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Czech PM Babis takes office but so far lacks parliamentary backing | PRAGUE (Reuters) - Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis, a billionaire businessman who ran on an anti-establishment ticket, took office with his cabinet on Wednesday, but it was unclear whether his tenure will survive a confidence vote next month. Babis, who built a business empire in food, farming, chemicals and media before entering politics in 2011, will have one month to gain confidence under the constitution for his minority government. He said after being formally appointed by Czech President Milos Zeman, that the confidence vote should take place on Jan. 10. Running on pledges to fight immigration and make the state more efficient, Babis s ANO party won 29.6 percent of the vote in an October national election that saw the rise of other parties preaching against the establishment. As finance minister over the past three years, Babis saw the central state budget swing to a surplus and has vowed to further cut public debt ratio to GDP, currently at a half of the European Union average. His problem is that ANO holds just 78 seats in the 200-seat lower house and does not have the firm backing of any of the other eight parties. The far-right, anti-EU SPD party and the far-left Communists have lent ANO support in initial parliamentary votes in return for committee posts, but no deal has been announced on their backing for the cabinet. Babis will need a few parties to either support the cabinet or leave before the confidence vote to lower the threshold the government needs to pass. Babis s government includes non-partisan ministers, in line with his pledge to bring more managerial style to governance. His first tack will be representing the country at the European Union summit on Thursday and Friday, where he will push for strengthening EU borders and stopping illegal migration. If Babis loses the confidence vote, his government will stay in power until an alternative is formed. Zeman reiterated on Wednesday his willingness to give Babis a second try if the first attempt fails, and signaled this may be the way forward. (I have) the impression that several (parties) wanted to be coaxed, but in order not to lose their dignity or prestige, they will want to be coaxed only in the second round, Zeman said. Most parties have called for Babis himself to stay out of the government due to a police case looking at whether he illegally hid ownership of a farm and conference center a decade ago to get a 2 million euro ($2.35 million) EU subsidy meant for small businesses. Babis has denied any wrongdoing. Some parties also criticize Babis for conflicts of interest as an owner of two national newspapers and a businessman whose firms have numerous contracts with the state and benefit from public aid. He placed his firms into a trust fund earlier this year, overseen by his close collaborators and his wife. Daily Hospodarske Noviny reported on Wednesday that the outgoing ruling party, the leftist Social Democrats, could support a Babis-led government in a second round of talks, if his first cabinet fails. It cited unnamed sources within that party. The other member of the outgoing coalition, the Christian Democrats, have also said they could negotiate with ANO. | 0fake |
Trump to nominate Heather Wilson as Air Force secretary | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump will nominate former U.S. Representative Heather Wilson to become Air Force secretary, the White House said on Monday. Wilson, a graduate of the U.S. Air Force Academy, has been President of the South Dakota School of Mines & Technology since 2013, it said in a statement. “Heather Wilson is going to make an outstanding secretary of the Air Force,” Trump said in the statement. | 0fake |
Будущее внутренней политики РК. Война за кресло спикера и не только | Новое восточное обозрение | Страна: Южная Корея Хотя главной новостью внутренней политики Южной Кореи является очередной римейк слуха о том, что Пан Ги Мун все таки решился принять участие в президентской гонке, обратим внимание на иные детали. Начнем с итогов выборов лидера правящей партии Сэнури. Ли Чжон Хён, бывший пресс-секретарь Пак Кын Хе, известен двумя вещами. Во-первых, он относится к фракции, поддерживающей нынешнего президента, что говорит о некотором упрочении ее позиций внутри партии. Ли на 12 тысяч голосов опередил своего основного соперника Чу Хо Ёна, противника президента Пак Кын Хе, и будет руководить партией два последующих года, в ходе которых предстоит определить кандидатов для участия в президентских выборах. Во-вторых, впервые главой Сэнури становится представитель провинции Чолла – традиционной базы левой оппозиции. Для правящей партии это хороший ход – выйти за рамки традиционного для РК регионализма; так же в свое время сделал Ким Дэ Чжун, назначив своим преемником Но Му Хена, представлявшего в целом выступающую на стороне консерваторов провинцию Кёнсан. Немудрено, что в своей речи Ли заявил, что правящая Сэнури декларирует отсутствие в своих рядах разделения на сторонников и противников президента Пак Кын Хе, а также пораженческих настроений и регионализма; партия, работая как единое целое в интересах народа, вернёт доверие граждан страны и одержит победу на предстоящих президентских выборах, которые состоятся в следующем году. Тем не менее противники президента из консервативного лагеря уже заговорили о том, что так партия потеряет независимость и дело может дойти до раскола, в котором иные фракции могут попытаться отделиться, а потому задача нового лидера не проводить свою линию, а беречь единство. Новый лидер Сэнури немедленно включился в политическую борьбу, связанную с ситуацией вокруг отстранения от своего поста министра продовольствия, сельского, лесного хозяйства Ким Чжэ Су. Это было сделано в ходе парламентской проверки учреждений, и, по мнению консерваторов, оппозиция просто воспользовалась своим преимуществом по количеству мандатов, сделав это при поддержке спикера Национального собрания Чон Сэ Гюна. Внезапное отстранение от должности члена кабинета министров происходит только в случае серьёзных проблем, и Ли Чжон Хён даже объявил голодовку, требуя отставки Чона. Формально случившееся 24 сентября 2016 г. голосование прошло как должно: решение о снятии с должности членов кабинета министров, представленное на рассмотрение на пленарном заседании Национального собрания, принимается на основе мнения большинства присутствующих депутатов – минимум 151 голос. За отставку Ким Чжэ Су проголосовали 160 депутатов, против 7, однако 122 депутата от правящей партии Сэнури не приняли участия в голосовании, так как спикер Чон Сэ Гюн провел заседание после 12 часов ночи, не согласовав это решение с депутатами от правящей Сэнури. Консерваторы заявляют, что изменение расписания должно проводиться на основе соглашения оппозиционных и правящих сил, Чон Сэ Гюн в свою очередь заявляет, что правил не нарушал, поскольку в них прописана возможность решения спикером таких вопросов и без договоренности между политическими силами. А лидер парламентской фракции от оппозиционной Демократической партии Тобуро У Сан Хо потребовал от Ли прекратить голодовку и вернуться к диалогу. Да, парламент снял министра, но Пак Кын Хе отказалась принимать предложение о его увольнении, и вообще-то ситуация должна больше возмущать оппозицию, нежели правящие силы. Что же до Пан Ги Муна, то экс-генсек вернется в РК во второй декаде января следующего года, после чего намерен подумать над тем, что он может сделать для своей страны. Об этом Пан Ги Мун заявил 21 октября в интервью агентству Reuters. По его словам, многие граждане РК хотят, чтобы он активно использовал свой богатый опыт, накопленный за время пребывания на посту генерального секретаря ООН. Подобные надежды выказывают и консерваторы, для которых его кандидатура означает «региональное единение сил правящей партии». Другая деталь – новая волна стачек. 27 сентября южнокорейские железнодорожники и сотрудники метрополитенов Сеула и Пусана объявили забастовку, выступая против введения новой системы оплаты труда, а также излишне жестких требований к профессиональным характеристикам и качеству работы сотрудников. Хотя курсирование скоростных поездов KTX, метро и другого железнодорожного пассажирского транспорта осуществляется в относительно штатном режиме (интенсивность движения поездов метро в дневное время снижена до 80-85% от штатного расписания), грузовой транспорт будет работать только на 30% от обычных объемов. К забастовке присоединились Национальная корпорация медицинского страхования и Государственная пенсионная корпорация. На данный момент забастовка продолжается более 20 дней, и в ней принимают участие 7387 рабочих – 40,2% от численности членов профсоюзов. Объявил забастовку впервые с 2004 года и профсоюз компании Hyundai Motor, отвергнув достигнутый ранее компромисс с руководством о незначительном повышении заработной платы. Это не первый звонок – в июле частичные забастовки составили в общей сложности 19 дней и привели к убыткам на общую сумму 2,02 млрд долларов и 101400 невыпущенных автомобилей, после чего представители профсоюза и администрации провели 26 раундов переговоров и 24 августа достигли компромисса. Администрация обещала повысить ежемесячную зарплату на 58 тыс. вон (53 доллара), увеличить бонусные выплаты и произвести единовременную выплату каждому рабочему в размере 3,3 млн вон (3 тыс. долларов). Кроме того, на неопределённый срок отложен ввод в действие системы поэтапного уменьшения заработной платы до достижения пенсионного возраста. Однако 78% членов профсоюза выразили недовольство достигнутыми договорённостями и потребовали начать забастовку, которая затронет уже все предприятия данной отрасли. Довершает ситуацию и скандал со смертью фермера Пэк Нам Ги, который в конце прошлого года во время демонстрации попал в струю водомета, был сбит с ног и потерял сознание, впоследствии впав в кому. 25 сентября он скончался, так и не придя в себя, после чего общественные организации подали иск против начальника Главного полицейского управления и ещё шести должностных лиц, обвиняя их в непреднамеренном убийстве в результате халатности. От главы Управления полиции потребовали возмещения ущерба в размере 217 тыс. долларов. Полиция, однако, указывает на недостаток подтверждений того, что слишком сильный напор воды напрямую повлиял на состояние пострадавшего и мог стать причиной смерти. Как бы то ни было, по данным агентства Gallup Korea, опубликованным 14 октября, уровень поддержки президента РК Пак Кын Хе упал до минимальной отметки. Главу государства поддерживают 26% жителей страны – самый низкий показатель с февраля 2013 года. 59% респондентов считают, что президент Пак Кын Хе недостаточно хорошо выполняет свои обязанности. Среди причин отрицательной оценки 15% указали на недостаток диалога, 14% на неэффективность экономической политики, 7% на односторонность политики. Что касается политических партий, то работу правящей Сэнури положительно оценили 64% респондентов. Однако уровень поддержки Демократической партии Тобуро составил 90%, а Народной партии – 81%. Начинаются и традиционные для предвыборной гонки коррупционные скандалы, задевающие руководство страны, но о том, как идет очередной раунд борьбы с этим социальным злом – в следующих текстах. Константин Асмолов, кандидат исторических наук, ведущий научный сотрудник Центра корейских исследований Института Дальнего Востока РАН, специально для интернет-журнала «Новое Восточное Обозрение». Популярные статьи | 1real |
PANIC! REUTERS/IPSOS Will Radically Change Way They Poll After Trump Takes Commanding 17 POINT LEAD Over Hillary | B..b..but That can t be right Maybe we should change the way we poll The Reuters/Ipsos polling team announced Friday that they are dropping the Neither option from their presidential preference polls after their tracking polls showed a 17-point swing in favor of the Republican nominee Donald J. Trump, exposing the Secret Trump Voters Democrats fear. In a presidential campaign notable for its negativity, the option of Neither candidate appears to be an appealing alternative, at least to participants in the Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll, wrote Maurice Tamman, the leader of the Reuters news service s New York City-based data mining and investigative reporting team. Many voters on both sides have been ambivalent in their support for Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton and Republican nominee Donald Trump, complicating the task of the pollsters trying to track the race. Breitbart News noted the 17-point swing for Trump, which seems to have set off alarm bells at Reuters.Reuters has a reputation for accurate polling, so it is significant that Mamman made this decision as the presidential campaign enters its last 100 days with both conventions adjourned. In the nearly five years Reuters/Ipsos has been offering the Neither/Other option to respondents in presidential polling, it has never yielded such a skew, he wrote. The results highlight how poll designs and methodologies can yield significantly differing results, and how important differences can emerge from the way a question is framed. The real problem this year s polling presents to Democrats is the reluctance, especially among more educated voters, to confess their support of Trump. Other pollsters have noted the divergence between polls conducted with live operators and robo-phone calls. Live operators have long been considered the preferred, most accurate method inside the polling community. However, live operator polls uniformly show lower support for Trump than online or automatic-dial phone polls.Much has been made of Trump s lack of support among college-educated whites, a stronghold of Republican support, but it could very well be that these people, susceptible to social perceptions, have not abandoned the Republican nominee but are giving the socially acceptable answer until they are alone in the voting booth. Via: Breitbart News | 1real |
Former minister for Argentina's Fernandez arrested | BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) - Julio De Vido, an ex-minister in former Argentine President Cristina Fernandez s government, was jailed after turning himself in to authorities on Wednesday, marking an anti-corruption milestone in a country known for impunity. Congress voted to strip former planning minister and current lawmaker De Vido of his parliamentary immunity earlier in the day, and he later appeared at a federal judge s chambers in Buenos Aires where he was taken into custody. He faces charges in two separate corruption cases. Argentina s Congress rarely removes lawmakers immunity and De Vido is the most powerful official from the 2007-2015 Fernandez era to be jailed. Local television showed police escorting De Vido from the chamber but covered his face with riot shields. He was then driven to Ezeiza jail outside the capital city, where he will be detained indefinitely. This is a scandal. In a state of law sentences are applied after a conviction, De Vido s lawyer Maximiliano Rusconi told local television. Corruption allegations dogged Fernandez s government and isolated her politically ahead of a Senate race on Oct. 22. De Vido is under investigation in a case involving the Patagonian coal mine Rio Turbio. Prosecutors accuse him of embezzling state funds allocated for the mine. He has denied any wrongdoing. A three-judge panel ordered De Vido s arrest last week, saying he should be jailed to prevent him fleeing or interfering with the case. Fernandez won a Senate seat for the province of Buenos Aires under Argentina s list system on Sunday, but finished second, lessening her chances of staging a comeback for the presidency in 2019. De Vido was in charge of running energy infrastructure projects under Fernandez, a left-leaning populist who was succeeded by business-friendly President Mauricio Macri in late 2015. Fernandez, the subject of corruption investigations herself, has acknowledged there was likely corruption during her government but denies personal involvement. | 0fake |
Hey Bernie Supporters, Here are 45 Times Hillary Promoted the TPP – TruthFeed | 11. July 10, 2012: Remarks With Foreign Minister Pham Binh Minh After Their Meeting “So we’re working on expanding it through a far-reaching, new regional trade agreement called the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which would lower trade barriers while raising standards on everything from labor conditions to environmental protection to intellectual property. Both of our countries will benefit. And in fact, economists expect that Vietnam would be among the countries under the Trans-Pacific Partnership to benefit the most. And we hope to finalize this agreement by the end of the year.” 12. July 10, 2012: Remarks at American Chamber of Commerce Reception and Commercial Signings “Domestic and international businesses alike continue to face rules that restrict their activities, and that, in turn, deters investment and slows growth. So we are encouraging the Government of Vietnam to keep on the path of economic and administrative reform to open its markets to greater private investment. And through the Trans-Pacific Partnership, we’re working with Vietnam and seven other nations to lower trade barriers throughout the region, as we ensure the highest standards for labor, environmental, and intellectual property protections. Vietnam was an early entrant to the TPP, and we’re hoping we can finalize the agreement this year. And the economic analysis is that of all the countries that will be participating — Australia, Canada, Mexico, others — of all the countries participating in the TPP, Vietnam stands to benefit the most. So we’re hoping to really see this agreement finalized and then watch it take off.” 13. July 8, 2012: Remarks With Foreign Minister Koichiro Gemba “We also discussed the opportunity to strengthen our economic relationship, and the United States welcomes Japan’s interest in the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which we think will connect economies throughout the region, making trade and investment easier, spurring exports, creating jobs. The TPP is just one element of our increased focus on the Asia Pacific, but it is important that we recognize that the Japanese-American relationship is really at the cornerstone of everything we are doing in the Asia Pacific. We are not only treaty allies; we are friends and partners with common interests and shared values.” 14. April 30, 2012: Remarks With Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, Philippines Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario, and Philippines Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin After Their Meeting “Finally, we discussed the maturing economic relationship between our countries as well as our shared commitment to enhanced development, trade, and investment. We would like to see the Philippines join the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade community. The foreign secretary raised the Philippines’ interest in seeking passage of the Save our Industries Act, and we have conveyed that message to the United States Congress.” 15. April 12, 2012: Remarks at the White House Conference on Connecting the Americas “Now President Obama and I have said many times that this will be America’s Pacific century, and we are focused on the broader Pacific. But remember, the Pacific runs from the Indian Ocean to the western shores of Latin America. We see this as one large area for our strategic focus. That’s why we’re working with APEC; that’s why we’re creating the Trans-Pacific Partnership. We recognize the mutual benefits of engagement between the Americas and the rest of the Pacific.” 16. April 10, 2012: Forrestal Lecture at the Naval Academy “As part of that same trip last November, the President built momentum for a new far-reaching trade agreement called the Trans-Pacific Partnership that we are negotiating with eight other countries in the Asia-Pacific region. This agreement is not just about eliminating barriers to trade, although that is crucial for boosting U.S. exports and creating jobs here at home. It’s also about agreeing on the rules of the road for an integrated Pacific economy that is open, free, transparent, and fair. It will put in place strong protections for workers, the environment, intellectual property, and innovation — all key American values. And it will cover emerging issues such as the connectivity of regional supply chains, the competitive impact of state-owned enterprises, and create trade opportunities for more small-and-medium-sized businesses.” 17. April 21, 2012: Keynote Address At Global Business Conference “Big or small, we’re standing up for an economic system that benefits everyone, like when our Embassy in Manila worked with Filipino authorities on new intellectual property protections or when our negotiators ensure that the new Trans-Pacific Partnership requires that state-owned enterprises compete under the same rules as private companies.” 18. February 1, 2012: Remarks With Singaporean Foreign Minister and Minister for Law K. Shanmugam “This is a very consequential relationship. The multidimensional growth of our relationship with Singapore is an example of the importance that the United States sets on strengthening our engagement in the Asia Pacific. We are working together on a full range of issues, including moving forward on a high-quality trade agreement through the Trans-Pacific Partnership process.” 19. December 19, 2011: Remarks With Japanese Foreign Minister Koichiro Gemba After Their Meeting “The minister and I also discussed a number of bilateral and regional issues and reviewed the close and ongoing collaboration between Japan and the United States in the aftermath of last March’s earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear crisis. We discussed Japan’s recent move to pursue consultations on joining the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations to resolve longstanding trade concerns in order to deepen the economic ties to the benefit of both our countries. I also urged that Japan take decisive steps so that it accedes to The Hague Convention on International Parental Child Abduction and address outstanding cases.” 20. November 18, 2011: Remarks at ASEAN Business and Investment Summit “Now let me describe briefly four ways that we want to work with you: first, by lowering trade barriers; second, by strengthening the investment climate; third, by pursuing commercial diplomacy; and fourth, by supporting entrepreneurs. We’re excited about the innovative trade agreement called the Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP. That would bring economies from across the Pacific, developed and developing alike, into a single trading community, not only to create more growth, but better growth.” 21. November 16, 2011: Presentation of the Order of Lakandula, Signing of the Partnership for Growth And Joint Press Availability With Philippines Foreign Secretary Albert Del Rosario “Together we hope to deliver an array of benefits to the people, including more foreign investment to create new jobs, a more streamlined court system that can deliver justice and protect local businesses, better services, and more resources to fight poverty. Over time, these steps will better position the Philippines to join the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which we hope will dramatically increase trade and investment among the peoples of the Pacific.” 22. November 10, 2011: America’s Pacific Century “There is new momentum in our trade agenda with the recent passage of the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement and our ongoing work on a binding, high-quality Trans-Pacific Partnership, the so-called TPP. The TPP will bring together economies from across the Pacific, developed and developing alike, into a single 21st century trading community. A rules-based order will also be critical to meeting APEC’s goal of eventually creating a free trade area of the Asia Pacific.” 23. October 14, 2011: Economic Statecraft One of America’s great successes of the past century was to build a strong network of relationships and institutions across the Atlantic — an investment that continues to pay off today. One of our great projects in this century will be to do the same across the Pacific. Our Free Trade Agreement with South Korea, our commitment to the Trans-Pacific Partnership, are clear demonstrations that we are not only a resident military and diplomatic power in Asia, we are a resident economic power and we are there to stay.” 24. September 15, 2011: Celebrating 60 years of the U.S.-Australia Alliance “We are working to encourage trade through the Trans-Pacific Partnership and through APEC, whose leaders the President will be hosting this fall in Hawaii. Together, we are strengthening regional institutions like the East Asia Summit and ASEAN. And as Secretary Panetta will explain, our military relationship is deepening and becoming even more consequential.” 25. July 25, 2011: Remarks on Principles for Prosperity in the Asia-Pacific “That is the spirit behind the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the so-called TPP, which we hope to outline by the time of APEC in November, because this agreement will bring together economies from across the Pacific—developed and developing alike—into a single trading community.” 26. July 20, 2011: Remarks on India and the United States: A Vision for the 21st Century “The United States is pushing forward on comprehensive trade deals like the Trans-Pacific Partnership and our free trade agreement with South Korea. We are also stepping up our commercial diplomacy and pursuing a robust economic agenda at APEC. India, for its part, has concluded or will soon conclude new bilateral economic partnerships with Singapore, Malaysia, Japan, South Korea, and others. The more our countries trade and invest with each other and with other partners, the more central the Asia Pacific region becomes to global commerce and prosperity, and the more interest we both have in maintaining stability and security. As the stakes grow higher, we should use our shared commitment to make sure that we have maritime security and freedom of navigation. We need to combat piracy together. We have immediate tasks that we must get about determining.” 27. May 17, 2011: Secretary Clinton’s Remarks With New Zealand Foreign Minister Murray McCully “We looked ahead to the East Asia summit where President Obama will participate for the first time, and the United States will send our largest, most senior delegation ever to the Pacific Island Forum in New Zealand later this year. We talked about developments in Fiji, and both New Zealand and the United States agree that the military junta must take steps to return Fiji to democracy. And we agree on the importance of pursuing negotiations on the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which will provide a free trade agreement for nine countries across the region, including both of ours. We’re making steady progress on this. We hope to be able to have the negotiations complete by the time we all meet in Hawaii for APEC toward the end of this year.” 28. May 2, 2011: Remarks With Australian Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd After Their Meeting “And both of us understand the benefits of deeper economic integration and fair trade. Minister Rudd was very influential in helping us to work toward a greater, more relevant involvement in the Pacific-Asian institutions, such as joining the East Asian Summit. The Trans-Pacific Partnership, which is exploring ways to expand opportunity, is critical, and APEC and ASEAN are two other organizations where we work together.” 29. April 17, 2011: Remarks at the American Chamber of Commerce Breakfast “We will be hosting the 2011 APEC summit in Hawaii later this year. We are pushing to advance economic integration, remove trade barriers, and make sure that our national regulations line up in a way that encourages trade. We are also working hard on the trans-Pacific partnership, a cutting edge regional free trade agreement that would eventually cover an area responsible for over 40 percent of global trade.” 30. March 18, 2011: Remarks at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) on Latin America “As countries step up on the global stage, they will make essential contributions to helping all of us meet some of those most important challenges. Mexico, for example, made a crucial contribution to the fight against climate change through its remarkable leadership in Cancun last year. Brazil, Mexico, and Argentina in the G-20; Chile and Mexico in the OECD; Chile and Peru in the Trans-Pacific Partnership; and along with Mexico in APEC, these are all helping to build a foundation for balanced global growth, a transparent global economy, and broad-based opportunity. “ 31. March 9, 2011: Remarks at the First Senior Officials Meeting (SOM) for the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Forum “The United States is also making important progress on the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which will bring together nine APEC economies in a cutting-edge, next generation trade deal, one that aims to eliminate all trade tariffs by 2015 while improving supply change, saving energy, enhancing business practices both through information technology and green technologies. To date, the TPP includes Brunei, Chile, New Zealand, Singapore, Australia, Malaysia, Peru, Vietnam and the United States.” 32. January 14, 2011: Inaugural Richard C. Holbrooke Lecture on a Broad Vision of U.S.-China Relations in the 21st Century “We are taking steps to ensure that our defense posture reflects the complex and evolving strategic environment in the region and we are working to ratify a free trade agreement with South Korea and pursuing a regional agreement through the Trans-Pacific Partnership to help create new opportunities for American companies and support new jobs here at home. Those goals will be front and center when we host the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum in Hawaii later this year.” 33: November 7, 2010: Remarks at U.S. Trade Promotion Event “Now, we’ve seen how bilateral trade benefits both sides. Our challenge now is to broaden those benefits. That means we have to look for even more opportunities to increase trade and investment between us. And it means that we work harder to broaden the benefits of trade even beyond our two countries. Australia is an important partner in negotiating the ambitious new multilateral trade deal called the Trans Pacific Partnership. Over time, we hope to deliver a groundbreaking agreement that connects countries as diverse as Peru and Vietnam with America and Australia to create a new free trade zone that can galvanize commerce, competition, and growth across the entire Pacific region.” 34. November 7, 2010: Speech and Townterview with Australian Broadcasting Company “To continue this progress, we are both pressing ahead on something called the Trans-Pacific Partnership. It’s an ambitious multilateral free trade agreement that would bring together many more nations of the Pacific Rim. Australia and the United States are helping to lead those negotiations and we’re also working through APEC, which the United States will host in Hawaii in 2011. We see that as a pivotal year to drive progress on internal economic changes that will open more markets and make sure that any growth is more sustainable and inclusive. And finally, we believe that the United States and Australia have been at the forefront of organize the entire region for the future.” 35. November 5, 2010: Christchurch Trade Reception Hosted by the American Chamber of Commerce “We are looking for ways to broaden and deepen our economic ties and build on the strong foundation we already have. And we think that the Trans-Pacific Partnership is a very exciting opportunity. This multilateral free trade agreement would bring together nine countries located in the Asia Pacific region — New Zealand and the United States, Australia, Chile, Singapore, Brunei, Peru, Vietnam, and Malaysia. By eliminating most tariffs and other trade barriers, and embracing productive policies on competition, intellectual property, and government procurement, we can spur greater trade and integration not only among the participating countries, but as a spur to the entire region.” 36. November 4, 2010: Remarks With New Zealand Prime Minister John Phillip Key and New Zealand Foreign Minister Murray Stuart McCully ” Well, let me say that we discussed at some length, both the foreign minister and I and then the prime minister and I, the way forward on trade. We are very committed to the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and New Zealand, again, is playing a leading role. And we want to expedite the negotiations as much as possible. So we are exploring ways that we can try to drive this agenda. I am absolutely convinced that opening up markets in Asia amongst all of us and doing so in a way that creates win-win situations so that people feel that trade is in their interests.” 37. November 3, 2010: Remarks at the Pratt & Whitney Trade Event “That is why the United States is very pleased by Malaysia’s decision to join the negotiations for the Trans Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership. This regional trade agreement will promote shared success by expanding markets and building a level playing field for workers in every country that participates.” 38. November 2, 2010: Remarks with Malaysian Foreign Minister Anifah Aman “Finally, we are pleased that Malaysia joined last month’s negotiations for the Trans-Pacific Partnership. That is a pact that would expand markets and create a level playing field for people in every country that does participate. I know there are tough issues to work out, as there always are with these agreements, but Malaysia’s leadership in this region for greater economic growth is absolutely essential.” 39. November 2, 2010: Secretary Clinton’s Meeting with Kuala Lumpur Embassy Staff and Their Families “And I think we have tremendous opportunities here. But I know when I leave tomorrow, the work to make those opportunities into realities falls to all of you. So I know a lot is expected of you, but we’re going to be doing even more in Malaysia. We have a lot of plans for educational exchanges. We have some very exciting work on the Trans-Pacific Partnership, enhancing trade and investment (inaudible) that will promote closer cooperation.” 40. November 2, 2010: Townterview Hosted by Media Prima in Malaysia “So in our meetings with your government officials and even in my conversation with the prime minister earlier today, we of course talked about our bilateral relationship but we also talked about the role that Malaysia is playing in the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a new free trade agreement that will enhance market access, but also working to support Afghanistan and the people there with training and medical services.” 41. October 30, 2010:Remarks With Vietnamese Foreign Minister Pham Gia Khiem “I n trade, our two countries have already made great progress. Fifteen years ago, our bilateral trade was about $450 million. Last year it was more than $15 billion. And the foreign minister and the prime minister and I talked about how to expand this trade relationship, including through the Trans-Pacific Partnership. The United States, Vietnam, and seven other countries finished a third round of negotiations on the TPP this month and we hope that Vietnam can conclude it in internal process and announce its status as a full member of the partnership soon.” 42. October 28, 2010: America’s Engagement in the Asia-Pacific “We are also pressing ahead with negotiations for the Trans-Pacific Partnership, an innovative, ambitious multilateral free trade agreement that would bring together nine Pacific Rim countries, including four new free trade partners for the United States, and potentially others in the future. 2011 will be a pivotal year for this agenda. Starting with the Korea Free Trade Agreement, continuing with the negotiation of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, working together for financial rebalancing at the G-20, and culminating at the APEC Leaders Summit in Hawaii, we have a historic chance to create broad, sustained, and balanced growth across the Asia Pacific and we intend to seize that.” 43. September 8, 2010: Remarks on United States Foreign Policy “On the economic front, we’ve expanded our relationship with APEC, which includes four of America’s top trading partners and receives 60 percent of our exports. We want to realize the benefits from greater economic integration. In order to do that, we have to be willing to play. To this end, we are working to ratify a free trade agreement with South Korea, we’re pursuing a regional agreement with the nations of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and we know that that will help create new jobs and opportunities here at home.” 44. July 22, 2010: Remarks With Vietnam Deputy Prime Minister And Foreign Minister Pham Gia Khiem “And I am very much supportive of Vietnam’s participation as a full member in the Trans-Pacific Partnership. As Vietnam embarks on labor and other reforms, the American businesses that are investing in Vietnam can provide expertise that will aid Vietnam’s economic and infrastructure development.” 45. January 12, 2010: Remarks on Regional Architecture in Asia: Principles and Priorities “In addition, the United States is engaging in the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade negotiations as a mechanism for improving linkages among many of the major Asia-Pacific economies. And to build on political progress, we must support efforts to protect human rights and promote open societies.”
