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TRUMP’S BRINGING Churchill’s Bust Back To Oval Office…Wait Till You See Who Barack Obama Replaced Him With | Trump will bring Churchill back to the White House after Obama embarrassed himself and our nation by removing the bust and replacing it with a picture of himself on the cover of the radical leftist rag, The New Yorker.Barack Obama removed the Churchill bust from the Oval Office in 2009. This weekend British Ukip leader Nigel Farage told reporters Donald Trump will re-install the bust of Churchill into the Oval Office.Obama replaced the Churchill bust with a photo of himself walking on water.Express.co reported:NIGEL FARAGE has revealed that Donald Trump will re-install a bust of Winston Churchill removed from the Oval Office by Barack Obama in a clear sign of the friendship the new President wishes to foster with Britain.The interim Ukip leader said Mr Trump has already pushed Britain to the front of the queue for a favourable trade relationship and added that he is the man to forge stronger ties with the US as he flew to visit the business tycoon in his first days as President Elect. The Ukip leader described Donald Trump as an anglophile and said his re-installation of the Churchill statue was a clear sign of his appreciation for the historically warm relationship between the allies.-Gateway Pundit | 1real |
India "disappointed" with China blocking bid to blacklist militant leader | NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India is disappointed by China s decision to again block its request at the United Nations to blacklist the head of a Pakistan-based militant group, the country s foreign ministry said in a statement on Thursday. India, backed by the United States, has been trying to get Maulana Masood Azhar on a U.N. list of groups with ties to Al Qaeda, blaming his group for a series of attacks in India, including one on its parliament in 2002 and another last year on an airbase. But China, a member of the U.N. Security Council, has repeatedly put a technical hold on the Indian request citing a lack of consensus, a claim India rejects. We are deeply disappointed that once again, a single country has blocked international consensus on the designation of an acknowledged terrorist and leader of U.N.-designated terrorist organization, Masood Azhar, India s foreign ministry said. China s foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said last month there were clear rules for listing a person or group as a terrorist, and that China has always believed the relevant U.N. committee should operate on the principles of objectivity. The wrangling over Masood Azhar, a longtime Indian foe, has become a thorny issue in ties between China and India. India worries that China will stick by its all-weather friend, India s arch-foe Pakistan. India strongly believes that double standards and selective approaches will only undermine the international community s resolve to combat terrorism, India s foreign ministry said. | 0fake |
Angry Constituents Shame Republican By Turning Their Backs On Him During Town Hall | Republicans should be ashamed of themselves and that s the exact message one GOP lawmaker clearly received during a town hall in Louisiana.On Wednesday, Senator Bill Cassidy insulted his constituents by arriving half an hour late to his own town hall. That gave voters extra time to get angrier.When he finally arrived, Cassidy tried to deliver a PowerPoint presentation about the supposed Republican plan to replace the Affordable Care Act, a plan that pretty much boils down to if you get sick and you can t afford health care you die.But once he entered the door, a woman made sure Cassidy knew about a kid who was uninsurable.Woman tells this child is uninsurable, pointing to child standing next to her, as @BillCassidy walks in. pic.twitter.com/pCP83E9Qbw Caitlin Owens (@caitlinnowens) February 22, 2017Then they started chanted in favor of the Affordable Care Act.Now people are holding up signs to @BillCassidy saying you re dodging the question, some chanting ACA Caitlin Owens (@caitlinnowens) February 22, 2017As it turns out, most Americans support the Affordable Care Act. Over 30 million Americans have been able to get insurance because of the law. By repealing it, Republicans are handing down a death sentence to millions of people, many of whom are their own voters. Americans would also face financial ruin because of the repeal.Cassidy s constituents were not interested in hearing about a useless Republican plan so they shamed him by turning their backs on him during the presentation, which forced him to take questions instead.Constituents turn their back on @BillCassidy as he goes through a PowerPoint of his Obamacare replacement. One woman: this is hypothetical pic.twitter.com/bTVPj0t6iR Caitlin Owens (@caitlinnowens) February 22, 2017The crowd demanded that Cassidy answer their questions and when it became clear that he s nothing but a coward who doesn t care about the health of Americans, one constituent warned him that he won t have a job after 2020.Chants of yes or no following this question, guy walks out yelling 2020, you re done at @BillCassidy townhall pic.twitter.com/oLKbGuNGZn Caitlin Owens (@caitlinnowens) February 22, 2017Cassidy s constituents also grilled him on Russia and Betsy DeVos and when the town hall ended, Cassidy was run out of the building with chants of Do your job! Townhall ends, @BillCassidy says, and crowd starts chanting do your job pic.twitter.com/5RtVwvwCNo Caitlin Owens (@caitlinnowens) February 22, 2017Here s the full town hall via YouTube.Republicans are not repealing the Affordable Care Act because they care about our healthcare. They only care about tearing down the legacy of America s first black president, a president who did something for the American people that Republicans refused to do even though many parts of the law were their ideas.Featured image via screenshot | 1real |
WHOA! FIRST LADY MELANIA Makes Classy, Yet Blistering Response To Kathy Griffin’s ISIS Inspired Photo Of Decapitated President Trump | Social media erupted yesterday when outspoken comedian Kathy Griffin, posed for a photo shoot with controversial photographer Tyler Shields where she held a bloodied, decapitated mask of President Trump.Today, Melania Trump questioned Kathy Griffin s mental health in a blistering statement after she posted a photo of her holding a bloodied, decapitated version of President Trump s head.The video posted on Twitter of Griffin holding the decapitated head of President Trump has since been removed. As a mother, a wife, and a human being, that photo is very disturbing, the first lady said in a statement Wednesday. When you consider some of the atrocities happening in the world today, a photo opportunity like this is simply wrong and makes you wonder about the mental health of the person who did it. Daily CallerPresident Trump took to Twitter to respond to the unbelievably vile comedian Kathy Griffin. Trump s tweet also reminded Griffin that he has an 11-year old son who has the ability to see her disgusting depiction of his father s bloodied, decapitated head:Kathy Griffin should be ashamed of herself. My children, especially my 11 year old son, Barron, are having a hard time with this. Sick! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 31, 2017 | 1real |
WATCH: SNOWFLAKES ASKED Communist Party Platform or Democratic Party Platform? [Video] | Ami Horowitz is fantastic! Check out this man on the street effort to see how much snowflakes know about what they profess to support. Have the Democrats gone so far to the left that they can t tell the difference between their party platform and that of the communists? It s an eyeopener!If you haven t seen Ami Horowitz before, he has a fantastic video about sharia law in America:Ami Horowitz hits the streets of Minnesota to find out if the Somali Muslims there understand that American law is the only law. They don t get it and say that they prefer Sharia law. Do you think that if we keep bringing over thousands and thousands of Muslims that they will want to keep our law? Think about it Dana Loesch speaks with the filmmaker Ami Horowitz: | 1real |
Bentley, former Congresswoman from Maryland, dies at 92 | (Reuters) - Helen Delich Bentley, a former journalist and a U.S. Republican congresswoman from Maryland who gained global attention by smashing Japanese goods to protest Tokyo’s trade policies, died over the weekend at the age of 92, officials said. Bentley upset a longtime Democratic congressman to win a U.S. House of Representatives seat in 1984, a year in which Ronald Reagan’s landslide victory in the presidential race helped bring several new faces from the party to Congress. The five-term congresswoman was a staunch advocate for the port of Baltimore and the state’s maritime industry. After reports that Japanese company Toshiba had sold technology to the Soviet Union to help their submarines sail more quietly, she led other members of Congress who used a sledgehammer to smash Japanese-made goods on the Capitol steps. The event came as tensions were running high with Tokyo over a widening U.S. trade deficit with the country. She left Congress to run for governor of Maryland but lost in the party’s primary. “Congresswoman Bentley worked with tenacity, energy, and passion on behalf of her constituents, making her a rare breed in politics and a role model to public servants across Maryland,” current Maryland Governor Larry Hogan, a Republican, wrote in a Facebook post. Bentley was born in 1923 in Nevada and her parents were immigrants from Yugoslavia. After earning a bachelor’s degree in journalism, she found a job with the Baltimore Sun, beginning a three-decade long relationship with the newspaper in which she wrote ground-breaking stories on the maritime industry and labor, according to her congressional biography. She died on Saturday at her home in Timonium, a Baltimore suburb, the Baltimore Sun reported, adding Bentley had been diagnosed with brain cancer. | 0fake |
WATCH: CNN Host Makes Trump’s Campaign Manager Regret She Took The Job | We re just days into experiencing the leadership skills Kellyanne Conway, Donald Trump s new campaign manager, has to offer, and so far it s a disaster. An interview on CNN s State of the Union gave us a taste of Conway s ability to handle a little bit of grilling from the press.Before her rise to the top, Conway had called out Trump for his refusal to release his tax returns. Dana Bash, the show s host, wasted no time bringing up the matter during the interview. OK, now you re in charge of Donald Trump s campaign. Given that, given how you feel, are we going to see Donald Trump s tax returns soon? Conway, who is apparently not interested in creating any original talking points, went straight to the there s a media conspiracy against Trump line. Conway insisted that CNN should be more concerned with covering corruption relating to the Clinton Foundation. Which, seeing as there is no real conspiracy against Trump, they did. Conway said: So, now that I m on the inside, I know something I didn t know then, which is he is under audit and what that means. And, he has said very clearly, and I back him up completely, that when the audit is completed he will release the tax returns. And let me just say something about transparency. It comes in many different forms, Dana, as does accountability and as does truthfulness. And we can t imagine going up against a less transparent, less accountable, more sort of rigged and corrupt individual as our political opponent than Hillary Clinton. She s had a terrible week when it comes to being transparent and accountable. Whether it s the revelations of the pay-for-play at the in the State Department, that I know that CNN is very much on top of and your reporting is, Dana. As well as, as well as, the what happened at the Clinton Foundation, which is a big hot mess. Bash responds saying: And we are talking about that for sure, but in this particular interview and these questions are about Donald Trump. And you mentioned the audit. According to his lawyers, the years 2002 to 2008 are no longer under audit. So would you release those tax returns? Conway continues to evade the question, saying: No, I would not. And this entire tax return debate is somewhat confounding to me in the following sense. I don t think that it creates one job, gets one more individual who does not have health insurance covered by health insurance, particularly under the disaster that has been Obamacare with these private insurers pulling out of our exchanges now and reporting billions of dollars of losses. What I think people are most concerned about is; how would a President Trump, or how would a President Hillary, affect their tax bill? Conway just proved that she is going to offer more of the same from the Trump campaign as we saw under the Manafort era. Same messaging and words, just a new mouth saying them.You can watch the exchange below.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ApplceC4RtUFeatured image via video screen capture | 1real |
Trump says he's likely to sign healthcare order this week | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump said on Tuesday he likely will sign an order this week that is expected to allow Americans to buy stripped-down health insurance policies, a step some experts say would further undermine the Obamacare law that Trump opposes. Unable to win passage of legislation to dismantle the 2010 law in a Congress led by his own party, Trump indicated he would take unilateral action. He offered few specifics beyond saying his action would let people cross state lines to obtain “great, competitive healthcare” costing the United States “nothing.” The expected order would allow small businesses and individuals to band together as associations to buy health insurance plans that would be exempt from some Obamacare requirements. These include mandatory coverage for 10 essential health benefits such as maternity and newborn care, prescription drugs and mental health treatment. It would also expand the amount of time people can use short-term medical insurance plans, which are cheaper than traditional plans but cover a limited set of benefits. People could use those plans for up to a year, compared to three months under current law. “I’ll also be signing something, probably this week, which is going to go a long way to take care of many of the people that have been so badly hurt on healthcare,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. “With Congress the way it is, I decided to take it upon myself,” Trump added, saying the plan is “largely worked out.” White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said Trump will make his announcement “by the end of Friday.” Trump said his action would let insurers sell across state lines. The association health plans, for instance, could be sold from a state with fewer benefit requirements. Such insurance policies could be cheaper than those that provide the full range of medical coverage required under Obamacare, potentially making them attractive to people in other states. It is unclear when these plans would become available. It is unlikely consumers could sign up for these plans during the 2018 open enrollment period, which begins Nov. 1. Experts questioned Trump’s authority to issue such an order that would exempt some plans but not others from Obamacare rules rather than pursuing the changes through legislation. The action could open Trump to legal challenges from Democratic state attorneys general, who have said they will sue Trump if he tries to destroy Obamacare. The plans allowed under the order could lure young and healthy people away from the individual insurance markets created by the 2010 Affordable Care Act, dubbed Obamacare. That could further destabilize those markets, where insurers have already exited the markets altogether, pared back offerings or hiked premiums because of uncertainty caused by the Trump administration. Experts said Trump’s plan could leave behind only the sickest people in the Obamacare markets, raising premiums and effectively eroding the law’s protection that people with pre-existing medical conditions cannot be charged more. “There’s a general belief that at every turn the federal government is going to create regulations to hurt rather than help the markets,” said Craig Garthwaite, director of the healthcare program at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management, referring to the Trump administration. “It unwinds the ability of people with pre-existing conditions to get insurance under the ACA,” Garthwaite said. Republicans have failed to make good on their seven-year promise to repeal and replace Obamacare, the signature domestic policy achievement of Trump’s Democratic predecessor Barack Obama. Gutting Obamacare was a top Trump campaign promise. Trump, who has called the law a failure and vowed to let it “implode,” has undermined Obamacare through regulatory and administrative actions. Last week, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services issued a rule that will let businesses and non-profit organizations lodge religious or moral objections to obtain an exemption from the law’s mandate that employers provide birth control for women in health insurance with no co-payment. Trump has declined to commit to making payments guaranteed to insurers under Obamacare. The payments are estimated to be about $7 billion this year and help lower out-of-pocket medical costs for low-income consumers. Insurers have cited that uncertainty in exiting insurance markets or hiking premiums. His administration has slashed the Obamacare advertising budget, halved the open enrollment period and cut funding to groups that help sign people up for insurance under the law. | 0fake |
Pentagon: Will provide Trump options if North Korea provocations continue | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Pentagon said on Monday that it would provide U.S. President Donald Trump with options to deal with North Korea if its provocations continue, after North Korea s foreign minister said his country reserved the right to shoot down U.S. bombers even if they are not in its air space. If North Korea does not stop their provocative actions, you know, we will make sure that we provide options to the President to deal with North Korea, Pentagon spokesman Colonel Robert Manning told reporters. | 0fake |
Review: In ‘The Skin of Our Teeth,’ the End of the World as We Know It - The New York Times | The world is coming to an end, and they’re all singing “Jingle Bells. ” That may not be your idea of a great musical selection for Armageddon. But as performed by a ragtag chorus of displaced persons in Theater for a New Audience’s spirited revival of Thornton Wilder’s “The Skin of Our Teeth,” the choice of song feels fitting, resourceful, valiant and — for just those reasons — very moving. The scene comes near the end of the first act of this wobbly mammoth of a play, which opened on Tuesday night at the Polonsky Shakespeare Center in Brooklyn. And as often happens in the director Arin Arbus’s heartfelt interpretation of Wilder’s 1942 cosmic comedy, the sequence’s elements register as both exceedingly whimsical and disturbingly familiar. What’s being portrayed, after all, is an earth succumbing to climate change, which means that although it is high summer, a glacier is advancing on Excelsior, N. J. where a home has become a haven for a swarm of refugees, whose admittance was a subject of angry argument among the family that lives there. And what may be the last fire on the planet is about to go out. It is hardly a cause for celebration that the alarm bells being rung here sound as resonant today as they must have in the early 1940s, when the United States was on the brink of world war. Yet a celebratory glow pervades this portrait of a single family’s survival against the odds through freeze, famine and war. “The Skin of Our Teeth” can be quaint, creaky and tedious. But it feels as perversely suitable to 2017 as “Jingle Bells” does to the Ice Age. When the play first opened, with a dazzling cast led by Fredric March and Tallulah Bankhead, Brooks Atkinson wrote in The New York Times that it stood “head and shoulders above the monotonous plane of our moribund theater. ” Atkinson particularly admired Wilder’s “mischievous ideas about the informality of good theater. ” But while he adored the first third of “Skin,” he was less enamored of the two other acts. He wasn’t wrong. That first act, which places a American family on the edge of extinction in the Ice Age, still feels as fresh as morning and as old as Moses (who happens to appear in it). But as it continues to follow the allegorical Antrobus clan in its struggle for survival (through a flood on the boardwalks of Atlantic City and a world war) “Skin” can wear thin. Recent revivals — including a misguided whopper in Central Park in 1998, starring John Goodman — have suggested that the play had gone the way of its singing dinosaurs. Wilder’s starker “Our Town” and robust “The Matchmaker” (the basis for the musical “Hello, Dolly! ”) seemed far more likely candidates for survival. Ms. Arbus — whose fruitful association with Theater for a New Audience has yielded a bright string of cleareyed productions of classics — doesn’t entirely restore “Skin” to newborn sprightliness. But she makes you appreciate why its first audiences cherished it. Her production does particularly well by Wilder’s inspired notion to have the improvisatory spirit of “theater, interrupted” reflect the persistence of life itself. From its first moments (and it’s all in the script) the production is troubled by falling scenery, electrical blackouts and a temperamental actress who refuses to stay in character. That’s the woman who plays Sabina, the Antrobus’s mantrap of a maid, embodied with original comic flair by Mary Wiseman, who brings to mind not so much Ms. Bankhead (who created the part) as a young Lucille Ball with an attitude. It is Sabina who guides us — irascibly and apologetically — through the willful anachronisms of the play. Its central archetypal clan is made up of Mr. and Mrs. Antrobus (David Rasche and Kecia Lewis) and their children Gladys (Kimber Monroe) and Henry (Reynaldo Piniella) who was originally named Cain. Mr. Antrobus is an inventor of genius (his contributions include the wheel, the lever and the alphabet) while his wife is a fierce defender of family. As for Sabina, she’s basically Lilith, the eternal temptress, there to lead good men like Mr. Antrobus astray. In its sexual politics (and its Oedipal confrontations) “Skin” can feel agonizingly dated. And despite solid performances by Mr. Rasche and Ms. Lewis, the configuring of this eternal triangle occupies entirely too much stage time. It’s as a production that this “Skin” captures, tickles and distresses the imagination. Ms. Arbus has enlisted a crackerjack production team — including Riccardo Hernandez (sets) and Cait O’Connor (the commedia dell’ costumes and puppets) — and a diverse cast of nearly three dozen (including a fierce Mary Lou Rosato as a boardwalk soothsayer) to fill Wilder’s canvas. The production deploys them with wit and efficiency, while retaining an endearing air of ramshackle spontaneity. The script has updated its anachronisms (Trader Joe’s instead of A P) and features some stirring contemporary songs by César Alvarez about the search for home. “So many years I have been dreaming, dreaming, dreaming of a place to call my own,” the refugees sing, toward the first act’s end. By that point, it’s looking as if they may all freeze to death. So when Ms. Wiseman steps out of character to ask the audience to bring its chairs to the stage to stoke the fire, there’s no question that were we able to oblige, we would. At such moments, “Skin” becomes a welcome pep rally for a world that could use some reassurance that it will, despite everything, carry on. | 0fake |
Turkey has completed purchase of Russian missile defense: defense minister | ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Turkey s purchase of Russian S-400 surface-to-air missiles has been completed but Ankara is discussing a further deal with a European consortium to help it develop its own missile defense system, Defense Minister Nurettin Canikli said. The decision by NATO member Turkey to buy the S-400s from Moscow has been seen by some of its Western allies as a snub to the alliance. The deal has also raised concern because the weapons cannot be integrated into NATO defenses. A senior NATO commander told Reuters last week that the alliance would continue to press Ankara to buy weapons that could work together with NATO systems, adding that so far no S-400s had been delivered to Turkey. [nL5N1NE7DI] It is finished, the S-400 missiles have been bought. The rest is just details now, Canikli said in televised comments in the Black Sea town of Giresun. But Turkey was not content with the S-400 deal alone, he added. We are also making preliminary agreements with the EUROSAM consortium to have this technology to develop, produce and use our own sources for air defense systems, Canikli said, referring to a joint Franco-Italian defense project. Canikli signed a letter of intent with France and Italy in Brussels on Wednesday to strengthen cooperation in defense projects including missile defense, Turkish defense ministry sources said last week. They said that as a first step, EUROSAM and Turkish companies will look into a system based on the SAMP-T missile system produced by EUROSAM. | 0fake |
Houston Gunman With Nazi Emblem Injures 9 Before Being Killed by Police - The New York Times | A lawyer wearing a military uniform with a Nazi emblem and armed with two guns and nearly 2, 600 rounds of ammunition opened fire on random in Houston early Monday, injuring nine before he was killed by the police, the authorities said. Six of the victims were taken to hospitals, one in critical condition and another in serious condition, the police said. Three others were treated at the scene. At a news conference on Monday afternoon, Capt. Dwayne W. Ready of the Houston Police Department described a tense episode that began about 6:30 a. m. local time. The first reports of gunfire began to trickle in when children were being driven to school, workers were setting off for their jobs and it was still dark on Law Street, where the shooting took place. The street is part of West University Place, an upscale area in southwest Houston. Police officers from several departments converged on the neighborhood, engaging the gunman while trying to protect people in the neighborhood and keep others away. The suspect exchanged gunfire with officers from about 25 yards, Captain Ready said, and was forced to take cover behind a tree close to his parked car. One officer went to the aid of a person who had been shot in a vehicle while other officers provided cover. “One of the more complex issues was tending to both the injured citizens who were still in the line of fire while engaging the suspect,” Captain Ready said. The police would not identify the suspect at the afternoon news conference or speculate on his motive. But earlier in the day, the department’s interim chief, Martha Montalvo, “He is a lawyer, and there were issues concerning his law firm. ” The authorities believe the suspect acted alone, and at the news conference, Mark Webster, an assistant special agent in charge of F. B. I. special operations, said they were not aware of any connection to a terrorist organization. He said the investigation was still preliminary. Captain Ready said that the gunman was wearing apparel, and that there were “some old Nazi emblems about his personal effects” and where he lived, along with “vintage military stuff” dating to the Civil War. He would not speculate on whether it was Nazi apparel, but Chief Montalvo said later that “an old Nazi emblem” was on his uniform. The gunman also carried an “edged weapon,” something like a knife, which was in a sheath, Captain Ready said. The suspect had a . Tommy gun and a . semiautomatic handgun. Both were purchased legally, a spokesman for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives said. The local TV station ABC 13 showed images of a Porsche Boxster parked on the street and being searched. Jennifer Molleda, whose husband’s car was struck while he was driving, told ABC 13, “The shooter was literally pointing the gun at windshields. ” She said her husband had spoken to her by telephone after he pulled into the parking lot of a Petco store at a strip mall nearby. “He was screaming: ‘I am shot. I am shot,’ ” she said. The mayor of Houston, Sylvester Turner, who was in Cuba on a trade trip, told ABC 13 by telephone that the investigation was looking into whether a relationship at the lawyer’s workplace had gone “awry. ” Witnesses told local television stations that they had heard several gunshots. “Steady shooting back and forth — it was a lot,” said Antoine Wilson, who told ABC 13 that he was driving in the area and heard multiple gunshots. An unidentified woman told the TV station that she had been driving to work when she heard the gunfire. Her car was struck from the front and side, she said, but she kept driving, pulling around a corner until she came to a stop. “I could still hear shots being fired on the streets,” she said, her arm bloody from broken glass. Lee Williams, who said he lives near the site of the gunfire, told ABC 13 that he was outside and tried to direct traffic away. “Once the police got here, they made me go back to my house,” he said. “I heard a lot of back and forth,” he said, adding that he had counted about 50 shots. Mr. Williams retreated to his front porch but was close enough to hear the police radios say, “He is down. ” | 0fake |
Arizona joins rest of U.S. in adding health insurance program for children | PHOENIX (Reuters) - Arizona’s governor signed into law on Friday a bitterly contested proposal that will restore a federal health insurance program for children from low-income families, making it the last of its 49 counterparts to join the program. Arizona opted out of the federal Children’s Health Insurance Program in 2010 over cost concerns as it grappled with a budget crunch. The program aims to help working families who earn too much to qualify for Medicaid health care coverage for the poor, but who cannot afford private health insurance. To qualify for KidsCare, as it’s known in Arizona, a family of four must earn between $33,000 and $49,000 annually. It is estimated to serve about 30,000 children in Arizona. Arizona’s Republican governor, Doug Ducey, signed the legislation over fierce objections from the top two lawmakers in his own party a matter of hours after it cleared the Republican-led legislature. The debate over the program was among the most rancorous of the legislative session and focused on both costs and the fact that the measure was tacked on to a virtually unrelated school voucher bill, prompting concerns that the law would face a legal challenge. Backers said the program is desperately needed to close a gap in affordable health insurance options and to ensure that children are able to grow up healthy. Even though the state is no longer required under the program to contribute funds in exchange for federal dollars, as was the case in 2010, opponents argued that Arizona citizens are still indirectly financing the program by paying for the program through federal taxes. Arizona’s House of Representatives approved the measure on Thursday following heated debate. The law could take effect as early as August. | 0fake |
Harry Reid SLAMS McConnell’s Lack Of Leadership On ‘Meet The Press’ | On Sunday s edition of Meet The Press, Senator Harry Reid blasted Mitch McConnell for his continued lack of leadership and warned of a revolt by Republican senators who understand how the Constitution works.Just minutes after President Obama announced his nominee, Judge Merrick Garland, for the Supreme Court last week, McConnell vowed to continue his obstructionism. While speaking to Chuck Todd, Senator Reid said that he cannot understand what the hell the GOP Senate leader is thinking: I don t know why McConnell has done this to his senators. He s marching these men, women over a cliff. The Democrat went on to say that he doesn t believe some of the right s senators are going to ignore their constitutional duty like McConnell wants them to: I don t think they re going to go .Mitch McConnell has said a lot of things. But his Republican senators are not going to go over that cliff with him. They re not going to do it. Reid is right, not all of the Republicans in the Senate are complete imbeciles, they know that McConnell is giving them bad advice. As a matter of fact, his obstructionism started falling apart in just a few hours after Obama announced Garland as his pick.In spite of the fact that his senators are not falling in line like he expected them to, McConnell again said that he would never allow Obama s nominee to be appointed, during an interview with CNN on Sunday: Who ought to make this lifetime appointment? It s the next president, not this one. Mitch McConnell is still very confused about how elections work. When we elected President Obama for eight years, not seven. His continued insistence that he knows what the American people want is going to destroy his party further. They already have Trump pissing off the people of this country, he probably shouldn t be adding to our anger. Just sayin . Featured image via screenshot | 1real |
FBI, CIA, NYPD Officials Set To Drop The Hammer: Video Evidence Of “Bill Clinton and Six Government Officials Taking Part In Sexual Acts With Minors” To Be Released Before Election |
The 2016 Presidential election about to get even crazier.
Earlier this week Joe Joseph reported that recent Wikileaks point to the Clinton family having ties to a child porn abduction ring in Haiti. On top of that, emails appear to confirm that both Bill and Hillary Clinton previously joined convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein at his “sex slave island,” with Fox News having confirmed that Former President Bill Clinton flew with Epstein on his private jet at least 20 times. As Fox News notes, the plane was outfitted with a bed where travellers would often engage in group sex.
The evidence of criminal activity identified via Anthony Wiener’s laptop is so damning that the NYPD was preparing arrest warrants for a number of Clinton campaign officials. A Brietbart report indicates that the investigation was stifled earlier this week by the Justice Department after “huge pushback.”
And while the Obama administration and liberal mainstream news sources are doing everything in their power to keep the thousands of Wikileak revelations at bay, according to a developing story from the Gatway Pundit , it will be impossible for them to contain the fallout from what comes next.
As early as this weekend we could see the most explosive email, video and photographic evidence yet. According to members of the hacking collective Anonymous, 4Chan, and Hillary State Department target Kim Dotcom, a government insider has provided undeniable evidence that Bill Clinton and six other government officials engaged in sexual acts with minors.
Kim Dotcom, apparently privvy to the evidence, posted a series of Tweets this as highlighted by The Daily Sheeple :
There’s unpublished material, yet to come out. Clinton is in serious trouble.
— Kim Dotcom (@KimDotcom) November 1, 2016
With the last one coming Friday evening:
The end is near @HillaryClinton
— Kim Dotcom (@KimDotcom) November 5, 2016
It appears Dotcom’s Tweet was in reference to a 4Chan post archived at The Free Republic which indcates in no uncertain terms that a government official has the evidence that confirms Bill Clinton is indeed a sexual predator:
Until this month, Wikileaks and Anonymous have worked together in building an efficient, detailed, comprehensive set of documents that would be responsible for the incarceration of Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton, and 21 individuals ranging from the DNC, FBI, CIA, and Clinton foundation. These documents will show without a doubt, evidence of Treason, Obstruction of Justice, Election Fraud, Manipulation and Bribery.
This was intended to be the October surprise. But before the release of these documents, we were contacted by a member of the FBI, as well as another from the CIA, and a week later by the NYPD . All with information retaining to something much darker than we ever imagined.
Due to the nature of these leaks, we all worked together as efficiently as possible to ensure two objectives:
1.) That all necessary information would be given to the public in an organized, searchable, manageable way.
2.) Those who provided us with this information would be able to find safety before these releases were made ( This concern wasn’t without warrant).
…
The new leaks being released this week will provide documents in the form of emails, pictures, and videos. Within these will be evidence of Bill Clinton, as we as at least 6 other Government officials, taking part in sexual acts with minors. As well as evidence of Human trafficking that also include minors.
We believe these pictures and videos were taken for the purpose of political manipulation. In order to make sure all participants followed through on a previously agreed agenda.
These documents were given to us by an American Government official when he had come to learn that this crime had been covered by Hillary and her staff through methods including bribery and blackmail. He also told us that due to the restricted access to these documents, they would soon know he was the one who released them to us.
We tried to make arrangements for him to exit the country safely, but he was killed before those arrangements could be carried out. We are still not sure if this is because they became aware of the leak, or if they were scared that he may in the future. In either case, his identity will be made public in this next set of leaks so that he can be honored for the hero that he was.
We will not only be releasing these documents, but we have multiple members of the FBI, CIA, and NYPD who will be publicly verifying their authenticity once their safety is assured.
This hack has not come from Russia or anyone else they may try to blame this on. This is a leak from Americas own Government Officials who fear for their safety had the opposed them directly due to reasons that will be made clear soon.
We thank you for your patience, as well as your determination and assistance in helping us expose the corruption that has infested our own government. Democracy will be restored to America.
Remember remember the 5th of November.
If true, then sometime this weekend we will see the end of the Clintons. While they can cover up tens of thousands of email chains and be protected from prosecution by the Justice Department for bribery or pay-for-play, no one will stand in the way if actual sex tapes come to light, especially if minors are involved.
Perhaps this is why FBI Director Comey operated with such haste in recent weeks and publicly re-opened the Clinton investigation, because no one will want to be a friend to Bill or Hillary after this hits the internet.
Related:
5 States Hillary Is Set to Steal from Trump
Not Just Assange… Hillary Wants to Drone Strike “All Dissidents and Whistleblowers”
Internet Mogul Kim Dotcom: More Leaks Coming, “Clinton Is in Serious Trouble
| 1real |
The Penalty For Treason Is… [Video] | This is one of Sean’s most powerful videos. It is most definitely worth the 11 minutes it takes to listen. – G Grannum SF Source SGTreport.com Nov. 2016 Share this: | 1real |
Radical Changes Are In Store For The World And Global Markets, Are You Ready? | 79 GOLD , KWN King World News
On the heels of continued chaos in key markets, radical changes are in store for the world and global markets.
Radical Changes Are Coming On the heels of the release of his KWN audio interview covering the gold smash and urging investors to remain strong, KWN did a follow-up interview with Dr. Leeb because of the intensity of the recent takedown in gold, silver, and the mining shares: “If you’re worried that gold’s post-election drop means the bull market in the metal that we’ve been predicting is a mirage, relax. The current dip in gold, while it could last a month or two longer, is merely a slight head fake in a bull market more on course than ever to be of momentous proportions… IMPORTANT: To hear which legend just spoke with KWN about $8,000 gold and the coming mania in the gold, silver, and mining shares markets CLICK HERE OR ON THE IMAGE BELOW.
If we had to sum it up in a single (albeit long) sentence, here it is: Trump’s victory and the market’s subsequent turbulence signals a seismic shift in market leadership to commodity-led growth; U.S. imports of increasingly scarce and ever more costly commodities will rise drastically and so will inflation that a behind-the-curve Fed will be helpless to curb; the eventual, inevitable upshot will be that commodity producers will become increasingly reluctant to take paper money for their ever scarcer resources and will want some more durable asset like, you guessed it, gold.
That’s the case for gold in broad outline. Now for the supporting evidence.
Let’s start with the reality that the U.S. has been blindly complacent about commodities, which will be required in massive amounts for the big infrastructure push Trump has promised. The U.S. Geological Survey tracks around 65 vital commodities and minerals. For over 40 of them we import more than half our needs; for 25 (about 40 percent), we import at least 90 percent of our needs. We used to be far less dependent on other nations. At the beginning of this century we imported 90 percent or more of our needs for only a quarter of important commodities and imported 50 percent or more for about half.
If you wonder why that’s a big deal, the problem is that those resources will be increasingly difficult and costly to obtain as they become scarcer. And scarcities are inevitable – in fact, they’ve begun. The chart of the index of raw industrials, the prices businesses pay in real time for the commodities they use (as opposed to futures trading) is revealing. Remarkably, it shows that even at the nadir of the Great Recession, when capitalism’s very existence seemed precarious, the index stood 20 percent higher than its average during the 1990s. There is no way to explain this other than by realizing that commodities had become scarcer than in the previous decade.
