOIN News (@KOINNews) October 27, 2016
The defendants in question included: (L-R, top to bottom) Ryan Bundy, Ammon Bundy, Jeff Banta, Neil Wampler, Kenneth Medenbach, David Fry and Shawna Cox. (Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office) Trending OOF! Donna Brazile tries to 'go low' with Jason Chaffetz over Trump, falls flat on her face
Charges dismissed included: On Federal conspiracy to impede charges all defendants NOT GUILTY. On possession of firearm on federal facilities NOT GUILTY. ALL defendants
— Andrew Dymburt (@DymburtNews) October 27, 2016
Roughly 24 people were arrested for the occupation; seven more of the protesters will face trial in February of 2017. | 1real |
GOP Senator: Trump ’Clearly Does Not Fully Understand or Appreciate the Boundaries’ - Breitbart | Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union,” Sen. Susan Collins ( ) said during President Donald Trump’s meeting with former FBI Director James Comey that Trump should not have discussed the investigation into former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn. Collins said, “The conversation should not have occurred. There’s just no doubt about that. ” “It’s not an excuse,” she added. “The president clearly does not fully understand or appreciate the boundaries but he should. ” Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN | 0fake |
Hillary’s No Slam Dunk in 2016 | Could Hillary Clinton be the next Richard Nixon? Now that’s a provocative question, but it isn’t quite what you think.
The other day, I watched Hillary and Bill Clinton take in their close friend Terry McAuliffe’s inauguration as governor of Virginia. Neither Clinton spoke, but their presence said it all: Virginia, the Mother of Presidents long before it was a modern swing state, will be seeing a lot of the Clintons—and now they have a ready-made home-away-from-home in the gubernatorial mansion that adorns Richmond’s Capitol Square.
Every time you observe the Clintons, you can’t help but ponder the long and winding road of their 40-year electoral saga, beginning with Bill’s unsuccessful 1974 run for Congress in Arkansas. Their lives are so suffused with politics that it seems incredible to consider that Hillary might not run in 2016.
After all, with just one exception, a Clinton has always tried for public office whenever a tantalizing opportunity presented itself. The rule-breaker was Bill’s aborted run for president in the 1988 cycle. On the eve of his expected candidacy announcement in July 1987, with the national press gathering in Little Rock, his long-suffering chief of staff, Betsey Wright, she later told PBS, huddled with her boss and presented a list of women he was alleged to have been “seeing.” After a number of responses along the lines of “she’ll never talk,” Clinton belatedly awakened to the reality that he could self-destruct in the post-Gary Hart world—Hart had been forced out of the Democrats’ presidency sweepstakes just a couple of months earlier following allegations of adultery. The next day, Clinton declined to run, stunning the news media with the unconvincing excuse that he had decided to spend more time with his family.
Nearly three decades later, Hillary needs no cover story should she surprise us and spurn another White House tour. Now in her mid 60s, she knows as much as any human being alive what an arduous journey lies ahead even for a heavily favored contender. Inevitably, she will consider how much she wants, or is able, to keep going at a killer pace throughout her 70s and, more important, her chances of prevailing in November 2016.
Much of it is out of her hands. Low job approval numbers for President Obama, should they persist, will make it difficult for any Democrat to win, even with the party’s seeming Electoral College edge and growing demographic advantages among minorities and the young. Just ask John McCain how President George W. Bush’s unpopularity affected his 2008 White House bid. (Of course, you can’t rule out the very real chance that the Republicans will rescue the eventual Democratic nominee by putting forward an out-of-the-mainstream nominee.)
The Clintons are nothing if not shrewd, and they’ve lived through the entire era of postwar American politics. So Hillary Clinton would be the last to believe what I have heard with increasing frequency: that, in the end, no one of real heft, even Vice President Joe Biden, will challenge her for the Democratic nomination she nearly won in 2008, and she will steamroll over the minor contenders who do. Most frequently mentioned in the “minor” category are former Gov. Brian Schweitzer of Montana and Gov. Martin O’Malley of Maryland. (O’Malley also made a little-noticed appearance at the McAuliffe inauguration.) Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts would be a major opponent should she run, but she insists she will not. When California Gov. Jerry Brown also bowed out, NBC News’s First Read called it “a reminder that Hillary Clinton will probably face little to no serious competition if she runs.”