For once in our lifetime, we the people have an opportunity to elect a President who was NOT chosen by Multinational Corporations, Big Banks, DC Elites, and the Globalist Lapdog Mainstream Media.
Please like and share if you are a TRUMP VOTER! | 1real |
Waving German flag, far-right and anti-Islam groups rally together before vote | DRESDEN, Germany (Reuters) - In the shadows of a Dresden church, hundreds of Alternative for Germany party members rallied with anti-Islam activists, counting down the days to a vote set to make the AfD the first far-right group in parliament in more than half a century. Supporters of both movements stood side by side waving Germany s black, red and gold flag - a public demonstration of the fellow feeling between AfD and hardline PEGIDA, though they are officially separate groups. Outside the city s towering Frauenkirche - destroyed by Allied bombing in World War Two, then rebuilt after reunification - supporters stood by a huge blue banner that urged people to vote for the AfD on Sept. 24. One supporter held an AfD poster bearing the slogan: Get your country back . The AfD could become the third largest party with up to 12 percent of the vote, polls show, built on its calls for Germany to shut its borders to immigrants and stop refugees bringing in their families. The party rejects its mainstream rivals efforts to compare it to the Nazis. Some AfD members have also been keen to keep their distance from PEGIDA - full name the Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the West. But PEGIDA founder Lutz Bachmann told supporters to cast their ballots for the AfD on Monday night. Both votes should go to what is currently the only alternative for Germany, which also bears this name, the Alternative for Germany (AfD). Together, we can make it, Bachmann said. In Germany voters cast two ballots in a mixed-member proportional voting system - the first directly for a candidate in his or her constituency and the second for a party. The second vote determines the distribution of seats in parliament. PEGIDA has been meeting in Dresden regularly for almost three years and at its peak in early 2015 drew crowds of around 25,000 but has since largely disappeared from the headlines as its support base has dwindled. Alexander Gauland, one of the AfD s top candidates, told a news conference that Islam was a political doctrine and did not belong to Germany. The 76-year-old was widely criticized for saying Germans should be proud of what their soldiers achieved during World War One and Two. One of the officers he named was Claus von Stauffenberg, who led an unsuccessful attempt to assassinate Hitler in July 1944 with a bomb in a briefcase. Von Stauffenberg s grandson wrote an article for newspaper Die Welt saying he was outraged by Gauland s comments and his grandfather and other leading figures of German culture would be proud of immigration and diversity in Germany s history. On Monday Gauland said recent estimates showed 95 percent of German soldiers were not involved in war crimes and their families wanted to be proud of their sacrifices. This has nothing to do with the crimes committed by the leaders. I addressed the individual performance of German soldiers in two world wars. I reiterate that, he added. Alice Weidel, the AfD s other top candidate, said the arrival of more than a million migrants over the last two years had made Germany a safe haven for criminals and terrorists . Weidel, who is openly lesbian, also said that perpetrators of attacks against homosexuals were always the same, namely people with Muslim backgrounds, Arabs . | 0fake |
Blog: We Need To Teach Our Sons That Being Convicted Of Rape Is Wrong | Email
Over the past year, a few high-profile court cases involving rape have spurred an intense national discussion on the topic. Whether it was Brock Turner, a Stanford swimmer who was sentenced to six months in a county jail for his rape of an unconscious woman, or Owen Labrie, a student at an elite prep school who raped a 14-year-old classmate but was arraigned on lesser charges, our justice system has tried to convict rapists with varying degrees of success. As a father, I look at these cases, and I can’t help but worry for my children. In times like these, we must take a stand, and we must teach our sons that being brought to trial and then convicted of rape is simply, utterly wrong.
Our children, and more specifically, our boys, need to know that they should never, under any circumstances, be put in a situation where they could potentially lose a case accusing them of sexual assault. My son knows that, and every parent should make an effort to teach their boys the same.
Whether they made the vile, unforgivable mistake of having a bad lawyer, calling an unreliable witness, or openly admitting to their crime to an undecided jury, America’s youth must understand that being convicted of rape should never, ever happen. Going to court for sexual assault is one thing, but being declared guilty is quite another, and as responsible parents, we need to do everything in our power to ensure that no child crosses that line, no questions asked.
Bottom line, we need to do a better job at showing our sons that there is no worse mistake a young man can make than being declared guilty of rape, not now, not ever.
I don’t care who you are—if you have a son, you need to teach him that being convicted of rape, even just one time, is unforgivable. The truth is, the moment your boy loses a rape trial is the moment that lives are ruined, and there’s absolutely no taking that back.
As a father of a young man myself, I would not be able to live with myself if he someday went to jail just because of something as easily preventable as a sexual assault conviction. When I look into my 8-year-old Callum’s eyes, the last thing I want to think about is my little guy becoming the type of man who can’t somehow weasel his way out of a high-profile court case, in front of all his friends, family, and the public at large.
Bottom line, we need to do a better job at showing our sons that there is no worse mistake a young man can make than being declared guilty of rape, not now, not ever. Because if we want this generation of boys to grow into men that we truly take pride in, we have to start teaching them that any young man who gets punished for rape brings shame not only to himself but also to his gender, and this country as a whole.
So please, don’t wait. Please talk to your son today about his responsibility to never be convicted of rape, and to speak up if he ever sees someone else in danger of being convicted of rape. Our future depends on it. | 1real |
HOUSE DEMOCRATS MAKE STUNNING Move To Implement Sharia Law In America | While US citizens are outraged over the removal of Christ from pretty much every aspect of our lives, including Christmas, Democrat members of Congress are working fast and furiously to implement America s first Sharia Law...If they get their way They will be stripping us of our basic rights, and we need to be prepared for their TERRIFYING hope and get Americans aware of what is happening!On December 17, Democrat Congressmen quietly sponsored House Resolution 569, a resolution that asks lawmakers to condemn violence, bigotry, and hateful rhetoric towards Muslims in the United States. The resolution specifically mentions Muslims, no other religious groups, and will serve as a test by which further criminalizing of Islamophobia may be introduced.Democrats have shamelessly lumped together hate speech with violence in an effort to compare criticism of Islam to physically harming Muslims. H. Res. 569 threatens to restrict our right to even report facts that tarnish Islam s reputation, a law that all Sharia-governed countries already have in place.According to Congress.gov, the resolution reads: Now, therefore, be it resolved, that the House of Representatives denounces in the strongest terms the increase of hate speech, intimidation, violence, vandalism, arson, and other hate crimes targeted against mosques, Muslims, or those perceived to be Muslim; urges local and Federal law enforcement authorities to work to prevent hate crimes; and to prosecute to the fullest extent of the law those perpetrators of hate crimes Muslims are slaughtering innocent people more than any other religious groups combined, all while refusing as a whole to condemn this barbaric Islamic terrorism, yet we are working to ensure these silent, consenting moderates have special protection protection that they have never allowed religious minorities in their own countries.In another passage, Democrats laughably purport that Muslims have contributed to the fabric of American society, but we re assuming they don t mean terrorist attacks on U.S. soil, countless frivolous CAIR lawsuits, whitewashed Islamic education in public schools, or whining about pork products and a lack of taxpayer-funded prayer rooms. Whereas this Muslim community is recognized as having made innumerable contributions to the cultural and economic fabric and well-being of United States society Still, the bill is purposefully vague in that it mentions prosecuting the perpetrators of hate speech, yet gives no definition for what it considers hate speech. Of course, we who have spoken out about the intolerant fundamentals of Islam understand that this means uttering anything critical of Islam or its followers, regardless of facts or relevance to the Quran.In conclusion, the bill ridiculously compares criticizing Islam as a violation of Muslims civil rights, as if disagreeing or even openly mocking someone s beliefs is unconstitutional. Our forefathers had exactly political and religious mockery in mind when they penned our amendments, having experience the violation of limited speech and worship by their own King George III.Indeed, free speech was never intended to defend inoffensive speech, because inoffensive speech needs no protection. Freedom of speech is solely for the offensive, meant to prevent those who would limit it because of their opposing beliefs. Via: RWN | 1real |
Democrats plan to use tax bill to attack Republicans at midterms | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The tax bill is President Donald Trump’s biggest legislative victory this year, but Democratic strategists are already planning how to turn it into his biggest liability. The emotional trigger they think will work on voters at next year’s midterm elections: arguing the bill is profoundly unfair by giving the lion’s share of benefits to corporations and the rich. “Be careful what you wish for,” Tom Steyer, a Democratic billionaire, said of Republican leaders in an interview with Reuters on Wednesday. “They wanted this, they should have never have wanted it. Now that they’ve got it, they’re going to wish they didn’t.” Steyer said he plans to use his money - through his political group NextGen America - to attack the Republican tax overhaul, using social media and online advertising aimed at young voters, a strategy that recently helped elect Democratic candidate Doug Jones in a Senate race in Alabama and Ralph Northam as governor of Virginia. In November 2018, elections will be held for all 435 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives and for 34 seats in the 100-member Senate. Pollsters believe the midterms could be a rare “wave election,” when one party seizes back control of Congress. It happened for Republicans in 2010 and 1994. If Democrats are able to pick up two more Senate seats, they will take control of the chamber. And after the wins in Alabama and Virginia, they are even hopeful they could tap into anger over tax cuts for the rich to win control of the House. Only about 29 percent of voters approve of the tax bill, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted in mid December. Slightly more than 52 percent oppose it. In no region of the country did even half of the people polled say they support it. The Democratic Senate Campaign Committee is already running anti-tax plan ads in several key states including Nevada, Arizona, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. The ads are only five-second spots running before YouTube videos. The viewer, unable to skip over the ads, will hear: “The Republican tax scheme gives huge breaks to corporations but raises taxes on middle class families.” The tax bill cuts the corporate tax rate to 21 percent and raises the threshold at which an inheritance is taxed. It also cuts the tax rate for top earners. While it also cuts the tax rate for most other income groups and doubles the size of the standard deduction, the elimination of other popular deductions could result in some taxpayers seeing a tax increase instead of a cut. It has been popular with the Republican base, Trump voters and the party’s donors. The stock market has surged in anticipation of the cuts. Democrats plan to focus on provisions like benefits to commercial real estate owners, arguing that the tax bill could produce millions of dollars of more cash for Trump and his family members. The White House asserts Trump will not personally benefit – but it admits that his business might. The Super PAC American Bridge, which supports Democratic candidates, is running digital ads in states with Senate races targeting women, swing voters and Republicans in suburban areas, said Joshua Karp, the group’s communication director for Senate races. “I think there is a couple of things that get almost all Americans riled up about this bill, it is fundamentally unfair and breaking the promise the Republicans made to the American people,” Karp said. Republicans say Democrats are indulging in wishful thinking. Polls say 50 percent of voters think their taxes will go up, but tax analysts say that 80 percent will pay less tax. Republicans are counting on voters, when they see more money in their paychecks, to dismiss Democratic rhetoric, and perhaps even throw their support behind Trump. And if there are any unpleasant surprises in store for taxpayers, they will not be filing their first tax returns under the new law until early 2019, months after the midterm elections. Republican strategist Alex Conant, a veteran of congressional and presidential campaigns, said the unpopularity of the tax cuts in opinion polls can be directly attributed to Trump’s low approval levels. “We’re losing elections because Donald Trump is incredibly unpopular and makes a lot of independents and soft Republicans uncomfortable ... Trump’s numbers are dragging down tax reform’s numbers,” Conant said, although he also played down the electoral risks of the tax overhaul. “I would be very surprised if people are marching in the streets months from now because we cut their taxes.” Republicans have some other advantages, like the growing economy, that means an attack on the tax overhaul could backfire. “Democrats will have a very hard time taking this road if the economy is still going gang busters 11 months from now,” Republican strategist Joe Bretell said. But he acknowledges that the Democrats are on the right track. “The emotional trigger point is in fairness,” he said. “The party that can best explain or brand this bill and explain why it’s fair or unfair to their base or the other side, wins.” | 0fake |
How Congress finally killed No Child Left Behind | Parker covered the Trump campaign and transition for the Times. | 0fake |
BRAVO! LEGENDARY CIVIL RIGHTS LEADER Takes Heat But Supports Trump: “Politicians are a dime a dozen, but leaders are priceless.” [Video] | Decades ago he stood against oppression by sitting at a North Carolina lunch counter, today he stands beside Donald Trump for president.Clarence Henderson, who participated at the sit-in protest in 1960, is backing the GOP candidate despite receiving backlash from some in the black community, the Associated Press reported. Donald Trump is certainly not a politician, and politicians are a dime a dozen, but leaders are priceless, he said.Henderson has been brutalized on social media for his standing position.But Henderson is undeterred. He has proved to be a leader in the business field. Has he done everything right? No, certainly not. But I think that he has more at stake than Hillary does, Henderson told the AP.The civil rights leader originally supported Ted Cruz but joined the Trump Train when Trump won the Republican nomination. I stand before you as one that knows what America s all about the good, the bad and the ugly. I would not live in any other country except America that put Jim Crow on trial and found him guilty of trying to separate the races. So I stand before you to say that we are unified, he said at a Trump rally in September.And he plans to vote for Trump for the same reason he sat at that lunch counter in the 60s. I would rather be in the minority on the side of justice than in the majority on the side of injustice, because I have lived a life where I saw there was injustice, he said. | 1real |
ADMIRAL “ACE” LYONS: “Why would an American President embrace the Muslim Brotherhood?” [Video] | THIS MAN IS A GREAT PATRIOT! Retired General Ace Lyons rips into the Obama regime like no other and it s honestly pretty frightening. | 1real |
Syrian army strikes rebels near Hama: monitor | BEIRUT (Reuters) - The Syrian army and its allies launched air strikes against rebels north of the city of Hama on Thursday after recapturing villages lost to the insurgents in an attack earlier in the week, a war monitor said. A series of strikes after midnight hit areas in rebel-held Khan Sheikhoun, Kafr Nabil, Kafr Zeita and Maarat al-Numan, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. The offensive by jihadist and other insurgent groups this week was their biggest near Hama since March, but the army late on Wednesday retook the villages it lost in the attack, the Observatory said. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has gained momentum in the six-year war since driving rebels from Aleppo in December. He has been aided by Russia s air force and Iran-backed Shi ite militias including Lebanon s Hezbollah. However, insurgents still hold large, populous areas in northwest and southwest Syria and smaller pockets elsewhere in the country. Tuesday s attack north of Hama revived hostilities in the northwestern area near the Turkish border that has been relatively calm in recent months as Russian-led diplomacy seeks to shore up ceasefires across western Syria. | 0fake |
U.S. Blacklists 5 Russians, a Close Putin Aide Among Them - The New York Times | WASHINGTON — The Obama administration has blacklisted five Russians, including the government’s chief public investigator, who is a close aide to President Vladimir V. Putin, for human rights abuses, laying down a marker for Donald J. Trump less than two weeks before he takes office with a vow to thaw relations with Russia. The sanctions, announced Monday by the Treasury Department, are not related to allegations of Russian hacking during the presidential election, according to a senior administration official. But they carry symbolic weight at a charged moment, as likely the last visible act the United States will take against Russia before power is transferred in Washington. The biggest name added to the list is that of Aleksandr I. Bastrykin, who reports directly to Mr. Putin and has carried out political investigations on his behalf. Mr. Bastrykin, officials said, was complicit in the case of Sergei L. Magnitsky, a lawyer who died in detention in murky circumstances in November 2009 and for whom the Magnitsky Act was named. Under that 2012 law, passed by Congress with Democratic and Republican support, the Treasury and Justice Departments must investigate and penalize Russian individuals involved in that case and subsequent or in other human rights abuses. The Obama administration has now put 44 people on the list. The sanctions announced Monday include a ban on travel to the United States and a freezing of any assets held by or transactions with American financial institutions. The White House has enforced the law with varying degrees of enthusiasm, depending on relations between the United States and Russia. In late 2013, human rights activists said, it delayed releasing the list because it worried that the move — coming just before the Winter Olympic Games in Sochi, Russia — would further curdle relations. But the administration’s final list, particularly with the inclusion of Mr. Bastrykin, is considered robust. “The mood and atmosphere are very different this year,” said David J. Kramer, the senior director for human rights and democracy at the McCain Institute for International Leadership, a policy research center. “Adding a few more names to the sanctions list sends a couple of signals,” Mr. Kramer said. “That this administration, as it goes out the door, is still going to implement the Magnitsky Act. It’s also sending a signal to the next administration that it hopes it will continue this policy. ” Shortly after the law was passed, Russia’s Parliament banned the adoption of Russian children by Americans. In 2013, Russia released a list of Americans barred from traveling to Russia because of what it claimed were human rights violations. Late last year, Congress passed legislation that would impose sanctions on people anywhere in the world for the kinds of human rights abuses that surfaced in the Magnitsky case. Much to the frustration of the Russian government, the bill again bore his name. In December, the Treasury Department put sanctions on 15 Russian individuals and companies for their dealings in Crimea and Ukraine. Mr. Trump is widely expected to ease that campaign. On Monday, Kellyanne Conway, one of his top advisers, said Mr. Trump might also relax the sanctions imposed by Mr. Obama in response to the hacking, which include travel bans and financial restrictions on senior Russian intelligence officials. “I predict that President Trump will want to make sure that our actions are proportionate to what occurred, based on what we know,” she said in an interview with USA Today. It will be harder for him to ignore the requirements of the Magnitsky Act, but the administration has considerable flexibility in how aggressively it pursues people. “The bureaucracy will grind away and produce more names, but senior people have the final say,” said Michael A. McFaul, a former American ambassador to Russia. In addition to Mr. Bastrykin, the administration is targeting Andrei K. Lugovoi and Dmitri V. Kovtun, two Russian intelligence officers who the British authorities said poisoned a fellow Russian spy, Alexander V. Litvinenko, in London in 2006. Also added to the list are Stanislav Gordievsky and Gennady Plaksin, two officials, who the United States said were involved in the of Mr. Magnitsky’s death. | 0fake |
Trump’s Immigration Order Could Have a Big Impact on Sports - The New York Times | President Trump’s ban on visitors from seven predominantly Muslim nations could have a wide impact on international sports, including jeopardizing a warm relationship between the United States and Iran in wrestling competitions and threatening the chances of Los Angeles hosting the 2024 Summer Olympics and of the United States securing soccer’s 2026 World Cup. On Saturday, sports officials struggled to understand the implications of Mr. Trump’s executive order, including the question of whether athletes from the targeted nations could enter the United States to compete, especially in the initial period of the ban. “We are working closely with the administration to understand the new rules and how we best navigate them as it pertains to visiting athletes,” Patrick Sandusky, a spokesman for the United States Olympic Committee, said in an email. “We know they are supportive of the Olympic movement and our bid and believe we will have a good working relationship with them to ensure our success in hosting and attending events. ” At least one International Olympic Committee delegate criticized Mr. Trump’s decision. The delegate, Richard Peterkin of St. Lucia, said Saturday that he considered the executive order “very, very disappointing. ” He also called the United States a “haven” for many athletes hoping to train outside their home countries. “Most of our athletes from St. Lucia train in the States,” Mr. Peterkin said. “We don’t have an issue because we’re not on that list of seven, but if we were — there go hopes and dreams. ” On Saturday evening, a federal judge blocked part of the executive order, but that decision appeared unrelated to the elements of the ban that troubled sports officials. The most immediate effect may come in wrestling, given that one of the nations affected by Mr. Trump’s ban is Iran, which has long had a congenial relationship with the United States in that sport. Iran said on Saturday that it would stop American citizens from entering the country, in retaliation for Mr. Trump’s order. The United States freestyle wrestling team is scheduled to participate in a World Cup competition in Iran on Feb. 8. Steve Fraser, the chief for U. S. A. Wrestling and a 1984 Olympic champion, said on Saturday that the president of Iran’s wrestling federation was scheduled to meet this weekend with government officials there in an attempt to make sure the Americans would still be invited to the meet. “There’s some nervousness by us that the Iranian government might say, ‘We can’t get visas to go there, so no Americans can come here, either,’” Mr. Fraser said. While Olympic boycotts have resulted from tense political differences between nations, opposing countries have also long found common ground on playing fields, on the track and in sports arenas. One of the most celebrated examples is the diplomacy that helped foster the relationship between the United States and China in the 1970s. In wrestling, the United States, Iran, Cuba and Russia banded together in 2013 to persuade the I. O. C. to keep the sport in the Summer Games. American wrestlers and officials are warmly welcomed in Iran, and Iranian wrestlers compete regularly in the United States. They may be invited to meets in May in New York and in June in Los Angeles, Mr. Fraser said. There is uncertainty now, however, about whether they would be granted P1 visas, commonly known as sports visas, to compete. In 2014, Christina Kelley, the chief international ambassador for U. S. A. Wrestling, became one of the few women allowed into a wrestling arena in Iran since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. She said on Saturday that she was frustrated by Mr. Trump’s decision. “I don’t think our current president has any clue what the State Department and what sports diplomats and cultural exchanges do for our country and for the safety of our people around the world,” Ms. Kelley said. The ban on visitors from the seven nations — Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen — comes at a delicate time for the U. S. O. C. Los Angeles is seeking to host the 2024 Summer Games, and it will learn in September whether it, Paris or Budapest will get the Games. (There is some speculation that the I. O. C. will award the 2024 Games to Paris and the 2028 Games to Los Angeles, but the U. S. O. C. remains committed to the bid for the 2024 Games.) David Wallechinsky, an American member of the I. O. C. ’s cultural and heritage commission and the president of the International Society of Olympic Historians, said the election of Mr. Trump in November had hurt Los Angeles’s bid with I. O. C. delegates because Mr. Trump was perceived as being “ and . ” “This is worse,” Mr. Wallechinsky said of the Muslim ban, adding, “I would consider it a blow to the Los Angeles bid — not fatal but a blow. ” At a meeting at the I. O. C. ’s headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland, several days after the American presidential election, Mr. Wallechinsky was asked repeatedly, “What is wrong with your country?” he said. He said he sought to assure I. O. C. officials by explaining that of the voters in Los Angeles had voted against Mr. Trump, describing the city to them as a “a multicultural, zone. ” The United States is expected to bid to host the world’s other major sporting event, the World Cup, in 2026. In June, Sunil Gulati, president of the United States Soccer Federation, told reporters that a Trump presidency could complicate an American bid, especially if it were a joint bid with Mexico, given Mr. Trump’s plans to build a wall across America’s southern border. “I think a World Cup with Mexico would be trickier if Secretary Clinton isn’t in the White House,” Mr. Gulati said at the time, in a reference to Hillary Clinton, who lost the election to Mr. Trump. After Mr. Trump won the election, Mr. Gulati modified his remarks, saying, “It’s not going to dissuade us or persuade us to bid. ” International perceptions of the Trump administration “matter, for sure,” Mr. Gulati said, “but I think those will be developed in the months to come. ” U. S. Soccer said Saturday it would have no immediate comment as it examined Mr. Trump’s order. Many questions remained unanswered about the ability of a number of athletes to travel. Two N. B. A. players, Thon Maker and Luol Deng, were born in Sudan, one of the seven countries listed in Mr. Trump’s executive order. (Both, however, were born in Wau, now part of South Sudan, which gained its independence from Sudan in 2011.) Mr. Maker’s family fled Sudan when he was 5 and eventually settled in Australia. Mr. Maker, who plays for the Milwaukee Bucks, moved to the United States to play high school basketball in Louisiana, eventually moved to Canada and is an Australian citizen who holds a passport from that country. It was unclear how people with dual citizenship would be treated under the order. Mr. Deng, a forward for the Los Angeles Lakers, has lived in the United States for 17 years. His family fled to Egypt when he was 5 to escape the Sudanese civil war. Mr. Deng came to the United States when he was 14 and attended high school in New Jersey, and he later became a British citizen. The N. B. A. also holds an annual Basketball Without Borders camp, and it is expected to be held in New Orleans during the league’s weekend in February. While rosters have not been released, last year’s camp involved players from 25 countries, including Amir Reza from Iran. Major League Soccer has two players with familial ties to two of the nations facing bans. Steve Beitashour of Toronto has played for Iran’s national team, and Justin Meram of Columbus has played for Iraq. League officials were looking into the matter on Saturday. Mo Farah of Britain, who was born in Somalia and has won four Olympic gold medals on the track at 5, 000 meters and 10, 000 meters, is a athlete coached by Alberto Salazar. Early Sunday morning Mr. Farah’s Facebook page had a post that, among other things, said: “On 1st January this year, Her Majesty The Queen made me a Knight of the Realm. On 27th January, President Donald Trump seems to have made me an alien. I am a British citizen who has lived in America for the past six years working hard, contributing to society, paying my taxes and bringing up our four children in the place they now call home. Now, me and many others like me are being told that we may not be welcome. ” Abdi Abdirahman, a Olympian for the United States who finished third in the 2016 New York City Marathon, was also born in Somalia, and the race regularly attracts runners from around the globe. The 2016 race featured three runners from Iran, nine from Syria and one from Sudan in the field of about 50, 000 runners. “Our goal is always to recruit the world’s best and cleanest athletes, regardless of where they’re from,” Chris Weiller, a spokesman for New York Road Runners, which organizes the marathon, said in an email. Jackie a spokeswoman for track and field’s world governing body, the International Association of Athletics Federations, said, “We clearly need to understand the implications of this new U. S. immigration policy and will be seeking assurances that it will not adversely affect” the sport’s world championships, scheduled to be held in Eugene, Ore. in 2021. Phil Andrews, the chief executive of U. S. A. Weightlifting, said officials were trying to figure out the impact of Mr. Trump’s ban on the world championships, scheduled for November in Anaheim, Calif. and on the American team’s participation at a competition in Iran. “Our view is that politics and sport should be separate,” Mr. Andrews said, stressing sports diplomacy among nations. “We sincerely hope to peacefully welcome these seven nations to Anaheim this November. It is unimaginable to be able to host a true world event without their participation. ” | 0fake |
Most Idiotic Comment Ever? “Sell Gold Because Inflation Will Spike” | Financial Markets , Gold , Market Manipulation , Precious Metals , U.S. Economy CNBC , GLD , silver eagles , Stanley Druckenmiller admin
Stanley Druckenmiller said: “I sold all my gold (sic) on the night of the election” because he sees inflation spiking and that will force money(sic) out of gold…hmmm….sell gold because you see inflation coming? That has to be the most idiotic investment rationale I’ve ever come across. Even “buy stocks because they keep going higher” is less dumb than that.