Since the 2008 crash, global growth has been strong only in 2010 and the first half of 2011. In this period, the index far surpassed its 2008 high. After 2011, world growth retreated to recessionary levels until mid-2016, when just a hint of growth sent commodities almost to their pre-Great Recession peak. Now with commodity-intensive infrastructure a worldwide imperative, they are destined to go well past their all-time highs.
But What About Gold? So why hasn’t gold gotten the message yet? One reason is that with gold rightfully seen more as a currency than a commodity, and with inflation still low, the market has some illusions that perhaps we’re going back to the 1990s Goldilocks era of strong growth and low inflation. But the emergence of commodity scarcities will nix that possibility.
The only reason the markets haven’t already caught on is one recalcitrant commodity: oil. With oil prices lagging, headline inflation has remained low and the Fed still behaves as if it will remain low forever. But once oil gets into the act, headline inflation will jump and everything that requires oil – including virtually every other commodity – will jump as well.
Here is a look at a few key reasons why oil will rise. Right now, with virtually every producer producing at full throttle, oil is about 750,000 barrels a day in oversupply. That will change either because OPEC at its meeting later this month acts to cut production or because increased demand overtakes the world’s ability to produce. Above is a sign from the 1970s warning consumers about gas shortages
OPEC Will Move To Raise Oil Prices We think OPEC will act, and it won’t have to cut by much to reverse the current situation of oversupply. OPEC currently produces about 34 million barrels a day, a record amount, and is estimated to have no more than about 1 million barrels of excess supply – and even that could be overstating it. Over the past five years the cartel’s production has averaged about 31 million barrels a day. At its peak in 2015 it was producing less than 33 million barrels. Even returning to that previous peak would easily turn a glut into a deficit.
And with the IEA estimating demand in 2017 will grow by 1.2 million barrels a day – likely an underestimate in light of the push for infrastructure – it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that we’re headed for an oil deficit. That means big-time gains in oil prices and in inflation. If you think fracking will fill the gap, it won’t. Even with three-digit oil, frackers will find it tough to add even half a million barrels of oil to current production. Remember, fracking is resource-intensive, so its costs rise when commodity prices go up – and much of the recent gains in fracking productivity come from vast increases in the amount of sand and water used to frack the wells.
Gold Liftoff! Once oil joins the party, all the commodity pieces will be in place for gold to take off. Remember, gold was far stronger than industrial commodities during the 2001 to 2008 boom and again during the second commodity upleg between 2009 and 2011.
As for the Fed, we don’t expect it to take a strong stand against inflation, not with a Trump administration that has little fear of debt and that will likely view even high inflation as better for business than slow or even negative growth. Protracted slow growth has fractured America and the world, and the 1970’s high inflation harmed Wall Street. Not much of a choice for a populist administration.
Bottom line: the world has taken another giant leap to a future with little place for paper currencies and in which gold will become the monetary center. So stop worrying about gold’s current weakness and buy gold, which will be by far your best protection in a tumultuous future. While commodities and commodity-levered stocks will lead the market for the foreseeable future, gold (and other precious metals) will end up winning the race…As mentioned in the opener, KWN also released a completely separate audio interview today with Dr. Leeb covering the takedown in the gold and silver markets. T o listen to the extraordinarily powerful audio interview where Dr. Leeb urged investors to stay strong ahead of what he predicted “is going to be the greatest bull market of anybody’s lifetime that’s alive today ” CLICK HERE OR ON THE IMAGE BELOW.
***ALSO JUST RELEASED: Did This Just Signal A Major Bottom In Gold & Silver? CLCK HERE.
© 2015 by King World News®. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. However, linking directly to the articles is permitted and encouraged. About author | 1real |
Penn State Fined $2.4 Million For Handling Of Sandusky Case - The Onion - America's Finest News Source | Nation Puts 2016 Election Into Perspective By Reminding Itself Some Species Of Sea Turtles Get Eaten By Birds Just Seconds After They Hatch WASHINGTON—Saying they felt anxious and overwhelmed just days before heading to the polls to decide a historically fraught presidential race, Americans throughout the country reportedly took a moment Thursday to put the 2016 election into perspective by reminding themselves that some species of sea turtles are eaten by birds just seconds after they hatch. Cleveland Indians Worried Team Cursed After Building Franchise On Old Native American Stereotype CLEVELAND—Having watched in horror as their team crumbled after a 3-1 World Series lead, members of the Cleveland Indians expressed concern Thursday that the organization has been cursed for building their franchise on an incredibly old Native American stereotype. Report: Election Day Most Americans’ Only Time In 2016 Being In Same Room With Person Supporting Other Candidate WASHINGTON—According to a report released Thursday by the Pew Research Center, Election Day 2016 will, for the majority of Americans, mark the only time this year they will occupy the same room as a person who supports a different presidential candidate. Nurse Reminds Elderly Man She’s Just Down The Hall If He Starts To Die DES PLAINES, IL—Assuring him that she’d be at his side in a jiffy, local nurse Wendy Kaufman reminded an elderly resident at the Briarwood Assisted Living Community that she was just down the hall if he started to die, sources reported Tuesday. | 1real |
Water entered missing Argentine sub's snorkel, causing short circuit | BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) - Water entered the snorkel of the Argentine submarine ARA San Juan, causing its battery to short-circuit before it went missing on Nov. 15, a navy spokesman said on Monday as hope dwindled among some families of the 44-member crew. The San Juan had only a seven-day oxygen supply when it lost contact, and a sudden noise was detected that the navy says could have been the implosion of the vessel. Ships with rescue equipment from countries including the United States and Russia were nonetheless rushing to join the search. Before its disappearance, the submarine had been ordered back to its Mar del Plata base after it reported water had entered the vessel through its snorkel, causing a battery short circuit, navy spokesman Enrique Balbi told a news conference. They had to isolate the battery and continue to sail underwater toward Mar del Plata, using another battery, Balbi said. After contact with the San Juan was lost, the Vienna-based Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty Organization, an international body that runs a global network of listening posts designed to check for secret atomic blasts, detected a noise the navy said could have been the submarine s implosion. The search for the 65-meter (213-foot) diesel-electric submarine is concentrated in an area some 430 km (267 miles) off Argentina s southern coast. The effort includes ships and planes manned by 4,000 personnel from 13 countries, including Brazil, Chile and Great Britain. Among the crew s family members, fissures started appearing on Monday between those who refuse to give up hope and those who say it is time to accept that their loved ones will not come back alive. Some relatives have said they are focusing on the lack of physical evidence of an implosion and the possibility that the submarine might have risen close enough to the ocean surface to replenish its oxygen supply after it went missing. But Itati Leguizamon said she believed her husband, crew member German Suarez, had died. There is no way they are alive, she told reporters, her voice shaking and eyes welling with tears. It is not that I want this. I love him. I adore him. He left his mother and sister behind, but there is no sense in being stubborn. The other families are attacking me for what I am saying, she said, but why have they not found it yet? Why don t they tell us the truth? | 0fake |
House Speaker Ryan says work remains to secure freedom in Cuba | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan said on Saturday that even after Castro’s death “much work remains to secure the freedom of the Cuban people,” something that the United States must be fully committed to. “Now that Fidel Castro is dead, the cruelty and oppression of his regime should die with him,” Ryan said in a statement. “Today let us reflect on the memory and sacrifices of all those who have suffered under the Castros.” | 0fake |
Speakers List: Trump's convention has pols and celebs | There are war heroes, a casino mogul and even an underwear model, yet Donald Trump is relying heavily on his party's establishment to fill the speaking program for next week's Republican National Convention.
The presumptive presidential nominee has approved a convention program that features at least 20 current or former elected officials, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, House Speaker Paul Ryan and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz. Noticeably absent from a speaker list obtained by The Associated Press early Thursday are many athletes or A-List celebrities that Trump's team long suggested would help make his presidential nominating convention unlike any other.
Yet there is no shortage of political outsiders.
Speakers will include four of Trump's children, Las Vegas casino owner Phil Ruffin, and actor and former underwear model Antonio Sabαto Jr. College football star Tim Tebow will also appear on stage, the campaign confirmed Thursday morning. And in a slap at Democratic contender Hillary Clinton, Mark Geist and John Tiegen will also address the convention, both survivors of the deadly 2012 attack on the American diplomatic consulate in Benghazi, Libya.
"This impressive lineup of veterans, political outsiders, faith leaders and those who know Donald Trump the best -- his family and longtime friends -- represent a cross-section of real people facing the same challenges as every American household," said Trump spokesman Jason Miller.
Despite the list of familiar politicos, the convention program is a reminder that the Republican Party remains deeply divided over Trump's candidacy.
Some of the GOP's biggest names were not on the list because they refused to participate in four-day convention, which begins on Monday.
The GOP's two living presidents, George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush, and its two most recent presidential nominees, John McCain and Mitt Romney, all plan to avoid the Cleveland affair -- as does Ohio's Republican Gov. John Kasich. Shrugging off the high-profile absences, Trump's team suggested the convention lineup would help highlight Trump's outsider appeal.
"We are totally over-booked. We have great speakers, we have winners, we have people that aren't only political people," Trump told Fox News Channel on Tuesday. "We have a lot of people that are just champions and winners."
The New York billionaire acknowledged in recent days that he'd be hewing a little closer to tradition.
"Look, I have great respect for the institution of the conventions. I mean to me, it's very important. So we're not going to change the wheel," he said on Fox.
New England Patriots star quarterback Tom Brady, a Trump friend, was initially teased as a possible speaker, but will not appear next week in Cleveland. Neither will former Indiana University basketball coach Bobby Knight or legendary boxing promoter Don King, a Cleveland resident and passionate Trump supporter.
The program will instead feature people like pro golfer Natalie Gulbis, retired astronaut Eileen Collins, and Ultimate Fighting Championship president Dana White. In addition to the Benghazi survivors, former Navy SEAL Marcus Luttrell, author of the book, "Lone Survivor," will make an appearance, along with Wisconsin Sheriff David Clarke, a vocal critic of the Black Lives Matter movement.
The convention will also highlight religious leaders such as Jerry Falwell Jr., son of the famed televangelist, and Haskel Lookstein, the New York rabbi who converted Trump's daughter, Ivanka to Judaism.
Trump does not forget his business relationships, giving speaking slots to real estate investor Tom Barrack, PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel and even the general manager for Virginia's Trump Winery, Kerry Woolard.
And in a nod toward party unity, Trump will feature several former presidential competitors, including Cruz, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, Ben Carson and Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee.
Two finalists in Trump's search for a running mate made the list as well: New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and Newt Gingrich. The other finalist, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, was not included in the program obtained by the AP.
Trump had already announced that his children would be speaking, along with his wife Melania, whom he said was already working on remarks.
Ivanka Trump, who along with Trump's other adult children, has been playing an increasingly central role in the campaign, predicted in a recent radio interview the GOP convention would be "a convention unlike any we've ever seen."
"It will be substantive. It will be interesting. It will be different. It's not going to be a ho-hum lineup of, you know, the typical politicians," she said. | 0fake |
US Middle Class Still Suffering from Rockefeller-Kissinger Industrial Transfer Scheme to China | Dick Eastman The Truth HoundWhen Henry Kissinger and David Rockefeller met with Zhou Enlai in China in 1973 just after President Richard Nixon had visited China establishing official relations an understanding was reached whereby the U.S. would supply industrial capital and know-how to China.In return Kissinger-connected corporations would gain the monopolistic advantage of low-cost labor production which could outcompete all U.S. domestic industry.The comparative advantage gained was being able to hire Chinese laborers who were ready to work hard at exceedingly low cost with no drugs, no alcohol, a strong work ethic, no unions, no paid benefits and weak environmental standards. And with such a large labor pool, burned out workers could simply be replaced. This gave the Rockefeller/Kissinger corporations a major edge over their domestic U.S. competitors who had to pay relatively high wages, high regulation costs, deal with union strikes and collective bargaining etc.Of course, the American consumer did not see greatly lowered prices commensurate with such greatly lowered labor costs. The $19.99 plastic action-figure toy marketed with a Hollywood movie still cost $19.99 even though it cost $12 to $15 to produce in the U.S. but less than $2.00 per copy to produce in China and transport to America s West Coast container ports for distribution throughout America.The consumer paid pretty much the old prices but the corporations split the monopoly profit with China s Princelings since it did not take much of a lowering of prices to drive high-wage, high-benefit, contracted-labor domestic corporations out of business (not to mention the environmental and workplace safety regulations with which domestic companies were saddled). Then, Wal-Mart became a near-monopoly retailer that increased and reinforced the widespread selling of these off-shore manufactures.Thus, America s domestic producers were not simply being bested on one or another area of production; they were being bested across the entire spectrum of manufactured goods that American buy. It was anticipated that these domestic firms would fail, and their failure was hastened by the banks maintaining a deflationary domestic economy in the U.S. throughout the post Rockefeller-Kissinger-Zhou buildup of China and the degrading of American domestic manufacturing.Remember, the entire money supply of the U.S. is borrowed that is, the money co-created with a debt of an even bigger amount (principal plus compound interest) that must in due course be returned to the lender. But money in the domestic economy was going to multinational corporations and to China, while also going to taxes to pay on the national debt that resulted [NOTE: Due to U.S. industrial depletion, federal revenue receipts as well as the tax-take of state and local governments, shrunk, resulting in greater government borrowing and therefore greater public debts TRUTH HOUND note]. And of course, compound interest was attached to that debt.Rockefeller and Kissinger were (and to some extent still are) at war with middle-class America with intelligent, self-supporting, self-respecting, ambitious, industrious citizens who always pose the greatest threat in the form of populist politics to the bankers and their Bank-of-England/East-India-Company/Rothschild monetary and trade system, the very system that Rockefeller and Kissinger were representing and expanding when they visited Zhou Enlai.So here we are in 2016 and newly elected President Donald J. Trump says he intends to place a tariff on goods imported from China, while the media decries the tariff proposal as a violation of long-standing liberal free-trade policies. One more thing in defense of who I believe was a great president and a warning for the new one.Richard Nixon opened China believing in peaceful co-existence and the fact that if given time for a fair comparison of how free-enterprise and representative government functions in contrast to the communist planned economy, that the U.S. model would win out over a system where each receives what the state deems he needs and where work is ordered by the state.But of course Kissinger and Rockefeller instigated the Watergate coup against Nixon a frame-up with John Dean and Kissinger as the real Deep Throats by my deductions from public information so that the Rockefeller/Kissinger plans for China s industrialization and America s deindustrialization could proceed unopposed, as it certainly did after Nixon resigned to avoid a constitutional crisis that would hinder the proper working of government.Nixon should have fought them because they were about to take a financial axe to this country as soon as Nixon was gone. When Nixon was gone, they first robbed the middle-class of their savings with banker Paul Volcker s QE (quantitative easing) bond purchases at the New York Federal Reserve branch. Then, when that was accomplished, America s savings-and-loans were cast into crisis (because they had been taking in money short-term at 3% and lending long-term at 6%). This helped force the deregulation of banking to Rockefeller advantage after which Volcker moved to become Federal Reserve Chairman in control of the discount rate. With that lever of power that sets the interest-rate framework of the nation, Volcker inaugurated the tight-money (deflation) policy that has persisted to this day, making it very hard for firms to invest in automation to combat the cost advantage of Chinese subsistence labor.Japan was hit with deflation too they were going to provide us with the robots. THE WHOLE THING WAS A GREAT PLAN AGAINST US, COORDINATED AT EVERY LEVEL, WITH EVERY INSTITUTION, FROM THE NEWS TALKING ABOUT HOW THE LEVERAGED BUY-OUTS OCCURING IN THE DEFLATION WERE MAKING US LEAN AND MEAN, WHEN IN FACT THEY WERE TEARING OUT THE GUTS OF AMERICAN PRODUCTION. And the news media and the economics and business administration courses in colleges sung the praises of international free trade and the efficiency of markets nonstop.I watched it all from a pretty good seat on the sidelines, but of course I was marginalized as just another excess white person who needed to stand aside so that blacks and women could have their fair chance. And who could argue with that? So I took to the internet to see what effect I could have simply speaking as a citizen, where I ve met encountered considerable abuse and ridicule, which certainly makes it unpleasant to try and be the Paul Revere awakening the good citizens.I do wish President Donald Trump the best. But let us make sure that none of the neo-conservatives he is taking into his administration are really Kissingers beholden to Goldman-Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein. Beware of new Watergates.Washington writer Dick Eastman taught economics at Texas A & M University and also studied the behavorial sciences.READ MORE CHINA NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire China Files | 1real |
GOP establishment stares into the abyss | Killing Obama administration rules, dismantling Obamacare and pushing through tax reform are on the early to-do list. | 0fake |
Republican Trashes Senate’s Health Care Bill, Accuses Them Of ‘Trying To Hide Something’ (VIDEO) | The Senate Republicans have attracted loads of criticism and backlash for being super shady and secretive while creating their latest version of the American Health Care Act and rightfully so. This has taken place behind closed doors, with very little information being let out to the American public. Luckily, some GOPers are taking a stand against it.Rep. Pete King (R-NY) didn t mince his words as he railed against his fellow conservative lawmakers. In an interview with Long Island radio host Jay Oliver earlier today, King went off on Senate Republicans and accused them of trying to hide something in a blistering rant. King said: Listen, there has to be private meetings all the time, but I think there should be more public debate on it. It looks like they re trying to hide something and it does add to conspiracy theories and everything else. Oliver suggested that the secrecy of the Republican Party over this made it look like Senate GOPers were trying to do something underhanded, and King couldn t agree more. Proving that there are some Republicans who actually do have spines, King said: This looks too secretive. It s going to put a cloud over the whole final product Keeping America and other politicians in the dark is a bad move for Senate Republicans, and will likely result in failure. Many Democrats and GOPers are highly concerned about what s being done in these Senate meetings, and many are openly condemning the drafting process. You can listen to King trash the Senate below:King has spoken his mind before, many times against his own party. King trashed the GOP a second time today when it came to the victory of Karen Handel last night in Georgia s special election. While many GOPers were celebrating, King criticized Trump for his Twitter behavior, and told the tweet-happy POTUS don t bother tweeting. Featured image via Win McNamee/Getty Images | 1real |
Republicans Surrender To Trump, Fear Historic Loss Of Senate And House | The Washington Post reports that the Republicans and the billionaires that own them are more or less writing off the White House as a total loss and rushing to hold onto both the House and the Senate. They re afraid, and for good reason, that if when Donald Trump becomes the Republican nominee, he s going to be crushed so badly in the general election that he ll deliver both chambers of Congress to the Democratic Party:The efforts are being driven by major players such as the Koch brothers political network, which has already begun laying groundwork in Colorado, Ohio and Pennsylvania, along with the Crossroads organizations and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.The behemoth Koch operation which aims to spend almost $900 million before the November elections is now considering abandoning Trump as a nominee and focusing its resources on behalf of GOP congressional candidates.My colleague Korie Beth Brown wrote about how Trump is putting the heavily gerrymandered House into play and this move by the GOP Donor Class confirms it: Trump is leading the Republican Party to electoral annihilation.Hooray!According to WaPo, instead of dumping a billion dollars into winning the White House, the Kochs and their fellow oligarchs are planning to spend all of that money just to keep what they already have:A key element of the strategy will be a springtime wave of television ads that slam Democratic contenders and tout Republican incumbents as attuned to hometown concerns. Strategists hope the efforts will help inoculate congressional candidates against association with Trump s incendiary remarks. If there are crosscurrents that are potentially harmful, the most important thing you can do is aggressively localize the race the things that matter back home, the problems you re solving, said Steven Law, a former top aide to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell who leads the American Crossroads super PAC and a suite of related groups.While that sounds like a good idea, Republicans no longer actually SOLVE problems. Instead, they create them and then blame Obama and the Democrats. When your entire strategy has been unprecedented obstruction for 7 years, it s going to be hard to tout your accomplishments.Even with all of that advertising, it s going to be very difficult to get conservatives to be enthusiastic about voting with Donald Trump at the top of the ticket. Combine that with the abject horror that liberals and Independents will experience and you re looking at a huge turnout from the left matched against a depressed turnout from the right. And no, Hillary Clinton does not inspire the same kind of loathing no matter how loudly Bernie supporters insist she does.Republicans and their puppet masters have every right to be afraid of a blue tidal wave that will make the red wave of 2010 look like a drop in the bucket. The question then becomes: Will Democrats be able to hold on to both chambers for the midterm or will lazy Democratic voters throw away all of their gains again?Featured image via the laughably bigoted barbwire.com | 1real |
Senate Democrats Introduce Bill To Fight Back Against Trump’s Corruption – Trump LIVID | If Donald Trump thinks he can use the presidency to make business deals for himself and his family, Senate Democrats are prepared to defend the sanctity of the office.Over the course of the campaign and after the election, Trump has insisted that his many conflicts of interest surrounding his business empire do not matter. But the Constitution says that officeholders in the United States government may not receive presents, emoluments, or titles from foreign states.Article I, section 9 states,No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.And since Trump s business receives money from foreign nations, he would be violating the Constitution on the first day of his administration. And it s even worse when one considers that Trump s businesses have ties to businesses backed by foreign governments such as in the Philippines, and that foreign governments could blackmail Trump by threatening his profits or his foreign business partners. Trump could also use the presidency to extract business deals from nations in exchange for American support or aid, even if helping certain nations goes against the best interests of our country.In short, Trump should be forced to put his company in a blind trust or sell it altogether to avoid these problems and put these conflicts of interest to rest.That s why Senate Democrats plan to introduce a bill to do just that. Our President-elect has significantly greater risk of business and financial conflicts of interest than any other president, yet has so far refused to follow the precedent set by previous presidents. To this day, President-elect Trump has refused to address his conflicts of interest, Senator Chris Coons said.Coons, along with Senators Elizabeth Warren, Ben Cardin, Dick Durbin, and Jeff Merkley have all endorsed the legislation and pointed out that presidents have divested their financial interests to avoid violating the Constitution for decades. If Trump is allowed to be president and keep his business decades of precedent would be wiped out, paving the way for anyone to use the presidency for personal profit. The American people deserve to know that the President of the United States is working to do what s best for the country not using his office to do what s best for himself and his businesses, Elizabeth Warren said. The only way for President-elect Trump to truly eliminate conflicts of interest is to divest his financial interests and place them in a blind trust. This has been the standard for previous presidents, and our bill makes clear the continuing expectation that President-elect Trump do the same. Republicans, of course, will probably refuse to bring the bill to a vote on the Senate floor, and if they do they ll be helping Trump violate the Constitution that they claim to hold so dear.Senate Democrat s are preparing for a war and they should be. After all, Republicans have established precedent for obstructing and attacking a president over the last eight years and turnabout is fair play. Anything less than fighting Trump s agenda every second of every day over the next four years is unacceptable.Featured Image: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images | 1real |
Keep your thanks, what veterans really need are good jobs | Keep your thanks, what veterans really need are good jobs Jobs By Chris Tomlinson
Skip the “thank you for your service.” Let’s talk about what veterans really need.
Veterans Day is Friday, and strangers who learn that I served seven years on active duty in the U.S. Army will inevitably thank me for my service. While some people believe that veterans deserve lifelong gratitude for their role protecting our country, more than a few of us find it annoying; an empty platitude that civilians use to absolve themselves from asking what exactly we sacrificed, or what we truly need now.
What post-9/11 veterans need are good jobs, with good benefits. They need employers who don’t thoughtlessly cut-and-paste job prerequisites that favor someone who spent four years partying at a state university over a vet who was waking up at 6 a.m. and wearing a uniform during 60-hour workweeks, except for when they were in combat.
www.houstonchronicle.com Jobs , | 1real |
Fearing far-right surge, Merkel tells Germans to vote on Sunday | BERLIN (Reuters) - Fears in Germany that voter apathy could boost the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) in Sunday s election have driven Chancellor Angela Merkel and her main rival in final days of the campaign to urge their backers to go out and vote. With many voters viewing a fourth term for Merkel as almost inevitable and turned off by a turgid campaign - occasionally punctured by heckling and tomato hurling in protest at Merkel's refugee policy - pollsters say turnout may be low. A GMS poll on Thursday said those not planning to vote or were undecided numbered 34 percent, higher than the 29 percent who did not vote in the last election in 2013. My request to everyone is that they vote, and vote for those parties that adhere 100 percent to our constitution, Merkel told MDR radio on Thursday, pointing to the AfD which has been likened by some commentators to Hitler s Nazis. Some of its members have called for Germans to rewrite the history books on Nazi era and the party has been dogged by rows over Holocaust denial, a crime in Germany. Although polls show conservative Merkel, trusted by stability-loving Germans to stand up to unpredictable leaders in the United States, Russia and Turkey, is on track to win, the shape of her coalition is wide open. Most pollsters say a low turnout could boost the AfD which has gained popularity by focusing on migration and security. Poised to be the first far-right party to enter Germany s parliament in over half a century, comments by some top members have caused outrage. This month, one leader said Germany should be proud of its soldiers achievements in World War Two. Allensbach pollster Renate Koecher told Die Zeit weekly that much depended on turnout. Willingness to vote was strongest among conservative and AfD supporters, she said. Most undecideds were FDP, Green and Left voters, indicating that a higher turnout would help the smaller parties on the left, she said. The two biggest blocs have dipped slightly in most polls in the last month or so while some of the smaller parties have inched up. In the GMS survey, the AfD was up two points at 10 percent. Merkel s conservative bloc slipped one percentage point to 37 percent and her main opponent, the Social Democrats (SDP), were unchanged on 22 percent. SPD leader Martin Schulz has also urged his supporters to vote, saying everything is still possible . In a highly unusual intervention this week, Merkel s right-hand man Peter Altmaier, head of the chancellor s office, stirred controversy by suggesting it would be better for Germans not to vote at all rather than vote for the AfD. SPD Justice Minister Heiko Maas accused him of helping the AfD. Telling people not to vote is helping the AfD s campaign, that s exactly what they want, he said. The latest surveys suggest coalition options are limited to another grand coalition of Merkel s conservatives with the SPD or a three-way Jamaica alliance of the conservatives, FDP and Greens which could limit Merkel s room for maneuver on euro zone reform. Before the last-minute mobilization efforts by parties, the only realistic coalition option, apart from a grand coalition, is one of the conservatives, FDP and Greens, said GMS. Both the Greens and FDP - who are at opposite ends of the political spectrum - have played down the likelihood of joining forces, fearing it would put off their voters. But on Thursday, FDP leader Christian Lindner struck a more positive note. One has to go into government. The FDP is enthusiastic about going into government. But only if it can implement good things. If not, then we won t, he told Die Welt. | 0fake |
Airbus issues safety advice on Tiger helicopters flying in turbulence | BERLIN (Reuters) - Airbus Helicopters has warned pilots of its Tiger military helicopters to be careful of rapid switches from auto pilot to manual mode during turbulence, after initial indications that such a switch may have played a role in a fatal crash in Mali. The unit of European aerospace giant Airbus said in a statement that the warning was aimed at increasing operators safety and should not be seen as an indication of the possible root cause of the crash during a U.N. mission in July, which killed both crew members. According to a source who has seen the Airbus Helicopters bulletin that carried the warning, the bulletin said an unexpected switch from automatic to manual flight mode may have played a role in the accident, according to information currently available . The bulletin did not say whether the unexpected switch had happened automatically or been done manually. German officials last week met to discuss the accident in the Mali desert, but decided to maintain existing flight restrictions on the aircraft after failing to reach a definite conclusion about the cause of the crash. Airbus said its safety guidance - sent to operators in Germany, Australia, France and Spain - was meant to standardise all flight manuals and remind operators that crews must adjust their attention to environmental conditions while using the auto pilot during turbulence. The guidance reiterated passages already in the flight manuals which instruct pilots not to intentionally enter areas with more than moderate turbulence, and to avoid flying through areas of severe turbulence. A German defence ministry report last month said the Tiger that crashed in Mali had been flying at 250 kilometres (155 miles) per hour at a height of 550 metres (1,800 feet) when it suddenly sank its nose and entered a sharp dive. The helicopter crashed 10 seconds later and burst into flames. The report, however, said it was too early to speculate about the causes of the crash. German officials continue to investigate the cause of the crash. Officials say it could take months to complete the probe. At the time of the crash, they said there were no signs the helicopter was downed by an attack. Germany s deployment of four Tiger helicopters to Mali earlier this year was controversial since the aircraft required extra maintenance given the strong heat and other environmental conditions in the African country, although officials say the aircraft had been performing normally. Germany agreed to deploy the Tiger helicopters and four NH-90 transport helicopters after the Dutch military said it could not continue the work in Mali. But Germany s increased support was heavily debated in parliament, and required a waiver from the German military allowing the helicopters to operate in higher temperatures. Germany currently has 26 Tiger helicopters. | 0fake |
Bernie Sanders Just Got A HUGE Native American Endorsement (VIDEO) | Bernie Sanders just received a major endorsement from the legendary activist, environmentalist, economist, and, in my opinion, one of coolest people ever Winona LaDuke.LaDuke s endorsement of Bernie Sanders came in the form of a video where she praised Sanders vision for a fossil-free future: Our lands as indigenous lands are the place where most of the oil and gas, and a good portion of the uranium and coal comes from. The easiest answer for the future generations is to keep it in the ground. And we are thankful for Bernie Sanders for saying Let s #keepitintheground. Don t make a mess we can t clean up, LaDuke said.Here is the video:https://www.facebook.com/MidwestForBernie/videos/343098512481172/?fref=nfFor those not familiar with LaDuke s history, she is an indigenous American who has worked tirelessly fighting for tribal rights and sustainable development. Winona LaDuke is an Anishinaabekwe (Ojibwe) enrolled member of the Mississippi Band Anishinaabeg. After graduating from Harvard, LaDuke has spent her career writing about issues that hurt indigenous groups and the environment. LaDuke currently works as the Director of Honor the Earth.It is not surprising that LaDuke has decided to endorse Sanders for president. Sanders has an ambitious plan to completely transform the United States energy infrastructure. What s really great about Sanders keep it in the ground strategy, is that so much of it can be accomplished without the approval of Congress.The president of the United States has the authority to prevent the State Department from granting leases to fossil fuel companies if they want to extract dirty fuels from federal land. President Obama recently used this power to put a quasi-moratorium on leases for coal mines. As president, Sanders would also be able to not give leases to companies who wish to build pipelines across international borders.One aspect of Sanders energy plan should be of particular interest to both racial justice groups, environmentalists, and those who work in their intersection. Sanders recognizes the disparity of the impact fossil fuel extraction and usage has on indigenous peoples and communities of color. That s why he supports legislation that would work to halt the devastation fossil fuels are causing while creating millions of new jobs. Sanders co-sponsored the Keep It in the Ground Act last year. When he did he released a video explain why we need to transform our nation s energy system.You can watch the video below. Featured image from video screenshot via Facebook | 1real |
Silicon Valley Speaks Out Against U.S. Leaving Paris Accords - Breitbart | Tech leaders across Silicon Valley have attacked President Trump for his recent decision to pull the U. S. out of the Paris Climate Accord. [Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of social media giant Facebook, was one of many tech elites to speak out against President Trump’s decision to leave the Paris Climate Accord. “Withdrawing from the Paris climate agreement is bad for the environment, bad for the economy, and it puts our children’s future at risk. ” wrote the billionaire CEO in a public post on Facebook. “For our part, we’ve committed that every new data center we build will be powered by 100% renewable energy,” he stated adding, “Stopping climate change is something we can only do as a global community, and we have to act together before it’s too late. ” Google CEO Sundar Pichai also tweeted his disapproval of Trump’s decision saying, “Disappointed with today’s decision. Google will keep working hard for a cleaner, more prosperous future for all. ” Brad Smith, the President and Chief Legal Officer at Microsoft took to LinkedIn to write a lengthy disapproval of the U. S. leaving the Paris Climate Accord saying, “We are disappointed with today’s decision by the White House to withdraw the United States from the landmark, globally supported Paris Agreement on climate change,” Smith writes. “We believe that continued U. S. participation benefits U. S. businesses and the economy in important and multiple ways. A global framework strengthens competitiveness for American businesses. It creates new markets for innovative clean technologies, from green power to smart grids to solutions. And by strengthening global action over time, the Agreement reduces future climate damage to people and organizations around the world. ” Apple CEO Tim Cook wrote an internal letter to Apple staff where he too expressed his concerns and disapproval. The full letter, as reported by TechCrunch, reads, Team, I know many of you share my disappointment with the White House’s decision to withdraw the United States from the Paris climate agreement. I spoke with President Trump on Tuesday and tried to persuade him to keep the U. S. in the agreement. But it wasn’t enough. Climate change is real and we all share a responsibility to fight it. I want to reassure you that today’s developments will have no impact on Apple’s efforts to protect the environment. We power nearly all of our operations with renewable energy, which we believe is an example of something that’s good for our planet and makes good business sense as well. We will keep working toward the ambitious goals of a supply chain, and to eventually stop mining new materials altogether. Of course, we’re going to keep working with our suppliers to help them do more to power their businesses with clean energy. And we will keep challenging ourselves to do even more. Knowing the good work that we and countless others around the world are doing, there are plenty of reasons to be optimistic about our planet’s future. Our mission has always been to leave the world better than we found it. We will never waver, because we know that future generations depend on us. Your work is as important today as it has ever been. Thank you for your commitment to making a difference every single day. Tim, Tesla CEO Elon Musk also tweeted that he would be removing himself from all future presidential councils, Am departing presidential councils. Climate change is real. Leaving Paris is not good for America or the world. — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 1, 2017, and was quickly shut down by former Republican Presidential candidate Ted Cruz, In support of Paris, CA billionaires pledge to never again fly private, will only fly commercial. — will quit symbolic councils instead. https: . — Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) June 2, 2017, Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan_ or email him at lnolan@breitbart. com | 0fake |
J. Edgar Comey |
I had intended to use this final column before the presidential election to explain at length why I cannot vote for either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump and plan to vote for Gary Johnson for president. In a nutshell, big government is our biggest problem. It thrives on more debt, more taxes, more regulations, more war, a secretive deep state and less personal freedom. Both Clinton and Trump would grow the government. Only Johnson would shrink it.