Possible? Sure. But history’s guide tells us otherwise. A consensus choice for a major-party presidential nomination is exceedingly rare—and this is where the Nixon comparison comes in.
Incumbent presidents often find their second-term nominations nearly unopposed, though even in this rarefied group, there are notable exceptions: Harry Truman, Lyndon Johnson, Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush. (Truman and Johnson withdrew in 1952 and 1968, respectively, partly because of intra-party opposition.)
But when no incumbent was running, the only precedent for a consensus choice in the entire post-World War II era is Richard Nixon in 1960. This impressive feat was nonetheless achieved with some difficulty and embarrassment. Nixon thought he had averted a serious GOP challenge when New York Gov. Nelson Rockefeller withdrew as a potential candidate in December 1959. But Nixon’s unappealing persona and substantial baggage from the political wars of the 1940s and 1950s worried many Republicans eager for a third consecutive White House victory. Rockefeller sensed it and reconsidered, toying with a surprise candidacy on the eve of the 1960 Republican National Convention. At the last instant, Rocky relented, mollified by the so-called “Treaty of Fifth Avenue,” a series of concessions by Nixon negotiated in an all-night session and announced by the New York governor himself. | 0fake |
Factbox: Contenders for key jobs in Trump's administration | (Reuters) - U.S. President-elect Donald Trump held additional meetings in New York on Tuesday as he worked to fill administration positions ahead of his inauguration on Jan. 20. Below are people mentioned as contenders for senior roles. See end of list for posts already filled. * Steven Mnuchin, former Goldman Sachs Group Inc executive and Trump’s campaign finance chairman * Jeb Hensarling, Republican U.S. representative from Texas and chairman of the House Financial Services Committee * Jamie Dimon, JPMorgan Chase & Co chief executive officer * Tom Barrack, founder and chairman of Colony Capital Inc * Jonathan Gray, global head of real estate at the Blackstone Group * Mitt Romney, 2012 Republican presidential nominee and former Massachusetts governor * Rudy Giuliani, former Republican mayor of New York City * Nikki Haley, Republican governor of South Carolina * John Bolton, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations under Republican President George W. Bush * Bob Corker, Republican U.S. senator from Tennessee and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee * Zalmay Khalilzad, former U.S. ambassador to Iraq * James Mattis, retired Marine general * David Petraeus, former CIA director and retired Army general * Tom Cotton, Republican U.S. senator from Arkansas * Jon Kyl, former Republican U.S. senator from Arizona * Duncan Hunter, Republican U.S. representative from California and early Trump supporter, member of the House Armed Services Committee * Jim Talent, former Republican U.S. senator from Missouri who was on the Senate Armed Services Committee * Rick Perry, former Republican Texas governor * Stephen Hadley, former national security adviser under President George W. Bush * Tom Price, Republican U.S. representative from Georgia who is an orthopedic surgeon * Rich Bagger, former pharmaceutical executive and former top aide to Republican New Jersey Governor Chris Christie * Bobby Jindal, former Republican Louisiana governor * Michael McCaul, Republican U.S. representative from Texas and chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee * David Clarke, Milwaukee county sheriff and vocal Trump supporter * Joe Arpaio, outgoing Maricopa County, Arizona, sheriff who campaigned for Trump * Kris Kobach, Kansas secretary of state * Jeff Holmstead, energy lawyer, former EPA official during George W. Bush administration * Robert Grady, venture capitalist, partner in private equity firm Gryphon Investors * Leslie Rutledge, Republican Arkansas attorney general * Carol Comer, commissioner of the Indiana Department of Environmental Management * Harold Hamm, Oklahoma oil and gas mogul, chief executive of Continental Resources Inc * Kevin Cramer, Republican U.S. Representative from North Dakota * Robert Grady, venture capitalist, partner in private equity firm Gryphon Investors * Larry Nichols, co-founder of Devon Energy Corp * James Connaughton, chief executive of Nautilus Data Technologies and a former environmental adviser to President George W. Bush * Rick Perry, former Republican Texas governor * Sarah Palin, former Alaska governor, 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee * Jan Brewer, former Republican Arizona governor * Forrest Lucas, founder of