You’ll note the “sic” I added after Drunkenmiller’s comment about “gold.” “Sic” is used after a quoted word (from someone else) that seems odd or out of place. I inserted “sic” after Drunkenmiller’s use of “gold” because he never owned gold. He bought GLD, which is a paper derivative of gold. The only way you own gold is if you buy physical gold and keep it outside the system. GLD is a fraud, just like every other fiat paper “asset.”
I also inserted “sic” after his use of the word “money” with respect to “money flowing out of gold” (because he thinks inflation will spike up). Gold is money. It’s the second oldest form of transaction currency – silver being the oldest.
Finally, the idea that gold should be sold ahead of an expectation of a spike in inflation is…well, for lack of a better term, retarded (apologies to safe-space and socially correct people). Gold is the ultimate inflation hedge.
I sincerely do not know what would motivate Druckenmiller to make those remarks about gold – maybe he was patronizing what remains of CNBC’s imbecilic audience. I don’t feel any need to directly address each component Drunkenmiller’s assertions about gold – and about his expectations about feeling good about the prospects for the economy. The audiences of blogs like this one get it.
The current trading action in gold is being fueled by the paper market manipulation. If you review overnight charts for the last 3 months, you’ll see that on average and in general gold moves higher during the eastern hemisphere physical gold trading hours and gets bombed once the London and NY paper gold markets open after the Asian markets close.
It’s as simple as that. The paper gold market, like Drunkenmiller’s comments and investment rationale, are emblematic of the fraudulent, debt-riddled Ponzi nature of the U.S. and western hemisphere economies.
While the mantle of “power” in the U.S. was handed from Uncle Tom to Andrew Dice Clay, the real financial, economic and political power is being shifted from the western hemisphere to the eastern hemisphere. The massive flow of physical gold from west to east is the root of this tectonic geopolitical and economic movement. Share this: | 1real |
Turkey weighing border, air space measures over Iraqi Kurdish referendum: PM | ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkey is evaluating steps regarding its border gates and air space in response to the Iraqi Kurdish independence referendum being held on Monday, Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said. In an interview shown by multiple Turkish broadcasters, Yildirim said Ankara will make decisions in more direct talks with the Iraqi central government after the referendum, adding that economic, political, diplomatic and military steps were being discussed. | 0fake |
Eamon Dunphy & George Hook Enter 12th Hour Of ‘Who’s More Controversial’ Debate | 0 Add Comment
A CHANCE encounter between two of Ireland’s leading provocateurs and opinion-havers, Eamon Dunphy and George Hook, has resulted in a stand off which now enters its 12th hour.
Bumping into each other as they both sought to post a letter, presumably of complaint, at their local postbox, Dunphy and Hook found themselves politely disagreeing on who is the more controversial figure.
This polite exchange remained reasonable for just 2.46 seconds before both men began trading exaggerated claims and quips, in an effort to both convey they were the proud owners of the Nation’s most contrary opinions.
“No. No. No! You merely despise children’s joyful faces when they eat ice-cream. I hate the little shits with every essence of my being. They’re clumsy, careless, they’re a cod, a fraud,” Dunphy barked at Hook after the Newstalk radio host and rugby pundit suggested children were just the worst.
In a desperate bid to one up his contrary counterpart, Hook’s eyes frantically searched the street around him for something to give out about.
“Cars, too noisy. Roads! Some have potholes. The sky, too bloody high for my liking. Dunphy, I bloody hate that crevasse-faced tosser,” Hook bellowed as he commented on one thing after another, trying to cement his reputation as a controversial champion of Ireland.
The pair were then forcibly removed from the street by passers by who couldn’t take much more of their droning, placing them in a room together, which has been rented especially for the broadcasters for the next month.
With the stalemate continuing into its 12th hour both men are aware they could secure victory by mentioning how Hitler made the trains run on time, but neither seem ready to share the opinion just yet. | 1real |
Hilarious Cartoon Reveals 2016 Political Version of The “Walking Dead” | Pinterest
C.E. Dyer writes that the disaster that is Obamacare is about to get worse for many people enrolled in the health insurance marketplace. On Monday, the Obama administration confirmed that premiums will skyrocket for many people next year, according to the Associated Press .
The AP reported:
Before taxpayer-provided subsidies, premiums for a midlevel benchmark plan will increase an average of 25 percent across the 39 states served by the federally run online market, according to a report from the Department of Health and Human Services. Some states will see much bigger jumps, others less.
Moreover, about 1 in 5 consumers will only have plans from a single insurer to pick from, after major national carriers such as UnitedHealth Group, Humana and Aetna scaled back their roles.
In some states, the premium increases are striking. In Arizona, unsubsidized premiums for a hypothetical 27-year-old buying a benchmark “second-lowest cost silver plan” will jump by 116 percent, from $196 to $422, according to the administration report.
But HHS said if that hypothetical consumer has a fairly modest income, making $25,000 a year, the subsidies would cover $280 of the new premium, and the consumer would pay $142. Caveat: if the consumer is making $30,000 or $40,000 his or her subsidy would be significantly lower.
Larry Levitt, who follows the health care law for the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation, said of the increases: “Consumers will be faced this year with not only big premium increases but also with a declining number of insurers participating, and that will lead to a tumultuous open enrollment period.”
Donald Trump’s campaign spokesman, Jason Miller, said in a statement on Monday: “This shows why the entire program must be repealed and replaced.” Miller added, “While (Hillary) Clinton wants to expand the failed program known as Obamacare, Mr. Trump knows the only way to fix our nation’s failing health care system is complete and total reform.”
Reports have warned that this was coming down the pike for some time; however, HHS’s confirmation ahead of open enrollment beginning Nov. 1 — one week before the election — is likely to cause major headaches for many people.
This debacle is not unexpected either — it’s exactly what President Obama and Democrat nominee Hillary Clinton wanted to happen.
Obamacare was never the end goal. Rather, it was a stepping stone toward single-payer, government-run healthcare. That is a big reason why Obama wants Clinton to become president — his legacy is at stake.
Obama’s legacy is largely wrapped up in Obamacare and what it leads to. Clinton tried to push this first step during her time as first lady and failed, but the conditions will be ripe for her to go even further should she be elected.
If Clinton becomes president, there’s no doubt that her next step will be to move to single-payer healthcare. Obamacare is bad, there’s no doubt about it, but single-payer government healthcare would be even worse. | 1real |
New Wikileaks emails: Bernie is a Jerk, Megyn Kelly a Bimbo and More |
WikiLeaks has published its 33rd tranche of emails from the hacked account of Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, John Podesta.
The whistleblowing organization has now published more than 55,600 emails in a series of daily online releases which it said were building towards the November 8 presidential election.
Emails released Sunday included messages accusing Chelsea Clinton of using Clinton Foundation funds for her wedding as well as leaked transcripts of Bill Clinton’s fundraising speeches.
WikiLeaks has claimed its email publishing servers suffered a sustained DoS attack after it released #DNCLeak2 over the weekend.
THERE ARE 2 ADDITIONAL LEAKS ADDED TO THIS STORY COMPARED TO THE STANDARD RT STORY. THEY ARE AT THE BOTTOM.
Goldman Sachs speeches
In an email from January 23, 2016 Clinton Research Director Tony Carrk quoted the Democratic presidential nominee apparently expressing little appetite for prosecuting rogue Wall Street bankers.
In the mail to Clinton campaign Director of Communications Jennifer Palmieri, Press Secretary Brian Fallon and Podesta, Carrk said he was sending excerpts from Clinton’s Goldman Sachs speeches.
“I’m not interested in, you know, turning the clock back or pointing fingers,†Clinton is reported to have told Tim O’Neill, formerly of SJU Wall Street Trading Room and Credit Suisse, following a paid speech.
Clinton apparently then went on to recommend that the financial sector take a leading role in setting out regulations for their own troubled industry: “The people that know the industry better than anybody are the people who work in the industry. There’s nothing magic about regulations, too much is bad, too little is bad.â€
Less than one year earlier, Democratic media adviser Mandy Grunwald suggested to Podesta in another communication leaked Monday that Clinton should take a conciliatory tone with regard to Wall Street.
“I would include something from the Maggie Haberman piece on HRC’s Goldman Sachs speech,†writes Grunwald.
“Something like, “When HRC recently spoke to bankers at Goldman Sachs, instead of holding them accountable for their activities that crashed the economy, she told them that banker bashing was foolish and had to stop. She said “soothing” that we all got into our economic problems together.”
‘Illegal ivory’ as leverage on China
Hillary Clinton directed her now-campaign chair Podesta to use reports of illegal elephant tusk smuggling by Chinese government officials as “leverage†during a 2014 White House visit to the nation.
Three days before President Obama’s visit to Beijing in November 2014, the former secretary of state highlighted a NY Times article on how Chinese delegates reportedly smuggled home poached ivory from Tanzania.
A message from Clinton’s hrod17@clintonemail.com opens by praising Podesta’s “teasing†of reporters and “flashes†of a smile at a recent press conference before asking the then-White House adviser to raise the ivory story with China’s president directly.
“On China, I know you’ll be in Beijing next week, so am sending a news report about how Xi’s official party on its visit to Tanzania loaded up their planes w poached ivory, likely w full knowledge of [President Jakaya] Kikwete’s government,†Clinton writes.
“Please raise this issue directly w XI, both because it is critical on the merits but also because it’s another way you can gain some leverage with the Chinese.â€
The email subject line was, “Below is what I sent POTUS on election and China poaching.â€
A ‘fact sheet’ provided by the White House regarding Obama’s visit shows discussions centered on the ebola crisis, economic relations, and a “shared vision for Afghanistan.†An effort to work together to “stop the trade in illegal wildlife products†is also mentioned.
Clinton ‘totally blew’ crime question
New York Mayor Bill de Blasio thought Clinton “totally blew†a debate question about her support for a controversial federal crime bill passed by her husband.
In a March 2016 email , de Blasio was less than impressed with Clinton’s attempt to pass off a question on mass incarceration to her Democratic rival Bernie Sanders back in March.
“Hillary was fantastic on the gun control answer, then totally blew the mass incarceration question,†de Blasio wrote to Podesta.
The question was posed during a live CNN debate by anchor Don Lemon, who asked Clinton why black people should trust her to end a pattern of mass incarceration when she supported a 1994 law which many blame for “locking up a generation of black men.â€
Clinton began her answer by reminding people that Sanders also supported the bill, a tactic which appears to have irked Mayor de Blasio.
“Why on Earth did she say ‘Are you going to ask Senator Sanders that question?’ instead of just addressing the issue,†de Blasio wrote.
“When she makes it about her, she loses the high ground. Stating the obvious, I know, but she keeps doing it‌â€
Podesta brothers plan to influence India on NGO clampdown
Podesta sought to enlist the help of his lobbyist brother to influence an Indian Intelligence Bureau crackdown on Greenpeace and a key donor, the Ford Foundation, Monday’s leaked emails reveal.
Correspondence between John and Tony Podesta from May 2015 show the pair planned a lunch with the Indian ambassador to discuss a “very serious situation†facing Greenpeace in which the Indian government accused the group of financial irregularities. The claims eventually led to the cancellation of its license to operate there.
The bid to influence India’s decision-making came at the request of Karen Sack, managing director of conservation group Ocean Unite, who asked if John Podesta could get in touch with his brother at The Podesta Group.
“Apparently The Podesta Group has the contract for the Republic of India in the US, but Kumi [Naidoo, Greenpeace executive director] has no way to reach Tony or another principal,†Sack writes.
John Podesta forwarded the “small request†to his brother, highlighting Kumi Naidoo’s large following globally.
“Want to talk to the head of Greenpeace? Kumi Naidoo is a very well known South African with a big international following, but I think the GOI [Government of India] likely to stick it to them.â€
He also explained he was trying to use his influence to help the Ford Foundation charity, which had similarly “got on the wrong side of GOIâ€. However, he expressed a belief that their issue “can be more easily resolved.â€
A reply from Tony Podesta proposes a lunch with an Indian ambassador as well as confirmation he would be “happy†to talk to Greenpeace.
A leaked July 2015 email about funding shows Podesta describing global charity the Ford Foundation as a “ mainstay †for the Center for American Progress think-tank, which he founded in 2003.
Clinton’s emails could ‘either win 49 states, or lose 49 states’
As previously reported , in March of 2015, Clinton’s camp were debating whether Hillary should make a joke about her “email situationâ€.
Staffers were “nervous†about the “potentially nuts†move and, in freshly leaked correspondence, sought advice from Philippe Reines – a former senior adviser from Clinton’s days as Secretary of State and someone who was likely privy to the contents of said emails.
“Trust me, most of the email themselves are funnier than any joke we can come up with. Read in total by America she would either win 49 states, or lose 49 states. I go back and forth,†said Reines.
“But I would not make a joke just for the sake of making a joke, because email retention = Benghazi,†he warned.
“We can’t jam State to release them at this point, but if Dan [Schwerin, Clinton’s speech writer] can think of a light way to say “I am proud of the work we did at State and hopefully at some point everyone will be able to read what’s in them as a way to better understand that work‌†Reines suggested.
Bernie Sanders is a Jerk
We have previously reported about the agreement between Bernie Sanders and Clinton Campaign. We have also previously reported about Hillary’s others insults about Bernie’s supporters: basement-dwellers, bucket of losers, stupid millennials, etc. but now here’s another one.
This email is part of the DNC Leaks not of Podesta. DNC insider Hilary Rosen was caught emailing Jon Reinish and telling him that “Bernie Sanders is a petty jerk”: yes, she has a statement coming out. he is a petty jerk
Trump is right, Megyn Kelly is a Bimbo
Another DNC Leak email says that Donald Trump is right about Megyn Kelly. Yes she is a BIMBO! Well well well but you freaks of nature were saying Trump is a sexist for saying that. Then that means you too are sexists you Democrat liars.
Source
| 1real |
Iran nuclear agreement: Is a 'better deal' possible – and at what cost? (+video) | Critics say the shock of congressional rejection of the nuclear deal is a path to bring Iran back to the negotiating table. Secretary of State John Kerry calls that view 'a fantasy.'
Secretary of State John Kerry listens while testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee on the impacts of the nuclear deal with Iran on Capitol Hill Wednesday.
The television ads are airing across the country, from Washington to Honolulu: The Iran nuclear deal is a “bad deal,” the ad says, before concluding, “We want a better deal.”
As Congress debates the complex international agreement limiting Iran’s nuclear program in anticipation of a September vote, the option of rejecting this deal in favor of a “better deal” appears to be catching on. On Wednesday, Rep. Grace Meng (D) of New York announced she would oppose the deal on the table, believing “the world could and should have a better deal.”
But what is the likelihood that an agreement negotiated over several years between six world powers and Iran could indeed be renegotiated and toughened up if Congress rejects the current deal and overcomes a promised presidential veto?
The deep divisions over that question come down, more than anything, to people’s perception of Iran: whether or not it is a country the United States should be entangled with in such a complex deal, whether or not it should be allowed to possess any uranium enrichment program at all.
Critics of the Iran deal say there is plenty of historical precedent for renegotiating and amending international agreements. They argue that Iran is so intent on getting a deal with the US that Tehran could be brought back to the negotiating table after the shock of a congressional rejection.
“There is an alternative to the current [deal], it is an amended deal,” says Mark Dubowitz, an international sanctions expert and executive director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) in Washington.
Citing nearly 80 multilateral agreements Congress has either rejected or for which it has required amendments, he says, “Congress should require the administration to renegotiate certain terms of the proposed [deal] and resubmit the amended agreement to Congress.”
But senior administration officials involved in the Iran negotiations say there is no chance the deal could be renegotiated – and they warn that instead of tighter controls on Iran’s nuclear program, rejection of the deal would very likely result in a ramped-up uranium enrichment program. That, in turn, would mean a shrinking “breakout” time for Iran to rush to produce a nuclear weapon, if it chose to, they add.
Calling the prospect of a “better deal” a “fantasy,” Secretary of State John Kerry told senators last week that those demanding a renegotiated deal, including in the TV ads he’d seen, were proffering “some sort of unicorn arrangement involving Iran’s complete capitulation” – something he said is not going to happen.
Some nonproliferation experts echo that position, saying the Iranian nuclear program was already too advanced years ago to reduce it any more than what the deal reached July 14 does.
“Sure I’d like a better deal – I’d like a pony, too, but it’s not realistic,” says Jeffrey Lewis, director of nonproliferation studies at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, Calif. “The most important thing now is to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon in the next 10 to 15 years, and this deal does that.”
Others are much less certain the deal blocks Iran’s paths to a nuclear weapon, but they believe a renegotiated deal could.
FDD's Mr. Dubowitz says he sees three different directions the Iran nuclear issue could take if Congress rejects the current deal and holds out for an agreement “renegotiated on better terms.”
Iran could go ahead and implement its commitments under the deal, he says. It could also “abandon its commitments” and escalate it nuclear program. Or it could try to do both, complying with certain commitments while abandoning others – and thus attempt to divide world powers while advancing its nuclear program.
But under any of those scenarios, Dubowitz says, the US could work to “persuade the Europeans to join the US” in demanding a renegotiation of key parts of the deal.
Yet many regional experts say that prospects for wooing the Europeans to join the US in pressing for a tougher deal, if Congress rejects the one now before it, are dim.
“European and Asian partners would feel frustrated and misled” in the wake of a US rejection of the deal, Jon Alterman, a Middle East expert at Washington’s Center for Strategic and International Studies, told the House Armed Services Committee this week. European allies would likely join countries like China and India in investing in Iran’s energy sector, he added.
“Broadly, the action would create distance between the US and the world and diminish distance between Iran and the world,” Dr. Alterman added, “after more than a decade when the reverse was the case.”
Looming large over the calls for a return to negotiations are strong suspicions on the part of deal supporters that the “better deal” advocates really have no interest in a stronger deal at all, but instead want to thwart any US agreement with the Iranian government.
“We had a ‘better deal’ in Iraq after 1991 [following the Gulf War], there were no restrictions, inspectors could go where they wanted when they wanted, and that deal wasn’t good enough,” says Dr. Lewis, adding that “we still went to war. So really I don’t believe them when they say they just want a ‘better deal’ this time.”
Other doubters of the sincerity of the seekers of a “better deal” say it’s telling to note that the sponsor of the TV ad campaign demanding a better deal is a group called Citizens for a Nuclear Free Iran, which is backed by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a pro-Israel organization lobbying Congress hard for the deal’s defeat.
“There really is no ‘better deal’ for [such critics] in the sense of an agreement that leaves any nuclear program in the hands of the current Iranian government,” Lewis says. “Any deal is bad because it means living with the Islamic Republic.” | 0fake |
Why Tesla’s new solar tiles and home battery are a big deal | We Are Change
On October 28, Tesla unveiled its new solar roof tiles. Few of us in attendance, if any, realized the solar roofing tiles were actual functional solar panels until Elon Musk said so. Sure, it’s a neat trick, but what’s the big deal?
Why does it matter that Tesla is making a fashion statement when the point is green power and a future where we aren’t so dependent on fossil fuels?
I’ve heard from some people suggesting that this is nothing new, because of other similar previous projects, including Dow Chemical’s canned solar shingle project , for example. Others are wary of Tesla’s ability to sway consumers with a solar solution that sounds like it’ll still be quite expensive in terms of up-front (or, with payment plans, deferred but net) installation costs. Still others aren’t clear on Tesla’s goals with this product, or how it fits into the company’s overall strategy relative to its electric vehicles.
Looks matter It’s easy to dismiss the aesthetic import of how Tesla’s tiles look, but it’s actually important, and a real consideration for homeowners looking to build new homes or revamp their existing ones. The appearance of the tiles, which come in four distinct flavors (Textured Glass, Slate Glass, Tuscan Glass and Smooth Glass) is going to be a core consideration for prospective buyers, especially those at the top end of the addressable market with the disposable income available to do everything they can to ensure their home looks as good as it possibly can.
As with other kinds of technologies that are looking to make the leap from outlier oddity to mainstream mainstay, solar has a hurdle to leap in terms of customer perception. Existing solar designs, and even so-called attempts to make them more consistent with traditional offerings like the above-mentioned Dow Chemical project, leave a lot to be desired in terms of creating something that can be broadly described as good-looking.
It’s like the VR headset — Oculus and Google can make claims about their use of fabric making their headsets more approachable, but both are still just options somewhere along the curve of things with niche appeal. Neither is very likely to strike a truly broad audience of users as acceptable, and neither are solar panels that don’t succeed in completely disguising themselves as such.
Halo effects Tesla has been referred to as the Apple of the automotive world by more than a few analysts and members of the media, and if there’s one thing Apple does well, it’s capitalize on the so-called “halo effect.” This is the phenomenon whereby customers of one of its lines of business are likely to become customers of some of the others; iPhone buyers tend to often go on to own a Mac, for instance.
For Tesla, this represents an opportunity to jump-start its home solar business (which it’ll take on in earnest provided its planned acquisition of SolarCity goes through) through the knock-on effects of its brisk Tesla EV sales, including the tremendous pre-order interest for the Model 3. It’s strange to think of halo effects with big-ticket items, including vehicles and home energy systems, but Tesla’s fan base shares a lot of characteristics with Apple’s, and because they’re already purchasing at the level of an entire automobile, the frame of reference for what constitutes a valid halo purchase is actually appropriate.
Tesla, like Apple, scores well with customer satisfaction and brand commitment, and that’s something that no one trying to sell a solar home energy system at scale can match. As strange as it sounds, “buying a roof because you like your car” might be the new “buying a computer because you like your phone.”
Benefits beyond basic solar Tesla’s solar tiles claim to be able to power a standard home, and provide spare power via the new Powerwall 2 battery in case of inclement weather or other outages. Musk says that the overall cost will still be less than installing a regular old roof and paying the electric company for power from conventional sources. But Musk’s claims about the new benefits of the new solutions don’t end there.
Tesla’s tiles will actually be more resilient than traditional roofing materials, including terra-cotta, clay and slate tiles. That’s because of the toughness of the glass used in their construction, according to Musk, who demonstrated the results of heavy impact from above, using a kettlebell as you can see in the video below.
This should make them theoretically more resistant to potential damage from elements like hail, or even debris like fallen tree branches. In fact, Musk also said at the event that the roofs should far outlast the standard 20-year life cycle common for roofing materials used today — by as much as two or even three times. Fewer roof tile replacements means more value, provided that’s not already factored into his estimates of the up-front cost.
There’s also the possibility that the new tiles could become more efficient than existing solar panel options. Though in their current form, Musk says they achieve 98 percent of the efficiency of regular panels. He said that the company is working with 3M on coatings that could help light enter the panel and then refract within, letting it capture even more of the potential energy it carries to translate that into consumable power.
A new kind of ecosystem The announcement of Tesla’s solar tiles does not guarantee a sweeping solar power revolution; far from it, since Tesla says it won’t start installing the product in any consumer homes until next year, and a lot can happen between now and then. But Musk also said with full confidence that he ultimately expects the Powerwall to outsell Tesla cars, and easily so.
Solar roofing, Powerwall and Tesla cars taken together represent a new kind of ecosystem in consumer tech, one that carries a promise of self-sufficiency in addition to ecological benefits. Tesla has already tipped its hand with respect to how it intends to make vehicle ownership a revenue generator for its drivers, rather than a cost center. You can see how it might eventually do the same for solar power using solar tile roofs combined with Powerwalls installed in series, giving homeowners surplus power generation and storage with a few different potential options for monetizing the excess (including, say, acting as a supercharger station for other Teslas, or selling back to the grid).