One of the most dangerous tendencies of big government is the generation of a police state — wherein laws, rules and procedures are primarily written and can often be bent to aid law enforcement when it is encroaching on our personal freedoms. We saw a terrifying example of that last week when FBI Director James Comey behaved as if he were his most infamous predecessor, J. Edgar Hoover.
Here is the back story.
Late last week, in an effort to redeem himself from the consequences of having ignored a mountain of evidence of guilt against former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton last summer, Comey told Congress in a cryptic letter that the FBI would resume investigating her emails based upon the belief that more of them may be located in the laptop of disgraced former Rep. Anthony Weiner. Weiner is the alleged sexual predator who remains the estranged husband of Huma Abedin, one of Clinton’s closest aides. Abedin backed up all her emails onto the laptop that she and her husband shared.
At the time he sent his Friday letter, Comey had not yet seen the contents of the Weiner laptop because the search warrant authorizing FBI agents to access its contents was not signed until Sunday. If he saw something incriminating before he wrote his letter, he saw it unlawfully; yet his duty was to bring what he saw to the Department of Justice, for which he works, not to hint about it publicly to Congress.
Comey’s progress report to Congress is prohibited by the internal regulations of the DOJ and the FBI — and by the canons of legal ethics that regulate lawyers. Comey had no obligation to send the letter at any time; moreover, sending it last week was a direct violation of DOJ and FBI rules that prohibit all public announcements about candidates for public office within 60 days of Election Day.
Comey told FBI staffers early this week that he sent the letter because he felt duty-bound to members of a congressional committee to whom he had given a promise that he would keep them informed of the status of the email investigation. That was a troublesome promise because its compliance violated other duties imposed upon Comey. Worse than making a promise and not keeping it is making a promise that should not be kept.
The genesis of all this was Comey’s unprecedented news conference on July 5, at which he announced that no charges would be filed against Clinton because no prosecutor would take the case. That was not an announcement for him to make. The FBI’s job is to gather facts and present them to the DOJ, not to make legal evaluations. He made his announcement when he did to head off the behavior of some of his agents who were seeking Clinton’s medical records, unlawfully, from the National Security Agency to ascertain the gravity of her head injury — an injury she posited during her FBI interrogation as the reason for her professed memory loss.
I have argued that Comey’s July 5 decision was dead wrong; there is a mountain of evidence with which to indict and convict Clinton on espionage charges. Yet it should have been presented to a grand jury — it was not — rather than at a news conference. The July 5 announcement was bizarre in that it not only exonerated Clinton but also described the quantity and quality of the evidence against her. This insulted the agents who worked on the case and produced the lowest collective FBI morale since Watergate. If Comey sent his Friday letter to address the problems he caused by his July 5 announcement, he did the wrong thing for the wrong reasons.
But perhaps the gravest of Comey’s violations is that of the constitutional guarantee of due process. The essence of due process is notice and fairness. How exquisitely unfair of Comey to say, in effect, “We have something that warrants investigation of you, yet we don’t know its significance, so we can’t say what it is.” This is reminiscent of Franz Kafka’s “The Trial,” in which the lead character is being pursued for a year on unnamed charges, against which he cannot defend himself.
In his play “A Man for All Seasons,” Robert Bolt shows Sir Thomas More arguing with William Roper, a colleague, who suggests that government lawbreaking can be justified for the greater good, particularly if the target is the devil (which Trump has called Clinton). More demolishes that argument in a few now iconic lines: “And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned round on you — where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country’s planted thick with laws from coast to coast — man’s laws, not God’s — and if you cut them down, and you’re just the man to do it, d’you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I’d give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety’s sake.”
To my friends who have rejoiced in James Comey’s letter, please take warning that, as More accurately predicted, the tables can be turned. If there is any moral lesson in all this, it is that the history of human freedom consists of paying careful attention to constitutional guarantees and legal protections, no matter the reputation of the accused.
Copyright 2016 Andrew P. Napolitano. Distributed by Creators.com. | 1real |
Candidate Handel’s Excellent Response to Alexandria Shooter Calling Her A ‘Republican B**ch’ | We should not allow our political differences to escalate to violent attacks. We must all refuse to allow the politics of our country to be defined in this way, she wrote. Now more than ever, we must unite as a one nation under God. It is incumbent upon all of us to work together in a civil and productive way, even when we disagree. Georgia Congressional Candidate Karen HandelPLEASE NOTE THAT HANDEL AND DEMOCRAT JOHN OSOFF ARE IN A BATTLE THAT WILL TAKE PLACE ON JUNE 20TH IN THE 6TH DISTRICT GEORGIA RUNOFF GET OUT AND VOTE HANDEL!IF YOU WANT TO DONATE TO KAREN HANDEL: DONATE HEREKaren Handel, the Republican candidate for Congress in Georgia s sixth district, on Wednesday afternoon addressed that morning s shooting at a Republican congressional baseball team practice.A gunman who police identified as James T. Hodgkinson opened fire on Republican lawmakers practicing for a charity baseball game in Alexandria, Va., wounding five people including House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R., La.). Hodgkinson had penned a Facebook rant against Handel last week. My thoughts are with the victims of this morning s despicable, unprovoked attack on the Republican congressional softball team, wrote Handel, Georgia s former secretary of state. Representative Scalise is a friend, and my heart goes out to him and his family. Steve and I wish him and the others wounded a speedy recovery. They remain in our thoughts and prayers. I also want to commend the heroic actions of the Capitol Police officers who clearly prevented today s attack from being a much bigger tragedy, she wrote.Handel also addressed expletive comments that Hodgkinson made about her on social media.Hodgkinson posted an article about Handel to his Facebook, calling her a Republican Bitch who wants People to Work for Slave Wages, NBC affiliate WXIA reported. Republican Bitch Wants People to Work for Slave Wages, when a Livable Wage is the Only Way to Go! Vote Blue, It s Right for You! Hodgkinson wrote on Facebook. I am aware that the suspect recently made vile comments about me on social media, Handel said in her statement. It also appears that the suspect targeted members of Congress specifically because he disagreed with their views. Hodgkinson s social media posts indicate he was a supporter of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) and loathed President Donald Trump and Republican policies.Handel echoed calls by others, including House Speaker Paul Ryan (R., Wis.), for bipartisan unity following the attack. We should not allow our political differences to escalate to violent attacks. We must all refuse to allow the politics of our country to be defined in this way, she wrote. Now more than ever, we must unite as a one nation under God. It is incumbent upon all of us to work together in a civil and productive way, even when we disagree. READ MORE: WFB | 1real |
Syria’s War for Humanity—The Series | Copyright Mark Taliano, Global Research, Montreal 2016.
Note to Readers: Remember to bookmark this page for future reference. Please Forward Syria’s War for Humanity, by Mark Taliano far and wide. Post it on Facebook. Scroll down for I-BOOK Table of Contents “Syria’s War for Humanity” by Mark Taliano is part of Global Research’s Online Interactive I-Book Series which brings together, in the form of chapters, a collection of Global Research feature articles, including debate and analysis, on a broad theme or subject matter. To consult our Online Interactive I-Book Reader Series, click here. Preface We bring to the attention of our readers Mark Taliano’s I-Book entitled Syria’s War for Humanity . In contrast to most geopolitical analysts of the Middle East, Mark Taliano focusses on what unites humanity with the people of Syria in their struggle against foreign aggression. Author: Mark Taliano Taliano talks and listens to the people of Syria. He reveals the courage and resilience of a Nation and its people in their day to day lives, after more than five years of US-NATO sponsored terrorism and more than two years of US “peacemaking” airstrikes which have largely targeted Syria’s civilian infrastructure. Everybody in Syria knows that Washington is behind the terrorists, that they are financed by the US (at tax payers expense) and its allies, trained and recruited by America’s Middle East partner. Saudi Arabia, Qatar, have been financing and training the ISIS-Daesh, al Nusra terrorists on behalf of the United States. Israel is harboring the terrorists out of the occupied Golan Heights, NATO in liaison with the Turkish high command has since March 2011 been involved in coordinating the recruitment of the jihadist fighters dispatched to Syria. Moreover, the ISIS-Daesh brigades in both Syria and Iraq are integrated by Western special forces and military advisers. While all this is known to the Syrian people, Western public opinion is led to believe that the US is leading a “counter-terrorism campaign” in Syria and Iraq against the Islamic State (ISIS-Daesh), an entity created and supported by US intelligence. Image: Damascus National Museum, M Chossudovsky, 2011 “Everything that we saw in Syria speaks of humanity’s common heritage”, says Mark Taliano. Syria is the cradle of civilization, Mesopotamia, the Land of Two Rivers, where the early civilizations of the fertile crescent took their roots. This is what the Washington Neocons want to destroy. But to reach their objective they need to wage a dirty propaganda campaign which conveys the illusion that America is involved in a “humanitarian” “peace-making” undertaking. The Syrian people know who the real terrorists are. “The Western assault on this country is an assault on our common humanity, and an assault on Syria’s progressive and forward-looking future”, says Taliano. Mark Taliano focusses on the truth as an instrument for building peace and counter-propaganda: “S hould the West’s “regime change” operations succeed, the secular, pluralist government of President Assad will be replaced by its opposite: a barbaric, sectarian regime, and chaos. Yet Western politicians are seemingly propagandized by their own lies. Or perhaps they see no choice but to cravenly follow diktats from above. Humanity’s better nature, however, demands that we all open our eyes, that we learn from history, and that we embrace the rule of international law rather than the diktats of a criminal Empire. Syria and Syrians must be saved, not destroyed.” Currently, my interests lie in digging for political truths in a world that is rushing headlong into war and barbarism, on a bedrock of lies. When I find such truths, their trajectories invariably lead to peace rather than war. So now, my “crusade’ is to help share the truth, to make it broad-based, and to make a positive difference. The dirty war on Syria is such a blatant example of the supremacy of war, deception — and evil — over civilization, and our common humanity, that my current research interests are defined by what does or does not happen there. If Syria wins, we all win. Right now, she is winning.” Mark Taliano refutes the mainstream media. The causes and consequences of the US-led war on Syria, not to mention the extensive war crimes and atrocities committed by the terrorists on behalf the Western military alliance are routinely obfuscated by the media. Taliano is committed to reversing the tide of media disinformation, by reaching out to Western public opinion on behalf of the Syrian people. “Syria’s stand against the Western agencies of death and destruction is a stand for all of humanity against the dark forces that fester beneath our politicians’ empty words and the courtesan media’s toxic lies.”
These twenty-seven chapters of Mark Taliano’s Syria’s War for Humanity provide an overview of life in Syria, the day to day struggle of the Syrian people to protect and sustain their national sovereignty.
Michel Chossudovsky, October 30, 2016 * * * Introduction by Mark Taliano I recently traveled to war- torn Syria because I sensed years ago that the official narratives being fed to North Americans across TV screens, in newsprint, and on the internet, were false. The invasion of Libya was based on lies; so was the Iraq war; likewise for Ukraine. All of the 9/11 wars were sold to Western audiences through a sophisticated network of interlocking governing agencies that propagandize both domestic and foreign audiences. But the dirty war on Syria is different. The degree of war propaganda leveled at Syria, and contaminating humanity at this moment, is likely unprecedented. I had already studied and written about Syria for years, so I wasn’t entirely surprised by what I saw. But what I felt was a different story.
First Impressions When I awoke on the first morning of my visit, and sat at a table on the polished marble floor beside the fountain, it was still and quiet. The walls of the hotel courtyard surrounded me — rows of hard, dark basalt stone block and intricately carved soft brown stone were woven together with alcoves and archways, all radiating ancient artistry. High vaulted windows overlooked the palazzo, with plants flowing from balconies and the railings of the narrow corridors leading to rooms. Above was the pale blue cloudless morning sky. A pigeon lumbered in and perched inside, sheltered by the ancient walls. A native bird, bluish white, swift and silent, swooped in towards the pigeon, and they were both gone, swept away into the Damascene morning. The quiet returned and the pale blue sky became darker and deeper. Syria will find peace again when this is all over. Syria is an ancient land with a proud and forward looking people. To this ancient and holy land we sent mercenaries, and hatred, and bloodshed, and destruction. We sent strange notions of “exceptionalism”, and waves upon waves of lies. As a visitor I felt shame, but Syrians welcomed me as one of them. This is their story. And these are their voices.
Testimonies from Syrians
In this video , Dr. Joseph Saddeh, standing in front of desecrated Christian icons in the ancient and holy city of Maaloula, where Aramaic, the language of Jesus, is still spoken, explains that what happened in Syria was not a “revolution”, and that the terrorists want to destroy everything that is good, and that “they want to make us like them or they will kill us.”
The terrorists did invade this ancient and holy place, they did destroy religious icons, and they did kill many people. Terrorist-damaged religious iconography at Maaloula, Syria Former al Nusra Front Headquarters, Maaloula, Syria Syrian soldier Dr. Ali Salem – a veterinarian during times of peace – explained that terrorists include “imports” from about 80 countries, street people, thieves, smugglers (diesel fuel and drugs), and those who were forced to fight under the threat of death or the death of family members.
He said that by now people must understand the truth about what is happening, despite the propaganda that demonizes the Syrian government and its people. The army is the people, he explained, and the government is not a “regime”. When this is over, he said, young people will have to be taught the truth about what happened. Terrorist-destroyed Shrine of Saint Takla, Maaloula, Syria. Listen to the video here. Religious icons were either destroyed or burned. We met soft-spoken, accommodating, Dr. Ali Haidar at at his office. He had earlier explained to Jamal Daoud, leader of the Third International Tour of Peace to Syria , that in 2011, he was offered a large sum of money from Qatar to boycott a “consultation summit” with the government. When he refused the bribe, he received threats, and his son was murdered. The process of national reconciliation, headed by Dr. Haidar, is emblematic of Syrian decision-making processes. The externally-orchestrated war is being resolved internally – by Syrians, for Syrians — and the solutions are often the fruit of a genuine democratic processes, in contrast to the fake democratic processes masquerading as “democracy” in the West, where Western politicians and citizens are heavily propagandized.
All Syrians are paying a horrible price for the sins of the West. Ammar recounted this nightmare: “As everyday morning my sister was going to the university when a bloody Takfiri Salafi Wahhabi suicide bomber blew up bomb car at the bus stop which led to the martyrdom and injury of many civilians and university students who were going to their exams, after 10 minutes another suicide bomber blew up himself at the same place taking advantage of the gathering of people and ambulance teams, usually when a terror attack happens we call all family members and friends to make sure they all are ok but this time no one answered! Then we started looking for her in hospitals … the shock was in the bloody views there; many burned bodies and human body parts were on the ground , there i saw my sister a body without soul …”
Madj explained his sentiments:
“ I am Syrian… living in Syria in the middle of everything. We have seen horrors. It was never a revolution nor a civil war. The terrorists are sent by your government. They are al Qaeda Jabhat al Nusra Wahhabi Salafists Talibans etc and the extremist jihadists sent by the West, the Saudis, Qatar and Turkey. Your Obama and whoever is behind him or above him are supporting al Qaeda and leading a proxy war on my country.
We thought you are against al Qaeda and now you support them.
The majority here loves Assad. He has never committed a crime against his own people… The chemical attack was staged by the terrorists helped by the USA and the UK, etc. Everyone knows that here.
American soldiers and people should not be supporting barbarian al Qaeda terrorists who are killing Christians, Muslims in my country and everyone.
Every massacre is committed by them. We were all happy in Syria: we had free school and university education available for everyone, free healthcare, no GMO, no fluoride, no chemtrails, no Rothschild IMF- controlled bank, state owned central bank which gives 11% interest, we are self-sufficient and have no foreign debt to any country or bank.
Life before the crisis was so beautiful here. Now it is hard and horrific in some regions.
I do not understand how the good and brave American people can accept to bomb my country which has never harmed them and therefore help the barbarian al Qaeda. These animals slit throats and behead for pleasure… they behead babies and rape young kids.
They are satanic. Our military helped by the millions of civilian militias are winning the battle against al Qaeda. But now the USA wants to bomb the shit out of us so that al Qaeda can get the upper hand.
Please help us American people. They are destroying the cradle of civilization. Stop your government.
Impeach that bankster puppet you have as president… support Ron Paul or Rand Paul (as Libertarians they have opposed foreign interventions—Editors) or anyone the like who are true American patriots. but be sure of one.thing…if they attack and I think they will….it will be hell.
Be sure that if it were to be a world war, many many will die. Syria can and will defend itself and will sink many US ships. Iran will go to war..Russia and China eventually if it escalates… and all this for what ? For the elites who created al Qaeda through the US government and use it to conduct proxy wars and destabilize countries which do not go along with their new world order agenda !!?
American people…you gotta regain control of your once admirable country. Now everyone hates you for the death you bring almost everywhere.
Ask the Iraqis…the Afghans…the Pakistanis…the Palestinians…the Syrians…the Macedonians and Serbs…the Libyans…the Somalis…the Yemenis ….all the ones you kill with drones everyday. Stop your wars. Enough wars. Use diplomacy…dialogue…help…not force.” Jad also shared his tragedy. He told me that his brother was kidnapped last year, and that the terrorists tortured him and destroyed his knees. Now he can’t walk. He also told me that his cousin, who was serving in the Syrian Arab Army, lost his leg when Wahhabi suicide bombers attacked his military vehicle, and that another cousin was kidnapped in 2012, and remains in captivity. The tragedies are legion, but all of the Syrians to whom I spoke assured me that they support the government of Bashar Al-Assad. They are unified in the battle against Western terrorists. The sanctions, the terrorists, the death and destruction, are not working. The alternative, a Western-installed Wahhabi stooge government, is not an attractive option. The ongoing dirty war on Syria is particularly odious because the elected President of Syria, Dr. Bashar Al-Assad, and his wife, represent the best of what Syria’s future promises to be. The Assads are well-educated – like all of the Syrians whom I had the pleasure of meeting – and they are moving ancient, holy Syria into a better future than that promised by the uni-polar, “exceptional” imperialists who are trying to destroy Syria with their Wahhabi-inspired terrorists.
Syrians have seen the devastation of Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, and the Ukraine. They refuse to be the next domino. Syria’s future will include the rule of international law, nation-state sovereignty, self-determination, pluralism, respect for all people, and multi-polar geo-political relationships. Syria has strong institutions, strong people, a strong military, strong allies, and a strong government; and she will not be pulled into the abyss of terrorism like the other aforementioned countries.
For this we should all be grateful.
We have just witnessed the pain and hardship that Syria and Syrians are enduring. The next question is, How did the West arrive at the point where otherwise intelligent and morally upright citizens support the illegality and barbarity of their nations’ foreign policies? The simple answer is that the collective mindset of the public has been contaminated by an unprecedented and on-going propaganda campaign that engineers consent for unspeakable crimes that “benefit” transnational elites and impoverish the rest of us. [This is the longstanding nature of US foreign policy, dating back more than a century, even prior to the Civil War, when early imperialist and “Manifest Destiny” believer James Polk seized half of Mexico under trumped-up pretexts and false flags. Meanwhile, the American media have always supported these international crimes, as they do today.—Editors.] The dreadful reality is that the Global War on Terror is actually a global war for terror. The foreign policies of Western nations are increasing the reach of terrorism exponentially, because the West uses these terror brigades as foot soldiers for illegal wars of aggression. In its Syrian campaign, as with its previous Libyan campaign, the West is literally the air force for the terrorists on the ground. This is all well documented with Western sources. US-led NATO is aligned with the Gulf Monarchies, and Israel, to flood Syria with mercenary terrorists, to balkanize and destroy the country, and to remove President Assad, so that it can advance its agenda for a New World Order of conquest under the false banner of the Global War On Terror (GWOT). Through its actions and inactions, its sanctions, its arms dealings, and its pre-planned invasions, the West and the terrorists in Syria are one and the same. We support all the imaginary “moderates”, and every other terrorist organization operating in Syria. Again, the evidence is ample, and well-documented using western sources. US-led NATO is aligned with the Gulf Monarchies, and Israel, to flood Syria with mercenary terrorists, to balkanize and destroy the country, and to remove President Assad, so that it can advance its agenda for a New World Order of conquest under the false banner of the Global War On Terror (GWOT). This on-going project necessarily entails death, destruction, and wide-spread poverty. Neo-con planners hope that the widespread destruction will enable them to control destroyed countries and open them up for predatory and parasitical economic programs — similar to domestic neoliberal economic models that are ravaging domestic economies beneath the lies and diversions. Despotic stooge puppet regimes are easier to control and manipulate than independent sovereign governments that represent the democratic will of their peoples and the rule of international law. Again, this favoured totalitarian style rule is mirrored at home, but more subtly. The notion that we live in democracies is absurd.
Tentacles of predatory neoliberal capitalism have yet to invade Syria’s famous souks/markets Spices at the Souk F alse flag terrorism is part of the apparatus of deception which serves to advance policies that are contrary to the wishes of those who are deceived.
There’s nothing new about “synthetic terrorism’; it is military doctrine, and examples of its use are legion, but it is a taboo topic and a “conspiracy theory”, so it works.
The Canada Day pressure-cooker bomber plot was a proven false flag (though not acknowledged as such by mainstream media), and it served the apparatus of deception as did other domestic terrorism cases.
Even if the Ottawa shooting crisis unfolded exactly as the official narratives described it, the conflation between the shooting and ISIS is surely unfounded, as noted by Senator Mobina Jaffer.
But the accumulated impact of these events, coupled with largely unquestioned official narratives, has the intended effect of creating a consensus of ignorance wherein otherwise intelligent people support illegal warfare, terrorism, and police state legislation.
Preeminent Constitutional lawyer Rocco Galati assesses Canada’s C-51 legislation in these words :
It takes all our private information and shares it with all government agencies, including foreign government. For some citizens that becomes an eventuality of torture and/or death when travelling abroad.
It restricts arbitrarily who can travel.
Freedom of expression and political criticism with respect to “terrorism and the government’s role” (becomes) a terrorist offence in itself. So words and thoughts become an act of terrorism under this bill.
It allows CSIS to disrupt covertly constitutionally-protected rights of association, expression, and protest.
It does all of this by taking away all and any transparent judicial oversight.
He says that “We’ve entered into the final fascist state.”
Consequently, both domestically and abroad, we are living what author Naomi Wolf describes as a “fascist shift” , wherein we unwittingly embrace our own enslavement, global war, and poverty, all for the “benefit” of transnational oligarch classes, and the known catastrophic impacts for humanity.
Syria is standing strong against these Western cancers of ignorance and evil. She, and her allies, are swooping down on these globalist interlopers. Her victory will be our victory.
Outline of This Book T he purpose of this book is to shed some light on how the propaganda works, and to decode it and other events, so that we can arrive at a better understanding of what is really happening in Syria, and why.
The degree of war propaganda leveled at Syria, and contaminating humanity at this moment is unprecedented.
I have yet to meet a single Syrian who would prefer a stooge, Wahhabi dictatorship to the current government. Every single Syrian opposition leader prefers the current government to an imperial -imposed government. The on-going campaign of lies directed at Syria is particularly odious because the elected President of Syria, Dr. Bashar Al-Assad, and his wife, represent the best of what Syria’s future promises to be.
The Assads are well-educated – like all of the Syrians whom I had the pleasure of meeting – and they are moving ancient, holy Syria into a better future than that promised by the uni-polar, “exceptional” imperialists who are trying to destroy Syria with their Wahhabi-inspired terrorists.
Syrians have seen the devastation of Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, and the Ukraine. They refuse to be the next domino.
Syrians are unified. Their future will include the rule of international law, nation-state sovereignty, self-determination, pluralism, respect for all people, and multi-polar geo-political relationships. Syria has strong institutions, strong people, a strong military, strong allies, and a strong government; she will not be pulled into the abyss of terrorism like the other aforementioned countries.
For this we should all be grateful.
The compilation of articles in this book decode the propaganda apparatus which creates an engineered consensus that serves the covert agenda of expanding the parasitical economic model called “neoliberalism”.
Neoliberalism impoverishes domestic and foreign populations, and enriches a transnational oligarch class. The transnational oligarch class — enriched by “deregulation”, “privatization” schemes, and “free trade” agreements — contaminates the collective mindset of humanity with its foundations, its lobbying, and its undue influence, so its real nature, and its very existence, remains hidden. Rarely will a mainstream publication even use the word “neoliberalism”, which is the economic foundation of the current class system.
Part One is the story of Syria as told by Syrians, unfiltered by mainstream media (MSM) propaganda. We see and hear the trauma lived by defiant, heroic Syrians, and we discover that this ancient, holy land will surely survive the current barbarian invasion, and will rise again as a beacon of civilization, hope, and dignity, in contrast to so many of those countries that seek to destroy it.
Voices from Syrian citizens are absent from mainstream media stories. Syrians are like you and me. This is what they have to say:
“We thought you are against al Qaeda and now you support them.” I Am A Syrian Living in Syria: “It was Never a Revolution nor a Civil War. The Terrorists are sent by your Government”
The externally-orchestrated war is being resolved internally – by Syrians, for Syrians — and the solutions are often the fruit of a genuine democratic processes, in contrast to the fake democratic processes masquerading as “democracy” in the West, where Western politicians and citizens are heavily propagandized.
NATO et al. terrorists destroy everything that contradicts their deviant ideology. They seek a “blank slate” that denies and negates the real Syria.
Syria insists on being a sovereign nation; it refuses Empire’s head-chopping criminality.
“Syria was prosperous, with a growing economy. It had food sovereignty, with a “strategic” stock of millions of tons of high quality wheat , not the “Franken-food” bio-tech variety; it had a strong central bank with no usurious IMF loans ; it had a popular, reformer President; it had a mostly well-educated, secular, pluralist, forward-looking population; and it was the fourth safest country in the world.”
Part Two elaborates upon the real story about Syria, and the drivers behind the current dirty war, in which the U.S-led Empire is using terror proxies to advance its predatory reach, contrary to the wishes of the vast majority of Syrians.
The alternative to Syria’s elected government is genocidal despotism and Sharia law. The (non-existent) “moderates” can’t be separated from the “extremists”, because all of the mercenary terrorists share the same goals and the same ideologies.
The predictable result of engineered deception is that domestic Western populations remain deceived and politically passive. The truth is inverted, and large swaths of the population remain deluded. Whereas the West and its allies support all the terrorists invading Syria, domestic populations think that we are fighting terrorism. This is the great fraud of the “Global War On Terror”.
The West uses mercenary terrorist proxies to advance its predatory reach; to destroy foreign countries; and to increase global terrorism exponentially, all for the benefit of the oligarch classes. There is nothing new about this.
“The secular governments of Iraq, Libya, and Syria all — prior to Western invasions — opposed terrorist organizations such as al Qaeda.” Dedication
This book is dedicated to the people of Syria, all of whom are on the front lines in the fight against international terrorism.
Your blood is being shed for our sins.
Acknowledgements
I can’t begin to thank everyone who helped me with this book, but here’s a start.
Thanks to Ken Stone, who inspired me to take the trip to Syria.
Thanks to Jamal Daoud, and the organizers of the Third International Tour of Peace To Syria, who made this trip possible, despite “external” barriers, thus giving us the chance to see and hear Syria for ourselves. Now we can better share the truth.
Thanks to my fellow travellers, who are my brothers and sisters in spirit.
Thanks to Prof. Michel Chossudovsky who helped me publish this book.
Thanks to Gerry DiSanto, at the Defensive Arts Training Centre (DATC), who encouraged me to write this book.
And last but not least, thanks to Victoria, who helped me along the way. NOTE: ALL IMAGE CAPTIONS, PULL QUOTES AND COMMENTARY BY THE EDITORS, NOT THE AUTHORS | 1real |
NY police investigate possible sighting of escaped prisoners | New York State Police are looking into a possible sighting of two convicted murderers who escaped from an upstate New York maximum-security prison two weeks ago.
The two men fitting the description of inmates David Sweat and Richard Matt were seen about a week ago in Steuben County, New York, over 300 miles southwest of Dannemora, according to a news release posted late Friday. Two men were seen walking near a rail yard in Erwin on June 13, and then seen the next day in Lindley, New York, heading toward the Pennsylvania border.
Investigators conducted interviews in both communities and have surveillance video that was initially deemed inconclusive and is being sent to Albany for analysis.
It wasn’t clear why authorities waited a week before divulging the information.
State police spokesman Beau Duffy told FoxNews.com Saturday investigators did not wait that long. He said troopers learned about the possible weekend sightings on Tuesday.
He said troopers then sought to verify the sightings over the next two days. Late Friday afternoon, troopers got their hands on the surveillance video.
Duffy said at that point commanders decided to release information on the possible sightings to alert the public and to hopefully generate more leads.
Sweat and Matt used power tools to cut their way out of Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora on June 6. Hundreds of law enforcement officers have been looking for them.
State police say they’re prepared to keep searching for the “long haul.”
Friday, police asked hunters for help in the search for the escaped convicts.
“We’re asking them to review video from wildlife or trail cameras to see if they see anything suspicious,” State Police Maj. Charles Guess said at a press conference at the prison.
Hunters say they are ready to help even if it isn’t hunting season and they still haven't turned their trail cams on to track deer.
State police said Friday they have searched 600 miles of trails leading out of Dannemora, but local outdoorsman Jason Langdon said the wooded area is so vast, searchers still have a lot of work to do.
A correction officer from the prison was also suspended, officials announced Friday. However, officials didn’t have any other information involving the case.