oil products company Lucas Oil * Harold Hamm, Oklahoma oil and gas mogul, chief executive of Continental Resources Inc * Robert Grady, venture capitalist, partner in private equity firm Gryphon Investors * Mary Fallin, Republican Oklahoma governor * Ray Washburne, chief executive of investment company Charter Holdings * Cathy McMorris Rodgers, U.S. representative from Washington state and Republican Conference chair * Wilbur Ross, billionaire investor, chairman of Invesco Ltd subsidiary WL Ross & Co * Linda McMahon, former World Wrestling Entertainment executive and two-time Republican Senate candidate * Admiral Mike Rogers, director of the National Security Agency * Ronald Burgess, retired lieutenant general and former Defense Intelligence Agency chief * Robert Cardillo, director of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency * Pete Hoekstra, former Republican U.S. representative from Michigan * Rudy Giuliani, former Republican mayor of New York City * Richard Grenell, former spokesman for the United States at the United Nations * Peter King, Republican U.S. representative from New York * Tulsi Gabbard, a war veteran and Democratic U.S. representative from Hawaii * Dan DiMicco, former chief executive of steel producer Nucor Corp * Andrew Puzder, chief executive officer of CKE Restaurants * Victoria Lipnic, U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission commissioner and former Labor Department official during the George W. Bush administration * Elaine Chao, former labor secretary and deputy transportation secretary under Republican Presidents George W. Bush and George H.W. Bush, respectively. Chao is wife of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell * Dr. Ben Carson, former 2016 Republican presidential candidate and retired neurosurgeon The Trump transition team confirmed he would choose from a list of 21 names he drew up during his campaign, including Republican U.S. Senator Mike Lee of Utah, and William Pryor, a federal judge with the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. * Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus * Steve Bannon, former head of the conservative website Breitbart News * Jeff Sessions, Republican U.S. senator from Alabama and senior member of the Senate Judiciary Committee (subject to Senate confirmation) * Republican U.S. Representative Mike Pompeo from Kansas (subject to Senate confirmation) * Michael Flynn, retired Army lieutenant general and former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency | 0fake |
4 THINGS THE MEDIA WON’T TELL YOU About “Oppressed” Anti-American NFL QB Colin Kaepernick | San Fransisco 49er s quarterback Colin Kaepernick refused to stand during the national anthem during a recent NFL football game. He claimed he would no longer stand for a flag that represents a country who oppresses blacks. Does he even know what oppression is?1). Kaepernick coincidentally converted to Islam only two months ago.2). He is engaged to Nessa Diab, a Black Lives Matter activist who promotes what she calls authentic Islam. The Kaepernick s will also have a traditional Muslim wedding.3). Kaepernick was abandoned by his black family as a child and was adopted by a white family. Did he suffer like he claims or was he taken care of when no one else wanted him? You only hear him talking tough now because something else is driving his anti-American anger.4).To date, Kaepernick has donated $0 (ZERO) to Black Lives Matter or any other group affiliated with helping minorities. His net worth is estimated to be over $100 million, yet he has donated zero dollars to the issues he claims to be so passionate about. When the National Anthem is played, I salute because I am a black man born and raised in the inner city afforded the opportunity for greatness in my own right. May you seek God s forgiveness and find humility, because we, the people are not going to forget what you did and said. Conservative Daily PostFormer US Rep., Allen West had these tough words for anti-American pro-BLM Colin Kaepernick: BLM activists are thugs that vandalize cities and collect welfare checks while our veterans are sleeping under a bridge overpass because they fought for Kaepernick to have the freedom to utter ignorant remarks like he did. | 1real |
Hillary Clinton Seeks Even More Unfit Secretary of State Than Her | Hillary Clinton Seeks Even More Unfit Secretary of State Than Her October 28, 2016 Daniel Greenfield
Having never read any medieval German folk tales, Hillary Clinton is counting her chickens before they've hatched and preparing to hand out jobs that no one has handed her to hand out. She's busy planning her fantasy cabinet for her fantasy administration.