It’s tempting to look at Tesla’s unveiling last week and think that it’s more of an incremental development in the home solar industry. But it’s more likely a step toward a future where individuals have more direct control over power generation, leading to a big difference in how we think about renewable energy.
Source; https://techcrunch.com/2016/10/31/why-teslas-new-solar-roof-tiles-and-home-battery-are-such-a-big-deal/#
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Back Story Of FBI’s Hillary Cover-Up | Back Story Of FBI’s Hillary Cover-Up FBI corruption exposed Infowars Nightly News - October 28, 2016 Comments
Angry law enforcement investigators are talking about corruption at the top of the FBI’s “investigation” of Hillary.
Here’s how it went sideways. NEWSLETTER SIGN UP Get the latest breaking news & specials from Alex Jones and the Infowars Crew. Related Articles Download on your mobile device now for free. Today on the Show Get the latest breaking news & specials from Alex Jones and the Infowars crew. From the store Featured Videos FEATURED VIDEOS A Vote For Hillary is a Vote For World War 3 - See the rest on the Alex Jones YouTube channel . The Most Offensive Halloween EVER! - See the rest on the Alex Jones YouTube channel . ILLUSTRATION How much will your healthcare premiums rise in 2017? >25% © 2016 Infowars.com is a Free Speech Systems, LLC Company. All rights reserved. Digital Millennium Copyright Act Notice. 34.95 22.46 Flip the switch and supercharge your state of mind with Brain Force the next generation of neural activation from Infowars Life. http://www.infowars.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/brainforce-25-200-e1476824046577.jpg http://www.infowarsstore.com/health-and-wellness/infowars-life/brain-force.html?ims=tzrwu&utm_campaign=Infowars+Placement&utm_source=Infowars.com&utm_medium=Widget&utm_content=Brain+Force http://www.infowarsstore.com/health-and-wellness/infowars-life/brain-force.html?ims=tzrwu&utm_campaign=Infowars+Placement&utm_source=Infowars.com&utm_medium=Widget&utm_content=Brain+Force Brain Force – 25% OFF 34.95 22.46 Flip the switch and supercharge your state of mind with Brain Force the next generation of neural activation from Infowars Life. http://www.infowars.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/brainforce-25-200-e1476824046577.jpg http://www.infowarsstore.com/health-and-wellness/infowars-life/brain-force.html?ims=tzrwu&utm_campaign=Infowars+Placement&utm_source=Infowars.com&utm_medium=Widget&utm_content=Brain+Force http://www.infowarsstore.com/health-and-wellness/infowars-life/brain-force.html?ims=tzrwu&utm_campaign=Infowars+Placement&utm_source=Infowars.com&utm_medium=Widget&utm_content=Brain+Force Brain Force – 25% OFF 34.95 22.46 Flip the switch and supercharge your state of mind with Brain Force the next generation of neural activation from Infowars Life. http://www.infowars.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/brainforce-25-200-e1476824046577.jpg http://www.infowarsstore.com/health-and-wellness/infowars-life/brain-force.html?ims=tzrwu&utm_campaign=Infowars+Placement&utm_source=Infowars.com&utm_medium=Widget&utm_content=Brain+Force http://www.infowarsstore.com/health-and-wellness/infowars-life/brain-force.html?ims=tzrwu&utm_campaign=Infowars+Placement&utm_source=Infowars.com&utm_medium=Widget&utm_content=Brain+Force Brain Force – 25% OFF 34.95 22.46 Flip the switch and supercharge your state of mind with Brain Force the next generation of neural activation from Infowars Life. http://www.infowars.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/brainforce-25-200-e1476824046577.jpg http://www.infowarsstore.com/health-and-wellness/infowars-life/brain-force.html?ims=tzrwu&utm_campaign=Infowars+Placement&utm_source=Infowars.com&utm_medium=Widget&utm_content=Brain+Force http://www.infowarsstore.com/health-and-wellness/infowars-life/brain-force.html?ims=tzrwu&utm_campaign=Infowars+Placement&utm_source=Infowars.com&utm_medium=Widget&utm_content=Brain+Force Brain Force – 25% OFF 34.95 22.46 Flip the switch and supercharge your state of mind with Brain Force the next generation of neural activation from Infowars Life. http://www.infowars.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/brainforce-25-200-e1476824046577.jpg http://www.infowarsstore.com/health-and-wellness/infowars-life/brain-force.html?ims=tzrwu&utm_campaign=Infowars+Placement&utm_source=Infowars.com&utm_medium=Widget&utm_content=Brain+Force http://www.infowarsstore.com/health-and-wellness/infowars-life/brain-force.html?ims=tzrwu&utm_campaign=Infowars+Placement&utm_source=Infowars.com&utm_medium=Widget&utm_content=Brain+Force Brain Force – 25% OFF 34.95 22.46 Flip the switch and supercharge your state of mind with Brain Force the next generation of neural activation from Infowars Life. http://www.infowars.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/brainforce-25-200-e1476824046577.jpg http://www.infowarsstore.com/health-and-wellness/infowars-life/brain-force.html?ims=tzrwu&utm_campaign=Infowars+Placement&utm_source=Infowars.com&utm_medium=Widget&utm_content=Brain+Force http://www.infowarsstore.com/health-and-wellness/infowars-life/brain-force.html?ims=tzrwu&utm_campaign=Infowars+Placement&utm_source=Infowars.com&utm_medium=Widget&utm_content=Brain+Force | 1real |
Comment on She’s fit to be President! Hillary had to be helped up *one* step by youknowwho. | February 4, 2016, in Charleston, SC.
And this? April 16, 2016 at Southwest College, Los Angeles.
And this, less than two months ago on Sept. 11, 2016?
On Thursday, October 26, 2016, Hillary was in Lake Worth, Florida for a rally.
She walks up to the cheering crowd, as a bearded guy in sunglasses hurries to her side.
He extends his left hand to Hillary; she clutches it tightly. The man then helps her to make a step up onto the platform.
Just one step.
Here’s the video:
Later that day, Hillary leaves Florida for another rally in Winston Salem, North Carolina.
Walking up a flight of 15 steps to board her campaign plane, while holding an umbrella in her left hand and clutching the handrail with her right, and “mumbling to herself” (according to Live Satellite News ), Hillary appears to be wobbly and unsteady. Halfway up the steps, she stumbles, tilting her umbrella down (0:17 mark).
Hillary turned 69 two days ago on October 26, but moves like a disabled old woman. | 1real |
Travel: Conor McGregor’s Guide To New York | AHEAD of his much anticipated title fight against Eddie Alvarez, Conor McGregor took some time out of his busy schedule to relax and give the readers of WWN his guide of New York.
Pound for pound the best city in the world. It’s box office baby.
The 9/11 memorial was sad, but not as sad as Alvarez will be when I crash land a jumbo left hook in the seemingly structurally sound facade of a face. He will come crashing down. It will be an inside job, because he prepares like a chump.
My focus remains on the battle ahead in Madison Square Gardens but I was thrown off my preparation when I learned there is no garden. It’s just a big fuck off arena forged out of metal for the fighting God. I would say Gods, but there is only one, me, Notorious.
I had anticipated doing my movement training with grass beneath my feet, so I headed to Central Park. It ain’t got a patch on Phoenix Park. I wouldn’t be the fighter I am today without Dublin’s back garden. Chasing the deer as a nipper helped me hone my quickness, my agility.
I studied the deer and the stag; their movements. So don’t be surprised if I enter the octagon with four hooves and antlers. I will do anything, all it takes to win. Anyway, back to the tour, I hear they filmed some Sex and the City shit in Central Park.
No Sex in the City for Alvarez, though. He couldn’t score in a brothel above Coppers with 20gs in his pocket. What I am saying is that my opponent is challenged in the face department. His head is like a melted lasagne left out in the sun for weeks. Not even Donald Trump would grab him by the pussy.
Speaking of that Fanta headed prick, I’m not in his weight class ‘cus I’m not obese, but I’ll knock him out all the same. I’ll be worth more than him by the end of 205 too. Where’s my Hollywood star, fuck it, I’ll take the whole Walk.
But, back to the tour – it would be interesting to note, the actors in Sex in the City are not as rich as me. Chumps.
When you tour around New York, be warned, people will ask you for endless selfies if you are famous as I am. I love the fans, but obviously when in camp, you’ve got to watch what you’re eating, it can make you a little tetchy, so while reducing my food intake ahead of the weigh in, I like to reduce my selfie intake too. Running from overweight Americans barely counts for cardio, but you’ve gotta take every chance to gain the edge over your opponent.
I was told to try the New York pizza, but can’t do that until after my victory, in the mean time I might use it to throw around at the pre-fight press conference. A scalding hot slice slapping Eddie in the face might improve his chances with the ladies.
Peace out. I’ve off to chuck a few euro off the top of the Empire State building to let off some steam. | 1real |
LOL! MAD magazine designed HILARIOUS movie poster based on #PodestaEmails for Hillary’s new flick | LOL! MAD magazine designed HILARIOUS movie poster based on #PodestaEmails for Hillary’s new flick Posted at 12:55 pm on October 27, 2016 by Sam J.
Don’t think Hillary is going to find this particular poster from MAD all that funny …
but we laughed.
— MAD Magazine (@MADmagazine) October 27, 2016
Admit it, you’d go see this movie just because of the movie poster. Trending | 1real |
U.S. tax avoidance clampdown a potential headache for Apple | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Apple Inc and other U.S. multinationals will face new curbs on tax loopholes under a rule imposed by Washington on Thursday, part of a scramble among governments worldwide to bolster their corporate tax bases. Acting shortly after a European Union grab for billions of dollars in back taxes from Apple, the U.S. Treasury said it was tightening restrictions on companies’ use of foreign tax credits to reduce what they owe in U.S. taxes. “We are closing another tax loophole that contributes to the erosion of our tax base,” Treasury Assistant Secretary for Tax Policy Mark Mazur said in a statement. The fight for multinational tax revenues escalated on Aug. 30 when the EU ruled Ireland was giving improper state aid to Apple in the form of a deal for low taxes. The EU ordered Apple to pay Ireland 13 billion euros ($14.6 billion) in back taxes, prompting U.S. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew to express concern the EU ruling could undermine the U.S. tax base. Analysts have speculated whether Apple would be able to cut its U.S. tax bill by claiming foreign tax credits for its extra tax bill in Ireland. Under normal circumstances, U.S. companies can reduce the taxes they owe the U.S. government by the value of the tax credits they claim for taxes paid abroad on foreign profits. No U.S. tax is due on those profits until they are brought into the United States, or repatriated. The new rule will prevent companies faced with back tax bills from “splitting,” a strategy that allows companies to bring foreign tax credits into the United States without repatriating the income from which they were derived. Apple had no comment on Treasury’s tax notice. The technology giant is not the only U.S. company in the crosshairs of EU state aid investigations. Starbucks Corp has been ordered to pay up to 30 million euros ($33 million) to the Dutch state, while Amazon.com Inc and McDonald’s Corp are under investigation by the EU’s executive arm. The new rule was likely to ratchet up transatlantic tensions over corporate taxes while eliminating one more strategy U.S. companies can use to cushion the blow from increasingly aggressive EU tax collection efforts. The tax notice specifically cited European Union state aid investigations as a risk to U.S. revenues. The Treasury had no comment on whether its notice would have an impact on Apple directly, but a spokesperson said the notice applies to all companies required by a foreign government to pay additional taxes, including those hit by state-aid cases. | 0fake |
Iraq threatens to resume military operations against Kurds | BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraqi forces threatened on Wednesday to resume operations to capture northern Kurdish-held territory after accusing authorities there of delaying handing over control of Iraq s borders with Turkey, Iran and Syria. Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi on Friday declared a pause in an offensive that began on Oct. 16 to take over areas claimed both by his government and the autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG). Abadi ordered economic and military retaliation against the KRG after Iraqi Kurds voted for independence in September in a referendum that Baghdad declared illegal. He said the truce was meant to allow Iraqi troops to deploy without hindrance in the disputed areas and at the international borders. Kurdish officials said on Tuesday they were willing to allow Iraqi oversight at the border but said the KRG had to remain in control of crossings into the Kurdish region. The Iraqi Joint Operations Command accused the KRG of using the talks to buy time in order to strengthen Kurdish lines. During the negotiations, the (Kurdish) region was moving its forces and building new defenses, the Iraqi statement said. We will not allow it; the federal forces are mandated to secure (the disputed) areas and borders. The Kurdish Peshmerga fighters command accused Iraqi forces of massing weapons and threatening force to resolve domestic political differences. Iraq s entire land border with Turkey is located inside the Kurdish autonomous region, and has been controlled by the Kurds since before the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003. Iraqis troops on Tuesday set up positions between the Turkish and the Iraqi Kurdish checkpoints at the Habur border crossing between the Turkish town of Silopi and the Iraqi town of Zakho. That meant vehicles crossing the border were subject to three checks. Control of the border area is of crucial importance for the landlocked Kurdish region. An oil pipeline runs from northern Iraq into Turkey, carrying crude exports which are the Kurds in principal source of funds. | 0fake |
STUDENTS BRAVELY DEFY Catholic College VP’s Warning To Reconsider “Offensive…Divisive…Harmful” AMERICA-THEMED Party | Student government leaders at Loyola University Maryland faced a barrage of pressure from the university administration to change the theme of a senior class party described as very alienating, divisive and harmful and against the university s core values, according to emails provided to The Daily Caller. The theme? America.The theme for Loyola s annual Senior 200s party one of four celebrations exclusive to seniors held throughout the year was based upon a survey of Loyola seniors taken last summer. The party was held on Nov. 18 and went off without a hitch, according to students who attended, despite warnings that the administration might have to get involved if students were offended.Emails sent to student government representatives were provided to TheDC on condition of anonymity. Multiple student government representatives confirmed the emails authenticity on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation from the administration.Right before the presidential election, some student government members wondered if they should nix the America theme if Donald Trump won, according to internal SGA group chats shared with TheDC on condition of anonymity for the same reason.One representative claimed that if Trump wins it will be bad, while another argued it would be wrong to change the party theme simply because of disagreement with the president-elect s policies. The party was still on.The day after Trump s victory, a handful of students messaged SGA representatives to argue that because of Trump s victory an America-themed party was now inappropriate. One female student claimed she was a victim of horrible hate words and worried that similar mean things might be said at the party if the theme wasn t changed.When the possibility of unpleasant feelings wasn t enough to cancel a class-wide event, the administration got involved.The university s executive vice president, Susan Donovan sent an email to two SGA members claiming she talked with a number of students and heard from faculty members about the party. None of it is positive and it sounds very alienating, divisive and harmful. Sheilah Horton, the university s dean of students also tried to pressure students to change the party theme, in a lengthy email that portrayed the students as insensitive for not canceling the America theme.Horton worried that the theme provides an opportunity for students to dress or behave in a way that offends or oppresses others. Horton also said the administration would have to deal with any fallout from the party, which she worried would make students feel unsafe. She also worried that the America-themed party might keep potential students from attending Loyola and implied the event could be the defining incident of the senior class. Even one negative event, especially with social media can cause the campus community to feel unsafe; it can be shared with potential students which can have an effect on admissions and indeed can be the defining incident for the class of 2017, she said. So, you have made a decision that in effect, has the potential to cause negative consequences for the university and even to the students whose behavior crosses the line, she continued. Horton did not respond to TheDC s request for comment by press time. I was amazed and shocked at not only the reaction and lack of confidence of the administration in our class and SGA itself, but how they handled everything including some of the rude things said about our organization. It is quite disgusting how people feel and see the word America as something that is discriminatory, said one student government representative, who wished to remain anonymous out of fear of retaliation from the administration. We should see the theme America as a way to forget political divide and come together as a country and class and celebrate all that we have accomplished. That is what ended up happening, yet we didn t have the support of people in our class and the administration itself. Daily Caller | 1real |
YOUNG GIRL KICKED OUT Of Women’s March For Wearing Trump Hat [VIDEO] | 1real | |
BREAKING: [Video] DIRTY BOMB FEARS, As NYC Police Officers With Targets Placed On Their Backs By Obama And DeBlasio Wear Nuclear Bomb Detectors July 4th Weekend | Not knowing how many members of ISIS and other terrorist groups have slipped undetected into our country is yet another serious consequence of Obama s open borders Several thousand New York City uniformed and plain clothes officers will patrol the city this weekend.7,000 closed circuit security cameras will be closely watched.Air and water patrol will be equipped with radiation detection.Police officers will also be equipped with special radiation detection monitors to be put on their belts to detect for dirty bombs. America faces the highest threat level ever this year for the 4th of July.https://youtu.be/Zflo1wizClUVia: Gateway Pundit | 1real |
Will Trump's presidency change the way America views Russia? | Will Trump's presidency change the way America views Russia? Donald Trump once again confounded his critics with an unexpected victory in the U.S. presidential election. Will he now seek to turn U.S.-Russian relations upside down? Donald Trump once again confounded his critics with an unexpected victory in the U.S. presidential election. Will he now seek to turn U.S.-Russian relations upside down?
U.S. President-elect Donald Trump poses with a ring given to him by a group of veterans during a campaign event on the campus of Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa. Photo: AP
Donald Trump completed one of the great upsets in American political history when he vaulted above the 270 Electoral College vote minimum needed to become president. His presidency, which begins Jan. 20, 2017, offers interesting possibilities for U.S.-Russian relations .
Trump’s affinity for Russian President Vladimir Putin has been well documented, and Putin’s sentiments about Trump are equally positive. On Nov. 9, Putin was among the first of the world’s leaders to offer his congratulations to Trump. But will a gesture of goodwill lead to substantive change in the U.S.-Russian partnership? Trump has intriguing possibilities to weigh.
Doing away with the sanctions President Barack Obama handed down in response to Russia’s involvement in 2014 in Ukraine is one. Last year, Russian officials estimated the sanctions cost the country more than $100 billion. It is safe to assume that figure has grown this year, and sagging oil prices have added a second significant strain to the Russian budget.
Demanding that NATO nations pay for more of the costs associated with the organization would be a second option Trump could employ. Within hours of Trump’s victory, NATO’s secretary general urged him to not forget the longstanding relationship between the U.S. and Western Europe in maintaining peace. Trump could add further stress to the relationship – to Russia’s advantage – if he limited the role of the U.S. military in the region.
Read the Q&A with Dmitri Trenin: " Trump's presidency and the future of US-Russia relations " Staying out of the way as Russia continued its aerial assault on Syria’s rebels would be another way of demonstrating that a President Trump would deal with Russia in sharply different ways than Obama.
There is no way to know right now if Trump will follow through on any of these ideas once he assumes office.
He also has so-called soft power options at his disposal to change the way Russia views America. For example, he could urge the U.S. Congress to restore funding for Title VIII , a program that allows U.S. scholars to engage in research about Russia and gain Russian language proficiency. Funding levels were cut three years ago. Along the same lines, he could push for increased academic, athletic and cultural exchanges between the two nations.
President Obama’s famous “reset” button that Hillary Clinton carried to Moscow during her first visit as U.S. Secretary of State proved ineffective, and her critics jumped on it during the recent presidential campaign to show how incompetent she would be on the world stage. Trump is not likely to use any prop to show his intentions of improving Washington’s relationship with Moscow.
But the substantive options he does choose will determine just how much he intends to break with his soon-to-be predecessor’s plans. Western European leaders, perhaps more than any other, will be watching closely.
The ;opinion ;of the author may not necessarily reflect the position of Russia Direct or its staff. | 1real |
James Comey: Loretta Lynch Tried to Influence Statements on Hillary Clinton Investigation | Former FBI Director James Comey revealed that former President Obama’s Attorney General Loretta Lynch tried to influence his statements on Hillary Clinton’s email investigation during the election. [“At one point the attorney general had directed me not to call it investigation, but instead to call it a matter, which concerned and confused me,” Comey said. Comey made his remarks during a Senate hearing, offering testimony about the ongoing investigation into Russia’s attempt to influence the 2016 presidential election and the decision by former President Donald Trump to fire him. He acknowledged during the hearing that there were other reasons why he felt he had to make the statement about Clinton’s investigation, including “one significant” reason, which had to remain classified. He said that Lynch’s meeting on the tarmac with former president Bill Clinton during the campaign was the ultimate reason why he decided to make a public statement when the department decided not to prosecute Hillary Clinton. “In a ultimately conclusive way, that was the thing that capped it for me, that I had to do something separately to protect the credibility of the investigation, which meant both the FBI and the Justice Department,” he said. Comey confessed that he followed Lynch’s advice, admitting that he could have resisted more. “I just said this isn’t a hill worth dying on and so I just said, ‘O. K.,” Comey said, but added that he was “concerned” that the Clinton campaign was referring to the investigation with the same language. | 0fake |
Time Channel is a go | Friday, 28 October 2016 Space station Time Channel reporter Kurt Walker
Comcast the communications giant will be debuting the time channel on its generic package featuring a collection of globally placed reporters that will be constantly updating times from every location on the planet.
Some will be embedded with troops in war ravaged middle east, some will be found holding onto a palm tree during a punishing Caribbean hurricane. Some will be about to crest the summit of MT. Everest.
Where ever and whenever 24 7 365 viewers can tune in to find rapid fire 5 second live updates from absolutely everywhere including the space station.
The fast paced action will be anchored from a studio in New York where two hosts will alternately update the time to the second while dozens of digital clocks labeled with foreign cities will change each and every second as the whirlwind of time swiftly moves forth.