The Associated Press contributed to this report | 0fake |
Factbox: The 11 candidates being considered for FBI director | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump is considering 11 people to replace fired FBI Director James Comey, according to a White House official, and the Department of Justice will begin interviewing people on Friday or during the weekend. White House spokesman Sean Spicer told a briefing that Trump would fill the job “as soon as he finds a candidate that fits the qualities that he feels are necessary to lead the FBI.” The pick will be under intense scrutiny since Comey was fired while leading the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s probe of possible collusion between Trump’s campaign and Russia. Here are the 11 people under consideration: Kelly was New York City’s police commissioner longer than any other person. Although the city saw historic drops in crime under his leadership, there is some controversy over his use of stop-and-frisk, an anti-crime tactic in which police stop, question and search pedestrians for weapons or contraband. Trump has praised that method. The former FBI agent was a congressman from Michigan until 2015 and served as chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. Rogers also briefly advised Trump’s transition team on national security issues. Fisher was an assistant attorney general for the Criminal Division of the Department of Justice under former President George W. Bush. She currently works at the law firm Latham & Watkins. Gowdy is a House representative from South Carolina and a former federal prosecutor. He led a two-year special congressional committee investigation that accused former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s State Department of failing to protect four Americans killed in a 2012 attack in Libya. The Republican senator from Texas is the Senate’s second-ranking member. He previously was Texas attorney general. Abbate has long worked in the FBI and currently serves as the executive assistant director for the Criminal, Cyber, Response and Services Branch. Before that, he was the assistant director in charge of the Washington Field Office. The former New York prosecutor currently serves as an associate judge on the New York Court of Appeals. Suthers is the former Colorado attorney general and the current mayor of Colorado Springs, Colorado. He also was the executive director of the Colorado Department of Corrections. Luttig, a former Justice Department lawyer and appellate court judge, has served as executive vice president and general counsel of Boeing since 2006. Thompson was U.S. deputy attorney general from 2001 to 2003 under Bush. He also served as senior vice president for government affairs and general counsel for PepsiCo. McCabe became acting director of the FBI this week following Trump’s abrupt firing of Comey. Until Tuesday, he was the bureau’s deputy director. | 0fake |
Lebanon army chief warns of Israel threat amid political crisis | BEIRUT (Reuters) - Lebanon s army chief told his soldiers on Tuesday to be extra vigilant to prevent unrest during political turmoil after the prime minister quit, and accused Israel of aggressive intentions at the southern frontier. Troops should be ready to thwart any attempt to exploit the current circumstances for stirring strife, the army s Twitter account quoted General Joseph Aoun as saying ahead of Independence Day celebrations on Wednesday. The exceptional political situation that Lebanon is going through requires you to exercise the highest levels of awareness. Aoun called on troops to assume full readiness at the southern border to face the threats of the Israeli enemy, its violations, and the aggressive intentions it is indicating towards Lebanon. A senior Israeli official dismissed the warnings of border aggression as nonsense . Lebanon was thrust back onto the forefront of regional rivalry between Sunni Saudi Arabia and Shi ite Iran, after its prime minister quit this month in a broadcast from Riyadh. In his shock resignation, Saad al-Hariri railed against the Iran-backed Shi ite military and political movement Hezbollah, which both Saudi Arabia and Israel consider an enemy. The Lebanese president has refused to accept Hariri s resignation until he returns to Lebanon. The Saudis have demanded that Hezbollah stop meddling in regional conflicts and say it must disarm. Hezbollah has long said it must keep its arsenal to protect Lebanon from Israel, and its leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah accused the Saudis this month of inciting Israel to attack Lebanon. He said he could not rule out a new clash with Israel, although he described it as unlikely. In a televised speech on Monday, Nasrallah suggested the Saudis and Israelis were working together. Tensions grew earlier this year between Israel and Hezbollah, which fought a month-long war in 2006 that killed around 1,200 people in Lebanon, mostly civilians, and 160 Israelis, most of them troops. Israeli Energy Minister Yuval Steinmetz said this week that Israel has had covert contacts with Riyadh amid common concerns over Iran, a rare disclosure by a senior official from either country of long-rumored secret dealings. But Israel dismissed claims that it is planning military action against Hezbollah at the behest of Saudi Arabia. We are not interested in an escalation with Lebanon, Israeli Education Minister Naftali Bennett, a member of the security cabinet, told Reuters about the accusation of Israeli-Saudi collusion. However, Bennett added: If rockets are fired from Lebanon at Israeli cities, then we will see that as a declaration of war by the state of Lebanon and will act with all our might. In Israel, where the 2006 war was widely seen as inconclusive, there is little in the public mood or political discourse to suggest fighting with Hezbollah is imminent. But Israeli officials have voiced deep concern about Iran and Hezbollah s expanding influence in the region. The Saudis and Israel definitely have common interests today, including the threat from Iran, Israeli Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked said in a radio interview last week. The countries coming together could serve both of them. But, Shaked said, we don t work for anyone. We first and foremost look out for our interests. | 0fake |
Taiwan says its 23 million people will decide their future | TAIPEI (Reuters) - Taiwan s government said on Wednesday that it was absolutely the right of Taiwan s 23 million people to decide their future, after Chinese President Xi Jinping said any attempt to separate the island from China would be thwarted. The perpetration of Taiwan s democratic system is a core value of Taiwan s, the Mainland Affairs Council said in reaction to Xi s speech. China considers democratic and self-ruled Taiwan to be a wayward province, to be brought under Beijing s control by force if necessary. | 0fake |
WSJ REPORTER RIPS INTO DEM CANDIDATES For Their Lame Rhetoric On ISIS: “Remarkable displays of unintelligible garbage” [Video] | THE WSJ S MARY KISSEL NAILS IT ON THE DEM DEBATE WITH THE THREE CANDIDATES WHO WERE GIVING NO SOLUTIONS ON ISIS: It was one of the most remarkable displays of unintelligible garbage rhetoric that I have ever seen. Amen to that!Mary Kissel: The barbarians are at the gates. We ve seen attacks now from London to Madrid to Beirut to over the Sinai. It is time for American leadership. Hillary said this isn t America s fight. Look, Democrats are dangerously divorced from reality. Hillary says that. President Obama wants to close Gitmo. He said we contained these people. No, we haven t contained them. Bernie Sanders, who s leading in some polls, says the greatest challenge is climate change. What we need is American leadership and the majority of the American people understand we need to send troops back to the Middle East before this global disorder comes to our shores.Marie Bartiromo: I thought it was actually extraordinary, the debate last night. There was no real solution from any of the candidates. They were talking a lot saying nothing whatsoever.Mary Kissel: Saying essentially nothing. It was one of the most remarkable displays of unintelligible garbage rhetoric that I have ever seen. | 1real |
Trump chooses pro wrestling magnate Linda McMahon to head SBA | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President-elect Donald Trump said on Wednesday he will nominate professional wrestling magnate and former Senate candidate Linda McMahon as his choice to head the Small Business Administration. Trump’s announcement said McMahon would be a key player in his effort to generate stronger job growth and roll back federal regulations. McMahon, 68, is a co-founder and former CEO of the professional wrestling franchise WWE, which is based in Stamford, Connecticut. She ran unsuccessfully for a U.S. Senate seat in Connecticut in 2010. She was an early supporter of Trump’s presidential campaign. The SBA, which has at least one office in every U.S. state, provides support to small businesses such as by extending loans and making sure they get a percentage of federal contracts. Trump said McMahon had helped the WWE grow from a 13-person operation to a publicly traded global enterprise with more than 800 employees worldwide. Trump is a WWE Hall of Fame member. If confirmed by the Senate, McMahon would join a Trump economic team that includes Wall Street executives Steven Mnuchin at the Treasury Department and Wilbur Ross at Commerce. “Linda has a tremendous background and is widely recognized as one of the country’s top female executives advising businesses around the globe,” Trump said in the announcement. McMahon said her goal as the SBA chief would be to promote small businesses and help them grow and thrive. “Our small businesses are the largest source of job creation in our country,” she said. | 0fake |
Headed to Miami? Here’s What You Need to Know About Zika - The New York Times | The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is suggesting that pregnant women and their partners postpone trips to County after five people, three of them tourists, were diagnosed with Zika that was transmitted from mosquitos in Miami Beach, the second reported area in the United States where transmissions have occurred. At least fourteen people have contracted the virus from mosquitoes in Miami’s Wynwood area, prompting the C. D. C to issue its first call for pregnant women to steer clear of a section in Miami. Here is what travelers need to know if they are in Miami or plan to travel there. Is it safe to travel to Miami? In general, yes, said Dr. Stephen Morse, an epidemiology professor at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, although pregnant women or women who wish to become pregnant in the near future may want to avoid visiting. “Miami is definitely a city in a subtropical climate, and it has plenty of mosquitoes so there is always a chance of getting bitten,” he said. Will airlines let you change or cancel your flight? Some carriers will. Delta Air Lines has been dealing with customers who want to make changes or cancel their reservations on flights to areas affected by Zika since February, said Morgan Durrant, a spokesman. “Refunds are and have been available,” he said in an email. “Customers are asked to call and speak to a Delta reservation sales specialist to discuss. ” JetBlue is also working with travelers scheduled to fly to Miami. The airline’s policy states: “Customers traveling destinations reported by the C. D. C. to be affected by the Zika virus may qualify for a refund or the option to make changes to their current travel plans to alternate destinations or travel dates. ” And American Airlines, which had held out, is softening its language surrounding ticket changes. “If a customer is concerned about traveling to Miami due to Zika, they are encouraged to contact our reservations team to discuss what options may be available, Ross Feinstein, the carrier’s spokesman, said on Friday. Yet he added that the carrier had not changed the policy in effect after the Wynwood cases, which was to not offer refunds. When those cases were diagnosed, Mr. Feinstein said, “The C. D. C. is not telling people not to travel to Miami. They are saying that pregnant women should avoid the Wynwood area of Miami so we don’t see the need to offer refunds. ” On Friday he noted: “Miami Beach is not all of Miami. ” Will hotels let you cancel your stay if you paid a rate? Right now, it’s too soon to say. Hotels don’t seem to have implemented formal cancellation policies yet. Are hotels in Miami taking any precautions to protect their guests from contracting Zika? Some hotels have ramped up their pest control in the last few weeks and are placing bottles of mosquito repellent in key areas throughout their properties, such as at their pools, for guests to use. Acqualina Resort Spa on the Beach, a luxury Miami Beach property in Sunny Isles, increased its mosquito protection when Zika hit the Caribbean earlier this year, said Deborah Yager Fleming, its chief executive. “Currently, we have an active, weekly mosquito elimination program in place and have added mosquito repellents for guests’ use,” she said. Mandarin Oriental, Miami has implemented additional health and safety standards since Zika hit Miami, according to Alexandra Wensley, a spokeswoman. Also, the hotel is providing guests with mosquito spray at its Peruvian restaurant, La Mar, which has outdoor terraces, as well as at its poolside cafe. Will there be deals out there for travelers who want to visit Miami? The first C. D. C. advisory, about Wynwood, seems to have had little impact on price. Data from STR, a Hendersonville, Tenn. analytics company specializing in hotels, shows that a year ago, the average room rate per night at a hotel in the city was a $150 today it’s also $150. But data from Expedia. com suggests that hotels are offering savings on packages, a strong indicator that hotels are giving great discounts, according to its spokeswoman, Sarah Gavin. On Expedia. com, travelers can save 17 percent more on a package since August than they could on package savings June through July also, travelers can save 27 percent more on packages this August versus last summer. So while there are not necessarily deals, perhaps rates are holding steady when they would otherwise increase. Has hotel occupancy decreased in Miami since Zika was first reported in the city in July? Only marginally, but it’s not because of Zika, said Jan Freitag, a senior vice president at STR. According to STR’s data, for the week ending Aug. 13, hotel occupancy in Miami — a city with around 53, 000 hotel rooms — was down 3. 6 percent to 76 percent, compared to the same week last year. But there are more hotel rooms in the city than there were a year ago so the decline was likely caused by increased inventory rather than a drop in travelers. “Zika has, thus far, not impacted travel to Miami,” he said. In other words, don’t expect a quieter stay. What can we do to minimize the chance of contracting Zika? The single best way to protect yourself is to use mosquito repellent. Each brand has different directions for frequency of application, but Dr. Ian Lipkin, an epidemiology professor at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, recommended doubling that use. If your bottle suggests reapplying every four hours, for example, you should reapply every two hours. “If you’re outside in a warm climate, the repellent will evaporate faster because you’re likely perspiring,” he said. Also, if you’re in a room that doesn’t have he says that using a window, standing or table fan keeps mosquitoes at bay because the insects don’t have wings strong enough to fly against the current of the fan. What should you do if you’re in Miami and have been bitten by a mosquito? Don’t panic, Dr. Morse said. “There is such a low probability that the mosquito is carrying the virus,” he said. “It’s highly unlikely, at this time, that you’re going get Zika. ” How would you know if you’ve contracted Zika? You may have a rash, mild flulike symptoms, a fever, a headache or severe joint pain. These usually appear within a week or 10 days of having been bitten by a mosquito carrying the virus. Only about 20 percent of people infected with the Zika virus become ill, according to the C. D. C. | 0fake |
SELFIE OF MUSLIM WOMAN MAKING PEACE SIGN Goes Viral…Twitter Account Shows She’s Not Really So Peaceful | Another moderate Muslim A Muslim woman who was photographed taking selfies in front of a Belgian protest last week, earning her widespread praise for her cheerful stance against bigotry, reportedly praised Hitler and called for the killing of Jews in past Facebook posts.Zakia Belkhiri was photographed taking the selfies as she flashed a peace sign in front of Vlaams Belang protesters at the third annual Muslim Expo in Antwerp.The protests were part of the increasing resistance in Belgium and elsewhere in Europe to the flood of Muslim refugees pouring in from war-torn and poverty stricken countries in the Middle East and Africa. How To Neutralize Anti-Islam Protesters with a Selfie, was the headline of a Vice.com article where the photos by Jurgen Augusteyns initially appeared.Belkhiri told the BBC she took the photos to show that things can be different. And that we can live together, not next to each other but with each other. Social media commenters called Belkhiri a badass who put anti-Islamist protesters in their place. But the newfound notoriety brought scrutiny of Belkhiri s alleged Facebook and Twitter posts by Breitbart.com and other sites. Many were far more disturbing than anything Belkhiri was protesting.Here s a sample of one of the peace-loving Muslim woman s tweets:Belkhiri briefly deactivated her Twitter account, then reactivated it to first deny the posts were hers and then to apologize and explain that she had meant Zionists. Via: FOX News | 1real |
John Podesta’s New Global Order | Accuracy in Media – by Cliff Kincaid
In one of her secret speeches, Hillary Clinton said, “My dream is a hemispheric common market, with open trade and open borders…” Before this comment was revealed, Adam Taylor of The Washington Post tried to assure everyone that the idea of a North American Union, like the meddlesome and bureaucratic European Union, was dead. Such talk, he said, emanated from “fringe websites” and “conspiracy theorists.”
The Hillary speech was made to a Brazilian bank known as Itaú BBA, which describes itself as “Latin America’s largest Corporate & Investment Bank” and part of the Itaú Unibanco group, “one of the world’s largest financial conglomerates.”
The problem for Taylor and other faux journalists is that there is a whole body of research on the topic of a “ North American Law Project ,” designed to integrate the legal systems of the U.S., Canada and Mexico. The project is run out of American University’s Center for North American Studies, where students can concentrate in North American Studies . As a matter of fact, such degrees are being offered by several different colleges and universities, including Canada’s McGill University .
Passed in 1993, NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement, began the process of harmonizing laws among the U.S., Canada and Mexico. But the Council on Foreign Relations admits that the U.S.-Mexico trade balance swung from a $1.7 billion U.S. surplus in 1993 to a $54 billion deficit by 2014. This has led to a loss of about 600,000 jobs.
In addition to shipping jobs to Mexico, NAFTA constituted subversion of our constitutional system. President Clinton submitted NAFTA as an agreement, requiring only a majority of votes in both Houses of Congress for passage, and not a treaty, which would have required a two-thirds vote in favor in the Senate. NAFTA passed by votes of 234-200 in the House and 61-38 in the Senate.
A money crash soon followed in 1995 as Mexico was hit by a peso crisis, and a U.S. bailout was arranged. Congress would not bail out Mexico, so Clinton arranged for loans and guarantees to Mexico totaling almost $40 billion through the International Monetary Fund and the “Exchange Stabilization Fund.”
Meanwhile, pressure has been building for the creation of a “North American Community”—also known as a “North American Union”—with regular meetings involving the leaders of the three countries. On June 29, 2016, the Obama White House issued a fact sheet on this year’s “North American Leaders’ Summit.” It said, “The economies of the United States, Canada, and Mexico are deeply integrated. Canada and Mexico are our second and third largest trading partners. Our trade with them exceeds $1.2 trillion dollars annually.”
The leaders of these countries agreed to establish a “North American Caucus” to “more effectively work in concert on regional and global issues by holding semi-annual coordination meetings among our foreign ministries.” One item on the agenda was for the leaders to reaffirm “North America’s strong support for [Colombian] President Santos’s efforts to finalize a peace accord with the FARC guerrillas.” That fell apart on October 2 when a “peace deal” with the communist terrorists was voted down by the people of Colombia.
But notice how these leaders claim to speak for “North America.”
Going global, they also declared, “North America is committed to joint and coordinated actions to implement the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, including the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Addis Ababa Action Agenda.”
This is U.N.-speak for global taxes and other forms of foreign aid from the U.S. to the rest of the world.
We noted in a column last year that the American people, through their elected representatives, have had absolutely no input in developing the new global agenda that President Obama has tried to implement without the input or approval of Congress.
Interestingly, one of those deeply involved in this global agenda, as we noted at the time, was John Podesta, the chairman of the 2016 Hillary Clinton presidential campaign who previously served as counselor to Obama. Podesta’s emails are at the center of the WikiLeaks disclosures about the operations of the Clinton campaign, the Clinton Foundation and the Democratic Party.
Podesta, founder of the George Soros-funded Center for American Progress and a member of the elitist Trilateral Commission , went to work for Obama as a senior policy consultant on climate change. A liberal Catholic, he has been a professor at Georgetown Law School. One of the leaked emails shows Podesta saying that he applauds the work of Pope Francis on climate change and that “all my Jesuit friends say the Pope is the real deal.”
Podesta was picked by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to be a member of the “high-level panel” of “eminent persons” planning the future of the globe. This so-called “High Level Panel on the Post-2015 Development Agenda” released an 81-page report titled, “A New Global Partnership: Eradicate Poverty and Transform Economies through Sustainable Development.”
“In simplest terms,” explains Patrick Wood, author of Technocracy Rising: The Trojan Horse of Global Transformation , “Sustainable Development is a replacement economic system for capitalism and free enterprise. It is a system based on resource allocation and usage rather than on supply and demand and free economic market forces.”
In this context, Wood argues that the major significance of the transfer of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is not the immediate need by the U.N. or some countries to censor websites, but to generate revenue for global purposes. ICANN will do this, he argues, through management of the so-called Internet of Things (IoT), the links between the Internet and networks, electronic devices and embedded technology with IP addresses. “IoT are the connections between inanimate objects and the humans that depend upon them,” he notes. To accomplish this, ICANN has devised a new IP numbering system called IPV6, described as the “ vital expansion ” of the Internet.
“In terms of ‘follow the money,’ IoT is expected to generate upwards of $3 trillion by 2025 and is growing at a rate of at least 30 percent per year,” Wood argues . “In other words, it is a huge market and money is flying everywhere. If the UN can figure out a way to tax this market, and they will, it will provide a windfall of income and perhaps enough to make it self-perpetuating.”
He adds, “Congress never understood this when they passively let Obama fail to renew our contract with ICANN. However, Obama and his globalist handlers understood it perfectly well, which makes the deception and treachery of it even worse.”
Under the cover of “sustainable development,” Wood predicts the Internet will be used to construct a massive database on human activities, in order to monitor and control nations’ and peoples’ access to resources. It will constitute ultimate socialist control and a form of “digital slavery,” from which he warns there may be no return.
Cliff Kincaid is the Director of the AIM Center for Investigative Journalism and can be contacted at cliff.kincaid@aim.org. View the complete archives from Cliff Kincaid . | 1real |
Hillary Clinton Holds 6-Point Lead Despite FBI Probe [Update] | Despite the e-mail FBI probes currently ongoing, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton holds a 6-point lead over her rival Donald Trump. On October 31, 2016, at approximately 4:00 P.m. EDT, NBC announced, “James Comey, FBI Director, released a statement about the Democratic nominee having several emails on a nonsecure server.”
The timing of the FBI probe, while Clinton holds a 6-point lead over Trump, remains coincidental. According to NBC: “A recent poll tracking the election asked voters whether or not the release of Comey’s letter was a publicity stunt to distract them or an attempt to address an actual problem. Due to the timing of the letter’s release, about 56 percent of voters believe the letter was to deter voters from voting for the Democratic nominee and remains unaffected.”
Voters have spoken out about the need for the FBI to probe Clinton, as she poses a threat to Trump as she holds a national 6-point lead.
Update: CNN Politics
A Poll conducted by CNN Politics shows that Clinton has a 5-point lead over North Carolina; a state Trump needs to win.
Written By Jhayla D. Tyson
Edited by Cathy Milne
Sources:
CNN Politics: New Polls Show Tight Clinton-Trump Race Nationally, Battlegrounds
NBC News : Poll: Clinton Maintains National Lead Over Trump Despite FBI Letter
Featured Image Courtesy of Michael Kovac’s Flickr Page – Creative Commons License clinton , Doanld Trump , fbi , Hillary Clinton , probe | 1real |
Hey Conservatives, You Might Want To STFU About ‘Klansman’ Robert Byrd And Clinton | This might shock you, but in their clumsy and pathetic efforts to smear Hillary Clinton as a Ku Klux Klan supporter because she considered Democratic Senator Robert Byrd a friend and mentor, conservatives leave out a lot of relevant information.Clinton s opponent in the 2016 presidential race, Donald J. Trump, is pretty much the KKKandidate. Not only do white supremacists hang on his every word as he promises to build a wall to keep brown people he calls rapists and murderers out of the country and to force Muslims to wear special little badges to identify them (not to mention the national Muslim registry and concentration camps), but he has been endorsed by numerous KKK members, both past and present. This, of course, includes David Duke, who is no longer a member of the Klan but is involved with white supremacist group, the NAAWP: the National Association for the Advancement of White People.Hillary Clinton s recent campaign ad points out these associations, showing clips of actual Klansmen praising Donald Trump and Trump and pals are just desperate to find something anything with which they can distract from the very real, verifiable fact that Trump is the official Klandidate.The very flimsy thread upon which they depend to make this case is Robert C. Byrd. Unlike Duke, who is an unabashed white supremacist, Byrd s time with the Klan was short-lived. Ultimately, as a thinking and learning human being he dropped out of the Klan in 1952, saying: After about a year, I became disinterested [in the KKK], quit paying my dues, and dropped my membership in the organization. Byrd spent much of his 57 years in Congress repeatedly apologizing for his involvement with the Klan: I know now I was wrong. Intolerance had no place in America. I apologized a thousand times and I don t mind apologizing over and over again. I can t erase what happened. In other words, Byrd learned from his mistakes. In fact, after he passed away, the NAACP issued a statement in 2010 honoring him:The NAACP is saddened by the passing of United States Senator Robert Byrd. Byrd, the longest serving member of congress was first elected to the U.S. House from [West Virginia] in 1952 and was elected Senator in 1958. Byrd passed away this morning at the age of 92. Senator Byrd reflects the transformative power of this nation, stated NAACP President and CEO Benjamin Todd Jealous. Senator Byrd went from being an active member of the KKK to a being a stalwart supporter of the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act and many other pieces of seminal legislation that advanced the civil rights and liberties of our country. Senator Byrd came to consistently support the NAACP civil rights agenda, doing well on the NAACP Annual Civil Rights Report Card. He stood with us on many issues of crucial importance to our members from the reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act, the historic health care legislation of 2010 and his support for the Hate Crimes Prevention legislation, stated Hilary O. Shelton, Director of the NAACP Washington Bureau and Senior Vice President for Advocacy and Policy. Senator Byrd was a master of the Senate Rules, and helped strategize passage of legislation that helped millions of Americans. He will be sorely missed. You don t exactly see the NAACP praising Duke or Trump, do you?Nevertheless, Republicans have been accusing the media of ignoring this association between Clinton and Byrd, circulating a photo of this man the NAACP points to as an example of the transformative power of the United States, the ability for people with rather abhorrent prejudices to change their viewpoints, kissing Clinton on the cheek:And, of course, there s her praise of Byrd after his passing:Robert Byrd was not a perfect man, but he was always eager to learn from and make up for his mistakes. He spent most of his career tirelessly working to atone for the hate that once consumed him. To those who are not complete idiots, the story of Robert Byrd is one of healing, one of redemption, and certainly not a can of worms Republicans would want to open if they, like Byrd, were thinking individuals capable of change.Unfortunately, they are not. It s not the 1940s anymore. How many times must they be reminded of this?Featured image via Facebook | 1real |
BREAKING: GUN USED BY 5 TIME DEPORTED ILLEGAL ALIEN BELONGED TO FEDERAL AGENT | Just another interesting discovery in a story that has already exposed a very corrupt government that favors illegal aliens over American citizens The gun used in the seemingly random slaying of a woman on a San Francisco pier belonged to a federal agent, a law enforcement official briefed on the matter said Tuesday.The official, who was not authorized to speak publicly about the case and spoke on condition of anonymity, said a police check of the weapon s serial number shows it belonged to a federal agent. The official declined to elaborate further.The San Francisco Police Department, which is investigating the case, declined to comment.The revelation was the latest dramatic twist in a tragic case that has become a new flashpoint in the country s debate over immigration policies.The suspected gunman, Juan Francisco Lopez Sanchez, has been deported to his native Mexico five times and is suspected of living in the United States illegally when Kathryn Steinle, 32, was gunned down last week while on an evening stroll with her father along San Francisco s popular waterfront area.Federal officials transferred Sanchez to San Francisco s jail in March to face a 20-year-old marijuana charge after Sanchez completed his latest prison term for illegally entering the country.The San Francisco sheriff, citing the city s sanctuary city policy, released Sanchez in April after prosecutors dropped the drug charge, despite an Immigration and Customs Enforcement request to hold him for federal authorities so deportation proceedings could begin.Sanchez pleaded not guilty Tuesday to first-degree murder.He told two television stations who interviewed him in jail that he found the gun used in Steinle s killing wrapped in a shirt on the pedestrian pier she was walking on. Sanchez said the gun went off in his hands, and his public defender, Matt Gonzalez, said Tuesday that the San Francisco woman s death appeared accidental. San Francisco Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi has defended Sanchez s release and the city law requiring it to ignore ICE detainer requests. The sheriff said ICE could have obtained a warrant or court order to keep Sanchez in custody. ICE knew where he was, Mirkarimi said Monday. He said he will continue to ignore ICE detainer requests.State and federal Republicans, meanwhile, said they would look into the matter.Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson, who chairs the Senate s homeland security committee, criticized federal officials and demanded to know why Sanchez was not deported. Does that make any sense to you? Johnson demanded to know at a hearing Tuesday. Because I ll tell you it doesn t make any sense to the American public. Republican state Sen. Jeff Stone said he would introduce legislation in Sacramento to require cities to comply with ICE detainer requests.At Sanchez s arraignment Tuesday, prosecutor Dianna Garcia argued against releasing Sanchez on bail, saying, This was an act of random violence, shooting an innocent victim in the back. The judge set bail at $5 million, which Gonzalez said will keep Sanchez jailed pending trial.A downcast Sanchez spent most of the hearing with his head bowed, appearing to fight back tears while the judge explained the charged to him. Sanchez was aided by a Spanish-language interpreter and entered his plea in Spanish.Outside court, his attorney said Sanchez has a second-grade education and a non-violent criminal record.He could face life in prison if convicted.Via: FOX Carolina | 1real |
U.S. spy chief declines to comment on whether Russia shared info with Americans from hacks | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Director of National Intelligence declined to comment on Thursday when asked whether Russia or those responsible for hacking the Democratic Party or Democratic party organizations had shared any information with the United States or Americans over the last year and a half. “Sir, I’d rather not respond off the top of my head and in any event this would probably best left to a classified session,” James Clapper told a House intelligence committee hearing. | 0fake |
Hong Kong's 'One Country, Two Systems' framework under pressure: Britain | HONG KONG (Reuters) - Important areas of Hong Kong s One Country, Two Systems framework are coming under growing pressure, illustrated by developments such as reports of mainland security officials operating in the autonomous city, a British government report said on Thursday. The One Country, Two Systems principle, implemented as the former British colony returned to Chinese rule in 1997, promises the city a high degree of autonomy, an independent judiciary and a range of freedoms not enjoyed in mainland China. The former colonial power has been issuing reports on Hong Kong every half a year since then, and the latest, which covers developments in the first six months this year, British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said the guiding principle has generally functioned well. However, at the same time, we cannot ignore that important areas of the One Country, Two Systems framework are coming under increasing pressure, Johnson wrote. Examples include further reports of mainland security officials operating within Hong Kong, he said, without elaborating, as well as reports of the local Beijing representative s office heightening its influence in the city. But for the first time, the half-yearly report stopped short of raising concern over five Hong Kong booksellers who disappeared in late 2015 and later mysteriously re-emerged in mainland Chinese custody. One of the five men, Swedish citizen Gui Minhai, is still in Chinese detention. The report also touched upon the apparent abduction of Chinese billionaire Xiao Jianhua, who in January disappeared from his downtown Hong Kong apartment in a wheelchair with his head covered. Although Hong Kong authorities said there was no evidence to suggest mainland law enforcement agents had acted on Hong Kong soil, Johnson noted that many in Hong Kong and internationally highlighted the numerous similarities between Xiao Jianhua s apparent abduction and the case of the Hong Kong booksellers. He also said he looked forward to welcoming the city s newly sworn-in leader, Carrie Lam, to visit London to discuss closer co-operation between the UK and Hong Kong as the UK prepares to leave the EU. In response to the report, the Hong Kong government said foreign governments should not interfere in the internal affairs of the city. Since the return to the motherland, the HKSAR (Special Administrative Region) has been exercising a high degree of autonomy ... This demonstrates the full and successful implementation of the one country, two systems principle, which has been widely recognized by the international community. | 0fake |
Factbox: Legal issues in Supreme Court immigration case | (Reuters) - When the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday takes up a challenge brought by Texas and other states to President Barack Obama’s executive action on immigration, the eight justices face a series of legal questions beginning with whether Texas and the other state challengers even have grounds to bring the case. Obama’s November 2014 orders affect immigrants in the country illegally whose children are U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents or who themselves have been in the United States since they were children. Here is a look at some of the key legal questions in the case: LEGAL STANDING To bring a case, challengers must first demonstrate that they have legal “standing,” arising from some injury or negative consequences. In this case, that means the states need to show that they would be hurt by the Obama administration’s deferral of deportation for immigrant parents and children with deep ties to the United States but who are in the country illegally. The state of Texas has taken the lead in the lawsuit against the Obama administration to block the president’s actions. Texas asserts that it has standing largely because of the expected financial cost to the state of processing temporary driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants with new authorization to live in the United States. Texas subsidizes the cost of processing driver’s licenses and contends Obama’s actions would cost it millions of dollars. The Obama administration rejects that basis for standing to file suit, asserting that any such costs are “incidental” and could be avoided by the state. Obama administration lawyers say Texas could eliminate the subsidies for these driver’s licenses and eliminate the harm claimed by the state. If a majority of the justices finds that Texas lacked a sufficient injury to sue, the case of United States v. Texas ends there and the Obama administration wins. RULE-MAKING REQUIREMENTS If the justices agree that Texas has standing to bring the case, they then would consider whether deferred-deportation policies that were part of Obama’s actions violated rule-making requirements in a federal law called the Administrative Procedure Act. Under that law, federal agencies typically must issue a general notice of a proposed rule and give interested parties a chance to comment. Obama administration lawyers say the deferred deportation practices are not binding rules subject to the Administrative Procedure Act. Rather, they characterize these policies as an outgrowth of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s discretion in determining deportation priorities. The administration contends that the homeland security secretary should be able to focus his department's limited resources on deporting serious criminals and securing the border. ’TAKE CARE’ A final possible question for the justices is whether the deferred deportation violates a dictate of the U.S. Constitution that presidents must “take care” to “faithfully execute” the nation’s laws. Texas and the other states that brought the lawsuit say Obama, in taking executive action that bypassed Congress, crossed that line because Congress is in charge of deciding who is a lawful or unlawful immigrant. The Obama administration says it was faithfully executing the authority to determine priorities under immigration law. | 0fake |
Roman Polanski Extradition Request Rejected by Poland’s Supreme Court - The New York Times | WARSAW — The Polish Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected a government request to extradite Roman Polanski, the filmmaker, to the United States over a conviction for having sex with a girl. The decision almost certainly ends the legal battle in Poland over how to deal with Mr. Polanski, although as a practical matter, even a ruling in favor of the government would have had little effect. Mr. Polanski, a dual citizen of France and Poland, lives in France, which does not extradite its citizens. Judge Michal Laskowski ruled that a lower court’s verdict was not a “flagrant violation of the law,” as the request for an appeal had claimed. “The regional court of Krakow considered and verified all evidence exceptionally carefully,” Judge Laskowski said. The legal effort reflects a broader push by the conservative Law and Justice government, which since coming to power a year ago has been calling for a return to Roman Catholic values in Poland, to try to reinforce its reputation as a party. The ruling on Tuesday came six months after the chief prosecutor and justice minister, Zbigniew Ziobro, asked the court to overrule the earlier verdict as the government sought to extradite Mr. Polanski, whom authorities in the United States have wanted for decades. A spokesman for the Ministry of Justice said that Mr. Ziobro “accepts and respects” the Supreme Court’s decision, although he still “takes the position that proceedings concerning sexual abuse of minors should be enforced consistently” regardless of who committed the crime, or when it occurred. Mr. Polanski was arrested in 1977 on charges that included the rape of the teenager at the Los Angeles home of Jack Nicholson, the actor. In 1978, Mr. Polanski left the United States on the eve of sentencing under an agreement by which he was to plead guilty to a count of statutory rape. In October 2015, a judge in Krakow, Poland, ruled that turning over Mr. Polanski would be an “obviously unlawful” deprivation of liberty, saying that the State of California, where he was convicted, was unlikely to conduct a fair trial and provide humane conditions of confinement for the director, who was 82 at the time. The Krakow prosecutor’s office, which had sought Mr. Polanski’s extradition on behalf of Los Angeles County, said a month later that it would abide by the judge’s ruling. But Mr. Ziobro appealed the decision to the Supreme Court at the end of May, calling the trial judge’s ruling “incomprehensible” and a “serious breach” of the extradition agreement between Poland and the United States. Mr. Ziobro said in an interview with Polish state radio in May that Mr. Polanski had received preferential treatment because of his fame. “If he was just a regular guy, a teacher, doctor, plumber, decorator, then I’m confident that he’d have been deported from any country to the U. S. a long time ago,” he said. In his opening statement on Tuesday, Jan Olszewski, a lawyer for Mr. Polanski, recalled how the Swiss authorities had declined in 2010 to extradite Mr. Polanski, who directed “Chinatown,” because of doubts over the conduct of the judge in his original trial. Jerzy Stachowicz, another lawyer for Mr. Polanski, argued in court that his client had not technically fled the United States because he had never been prohibited from leaving. “Mr. Polanski didn’t flee, as it is believed,” Mr. Stachowicz said. “He simply bought a plane ticket, checked in his luggage and boarded a plane. It was not fleeing. ” Referring to Mr. Ziobro’s argument, Mr. Stachowicz said, “If Mr. Polanski were not a celebrity, a famous filmmaker, but he was an average Joe, this case would have been over long ago, and nobody would have ever heard of it. ” The Supreme Court ruling means that Mr. Polanski, now 83, would be free to work in Poland. He has been planning to make a film about Alfred Dreyfus, a French Jew who was wrongly accused of spying and whose case raised a debate in the late 19th century about prosecutorial misconduct. The film, “An Officer and a Spy,” was to be shot in Poland, but it was announced in June that Mr. Polanski had decided to make it in France. That prompted speculation that his legal problems had led him to move production of the film, but Robert Benmussa, the film’s producer, attributed the decision to French tax incentives, according to The Los Angeles Times. Mr. Polanski, who lives with his wife in France, was not in court on Tuesday. “This is just too emotional for him,” Mr. Stachowicz said by telephone on Monday, before the ruling. “This has been going on for such a long time. A ruling against overruling the first verdict would be a great relief for him. ” After the ruling, Mr. Olszewski, the lawyer, said that he had spoken with Mr. Polanski on the phone. “He is currently in France, where he is shooting his new film,” Mr. Olszewski said. “He is beyond happy that this is finally over. At least in Poland. ” | 0fake |
Oregon Terrorist: Locals Want Us Gone, But We’re Staying Because U.S. Is A Republic (VIDEO) | The Bundy militia has now been making a nuisance of itself and terrorizing Harney County, Oregon with its armed occupation of Malheur Wildlife Refuge for two weeks now. It s been frustrating to sane people nationwide, but especially to the area s residents, whose lives have been disrupted by this nonsense. Unfortunately, though, it has been confirmed that these people have no intention of going anywhere. In fact, one of the militants, LaVoy Finicum, says they have a right to be there, even if the local residents want them to leave.Finicum said to the press that he knows that the people who actually live in the area want the militia to get out of dodge, and a third says we like what you re doing but not liking your method, appreciate it but we want you to go, and about a third saying don t go, stay. However, the United States is a republic, so they aren t going anywhere. He went on to say: Let s talk about a republic. It s the right of an individual that we re looking at, not the right of the collective. You know if there is just one rancher that is saying please help me, please don t go, what about him? What about the Hammonds? What about that family that is in prison? Let them be released, he said. It is about the one family right now. Nevermind the fact that the Hammonds want absolutely nothing to do with this band of nutcases, and their attorney has said that these idiots do not speak for them. That matters not to these yahoos, though. This isn t about the Hammonds, this is about men wanting to play army and who are committing treason while fulfilling that fantasy. Arrest them all, now.Watch the video of Finicum s remarks below:Featured image via video screen capture | 1real |
WATCH: Powerful Video PERFECTLY Explains How And Why Trump Is Manipulating White People | One of the greatest strategies to gain and hold power over a large population is to pit groups against one another. Divide and conquer. It s a strategy that has been used since the beginning of time as the wealthy elites, knowing they are few in numbers, but large in political sway, can manipulate a populace to their liking so that they remain in power. It s a strategy still being used to this very day, and can be seen in full swing within the Donald Trump campaign.Donald Trump has been using this us vs. them strategy since the start of his campaign. He s made a group of working and middle class blue-collar folks think that the problems in this nation stem from the other. The people who aren t just like them. That if those people weren t around, all of their problems would disappear. It s a mind game played by the wealthy and powerful to make groups of people do their bidding for them.This strategy is especially successful when dealing with a group of people who somehow sees themselves as better than another group. And in the video you re about to watch below, author and activist Tim Wise explains this strategy perfectly. He points out that this has been a strategy used on working class whites, especially in the South for as long as one could possibly remember. The wealthy purchased black slaves, stopped hiring the poor working class white workers because they would need to get paid, and then blamed the problems of the poor working class white workers, including lack of jobs or income, on the black slaves. However, whose fault is it? Certainly not the slaves. However, this skillful manipulation to make it so black slaves would get blamed got the poor working class whites to utterly despise black people. It got them to join militias to suppress slave insurrections. It was the ultimate scam. Divide and conquer. Wise also explains that the Civil War was about states rights, sure, the rights for individuals in states to own slaves.Trump is using this same strategy blaming Mexicans and Muslims to rile up a base of poorly educated working class white folks who really just don t know any better. They ve had a rough go in life and Trump is successfully shifting blame from those on top who manipulate the system to the other yet again. He s giving these working class angry white people a reason to feel superior even though they are totally being manipulated. It gives them a sense of power and entitlement that is, in all honesty, a ruse.It s the ultimate in white privilege. When you can get people to believe that they are superior and deserve better and more just for being white, and if something is bad, blame the people who aren t white, or aren t Christian, or aren t heterosexual, or aren t Republican.Tim Wise, even recently, posted about how Donald Trump his encouraging hatred. He said in a Facebook post, regarding a story of a man who killed three people for not speaking English: This is the fault of nativist bigots like Donald Trump, encouraging hatred for anyone seen as insufficiently American (even someone who, as with one of these victims, was Puerto Rican and thus an American citizen something probably neither the killer here nor Trump knows). This is the kind of America we re in store for, on a much larger level, if the Trump movement is not defeated resoundingly Quite honestly, you can watch this video ten times in a row and still want to watch it again. Wise hits the nail on the head. Bravo. // < ![CDATA[ // < ![CDATA[ // < ![CDATA[ // < ![CDATA[ // < ![CDATA[ // < ![CDATA[ // < ![CDATA[ (function(d, s, id) { var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; if (d.getElementById(id)) return; js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = "//connect.facebook.net/en_US/sdk.js#xfbml=1&version=v2.3"; fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);}(document, 'script', 'facebook-jssdk')); // ]]>Tim Wise Schools Audience On White PrivilegedTim Wise Schools Audience On White PrivilegedPosted by Reggie Hood on Friday, September 4, 2015Featured image via Max Goldberg (flickr) | 1real |
Cruz likely to block Trump on a second ballot at the GOP convention | Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz is close to ensuring that Donald Trump cannot win the GOP nomination on a second ballot at the party’s July convention in Cleveland, scooping up scores of delegates who have pledged to vote for him instead of the front-runner if given the chance.