And her big pick makes sense.
Reportedly she would like to make Joe Biden the Secretary of State. Biden is the obvious choice. He's arrogant, dumb and brimming with bright ideas like just giving Iran money or splitting Iraq into little pieces. Obviously this wouldn't be a competency pick. The last time we had someone qualified as Secretary of State was during President Bush's time in office.
Then Democrats decided they would give the job as a consolation prize to failed presidential candidates. Because our foreign policy is just that important.
And who could be counted on to make an even bigger mess than Hillary Clinton or John Kerry... Joe Biden. It's a perfect plan. If you want a fall guy to blame everything on, they don't come any more obvious than Joe Biden.
And if you want someone shadowed by the soft bigotry of low expectations, you've gotta go Joe.
Joe Biden could accidentally start WW3 and everyone would shrug and say, "That's just Joe." | 1real |
What makes America 'exceptional'? Clinton and Trump trade places (+video) | Typically, 'American exceptionalism' has been a Republican talking point. But this election, it's Hillary Clinton, not Donald Trump who's touting the idea – even as young Americans increasingly question it.
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton speaks at the American Legion's 98th Annual Convention at the Duke Energy Convention Center in Cincinnati Wednesday.
When Hillary Clinton spoke in front of a group of veterans on Wednesday, she invoked a concept that has long shaped how many conservative Americans have understood their country and its place within the world.
“If there is one core belief that has guided and inspired me every step of the way, it is this: The United States is an exceptional nation,” Mrs. Clinton told those gathered at the American Legion’s national convention in Cincinnati. “I believe we are still Lincoln’s ‘last best hope of earth,’ still Reagan’s ‘shining city on a hill,’ still Robert Kennedy’s ‘great, unselfish, compassionate country.’ ”
Such lofty talk of “American exceptionalism” has been woven into the nation’s DNA since the time of the Puritans, many scholars say. The United States, many believe, is a unique nation with a special, perhaps God-ordained role to play upon the global stage.
But within the crosscurrents of this topsy-turvy election cycle, the roles of the presidential candidates have flipped.
On Wednesday, Clinton spoke of the value of the American military, both to secure American interests abroad and to act as “the global force for freedom, justice, and human dignity.”
Meanwhile, Donald Trump has said the assumptions behind American exceptionalism are “insulting” to the rest of the world. “I don't like the term,” he said last year.
The reversal comes amid a deeper shift within the country itself. The rising generation of Millennials more often sees American exceptionalism as connected to ideals than to the exertion of its power, polls find.
“A new patriotism in American may be rising,” wrote Lynn Vavreck in The New York Times.
In the context of this election, however, Clinton’s more traditional speech “makes perfect sense,” says Mark Naison, professor of African American studies and history at Fordham University in New York.
She has just spent a month courting Republicans potentially alienated by Trump, after all.
In general, underlined her long-held hawkish positions on the use of the American military. The United States is not only an exceptional nation, she said, it is also indispensable nation as a force for good.
This is not a typical Democratic talking point.
“On the left and in most precincts of the Democratic Party, the word is used sneeringly, while Republicans embrace it enthusiastically,” says Jerald Podair, professor of history and American studies at Lawrence University in Appleton, Wis.
Indeed, Republicans explicitly trumpet American exceptionalism in their party platform.
The Republican nominee, however, has expressed the view of many liberals over the years. In 2013, after Russian President Vladimir Putin criticized President Obama’s use of the phrase “American exceptionalism,” Mr. Trump agreed, calling it “insulting” to the rest of the world.
Then in April last year, a month before he announced his candidacy, Trump repeated the critique, telling the Texas Patriots political action committee, a tea party group: “I don't want to say, ‘We're exceptional. We're more exceptional.’ Because essentially we're saying, ‘We're more outstanding than you…’ I don't like the term. I never liked it. When I see these politicians get up [and say], ‘the American exceptionalism’ ... I think, ‘You’re insulting the world.’ ”
Trump’s position has hints of the growing generational shift, but Millennial ideals appear to go deeper.