"Some day when time ends" said Biggy Bigelow chairman of Comcast "we will be there to report it". Make thomas o'hanlon's day - give this story five thumbs-up (there's no need to register , the thumbs are just down there!) | 1real |
COLLEGE STUDENTS EXPRESS DISGUST In Trump’s “First 100 Days”…Until They Find Out Interviewer Was Talking About Obama [VIDEO] | Campus Reform Saturday will mark Donald Trump s 100th day in office, an important milestone for U.S. presidents ever since the flurry of panicked failings with which Franklin Roosevelt began his administration.While supporters of President Trump point to his slew of executive orders and the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch as markers of his success, detractors claim Mr. Trump has accomplished very little since taking office.Throughout the year, Campus Reform has shown how liberal professors and students across America have been quick to oppose the President s actions often without understanding important details about them.Hoping to tease out whether such reflexive opposition to Trump is based on policy disagreements or simply distaste for Trump himself, Campus Reform headed to George Mason University to ask students their opinions about the first 100 days.Watch George Mason student s reactions to questions that are actually about things Barack Obama did while in office, as the interviewer poses them as things President Trump accomplished: | 1real |
Peru VP says committed to governing if president ousted | LIMA (Reuters) - Neither of Peru s two vice presidents would open the door to new elections by resigning if President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski was forced from office, Second Vice President Mercedes Araoz told Reuters late on Sunday. Araoz said she was confident Kuczynski was innocent of wrongdoing regarding recently-disclosed links he once had with Odebrecht, a Brazilian construction company at the center of Latin America s biggest graft scandal. If Kuczynski is as expected unseated by the opposition-run Congress in a vote on Thursday, First Vice President Martin Vizcarra would immediately replace him. New national elections would only be called if both Vizcarra - a former governor of a copper-rich mining region and Peru s current ambassador to Canada - and Araoz resigned or left office before the scheduled end of Kuczynski s term in 2021. But Araoz ruled out that scenario. We re going to ensure that this government continues in power. Peru elected the three of us and both of us vice presidents are going to defend our mandate, Araoz said in a brief phone interview. Araoz remarks were the first explicit assurance by Kuczynski s center-right government that it would not abandon the presidency, and will likely soothe investor fears about the prospect of elections that could sweep anti-establishment candidates to power as the graft scandal roils the country. Odebrecht has sent shockwaves through Latin American politics since admitting a year ago that it had won lucrative public work contracts in Peru and nine countries in the region through a network of bribes and kickback schemes. The scandal has landed elites in jail from Colombia to the Dominican Republic, but has hit particularly hard in Peru, where Odebrecht once had an outsized presence. With Kuczynski, a 79-year-old former Wall Street banker, and two former presidents engulfed in the scandal and several opposition leaders under investigation, a majority of Peruvians want Kuczynski and lawmakers in Congress to leave office and prefer new elections to be called, a poll by Ipsos showed on Sunday. But Araoz said that would risk derailing progress Peru has made since its return to democracy at the turn of the century. We want our economy to keep growing, we want to maintain democracy, we want to avoid dictatorial actions, Araoz said in a veiled swipe at the opposition. Congress is controlled by a right-wing opposition party headed by media-shy Keiko Fujimori, the daughter of former authoritarian leader Alberto Fujimori, who is in prison for graft and human rights violations. Over the past year, Fujimori s foes have alleged that her party would use its majority in Congress to unseat Kuczynski in retribution for unexpectedly defeating her in the 2016 election - warnings that Kuczynski was now seizing on. There s an attack on democratic order, Kuczynski said late on Sunday in a televised interview with a group of local journalists. We have to defend democracy because it s the only tool that guarantees us a path to prosperity... I implore all to continue our trajectory. Fujimori s surrogates have denied she has sought to unseat Kuczynski for political reasons and describe a motion passed on Friday to start presidential vacancy proceedings as part of her party s fight against corruption. Kuczynski once denied having any links to Odebrecht. But last week Odebrecht sent Congress a requested report that detailed $4.8 million in deposits it made over a decade-long period starting in 2004 to companies owned by Kuczynski or a close business associate of his. The payments include about $600,000 in financial services Kuczynski provided for an Odebrecht project as a private citizen and about $800,000 transferred to a company owned by him during and shortly after holding senior government posts. Kuczynski apologized to Peruvians for not having explained his links to Odebrecht properly. He denied taking bribes or anything improper about the business transactions. I m absolutely sure. There was no corruption here, Kuczynski said. | 0fake |
Dan Rather Just Took Republicans To The Woodshed For Passing Horrible Healthcare Bill | This is what legendary newsman Dan Rather thinks about Trumpcare, and it s an EPIC ass-kicking.On Monday, House Republicans officially passed a bill they dubiously refer to as the American Healthcare Act, except that is neither American nor is it healthcare.Instead, this bill repeals the Affordable Care Act, which strips tens of millions of Americans of their health insurance coverage while raising the cost of care significantly. The bill does nothing to cover more people and does not improve healthcare one iota. Yet Trump has praised this piece of shit bill as wonderful. Dan Rather disagrees and wrote a scathing post on Facebook calling out Republicans and Trump for screwing over the American people. For seven years we ve been hearing from Republicans about how horrible Obamacare was, and this was the best they could come up with? Rather wrote. A rush job that doesn t seem to have any new ideas or fix the core problems? It seems to prove the point that this was always about rhetoric and not about actually trying to make health insurance either cover more people or lower costs. Indeed, this has always been about tearing down the legacy of America s first black president. The Affordable Care Act was not perfect but did slow down the rising costs of healthcare while making the uninsured rate drop to all-time lows.Rather then slammed Donald Trump for breaking every promise he made on the campaign trail.The ball is firmly in the court of the GOP. They control the government, and President Trump made promises on the campaign trail about lower premiums, keeping your doctor, everyone staying insured, etc. Basically a version of healthcare that would be better told by Hans Christian Andersen a fairy tale. And everyone with any sense on this issue knew it.Legislation isn t a campaign speech. It actually has to be made up of words that lead to law. And those words have to actually tell you something about who will win and who will lose. Who will be covered and how much it might cost. And now that we have a GOP plan, it is getting picked apart by politicians and interest groups on all sides. It is starting to look about as popular as ants at a picnic.In conclusion, Rather shamed Paul Ryan and Republicans for putting the hatred and racism of their rabid base over the health and lives of the millions of people who rely on the Affordable Care Act.So here we stand. And President Trump is swinging the full weight of his Administration behind the Ryan plan. Maybe that will be enough to arm twist skeptical Republicans. Or maybe this effort will fall apart in spectacular failure. Mr. Trump promised to replace and repeal Obamacare on day one. But the Affordable Care Act (yes to some out there, that is the same as Obamacare) is still the law of the land. And who knows how long that may last. It likely will be dramatic political theater. It s just a horrible shame that the stakes being toyed with are millions of Americans and their health insurance.Featured image via Matthew Eisman/Getty Images | 1real |
Trump Expected to Issue New Travel Ban Excluding Iraq on Monday - The New York Times | WASHINGTON — President Trump is expected to issue on Monday a new version of his executive order on immigration that excludes Iraq, a key ally in the fight against the Islamic State, from a list of predominantly Muslim countries whose citizens will face temporary restrictions on travel to the United States. The new order would temporarily stop all refugee admissions to the United States, said a senior administration official familiar with it. The previous version included a ban on all refugees other than Syrians, who were barred indefinitely. The new order removes the extra restrictions on Syrian refugees. It is unclear how long the temporary ban would last. The earlier order has been blocked by the courts the change on refugees is intended to help the new version withstand legal scrutiny. The new order would not affect people with green cards or those holding a valid visa at the time the order is signed. While some provisions in the new order have been relaxed, Mr. Trump and immigration in the administration are expected to assert that the new version is no less strict because it retains a temporary ban on refugees. The senior administration official said Iraq had been removed from the travel ban after Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson had discussions with the Iraqi government about its vetting processes. The Iraqi officials insisted that their vetting system was thorough enough on its own. Some American officials had expressed concern that the restrictions would have affected Iraqis who had worked with the American military as interpreters or in other roles and sought to come to the United States. The official said the executive order is expected to be signed on Monday. David Lapan, a spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security, referred all questions about the new executive order to the White House. Mr. Trump’s previous order — which temporarily barred visitors from Iraq, Syria, Sudan, Iran, Somalia, Libya and Yemen — set off chaos and confusion at airports around the world. The new order retains a temporary travel ban on the six countries other than Iraq. After the first order was issued in January, passengers, many of them with green cards that allow them to live and work in the United States, were barred from flights into the country. Other people with visas were suddenly unsure if they would be allowed into the United States, and many of those who managed to arrive were stopped at airports. While the new restrictions are intended to withstand legal scrutiny, they are likely to set off similar court challenges. The previous executive order was criticized by several former diplomatic and security officials, who said there was no national security purpose for the travel ban. Trump administration officials, including John F. Kelly, the homeland security secretary, defended the previous restrictions, saying they were needed because the countries listed did not have vetting systems in place that could guarantee that immigrants and other travelers from those nations did not pose a threat to the United States. “I believe that the travel pause from all of those countries will give us time to evaluate those countries and the information they can provide us, which will ultimately lead to safety for the American people,” Mr. Kelly told a Senate committee last month. But an intelligence assessment from Mr. Kelly’s own department said there was little evidence that those travelers posed an unusual threat. The report found that “country of citizenship is unlikely to be a reliable indicator of potential terrorist activity. ” The assessment, first reported by The Associated Press, found that only a small number of people from the seven countries had been involved in activities in the United States since the Syrian civil war began in 2011. The report also found that in the past six years, the terrorism threat had reached much more widely than the seven countries listed: People from 26 countries had been “inspired” to carry out attacks in the United States, it said. The new order is the first of several security measures planned for America’s borders. Mr. Trump has ordered the Department of Homeland Security to hire an additional 5, 000 Border Patrol agents, and Customs and Border Protection has begun accepting design proposals for a wall along the border with Mexico. Mr. Kelly said the administration was considering requiring foreign visitors to provide lists of the websites they have visited. This would enable intelligence officials “to get on those websites to see what they’re looking at,” he told senators last month. The United States also made changes to the visa waiver program in 2016 that made it harder for travelers to enter the United States from Europe if they had dual citizenship from Iran, Iraq, Sudan or Syria, or had visited one of those countries, or Libya, Somalia or Yemen, since 2011. | 0fake |
FOX HOST KENNEDY Gives Jill Stein An Earful: ‘Is This How You Want to Be Remembered?’ [Video] | 1real | |
Just How Wrong Were the Pollsters? The Final Polls vs. the Final Results | After Donald Trump’s political-world-shattering upset of Hillary Clinton, the polling industry finds itself facing an existential crisis. Comment on this Article Via Your Facebook Account Comment on this Article Via Your Disqus Account Follow Us on Facebook! | 1real |
Forget Russian tanks, Kiev has a different #1 fear | November 18, 2016 - Fort Russ - Ruslan Ostashko, PolitRussia - translated by J. Arnoldski -
What scares Kiev politicians more than anything? What is their number one fear? No, not Russian tanks coming down Kreshchatik street. They aren’t afraid of Russian tanks for two reasons. First of all, Kiev politicians have made so much money selling media disinformation to the West about Russian tanks invading Ukraine that they themselves are no longer afraid of this happening. They have a whole business, a whole image of this and all relations with the West are built on their promises to provoke Russia into open military intervention. These promises have brought them money and power, so the very thought of a Russian military invasion warms their soul.
Now for the second reason. Kiev is now ruled by very opinionated people who are 100% convinced that, if something happens, they’ll manage to make it to Borispol and fly away. They hope that after fleeing from Russian tanks they will be provided with jobs, money, and respect for the rest of their life. They’ll form a Ukrainian government in exile and follow Khodorkovsky with endless lawsuits in international courts and travel the world giving lectures about how much they’ve suffered from Putin and how much they miss unfortunate Ukraine. Thus, the Kiev regime is not afraid of a Russian invasion. They have an entirely different nightmare, and it is precisely this other nightmare that is creeping into their daily reality.
I periodically try to explain to the Ukrainian experts that I encounter in television studios that Ukraine has worn out even its strongest supporters in the West. They’ve tired them out so much and so thoroughly that these supporters are already starting to discuss things that were unthinkable a year ago. Remember PACE - that bunch of European bureaucrats who condemned Russia for aggression against Ukraine and deprived the Russian delegation of its voting rights? Well now Ukrainian deputies are saying that PACE is preparing a devastating report on human rights failures in Ukraine. The chairman of PACE has even stated that it is necessary to bring back the Russian delegation to work in PACE, and he even wrote a letter to Vyacheslav Volodin with the proposal to personally meet to discuss this issue. Members of the Ukrainian delegation to PACE are writing articles about the powerful Russian lobby which could steal PACE and force it to “betray Ukraine.”
Here’s another example. After Ukrainian authorities fulfilled all 144 conditions for obtaining a vise free regime, European politicians turned to outright mocking them. During Rada discussions, it was recently revealed that Martin Schulz, the chairman of the European Parliament, now binds the visa-free regime to the fulfillment of the Minsk Agreements. An unpleasant situation has unfolded for official Kiev. If they blame Russia for not fulfilling the Minsk Agreements, then they’ll have to admit that the EU has made Kiev dependent on the Kremlin’s goodwill. If this is not so, then they’ll have to admit that Martin Schulz has de facto blamed Kiev for disrupting the Minsk Agreements and has punished the Ukrainian side by depriving it of its coveted visa free regime. Amidst all of this, the Ukrainian propaganda that the whole world supports Poroshenko looks very unconvincing.
Yesterday I asked whether Trump would put Ukraine up for sale as a whole or in parts . Today I can present the Finnish version of the answer to this burning question. Former Finnish army commander General Gustav Hagglund told local media that “dividing Ukraine into two parts will put an end to the conflict in the country” and said that Trump will reach an agreement with Putin on concluding the conflict. A year ago, imagining that a representative of a European army would express such a position in the media was unthinkable, but now it is normal.
In fact, I am not convinced that Trump will opt for this variant, but it cannot be excluded. The most important point is that no one is going to ask Ukrainian politicians about their opinions on the future of their country. This is Kiev’s greatest fear. On one fine day, they will wake up in a country that has been simply gifted to Putin. Follow us on Facebook!
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G.O.P. Accused of Playing ‘Hide-and-Seek’ With Obamacare Replacement Bill - The New York Times | WASHINGTON — It was “find the Affordable Care Act replacement” day on Thursday as Democrats — and one frustrated Republican — scampered through Capitol corridors, hunting for an elusive copy of a bill that Republican leaders have withheld from the public as they search for party unity. Just a week before two powerful House committees plan to vote on the measure, opponents spent hours making the point that almost no one has actually seen legislation that would affect the lives and pocketbooks of millions of Americans. “The Republicans have played with us,” said Representative Lloyd Doggett, Democrat of Texas. Speaker Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin said party leaders were determined to plow ahead with repeal legislation, despite lingering disagreements among Republicans and outright opposition from Democrats. “I am perfectly confident that when it’s all said and done, we’re going to unify, because we all, every Republican, ran on repealing and replacing, and we’re going to keep our promises,” Mr. Ryan said. The Energy and Commerce Committee, which has jurisdiction over Medicaid, and the Ways and Means Committee, which is responsible for tax legislation, are tentatively scheduled to vote next week on the repeal bill, setting the stage for the full House to vote on it later this month, House Republican leaders said. While Republicans discussed details of the health care bill, Democrats went from office to office, hunting for a copy. Lawmakers were told that Republican members of the Energy and Commerce Committee could inspect the bill on Thursday in the basement of a House office building. When Democrats arrived, they were directed to a room on the first floor of the Capitol. The House Democratic whip, Representative Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland, and Representative Paul Tonko, Democrat of New York, went to that room, but could not find the bill there. Senator Rand Paul, a Kentucky Republican who has criticized the repeal bill, also tried and failed to see it. “I have been told that the House Obamacare bill is under lock key, in a secure location, not available for me or the public to view,” Mr. Paul said on Twitter as he set off in search of the document, carrying a portable copy machine and trailed by television cameras and a pack of journalists. Mr. Paul supports repealing the Affordable Care Act, but said the measure described publicly by House Republican leaders included “Democratic ideas dressed up in Republican clothing. ” Mr. Hoyer, whose quest for the bill was broadcast live on Facebook, paused to address a large bust of Abraham Lincoln. “I can’t find the bill,” he said, adding, “I know, Mr. Lincoln, you are as upset with your party as I am today. ” The theatrics reflected serious concerns. “Republicans are hiding their draft A. C. A. repeal bill in a basement room,” said the House Democratic leader, Nancy Pelosi of California. The bill, she said, would produce “a big transfer of wealth to the wealthiest people in our country,” cutting their taxes while increasing costs for others. It is not unusual for controversial bills to be written by the majority party, with little or no input from the minority. But Democrats relished the opportunity to turn the tables on Republicans. In 2009 and 2010, Republicans excoriated Democrats for making “ deals” to pass the Affordable Care Act. Democrats, defending the bill they had written with President Barack Obama, were shouted down at town meetings by Tea Party members chanting, “Read the bill. ” Representative Greg Walden, Republican of Oregon and chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, denied he was hiding the bill or doing anything out of the ordinary. Republicans, he said, “are continuing to discuss and refine draft legislative language. ” Asked if he was hiding the bill, Representative Kevin Brady, Republican of Texas and chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, said: “We don’t have a bill. We’re continuing to work with the Congressional Budget Office and our members on the final product. ” Republicans had promised an open process. Speaking on the House floor on Jan. 13, Representative Doug Collins of Georgia, the vice chairman of the House Republican Conference, said the health law had been enacted “after months of deals, in the middle of the night, deals, and without giving the American people enough time to even read the bill. ” “That is not what is going to happen this time,” he said. The Congressional Budget Office has not completed an estimate of the cost of the repeal bill or its effects on coverage, and Republicans are still trying to narrow their differences on issues like Medicaid and tax credits to help people buy insurance. But, as of Thursday, they were determined to move ahead. “We are going to mark up the legislation next week,” said Representative Billy Long, Republican of Missouri and a member of the Energy and Commerce Committee, after a meeting of House Republicans. “They say we’ll be there all night. I’m going to bring an air mattress. ” Mr. Ryan presented members of his party on Thursday with a timeline leading to passage of the bill by the House within three weeks. The Senate is working closely with House leaders. Mr. Ryan told House Republicans that President Trump supported the bill drafted by House Republican leaders, according to aides who were in the room. Ever since Mr. Obama signed the law in March 2010, Republicans have been trying to uproot it. When Congress convened this year, Republicans thought they could achieve their goal with a quick strike on the law, which has provided insurance to some 20 million Americans. The task has proved more difficult than they expected. Polls show the law has become somewhat more popular as Mr. Trump and congressional Republicans try to kill it. Under a draft of the bill that became public last week, the government would offer tax credits to help lower the cost of insurance for people who did not have access to coverage through an employer or a government program. The tax credits, as initially proposed, would be available to people regardless of their income. Representative Phil Roe, Republican of Tennessee, said the credit should not be available to people with incomes above a certain level, around $118, 000. “I don’t think I need a tax credit, with my salary,” Mr. Roe said. As a member of Congress, he has been paid $174, 000 a year. | 0fake |
Deterioration of Interracial Relations During Barack Obama’s Presidency | Leave a Reply Click here to get more info on formatting (1) Leave the name field empty if you want to post as Anonymous. It's preferable that you choose a name so it becomes clear who said what. E-mail address is not mandatory either. The website automatically checks for spam. Please refer to our moderation policies for more details. We check to make sure that no comment is mistakenly marked as spam. This takes time and effort, so please be patient until your comment appears. Thanks. (2) 10 replies to a comment are the maximum. (3) Here are formating examples which you can use in your writing:<b>bold text</b> results in bold text <i>italic text</i> results in italic text (You can also combine two formating tags with each other, for example to get bold-italic text.)<em>emphasized text</em> results in emphasized text <strong>strong text</strong> results in strong text <q>a quote text</q> results in a quote text (quotation marks are added automatically) <cite>a phrase or a block of text that needs to be cited</cite> results in: a phrase or a block of text that needs to be cited <blockquote>a heavier version of quoting a block of text...</blockquote> results in: a heavier version of quoting a block of text that can span several lines. Use these possibilities appropriately. They are meant to help you create and follow the discussions in a better way. They can assist in grasping the content value of a comment more quickly. and last but not least:<a href=''http://link-address.com''>Name of your link</a> results in Name of your link (4) No need to use this special character in between paragraphs: ; You do not need it anymore. Just write as you like and your paragraphs will be separated. The "Live Preview" appears automatically when you start typing below the text area and it will show you how your comment will look like before you send it. (5) If you now think that this is too confusing then just ignore the code above and write as you like. Name: | 1real |
Treasury's Mnuchin: Difficult not to cut taxes for top 10 percent | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said on Friday that it was difficult for the Trump administration’s tax plan not to cut taxes for the wealthiest earners. “If you’re cutting taxes, it is hard to create a system where you’re not going to also cut taxes on the top 10 percent,” Mnuchin said at an Institute for International Finance event in Washington on the sidelines of the IMF and World Bank semi-annual meetings. “I’d also say that 10 percent invests a lot of money so what we’re trying to do is not create disproportionate tax cuts to the top,” he added. Mnuchin said he still expects tax reform legislation to reach President Donald Trump’s desk for signature in early December. | 0fake |
Be Careful what You Wish For in the Cesspool of Manufactured Darkness | By Smoking Mirrors on October 29, 2016 Smoking Mirrors — Oct 29, 2016 Dog Poet Transmitting……. Chances are better than not that Trump might win this election. Of course, with the Soros voting machines and the collective hatred of the privileged toward those being ground to dust beneath their hobnailed boots, it’s a no brainer that the election will be hijacked no matter what. The biggest enemy of humanities liberation from the cesspools of manufactured darkness has been human ignorance. For whatever the reason, in this apocalypse, people are waking up and becoming angry. They are seeing Clinton for the international mass murderer and criminal that she is. It turns out to be less a vote for Trump than it is a vote against Hillary. The key evidence to support this particular argument is that few people are showing up for Hillary rallies and speeches and large crowds are attending Trumps. The degree of anti-Trump bias in the media is beyond anything previously seen and the polls, as we know, are bullshit. I haven’t spoken to a single person here, on our aborted trip, or anywhere that was not for Trump and… I have spoken to a lot of people. It’s pretty good crowd sampling as it covers several states and pedestrian locations in those states. An associate of mine named Bill Juhas tells me that as he sees it, Obama plans on pardoning Hillary for all of her crimes and in return, Hillary will appoint him to the Supreme Court. That makes a strange kind of sense. I do not doubt the possibility of anything these fiends might attempt to throw at us. What Obama has done to American culture is about as obscene as it gets. He should be locked in a very small gender neutral bathroom with a bipolar tranny for all eternity. My only hesitation in passing this on to the authorities who control these placement duties is that he might like it. Our trip was aborted because the psychic and ethereal, material ethers were vibrating with a type of manic panic, the like of which I have not previously encountered. Turning around and heading back the way we came had an immediate salutary effect on all of our senses of well being and the potential lack thereof. Your friendly author has not always exercised the common sense and native judgment that was available to him. We’re trying transform that tendency into something useful out of the shards of former stupidities. There have been a few dustups in these environs of late and some amount of crazy email spamming as well (these are not connected). We didn’t bother to read the emails and we tried to exercise detachment in respect of the former. Now we will turn to the point of this exercise which is only tangentially associated with the garbage time antics of a handful of dysfunctional psychopaths, or what they may be planning to do to screw things up for the rest of us; not the least of which is to generate an economic disaster of Godzilla like proportions, to render us terrified and malleable. Economic disasters do not come about on their own. They are manufactured by Satanists and as we have said here on more than one occasion, one does not have to be an initiated Satanist to be a Satanist. Anyone who behaves like one is one. What we would like to talk about, here, in the waning moments of same old same old, is a most subjective thing. It has to do with my own intuition. It has to do with what I am feeling, as I scan what I am able to see of the world around me; close at hand and at a further remove. It has to do with the way information feeds into my consciousness and then reassembles itself into projections for the future. As we know, there really is no such thing as the future but… for the sake of argument… I feel no apprehension whatsoever. I feel as if it is all in the process of working itself out in a most wonderful and serendipitous way. This does not mean that millions will not die, due to this possible schematic or that possible schematic. We live in a collected universe in which we are all a universe unto ourselves and the possibilities of what might and might not happen are endless, as is the pointlessness of speculation. We live in a time of experts who can’t find their ass with both hands. Let us consider that hundreds of millions, billions will die whether anything happens or not because that is the nature of mortal terms of being. That is the nature of each of our individual leases on life. A catastrophe can sweep the planet. A ruinous war can escalate to the point of no return, by which few or none return from it. Anything might and might not happen in this unpredictable world but what I do know is that it is all under control and in the hands of the most far seeing and benevolent power; the most absolute and unassailable power that there is or ever was. I had been told this a long time ago; a long time ago in relative terms and a tiny blip of time otherwise. I heard it but I did not hear it because I did not understand it but now I do. I have come to understand the meaning of it. The experience of comfort that I take from this is immense. Everything is under control!!! Surely we all remember the scripture that says; “Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father’s consent.” Nothing takes place here that is not permitted or engineered by the master of all things. It is a peculiar disconnect in this life that we can hear and not hear. We can understand the intellectual meaning of a statement but the force of it escapes our awareness. Of course, an atheistic would dismiss the validity of this. They believe that there is nothing beyond our presence here and once we are gone we are gone forever. They believe that life is an accident of some form of evolution of consciousness and form. There is not a great deal that I know but… I know that this is not true. I have direct experience otherwise and that has occurred more times than I can remember. I know that God is real. My perception of God is most certainly flawed but the existence of God is beyond any doubt in my heart and in my mind. I feel a terrible sense of loss when I consider the fate of an atheist, as I do when I think of all the wasted lives that pass like drunken marionettes before my eyes. I am powerless to effect a change in their destinies since in the majority of cases our paths will never cross. You and I and anyone can only affect those that fortune has put in our way. Usually we influence others through the operation of our desires and appetites, or through the various traumas that we visit on one another. Occasionally we might inspire another, if we ourselves are inspired and therein lies the heart of the matter. It is up to us who and what we seek out for inspiration. If we are dedicated and determined we will attract the attention of an angel of light, who is employed by the origin of light and we will be influenced by that light and we will transmit that light into the lives of others. I can think of no greater and more meaningful employment of our energies in this life. Nothing else seems to contain anything of value. It is just the rotating wheel of endless futility. It is the dance of Sisyphus. I look at all the alternatives in life and these options fill me with horror. To me, Hell is a consciousness devoid of the almighty. Hell is the absence of God. I do not intend to define what God is. That is beyond the capacity of any human mind and it is the source of never ending contention as well as immeasurable cruelties that take place each day because so many of us have made presumptions upon the nature of the ineffable. It is not our job to delineate the composition of the divine. It is our job to ‘host’ the divine and the result of that hosting is that we are filled with the spirit and presence of the divine and thereby the divine is inclined to express through us to the degree that we permit this to occur. The divine is present, after a fashion in every one of us because we could not be alive otherwise but… we preempt this with the shadow of the false self and it is thicker or thinner depending on the individual involved and what they get up to. This shadow is made denser and less dense according to the manner in which it is employed. Some activities are dark indeed. I believe that nothing positive is served by worry and fear. Fear displaces Love and without Love one has no guidance and no protection. Love not only casts out fear but it arrests the potential of all of the events that fear exists in the apprehension of. We each have some understanding of the meaning of love but the meaning of Love it far too deep for us to comprehend more than a fragment. If Love is housed in our being and allowed to guide and direct us, it will drive everything that is not Love far away from it. You will walk and live and breathe in confidence and every moment you will come closer to Love and Love will come closer to you. Let us turn our minds away from every specter that this world generates in order to confound and distress us. Focus on the great and unassailable power of the ineffable and let the rest of it go its way according to the people and situations it applies to. These other phantasms are of no concern to us, unless we make them so. End Transmission……. | 1real |