The push by Cruz means that it is more essential than ever for Trump to clinch the nomination by winning a majority of delegates to avoid a contested and drawn-out convention fight, which Trump seems almost certain to lose.
The GOP race now rests on two cliffhangers: Can Trump lock up the nomination before Cleveland? If not, can Cruz cobble together enough delegates to win a second convention vote if Trump fails in the first?
Trump’s path to amassing the 1,237 delegates he needs to win outright has only gotten narrower after losing to Cruz in Wisconsin and other recent contests, and it would require him to perform better in the remaining states than he has to this point.
In addition, based on the delegate selections made by states and territories, Cruz is poised to pick up at least 130 more votes on a second ballot, according to a Washington Post analysis. That tally surpasses 170 delegates under less conservative assumptions — a number that could make it impossible for Trump to emerge victorious.
That is why the race centers on the fevered hunt for delegates across the country. The intensity of the fight has sparked another round of caustic rhetoric — including allegations from party leaders that Trump supporters are making death threats.
“It’s unfortunate politics has reached a new low. These type of threats have no place in politics,” said Kyle Babcock, a Republican delegate from Indiana’s 3rd Congressional District. He received an email from a Trump supporter who warned, “Think before you take a step down the wrong path.”
[The art of the steal: Dealmaker Trump struggles with the GOP delegate race]
Cruz’s chances rest on exploiting a wrinkle in the GOP rule book: that delegates assigned to vote for Trump at the convention do not actually have to be Trump supporters. Cruz is particularly focused on getting loyalists elected to delegate positions even in states that the senator from Texas lost.
On Wednesday in Indiana, for example, Republican leaders were finalizing a delegate slate that will include party activists unlikely to vote for Trump in the state’s primary next month. Cruz also is poised to sweep Wyoming’s 26 delegates this weekend in a state where Trump’s campaign did not seriously compete. In Arkansas, Cruz supporters are exploring ways to topple Trump when delegates are chosen next month. And Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) has refused to release 171 delegates he won when he was in the race, signaling that he may contribute to the anti-Trump push in Cleveland.
Cruz said this week that he thinks the odds of a contested convention are “very high.”
“In Cleveland, I believe we will have an enormous advantage,” he told radio talk-show host Glenn Beck.
Trump has a commanding lead in total delegates and the overall vote total, but he has complained that Republican leaders are conspiring against him in a bid to silence his supporters.
“The RNC should be ashamed of itself for allowing this to happen,” Trump said Tuesday night while campaigning in Rome, N.Y.
Paul Manafort, a senior adviser to Trump, said in an interview that he is confident Cruz will never have a chance to convert Trump delegates.
“Just because [Cruz] has won some delegates in a state where we have the delegates voting for us is not relevant until and unless there’s a second ballot,” Manafort said. “There’s not going to be a second ballot.”
[Trump team vows to win delegate majority as rivals prepare for open convention]
As the battle for delegates has intensified, so too have emotions. Craig Dunn, who was elected Saturday as a Republican delegate from Indiana’s 4th Congressional District, said he has received several threatening phone calls and emails after criticizing Trump in recent news reports.
“When they reference burials and your family in the same email, and telling you that you’re being watched, that’s concerning,” he said.
In Colorado, Republicans are planning a rally Friday to call attention to threats made against GOP chairman Steve House. He said his office received 3,000 phone calls “with many being the trashiest you can imagine” after a state party convention last weekend awarded all 34 delegates to Cruz.
“Shame on the people who think somehow that it is right to threaten me and my family over not liking the outcome of an election,” he wrote on Facebook.
Cruz told Beck on Tuesday that threats made by Trump supporters, including those made by the businessman’s longtime confidant Roger Stone, are “the tactic of union thugs. That is violence. It is oppressive.”
Stone recently told an interviewer that Trump supporters would track down delegates at their hotel rooms in Cleveland if they break away from Trump.
Manafort said that “it’s certainly not part of our policy” to threaten violence but accused “abusive” Cruz supporters of confronting Trump’s backers at party meetings nationwide.
When the presidential nomination vote is held at the convention, 95 percent of the delegates will be bound to the results in their states for the first vote, giving Trump his best shot at securing a majority.
But if Trump falls short, the convention will cast a second ballot in which more than 1,800 delegates from 31 states — nearly 60 percent of the total — will be unbound and allowed to vote however they want. By the third round, 80 percent of the delegates would be free, sparking a potential free-for-all that could continue for several more rounds.
That is the crux of the state-by-state battle that is playing out over the next two months as Republicans gather at the precinct, county, congressional district and statewide levels to choose convention delegates.
“If we go into a contested convention, we’re going to have a ton of delegates, Donald is going to have a ton of delegates, and it’s going to be a battle in Cleveland to see who can earn a majority of the delegates that were elected by the people,” Cruz told a meeting of the Republican Jewish Coalition in Las Vegas on Saturday.
He predicted that the first ballot “will be the highest vote total Donald Trump receives. And on a subsequent ballot, we’re going to win the nomination.”
[With an Orthodox focus, Ted Cruz reaches out to Jewish donors and voters]
If Cruz prevails, it will be because of what supporters are doing for him nationwide with what they say is little direct input from his campaign headquarters.
In Arkansas, Republicans will not meet until next month to finalize their delegate slate, but state lawmakers who probably will win a position are talking about voting for Cruz on the second ballot.
“For the vast majority of Cruz voters, Rubio was their second choice, and for the vast majority of Rubio supporters, Cruz was their second choice. So when you’re going to pick delegates, it just makes sense that we would work together,” said state Sen. Bart Hester, who backed Rubio.
In Iowa, Cruz won 11 of the 12 delegates assigned last weekend — meaning that he probably will have their support in later rounds of balloting. That same day in South Carolina, Cruz secured three of the six delegate slots assigned by two congressional districts that Trump had easily won.
“There’s nothing underhanded going on,” said Elliott Kelley, one of the Cruz supporters who won in South Carolina’s 3rd Congressional District. “Delegates are being appointed from the local level. The Trump team just doesn’t have people involved at the local level and they’re not getting delegates.”
Cruz supporters also won two of the three delegate slots from Virginia’s southernmost congressional district even though Trump won there handily. One of those Cruz supporters is Kyle Kilgore, 22, who said he would vote for Trump on the first ballot as required.
“I would have a hard time voting for Trump on the second ballot,” he said.
In Indiana, Dunn will be required to initially vote for whoever wins his congressional district in May. If Trump fails in the first round, Dunn said he probably will vote for Ohio Gov. John Kasich on a second ballot.
“I’ll be looking for the candidate who I think has the best chance of beating Hillary Clinton in November,” Dunn said. “And if the person I want doesn’t get it, I won’t take my marbles and go home; I will support the nominee of the Republican Party.”
Alice Crites, Jose A. DelReal, Sean Sullivan and Katie Zezima contributed to this report. | 0fake |
TREY GOWDY ON PETER STRZOK BIAS AGAINST TRUMP: “I wanna know how the HELL he got there” | Sunlight is the best disinfectant That s why we think we can t get enough of the evidence coming out about corrupt FBI agents who took it upon themselves to try and destroy Trump.The Daily Caller reports:South Carolina Rep. Trey Gowdy said Tuesday that FBI agent Peter Strzok s anti-Trump text messages show an unprecedented level of bias you rarely see from FBI officials.In particular, he was asked about a cryptic message that Strzok sent in Aug. 2016 to FBI lawyer Lisa Page referring to an insurance policy that appears to refer to the FBI s investigation of the Trump campaign. I want to believe the path you threw out for consideration in Andy s office that there s no way [Trump] gets elected but I m afraid we can t take that risk. It s like an insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before you re 40, reads the Aug. 15, 2016 text message. He s in the middle of major investigations, he said of Strzok, adding, Thank God he s gone, but I want to know how the hell he got there in the first place. We say Amen to that! | 1real |
GAP APOLOGIZES For “Offensive Image” After Blacktivists Use Social Media To Attack Ad…But Here’s DIRTY SECRET Race Agitators Aren’t Sharing | This social media campaign against the GAP is a great example of how the Black Lives agitators are using resources like Twitter to intimidate and threaten individuals, colleges and even large corporations like GAP. You can t blame these blacktivists for using white guilt as a weapon to game the system, as a means to gain an advantage over everyone else (Hispanics and Asians included). The real question is, when is someone going to be brave enough to stand up and say enough of this manufactured hate! The ad for Gap s latest collaboration with Ellen DeGeneres is awash with pleasing blue hues, from the kid models navy outfits to the talk show host s denim jacket.But the shades that really caught people s attention were on the children s skin. The commercial s stars were three white girls and a black girl.https://youtu.be/gdxXBqdfWMEThat, in itself, wasn t a problem. In the days following the campaign s launch last week, what drew ire from commentators online was the seeming passivity of the African American girl. While the other girls eagerly fielded DeGeneres s questions about their troupe Le Petite Cirque, she sat silent. While the white girls were highlighted performing solo acrobatic tricks, she seemed to appear only in reference to the others balancing on someone s knees or with her arm wrapped around someone s waist.At least, this was the interpretation of those who were angered by the ad. And they were angered, most of all, by a photograph that showed the white girls standing in all manner of complex poses while the black girl s arms dangled idly at her sides, her head a cushion upon which another white girl rested an elbow.This imagery sparked the usual chain of reactions online. Those who were offended minced no words in expressing their outrage, and they were promptly reprimanded by those who thought they were overreacting.So @Gap decides to use the only Black girl in this campaign as a prop ..we see you! pic.twitter.com/widB8Axk5U ArtsySneakerGirl (@BamaIntrovert) April 3, 2016That ad certainly isn't suggesting that *black* girls "can do anything," @GapKids. It's incredibly distasteful to your black consumer base. stacia l. brown (@slb79) April 3, 2016Many critics zeroed in on the caption Gap had used to introduce the campaign: Meet the kids who are proving that girls can do anything. The Root s Kirsten West Savali articulated the essence of the distress: While all of the girls are adorable, and indeed, all of them should grow up to be and do anything, it becomes problematic when the black child is positioned to be a white child s prop. What race agitators at The Root neglected to mention is that the white girl and the black girl whose head her arm resting upon are actually SISTERS! @TheRoot girl with arm resting on her shoulder is her sister She didn't talk in video because she was 2 shy. everyone needs to calm down. Brooke Smith (@Iam_BrookeSmith) April 3, 2016They also neglected to post the photo from the GAP s ad campaign from last year:The company apologized Tuesday. As a brand with a proud 46 year history of championing diversity and inclusivity, we appreciate the conversation that has taken place and are sorry to anyone we ve offended, Gap spokeswoman Debbie Felix said in a statement to Fortune.The offensive image will be removed, but the campaign will move forward, the company said. Via: Washington Post | 1real |
WOMAN DEFENDS Female Genital Mutilation With This Twisted Reasoning [Video] | Anthropologist Fuambai Ahmadu appeared on Tucker Carlson to defend female genital mutilation. Her shocking commentary and acceptance of this horrible cultural ritual left us in shock. Are there REALLY people out there who consider this to be in any way similar to male circumcision? She tries to conflate the two but only makes Tucker Carlson wince. I don t identify with the term FGM with the term mutilation, I don t know anybody in my family that does or my community. And from over 25 years of research I ve done in the field, I would say the great majority of women who are affected by what I call female circumcision practices do not see themselves as mutilated. Anthropologist Fuambai Ahmadu What she s really saying in the comment above is that because everyone SHE knows thinks this is ok, then we all need to accept it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKYTu7m95pQ | 1real |
Federal Reserve governor Powell's policy views, in his own words | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump on Thursday tapped Federal Reserve Governor Jerome Powell to become head of the U.S. central bank, promoting a soft-spoken centrist to replace Janet Yellen when her term expires in February 2018. In five years as a Fed Governor Jerome Powell has been a consistent, middle of the road voice, backing the consensus crafted by Fed chair Janet Yellen that interest rates should be raised slowly so labor markets could recover, that financial stability risks were muted, and that new regulations had made the economy safer. Following is a collection of quotes from select policy speeches he has delivered since 2015: On Rates: “The financial crisis did significant damage to the productive capacity of our economy, and the damage was of a character, extent, and duration that cannot be fully known today…It seems plausible that at least part of this supply-side damage could be reversed if the economy enjoys a period of sustained growth.4 To encourage that outcome, as monetary policymakers consider removing accommodation, we should look for a little more proof than usual that labor markets are tightening or other supply-side constraints are binding.” - April 2015 speech to New York Council on Foreign Relations: (Graphic: U.S. labor market measures vs interest rates - reut.rs/2h7hsFx) On Financial Stability: “The bottom line is that there has not been an excessive buildup of leverage, maturity transformation, or broadly unsustainable asset prices…Overall, I do not see leveraged finance markets as posing undue financial stability risks. And if risk-taking does not threaten financial stability, it is not the Fed’s job to stop people from losing (or making) money.” - January 2017 speech to American Finance Association, Chicago (Graphic: U.S. stocks and leverage - reut.rs/2iolCp6) On Regulation: “We have substantially increased the capital, liquidity, and other prudential requirements for large banking firms. These measures are not free. Higher capital requirements increase bank costs, and at least some of those costs will be passed along to bank customers and shareholders. But in the longer term, stronger prudential requirements for large banking firms will produce more sustainable credit availability and economic growth.” - June 2017 speech to Salzburg Global Seminar, Salzburg, Austria (Graphic: Commercial credit and bank profitability - reut.rs/2h8lfCm) On the Current Economy: “Risks to the forecast now seem more balanced than they have been for some time. In particular, the global picture has brightened as growth and inflation have broadly moved up for the first time in several years. Here at home, risks seem both moderate and balanced, including the downside risk of lower inflation and the upside risk of labor market overheating. The Committee has been patient in raising rates, and that patience has paid dividends…. If the economy performs about as expected, I would view it as appropriate to continue to gradually raise rates.” - June 2017 speech to the Economic Club of New York (Graphic: The inflation conundrum - reut.rs/2za4ltY) Other issues may confront Powell in his confirmation hearings and as chair, such as whether to keep the current system of paying banks interest on their reserves as the main method of setting short term interest rates, and whether to rely on monetary policy rules: On Reserve Interest: “Simple to operate and has provided good control over the federal funds rate.” - June 2017 speech to the Economic Club of New York (Graphic: Bank reserves at the Fed - reut.rs/2z7Qdl8) On Policy Rules: “I am unable to think of any critical, complex human activity that could be safely reduced to a simple summary equation. In particular, no major central bank uses policy rules in a prescriptive way, and it is hard to predict the consequences of requiring the FOMC to do so, as some have proposed. Policy should be systematic, but not automatic.” - February 2017 speech to the Forecasters Club of New York (Graphic: Monetary policy rules vs reality - reut.rs/2h7mMZE) | 0fake |
Sanders, Cruz resist pressure after NY losses, vow to fight to conventions | The Bernie Sanders and Ted Cruz campaigns vowed to fight all the way to their respective party conventions despite losing big in Tuesday’s New York primaries – rebuffing taunts from their rivals that they’re just about mathematically eliminated from the race.
Indeed, after coming in a distant third in New York, Cruz has no real path to overtake Donald Trump in the Republican race before the July convention. On the Democratic side, Sanders would have to win 73 percent of the remaining delegates and uncommitted superdelegates to catch Hillary Clinton.
Clinton could actually lose every remaining primary in the coming weeks and still clinch the nomination. Next up are primaries in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Connecticut, Rhode Island and Delaware next week. Clinton moved quickly to cast herself as the all-but-certain nominee.
"The race for the Democratic nomination is in the home stretch, and victory is in sight," she told supporters at her victory party in Manhattan on Tuesday night. A campaign aide, on the sidelines, said Sanders has no mathematical chance of a comeback.
Trump declared at his own victory party across town, “We don’t have much of a race anymore.”
Yet Cruz and Sanders were recalibrating their approach and their rhetoric, seemingly preparing to press on.
Appearing to acknowledge he could no longer clinch the nomination pre-convention, Cruz said Wednesday: “We are definitely headed to Cleveland. And in Cleveland, the people are gonna prevail.”
His campaign is likely back to concentrating on the delegate-selection process in order to strengthen its position going into Cleveland.
If Cruz – and Ohio Gov. John Kasich – can hold Trump under the 1,237 delegates needed to clinch the nomination before then, the Texas senator aims to have delegate allies in place from across the country who would peel off from Trump and support him after the first round of voting. Further, his campaign is courting “unbound” delegates in several states – most recently in Pennsylvania, which votes next week and does not bind most its delegates to the primary results – in hopes they would also flock to him in the event of a floor fight.
The maneuvers have only strengthened Trump’s resolve to go on a huge winning streak in the coming weeks, racking up delegates in hopes of reaching the 1,237 threshold and ruling out the possibility of a contested convention. According to The Washington Post, an internal Trump memo projects Trump would get more than 1,400 delegates on the first round of balloting to secure the nomination.
Right now, Trump has 845 delegates, Cruz has 559 and Kasich has 147.
Meanwhile, Sanders, presuming he cannot clinch the nomination himself before the Philadelphia convention, is pursuing a tricky strategy.
"We're going to go to the convention,” campaign manager Jeff Weaver said on MSNBC. But the Sanders campaign seems to be relying on the prospect of winning over superdelegates, the party insiders and officials free to support whomever they want.
Clinton holds an overwhelming lead among them and is well-positioned to reach the 2,383 total delegates needed by the end of primaries in June, counting both superdelegates and pledged. Sanders officials seem to be raising the bar, though, suggesting she would need 2,383 pledged delegates to truly clinch the nomination.
But Clinton aide Jennifer Palmieri said the former secretary of state will continue to hold the pledged-delegate lead as well. And after a campaign period marked by an increasingly bitter tone between the two campaigns, she accused Sanders of going down a “destructive path” during the New York race.
Including superdelegates, the race stands at 1,930 for Clinton and 1,189 for Sanders.
Sanders, though, has given some mixed signals on the heels of his New York loss.
He took a day off from the campaign trail Wednesday to return to Vermont.
And senior adviser Tad Devine, calling next week a “big week,” said: "We'll see how we do there and then we'll be able to sit back and assess where we are."
But Sanders continued to claim in fundraising memos they could still win.
He told reporters after landing in Burlington, Vt., that he’d get recharged in Vermont, and thinks he can do well in the five primaries next week. He plans to return to the campaign trail in Pennsylvania on Thursday.
Few in the Democratic Party expect Sanders to exit the race formally before the final contests in June. He continues to attract tens of thousands to rallies -- addressing more than 28,000 in Brooklyn two days before the primary. And he continues to raise millions of dollars, giving him fodder for a persistent fight.
The Associated Press contributed to this report. | 0fake |
BOILER ROOM – Oregon Standoff, Cuddle Parties, Guns n’ Posers – EP #41 | Tune in to the Alternate Current Radio Network (ACR) for another LIVE broadcast of The Boiler Room starting at 6 PM PST | 9 PM EST every Wednesday. Join us for uncensored, uninterruptible talk radio, custom-made for barfly philosophers, misguided moralists, masochists, street corner evangelists, media-maniacs, savants, political animals and otherwise lovable rascals.Join ACR hosts Hesher, & Spore along with Andy Nowicki from Alt Right Blogspot, 21Wire mastermind Patrick Henningsen and Stewart Howe. In this broadcast we re going big time with an extra long overdrive episode, listeners will be hearing us go around the BOILER ROOM on a plethora of topics tonight including cuddle parties, a Saudi millionaire running free on rape allegations after claiming to have tripped and fell on victim, Hesher bashes Guns N Roses, the life span of the iPod about to be ended by a resurgence in tape cassette technology, permaculture farming, federal land grabs, and the demonization of the militia. We give a detailed breakdown of the situation unfolding in Oregon with regards to the Ammon Bundy s (and others) arrest and the execution style ambush and murder of Robert Lavoy Finicum. If you want to participate, bring something interesting to throw into the boiler Join us in the ALTERNATE CURRENT RADIO chat room.BOILER ROOM IS NOT A POLICTALLY CORRECT ZONE! Live ACR player below Show goes live at 6 PM PST This week s topics: | 1real |
CROOKED SOROS: Trump Will Win Popular Vote In LANDSLIDE…Trump Will Lose Electoral Vote…Hillary Is “Done Deal” [VIDEO] | Very interesting remarks from a guy who is in up to his neck with the underbelly of the Democrat Party https://youtu.be/_7LzLNgExYk | 1real |
Ireland says not ready to let Brexit talks move on to trade | DUBLIN (Reuters) - Britain and Ireland clashed over Brexit on Friday with Dublin saying it was not ready to allow talks to move on to trade issues next month and London ruling out the much longer transitional period preferred by its neighbour. The border between EU-member Ireland and Northern Ireland, which will be the UK s only land frontier with the bloc after its departure, is one of three issues Brussels wants broadly solved before it decides in December whether to move the talks onto a second phase about trade, as Britain wants. Meeting in Dublin, Britain s Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson and his Irish counterpart Simon Coveney struck an amicable tone but remained far apart on several key aspects. Yes we all want to move onto phase two of the Brexit negotiations but we are not in a place right now that allows us to do that, Coveney said. We have very serious issues, particularly around the border, that need more clarity. He said Ireland s preference was that Britain as a whole would share the same regulations as the EU post-Brexit but if that was not possible, then London effectively needed to commit to allowing a tailor-made solution for Northern Ireland In the absence of that, from an Irish persecutive, there is a sense of jumping into the dark, Coveney said. Speaking before a meeting with his counterpart on the sidelines of a European Union summit in Sweden, Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar said Dublin would need those assurances written into the conclusions of phase one. What we want to take off the table before we even talk about trade is any idea that there would be a physical border, he told reporters. Once those parameters are set, then we d be happy to move onto phase two, provided the other issues are resolved as well. However Johnson said talks would have to move onto the next stage before the border issue could be resolved as many of the questions around it were bound up with Britain s future customs arrangement with the European Union. While he said London has absolutely no interest in seeing any kind of hard border, any room for compromise is complicated by the fact that his government are propped up by Northern Ireland s pro-Brexit Democratic Unionist Party, which responded on Friday by saying Dublin was trying to block the talks. It is clear now that the Irish government are fully signed up with the European establishment to thwart the referendum result in the United Kingdom to leave the EU, DUP MP Sammy Wilson said in a statement. Johnson added that he understood why Ireland wants a four to five-year post-Brexit transition period for Britain to allow businesses in Ireland time to adjust to any new arrangements, but said this was possible within a much tighter timescale. | 0fake |
White Nationalist Radio: Trump Gave Us A Press Pass And We Interviewed His Son | The hosts of a racist, white nationalist radio show say that they were given official press credentials by Donald Trump s presidential campaign. Even worse, the show says that they were given access to Donald Trump, Jr. and recorded a 20 minute interview with him.The program is called The Political Cesspool, and has a considerable history and record of promoting white supremacist ideas and concepts.Political Cesspool radio host James Edwards wrote on his blog that he attended a Donald Trump rally in Memphis on Saturday night as a fully credentialed member of the media and enjoyed the unique experience of being able to air a live broadcast of The Political Cesspool Radio Program from inside the press pen while the event was in full swing. The host said that the interview with the younger Trump will be posted on their website on Saturday.He also bragged that Trump is the first Republican nominee he plans to vote for. After getting an official press pass, the white nationalists were given access to the press area of Trump s campaign rally. Edwards wrote, After getting my start in politics with Pat Buchanan in 2000, Donald Trump will be the first Republican nominee that I have ever voted for. Buchanan was a man ahead of the times and Trump is his vindicator. Pat Buchanan is of course the former Nixon operative and NBC contributor who has written books excusing the Holocaust and praising Hitler.The Political Cesspool radio show has in the past argued that interracial sex is white genocide and slavery is the greatest thing that ever happened to black people.Trump recently triggered a national outcry by refusing to disavow or deny an endorsement from white nationalist and former Ku Klux Klansman David Duke in an interview with CNN host Jake Tapper. After being slammed for the failure to distance himself from a notorious racist, Trump concocted the claim that he was having problems with his earpiece and didn t hear the question.He made no such indication during the interview, and in fact repeated the terms David Duke and white supremacist. Featured image via Flickr | 1real |
COMMUNIST Students THREATEN “Students For Trump” Event [VIDEO] How Much Longer Will Americans Allow Violent Left To Shut Down Free Speech? | The breaking point is fast approaching in a divided America Obama couldn t have hoped for a better outcome in the final year of his failed presidency. Americans fighting Americans over race, religion and sexual orientation. Violence and threats are being used against anyone who disagrees with the Left, while Alinsky trained activists continue to be inspired by radicals like Obama and funded by radicals like Communist George Soros. The first meeting of Portland State University s Students for Trump group was loudly interrupted and shut down by anti-Trump protesters, who barged into the group s meeting on Thursday evening.A video released by the students shows Anti-Trump protesters causing a significant disruption at the meeting, which was a closed event for members of the club.Although the conversation was initially civil, it eventually progressed into name-calling and shouting. An Anti-Trump protester threatened a student that was filming the scene: Point that f**king camera at me Wait til that camera is not there do you want to get f**ked up by a f**king faggot? After a protester took to standing on top of a table to address the crowd, a pro-Trump student suggested that starting a Students Against Trump group would have been a more productive way to combat pro-Trump students at PSU. The only way to combat this shit is to join an organization that has an anti-racist, anti-capitalist stance, another protester claimed. You need to get out of the fucking way and let people of color let these people organize themselves. Despite the meeting being a closed event for the club, the protesters demanded the right to speak. When a few pro-Trump students tried to calm down a protester yelling from atop a table, another protester yelled, If you don t let her talk, I will f**k shit up. Although the disruption primarily led to shouting and name-calling, there were some productive discussions that happened amongst the chaos. One pro-Trump student explained that his own parents had gone through a lot to immigrate legally: My family are immigrants, they paid thousands and thousands of dollars, they waited years. I don t see why it s fair to let anyone we don t know who they are, they could be criminals, they could anything just waltz through the country with no repercussions. Although most listened respectfully as the student explained his support of Trump, one student responded that he was disappointed that a minority could support Trump: People of color Trump supporters make me so sad. Via: Breitbart News | 1real |
Saudis Foil ISIS Terror Attacks on Packed Stadium | Saudi Arabia says it has thwarted two ISIS terrorism plots concerning a bomb attack on a football stadium and killing police officers. 2 Shares
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The Saudi Interior Ministry on Sunday announced that four men were arrested over plans to detonate a bomb at the King Abdullah Sports City Stadium during or after an October 11 World Cup qualifier match against United Arab Emirates in the city of Jeddah. The suspects were arrested one day before the match which gathered over 60,000 fans.
“ISIS wants any operation that could result in the highest number of victims,” said interior ministry spokesman Major General Mansour al-Turki.
A security official, General Bassam Attiyah, said a vehicle carrying around 400 kilograms of explosives was found near the stadium. He added that the suspects had planned to either target people in the stadium’s parking lot or fans watching the match.
“Another equally horrifying scenario would have occurred,” he added, “had the device exploded whilst the spectators were exiting the stadium.”
He noted that the blast radius would have been something around 1,100 meters which would have covered an area of almost 800,000 square meters.
MORE... U.S. Commander John Nicholson: ISIS Attempting to Establish Khorasan Caliphate in Afghanistan ISIL executes Iraqi citizens listening to gov't radio Iraqi forces burn 16k m² ISIS poppy fields to curtail heroin and opium revenue ISIS executes 45 people southwest of Kirkuk A Saudi spokesman noted that securities had received information of the attack two days prior to the arrests.
“Tighter security measures were taken and more troops were deployed to ensure prompt and decisive action against any suspect or suspicious activity. Greater field work resulted in the identification and arrest of the suspects one day before the match,” he added.
The ministry also announced that a separate plot had been foiled in the capital Riyadh in which four people with links to ISIS were detained after evidence surfaced that they had been plotting to attack police officers. | 1real |
MOBILE PASSES DESKTOP FOR THE FIRST TIME… | Home › SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY › MOBILE PASSES DESKTOP FOR THE FIRST TIME… MOBILE PASSES DESKTOP FOR THE FIRST TIME… 0 SHARES
[11/1/16] More users around the world are accessing the internet from mobile devices than from desktop computers for the first time, according to internet monitoring firm StatCounter . The combined traffic from mobile and tablet devices tipped the balance at 51.2 percent, vs. 48.7 percent for desktop access, marking the first time this has happened since StatCounter began tracking stats for internet usage.
It’s a huge moment for the web overall: this means going forward, companies that haven’t yet decided to focus on a mobile-first approach to their internet services and web properties really should, as the trend line is unlikely to reverse.