On the surface, Millennials report having fewer traditional notions of patriotism. Only 15 percent of 18 to 29 year olds describe the US as the greatest country in the world, while half of 30 to 64 year olds still make that claim.
Yet as the Monitor reported this week on San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick’s decision not to stand for the national anthem, many Millennials see the country’s “exceptionalism” in acts of questioning, and through a desire to fix its flaws.
This includes a vigorous critique of the idea of America as a special nation and a force for good in the world – especially by minority thinkers.
“American exceptionalism has its roots in the ideologies and genocidal practices of land conquest, from Manifest Destiny to the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan,” says Dylan Rodriguez, a professor of ethnic studies at the University of California, Riverside, in an email. “Inseparable from the history of US white supremacist thought – which includes eugenics and the legal edifices of Jim Crow apartheid – this is an exceptionalism that nurtures a dynamically racist commitment to social Darwinism.”
Early in his tenure, Obama drew the ire of conservatives after he casually dismissed a question about American exceptionalism. “I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism,” he said in 2009.
But Obama now says he believes “in American exceptionalism with every fiber of my being” – though on new terms that echo Millennials’.
America’s exceptionalism is rooted in the history of American protests and battles for freedom, he says. In his speech for the 50th Anniversary of the Selma to Montgomery Marches last year, Obama gave a Whitmanesque litany, from “the hopeful strivers who cross the Rio Grande because we want our kids to know a better life,” to “the slaves who built the White House and the economy of the South,” and to “the countless laborers who laid rail, and raised skyscrapers, and organized for workers’ rights,” among others.
“That’s what it means to love America,” he said. “That’s what it means to believe in America. That’s what it means when we say America is exceptional.”
Clinton’s speech on Wednesday offered hints of that vision, though specifically as a means of contrasting herself with Trump.
“My opponent misses something important,” she told the veterans. “When we say America is exceptional, it doesn't mean that people from other places don't feel deep national pride, just like we do. It means that we recognize America's unique and unparalleled ability to be a force for peace and progress, a champion for freedom and opportunity.”
In that way, the idea of what makes America great could be a central campaign theme this November, says Professor Naison.
“This vision of the US, not only as a beacon of freedom for nations, but as a place where oppressed people might want to move to, is precisely the vision she wants to juxtapose to Donald Trump's vision of the US as a walled society cutting back on its global obligations.” | 0fake |
Trump aide Greenblatt heads to Israel after Jerusalem announcement | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump s U.S. Middle East peace negotiator Jason Greenblatt will return to Israel next week for talks related to the peace efforts, a senior administration official said on Friday. The trip is Greenblatt s first to the region since Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israel s capital, which created an international uproar. Greenblatt, whose title is special representative for international negotiations, will meet with Fernando Gentilini, the European Union s special representative to the Middle East and stay for U.S. Vice President Mike Pence s trip to Israel later in the week, the official said. | 0fake |
CNN Host Utterly EMBARRASSES Trump Lackey Who Refuses To Believe Trump Is Losing (VIDEO) | What just happened on CNN would be sad if it weren t so gosh darn funny.It would seem it s not only Donald Trump who is in complete denial that he s losing because that denial has clearly spread to all his campaign surrogates.While being interviewed by Wolf Blitzer stand-in Brianna Keilar during a segment of CNN s Situation Room, Trump surrogate Michael Cohen just made himself look absolutely foolish and kind of insane.Keilar was questioning Cohen about the new shake-up in the Trump campaign where there is yet another new campaign manager. It seems the campaign is in emergency maintenance mode considering how dismal Trump s poll numbers have been across the board, including in pretty much every single battleground state.Keilar reiterates the point that Trump is down, which Cohen must have been trained not to accept, because he replies fast with: Says who? So, Keilar quickly responds with: The polls. Most of them. All of them. However, Cohen clearly not grasping this reality into his head again says: Say s who? And Keilar again says: Polls. I just told you. I answered your question. So Cohen says: Which polls? Keilar again says: All of them. It was awkward to say the least, but really kind of funny, yet scary at the same time that Trump is actually the Republican nominee and this sort of stupidity has now become the norm.Watch the hilariously embarrassing moment here:Featured image via video screen capture | 1real |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.