Sanders Campaign Withdraws Lawsuit Against DNC After Investigation Shows No Theft Of Voter Data | You might remember a few months ago, the Bernie Sanders campaign filed a lawsuit against the Democratic National Committee for cutting off access to their own campaign data stored on the servers at DNC headquarters. The cut off came from when a few Sanders staffers found they could access protected, private information of the Hillary Clinton campaign, which was stored on the same servers.The DNC came out quickly and said that the Sanders staffers intentionally exploited software errors to gain access to the Clinton team s proprietary data. Sanders fired back immediately that the error has been a recurring one, and his campaign had attempted to make it known to the DNC that this was happening before, with no success in getting it resolved.DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz said that the extreme move in cutting off access to the Sanders Campaign of even their own data was the only way to protect the other data on the servers. Wasserman Schultz also said that the Sanders campaign not only viewed it but exported and downloaded it. Fast forward a few months and an independent investigation later, and it turns out that the DNC gave us the wrong story.After the independent investigation concluded, it was confirmed that the DNC had made assertions about what happened which were not supported by evidence and that the serious level of tampering everyone was led to believe happened did not occur.According to the Sanders campaign statement, the breach did not extend beyond 3 staffers and their manager. They had access for approximately one hour to Clinton campaign scoring models but not to any of the Clinton campaign s proprietary voter data, which was at the heart of initial reports.The Sanders campaign then released a statement saying the original claims by the DNC were wholly inaccurate and that the campaign never stole any voter data.The settlement of this lawsuit is a positive thing. However, the problems that led up to it have not been resolved.Over the past several months, more and more scrutiny and criticism have been being visited upon the DNC s leadership, as well as Chairwoman Wasserman Schultz. The data breach issue was an ongoing problem that wasn t resolved in a timely manner, the circumstances were misreported by the DNC and the action they took regarding the security loophole were called by many an overreach.Add on top of this the moves by DNC leadership to open the floodgates for corporate money within the party, as well as the DNC chairwoman s joining with Republicans to attack Elizabeth Warren s Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and there are many calling for the DNC to find new leadership.It remains to be seen if Wasserman Schultz will keep her seat as a Congresswoman in, due to an unexpected primary challenge she is now facing. However, regardless of if she wins or loses, the DNC s own leadership does need to hold itself to a higher standard of accountability especially regarding its leadership for the good of both party unity and taking back Congress this fall.Featured image via wikicommons | 1real |
Will the Trump Era Bring Higher Interest Rates? Don’t Count On It - The New York Times | Higher interest rates are on the way. That, anyway, is the prediction increasingly baked into financial markets. Donald J. Trump’s policy agenda — big tax cuts and new infrastructure spending — seems to point in that direction. And the Fed raised its benchmark interest rate by a quarter of a percentage point on Wednesday, with plans for more increases next year. But what if that’s wrong? There’s no doubt that the stated goals of Trump imply that rates will be higher in a couple of years than they are today. As my colleague Binyamin Appelbaum writes, any stimulative fiscal policy from the Trump administration could well face an equal and opposite tightening of monetary policy by a Fed that raises interest rates. The central bank will seek to prevent too much inflation from breaking out in an economy it believes is getting close to operating at its full potential, which means Mr. Trump’s stimulus might run up against the Fed chair Janet Yellen’s (and perhaps her successor’s) . But it’s worth looking at the two big ways that these forecasts could be wrong, and worth considering that the era of low rates might stick around a bit longer than some of the postelection discussion might have suggested. First, the Trump agenda might pack less of a growth punch than some have imagined. If so, you would expect the same cautious approach to rate increases from the Fed. Second, even if the economy does start growing faster, future Trump administration appointees could change their tune on the desirability of higher interest rates. That has been the pattern with other populist politicians of the Trump mold around the world. Politicians, once in office, tend to learn that they like low interest rates. It’s easy to envision a Trump administration pushing for cheaper money and the Fed attempting to hold the line to prevent inflation. On the first point, it’s worth diving into the details of the Trump policies that led to the market rally in stocks and the in bonds. He wants to enact major tax cuts, for one, which all else being equal, would tend to create a boost in economic growth and higher interest rates. But there are some early signals that the Republican lawmakers who actually have to pass any changes to tax law, especially those in the Senate, are wary of tax cuts that would increase the budget deficit as much as Mr. Trump’s campaign plan would. “My preference on tax reform is that it be revenue neutral,” the Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell told reporters this week. Another big plank underneath the idea that Mr. Trump’s economic policy will be stimulative is an expectation that he will embrace a infrastructure spending package. But while the mentioned that idea in his election victory speech, he hasn’t put much meat on the bones of the plan since. The details matter a great deal for how much an infrastructure plan could lift growth. For example, tax credits that make the finances of building toll roads more favorable are less likely to create a huge boost in activity than spending on upgrading physical infrastructure outright. So on both tax cuts and infrastructure, there’s no guarantee that the actual scale of stimulus will match some of the early postelection talk. Economists at JPMorgan Chase, for example, are forecasting economic growth of just under 2 percent for both 2017 and 2018 — about the same as the pace of the last six years. And that’s before you factor in the risk that some elements of Trump economic policy could end up being a drag on growth. Think of a trade war with China or Mexico, immigration restrictions that limit the supply of labor or geopolitical disputes. All that gives the Fed every reason to take a approach to shaping its policy. If the Trump economy really starts to take off, the Fed could move more aggressively to raise rates. But it will do that based on actual evidence and data rather than the ’s rhetoric. Which leads to the other scenario, in which the economy accelerates at the risk of overheating. History is littered with examples of politicians in that circumstance pressuring their central banks to keep rates low to encourage growth. In 1972, that was Richard Nixon, pressuring the Fed chairman Arthur Burns to keep money flowing freely in the economy to help his chances. In modern times, populist politicians in Hungary and Turkey have undermined their central banks’ independence, pushing for lower interest rates. There are two vacancies on the Fed’s board of governors already, and Ms. Yellen’s term as chairwoman expires in February 2018 the Stanley Fischer’s term is up in June of that year. Add it up, and within 18 months of taking office, Mr. Trump could have appointed a majority of the Fed’s board, including its chair and vice chair. That doesn’t mean that Trump nominees for those jobs would necessarily refrain from rate hikes if they believed they were warranted. Many potential Republican Fed nominees have opposed the low interest rate tendency of the Fed under Ms. Yellen and her predecessor, Ben Bernanke. For the past few administrations, the accepted practice has been that presidents should refrain from weighing in on monetary policy and let the Fed act independently. But Mr. Trump has described himself as a “low interest rate person” and was willing to scrap that precedent by attacking Ms. Yellen by name during the campaign. Also, to be technical about it, even if the Fed kept its interest rate targets low despite rising inflation, interest rates, which are determined by the bond market, would probably rise. If there’s one thing we know about Mr. Trump, it’s that he doesn’t feel bound by the traditions that have governed how recent presidents have acted. And that means that the future of United States interest rate policy, like so much else, is up for grabs. | 0fake |
WATCH: Someone Actually Bought And Drank Trump Vodka, Here’s What Happened | Donald Trump made a big stink a few weeks ago because it was pointed out that many of the products he has lent his name to have turned out to be complete and absolute losers, quickly discontinued and removed from the market. Those products include Trump Water, Trump Steaks, and Trump Magazine.Buzzfeed decided to get in on the action and spent $200 to buy a bottle of Trump Vodka. Here s what happened when they got some people to actually taste it:As pointed out in the video, the vodka from the man who has promised to make America great again in his campaign was actually a product of Netherlands. This follows a pattern of several other Trump products, like his discontinued neckties, being sourced and manufactured in other countries (the ties were from China). It shows that when it came to his own products that he stood to make a cut of the profits from, Trump was more than willing to make a deal to produce them cheaply overseas, adding to his personal bottom line.Trump said he got into vodka because A great friend of mine was a founder of Grey Goose and what we re going to do is to top it. I want to top them just because it s fun to top my friends. Despite Trump s grandiose predictions of success for the drink, it was not to be (sound familiar?):The only trouble was, nobody bought it. By the end of 2007 it barely registered among the top-selling vodkas, badly trailing the likes of Smirnoff and no threat whatsoever to Grey Goose. Go figure that customers wouldn t line up for a product that existed for the sole purpose of one-upping Trump s friend.By 2011, Trump Vodka was gone.The reviewers in the video were not optimistic. They told Buzzfeed they thought the alcohol would taste like self-tanner or misogyny. While one drinker said it burned like a UTI, another said it tasted surprisingly good. Another woman said it tasted good, but not $200 good. Featured image via YouTube | 1real |
If threatened, U.S. will 'totally destroy' North Korea, Trump vows | UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump escalated his standoff with North Korea over its nuclear challenge on Tuesday, threatening to totally destroy the country of 26 million people and mocking its leader, Kim Jong Un, as a rocket man. In a hard-edged speech to the United Nations General Assembly, Trump offered a grim portrait of a world in peril, adopted a more confrontational approach to solving global challenges from Iran to Venezuela, and gave an unabashed defense of U.S. sovereignty. The United States has great strength and patience, but if it is forced to defend itself or its allies, we will have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea, Trump told the 193-member world body, sticking closely to a script. As loud, startled murmurs filled the hall, Trump described Kim in an acid tone, saying, Rocket man is on a suicide mission for himself and his regime. His remarks rattled world leaders gathered in the green-marbled General Assembly hall, where minutes earlier U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres appealed for statesmanship, saying: We must not sleepwalk our way into war. Trump s most direct military threat to attack North Korea, in his debut appearance at the General Assembly, was his latest expression of concern about Pyongyang s repeated launching of ballistic missiles over Japan and underground nuclear tests. Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom crossed her arms during the speech. It was the wrong speech, at the wrong time, to the wrong audience, Wallstrom later told the BBC. A junior North Korean diplomat sat in the delegation s front-row seat for Trump s speech, the North Korean U.N. mission said. The mission did not immediately respond to a request for comment. In Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel said she would do everything in her power to ensure a diplomatic solution. Anything else would lead to disaster, she said. Trump s saber-rattling rhetoric, with the bare-knuckled style he used to win election last November, was in contrast to the comments of some of his own Cabinet members who have stated a preference for a diplomatic solution. Defense Secretary James Mattis, who earlier this month raised the prospect of a massive military response if needed, on Tuesday told Pentagon reporters that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was working to resolve the crisis diplomatically. Interviewed by Fox News, Tillerson highlighted Washington s policy of pressuring North Korea through sanctions. We have the strictest sanctions ever put in place. We do believe there are early signs of those having an effect, he said. Ultimately though we re going to need the assistance of the neighbors in the region. Reaction in the United States to Trump s speech was mixed. Mitt Romney, the 2012 Republican presidential nominee, tweeted that Trump, a fellow Republican, gave a strong and needed challenge to U.N. members to confront global challenges. But Democrat Ed Markey of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee denounced Trump s remarks, telling CNN the president had yet to exhaust his other options in encouraging Pyongyang to negotiate. In a thunderous speech, 42 minutes long according to the official transcript, Trump took aim at Iran s nuclear ambitions and regional influence, Venezuela s collapsing democracy and the threat of Islamist extremists. Major portions of the world are in conflict and some in fact are going to hell, he said. His speech recalled the fiery nationalist language of his Jan. 20 inaugural address when he pledged to end what he called an American carnage of rusted factories and crime. His strongest words were directed at North Korea. He urged U.N. member states to work together to isolate the Kim government until it ceases its hostile behavior. In an apparent prod at China, the North s major trading partner, Trump said: It is an outrage that some nations would not only trade with such a regime but would arm, supply and financially support a country that imperils the world with nuclear conflict. The U.N. Security Council has unanimously imposed nine rounds of sanctions on North Korea since 2006 and Guterres appealed for that 15-member body to maintain its unity. Turning to Iran, Trump called the 2015 nuclear deal negotiated by his predecessor, Barack Obama, an embarrassment and hinted that he may not recertify the agreement when it comes up for a mid-October deadline. We cannot abide by an agreement if it provides cover for the eventual construction of a nuclear program, he said. He said the Iranian government masks a corrupt dictatorship behind the false guise of a democracy. Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif tweeted a withering response: Trump s ignorant hate speech belongs in medieval times - not the 21st Century UN - unworthy of a reply. Fake empathy for Iranians fools no one. French President Emmanuel Macron, in his U.N. speech, said his country would not close the door to negotiations over North Korea and staunchly defended the Iran nuclear deal. Renouncing it would be a grave error, Macron said. Trump called the collapsing situation in Venezuela completely unacceptable and warned the United States was considering what further actions it can take. We cannot stand by and watch, he said. Venezuela rejected Trump s threats and said it was prepared to resist any U.S. actions, even a military invasion. At what was billed as an anti-imperialist rally in Caracas, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro described Trump as the new Hitler of international politics. Stocks, bonds and currency markets ended little changed on the day. I think world markets have become complacent about North Korea, said Scott Minerd, global chief investment officer of Guggenheim Partners. | 0fake |
WATCH: Kellyanne Conway Wore Out Her Welcome On CNN As Soon As She Opened Her Mouth | CNN host Anderson Cooper s reactions to Kellyanne Conway throughout this interview are priceless.After firing FBI Director James Comey on Tuesday, the wicked witch of the White House made her return to the cable news circuit to spout more bullshit in defense of her mentally defective boss.Conway was repeatedly reminded that Trump loved Comey during the 2016 campaign, but she repeatedly made an ass of herself by pretending that candidate Trump no longer exists. As a candidate, Donald Trump praised James Comey, Cooper said. Donald Trump talked about this on the campaign all the time. All of sudden the White House is concerned about James Comey s handling of Hillary Clinton s email? I think you re looking at the wrong set of facts here, Anderson, Conway bewilderingly replied. In other words you re going back to the campaign. This is the president of the United States, he acted decisively today, he acted at the direction of his deputy attorney general. He makes complete sense because he has lost confidence in the FBI director and he took the recommendation of Rob Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general who has been on the job for two weeks. Cooper then proceeded to grill Conway. That makes no sense, he fired back. He said one thing as candidate and now he s concerned as president? Clearly, this White House is under investigation, the people around the president are under investigation. You would agree with that, yes? In defiance of the facts, Conway disagreed and whined about people who are obsessed with Russia. Then she argued that since she s around Trump and not under investigation that others cannot be. I m around the president, Conway said. I m not under investigation. So that person doesn t exist anymore? Cooper asked. Candidate Donald Trump, that s a fictional character we are no longer allowed to refer to? We can only refer to the Donald Trump who exists today? Conway accused Cooper of being mean and claimed that Trump fired Comey because he needs confidence in his FBI director and he doesn t have it. Throughout the interview, Cooper can be seen reacting to Conway s most inane responses with facial expressions. At one point, he even rolled his eyes because of how ridiculous her answers were.Here s the video via YouTube.Clearly, CNN wasted their time and ours by inviting Conway on to spread Trump s propaganda. The only thing saving this interview is Copper s reactions to being gaslighted.The only reason why Trump fired Comey is because the FBI is investigating his Russia scandal. Trump just impeded that investigation and obstructed justice by firing the man in charge of it. Now Trump will likely put someone in charge who will drop the investigation. This is exactly the kid of shady shit that Richard Nixon did in order to cover-up his involvement in Watergate. He resigned rather than face impeachment. Trump should not only face impeachment, he should actually be impeached and put in prison.Featured Image: Screenshot | 1real |
Oregon Judge Politely Mocks Cliven Bundy’s Lunatic Demands (VIDEO) | Last week, Oregon Judge Steve Grasty issued a statement that could be summed up as Geddafugouttahere! The statement was directed to head Domestic Terrorist Cliven Bundy who s been overcome with delusions of power. Bundy has declared that the four morons still inside the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge will retain possession of the property and he s also demanding that local officials resign because they haven t been America-Lovin Christian Soldier For Freedom fully supportive of the Bundy militia s seizure of federal property. Judge Gratsy seemed a bit confused as to why some schmuck in Nevada thinks he can dictate the law in Oregon: Last night I got a tweet with a copy of the letter in it from Mr. Cliven Bundy. I looked at that and wondered what does that mean? Perhaps he thinks he owns the refuge. I don t think that s the case. Judge Gratsy also responded to a petition to arrest the officers involved with the 100 percent justified shooting of martyr moron Lavoy Finicum: This isn t a valid petition in any sense of the law that I understand, Grasty told KOIN 6 News on Tuesday. That request won t be honored. Even funnier, the patriots that have been protesting clearly don t know how to count: Mr. Curtiss said [the petition] it was 200 signatures. What was delivered to us has lines for 150 signatures and it 118 signatures on them, the judge said. We think we can identify 111 of those as maybe Harney County folks. That sums up the Bundy clown parade perfectly: Ignorant of the law, very angry and very, very stupid. With a lot of guns. What could possibly go wrong?Since this story was first reported on, Cliven Bundy has been arrested for trying to join up with domestic terrorists and the four boneheads at Malhuer are reportedly in the process of surrendering after demanding that they not be arrested.Here s the full story via KOIN6: Featured image via AI Archives | 1real |
MYSTERIOUS TWITTER ACCOUNT: NFL’s Goodell Gets Help From Shocking Source | Well, this is embarrassing! The NFL commissioner was getting help from a helicopter wife who set up a fake twitter account to counter any negative press on her husband. It s pretty shocking because his wife is former Fox analyst Jane Skinner Goodell who should know better because she s in the news business. Did she really think people wouldn t find out who was constantly tweeting support for Goodell?Roger Goodell s wife set up a secret Twitter account to clap back at the NFL commissioner s detractors, according to the Wall Street Journal.The Twitter account, under the name Jones smith, has no followers, no profile picture and has been virtually dormant for long periods since its creation in 2014.@forargument is no longer active as of Thursday afternoon but according to the report, it was owned and operated by Goodell s wife, Jane Skinner Goodell, and often clashed with sports media outlets that produced content critical of the commissioner.Under the fake name Jones Smith, the account defended Goodell on several issues including the NFL s recent handling of national anthem protests.An example of the mysterious account standing up for Goodell took place earlier this month in response to an ESPN story chronicling the chaos that swept across the league when President Donald Trump went to war with anthem protesters. Reads like a press release from players union. You can do better reporting. (D Smith sounds like D Trump with the inaccurate firebombs), @forargument tweeteed to ESPN writer Seth Wickersham. D Smith was likely a reference to NFLPA head DeMaurice Smith.Goodell s wife, who is a former broadcast journalist with Fox News, has also taken aim at WSJ columnist Jason Gay and other sportswriters, according to the Journal.The Journal said it traced a series of clues back to Mrs. Goodell, including how the account in question followed four accounts associated with their twin daughters high school.Goodell s wife coming to his digital defense is nothing new in sports and media, though it is embarrassing. Thin-skinned Kevin Durant was recently accused of running a fake Twitter account to take on negative news and opinion about him on social media.Wives and girlfriends of pro athletes have never been shy about standing up for their famous husbands online. From Kate Upton sticking up for Justin Verlander not winning a Cy Young last year to Miko Grimes cheerleading for her husband, cornerback Brent Grimes, on social media, plenty of athletes have gotten a digital assist from their significant others. However, those women did not hide behind a fake Twitter account to make their feelings known.Goodell has earned plenty of negative press in his more than 10 years running the NFL, including the league s handling of domestic violence and concussion issues, Deflategate, and most recently, the anthem protests.Just be nice about what you say about him on Twitter, because his wife might clap back at you.Read more: NYDN | 1real |
Street dogs of Kerala call upon superdog Krypto to rescue them from humans | Street dogs of Kerala call upon superdog Krypto to rescue them from humans Posted on Tweet (Image via comicvine.com)
Alarmed by the rampant killing of stray dogs in Kerala, the All Kerala Mahasangh of Street Dogs (AKMSD) has called in their trump car, Krypto, to save them from marauding humans. Krypto, as you might know is the Super Dog, from Krypton.
Doggie Nair, the chairdog of AKMSD says that Krypto is their last hope. “Nobody else seems to be doing anything for us, irrespective of Menaka Gandhi voicing her support. By the way, I didn’t know she was from BJP – I thought all Gandhis were from Congress, and thought she would help, but alas!” he said.
According to sources, the AKMSD had even reached out to President Vladimir Putin during the recent BRICS summit to see how Russia interacts with stray dogs. Moved by their plight, Putin had called upon the Kerala CM and had referenced Kashtanka, the Russian children story by Anton Chekhov about stray dogs, and tried to argue their case. However, the Kerala CM was unmoved, and said that constant attacks from POK (“Patti Occupied Kerala”) [Patti in Malayalam – Dogs] was not acceptable, and he would keep conducting his surgical stikes attacks. (Off the record: He says the leadership in Kerala still try avoid the “strike” word, else the GDP of Kerala would drop a few basis points).
“I should have gone to school, when I was young,” rued Doggie Nair. “Then I would also be in Kareena Kapoor or Shilpa Shetty’s lap, but now look at my job! I’m living a dog’s life!”
We feel for these dogs, and hope a real life Krypto comes to the rescue.
(Reported by Citizen Satirist Badri Narayanan ) | 1real |
AUSTRIA’S NOT PLAYING GAMES: Bans Face-Concealing Islamic Dress…Mandates “Integration” Course…Or Else | Will Austria s new mandates help to save their nation or is it already too late? Have they already allowed political correctness to destroy their once unique culture and identity and replace it with radical Islam?Muslim students, according to new statistics, now outnumber Roman Catholic students at middle and secondary schools in Vienna, the capital and largest city of Austria.The data which show that Muslim students are also on the verge of overtaking Catholics in Viennese elementary schools reflect an established trend and provide empirical evidence of a massive demographic and religious shift underway in Austria, traditionally a Roman Catholic country.The Muslim population in Austria now exceeds 500,000 (or roughly 6% of the total population), up from an estimated 150,000 (or 2%) in 1990. The Muslim population is expected to reach 800,000 (or 9.5%) by 2030, according to recent estimates.A controversial integration law that will fine women for wearing face-concealing Islamic dress from October, and deprive of benefits migrants who fail to take language lessons has officially been enacted, after being rubber-stamped by the President. Those who are not prepared to accept Enlightenment values will have to leave our country and society, reads the text of the law that drew thousands of protesters to the streets earlier this year, before it was passed by a centrist coalition last month.Women who will wear Islamic veils either the burqa or the niqab in public places, will face a fine of 150 ($168).They will also be expressly forbidden from distributing incendiary radical materials, and are encouraged to volunteer before they can get their work permits, so that they are better prepared for life in the workplace.More than 90,000 people have arrived in the Central European country since the start of the migrant crisis in 2015, most of them from Muslim-majority countries outside of Europe.The law was opposed by the left-leaning Green Party, which said that it scapegoated refugees, and the nationalist Freedom Party, which called it a window-dressing for deeper integration issues and said it had been designed to stop its rise in the polls.The centrist coalition promised that the legislation would offer a holistic approach. It has since collapsed, triggering an early election in October. Work is one of the most important factors for successful integration, which is why we are not only breaking down language barriers with this policy we are also creating a continuous integration concept for the first time, said Social Democratic politician Alois Stoger back in May.France was the first EU state to introduce a similar ban in 2010, levying an identical 150 fine. It has since been copied in other countries, including Germany, which has also pushed through a prohibition of face coverings for state employees. RT | 1real |
Juicing May Be the Answer to Many of Your Chronic Health Problems | By Dr. Mercola
As noted at the very beginning of this 26-minute health documentary by juicing expert Jason Vale: “More people die from chronic diseases than all other causes put together.”
This is a remarkable state of affairs when you consider that the human body is actually designed to maintain healthy homeostasis, given half a chance.
What’s worse, chronic diseases strike the very young as well as the very old. Children are now developing diseases previously relegated to seniors, such as type 2 diabetes , fatty liver, heart disease and even cancer.
Toxicity appears to be a major factor driving this burgeoning wave of chronic disease. Toxins are in our food, in our water and air, in the medications we take, in the products we use each day to clean ourselves and our homes; they’re in beauty products and our furnishings and building materials.
“All chronic diseases are caused by two, and only two, major problems,” Charlotte Gerson, founder of the Gerson Institute, says . “Toxicity and deficiency.”
TOXICITY AND DEFICIENCY ARE CORE PROBLEMS According to the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), PREVENTABLE chronic diseases are now the world’s biggest killers. And the combination of eating nutrient-deficient foods and being over-exposed to toxins is at the core of our current health crisis.
The answer to this dilemma is certainly not to take medication to mask the symptoms of toxicity and deficiency. The solution is to remove toxins, clean up your system and increase the nutrient density of your healthy food.
Plants — fruits, berries and vegetables — are “live” foods. Provided they’ve not been severely processed, or are eaten in excess and out of season. Ideally, the best time to eat fruit is in the summer when you have plenty of exposure to sunshine and can tolerate higher net carbs.
They contain many phytochemicals your body can use to heal and nourish your cells. The appeal of juicing is that you can consume more nutrient-dense vegetables than when you eat them whole or Vita Mix them in a blender.
This allows you to consume far greater amounts of vegetable nutrients than you would normally be able to eat whole or blended with the fiber.
JUICING IS A GREAT WAY TO BOOST NUTRIENT INTAKE Some will argue that consuming more veggies than you could normally chew through is unnecessary, but when you consider how nutrient levels in most foods have dramatically decreased since the introduction of mechanized farming in 1925, juicing really makes sense.
Healthy soils contain a huge diversity of microorganisms, and it is these organisms that are responsible for the plant’s nutrient uptake, health and the stability of the entire ecosystem.
The wide-scale adoption of industrial farming practices has decimated soil microbes responsible for transferring these minerals to the plants, and synthetic chemicals sprayed on the crops have further destroyed overall soil quality.
For example, as explained by research scientist August Dunning , chief science officer and co-owner of Eco Organics, in order to receive the same amount of iron you used to get from one apple in 1950, today you’d have to eat 36 apples!
How could you possibly get 36 apples into you? Even with juicing that would be a remarkable feat, and would likely overload you with natural sugars as well, so I wouldn’t recommend it.
My point is that even when juicing, you may not get the same amount of nutrients our ancestors used to get from even a fraction of the foods they ate, so you’re unlikely to get superfluous amounts of nutrients by regularly drinking fresh vegetable juices.
When you drink fresh, live juice, it’s almost like receiving an intravenous infusion of vitamins, minerals and enzymes because they go straight into your body without needing to be broken down. Since juicing is essentially “mainlining” live nutrients, it’s no surprise it can produce rapid and profound health benefits.
FOOD ADDICTION IS A PROFIT CENTER There’s a conscious effort on behalf of food manufacturers to get you addicted to foods that are convenient and inexpensive to make. This system is detailed in investigative reporter Michael Moss’ book, “ Salt, Sugar, Fat ” — the top three substances that make processed foods so addictive.
One of the guiding principles for the processed food industry is known as “sensory-specific satiety.” Moss describes this as “the tendency for big, distinct flavors to overwhelm your brain, which responds by depressing your desire to have more.”
The greatest successes, whether beverages or foods, owe their “craveability” to complex formulas that pique your taste buds just enough, without overwhelming them, thereby overriding your brain’s inclination to say “enough.”
“Vanishing calorie density” is another term used to describe foods that melt in your mouth, which has the effect of making your brain think it doesn’t contain any calories. As a result, you keep eating.
In short, as noted in the film, the big food companies are “manipulating our food so that we keep eating more, and more, and more.” And, as stated by Cherie Calbom, also known as “The Juice Lady:” “It’s corn and soy, and wheat and sugar and salt and chemicals — that’s primarily what people are eating.”
So is it really any wonder that so many are so sick and overweight? Many health authorities make it seem as the obesity epidemic is a great mystery, and largely blame it on laziness. “If only people exercised more, they’d be fine,” the reasoning goes.
But this simply isn’t true, and by sweeping the proverbial elephant under the rug and ignoring the fact that our food supply is the problem, these authorities have done us all a shameful disservice.
Remember, it really isn’t about calories, it is about insulin resistance. And processed foods, sugars and high net carb foods will make it virtually impossible to normalize your metabolism and get lean.
MODERN MEDICINE IS ANOTHER PROFIT CENTER Many times, even severe health problems have simple fixes. For example, in the film, Vale, who’s also the author of “The Juice Detox Diet,” explains that what prompted him to try juicing in the first place was a severe case of psoriasis — an autoimmune disease that causes cells to build up on the surface of your skin, leading to thick, unsightly scaly patches that are very itchy and often painful.
He also had eczema and severe hay fever and asthma. For years he used steroid tablets and various inhalers to manage his symptoms, but he wasn’t getting any better. “Not once did anyone look at what might be causing the problems; they only wanted to treat the symptoms,” he said.
The turning point came when one of his doctors suggested a coal-tar treatment for his psoriasis. He’d be slathered in coal-tar, the same gooey tar placed on roadways, and covered in bandages for six weeks. The idea of resorting to such a bizarre and clearly toxic intervention was the final straw. “There’s GOT to be another way,” he thought.
Indeed, toxicity and a narrow focus on managing symptoms — not actually addressing the root problem, which might result in a full remission or cure — are hallmarks of modern medicine. This mode of operation has turned healthcare into a massive for-profit business that has become increasingly reluctant to embrace strategies that might actually remove an individual from the paying patient pool.
This is tragic, since research exists showing that raising your vitamin D level, for example, can help heal psoriasis, especially if you’re vitamin D deficient. Vitamin D supplements are very inexpensive, and if you optimize your level by getting regular and sensible sun exposure, which is the preferred and ideal way, it’s free (provided you live in a sunny area and don’t use a therapeutic sunbed).
In Vale’s case, juicing was the answer, and he no longer suffers from any of his previous problems. His asthma completely vanished within a month, and his skin gradually cleared up until there was not a trace of psoriasis or eczema left. His weight also dropped “at a rate I didn’t think was humanly possible,” he says. As noted by Dr. Dwight Lundell, author of “The Cure for Heart Disease,” who is featured in the film:
“Not one single person will be cured of heart disease, pulmonary disease, stroke, arthritis, obesity and, of course, diabetes, with our current medical approach.”