StatCounter also found that the maturity of the market impacts which is the dominant means of access, and as you might have guessed, mobile platforms are far and away the method of choice for internet access when it comes to emerging markets like India, where they account for 75 percent of use. More mature markets including the UK, the US and Ireland still see use swinging in favor of desktop, but the trend is still showing a narrowing gap. Post navigation | 1real |
Energy Secretary Perry cancels Kazakhstan visit due to hurricane | ALMATY (Reuters) - United States Energy Secretary Rick Perry has canceled a planned visit to Kazakhstan on Monday, the U.S. embassy in Kazakhstan said, due to Hurricane Harvey. Due to Hurricane Harvey and the Department of Energy s duty to react to emergencies related to power supply and energy infrastructure, the planned visit by Energy Secretary Rick Perry to Astana is canceled, the embassy said in a Russian-language statement. Deputy Secretary Dan Brouillette would lead the U.S. delegation instead of Perry, it said. Perry was due to meet Kazakh Energy Minister Kanat Bozumbayev later on Monday. U.S. companies are among the biggest investors in the oil-rich Central Asian nation. Harvey, which wreaked havoc along the U.S. Gulf coast over the weekend, is the most powerful hurricane to hit Texas in more than 50 years, killing at least two people, causing large-scale flooding, and forcing the closure of Houston port as well as several refineries. | 0fake |
UAE criticizes 'colonial' role of Iran, Turkey in Syria | ABU DHABI (Reuters) - The United Arab Emirates urged Iran and Turkey on Tuesday to end what it called their colonial actions in Syria, signaling unease about diminishing Gulf Arab influence in the war. Allied to regional powerhouse Saudi Arabia, the UAE opposes Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his backer Iran, and is wary of Turkey, a friend of Islamist forces the UAE opposes throughout the Arab world. UAE Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan urged the exit of those parties trying to reduce the sovereignty of the Syrian state, and I speak here frankly and clearly about Iran and Turkey. He was speaking at a news conference with Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov, whose country helps Assad militarily. If Iran and Turkey continue the same historical, colonial and competitive behavior and perspectives between them in Arab affairs, we will continue in this situation not just in Syria today but tomorrow in some other country, Sheikh Abdullah said. The six-year-old war in Syria has dragged in regional and international players who have sought to advance their interests there: Iran has sent troops and military support to shore up Assad s rule as he has battled mostly Sunni Muslim rebels backed by Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Arab states. The Syrian army and its allies have regained lost territory with the help of Russian air strikes since 2015. At the same time, Islamic State is being pushed back from strongholds in Eastern Syria by the Syrian army and a rival offensive by Kurdish and Arab rebels backed by the United States. Fearing expanded Kurdish influence along its border with Syria, U.S. ally Turkey has grown increasingly uneasy about the rebels armed thrust. Turkey and Iran have discussed possible joint military action against Kurdish militant groups, President Tayyip Erdogan said on Monday. Lavrov and Sheikh Abdullah said they agreed on a need for a negotiated end to the war. Russia is helping shepherd talks in the Kazakh capital Astana which has already produced de-escalation zones to reduce combat in three parts of Syria. Lavrov said Russia hoped that efforts to unify the positions of Syria s disparate opposition would aid the peace process. There were some deep disagreements in the past which led to the failure of some meetings, but we will continue encouraging the participation of all the platforms, he said through a translator. (This story corrects day in first paragraph) | 0fake |
Pakistani Parliament is the first in the world to go fully solar | Pakistani Parliament is the first in the world to go fully solar Nov 16, 2016 2 0
Earlier in 2016, the Pakistani Parliament became the first in the world to become completely powered by solar energy .
The panels installed in the house produce 80 MW of electricity, 62 MW of which are consumed by the National Assembly and 18 MW that are contributed to the national grid.
The Parliamentary speaker, Ayaz Sadiq, announced the change and thanked the Chinese government for its role in the solar upgrade. The project was launched by Chinese President Xi Jinping and Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, while the Chinese President was in Pakistan in 2015.
The project cost $55 million and was funded, in large part, by the Chinese government and is projected to save an estimated $ 267,265 per year .
Sharif has claimed that the country’s energy crisis would end by 2018, as they are modernizing and fully engaging a solar culture. | 1real |
The Look On The Japanese Leader’s Face After Meeting With Trump Says Everything (VIDEO) | Alleged president Donald Trump met with Japanese Prime Minister Shinz Abe and the former reality show star showed the world what an amateur he is. Welcome to the very famous White House, Trump told Abe in his opening statement during the joint press conference. Abe was very polite and humble during the exchange. Trump told Abe that since the inauguration he s learned tremendous things. Trump said that includes information about threats to national security. Trump said that that information is something that you could only learn, frankly, if you were in a certain position namely, president. Polito reports that Trump also said at the end of the press conference that they re good friends but if that changes he ll let you (reporters) know. Trump said he and Abe have already developed a great friendship, citing their past meeting inside Trump Tower and their interaction earlier Friday. When I greeted him today at the car, I was saying I shook hands, but I grabbed him and hugged him because that s the way we feel, Trump said. We have a very, very good bond. Very, very good chemistry. I ll let you know if it changes, but I don t think it will. The two shook hands, then the Prime Minister turned his head to the side with a pained look on his face. Abe did a semi-eyeroll before getting up from the chair.Abe s facial expression is ? pic.twitter.com/etYaiNH6vp Brenna Williams (@brennawilliams) February 10, 2017We re sure Abe has seen Trump s Twitter timeline where just this morning he slammed the federal appeal court s ruling against his controversial travel ban on seven predominantly Muslim countries. Trump should have welcomed Abe to the infamous White House instead. Trump is just three weeks into the job and his administration is plagued with scandals. Michael Flynn, his national security adviser, is under fire for potentially breaking the law after reports late Thursday noted he discussed sanctions against the Kremlin with the Russian ambassador in December, despite the administration s past denials. Kellyanne Conway violated ethical guidelines by hawking Ivanka Trump s clothing line on Fox & Friends. She did that while seated in the White House briefing room. And that s just the short list.Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images. | 1real |
Jury Secrecy Doesn’t Apply if Bias Taints Deliberations, Justices Rule - The New York Times | WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court ruled on Monday that courts must make an exception to the usual rule that jury deliberations are secret when evidence emerges that those discussions were marred by racial or ethnic bias. “Racial bias implicates unique historical, constitutional and institutional concerns,” Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote for the majority in the decision. The case arose from statements made during jury deliberations in a 2010 sexual assault trial. “I think he did it because he’s Mexican, and Mexican men take whatever they want,” a juror said of the defendant, according to sworn statements from other jurors submitted by defense lawyers after the trial was over. The juror, identified in court papers as H. C. was a former law enforcement officer. After the trial was over, two other jurors submitted sworn statements describing what he had said during deliberations. “He said that where he used to patrol, nine times out of 10 Mexican men were guilty of being aggressive toward women and young girls,” one juror recalled. Those statements, Justice Kennedy wrote, warranted an investigation by the trial judge into deliberations that are ordinarily secret. Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen G. Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan joined the majority opinion. In dissent, Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. joined by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justice Clarence Thomas, wrote that the majority opinion was a well intentioned but intrusion into jurors’ privacy. “This is a startling development,” Justice Alito wrote, “and although the court tries to limit the degree of intrusion, it is doubtful that there are principled grounds for preventing the expansion of today’s holding. ” Justice Kennedy wrote that the usual tools to root out biased jurors — questioning during jury selection and reports from jurors before they render a verdict — are less effective when race is at issue. Pointed questions about racism may exacerbate tensions, he wrote. And jurors may be reluctant, he added, to accuse one another of insensitivity. “Not every offhand comment indicating racial bias or hostility will justify” an investigation into jurors’ deliberations, Justice Kennedy wrote. “For the inquiry to proceed, there must be a showing that one or more jurors made statements exhibiting overt racial bias that cast serious doubt on the fairness and impartiality of the jury’s deliberations and resulting verdict. ” In dissent, Justice Alito countered that it would be difficult to limit the sweep of the ruling. He added that the court’s constitutional analysis was flawed. “The real thrust of the majority opinion is that the Constitution is less tolerant of racial bias than other forms of juror misconduct, but it is hard to square this argument with the nature of the Sixth Amendment right on which petitioner’s argument and the court’s holding are based,” he wrote. “What the Sixth Amendment protects is the right to an ‘impartial jury.’ Nothing in the text or history of the amendment or in the inherent nature of the jury trial right suggests that the extent of the protection provided by the amendment depends on the nature of a jury’s partiality or bias. ” In earlier cases, the Supreme Court has said that even egregious misconduct in the jury room cannot be used to challenge a conviction if it would require jurors to testify about what was said there. Until Monday, though, the court had never confronted whether racial or ethnic prejudice requires an exception to the general rule. In 1987, in Tanner v. United States, the Supreme Court let stand convictions in a mail fraud case in Florida even though the jury had treated the trial as “one big party” fueled by “rampant drug and alcohol abuse,” as one juror described it. During recesses, jurors drank pitchers of beer and liters of wine, and they used marijuana and cocaine. Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, writing for the majority, said there were good reasons to ignore “irresponsible or improper juror behavior” if it was based on jurors’ accounts of what had gone on in the jury room. challenges based on jurors’ testimony, she wrote, would make it less likely that jurors would speak candidly during deliberations. Allowing such challenges would encourage lawyers to harass former jurors, she said, and undermine the finality of verdicts. In 2014, in Warger v. Shauers, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that jurors may not testify about what went on during deliberations, even to expose dishonesty during jury selection. But Justice Sotomayor, writing for the court, suggested that cases involving racial bias might require a different result. “There may be cases of juror bias so extreme that, almost by definition, the jury trial right has been abridged,” she wrote. “If and when such a case arises, the court can consider whether the usual safeguards are or are not sufficient to protect the integrity of the process. ” Monday’s decision addressed the question the court had deferred in 2014. Miguel Angel Peña Rodriguez, who maintains that he is innocent, was convicted of harassing and trying to grope two teenage sisters in a racetrack bathroom. A defense witness testified that Mr. Peña Rodriguez was elsewhere at the time of the assault. H. C. the juror said to have made the biased statements, was not persuaded by that testimony, according to a fellow juror. “He said he did not think the alibi witness was credible because, among other things, he was ‘an illegal,’” the fellow juror said. The jury deadlocked on the most serious charge, a felony, but convicted Mr. Peña Rodriguez of three misdemeanors. He was sentenced to two years’ probation. In Monday’s decision in Peña Rodriguez v. Colorado, No. Justice Kennedy said the justice system must root out racial bias. “The progress that has already been made,” he wrote, “underlies the court’s insistence that blatant racial prejudice is antithetical to the functioning of the jury system and must be confronted in egregious cases. ” Justice Alito responded that the majority’s motives were admirable but misguided, citing the 1987 decision. “The court’s decision is ” he wrote. “It seeks to remedy a flaw in the jury trial system, but as this court said some years ago, it is questionable whether our system of trial by jury can endure this attempt to perfect it. ” | 0fake |
WOW! CHICAGO RESIDENTS Blast “Democratic Machine” For Ruining The City…”They Want You to Think Donald Trump Is The Problem…White and Black Democrats Are Doing This To Us” [VIDEO] | This isn t the first punch this group of black Chicago residents have delivered to the failed Democrat Party. In 2015, they made a video message directly aimed at Barack Obama and the Democrat Party. The video exposed the lies Obama and the Democrats told Chicago residents to get votes, and then after the election, they ignored the residents while unemployment rates and crime skyrocketed and the city crumbled around them. Watch the VIRAL video HERE.The taxpayer-funded installation of a giant, gold-lettered #RealFake sculpture, placed by Chicago just opposite Trump Tower, serves as the backdrop for a cutting short film, Chicago Carnage, from RebelPundit filmmakers Jeremy Segal and Andrew Marcus featuring community organizers Paul McKinley and Mark Carter.The city of Chicago installed the sculpture just across the Chicago River from Trump Tower in a space that could only be intended to give a giant middle finger to President Trump late last month. The sculpture sits as perfect photo-op to take selfies and group photos flipping off the Trump sign, while standing underneath it right next to the golden sculpture that screams Real Fake.Both say Chicago is a city that is overrun with very real deadly violence and poverty within a few short miles from this sculpture and it is by intentional design under the liberal agenda. It is ironic that this sign would show up right here, and not in front of City Hall, McKinley says. It is a great deception to distract people from real issues. Carter says, They are not trying to resolve the problems in this city, they need things to happen exactly the way they are happening .The fake news is that this city is a city for everyone .This is city for the elite. He goes on to slam the city for looking like a bomb has been dropped, and looking like a third world city. Every day of the week there is a body count, 30 people shot up, 40 people shot up, that s not real fake, says McKinley. They want you to be focused on Donald Trump being the problem, Carter said, to which McKinley asks, why are we all messed up, Trump just got in there? There is nothing fake about this guy, said Carter, he tells you what he s about, the fake is Barack Obama, the fake is Bill Clinton. The Democrat machine is dummying down the people, socially engineering the people into poverty.They want you to believe that there is some white racist Republicans or some white racist conservative doing this. No, this is the democrat machine, these are white and black racist Democrats that are doing this to us.They don t want the killing to stop. They need the people to continue to poor. They need these blood sucking programs, that have never done anything to bring down violence, unemployment and poverty.McKinley says, this is the most racist city and segregated city in the country, right here in Chicago. Rebel Pundit | 1real |
New Zealand's nationalist 'kingmaker' says has not yet contacted National or Labour leaders | WELLINGTON (Reuters) - New Zealand First leader Winston Peters said on Monday that he still had not spoken to either major party leader after his small nationalist party was left holding the balance of power in Saturday s indecisive election. On the same day, Labour leader Jacinda Ardern confirmed she would seek to form a coalition government with NZ First, following the heels of Prime Minister Bill English who had started making overtures to Peters in an election night speech. I think his chief of staff s talked to my chief of staff... I have yet to have a chance to talk to my colleagues, Peters told broadcaster One News from his home in the far north. The ruling National Party won the most seats, but failed to secure enough to form government, leaving Peters kingmaker. English has said it could take weeks to form a coalition government, with the uncertainty weighing on the New Zealand dollar, which posted its biggest daily drop in over four months. Peters is a veteran maverick politician who has served as a cabinet minister in both previous National and Labour governments and also said on Sunday talks would take two to three weeks . While Labour trailed the National Party by around 10 points, under the country s German-style proportional representation it could still form a government if it goes into coalition with the Green Party and NZ First. My expectation is over the next couple of days to reach out but I haven t done so yet, Ardern told reporters in Wellington, referring to Peters. Our job now is to work with what voters delivered us which was an expectation that ...as a bloc that voted against the status quo to see if we can form a stable coalition government. National secured 58 seats ahead of the 52 seats from the Green Party and Labour, which experienced a surge in popularity under new leader Ardern. That left both still needing NZ First s nine seats to reach the 61 seats required to form a government. While both National and Labour are expected to adhere to fiscal prudence, they will likely differ on monetary policy, trade and immigration. Some expect Labour s plans to cut migration and renegotiate some trade policies will hurt two key sources of growth for New Zealand s small, open economy. There is also some concern about what NZ First will demand in return for its support. Peters has lobbied for more currency intervention by the central bank, which would weigh on the Kiwi, the world s 11th most traded currency. The currency fell 1.19 percent to $0.7254, posting it biggest daily loss since May. We now wait to find out who is going to form a coalition with NZ First and that may take some weeks, said Stuart Ive, dealer at OM Financial. A final tally of the results is due on Oct. 7, when special votes , which make up 15 percent of the total and which include overseas votes, are released. English remains prime minister in the interim. | 0fake |
Bannon's exit not seen to signal Trump shift to center | WASHINGTON/BRIDGEWATER, N.J. (Reuters) - President Donald Trump’s ouster of chief strategist Steve Bannon is unlikely to mark the abandonment of the administration’s “America First” agenda that has unnerved investors and trade partners and split the White House into nationalist and globalist camps. Within hours of leaving Trump’s administration on Friday, Bannon was back at the helm of Breitbart News, the hard-right news site he ran before becoming the main architect of Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. Bannon can now do more to further conservative causes because “he can speak his mind” without the constraints of working in the White House, Rick Weatherly, 61, a maintenance technician from the Denver suburb of Lakewood, said on Saturday. Trump appeared to agree, tweeting: “Steve Bannon will be a tough and smart new voice at @BreitbartNews ... maybe even better than ever before. Fake News needs the competition!” Bannon, 63, was instrumental in some of Trump’s most contentious policies including the travel ban on people from several Muslim-majority nations, departure from the Paris climate accord and rejection of the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal. He was no friend to the Republican political establishment and was loathed by liberals, but became a darling of some of the president’s hard-line conservative supporters. “Trump will now have a great external ally,” a source close to Bannon said on condition of anonymity. “He will use his big hammer against the congressional leadership in support of the president’s agenda.” Trump supporters in south Florida, Chicago and Colorado told Reuters that they were not concerned that Bannon’s departure meant the president was distancing himself from policies he supported during last year’s campaign. “I think Trump will be fine,” said Bob Janda, a 67-year-old small business owner in Chicago. Nor is Bannon likely to be distanced from Trump’s ear, a White House official said on condition of anonymity. Bannon joined a string of senior officials who have left the Trump administration in the past five weeks, leading to the appointment of retired Marine general John Kelly as the new White House chief of staff. Kelly has succeeded in imposing some order on what had been a haphazard operation, but Bannon will still have “a direct pipeline into the Oval Office with Breitbart, Twitter and the TV,” the same White House official added. “My guess is he’ll (Bannon) probably be more effective goading the president from outside, especially if the president feels boxed in by John Kelly’s clean lines of authority and (national security adviser H.R.) McMaster’s orderly processes,” said Kori Schake, a research fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution who previously served in the White House. “Seems to me that Bannon was symptom not cause: The president seems to share his dark vision, revel in the support of people Bannon represents,” Schake added. Prior to joining the Trump campaign, Bannon had spearheaded Breitbart’s shift into a forum for the “alt-right,” a loose online confederation of neo-Nazis, white supremacists and anti-Semites. His departure capped a tumultuous week in which Trump was widely criticized for saying both sides were responsible for last weekend’s violence at a Charlottesville, Virginia rally organized by neo-Nazis and white supremacists. Bannon told the conservative Weekly Standard on Friday that he would use Breitbart to attack opponents of the populist and nationalist agenda he championed, including establishment Republicans. At the same time he appeared to suggest that his departure signaled a major shift for the Trump agenda. “The Trump presidency that we fought for, and won, is over,” Bannon said. Defense policy is one area where Bannon could play a role from the outside. While many of Trump’s national security aides favor sending several thousand more troops to Afghanistan, where the Taliban insurgents have been regaining ground, Bannon argued for withdrawing the 8,400 U.S. personnel still there. He also had advocated restraint in dealing with North Korea, rejecting the use of military force to solve the recent crisis. “There is a danger that if he continues to bang away on issues that appeal to Breitbart’s audience but aren’t going anywhere, Bannon risks splitting the administration’s loose coalition of hard-right ideologues, traditional conservatives, and middle-of-the-road voters who didn’t like Hillary Clinton,” another Trump administration official said, also on condition of anonymity. | 0fake |
Before Orlando Shooting, an Anti-Gay Massacre in New Orleans Was Largely Forgotten - The New York Times | The terrorist attack that killed 49 and wounded 53 in Orlando, Fla. was the largest mass killing of gay people in American history, but before Sunday that grim distinction was held by a largely forgotten arson at a New Orleans bar in 1973 that killed 32 people at a time of pernicious stigma. Churches refused to bury the victims’ remains. Their deaths were mostly ignored and sometimes mocked by politicians and the media. No one was ever charged. A joke made the rounds in workplaces and was repeated on the radio: “Where will they bury the queers? In fruit jars!” Outpourings of grief from politicians and everyday people have followed the Orlando shooting, but for those who remember the fire in the New Orleans bar, the UpStairs Lounge, its lonely memory has loomed large over conversations about the carnage this week at the Pulse nightclub. Mike Moreau, 72, who lost several friends in the fire, said he was struck by all the differences between then and now, but also by the familiarity of tragedy’s dull ache. “What happened to us had to be kept so private,” said Mr. Moreau. “The public didn’t want to know about it, and if they heard about it they didn’t care — ‘Thank God, they’re gone, they deserved it. ’” “To see the outpouring of love and support that these poor families have gotten is fantastic,” he added about the Orlando massacre. “They are hurting the same way we hurt, but at least they know that the world supports them and understands their grief. ” Mr. Moreau was with friends at a nearby bar on June 24, 1973, when an arsonist doused the stairs of the UpStairs Lounge with lighter fluid, set it aflame and rang the doorbell. When someone answered the door, a fireball burst into the room. One group of patrons fled out a back exit, but another was trapped across the room, caught between the flames and windows fitted with metal bars. When firefighters extinguished the blaze, they found a pile of charred bodies, some embracing and others pressed against the windows. Congregants from the New Orleans chapter of the Metropolitan Community Church, an L. G. B. T. group, were meeting there after services. The Rev. Bill Larson was among the dead. His charred body was left slumped against the window bars in full view of for hours. He was one of many who died without ever coming out to their families, and his mother would not deal with his remains, said Robert L. Camina, who directed a documentary, UpStairs Inferno, about the blaze. “His mother refused to collect his ashes because she was too embarrassed that she had a gay son,” Mr. Camina said. “And that is just one example. There are three people who were never identified at all. Why? Somebody has to miss them. ” Those three were buried in unmarked graves in a potter’s field along with a fourth person, Ferris LeBlanc, whose family did not know his fate until last year, Mr. Camina said. “They dug a hole in the ground and put a bag in it and covered it back up,” Mr. Moreau said. Public figures were unsupportive. The mayor, Moon Landrieu, did not cancel his vacation. Forty years later, a son of his, the current mayor, Mitch Landrieu, declared a day of public mourning for the fire’s victims on its anniversary. “L. G. B. T. people have a place at the table now that they did not have then,” said Clayton who wrote a book about the arson that was published in 2014. The fire was an open wound for the gay community in New Orleans for years. No one was charged with the attack, and a man viewed by many as the primary suspect was never arrested. He committed suicide a year after the blaze. “There was never any sense of justice,” said Sebastian Rey, the president of the L. G. B. T. Community Center of New Orleans. Survivors had to deny any connection to the fire, including the loss of loved ones, because they could lose their jobs or apartments if bosses and landlords suspected they were gay. Mr. Rey said people who lived through that period did not talk about it for decades. As time passed, the tragedy became “a rumor” to new generations of L. G. B. T. people, he said. Johnny Townsend, who interviewed survivors in the late ’80s and finally published their accounts in 2014, said the 40th anniversary commemoration gave it a kind of public attention it had not had before. “People now feel more of a sense of their own history,” he said. For Mr. Moreau, the outpouring of support for the victims in Orlando has been an “uplifting” sign of progress, he said. ”In Orlando, those poor people know at least that the whole world is behind them,” he said. “Nobody cared about us. ” | 0fake |
White House says any progress in Congress on Zika funding is 'welcome' | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House said on Thursday it would welcome any progress made by the U.S. Congress toward striking a deal to provide funding to help fight the Zika virus. “I think at this point, given the delays and given the heightened stakes, we welcome any sort of forward momentum in Congress,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters at a daily briefing. Asked about a Senate proposal for $1.1 billion in emergency funds, Earnest said the administration would “have to take a close look at it to see if it is sufficient.” | 0fake |
EXPOSED: Facebook Blacklists Conservative News & Falsified ‘Black Lives Matter’ Trend | 21st Century Wire says Censorship is running rampant on the world s largest social media website.Watch a video of this report here:. Former Facebook workers have come out with shocking revelations that the social media giant is actively censoring conservative news topics and reports, while also falsifying its list of trending topics.The source says that workers routinely prevented stories about the right-wing CPAC gathering, Mitt Romney, Rand Paul, and other conservative topics from appearing in the highly-influential section, despite the fact that they were organically trending on the site.The workers were known as news curators , and even actively injected news stories and reports into the trending list even when they were not organically popular enough to be included.Facebook claims that the site s news trends section shows you topics that have recently become popular on Facebook , but these revelations mean that the section actually just reflects the personal biases of its owners and the institutional concerns of the corporation.The anonymous source said: Depending on who was on shift, things would be blacklisted or trending, I believe it had a chilling effect on conservative news, I d come on shift and I d discover that CPAC or Mitt Romney or Glenn Beck or popular conservative topics wouldn t be trending because either the curator didn t recognize the news topic or it was like they had a bias against Ted Cruz. The source kept an active log of the omissions, which included former IRS official Lois Lerner, who was accused by Republicans of inappropriately scrutinizing conservative groups; Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker; popular conservative news aggregator the Drudge Report; Chris Kyle, the former Navy SEAL who was murdered in 2013; and former Fox News contributor Steven Crowder.Yet, while omissions are worrying, the scariest aspect of this story is how Facebook actively injects falsified trends into the news feeds of its one billion users. The corporation can fraudulently set not only a national, but international, conversation on a topic of its choosing and also skew its bias toward which ever way its owners lean.The source continued: Facebook got a lot of pressure about not having a trending topic for Black Lives Matter. They realized it was a problem, and they boosted it in the ordering. They gave it preference over other topics. When we injected it, everyone started saying, Yeah, now I m seeing it as number one . The Black Lives Matter movement is widely credited as having originated from social media, but this suggests that its true origins lie elsewhere in the hands of very small group of elite news curators seeking to implement their own personal agenda in American politics.Facebook s response to these damning revelations is most definitely lacking: We take allegations of bias very seriously. Facebook is a platform for people and perspectives from across the political spectrum. Trending Topics shows you the popular topics and hashtags that are being talked about on Facebook. There are rigorous guidelines in place for the review team to ensure consistency and neutrality. These guidelines do not permit the suppression of political perspectives. Nor do they permit the prioritization of one viewpoint over another or one news outlet over another. These guidelines do not prohibit any news outlet from appearing in Trending Topics. READ MORE ON FACEBOOK S SCHEMING: 21st Century Wire Facebook Files | 1real |
Greed, Corruption and Danger: A Tarnished Afghan Gem Trade - The New York Times | KABUL, Afghanistan — The local people called the militia’s takeover of the giant lapis mine in northeastern Badakhshan Province a white coup — easy and bloodless. Perhaps, but the seizure has become a lesson in how the lack of accountability and rule of law in Afghanistan can turn bounty into ruin. Riding waves of excitement after a 2010 report by the United States military that Afghanistan’s mineral wealth could be worth as much as $1 trillion, the Lajwardeen Mining Company won a contract in 2013 to extract lapis lazuli in Badakhshan. For thousands of years, Afghanistan has been one of the chief sources of lapis lazuli, a prized blue gemstone associated with love and purity and admired by poets as well as jewelers. Valued at about $125 million a year in 2014, the lapis trade had the potential to be worth at least double that, and Lajwardeen, owned by an Afghan family in the business for three generations, saw a great opportunity. Yet within 21 days of officially beginning its work, the company lost the mine to a local militia supported by the Afghan political elite. In the two years since, according to interviews with company employees, Afghan officials and militia commanders, the government has done little to restore the mine to the company. Lapis is still being mined, with the rent split between the militia and the Taliban, who have established a strong foothold in a province long resistant to them. With the plunge in global commodity prices deflating some of the enthusiasm for Afghanistan’s mineral wealth, the initial excitement has faded into broader — and, among Afghans, — concerns over mismanagement, impunity and corruption. The country has failed to make even the most basic legal and regulatory changes, and even President Ashraf Ghani recently expressed fear that “we are faced with the curse of natural resources. ” Javed Noorani, an Afghan analyst who has written extensively about extractive industries, said: “We have to define a vision for our mines and how we go about extracting each. In the current reality, where do we have security control and can provide the most basic governance and oversight?” But Mr. Ghani’s government, which promised a more judicious approach to the mines, seems to be perpetuating the old way of doing business. The Afghan National Security Council, over which Mr. Ghani presides, ordered the termination of the Lajwardeen contract and moved to reopen the bidding. The council also proposed bringing the militia into the government framework. Such a change would set a strange precedent: failing to protect a contractor from a seizure of assets and then legalizing the takeover. The decision to cancel the contract was made in November 2014, the National Security Council said in a statement, because the contractor’s progress had not met the terms of the agreement and the mine was being used by “irresponsible armed men. ” While other parts of the National Security Council’s decision, such as dispatching forces to protect the mine, have not been carried out, the government said it still considered the contract annulled because Lajwardeen had not followed up on its appeal in the courts. The company, though, says it is still pursuing the case. Expansion of the mineral industry is essential to cultivating Afghanistan’s economic growth and weaning the country from foreign aid, said Stephen Carter, the leader of the Afghanistan campaign at Global Witness, an organization that investigates corruption and environmental degradation in the exploitation of natural resources. “What the lapis mines of Badakhshan show better than almost any other example is that the realistic expectation is that they are going to do precisely the opposite — that they are going to be a source of conflict and corruption and actually possibly fuel a chronic conflict,” Mr. Carter said. “So what should be a treasure is actually a poison for Afghanistan. ” A new Global Witness report explains how interests of the Taliban and the political elite align to keep the government weak and the resources in the hands of an unlawful few. The report also shows how Lajwardeen was essentially caught in a larger rivalry between two local strongmen. For much of this century, the mine was controlled by local strongmen including Zalmai Mujadidi, a member of Parliament who made his brother the leader of the security force protecting the mine. When Lajwardeen (the word is a Persian description of lapis) won the contract in 2013, the government struggled to hand over the mine as rival factions vied for control. Company executives agreed to a compromise: They gave illegal miners a few months to take as much of the stone as they could. The executives also offered them a chance to buy shares in the company once it began operations. But the company’s perceived closeness to Mr. Mujadidi set off a vicious backlash. While saying Mr. Mujadidi had not been awarded shares, company officials acknowledged that they had enlisted the support of powerful people like him, especially since his brother’s guards essentially controlled the mine such was the reality of doing business in Badakhshan. In January 2014, Abdul Malik, a militia commander and a longtime rival to Mr. Mujadidi, spread rumors that the Taliban were about to take the mine. Instead, fighters loyal to him seized it. “There was no Taliban in the district at the time they took over the mine,” said Noor Agha Nadery, who was then the district governor of Kuran wa Munjan, where the mine is situated. “The truth of the matter is that the mine was taken over with the help of senior officials in Kabul and Badakhshan, who are still trying to keep the mine in the hands of Malik. ” Imamuddin, one of Mr. Malik’s commanders, who helped take the mine but has since had a with him, said, “There were no Taliban in the district. ” That rumor, said Imamuddin, who like many Afghans uses only one name, “was spread by Malik himself. ” Mr. Malik, who believes in restoring local ownership of the mine, has said he led a popular uprising against outsiders exploiting it. Mr. Malik’s militia made about $18 million in 2014 and $12 million in 2015 from renting the mine to local extractors and collecting tolls on the roads, the Global Witness report said. As the Taliban have encroached on the area, he has been forced to pay them. He split the income in the first four months of 2016, the Global Witness report said, meaning the Taliban would get an estimated $6 million for the full year. Global Witness lists Bismillah Khan Mohammadi, who was Afghanistan’s defense minister at the time of the takeover, as one of Mr. Malik’s supporters. A longtime guerrilla commander with the Northern Alliance, a movement that for decades tapped into the lapis trade to pay for its campaigns, Mr. Mohammadi knew the value of the mine. If the allegation is true, it shows just how complex and counterintuitive war at the local level can be. It would mean that a former political figure tasked with defending against the insurgency became involved in a scheme that brought the Taliban huge profits, making them a force in a province that had long resisted them. Mr. Mohammadi was traveling and could not be reached for comment, said Shafiq Salangi, an aide. “Minister Bismillah Khan was not supporting Malik he did not support him in getting the lapis mines in Badakhshan,” Mr. Salangi said. “This claim does not have logical grounds. We reject this claim. ” But local commanders said Mr. Mohammadi had been one of the first people Mr. Malik contacted after seizing the mine. “Commander Malik called Bismillah Mohammadi to assure him that the mine was taken over, and that no one had been killed and that he would follow orders from him,” Imamuddin said. Lajwardeen hopes to reclaim the mine one day. In the meantime, it is buying lapis — from Mr. Malik’s militia. | 0fake |
BOMBSHELL DISCOVERY: RADICAL Muslim Father of Hillary’s Top Aide Huma Abedin Advocated For Forced SHARIA LAW | The same woman who has been privy to our nations top secret classified information through our reckless former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, has a father who openly advocated for state sponsored Sharia Law and a mother who Abedin s mother founded an aid organization in the 1990s that was tied to the Muslim Brotherhood. This is the same Secretary of State whose largest contributors to the Clinton Foundation Hillary s campaign slush fund are from majority Muslim nations who police Sharia Law. Abed in is also currently serving as Vice Chair to Hillary Clinton s campaign. Is this a coincidence?In August 2016, we reported that Huma Abedin made a surprise visit to Dearborn, MI. with absolutely no press coverage by the mainstream media. As a side note, Dearborn, MI has the largest population of Muslims in America.According to the Arab American News: Huma Abedin, vice chair for the Hillary for America campaign, met with Arab and Muslim American leaders on Aug. 11, to discuss issues that matter to the community.During her speech, Abedin praised the patriotism and heroism of Muslims across the country, including the Khan family, a Muslim Gold Star family whose son, Captain Human Khan, was killed in Iraq while protecting his fellow service members.STUNNING DEVELOPMENTSyed Abedin, the father of top Hillary Clinton aide Huma, outlined his view of Sharia law and how the Western world has turned Muslims hostile during a wide-ranging video interview that shines newfound light on the reclusive thinker s world views, according to footage exclusively obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.Abedin, a Muslim scholar who was tied to the Saudi Arabian government until his death in 1993, has remained somewhat of a mystery as the media turns its eye to his daughter Huma, a top Clinton campaign aide who recently announced her separation from husband Anthony Weiner following his multiple sex scandals.Syed Abedin explained his views on the Muslim world and spread of Islam during a 1971 interview titled The World of Islam, which was first broadcast on Western Michigan University television.Abedin said that Arab states must police the upholding of Sharia, or Islamic law, and explained why the majority of Muslims view Israel and the Western world in primarily hostile terms.The video provides a window into the Abedin family s ideology, which has been marred by accusations it is connected to the Muslim Brotherhood.Abedin, who was then a professor in the university s college of general studies, said that Western intervention in the Arab world has sparked a backlash among many faithful Muslims. The response to the West has been of two kinds, Abedin said. By and large the response has taken more of a hostile form. The first impulse of the average Muslim in the Islamic world is that this kind of borrowing [culturally] would be somehow an alien factor into our social fabric and thereby destroying the integrity of our ethos the integrity of our culture, he added.In a separate discussion on the state s role in a person s life, Abedin said it is necessary to police the application of Sharia law. The state has to take over as Muslim countries evolve, he argued. The state is stepping in in many countries where the state is now overseeing that human relationships are carried on on the basis of Islam. The state also under Islam has a right to interfere in some of these rights given to the individual by the Sharia. For entire story: WFBHuman Abedin s mother who was the Muslim World League s delegate to the UN conference wrote in a 1996 article that Clinton anentire d other speakers were advancing a very aggressive and radically feminist agenda that was un-Islamic and wrong because it focused on empowering women She seemed to rationalize domestic abuse as a result of the stress and frustrations that men encounter in their daily lives. While denouncing such violence, she didn t think it did much good to punish men for it. | 1real |
How Neocons Got ISIS Wrong, Too | How Neocons Got ISIS Wrong, Too November 2, 2016
As Islamic State loses ground in Iraq and Syria, earlier demands from Official Washington’s neocons for a major reintroduction of U.S. troops appear to be just the latest misjudgment of these war hawks, as ex-CIA analyst Paul R. Pillar explains.
By Paul R. Pillar
The so-called Islamic State or ISIS is on the decline, and its “caliphate” on the ground in Iraq and Syria is shrinking to extinction. In Syria, the group has lost about a quarter of the territory it used to control, including its access to the Turkish border, and recapture of its de facto capital in Raqqa is coming into sight. In Iraq, ISIS has lost half the territory it once had, and a coalition of forces is knocking on the door of the group’s biggest prize, the city of Mosul.
We should reflect on the arguments we were hearing not very long ago that more force than the Obama administration was using would be needed to defeat the ISIS menace. ISIS was the main focus of the “do more in Syria” cries before the cries shifted more to the Syrian regime and its warfighting methods Journalist James Foley shortly before he was executed by an Islamic State operative.
Typical was an op-ed by James Jeffrey of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, written not quite one year ago, that called for sending U.S. ground troops into the fight against ISIS and declared, “It’s obvious that defeat of the Islamic State is not going to happen absent a first-class, mobile ground force being launched to mate with overwhelming air power.”
Well, ISIS is being defeated without such a U.S. ground force. In fact, the defeating is perhaps going too fast, in that the main question is not whether such defeat is happening but rather how unstable will be the situation left in the wake of an extinguished ISIS mini-state.
The smash-and-run approach that was being advocated by many of those who argued that the Obama administration was not applying enough military force to the problem (Jeffrey advertised his proposal as a “short, crisp” operation that would not be anything like a prolonged counterinsurgency) would be even less likely to yield a favorable answer to that question.
This is one of those occasions in which it is easy to forget the errors of policy recommendations that were never adopted, because without being put into effect the errors in analysis fortunately never get reflected in actual costs and fiascos. But the analysis can be just as bad as with ill-founded policy recommendations that are put into effect. We ought to take note of that, and to apply the relevant lessons in evaluating similar policy debates now and in the future.
On one hand, U.S. military escalation already is proving to be unnecessary to squeeze the ISIS mini-state out of existence. But on the other hand, even an escalated U.S. military effort would be insufficient to make ISIS-fomented armed resistance in Syria and Iraq go away, mini-state or no mini-state.
As Seth Jones explains in an analysis based on experience with prior resistance groups, an ISIS-led insurgency is likely to ensue. So much for short and crisp with any escalated U.S. military intervention. If “mission accomplished” is declared after Mosul and Raqqa fall, whoever is involved in the fight will be facing what U.S. troops faced earlier in Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein. Unlike what smash-and-run proponents might suggest, going after ISIS is not a game of capture-the-flag or checkmating a king.
Resisting Future Alarms
Another reality that will be faced after the mini-state is extinguished concerns international terrorism. Anti-Western terrorism associated with ISIS was another of the alarm buttons, along with ISIS’s rapid territorial gains in 2014, that was connected to the cries to do more with military force and to do it fast. Islamic terrorists prepare to execute a wounded policeman after their attack on the offices of French magazine Charlie Hebdo on Jan. 7, 2015.
Jeffrey’s piece was again typical in beginning by stating that the “horrific Paris attacks” and the bombing of a Russian airliner over Egypt “demand an answer to this question: When will the United States realize that it urgently needs to use real military force to defeat the Islamic State threat?”
We should note first that despite such supposed urgency, in the ensuing year the West has not been assaulted with any paralyzing wave of ISIS-fomented terrorism, even though ISIS and its caliphate have not yet been extinguished.
Even after the caliphate is extinguished, however, there still will be terrorism in the West conducted in the name of ISIS, even if not paralyzing. For ISIS to look more and more like a loser rather than a winner will make it less of a lodestar for radicals in the West, but the terrorism that any such radicals conduct has never depended on control of a piece of real estate in the Middle East.
After Mosul and Raqqa have fallen and Western leaders can declare, with some good reason, that the ISIS caliphate is no more, some bombings and shooting sprees will still occur in the West and will be labeled, at least on the basis of a perpetrator’s claim, as “ISIS attacks.” How will Americans and American politicians react to that?
Based on experience, much of the reaction will consist of an urge to use military force, amid continuing insurgency in Iraq and Syria, to find and destroy a command center that is thought to organize and order such terrorism. But although some individual extremist leaders will be killed, no such center will be found.
It will assume a place in U.S. military history comparable to the “Bamboo Pentagon” that was assumed to exist somewhere in Cambodia and to control all of the Communist insurgency in South Vietnam. Military operations aimed at the chimerical terrorist command center identified with ISIS will have the counterproductive effect of stimulating more of the very kind of anti-Western terrorism that the operations were intended to prevent.
If we are fortunate, maybe instead a more accurate lesson will be drawn from the disjunction between a destroyed ISIS caliphate and continued international terrorism in ISIS’s name. The lesson would be that groups such as ISIS are less prime movers of terrorism and more a name and a cause to which radicals attach themselves to believe that they are acting on behalf of something larger than themselves and their own demons and grievances.
A corollary is that the likelihood of Americans becoming victims of this brand of terrorism has less to do with battle lines on a Middle Eastern map than with whether our own actions generate and sustain such grievances.
Paul R. Pillar, in his 28 years at the Central Intelligence Agency, rose to be one of the agency’s top analysts. He is author most recently of Why America Misunderstands the World . (This article first appeared as a blog post at The National Interest’s Web site. Reprinted with author’s permission.) | 1real |
Kurds offer to suspend independence drive, seek talks with Baghdad | BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Kurdish authorities in Iraq offered on Wednesday to put an independence drive on hold, stepping up efforts to resolve a crisis in relations with Baghdad via dialogue. But an Iraqi military spokesman suggested an offensive - launched to wrest back territory after Kurds voted overwhelmingly for independence in a referendum in September - would continue regardless. The Iraqi government has transformed the balance of power in the north of the country since launching its campaign last week against the Kurds, who govern an autonomous region of three northern provinces and had held a swathe of other territory. The fighting between the two sides will not produce a victory for any, it will take the country to total destruction, the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) said in a statement. The KRG proposed an immediate ceasefire, a suspension of the referendum result and starting an open dialogue with the federal government based on the Iraqi Constitution . Baghdad has always considered the Kurdish secession referendum illegal. It responded last week by seizing back the city of Kirkuk, the oil-producing areas around it and other territory that the Kurds had captured from militant group Islamic State. In a brief social media comment hinting that the campaign would continue, an Iraqi military spokesman said: Military operations are not connected to politics. Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has said the KRG should cancel the vote s outcome as a pre-condition for talks. Several Shi ite members of parliament on Wednesday asked him to stick to his position and not to accept just a freeze of the referendum. On Wednesday, Abadi began an official visit to neighboring Turkey and Iran. Turkey and Iran both have Kurdish populations of their own and have supported Baghdad taking a hard line on the referendum. Now that the Kurds have swiftly yielded most of their territory outside of their autonomous region to the advancing Iraqi forces, there are signs of pressure easing. Iran announced the reopening of one of the border crossings with the Kurdistan region, which it had closed earlier this month in support of the Iraqi government. In Ankara, President Tayyip Erdogan said Turkey was ready to give all support to Baghdad as it seeks to reopen a crude oil pipeline from the Kirkuk oilfields to Turkey. The pipeline goes through the Kurdish autonomous region. Iraq had stopped shipping oil through it when the Kurds took Kirkuk in 2014. In a statement to media after meeting Abadi, Erdogan said they discussed what political, military and economic steps they could take after what he called the illegitimate Iraqi Kurdish referendum last month. Abadi has ordered his army to recapture all disputed territory and has demanded central control of Iraq s border crossings with Turkey, which are all located inside the Kurdish autonomous region. Kurdish Peshmerga forces beat back an advance by Iranian-backed pro-government paramilitaries on Tuesday in the region of Rabi a, 40 km (25 miles) south of the Fish-Khabur border area with Turkey and Syria, Kurdish officials said. Fish-Khabur is strategically vital because oil from both Kurdish and government-held parts of northern Iraq crosses via a pipeline there into Turkey, the main route out of the area for the exports that are crucial to any Kurdish independence bid. The fighting so far has taken place outside the Kurdish autonomous region, but Fish-Khabur is inside it. The fighting between the central government and the Kurds is particularly tricky for the United States which is a close ally of both sides, arming and training both the Kurds and the central government s army to fight Islamic State. U.S. Ambassador Douglas Silliman worked with Iraqi security forces and Kurdish Peshmerga to end clashes endangering a Christian community and other civilians north of Mosul, Washington s Baghdad embassy said on its Twitter account. The Iraqi government s advance over the past week has been achieved with comparatively little violence, with Kurds mostly withdrawing without a fight. But it caused Kurds to flee en masse from Tuz Khurmato, a multi-ethnic city south of Kirkuk where sectarian tension flared after Iraqi forces took control, humanitarian organizations said.Most of those displaced, estimated at nearly 30,000, are in need of urgent aid and staying in open shelters, officials from two international humanitarian organizations told Reuters. Abadi pledged in an interview to the Wall Street Journal to disarm Shiite militias that refuse to come under his control after Islamic State s defeat. Iraqi forces are preparing in parallel an offensive to recapture the last patch of Iraqi territory still in the hands of Islamic State, on the border with Syria, the military said on Wednesday. The militant group also holds parts of the Syrian side of the border, but the area under their control is also shrinking there as they retreat in the face of two sets of hostile forces - a U.S.-backed, Kurdish-led coalition and Syrian government troops with foreign Shi ite militias backed by Iran and Russia. | 0fake |
Keiser Report: The ‘Gaddafi-like’ Political Career Death of Hillary Clinton | 21st Century Wire says In 2011, then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made the grave error of publicly gloating over the gruesome death of Libya president Muammar Gaddafi. When asked to comment on what many in Washington claimed was a victory by destroying the nation state of Libya, Clinton famously cackled, We came, we saw, he died! Watch as Keiser Report co-hosts Max Keiser and Stacy Hebert recount the tale this week at the entrance of the venue which the Clinton campaign had hired for her multi-million dollar victory celebration on election night in New York City. Also, after their critique of Clinton s historic defeat, Keiser goes on to deliver a stunning US-China economic forecast with his guest while sitting on top of a skyscraper in Manhattan RT: In this episode of the Keiser Report, Max and Stacy discuss the gruesome Gaddafi like death to a political career. They look at the role of Obamacare premium increases in middle income voter discontentment with the Democratic Party. In the second half, Max interviews Dr. Michael Hudson about what went wrong for Hillary. Watch: SUPPORT 21WIRE SUBSCRIBE NOW & BECOME A MEMBER @21WIRE.TV | 1real |
Before the White House, Kennedy was a high-school prankster | BOSTON (Reuters) - Years before he captained the torpedo boat PT-109, ran for office or set the United States on a path to put a man on the moon, President John F. Kennedy was a troublesome teen whose hijinks nearly got him kicked out of his prestigious boarding school. The scion of a wealthy Boston family, Kennedy spent his mid-teens at Connecticut’s elite Choate Rosemary Hall, where he excelled at history and literature - but infuriated the school’s headmaster by organizing pranks as a member of an unofficial school club known as “The Muckers.” Those details of the early life of the 35th president, whose term was cut short by an assassin’s bullet in Dallas in 1963, emerge in a new exhibit at Boston’s John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, timed to commemorate the 100th anniversary of his birth on May 29, 1917. Pages from a high school scrapbook, diligently filled out by the man who would go on to become the first Roman Catholic president, show he loved ancient history, music and football, as well as “beefing,” slang for complaining or arguing. Despite his later fame as an orator, he never got higher than the middling grade of C+ in public speaking, according to the school. “Got shot at today for calling an old farmer a bad name,” reads an entry written by a 17-year-old Kennedy on Oct. 19, 1934. “Almost got hit.” The scrapbook pages are among 40 Kennedy relics never before publicly exhibited, with notes extending to his years at Harvard University and the London School of Economics, before his World War Two service aboard torpedo boats and well before his first successful run for Congress in 1947. Kennedy went on the serve in the Senate before being elected president in 1960, at the start of one of the most tumultuous decades in U.S. history. “That’s why I so love this scrapbook, because it is so revealing about who he was at the time,” said Stacey Bredhoff, the museum’s curator. Kennedy and his prankster friends went head-to-head with Choate’s headmaster, George St. John, in his years at the school. The “Muckers” club took its name from a speech in which St. John excoriated pranksters, using the label applied to Irish immigrants whose only work was shoveling up horse manure. The group took the idea and ran with it, commissioning gold shovel pins and hatching a plot to pile horse manure in the school gymnasium. “George St. John got wind of it and even though the prank never was actualized, it was enough that they would even consider such a thing, so he threatened to expel them all,” but eventually relented, said Judy Donald, the school’s archivist. The details of the group’s successful pranks may be lost to time. But Donald said an oft-told tale that a young Kennedy blew up a school toilet with a powerful firecracker known as a cherry bomb is not true - while that incident did occur, it was the work of another student a decade later. “St. John was understandably angry,” Donald said. “But JFK was not responsible for that one.” | 0fake |
After Gingrich Attacks Megyn Kelly Over 'Sex,' Trump Advisor's 'Threat' Against Her Blows Up Online | Share on Twitter
On Tuesday night, an interview between Fox News host Megyn Kelly and Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich got intense in a hurry.
After Kelly referenced Trump as a “sexual predator,” Gingrich fiercely accused her of “using language that’s inflammatory that’s not true,” adding :
“You are fascinated with sex and you don’t care about public policy! That’s what I get out of watching you tonight!”
If viewers were fired up by the heated exchange, a tweet sent out by the Trump campaign's social media director Dan Scavino only poured fuel onto that fire: . @MegynKelly made a total fool out of herself tonight- attacking @realDonaldTrump . Watch what happens to her after this election is over. — Dan Scavino Jr. (@DanScavino) October 26, 2016
While it's not explicitly clear what Scavino meant by “watch what happens,” the implications of his comment certainly didn't go unnoticed.
Americans quickly came down on both sides of the issue, with many rushing to Kelly's defense in the face of the “threat”: @DanScavino "Watch what happens to her?" I'm no Kelly fan, but your campaign really isn't learning from the whole "threats vs women" thing. — Dennis Perkins (@DennisPerkins5) October 26, 2016 . @DanScavino She does just fine after the election, I'm guessing. You vanish into obscurity. — Trey Graham (@treygraham) October 26, 2016 @DanScavino @megynkelly @realDonaldTrump You want to be a little more specific about that? Punk. — HarleyPeyton (@HarleyPeyton) October 26, 2016
Still, there were plenty who agreed with Gingrich's suggestion that Kelly was being biased: @DanScavino @megynkelly @realDonaldTrump I used to be a huge fan of Megyn Kelly but no more. Totally unfair to the frmr Speaker. — Scott Schulze (@payshel) October 26, 2016 @DanScavino @megynkelly @realDonaldTrump Send her to CNN. They need more Crooked dishonest journalists! — Trump Revolution (@DonaldTrump_Rev) October 26, 2016 @DanScavino @megynkelly @realDonaldTrump Why surprised?Kelly is a dumb puppet paid millions (thro that book deal?) just to attack DJT.Tragic — Maya Varma (@swargcoming) October 26, 2016
Since early in the 2016 election cycle, there's no doubt that Kelly and the Trump campaign haven't seen eye-to-eye.
More recently, it seemed that tensions had cooled between the GOP nominee and the Fox News host. If Scavino's tweet is any indication, however, that may no longer be the story. | 1real |
Trump FURIOUS After Journalist Questions His Sexism, Stops Her In The Most DISGUSTING Way (VIDEO) | The insane thing about Donald Trump s horrific attitude toward women is that every time he is asked to defend himself, he only ends up validating the claims that he s a misogynist. His sexist, anti-woman views are so engrained in him that he honestly doesn t even know that he s proving everyone right and a post-debate encounter between the business mogul and a female journalist displayed this perfectly.Alexi McCammond is an associate news editor for Bustle, and was covering Monday night s presidential debate at Hofstra University. While she was there, McCammond managed to get close to Trump and nab a very short, but very revealing interview with the Republican nominee himself. As she got closer to The Donald, McCammond started filming with her cell phone, stuck her hand out and asked Trump, How would you respond to young women who are nervous about voting for you? What happened next couldn t have been a better representation of how women will be treated under a Trump administration. This is what McCammond described: Trump then looked at me, grabbed my right wrist (which was the hand holding the phone), said, Put that down, and pushed my hand down. And luckily, there s video of that:When @realDonaldTrump grabs my wrist, tells me to put that down and pushes my phone away #Debates2016 pic.twitter.com/0puNWFfhwC Alexi McCammond (@leximccammond) September 27, 2016While McCammond made it clear that she wasn t hurt (physically or emotionally) by Trump s actions, this was definitely an important moment because even though Trump had tried not to answer her question, his actions certainly DID answer.McCammond posted this video on the night of the debate, but it is just now picking up steam hopefully, women everywhere (and the people who care about them) take this into consideration when they head to the polls in November.Featured image via Spencer Platt / Getty Images | 1real |
BREAKING: OBAMA JUST TURNED INTERNET Over To International Body With NO Congressional Approval…4 AG’S From These States Are FIGHTING BACK! | Has Obama sacrificed the freedom of speech we enjoy on the internet, as a way to boost his standing with foreign dictators, as he campaigns to be the next UN Secretary General? An Obama-appointed federal judge ruled Friday that the transfer of internet domain systems oversight to an international governing body can move forward, overruling opposition from several state attorneys general and lawmakers. Read more: Zero HedgeIn their lawsuit, the attorneys general for Arizona, Oklahoma, Nevada and Texas contend that the transition, lacking congressional approval, amounts to an illegal giveaway of U.S. government property. They also express fear that the proposed new steward of the system, a nonprofit known as ICANN, would be so unchecked that it could effectively enable or prohibit speech on the Internet. Read more: PoliticoSATURDAY THE US HANDS OVER THE INTERNETWashington (AFP) The US government on Saturday ended its formal oversight role over the internet, handing over management of the online address system to a global non-profit entity.The US Commerce Department announced that its contract had expired with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, which manages the internet s so-called root zone. That leaves ICANN as a self-regulating organization that will be operated by the internet s stakeholders engineers, academics, businesses, non-government and government groups.The move is part of a decades-old plan by the US to privatize the internet, and backers have said it would help maintain its integrity around the world.US and ICANN officials have said the contract had given Washington a symbolic role as overseer or the internet s root zone where new online domains and addresses are created.But critics, including some US lawmakers, argued that this was a giveaway by Washington that could allow authoritarian regimes to seize control.A last-ditch effort by critics to block the plan a lawsuit filed by four US states failed when a Texas federal judge refused to issue an injunction to stop the transition.Lawrence Strickling, who heads the Commerce Department unit which has managed these functions, issued a brief statement early Saturday confirming the transition of the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA). As of October 1, 2016, the IANA functions contract has expired, he said.Stephen Crocker, ICANN s board chairman and one of the engineers who developed the early internet protocols, welcomed the end of the contract. This transition was envisioned 18 years ago, yet it was the tireless work of the global Internet community, which drafted the final proposal, that made this a reality, he said in a statement. This community validated the multi-stakeholder model of Internet governance. It has shown that a governance model defined by the inclusion of all voices, including business, academics, technical experts, civil society, governments and many others is the best way to assure that the Internet of tomorrow remains as free, open and accessible as the Internet of today. The Internet Society, a group formed by internet founders aimed at keeping the system open, said the transition was a positive step. The IANA transition is a powerful illustration of the multi-stakeholder model and an affirmation of the principle that the best approach to address challenges is through bottom-up, transparent, and consensus-driven processes, the group said in a statement.Via: Yahoo | 1real |
FBI Director Says He Won’t Clarify His Misleading Clinton Email Letter Until AFTER Election |
I owe our readers an apology.
In covering the ludicrous letter sent by FBI Director James Comey to Republicans that misleadingly suggested new emails had been uncovered implicating Hillary Clinton in criminal activity, out of an abundance of caution I gave Comey the benefit of the doubt . Maybe this wasn’t overtly partisan electioneering by a Republican FBI director abusing his position? Maybe he just screwed up massively?
That generous interpretation has all but been torched by Comey himself. Days after his letter made its way to Hillary’s political enemies (including Donald Trump), Comey has yet to set the record straight. The scandal has completely fallen to pieces around him. His own behavior in producing the letter, legal experts say, bordered on criminal . But Comey remains silent. He doesn’t even have the decency to admit he screwed up.
And that silence has enabled Republicans to continue lying about what is happening. Trump himself tells his supporters that the FBI director is pursuing a “criminal investigation” against Clinton – a blatant lie that could easily be snuffed out with a single message by the suddenly bashful Comey. We are now leading in many polls, and many of these were taken before the criminal investigation announcement on Friday – great in states!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 30, 2016
Instead of setting the record straight, and doing a small part to repair the damage to American democracy he had done, Comey is telling sources that he will refuse to clarify the anti-Hillary letter until after the election . Trump is probably high fiving his campaign staff right now.
NBC’s Pete Williams (whose track record covering the botched FBI letter has been impeccable): Pete Williams reports that Comey is UNLIKELY to say anything more before the election
— Sam Stein (@samsteinhp) October 30, 2016
So having felt totally comfortable with hurting Hillary Clinton’s campaign (over what amounts to nothing), Comey now decides it would be unfair to Trump to come out with the truth. That is a level of partisanship that is hard to wrap one’s head around.
And sadly, many people seem to be unaware that this new Clinton scandal has been completely manufactured by Comey and the Republican Party. According to poll expert Nate Silver, the post-“FBI letter” polls show Clinton’s lead dropping. If Democrats keep their eyes on the prize, it shouldn’t cost her the election, but it may diminish her chances of succeeding in creating the landslide required to completely eradicate “Trumpism” from American politics.
You may not find that on the law books anywhere, but that is a crime nonetheless.
Featured image via Alex Wong/Getty Images Share this Article! | 1real |
He Finally Came Out And Said It: Trump Calls Protesters As Bad As Nazis | Speaking at Trump Tower on Tuesday, Donald Trump finally confirmed in his own words that he believes protesters are as much to blame for the violence in Charlottesville last weekend. Asked by a reporter why he didn t name the Alt-Right in his condemnation of the murder of Heather Heyer at the hands of an Alt-Right activist, he defied the reporter to define the alt-right for me, repeating himself like the bully he is. As the reporter, who is not visible in this clip, tried to answer, Trump began to speak over her:Okay, what about the alt-left? Excuse me, what about the alt-left that came charging at the as you say the alt-right? Do they have any semblance of guilt? Let me ask you this. What about the fact they came charging, they came charging with clubs in their hands, swinging clubs? Do they have any problem? I think they do. As far as I m concerned, that was a horrible, horrible day. Wait a minute, I m not finished. I m not finished, Fake News.As reporters tried to get a word in edgewise, Trump clearly had to compose himself for the camera, obviously flustered. Then he told reporters in attendance that he had watched it much more closely than you people watched it, and:You had a group on one side that was bad, and you had a group on the other side that was also very violent. And nobody wants to say that, but I ll say it right now. You had a group on the other side that came charging in without a permit and they were very, very violent.After barely recovering from his disastrous many sides statement on Saturday, Trump just proved the disgusting, hateful Alt-Right correct again. He refuses to condemn them because they are his base. They work by his side. They are his people.Trump asks about "alt-left": "You had a group on one side that was bad, and you had a group on the other side that was also very violent" pic.twitter.com/Zr8oG4FVIR This Week (@ThisWeekABC) August 15, 2017Featured image via Drew Angerer/Getty Images | 1real |
Life Beyond Bars: One Man’s Journey From Prison to College - The New York Times | Around midnight on June 30, 1998, Juan Echevarria, a principal in a drug crew, ran into a crack dealer on a Harlem street corner. What ensued, he later told the police, was an argument over money. In those days, Mr. Echevarria would case New York City in a bulletproof vest, often armed with a handgun and sometimes cocaine and cash, overseeing dealers who sold on the streets and in the lobbies of Harlem and Brooklyn apartment buildings. On this night, Mr. Echevarria was cruising for trouble. Hours before, he’d found out his girlfriend had dumped him. He’d just been across the river at Rikers Island on a drug possession conviction. He was feeling hopeless and angry. Pumped with alcohol and mounting rage, he slipped a small revolver out from under his waistband. As the argument heated up, he fired at the dealer, who staggered to his death. Looking back, he can’t quite explain what happened. “It went bad real fast,” he recalled. Mr. Echevarria pleaded guilty to manslaughter and spent 14 years in prison. Today, at 41, he is desperate to remake himself. Now a college student, he lugs a backpack around the Midtown Manhattan campus of John Jay College of Criminal Justice, part of the City University of New York, pulling struggling with papers and keeping close tabs on his 3. 47 average. Part of the Pipeline, a program that helps incarcerated and formerly incarcerated men in New York City pursue college degrees, Mr. Echevarria dreams of one day graduating. But his challenges have been numerous. He grappled with remedial algebra, required of matriculating CUNY students who can’t pass the basic math competency exam. He had to take it four times. Five years in, he is just a sophomore, still 84 credits away from a bachelor’s degree, and has accrued $18, 000 in student loans. Money has been a constant source of anxiety. Sometimes he had to rely on friends and family to feed him, and he worried about where he would lay his head at night. He has stayed in seven apartments since his release, in 2012. A day job — as a case manager helping mentally ill prisoners society — has relieved some of the financial pressure, but it has taken its toll emotionally. Exhausted, he tosses and turns on the couch in his mother’s public housing unit in East Harlem, where he stays when not at his new girlfriend’s apartment, and he wonders: “Why am I doing this?” On other evenings, Mr. Echevarria sits in class scribbling copious notes and raising his hand frequently to answer questions, confident he has made the right choice. For a recent anthropology class, he arrived early and positioned himself in the center of the room. Raymond Ruggiero, an adjunct professor, offered up an energetic lecture on the rise and fall of democracy in Latin America, touching on the spread of the Enlightenment, the power structure of banana republics, and the Guatemalan peace activist Rigoberta Menchu. Pausing on the escapades of the Venezuelan leader Simón Bolívar, Dr. Ruggiero grew animated. “Bolívar’s whole idea was about equality, was about freedom, freedom of the mind,” he told the class. Mr. Echevarria, one of Dr. Ruggiero’s favorites, nodded enthusiastically. Later, when the discussion led to how nation states began to regulate themselves once Spanish rulers had left, Dr. Ruggiero asked, “What did they learn about governance?” “To do the same thing the king was doing,” Mr. Echevarria called out. “Yes,” Dr. Ruggiero confirmed. That night, Mr. Echevarria learned that he had earned an A+ on a paper about the paradoxical nature of violence in the modern world, borrowing from the ideas of the political theorist Hannah Arendt and referencing Karl Marx, the civil rights movement and the Cold War. “Juan, excellent work!” Dr. Ruggiero had scrawled at the bottom of the paper. That put him in good spirits. Much is at stake. With his degree, Mr. Echevarria hopes one day to become a director at the Center for Alternative Sentencing and Employment Services, the nonprofit organization where he works. It’s one of the rare places that appreciates an applicant’s time behind bars. He plans to major in culture and deviance studies, an academic field heavy on ethnographic perspectives and popular with undergraduates interested in social work, law or the social sciences. Mr. Echevarria’s employer has promised a promotion and a big raise if he gets his degree. With the extra income, he would like to settle into a apartment in the Inwood section of Manhattan, removed from the neighborhood where he grew up and the drug dealers who remind him of his former life. Without a degree, he worries, opportunities will “disappear. ” “You want to do this, but it adds a lot of stress,” he said. “I’ve had my ups and downs because of school. ” • According to the Department of Justice, there were 1. 5 million Americans in state and federal prisons in 2014 636, 000 were released. But the number who are likely to stay out — fewer than a quarter by the marker — is dispiriting. With widespread consensus that the system is failing both offenders and their victims, state and federal governments are reinvesting in rehabilitative programs. Access to college is one of the most popular. From California to New York, states have announced plans to increase funding. New York is committing $7. 5 million to offer classes to 1, 000 inmates over the next five years. The White House has been particularly engaged in the movement. In May, President Obama urged colleges to eliminate a question on applications about students’ criminal history. The question has been found to have a chill effect on applicants with felony convictions. He has also sought ways around a law that bars prisoners from accessing Pell grants. Advocates estimate that there were at least 350 college degree programs for prisoners and the recently released in the early 1980s. But as crime rates skyrocketed and the national mood toward violent offenders turned unforgiving, many of the programs shuttered. Both Democrats and Republicans questioned the spending of higher education dollars on lawbreakers while young people struggled with the relatively small sums that federal financial aid offered them. The 1994 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, signed into law by President Bill Clinton, prevents anyone in a state or federal prison from accessing Pell grants. Inmates also can’t take out federal student loans. Last year, President Obama announced an experimental educational program (exempted from regulatory requirements) known as the Second Chance Pell Pilot Program. It is expected to award grants to 12, 000 inmates, many of whom began classes this fall 67 colleges and universities have been chosen to participate, and more than a quarter of them are starting new programs. Higher education behind bars is not free. Some colleges charge inmates regular tuition, or scale it to their prison wages. Others, including John Jay and Bard College, offer them full scholarships. The Bard Prison Initiative plans to expand its program, which offers classes to nearly 300 prisoners. The Pipeline at John Jay, one of the nation’s premier criminal justice colleges, currently sends professors to teach for credit classes at Otisville, a men’s prison in Orange County, N. Y. It hopes that with the Pell program, it can add 120 new students, give inmates the opportunity to get an associate degree while still incarcerated and start a program at the Queensboro Correctional Facility in Long Island City. Baz Dreisinger, a popular English professor and spirited voice in the prison reform movement, founded the Pipeline in 2011. The program is administered by the Prisoner Reentry Institute, an arm of John Jay dedicated to finding best practices for inmates. The Pipeline, for male inmates five years or less before their release date, is noteworthy for providing its students with a community both on the inside and on the outside. On release, students are encouraged to transfer to a city campus. So far, 10 have. Once out, the men are offered a host of services by the institute’s College Initiative program. The small, staff, made up of mostly young prison advocates, advises them — through workshops, office visits and anxious phone calls — on financial aid matters, what classes to take, ways to perfect term papers, and how to deal with ornery professors and manage girlfriends, parents and children while trying to hold down jobs. Proponents of college programs for prisoners contend that if getting a degree is a for students who haven’t been to prison, it is even more curative for those who have. “Our people have a whole lot more to lose if they don’t graduate and a whole lot more to gain by graduating,” said Vivian Nixon, executive director of the College and Community Fellowship, a nonprofit that funnels dozens of former female prisoners onto college campuses in and around New York City every year. “It’s a natural time of transition and reinvention. ” Ruth Delaney, a senior program associate at the Vera Institute of Justice, which oversees its own initiative in New Jersey, Michigan and North Carolina, says that when it comes to factors proven to prevent recidivism, clocking time with other students “checks all the boxes. ” College surrounds people with peers who are motivated and focused. It leaves them little time to fall back into old patterns and helps them build their résumés. And because campuses are ripe with resources — mental health services, financial counselors, food pantries — recently released prisoners who arrive on them are near the kind of assistance they desperately need. Indeed, a 2013 RAND Corporation study found that involvement in a prisoner education program reduced a person’s odds of returning to prison by 43 percent. Edward J. Latessa, director of the School of Criminal Justice at the University of Cincinnati, has spent years studying programs that work in reducing recidivism. He says most successful programs aren’t lofty and philosophical, and they don’t involve a lot of talk therapy, yoga or scare tactics. The best programs, he says, are pragmatic. “You have to do something about people’s difficulties, rather than just talking about them,” he said. “You don’t just tell them what they need to do, you show them and then you let them do it. ” But getting through college is no easy feat. Five years in and only one of the 57 students in the Pipeline (29 are still in prison) has graduated with an associate degree. No one has obtained a bachelor’s degree. And two who have been released have gone back to jail. • To survive in prison, Mr. Echevarria put on the tough, protective veneer that prisoners sometimes refer to as “the mask. ” He learned how to size up a cafeteria to determine who was a threat and how to make a knife out of a toothbrush and shards of metal to protect himself from gang attacks. He landed in solitary on various occasions — once for talking back to a guard, another time for smoking marijuana. He moved around a lot, from Rikers Island to the Sing Sing Correctional Facility to the Clinton Correctional Facility — a sign, in the prison world, that he was challenging to maintain. A few years into his sentence, though, while stationed in a prison in Ulster County, he made friends with a longtime inmate who was teaching AIDS awareness classes. He signed on, read pharmacology and immunology textbooks, and eventually became an instructor himself. AIDS was still a significant killer, and men flocked to his classes. While teaching, Mr. Echevarria started thinking about his future. He thought about changing. “I knew I was going to get out. What would I do?” When he learned about the Pipeline, he applied immediately. He had a high school equivalency diploma, but had lasted only a few semesters at a community college. Now, though, the idea of pursuing a degree appealed to him. He wrote a essay and sat for the entrance exam. He was transferred to the Otisville prison in 2011 to begin taking classes, some with Dr. Dreisinger. A year later, Mr. Echevarria got the news. It was time for his release — his “homecoming. ” He sat on a bench in an International House of Pancakes, eating his first noninstitutional meal in more than a dozen years, and called his mother. Then he called Dr. Dreisinger. He wanted to start school on the outside as soon as possible. He had six credits under his belt. Mr. Echevarria credits those first classes for “making me feel human again. ” By that fall, he looked like a model of renewal. He enrolled at Bronx Community College and was reading about Sigmund Freud in Intro to Psychology, dissecting the Constitution in an American government class and learning about linear equations, right angles and signed numbers in algebra. Out of class, he worked to avoid old friends and “business acquaintances” so he wouldn’t “end up with plans that were not initially mine,” and he started going to church. He was befriending professors and bonding with administrators at the Prisoner Reentry Institute. But if things looked good on the outside, he was emotionally raw on the inside. “I was a wreck,” he recalled. “Things were a roller coaster. ” He struggled to make emotional connections. He and his teenage daughter (now a single mother of a toddler and an infant) texted and saw each other on occasion, but she was not that interested in bonding with him. The relationship he had developed with a woman while in prison, involving long letters about the Chilean poet Pablo Neruda and the Mexican painter Frida Kahlo, had not translated to the real world, so he moved in with his mother, living blocks from the shooting that had led to his arrest. It was a situational quagmire putting him in contact with all the people recidivism research suggests he should avoid. It was also placing him too close for comfort to old family memories. Mr. Echevarria, whose father left when he was a tween, harbored resentment about his childhood. His mother had worked. He was often supervised by older siblings, and felt abandoned. He recalls being kicked out into the streets for days, as a teenager, after coming home high. His mother recalls warning him about drugs and drug dealing and being worried that she herself might get kicked out of the apartment building if he was involved with illegal substances. Twenty years later, tensions still brewed. Mr. Echevarria moved in with a girlfriend, but that didn’t work out either. Some weeks he had only a few dollars to live on. He worried that if he lost his Metro card, he would be in “crisis mode,” he said. Once, seeing a young man ruffling through garbage, he thought: I am steps away from that. He was beginning to feel “the temptation to go back to the old life,” and the quick and easy cash. It was fleeting. But there. At semester’s end, Mr. Echevarria had earned two B’s, but he failed algebra. The graphs baffled him. He had trouble remembering what formulas went with what problems. It was a blow to his . But it was the rage he felt when things went wrong, lingering from his days behind bars and during his childhood, that seemed to be his most pressing problem. “I felt like I wasn’t going to be able to do all of this,” he said. “I got really discouraged. ” He didn’t go back to school for an entire year. Ask Mr. Echevarria how the Pipeline has helped him, and he is likely to chat a bit about academics but mostly about the frustrating details of everyday life and how staff members have helped him manage his rage when confronted with them. During the 14 years he was in prison, the world went through a tech revolution. Dealing with CUNY’s online system nearly derailed him. One afternoon, Lila McDowell, the institute’s development and communications coordinator, met him at John Jay, where he had applied as a transfer student from Bronx Community College. A University of Chicago graduate, she serves as helicopter to many of the men in the program. Mr. Echevarria griped about the bureaucratic holdup. “I kept thinking: I don’t need to go through this. I don’t need to go through this. Old ways of dealing were popping up. ” “Calm down,” Dr. McDowell said. “This is exactly what everyone has to go through,” she told him, eyeballing the other students who were also waiting in line. “Part of college is learning how to navigate bureaucracies. ” Mr. Echevarria took a deep breath. “I really needed that,” he recalled. Heady and philosophical, Mr. Echevarria remains interested in the thinking patterns — the and propensity for violence — that landed him in prison. As a result, many of the classes he takes delve deeply into the nature of violence, juvenile delinquency and prison life. They are as much a study of himself as a study of others. What does he most want to learn? How to master his emotions. “I still have a lot to work on,” he told me. “But I’m getting there. ” • At ease in a dress shirt and a pair of leather Mr. Echevarria hobnobbed with professors, administrators and Manhattan artists at the program’s annual dinner at John Jay last spring. Dr. Dreisinger praised a group of John Jay students who had traveled to Otisville regularly to take classes alongside prisoners, a feature of the program that participants, both in jail and out, praise. Prisoners say it builds their confidence and creates bonds with students they can call on, once out. Traditional college students, particularly ones interested in criminal justice careers, say it offers them a bird’ view into the life of the kind of people they may soon serve. Dr. Dreisinger acknowledged an inmate who had been released but ended up back inside. She told the diners that the young man was with them in spirit, writing beautiful papers and taking an independent study course with her. “He’s engaged and still very much present in the program,” she said, sidestepping the heartbreaking reality of the situation. She also paid tribute to Devon Simmons, who landed in jail 16 years ago, convicted of assault and weapon and drug offenses. He was scheduled to graduate a few weeks later with an associate degree, the first to do so. A photo of him in graduation gear was flashed on an oversize screen in the center of the room. This fall, at 35, he is at John Jay pursuing his bachelor’s. “Devon is just opening the door because we have so many other graduations that are going to be coming up in years to come,” she said. As for Mr. Echevarria, he said he was proud of how his last few semesters had gone. He had finally passed remedial math. He had earned an A in Dr. Ruggiero’s class and a B in a criminal justice course taught by a former parole officer. Dr. Dreisinger even needles him about seeking a Ph. D. But he continues to oscillate between big academic dreams and the realities of his life. He talks about opening up a community center, or doing something that doesn’t require a degree at all. Then he latches onto the Ph. D. idea. And what of the man who fired a pistol on an East Harlem street 18 years ago, who was violent and ? “I know who he is,” Mr. Echevarria said. “But I hardly recognize him. ” Then one of the last times I spoke to him, he said this: “College itself has changed me. But the finish line still seems far off. ” | 0fake |
Why I’m Suing Vanderbilt University | Taki's Magazine October 29, 2016
PALM BEACH, Fla.—Maybe you missed this little item, but last month Obama shut down 130 colleges in a single day.