INFLAMMATION IS THE DRIVING MECHANISM BEHIND MOST CHRONIC DISEASE Toxicity, nutrient deficiencies , processed foods, sugar and excess net carbs promote inflammation, and chronic inflammation is a hallmark of virtually every chronic disease there is. When your inflammation levels are low, it’s very difficult for disease to take root. When healthy, your body is simply too well-equipped to address foreign invaders and can easily clean out minor toxic exposures.
As noted by Lundell, when we investigate what we’re doing differently today, when inflammation levels are high, compared to decades past when chronic disease rates were much lower, the main difference we find is the foods we eat.
We’ve gotten away from eating fresh, whole foods, most of which come from the plant kingdom, and most of what we eat are processed foods laced with a myriad of chemicals that were never in our food supply before. “In my opinion, this dietary change is the cause of most chronic diseases,” he says.
It may appear as though all these different chronic diseases are very different, and therefore would have different causes. But these variations are deceiving. In the vast majority of cases, the root problem can be narrowed down to inflammation and mitochondrial dysfunction, caused by toxicity and insufficient amounts of “building blocks” (nutrients) to maintain optimal biological function. The differences in manifestation primarily relate to individual weaknesses.
“It just stands to reason and common sense that if the vast majority of those diseases are caused by diet and lifestyle, then the simple answer, surely, is to change the diet and lifestyle, and they’ll just get better,” Vale says.
Calbom adds: “We should be juicing, because so many people have impaired digestive tracts, and digestion is impaired because of the diet we’ve been on. Along come your beautiful juices; they go right into your intestinal tract, and those nutrients get absorbed into your system.
They’re going right to work within about 20 or 30 minutes. They’re there feeding your body, rejuvenating, giving you energy; giving your body life! This is why you should juice … Juice every day; this has got to be a way of life, because that’s when you’re going to notice your life changing.”
EAT ‘LOW HUMAN INTERVENTION FOODS’ Vale wisely suggests that if a food has a label, it probably shouldn’t be in your diet. What you’re really looking for is real food, or what he calls “low human intervention foods,” meaning foods that has passed through as few human hands and processes as possible. Ideally, you would be growing your own food and eating out of your garden.
In the summer, the majority of my main meal comes from my garden: sunflower spouts, red bell peppers, oregano, rosemary, turmeric and spinach. If you are unable to grow your own, your next best bet would be to get locally grown organic produce that has not been waxed, cut up or processed in any way.
“When you look at the fact that the food you eat really creates the life that you live, everything starts to change,” Philip McCluskey, author of “Weight Loss Blueprint,” says.
‘SUPER-JUICING’ FOR 28 DAYS CURED DIABETES AND CHRONIC PAIN
In a previous documentary, Vale recruited eight people who collectively suffered from 22 different chronic diseases and put them on a juice-only diet for 28 days (plus exercise) in order to explore juicing’s potential benefits for reversing chronic disease. He filmed their experience, which resulted in the documentary “Super Juice Me,” which I’ve included above for your convenience.
The health improvements seen by those eight individuals are nothing short of astounding. Every participant felt energized and lost weight, and most reported a drastic reduction in their symptoms and the number of medications they needed to use. One man completely resolved his diabetes in those 28 days. A woman went from years of chronic pain to being completely pain-free, and others suffering from asthma, colitis and sleep apnea enjoyed a profound reduction in symptoms.
It was not an easy journey, as several experienced detoxification reactions, food cravings and, for some, a temporary increase in symptoms as their bodies began to purge toxins they’d accumulated, but those reactions were relatively short-lived, and they felt immensely better on the other side — better than they’d felt in years.
THE MANY HEALTH BENEFITS OF JUICING There are many reasons to consider incorporating vegetable juicing into your health plan. Whether you use it as an occasional cleanse, or as the start of every morning, juicing:
Helps you absorb all the nutrients from your vegetables. This is important because most people have impaired digestion as a result of making less-than-optimal food choices over many years, which limits your body’s ability to absorb all of the nutrients in whole, raw vegetables. Juicing helps “pre-digest” them, so you won’t lose any of this valuable nutrition. Makes it easier to consume a large quantity of vegetables. Virtually every health authority recommends that you get six to eight servings of vegetables and fruits per day, but very few actually get that. Juicing virtually guarantees you’ll reach your daily target. Makes it easier to get a wider variety of vegetables into your diet. Juicing greatly expands the number of different phytochemicals you receive, as each vegetable offers unique benefits. Juicing also allows you to consume vegetables that you may not normally enjoy eating whole. Boosts your immune system. Raw juice supercharges your immune system with concentrated phytochemicals and biophotonic light energy, which can revitalize your body. The nutrients in fresh juice also feed your body’s good bacteria and help suppress potentially pathogenic ones. Increases your energy. When your blood is flooded with nutrients and your body’s pH is optimized, you’ll feel energized. Since juice is absorbed and utilized by your body very rapidly, juicers report feeling an almost instantaneous “kick” of energy. Supports your brain. In the Kame Project, 1 people who consumed juice more than three times per week were 76 percent less likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease than those who consumed juice less than once a week. Provides structured water. Vegetable juice is one of the purest sources of water and actually qualifies as water. Vegetable water is structured water (living water), which is different from regular water — H3O2 rather than H2O. Water from vegetables is the best quality water you can drink!On a side note, sun exposure is also important for structuring the water in your cells. Part of the energy your body requires can actually be obtained from sunlight, but you must expose your skin directly to it. The ultraviolet (UV) radiation increases nitric oxide (NO) release, which can direct more than half your blood flow to your skin. Once your blood is exposed to the sun, it can absorb UV and infrared radiation, which help to structure the water in your cells and energize your mitochondria.
Download Interview Transcript Keep in mind your juices should consist mostly of green vegetables. You’ll want to minimize fruits in order to keep the fructose and net carb content low. The bulk of your juice should come from organic green veggies. Spinach, celery, kale and Swiss chard are common juicing staples.
If you’re new to juicing, you can start with more mild-tasting veggies, like celery and cucumbers. From there you can work your way up to red leaf lettuce, romaine, spinach and escarole, along with parsley and cilantro. Kale, collard, dandelion, mustard and other greens can be bitter, so you’ll want to start slowly and add just a few leaves at a time.
Some of the most nutrient-dense veggies are the strongest tasting, but don’t avoid them. Just use a lesser quantity in your juice until your taste buds acclimate. Selecting organic, non-GMO produce is very important when juicing, but the price can be a challenge for some. One alternative is to grow your own, making sure to avoid toxic garden chemicals (synthetic herbicides, pesticides and fertilizers).
If you’re using non-organic vegetables, your best bet is to peel them, to avoid juicing pesticide residues. This is particularly important for fruits and vegetables that have been waxed, as this seals in the chemicals. It can be difficult to discern if a vegetable has been waxed or not, because the wax can be applied in a very thin, transparent layer.
Beware that even organic produce sold in grocery chain stores will typically be waxed. For unwaxed fruit and vegetables, you typically have to get them from a local source.
TIPS THAT CAN MAKE YOUR VEGGIE JUICE MORE PALATABLE If you’re not used to eating a lot of vegetables, the taste may take a little while to get used to. A great trick to make your juice more palatable, especially in the beginning, is to add one or more of these elements:
Limes and lemons: You can add one half to a whole lime or lemon for every quart of juice. Limes are my favorite for cutting bitter flavors. Cranberries: You can also add some cranberries if you enjoy them. Limit the cranberries to about 4 ounces per pint of juice. Fresh ginger : This is an excellent addition if you enjoy the taste. It gives your juice a spicy “kick.” Limited amounts of apple and carrot (just be mindful of your overall sugar content). HOW TO MANAGE CRAVINGS AND DETOX SYMPTOMS Changing your diet or any other aspect of your lifestyle is sometimes stressful, and stress can sabotage your success. As some of the people in Vale’s super-juicing experiment discovered, you might feel a little worse before you feel better, as detox symptoms and food cravings can arise. Addressing your emotional and mental health is a very important aspect of total body health, so please do not ignore stress.
The Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) can be helpful when anxieties strike, including emotional struggles surrounding dietary changes. In fact, it’s one of the most powerful tools for reducing stress and anxiety that I know of. In 2012, a triple blind study 2 found that EFT reduced cortisol levels and symptoms of psychological distress by 24 percent, more than any other intervention tested!
If you worry that you won’t be able to get the juice down or you won’t take the time to do it, or your food cravings will be unbearable, EFT may be able to help. The first couple weeks of a new eating routine are typically the most challenging, while your body is making the necessary biochemical adjustments. Tapping can be extraordinarily beneficial for reducing anxiety, cravings and detox symptoms during this time.
EFT is easy to learn and once you do, it’s always at your fingertips, whenever and wherever you need it. You can even adapt this intermittent fasting EFT video by Julie Schiffman for juice fasting. Just as juicing helps reduce your body’s toxic burden, you can think of EFT as detoxification for your mind. By combining the two, your healing will have the greatest chance of success.
Source: Mercola
| 1real |
The Most Interesting Chart In The World – Part 2 | The Most Interesting Chart In The World - Part 2 By Lee Adler. In Part 1 of this report you saw the rollercoaster shape of the European Central Bank balance sheet. The ECB’s assets grew massively under the long term loan program known as LTRO in 2011 and 2012. Then the central bank’s assets fell just as massively when the ECB allowed those loans to be repaid. You need to login to view this content.
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Mexico steps up dialogue with U.S. firms over economy - minister | MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexico has increased dialogue with American companies to make the case for bilateral economic ties, a senior official said on Thursday, in an effort to counter anti-Mexican rhetoric in the U.S. presidential campaign. Presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump has said Mexico is “killing” U.S. trade, threatening to build a border wall to keep out migrants, block remittances sent home by Mexicans, and raise tariffs against Mexico to protect U.S. jobs. While generally at pains to avoid addressing Trump directly, Mexican government officials have warned that his proposals could do serious damage to both nations’ economies. Paulo Carreno, Mexico’s new deputy foreign minister responsible for North America, was appointed in April to lead a drive to bolster his country’s standing in the United States. Since then, Mexico’s diplomatic network in the United States has stepped up efforts to reach out to business leaders, as well as politicians and academics, Carreno said, keen to stress that his government took no side in the presidential contest. Of the companies Mexico had met, the majority agreed with a model of bilateral economic cooperation based on free trade that did not involve a border wall, or protective tariffs, he said. “They understand the benefit of greater commercial integration, and they live from it in a way,” said Carreno. “They agree that the model we have today is the better one, though of course that’s not to say it can’t be improved.” U.S.-Mexico trade is worth some $500 billion every year and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce says roughly 6 million American jobs depend on it. In addition, an estimated 35 million people in the United States are Mexican or of Mexican background. Mexican business leaders say U.S. companies are crucial allies in their battle to counter Trump’s arguments. Carreno did not detail which companies Mexico was meeting, though senior officials have said previously that those with major operations south of the border are key interlocutors. They include firms like General Electric as well as carmakers General Motors and Ford. Both carmakers have been attacked by Trump in the campaign for investing in Mexico. | 0fake |
Netanyahu On Purim: Like Ancient Persia, Modern Iran Will Fail To Destroy Jews - Breitbart | TEL AVIV — Just as the Persians failed to wipe out the Jewish nation some 2, 500 years ago, the Iranians of today will also fail, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Saturday night on the eve of the Jewish holiday of Purim. [The prime minister made his remarks before the reading of the Scroll of Esther at the central synagogue in Caesarea, the Jerusalem Post reported. He turned to the children surrounding him in costumes traditionally worn on Purim and asked them: “What is the holiday about, what do we celebrate, what do we remember, what did they try to do to us then?” Several children replied, “To kill us. ” “Where?” Netanyahu asked. “In Persia,” they answered. “Did they succeed?” the prime minister asked. “No,” one child said, “the opposite happened. ” “It didn’t happen, the opposite happened,” Netanyahu repeated. “Also, today they want to destroy us from Persia they will not succeed. ” His comment was met with applause from the congregation. On Thursday, Netanyahu compared the Islamic Republic to ancient Persia in his comments to Russian President Vladimir Putin. “I thank you for your good wishes on Purim,” the prime minister told Putin. “Some 2, 500 years ago in ancient Persia, there was an attempt to wipe out the Jews, which did not succeed, and which we commemorate with this holiday. ” Today, Netanyahu said, Iran — the heir of the Persians — has similar designs: to wipe out the state of the Jews. “They say this clearly, and it is etched on their ballistic missiles,” he said. However, Putin seemed to shoot down the analogy, saying the Purim story took place “in the fifth century B. C. ” “We now live in a different world. Let us talk about that now,” Putin said. In his speech to a special joint session of the U. S. Congress in March 2015, Netanyahu famously evoked the Purim story when explaining the threat posed by the nuclear deal signed by Barack Obama. “We’re an ancient people,” he said. “In our nearly 4, 000 years of history, many have tried repeatedly to destroy the Jewish people. Tomorrow night, on the Jewish holiday of Purim, we’ll read the Book of Esther. We’ll read of a powerful Persian viceroy named Haman, who plotted to destroy the Jewish people some 2, 500 years ago. But a courageous Jewish woman, Queen Esther, exposed the plot and gave for the Jewish people the right to defend themselves against their enemies. The plot was foiled. Our people were saved. ” He continued by saying that Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, Haman’s heir, had similar plans for the Jewish nation. “But I can guarantee you this,” he said, “the days when the Jewish people remained passive in the face of genocidal enemies — those days are over. ” | 0fake |
The Quebec City Mosque Victims: Professor, Butcher, Computer Technician - The New York Times | QUEBEC — From the outside, the Islamic Cultural Center’s building in the Ste. neighborhood of Quebec City looks more like a medical center than a place of worship. But it is very much the heart of the city’s Muslim community and, now, a site of tragedy. Several of the six people killed by a gunman at the mosque during Sunday night prayers lived in the surrounding neighborhood, which is dominated by postwar brick houses and apartments. Others had initially come to the area to study or teach at Laval University in Ste. . They came from Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria and Guinea, but they were connected by community and faith. Khaled Belkacemi, 60. A professor of soil and engineering at Laval University, Mr. Belkacemi arrived in Canada with his wife, Safia Hamoudi, to escape turmoil in his native Algeria, said Dufour, the university’s dean of agriculture and food science. Professor Dufour said that Ms. Hamoudi, who is also a faculty member at Laval, told him after the attack, “We came to Quebec and Canada because we didn’t want to stay in an environment where we have to fight or there is too much danger. ” She added, “We never thought it would happen in Quebec,” the professor said. Professor Belkacemi, who held Ph. D. s from a university in Algeria and the University of Sherbrooke in Quebec, was an authority on the effects of freezing on foods. In addition to teaching and research, Professor Belkacemi consulted on the design of food processing equipment and factories. On Facebook, Professor Belkacemi’s son, Amir, recalled his father’s decision to seek out a better life for his family in Canada. He described his father as “a good man, an example of resilience, a man loved by all, a professor and researcher emeritus, a fighter, a man who left his country to give his family a chance to live far away from horror. ” Abdelkrim Hassane, 41. An immigrant from Algeria, Mr. Hassane was a programming analyst for the Quebec provincial government. He and his wife, Louiza Mohamed Said, had three children ranging in age from 15 months to 10 years. “How will I tell my kids?” Ms. Said said in an interview with the French service of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, adding of the man charged with the killings: “I don’t care about that person. It’s too late. It’s my husband I care about. ” Aboubaker Thabti, 44. Mr. Thabti worked in a poultry processing plant just outside Quebec City, and his wife operated a day care center. Several news reports indicated that Mr. Thabti immigrated from Tunisia about five years ago and that he was the father of two young children. “Know that this man was seen by his colleagues and manager as a courteous man, a hard worker who was smiling and discreet,” said Stéphanie Paquet, a spokeswoman for his employer, Exceldor. “Mr. Thabti was very much appreciated by all around him. ” Azzeddine Soufiane, 57. Among the first victims to be identified without official confirmation, Mr. Soufiane was a butcher who owned a small halal grocery store, Boucherie Assalam, about two minutes’ drive from the mosque. The Globe and Mail, a Toronto newspaper, reported that Mr. Soufiane came from Morocco during the 1980s to study geology at Laval University. Several members of the mosque said that Mr. Soufiane’s connection to Muslims through his store had made him an unofficial leader of the city’s Muslim community. Mamadou Tanou Barry, 42. Mr. Barry worked as a computer technician at a cosmetics company. A native of Guinea, Mr. Barry had two young children. Ibrahima Barry, 39. Another native of Guinea, Mr. Barry was a close friend of Mamadou Tanou Barry, although they were not related. Their families lived in the same apartment building in Ste. . Mr. Barry was a provincial public servant and the father of four children. | 0fake |
Black Americans Going For Donald Trump In Record Numbers As Election Day Approaches | NTEB Ads Privacy Policy Black Americans Going For Donald Trump In Record Numbers As Election Day Approaches Donald Trump is gaining in Michigan partly because many African-American voters — especially younger voters who backed Sen. Bernie Saunders — distrust Clinton, said Wayne Bradley, state director of African-American engagement for the Michigan Republican Party. by Geoffrey Grider November 5, 2016 Donald Trump is on track to double Gov. Mitt Romney’s support among African-American voters, according to a series of state polls. In 2012, African-Americans comprised a record 13 percent of all voters. President Barack Obama was reelected with 93 percent of the African-American vote, leaving Gov. Mitt Romney with only 6 percent of the African-American vote. Obama is now campaigning against Trump, and hoping to keep his share of the African-American vote below the 11 percent that George W. Bush won in 2004 during the housing bubble. On Friday , a poll of 506 Pennsylvania voters by Harper Polling showed Trump has the support of 18.46 percent of African-Americans. That’s eight points more than Romney’s share of the national vote in 2012, and if it proves true during the ballot, that 18.46 percent African-American support translates into 2 point shift towards Trump. The poll also said another 4.6 percent were undecided. Trump acknowledges ‘Blacks for Trump’ supporters: The Harper poll is small , with an error margin of 4.4 percent, but an Oct. 30 poll of 1,249 likely voters in Pennsylvania showed Trump has 19 percent support among African Americans, while another 7 percent remain undecided. That poll has a error margin of 2.77 percent. In next-door Michigan, two nights of a tracking poll conducted for Fox 2 of 1,150 likely voters showed Trump with 14 percent support and 19 percent support, leaving Clinton with 83 percent and 79 percent support. That’s equivalent to a two-point shift from Clinton to Trump in the state. “We’re showing Donald Trump doing far better among African-Americans than any other Republican in modern memory, said John Yob, CEO of a Michigan-based polling firm, Strategic National . Trump “has done an excellent job in campaigning for the votes of African-Americans,” he said, partly by campaigning in Detroit, said Yob, whose automated tracking polls show Trump and Clinton running level in the state. Black Trump Supporters Explain Why They are Voting for Donald Trump: Donald Trump is gaining in Michigan partly because many African-American voters — especially younger voters who backed Sen. Bernie Saunders — distrust Clinton, said W ayne Bradley, state director of African-American engagement for the Michigan Republican Party. “T here is a tremendous trust deficit with Hillary Clinton” because tough anti-crime laws established when her husband was president in the 1990s, he said. That distrust has helped cause a sharp drop in the number of absentee ballots mailed in from Detroit, even as other part of the state send in more ballots that before, Bradley said. Faced with a low turnout, the Clinton campaign is trying to frighten African-Americans to vote, but “t hat’s not a convincing enough argument,” he said. “Detroit as of Wednesday had seen absentee ballots returns equaling just 46 percent of the total 2012 absentee vote in the city, and the city clerk’s office is forecasting a decline of 10,000 absentee ballots compared to 2012, a fall of 12.5 percent,” according to a review of absentee records by the Gongwer.com website, which intensively tracks Michigan politics. It is “possible that the falloff portends reduced [election day] voting at the precincts, in which case … Clinton could net something like 32,000 fewer votes out of the city than President Barack Obama did in 2012.” But other polls offer better news to Clinton. A Detroit Free Press poll of 600 likely Michigan voters released Nov. 4 showed that “Among black voters, her margin also grew substantially, to 92% compared to 88% two weeks ago.” National Trends Trump’s gain among African-American voters is happening in many states, alongside an overall reduction in African-American enthusiasm and support for Obama’s designated successor. That drop-off in support from Obama’s 93 percent level will likely reduce the turnout for Clinton. MSNBC reporter wasn’t expecting Black Americans to vote for Trump: That’s a problem for Democrats, because a 7.5 percent drop in nationwide African-American turnout would be equal to a one-point drop in a nationwide vote for Clinton. Reports say the early-voting turnout by African-Americans has dropped by up to 10 percent in North Carolina and by somewhat less in Florida . President Barack Obama and other top Democrats have hopscotched through the states to push that turnout back up by election day. But pollsters face problems when trying to gauge opinions in a high-stakes emotional competition. For example, a large slice of African-Americans are picking “undecided” in some polls. The Washington Post is reporting that Clinton is leading Trump by 79 percentage points among African-Americans, but the fine print in the article says Clinton’s score is 82 percent and Trump’s score is 3 percent — leaving 15 percent who did not pick either candidate. So if Trump gets just one-in-five of the undecided African-American voters, he reaches Romney’s 2012 level. Blacks for Trump, It’s a Thing: Some concerned people lie to pollsters. For example, roughly 7 percent of college grads hide their support for Trump when they’re ask by pollsters over the phone, perhaps out of fear of penalties if their choice was made public. So when polls show a non-answer from respondents, for example, many undecided voters, the votes may be hiding a weak or strong preference for Trump. These factor may be impacting polls of African-Americans, who are being hammered by claims from Clinton and Obama that Trump is supposedly a racist. “If you accept the support of Klan sympathizers — the Klan — and hesitate when asked about that support, then you’ll tolerate that support when you’re in office,” Obama told an African-American crowd in North Carolina on Nov. 3. For example, Public Policy Polling — which mostly works for Democratic clients — used phone interviews in a poll that showed Trump with just 9 percent support in Michigan among 957 likely voters, of whom 12 percent were African-American. The poll said none of the roughly 110 African-Americans were undecided in a two-person race, even though 8 percent said they were unsure when they were asked if they had a favorable view of Trump. In contrast, the Harper Polling survey in Pennsylvania got very different answers from African-Americans. Trump got 18.5 percent support in a four-person race, although many respondents waffled when they were asked to pick between just Clinton and Trump. When asked to pick either of the two main candidates, only 12.3 percent supported Trump, while 13.9 percent declared themselves to be undecided. So Trump actually picked up half of the undecideds when the respondents were allowed to chose from the four candidates. Polls A national poll by TIPP showed Clinton at only 75 percent support among all non-whites, including Hispanics, African-Americans and Latinos. That poll showed Trump getting support from 15 percent of non-whites , leaving 5 percent undecided and 5 percent supporting other candidates. In North Carolina, 19 percent of African-Americans support Trump, according to an Oct. 30 survey of 1176 likely voters by Remington Research Group. An Oct. 28 to Oct. 31 poll in North Carolina by SurveyUSA showed Trump with 14 percent support in a poll of 800 adults, including 659 likely voters. African-Americans comprised 21 percent of the voters in the poll. SurveyUSA is the top-ranked pollster in Nate Silver’s rankings . But a late October poll of African-Americans in North Carolina by Siena University showed 89 percent support for Clinton and 1 percent for Trump — but it also showed 6 percent staying they did not know who they will vote for, and 11 percent support for the GOP Gov. Pat McCrory. In Florida, a Siena University poll showed that Trump had the support of 13 percent of African-Americans. More ominously for Clinton, she had the support of only 83 percent, while 4 percent said they didn’t know who to vote for. If Trump gets one-quarter of the 4 percent, he reaches 14 percent of the African-American vote, leaving Clinton with roughly 86 percent. In Virginia, a survey by Public Policy Polling taken in Nov. 3 and Nov. 4 showed Trump with 9 percent support and Clinton with 91 percent support. A Remington Research automated poll of 1,106 likely voters in Virginia showed Trump with 19 percent , and Clinton with just 78 percent support. In Georgia, a Nov. 2 to Nov. 3 poll of 1,000 likely voters showed Trump with 12 percent of the African-American vote, leaving Clinton with 85 percent. Amid the disagreement, rivalries and complexity, Bradley is confident that Trump will do well among African-Americans. His final tally as the GOP candidate “will be a higher number that it has been in the past… [because] he’s working, he’s coming to these cities to deliver the message.” The African-American vote may even be enough to help push Trump over the so-called “blue wall” of Democratic northern states that stands in his path to the White House. source SHARE THIS ARTICLE Geoffrey Grider NTEB is run by end times author and editor-in-chief Geoffrey Grider. Geoffrey runs a successful web design company, and is a full-time minister of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. In addition to running NOW THE END BEGINS, he has a dynamic street preaching outreach and tract ministry team in Saint Augustine, FL. NTEB #TRENDING | 1real |
The Daily Show PERFECTLY Demonstrates That Trump Is A Fascist (VIDEO) | Trevor Noah brilliantly unmasked Donald Trump as a fascist, and everyone needs to see it.On Monday night, the Daily Show host began by talking about Hillary Clinton trouncing Bernie Sanders in South Carolina over the weekend and briefly mentioned that Super Tuesday is upon us.But for all of those who are tired of democracy, Noah introduced fascism as an alternative.Noah explained to the audience that he has heard the word his entire life but he didn t really know what it was, so he looked it up and discovered some of the traits of fascism including a cult of action, celebrating aggressive masculinity, fear of outsiders, intense nationalism, intolerance of criticism, and resentment of national humiliation. As it turns out, Donald Trump embodies all of these and all we have to do is listen to him talk to know that it s true.Noah then played various clips of Trump demonstrating each of these traits one by one. Afterwards, Noah let out a nervous laugh as the audience seemed to be in complete disbelief about what they just heard and witnessed. An actual American presidential candidate really did just spout stuff out of the fascist playbook before their eyes. I m shitting myself, Noah said. It all lines up so perfectly, doesn t it? It almost stops being funny as you re watching it. It s funny for me because I have a back-up plan country, Noah quipped before telling the audience that they can rest easy because they are invited to live in South Africa if Trump does become president.Noah also pointed out that Trump retweeted a quote said by fascist Italian Dictator Benito Mussolini, which you can view below. @ilduce2016: It is better to live one day as a lion than 100 years as a sheep. @realDonaldTrump #MakeAmericaGreatAgain Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 28, 2016At first, Noah conceded that perhaps Trump didn t know that it was a Mussolini quote, but it soon became clear that Trump knows exactly who Mussolini is and proceeded to stand by the tweet during an interview with Chuck Todd on NBC. Trump even awkwardly paused after being asked if he wants to be associated with a fascist.Noah also noted that another trait of fascism includes a deep hatred of journalists, and then he played a clip of Trump vowing to make it possible to sue the media over negative stories about candidates, which Noah pointed out would mean he could be sued for informing everyone that Donald Trump wants to bang his daughter. And then it was time to mention Trump s endorsement by KKK leader David Duke. After playing footage from Trump s interview with Jake Tapper on CNN in which he claimed to not know anything about Duke, Noah and the Daily Show team dug up a clip from 16 years ago of Trump calling Duke a bigot and racist that people don t want in their party. The irony is I think there s a lot of Republicans saying that now, too, Noah concluded.Here s the video via Comedy Central.This was a brilliant segment by Noah and the Daily Show team, but they did miss a few traits. Fascists also disrespect women, and we all know Donald Trump has done that repeated during this campaign. Furthermore, fascists are obsessed with Christianity and corporate power. And Donald Trump isn t exactly the only Republican who flirts openly with fascism. It s basically part of the GOP s DNA at this point.To read more about fascism, click here. Featured image via screenshot | 1real |
California Today: Henry Rollins Strikes Chord as a Columnist - The New York Times | Good morning. (Want to get California Today by email? Here’s the .) At 56, Henry Rollins is still angry. When he was a younger man, the rage flowed out of him as the scowling frontman for Black Flag, the pioneering Southern California punk band. Today, Mr. Rollins may no longer scream to get his point across. But as a spoken word performer, radio host and, notably, a widely read columnist at LA Weekly, he has reinvented himself as a political voice that is similarly hard to ignore. “It’s definitely one of the most popular regular features that we run,” his editor at LA Weekly, Andy Hermann, said of his writing. “He’s just a great commentator and satirist. ” (Here are a couple of pieces that Mr. Hermann said struck a big chord with readers.) We caught up with Mr. Rollins by phone. Some excerpts from the conversation: Q. What’s your approach to the column? A. As far as political writing, to use the baseball idea, if you can’t hit them where they ain’t and score, then — basically don’t be obvious. And if you’re going to make a point, if you can’t bring some humor into it — I mean obviously someone getting shot and killed in Ferguson, Mo. there’s no fun there. But anything with Donald Trump, where there’s so much to say, if you don’t bring some humor in, it’s going to be unreadable. Q. Have you mellowed with age? A. Not really. I’ve just been able to prioritize and direct my energies with a little bit more care and aim, where I don’t need to scorch the entire forest because I’m angry. I can just pick out the three trees and that turns into a column or that turns into something on stage. Q. You’ve said you cultivate your anger. Why? A. Because it turns into good things. I saw the HBO documentary on the West Memphis Three and I said, ‘Oh, O. K. you’ve officially pissed me off. Arkansas we’re coming for you.’ And it was out of anger. I was concerned for guys in jail, yeah, but it was anger that got my civic muscle going. And I started calling rich, famous people I knew — ‘Hey can I have a thousand dollars [to donate to a legal fund]?’ I couldn’t believe it. I was like a member of Congress dialing for dollars. Q. Do you ever think about making music again? A. No. For me it was a real time and place. I never really enjoyed being in a band. It was never fun. It was necessary. I really had to say those words. But I never enjoyed it and I’ll be the first to admit I was never all that good at it. But it was real. (Please note: We regularly highlight articles on news sites that have limited access for nonsubscribers.) • Democrats fiercely criticized Representative Devin Nunes, the Tulare Republican who heads a House panel investigating Russian interference in the election, for taking information straight to the president. [The New York Times] • “Mr. Nunes is a lapdog in a watchdog role. ” [Opinion | The New York Times] • Representative Duncan D. Hunter, a San Diego County Republican, is under criminal investigation. He’s accused of spending campaign funds on vacations and video games. [The New York Times] • California passed the nation’s toughest methane emission regulations even as federal rules are expected to be rolled back. [San Francisco Chronicle] • “Measure S was not the answer to L. A.’s housing crisis, but neither is returning to business as usual. ” [Opinion | Los Angeles Times] • A former U. C. Berkeley student said a renowned philosophy professor sexually assaulted her. [Daily Californian] • Four people were found dead inside a Sacramento home. A man was detained. [Sacramento Bee] • Big banks and Silicon Valley are battling over something akin to gold: your data. [The New York Times] • Disney is looking for a successor to its chief executive, Robert A. Iger. But nobody seems to measure up. [The New York Times] • In Sequoia National Park, communing with some of the biggest trees on Earth. [The New York Times] • U. C. L. A. faces Kentucky in the N. C. A. A. men’s basketball tournament. Here’s how they match up. [Los Angeles Times] It wasn’t looking good for Nalu. The small, dog inhaled a lot of smoke after a fire erupted at a Santa Monica apartment on Tuesday. The fire was quickly put out. Nalu, a bichon tzu mix, was limp and not breathing. “He was essentially dead,” said Andrew Klein, the firefighter who pulled the dog from the burning home. Mr. Klein set Nalu on the grass and began delivering oxygen with a specialized pet mask and performing resuscitation. Minutes passed. Nothing. Kneeling nearby, the dog’s owner, Crystal Lamirande, who had been running errands when the blaze broke out, was distraught. She put her hand on the dog’s belly. “Come on Nalu,” she said. Then, an improbable 20 minutes after efforts to revive him began, Nalu blinked and, slowly, his chest rose. Ms. Lamirande, 35, a nurse, had just lost her home. Yet for the moment she was elated. “She couldn’t stop saying, ‘Thank you,’” said Billy Fernando, a who watched the drama. Speaking by phone Thursday, Ms. Lamirande said Nalu was back to his old self. “He’s so lovely. People just love him,” she said. Ms. Lamirande said she lost sentimental objects in the fire, whose origin was unknown. But she was coping, she added, “It’s just stuff. ” California Today goes live at 6 a. m. Pacific time weekdays. Tell us what you want to see: CAtoday@nytimes. com. The California Today columnist, Mike McPhate, is a Californian — born outside Sacramento and raised in San Juan Capistrano. He lives in Davis. Follow him on Twitter. California Today is edited by Julie Bloom, who grew up in Los Angeles and graduated from U. C. Berkeley. | 0fake |
White House still not telling America the truth about jobs, economy | Friday, forecasters expect the Labor Department will report that the economy created 190,000 jobs in October—that’s well below the 260,000 averaged in 2014.