That’s one-three-oh campuses in 38 states that failed to open for the fall semester even though everybody was already enrolled.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think anything even remotely similar to this has ever happened in the history of the Republic. Education is the religion of the country. It’s the one thing that all politicians put on their list of bromides (always saying we need more, not fewer, colleges). Education ranks right up there with sick babies and flogged pit bulls for things people will donate money to. If Obama had shown up in, say, Dayton, Ohio, in 2008 and said, “By the way, part of my platform is that I might shut down 130 colleges,” I think he would have needed a security escort to get out of the Wright Brothers Banquet Hall.
So why are there no riots?
Because the victims of this Orientation Day Surprise are all students at the ITT Technical Institute.
ITT Tech is one of those for-profit chains that offer degrees in rarefied skills like automobile mechanics and refrigeration repair and medical billing—they’re not afraid to get specific with their curriculum—but historically it’s the Oxford of that group. It grew out of an Indianapolis company called Howard W. Sams that was a publisher of electronics textbooks and service manuals. Sams Technical Institute was formed in 1963 to teach electronics to students who wanted to forgo the typical liberal-arts curriculum of the day and learn how to work with emerging technologies, usually in the service end of the business, and it proved so popular that STI soon merged with Teletronic Technical Institute in Evansville, Acme Institute of Technology in Dayton, and another Sams in Fort Wayne, before being acquired in 1966 by ITT, the diversified international conglomerate that got started in the ’20s by consolidating phone companies.
In the ’60s and ’70s these were sneered at as “trade schools” or “vo-tech schools,” but ITT turned them into actual colleges, a fact recognized in 1973 when the original ITT Technical Institute in Indianapolis became the first “nontraditional” school allowed into the federal tuition loan and grant program. It was considered good policy since these programs were extremely popular with Vietnam War veterans trying to re-enter society. ITT Tech expanded rapidly in the ’70s, pulled back slightly in the ’80s, expanded again in the ’90s, then became publicly traded after the Starwood hotel group bought ITT and decided it didn’t want to be in the education business. | 1real |
Conservatives Are Now Threatening The Family Of The Journalist Who Released Trump’s Taxes (TWEETS) | It was obvious this was going to happen, but if you were holding out hope that David Cay Johnston could release Donald Trump s tax returns without facing harassment from his supporters, you will be sad to know that Trump fans are just as horrible as ever. Ever since he broke the story, Johnston says that cowardly Trump supporters have been threatening his wife and one of his children. Trump fans call & harass my wife & 1 of my children after I break story White House confirmed. Sad! Johnston wrote on Twitter. Let s have open debate, not threats. Trump fans call & harass my wife & 1 of my children after I break story White House confirmed. Sad! Let's have open debate, not threats. David Cay Johnston (@DavidCayJ) March 15, 2017Johnston added that he is not intimidated by Trump fiends attempts to intimidate him, but that the calls to family are out of bounds, a disturbing sign of how Trump damages civil debate. To be clear, folks, I don't intimidate. But calls to family are out of bounds, a disturbing sign of how Trump damages civil debate. David Cay Johnston (@DavidCayJ) March 15, 2017On top of that, he says, Trump and his less-stupid-than-Eric-but-still-stupid son have been lying to the American people about the exact taxes The Donald has paid.Trump WH confirms my report, but fakes numbers. Trump paid $36.5m income tax, not $38 & not $40m Don Jr. claims. False WH statements. Sad! David Cay Johnston (@DavidCayJ) March 15, 2017The release of Trump s taxes did not, ultimately, reveal much (in fact, the very fact that The Donald paid any taxes at all was a positive for him), but one thing is very telling: Trump s attempt to do away with the Alternative Minimum Tax is definitely centered around saving himself money:But for AMT, which Trump wants to scrap, he'd have paid a lower tax rate than the poorest of Americans under 3.5% on $152.7 million David Cay Johnston (@DavidCayJ) March 15, 2017It s unclear why Trump s followers would go after Johnston and his family over this, but once again it is the norm for the sort of person who would still support Trump.Featured image via Twitter/Getty Images (Pool)/screengrab | 1real |
STEVE BANNON Calls Out Globalist George W. Bush for Slam Against Trump: ‘Just Embarrassed Himself’ [Video] | Who better to take on George W. Bush than Steve Bannon. He responded to the speech last week by Bush where he took a veiled swipe at President Trump. It was shocking that after 8 disastrous years of Obama when Bush said absolutely nothing, he comes out to criticize Trump. shame on him! Bannon on Bush: He has no idea if he s coming or going just like it was when he was president of the United States There s not been a more destructive presidency than George Bush s.Ex-White House Advisor Steve Bannon hits back at George W Bush after the former President denounced bigotry at a speech in New York. pic.twitter.com/Pb8C2ILe8b Channel 4 News (@Channel4News) October 21, 2017Globalists came out last week in force because they hate that President Trump is putting America first. After Bush came out to speak against Trump, Obama did too!Barack Obama stutters through yet another jerky moment where he just can t zip his lips: He s the president who just won t go away: Some, some of the politics we see, now we, we thought we put that to bed. Uh-I-uh-mean that-uh-that folks looking fifty years back. It s the 21st century. Obama really was the most divisive POTUS in history. It s pretty unbelievable that he s now claiming Trump is divisive. This made us think of slinky and the tactics used by Obama in the past to divide Americans: Saul Alinsky 101: Accuse your opponent of what only you are doing, as you are doing it, to create confusion, cloud the issue, and inoculate voters against any evidence of your guilt. That about nails what Obama did in the video above. He and Hillary are fans and supporters of Saul Alinsky. Check out the video below:Let s see if you notice any other tactics used by the left in trying to bring down President Trump:Alinsky s 12 Rules: 1. Power is not only what you have, but what the enemy thinks you have. Power is derived from 2 main sources money and people. Have-Nots must build power from flesh and blood. 2. Never go outside the expertise of your people. It results in confusion, fear and retreat. Feeling secure adds to the backbone of anyone. 3. Whenever possible, go outside the expertise of the enemy. Look for ways to increase insecurity, anxiety and uncertainty. 4. Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules. If the rule is that every letter gets a reply, send 30,000 letters. You can kill them with this because no one can possibly obey all of their own rules. 5. Ridicule is man s most potent weapon. There is no defense. It s irrational. It s infuriating. It also works as a key pressure point to force the enemy into concessions. 6. A good tactic is one your people enjoy. They ll keep doing it without urging and come back to do more. They re doing their thing, and will even suggest better ones. 7. A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag. Don t become old news. 8. Keep the pressure on. Never let up. Keep trying new things to keep the opposition off balance. As the opposition masters one approach, hit them from the flank with something new. 9. The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself. Imagination and ego can dream up many more consequences than any activist. 10. If you push a negative hard enough, it will push through and become a positive. Violence from the other side can win the public to your side because the public sympathizes with the underdog. 11. The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative. Never let the enemy score points because you re caught without a solution to the problem. 12. Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it. Cut off the support network and isolate the target from sympathy. Go after people and not institutions; people hurt faster than institutions.TUCKER AND MARK STEYN DISCUSS THIS TACTIC: Why is it the left always accuses its opponents of the exact same thing they re guilty of? @TuckerCarlson RT #MAGA #TRUMP #Weinstein pic.twitter.com/g5oI4TqVHR DONNA WARREN (@DonnaWR8) October 12, 2017 | 1real |
The obsession of the House Freedom Caucus | Top Dems want White House to call off Part B demo — The next cancer drug shortage | 0fake |
Key Republican in Health Law’s Fate Hails From a State That Embraced It - The New York Times | ONTARIO, Ore. — When Representative Greg Walden of Oregon visits his expansive district, which swallows of a very blue West Coast state, his constituents grouse amiably to their longtime Republican congressman about environmental regulations and federal lands policy. And then the conversation shifts to the Affordable Care Act and what its repeal would mean for the struggling rural workers who have long voted for Mr. Walden, and for children like Rocco Stone. Because of the health law, Rocco has been able to live at home, attend school and have a nearly normal life despite having autism and a rare genetic disorder. “Our life was completely changed when Oregon and the federal government partnered to provide home and community services through Medicaid,” Rocco’s mother, Dana M. Stone, told the congressman this past week. “We are deeply, deeply concerned about talk at the federal level about a complete repeal of the Affordable Care Act. ” Mr. Walden, the new chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, is not just another backbench Republican dealing with suddenly energized supporters of the health law at town meetings. The lanky congressman will have a large role in drafting promised legislation to replace former President Barack Obama’s signature domestic achievement and a huge say in decisions about the future of Medicaid, which the health law greatly expanded. As a former chairman of the committee responsible for electing Republicans to the House, Mr. Walden knows the politics of health care as well as anyone. But in his new role, he must reconcile the political goals of his party, which is committed to repealing the 2010 health law, and the interests of his state, where officials say the law has been a big success. In 2010, nearly one in five Oregonians lacked health coverage. Today, state officials say, 95 percent of Oregonians have coverage. Since Oregon expanded eligibility for Medicaid under the health law in 2014, enrollment has increased more than 65 percent. Nearly of the state’s four million residents are now on Medicaid. In Mr. Walden’s district, the percentages are even higher. In some of his rural counties, more than of the people are on Medicaid. President Trump easily carried those counties. Mr. Walden won a 10th term in the fall with 72 percent of the vote and was victorious in every one of the 20 counties in his district, which is about the size of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut combined. But that does not guarantee that voters here endorse all the policies of his party. Hospitals are among the leading supporters and beneficiaries of Affordable Care Act. Mr. Walden was a trustee of a hospital in his hometown, Hood River. “We are very worried about what ‘repeal and replace’ might look like,” said David Underriner, who supervises the hospital, Providence Hood River Memorial, as Oregon’s regional chief executive for Providence Health and Services, the large Roman Catholic system that owns it. Mr. Walden grew up on a cherry orchard, worked at radio stations owned by his family, and followed his father into the State Legislature. The political shifts that have turned all three Pacific Coast states reliably Democratic have begun to creep into a few of the conservative inland parts of Oregon. Hood River County, long known for fruit farming, windsurfing and the spectacular scenery of the Columbia River Gorge, has lately become a center for the production of surveillance drones, leading to an influx of software engineers, technology entrepreneurs and other young professionals. Mr. Walden’s margin of victory in November in the county where he lives was just five votes — out of more than 10, 590 cast. “It’s just a little ” Mr. Walden allowed. “It didn’t used to be that way. ” Unlike many Republicans in Congress, Mr. Walden has worked productively with Democrats. “I’m a problem solver,” he said in an interview after a town meeting here near the Idaho border. “I’m not an ideologue. I want to fix things. ” And in Oregon, some Democrats and supporters are glad Mr. Walden is in his position. “I’ve known Greg a long time,” said Andrew S. Davidson, the president and chief executive of the Oregon Association of Hospitals and Health Systems. “He is not interested in upending the progress we have made in this state. ” Representative Kurt Schrader, a Democrat whose district includes the southern suburbs of Portland and the capital, Salem, predicted Mr. Walden “will be mindful of the implications of any legislation for our state, which is leading the nation in the transformation of health care. ” Unlike Mr. Walden, Oregon has embraced the Affordable Care Act. State officials say many of the changes proposed by congressional Republicans, including a rollback of federal funds for the expansion of Medicaid, would reverse much of the progress they have made. Oregon has a history of health care innovation that predates the Affordable Care Act. In the early 1990s, it ranked medical procedures according to their costs and benefits, and Medicaid uses this list to decide which services to cover. Under a federal waiver granted in 2012, Oregon treats Medicaid beneficiaries through 16 “coordinated care organizations,” which are governed by local citizen councils. The organizations have slowed the growth of health spending and improved the health of Medicaid beneficiaries, according to performance data collected by the state. Even as he writes legislation to unwind the Affordable Care Act, Mr. Walden takes pride in Oregon’s success under the law. “Our state of Oregon has had quite a bit of innovation over the years,” Mr. Walden said. “We’ve got the coordinated care organizations in place that have actually brought better health care outcomes at lower cost. There are great ideas out there among the states, but right now, they have to come back and beg permission from a federal bureaucrat to be able to do much of anything innovative. ” When Mr. Walden first ran for Congress in 1998, conservatives called him too liberal. Since then, he has taken more conservative positions, and the party has moved to the right. “Times change,” he said. “You get a terrorist attack. You have different administrations come and go. Culture changes. My bedrock principles have stayed the same. I favor more local and less Washington . ” Mr. Walden never wavered in his opposition to the Affordable Care Act. On the day the House passed the bill in March 2010, he and other Republicans stood on the Capitol balcony, before a throng of protesters, and held up signs with handwritten letters that spelled out their message: “Kill the Bill. ” A month later, on the House floor, Mr. Walden announced the goal that he hopes soon to achieve, using words that became the mantra for Republicans: “We need to repeal and replace this law. ” Over the last four years, Mr. Walden has been a genial attack dog for Republicans. As chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, he averted a political blood bath for his party and secured the election of Republicans in many districts that voted for Hillary Clinton in the presidential election. Many of those House campaigns revolved around attacks on the health law that he is now charged with replacing. Oregon tried to run its own health insurance exchange, but had a disastrous experience and decided, after a year, to use the federal website, HealthCare. gov. The state has a competitive insurance market, but consumers have still seen substantial increases in prices, with the average premium for a popular benchmark plan on the exchange rising 27 percent this year and more than 20 percent last year, according to the federal government. (Subsidies cushion the impact for most consumers.) “Medicaid did better than expected, and subsidized commercial insurance did worse,” said Dennis E. Burke, the president of the Good Shepherd Health Care System in Hermiston, Ore. “We have seen steep increases in premiums for commercial insurers, and as a result healthy people have dropped out. ” People newly covered under the health law “proudly present an insurance card,” Mr. Burke said, but in many cases their plans have high deductibles, and the hospital has difficulty collecting the patient’s share of the bill. But Mr. Burke is not so quick as his congressman, Mr. Walden, to seek repeal. “I think it could be fixed,” Mr. Burke said. “We need more of a retooling. ” | 0fake |
HOMELAND SECURITY Catering to Illegals? Three Squares Provided to Detainees on Taxpayer Dime | Read more: TMZ | 1real |
(VIDEO) OBAMA ON LETTERMAN: “WE IGNORE POCKETS OF POVERTY” BUT OBAMA’S STIMULUS GAVE $1.8 BILLION TO BALTIMORE | The stats don t lie on this one Obama s hoping to reach the low information voter who watches Letterman and will buy this bs. The stimulus under Obama gave BILLIONS for work programs and education but we still need to give more??? As a taxpaying American I am 100% FED Up! and ready for the black community to take responsibility for their towns and their youth. We DO NOT ignore pockets of poverty but I would say that we ignore the truth of what s going on in the black community and what s the real problem here. It s just like when the main stream media ignores and covers up the bad behavior of groups of black teens. We ve reported on numerous cases of this bad behavior that caused damage and physical harm to others. The latest case was ironically in Baltimore and the local press called the offenders kids when you can see clearly that these are teens. Downplaying and not punishing the bad behavior by these teens only makes it worse. No consequences breeds chaos President Obama said that too often we ignore pockets of poverty, lack of opportunity, lack of education on Monday s Late Show on CBS.Obama said, it s important that now that charges have been brought in Baltimore, that we let due process play itself out. Those officers who have been charged, they deserve, to be represented, and to let the legal system work its way through. We don t have all the facts yet, and that that s going to be presented in a court of law. I think it s also really important to remember that the overwhelming number of police officers are doing an outstanding job, we re in New York, today, we re in New York today, where a young officer lost his life doing his job, and families of officers all across the country every day, they re wondering is my loved one going to come home? And so they ve got a really tough job. He continued, what we also know, though, is that for far too long, for decades, you have a situation in which too many communities don t have a relationship of trust with the police, and if you just have a handful of police who are not doing the right thing, that makes the job tougher for all the other police officers out there. It creates an environment in the community where they feel as if, rather than being protected and served, they re the targets of arbitrary arrests or stops, and so our job has to be to rebuild trust, and we put forward a task force made up of police officers, but also young activists who have been protesting in Ferguson, or here in New York. They came up with some terrific recommendations about collecting data on what happens when there s a shooting involving police, what are we doing in terms of things like body cameras, and so there s some very practical, concrete things we can do to make the system work better. Read more: Breitbart | 1real |
LIVE STREAM: DONALD TRUMP Full Economic Plan Speech At Noon EST…This’ll Make Liberal Heads Explode! [Video] | Donald Trump is making a key speech on the economy and his plan to turn it around. It might not be what liberals want but it s a pro-growth plan with deregulation and lower taxes! You gotta love that! Trump has promised to unveil a new policy agenda for revitalizing the American economy in a speech Monday at the Detroit Economic Club. The plan will include major changes to U.S. energy policy that will make the country the biggest producer in the world of oil and gas, as well as coal, Moore said. Read more: Bloomberg | 1real |
Catholic Priest Suspended For Sending D*ck Pics To Parish’s Pool Guy (VIDEO) | Another day, another situation where a Catholic priest is caught being a pervert. Monsingor Lawrence McGovern is the head of the Presentation Parish in Stockton, California. He also clearly has a proclivity for gentlemen. McGovern allegedly sent photos of his penis to an unnamed man who takes care of the swimming pool at the parish. The man complained about McGovern s sexual harassment to the police, and the parish, in true Catholic fashion, fired him.Vince Vinaldi is a lawyer for the fired pool man, and he says of the situation: It s extremely disturbing that the person s who is head of this parish would be sending text with photographs of his exposed genitals. Someone s who s engaging in that type of conduct has very, very serious credibility issues and issues with judgement. Finaldi also says that the pool man approached McGovern about the explicit material that he was receiving, and also pointed out that Catholic priests are supposed to be completely celibate. The perverted priest simply responded, Oh, that just means that you re not married. Last I checked, celibacy in modern times refers to abstaining from sexual activity, not marriage.The Stockton Parish suspended McGovern once the allegations hit the news, and issued the usual generic statement regarding a supposed internal investigation: Today the Diocese of Stockton learned for the first time of employment related allegations against Monsignor Lawrence McGovern, the Pastor of Presentation Parish in Stockton. In accordance with the Canon Law of the Church, Bishop Stephen Blaire has placed Monsignor McGovern on administrative leave pending a full and complete investigation. Vince Finaldi, however, has a much more appropriate reaction than that of the local diocese: That person has no business being in a parish and head of a school where there are numerous young children walking around everyday. Unfortunately, Mr. Finaldi, if all of these pedophiles and other assorted perverts were to be dismissed as they should be, there would be very few priests left in the Catholic Church worldwide, and there s no way the Church would allow for that. Likely, McGovern will just be shuttled away to a different parish after the media storm dies down, free to sexually harass another day.Watch a news report on the developing situation, via local station Fox 40: Featured image via video screen capture | 1real |
Trump says his travel ban needed to ensure U.S. religious freedom | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump defended his order to temporarily bar entry to people from seven majority-Muslim nations, which has come under intense criticism at home and abroad, saying on Thursday it was crucial to ensuring religious freedom and tolerance in America. Trump, speaking at a prayer breakfast attended by politicians, faith leaders and guests including Jordan’s King Abdullah, said he wanted to prevent a “beachhead of intolerance” from spreading in the United States. “The world is in trouble, but we’re going to straighten it out, OK? That’s what I do - I fix things,” Trump said in his speech. Trump’s executive order a week ago put a 120-day halt on the U.S. refugee program, barred Syrian refugees indefinitely and imposed a 90-day suspension on people from seven predominantly Muslim countries - Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. The measure, which Trump says is aimed at protecting the country from terrorist attacks, has drawn protests and legal challenges. Trump, a wealthy businessman and former reality TV star who had never previously held public office when he was sworn in on Jan. 20, also sought to reassure the large crowd about the nature of his phone calls with world leaders. The Washington Post said Trump had a tense call with Australia’s Prime Minister about his immigration order. “Believe me, when you hear about the tough phone calls I’m having - don’t worry about it. Just don’t worry about it,” Trump said. He did not specify which calls he was referring to. “We’re taken advantage of by every nation in the world virtually. It’s not going to happen anymore,” said Trump, who campaigned on a stance of “America first” that he said would ensure the country was not taken advantage of in its trade or other foreign relations. Trump said violence against religious minorities must end. “All nations have a moral obligation to speak out against such violence. All nations have a duty to work together to confront it, and to confront it viciously, if we have to,” he said. Trump said the United States has taken “necessary action” in recent days to protect religious liberty in the United States, referring to his immigration action. Critics of the measure have accused him of violating the constitutional guarantee of religious freedom, because the designated countries are majority-Muslim, and of slamming the door shut to refugees. Trump has said the move was necessary to ensure a more thorough vetting of people coming into the United States. “Our nation has the most generous immigration system in the world. There are those who would exploit that generosity to undermine the values that we hold so dear,” Trump said. “There are those who would seek to enter our country for the purpose of spreading violence, or oppressing other people based upon their faith or their lifestyle - not right. We will not allow a beachhead of intolerance to spread in our nation,” he said. Trump said his administration’s new system would ensure that people entering the United States embrace U.S. values including religious liberty. He also pledged to get rid of the “Johnson Amendment,” a tax provision that prevents tax-exempt charities like churches from being involved in political campaigns. The White House said on Wednesday it has issued updated guidance on the travel order clarifying that legal permanent residents, or green card holders, from the designated countries require no waiver to enter the United States. | 0fake |
OBAMA’S Defense Deputy ACCIDENTALLY ADMITS Obama White House Spied On Candidate Trump During MSNBC Interview…But WAIT…There’s Even MORE To This Story! [VIDEO] | Accidents are bound to happen when Democrats become so comfortable with their allies in the liberal media that they forget they re on TV, as they expose themselves and their crooked administration to a national audience.The Conservative Treehouse does a brilliant job of dissecting the interview between former Obama administration official Evelyn Farkas and MSNBC s Mika Brzezinski. They also offer evidence of a fake disinformation campaign that was spread by the Obama regime about a Trump- Russian connection. [UPDATE to story below]This is stunningly interesting and hopefully will be picked up by MSM and congressional investigators.Sometimes when a person is deep inside an echo-chamber of like-minded ideologues, they might not realize what they re saying is rather revealing to those on the outside. That s the set up for former Obama administration official Evelyn Farkas (Deputy Asst. Secretary of Defense) appearing on MSNBC and admitting first hand knowledge the Obama administration spied on candidate and president-elect Donald Trump s transition team to gather intelligence for political use.It would appear Ms. Farkas was so caught up in the discussion, she didn t quite realize the significant admissions she was making about the Obama administration spying on Donald Trump s team and generating classified intelligence for Ms. Farkas (and others) to spread to Capitol Hill politicians. MSNBC s Mika Brzezinski recognized the oh-snap admission and tried to play it off, but by then it was too late.With the help of MSNBC, simultaneous to her admission of first-hand specific knowledge of the administration spying on Mr. Trump, Ms. Evelyn Farkas outs herself as the key source for a New York Times report which discussed President Obama officials leaking classified information to media.Considerable irony jumps to the forefront when you recognize, the New York Times tried to protect Evelyn Farkas as the source of their reporting by stating: More than a half-dozen current and former officials described various aspects of the effort to preserve and distribute the intelligence, and some said they were speaking to draw attention to the material and ensure proper investigation by Congress. All spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were discussing classified information, nearly all of which remains secret. (link)D oh.Whoopsie.Looks like Devin Nunes and the House Intelligence Committee has a new person to bring in for testimony. A positive development because at this rate the media leakers will out themselves without much need for investigation.I wonder what the criminal penalties are for having access to intelligence and sharing it with Democrat politicians [ The Hill People ].Question #1:Who, specifically, are these Hill People you speak of Mrs. Farkas?Watch again. Longer version starts at the 4:50 mark:https://youtu.be/cVGp2FZmVA4 Evelyn Farkas has stated freely on TV that she and a group of associates from the Obama Administration went to congressional staffers who did not have access to these COMINT products and urged them to seek to gain access to them.At some point in the recent past Farkas was de-briefed (cut off) from access to the various kinds of compartmented information she had been given as a requirement of her prior job. When that occurred she signed some papers in which she accepted the responsibility to protect the secrecy of that information. (link) Evelyn Farkas is also a senior fellow of the Atlantic Council SEE HERE the Atlantic Council is funded in part by the US State Department, NATO, the governments of Latvia and Lithuania, the Ukrainian World Congress, and the Ukrainian oligarch Victor Pinchuk. The Atlantic Council has been among the loudest voices calling for a new Cold War with RussiaAnd guess who else is a senior fellow of the Atlantic Council? Dimitri Alperovitch the founder and CTO of CrowdStrike! Alperovitch is head honcho of the Atlantic Council s Cyber Statecraft Initiative . CrowdStrike, aka Dimitri Alperovitch was the organization that initially claimed they had evidence the Russians were connected to the Trump organization. A claim they have subsequently walked back SEE HERECrowdStrike has retracted statements it used to buttress claims of Russian hacking https://t.co/8AZOvoQl0K Michael Tracey (@mtracey) March 28, 2017Combine all of these data-points and you discover that Evelyn Farkas was essentially part of a disinformation campaign with Obama insiders spreading a fake DNC constructed story using false information. However, in addition to pushing the false Trump Russian conspiracy narrative, Farkas has knowledge of the outcome of the original pushing of the narrative leading to actual surveillance of the Trump team.This bolsters the information already presented by Devin Nunes that an entirely separate network of surveillance, unrelated to the Russian conspiracy story, was directly targeting the candidacy of Trump and the post-election surveillance of the President Elect Trump-transition team.For entire story: The Conservative Treehouse | 1real |
Trump's rigged election comments a 'gift to dictators', say Africans | JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - If Donald Trump is interested in rigged elections, Zimbabwean opposition leader Tendai Biti says he could teach him a thing or two. Biti was arrested for treason and detained for a month after daring to suggest his party had defeated President Robert Mugabe in a vote in 2008. “They denied me food. They beat me up. They put me in leg irons. They beat me in the private parts,” Biti, a lawyer who later served as finance minister in an eventual unity government, told Reuters. “That’s real election rigging.” To opposition figures in Africa, and in other parts of the world that lack the 240-year U.S. history of peaceful transitions of power, Trump’s assertion that November’s U.S. presidential election will be “rigged”, and his declaration that he may not accept the outcome, are dangerous words. “Donald Trump is a gift to all tin-pot dictators on the African continent. He is giving currency and legitimacy to rigging because if it can exist in America, it can exist anywhere,” Biti said. “He has no idea what he’s talking about, absolutely no idea,” said Biti, who speaks from the experience of three election defeats to Mugabe, a 92-year-old ex-guerrilla who has run Zimbabwe since independence in 1980. “It makes us cross because in Africa there’s real election rigging.” Long-serving rulers who have faced U.S. criticism in the past are already using Trump’s remarks to counter Washington’s pro-democracy message. When Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, in power for 30 years, won re-election to his seventh term in February, U.S. officials accused his government of arresting opposition figures, harassing their supporters and intimidating the media. Trump’s comments, said Museveni’s spokesman Don Wanyama, “should be an eye-opener to them. As they sit down to lecture other countries, they should realize that it’s not easy.” “Democracy is a process and it really takes time.” Trump refused during a debate on Wednesday to say whether he would respect the result of the Nov. 8 poll. That sent a chill down the spine of Musikari Kombo, a former local government minister in Kenya, where 1,500 people were killed in a wave of ethnic bloodletting unleashed by disputes over the result of a 2007 election. “I was shocked. I was horrified,” Kombo said. “People in Africa who have always challenged elections will say: ‘You see, we are vindicated. Even in the Mother of all Democracies, the presidential candidate is not willing to accept because there is rigging.’” U.S. officials, including state governors from Trump’s own Republican Party, say there is no serious vote fraud problem in the United States and the election will be clean. Nevertheless, Trump and some allies have alleged anomalies in the voter roll in cities such as Philadelphia and Chicago that could allow the votes of dead people to be counted on behalf of his opponent, Hillary Clinton. It is hard to think what they would have made of this year’s election in Gabon, where opposition leader Jean Ping cried foul after narrowly losing to President Ali Bongo, whose family have ruled the oil-producing former French colony for half a century. The focus of Ping’s concern was the province of Haut-Ogooue, where results showed 95.46 percent of voters backed Bongo on a turnout of 99.9 percent, more than double anywhere else. Gabon’s constitutional court - led by the long-time mistress of Bongo’s father, Omar - upheld the result. “I would say to Mr. Trump ‘Come to Gabon to see what a fake democracy looks like, to see what a stolen election looks like,’” said Alexandre Barro Chambrier, a senior Ping adviser. “There is no democracy here. There is the rule of one family and one man imposing a dictatorial regime,” he added. “Mr Trump is not serious.” | 0fake |
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