We can also expect the White House to again proclaim that the economy is doing well—touting 61 consecutive months of jobs creation—and liberal commentators like New York Times columnist and CNBC analyst John Harwood will no doubt offer this as more proof that the economy does better with a Democrat in the White House.
So much depends on the circumstances in which each president governs. For example, does his party control one or both houses of Congress and more importantly, what was the state of the economy bequeathed by his predecessor?
The best apples to apples comparison are the rather difficult conditions of Presidents Reagan and Obama inherited and how the fortunes of America’s families then progressed—with the former relying on conservative prescriptions and the latter on activist government to stimulate growth.
Obama confronted a terrible financial crisis and endured a punishing recession. Unemployment peaked at 10 percent in his first term, but since the economy has reclaimed and added 12.6 million jobs and employment is up 9.8 percent.
The Gipper faced tough times too—double-digit unemployment and interest rates and a bruising recession. Unemployment peaked at 10.8 percent but subsequently the economy added more than 17.2 million jobs and employment rose 19.4 percent.
The reason Reagan was able to create so many more jobs—in a much smaller economy—is quite simple. It wasn’t just lower taxes and less spending but rather, a reliance on private decisions to guide recovery. He cleared a path for businesses, large and small, to invest as they deemed fit and raise wages as they decided they could afford, and encouraged the unemployed to get out and look for work.
Whereas from subsidies for solar energy projects and mandatory health insurance to incessant preaching that ordinary folks are victims of racism, sexism and the evil machinations of the well-off, Obama has sought to micromanage business through an explosion of regulations and to pacify a middle class under siege and Americans underemployed or not working at all with giveaways from free contraception to forgiving college debt.
Through the first 25 quarters of Obama’s recovery, GDP growth has averaged 2.1 percent, whereas during the comparable period for Reagan, GDP advanced at a 4.6 percent annual pace.
And whereas Reagan’s social safety net assisted the unemployed, Obama’s pays the unemployed to be idle.
The 7 million men between the ages of 25 and 54 who are neither employed nor are looking for work are rewarded with food stamps, the earned income tax credit if their spouse is a low-income worker and federal healthcare subsidies—and even virtually free health care through Medicaid in many states.
For folks refusing to do anything productive with their lives, Obama is offering an even more attractive benefit—free money in the form of a government pension.
Despite the fact that Americans are living healthier and longer lives and work is generally less physically challenging, the percentage of adults ages 16 to 64 certified as permanently incapable of working by the Social Security Disability Insurance program now stands at 5.1 percent—about double the figure in Reagan’s day.
A broken appeals system offers a decided advantage to those crafty applicants who hire a lawyer—a situation the Obama administration refuses to fix.
For hard working families, the results are predictable—annual family incomes have declined about $1650 during the Obama years, whereas those increased $3900 during Reagan’s tenure.
For the indolent, this is the Second Age of Pericles but for those who toil for their daily bread, Obama’s pronouncements that the economy is much improved and performs better with Democrats in control have a decided Orwellian ring.
Peter Morici served as Chief Economist at the U.S. International Trade Commission from 1993 to 1995. He is an economist and professor at the Smith School of Business, University of Maryland, and a widely published columnist. He is the five time winner of the MarketWatch best forecaster award. Follow him on Twitter @PMorici1. | 0fake |
Clinton attacks Trump's outreach to black voters in new ad | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democrat Hillary Clinton called on Friday for voters to reject the “bigotry” of Donald Trump’s White House campaign, releasing a television ad criticizing his efforts to appeal to black voters and saying she was reaching out to people from all parties who are troubled by his candidacy. The ad shows video of Trump’s controversial pitch to black voters, in which the Republican candidate urges them to support him by asking, “What do you have to lose?” It also shows headlines about a racial discrimination lawsuit the New York real estate mogul faced in the 1970s. Clinton’s presidential campaign said the ad, released a day after she gave a speech accusing Trump of fueling America’s “radical fringe,” would air in the hotly contested states of Florida, North Carolina, Ohio and Pennsylvania. Polls give Clinton a wide margin over Trump among Hispanic voters, but he is on a pitch to reduce her advantage by stressing he would create jobs for all. Trump pressed on with trying to broaden his appeal to minority voters on Friday, as he met with Hispanic business leaders at his signature hotel in Las Vegas. “We’ve been doing very, very well with the Latinos. We’ve been doing amazing, far, far greater ... than anyone understands. They want to see jobs come in, we’re going to bring jobs. They want to see things happen,” Trump said. He said the country’s GDP growth rate of 1.1 percent in the second quarter was not a good sign for the U.S. economy. “The country has some very, very serious problems,” he said. Clinton, meanwhile, followed up on Thursday’s tough speech by saying that Trump’s temperament and divisiveness made him unfit for the White House. “I am reaching out to everyone, Republicans, Democrats, independents, everyone who is as troubled as I am by the bigotry and divisiveness of Donald Trump’s campaign,” she told MSNBC, adding she was asking “fair-minded Americans to repudiate this kind of divisive demagoguery” at the Nov. 8 election. Clinton attacks came during a difficult week for her campaign, as the release of new emails from her time as secretary of state revived criticism of her decision to use a private address and server rather than a government one. The emails also stoked scrutiny of her family’s charitable foundation, including accusations that major corporate and foreign donors gave money in hopes of securing more access to then-Secretary Clinton. Her campaign says no donors received any special favors. Republican National Committee spokesman Sean Spicer told MSNBC Clinton was only talking about Trump and race this week to deflect attention from that controversy. Trump countered her rhetoric on Friday by releasing a video showing Clinton in the 1990s discussing a crime bill and referring to “super-predators,” or at-risk youth she said needed to be brought under control. The video also shows U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders, Clinton’s main opponent in the Democratic primary this year, calling that phrase a “racist term.” In targeting what she terms Trump’s bigotry, Clinton hopes to remind voters of controversial statements he has made over the course of the campaign. Those include describing some Mexican immigrants as criminals and rapists, suggesting a judge could not be fair because of his Mexican-American heritage, and proposing a temporary ban on Muslim immigration to combat terrorism. Trump has tried to sidestep these dust-ups by saying Democrats have failed minorities with their economic policies, leaving them living in poverty and attending failing schools. Jennifer Hochschild, a professor at Harvard University who focuses on race and immigration, said she did not think Trump could fix his relationship with black and Hispanic voters. “General cluelessness about racial dynamics will diminish any possible black support that comes from Trump’s emphasis on job creation,” Hochschild said in an email. “And Clinton has a lot of deep roots among black politicians.” Trump also has been criticized for vowing to deport millions of people living in the United States illegally. In recent days, he had appeared to hold out the possibility of toning down his hardline stance, although his precise plans on immigration have been harder to pin down. On Thursday, he denied he would loosen his proposed immigration restrictions. | 0fake |
Danish police identify torso as missing submarine journalist | COPENHAGEN (Reuters) - Police on Wednesday identified a headless female torso washed ashore in Copenhagen as that of Swedish reporter Kim Wall, who they believe was killed by a Danish inventor on board his home-made submarine. Wall, who was researching a story on inventor Peter Madsen, went missing after he took her out to sea in his 17-metre (56-foot) submarine on Aug. 10. He denies killing her, saying she died in an accident. Announcing the results of tests on the torso, discovered by a passing cyclist on Monday, police spokesman Jens Moller said it had suffered damage suggesting an attempt to make sure air and gas inside should leave the body so that it would not rise from the seabed . He added: There was also some metal attached to the body, allegedly also to make sure the body would sink to the bottom. The arms, legs and head had been sawn from the body. Analysis showed a match with Wall s DNA, which the police had gathered from a toothbrush and a hairbrush, and with blood found in the submarine, Moller said. Police still do not know the cause of death, and divers are searching for more body parts. Madsen, 46, is charged with manslaughter, which carries a sentence of between five years and life in prison. His lawyer Betina Hald Engmark told Reuters he was maintaining his innocence and sticking to his account that Wall s death was accidental. The macabre case has riveted Swedish and Danish media, and made headlines around the world. It is with boundless sadness and dismay we received the message that the remains of our daughter and sister Kim Wall have been found, Wall s mother Ingrid Wall said on Facebook. During the horrendous days that have passed since Kim disappeared, we have received countless evidence of how loved and appreciated she was, both as a person and friend and as a professional journalist. From all corners of the world comes proof of Kim as a person who made a difference. Madsen has told a court that following the alleged accident, he buried Wall at sea - changing his initial statement to police that he dropped her off alive in Copenhagen. A day after taking Wall out on his UC3 Nautilus submarine, the inventor was rescued after the vessel sank. Police found nobody else on board. The submarine is one of three constructed by Madsen and one of the largest privately built ones in the world. It can carry eight people and weighs 40 tonnes when fully equipped. Madsen was already well known in Denmark as an entrepreneur and aerospace engineer, as well as for his submarines. He founded the association Copenhagen Suborbitals, with the goal of sending a person into space in a home-built rocket, and wrote a blog under the nickname Rocket Madsen . He is not violent, he does not drink, does not do drugs, Thomas Djursing, who wrote a book about him, told Danish tabloid B.T. earlier this month. On the other hand, he quarrels with everyone and I have argued with him too. But that is how it often is with people who are deeply driven by a passion. Wall, 30, was a freelance journalist whose work had appeared in Harper s Magazine, The Guardian, The New York Times, Foreign Policy, the South China Morning Post, The Atlantic and TIME. Originally from Sweden, she held degrees from New York s Columbia University and the London School of Economics and was based between New York and Beijing. She had written about topics ranging from gender and social justice to pop culture and foreign policy, according to her LinkedIn profile. She had also received training in hostile environments and emergency first-aid, she said on the profile. Her mother said she had uncovered stories all over the world. She gave a voice to the weak, the vulnerable and marginalized people. That voice would have been needed for a long, long time. Now it won t be so. | 0fake |
United States Reformation or Fracture? | United States Reformation or Fracture?
By Thierry Meyssan Observing the US presidential electoral campaign, Thierry Meyssan analyses the resurgence of an old and weighty conflict of civilisation. Hillary Clinton has just declared that this election is not about programmes, but about the question ŤWho are the Americans?ť. It was not for reasons of his political prgramme that the Republican leaders have withdrawn their support from their candidate, Donald Trump, but because of his personal behaviour. According to Thierry Meyssan, until now, the United States was composed of migrants from different horizons who accepted to submit to the ideology of a particular community . This is the model which is in the process of breaking down, at the risk of shattering the country itself. " Voltaire " - During the year of the US electoral campaign that we have just weathered, the rhetoric has profoundly changed, and an unexpected rift has appeared between the two camps. If, in the beginning, the candidates spoke about subjects which were genuinely political (such as the sharing of wealth or national security), today they are mostly talking about sex and money. It is this dialogue, and not the political questions, which has caused the explosion of the Republican party whose main leaders have withdrawn their support from their candidate - and which is recomposing the political chess-board, awakening an ancient cleavage of civilisation. On one side, Mrs. Clinton is working to appear politically correct, while on the other, ŤThe Donaldť is blowing the hypocrisy of the ex-ŤFirst Ladyť to smithereens.
On one side, Hillary Clinton promises male / female equality - although she has never hesitated to attack and defile the women who revealed that they had slept with her husband and that she is presenting herself not for her personal qualities, but as the wife of an ex-President, and that she accuses Donald Trump of misogyny because he does not hide his appreciation of the female gender. On the other, Donald Trump denounces the privatisation of the State and the racketing of foreign personalities by the Clinton Foundation to obtain appointments with the State Department the creation of ObamaCare not in the interest of citizens, but for the profit of medical insurance companies - and goes as far as to question the honesty of the electoral system.
I am perfectly aware that the way in which Donald Trump expresses himself may encourage racism, but I do not believe for a second that this question is at the heart of the electoral debate, despite the hype from the pro-Clinton medias. It is not without interest that, during the Lewinsky affair, President Bill Clinton apologised to the Nation and convened a number of preachers to pray for his salvation. But when he was accused of similar misconduct by an audio recording, Donald Trump simply apologised to the people he had upset without making any appeal to members of the clergy. The currrent divide re-awakens the revolt of Catholic, Orthodox and Lutheran values against those of the Calvinists, mainly represented in the USA by the Presbyterians, the Baptists and the Methodists.
While the two candidates were raised in the Puritan tradition (Clinton as a Methodist and Trump as a Presbyterian), Mrs. Clinton has returned to the religion of her father, and participates today in a prayer group composed of the army chiefs of staff, The Family, while Mr. Trump practises a more interior form of spirituality and rarely goes to church. Of course, no-one is locked into the systems in which they were raised, but when people act without thinking, they unconsciously reproduce these systems. The question of the religious environment of the candidates may therefore be important.
In order to understand the stakes of this game, we have to go back and look at 17th century England. Oliver Cromwell instigated a military coup detat which overthrew King Charles 1st. He wanted to install a Republic, purify the soul of the country, and ordered the decapitation of the ex-sovereign. He created a sectarian régime inspired by the ideas of Calvin, massacred thousands of Irish Papists, and imposed a Puritan way of life. He also created Zionism he invited the Jews back to England, and was the first head of state in the world to demand the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine. This bloody episode is known by the name of the ŤFirst British Civil Warť.
After the monarchy had been reinstated, Cromwells Puritans fled from England. They set up in Holland, from where some of them left for the Americas aboard the Mayflower (the ŤPilgrim Fathersť), while others founded the Afrikaneer community in South Africa. During the War of Independence in the 18th century United States, we saw a resurgence of the struggle of the Calvinists against the British monarchy, so that in current manuals of British History, it is known as the ŤSecond Civil Warť.
In the 19th century, the American Civil War opposed the Southern States (mainly inhabited by Catholic colonists) to the North (mostly inhabited by Protestant colonists). The History of the winning side presents this confrontation as a fight for freedom in the face of slavery, which is pure propaganda. The Southern states abolished slavery during the war when they concluded an agreement with the British monarchy). As a result, we once again saw the revolt of the Puritans against the Brititsh throne, which is why some historians speak of the ŤThird British Civil Warť.
During the 20th century, this interior confrontation of British civilisation seemed over and done with, apart from the re-appearance of the Puritans in the United Kingdom with the Ťnon-conformist Christiansť of Prime Minister David Lloyd George. It was they who divided Ireland and agreed to create the Ť Jewish national homelandť in Palestine.
In any case, one of Richard Nixons advisors, Kevin Philipps, dedicated a voluminous thesis to these civil wars, in which he noted that none of the problems had been solved, and announced a fourth confrontation [ 1 ].
I have no doubt that Mrs. Clinton will be the next President of the United States, or that if Mr. Trump were to be elected, he would be rapidly eliminated. But over the last few months, we have witnessed a large electoral redistribution within an irreversible demographic evolution. The Puritan-based churches now account for only a quarter of the population, and are swinging towards the Democrat camp. Their model looks like a historical accident. It disappeared in South Africa, and will not be able to survive much longer, either in the United States or in Israël. Beyond the Presidential election, US society will have to evolve rapidly or split once again. In a country where the youth massively rejects the influence of the Puritan preachers, it is no longer possible to displace the question of equality. The Puritans envisage a society where all men are equal, but not equivalent. Lord Cromwell wanted a Republic for the English, but only after he had massacred the Irish Papists. This is how it is at the moment in the United States all citizens are equal before the law, but in the name of the same texts, black people are systematically condemned, while attenuating circumstances are found for white people who have committed equivalent crimes. And in the majority of states, a penal condemnation, even for a speeding ticket, is enough to cancel the right to vote. Consequently, white and black people are equal, but in most states, the majority of black people has been legally deprived of its right to vote. The paradigm of this thought, in terms of foreign policy, is the Ťtwo-stateť solution in Palestine equal, but above all, not equivalent.
It is Puritan thinking that led the administrations of preacher Carter, Reagan, Bush (Sr. and Jr. are direct descendants of the Pilgrim Fathers), Clinton and Obama to support Wahhabism, in contradiction to the declared ideals of their countries, and today, to support Daesh.
A long time ago, the Founding Fathers built communities in Plymouth and Boston which were idealised in the US collective memory. And yet the historians are formal they claimed to be creating the ŤNew Israëlť, and chose the ŤLaw of Mosesť. They did not place the Cross in their temples, but the Tables of the Law. Although they are Christians, they attach more importance to the Jewish scriptures than the Gospel. They oblige their women to veil their faces and re-established corporaI punishment. Thierry Meyssan , French intellectual, founder and chairman of Voltaire Network and the Axis for Peace Conference. His columns specializing in international relations feature in daily newspapers and weekly magazines in Arabic, Spanish and Russian. His last two books published in English : 9/11 the Big Lie and Pentagate . Translation - Pete Kimberley
[ 1 ] The Cousins Wars , Kevin Philipps, Basic Books, 1999. | 1real |
Job Growth Loses Steam as U.S. Adds 98,000 in March - The New York Times | Looking for a Trump bump in the economy? Keep waiting. After two months of stellar job creation that convinced administration officials that President Trump’s policies were paying off immediately, employers pulled back sharply on hiring in March. The economy added 98, 000 jobs, the Labor Department reported Friday, fewer than half the monthly number for January and February. The report contained some notable good news: The unemployment rate fell to 4. 5 percent, the lowest level in almost a decade and a milestone in the long road back from the Great Recession. The rate was 4. 7 percent in February. Wages also continued to rise. But the disappointing number of new jobs was jarring for the administration, and well below what economists had expected. It comes as the stock market surge, which followed the November election, subsides and amid signs that economic growth in the year’s first quarter proves weak. Economic perceptions, as well, may not be playing out in reality. Sentiment among consumers and businesses rose after Mr. Trump’s election, but so far, it has not been matched by a comparable increase in spending by either group. “We’ve given up on waiting for hard data to improve,” said Rob Martin, an economist at Barclays. “It’s been five months since confidence increased. If consumption were going to improve, it would have already. ” Industries that Mr. Trump emphasized in his campaign — particularly manufacturing — continued to add jobs last month, but at a slower pace. Payrolls in the retail sector, meanwhile, declined further, shedding tens of thousands of jobs. The response from the White House, which crowed last month after more than 200, 000 jobs were produced in Mr. Trump’s first full month in office, was muted Friday. Gary D. Cohn, the former Goldman Sachs executive who is director of the White House’s National Economic Council, emphasized the decline in the unemployment rate. “When you look at the jobs report as a whole, I think there’s an awful lot of good news in here,” he told Fox Business Network. Congressional Democrats took a dimmer view. Also watching closely are the policy makers of the Federal Reserve, which has begun to reel in its stimulus. It raised interest rates last month and said it planned to do so twice more this year. But signs of a sluggish economy could affect how quickly the central bank moves. “This raises the stakes for the April report,” said Joshua Shapiro, chief United States economist at MFR, a research firm. “You need to see things pick up in April, or else March won’t look like aberration. ” The market reaction, in any case, was sanguine, with stocks essentially flat for the day. Barclays has said it expects the economy to actually slow in the first half of 2017, before rebounding modestly in the second half. “Given this data today, we see downside risk in our already soft expectations for the first half,” Mr. Martin said. The consensus view on Wall Street is that the economy expanded at an annual rate of 1 percent last quarter, with the pace of growth in the current second quarter rising to 3. 5 percent. The March report represents a snapshot of the economy, not an oil painting. And snow and cold weather in many parts of the country clearly took a toll on the construction sector, which barely grew after gaining a total of more than 90, 000 jobs in January and February. “January and February were abnormally warm, so they were pumped up, and you had some payback in March exacerbated by the harsh weather,” Mr. Shapiro said. On Capitol Hill, Republicans acknowledged a view of the report. “The economy clearly should be generating higher job growth,” said Representative Pat Tiberi, an Ohio Republican who is chairman of the Joint Economic Committee. “However, the unemployment rate fell to the lowest rate since before the recession. ” The top Democrat on the committee, Senator Martin Heinrich of New Mexico, ignored the new jobless rate and focused instead on the disappointing payroll gain. “Today’s jobs numbers show there are still challenges ahead that this administration must address,” Mr. Heinrich said. “President Trump promised that he would be ‘the greatest jobs producer that God ever created.’ Democrats on the Joint Economic Committee will hold him to this promise. ” Last month, when February’s payroll gain turned out to be much better than expected, Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary, claimed credit for Mr. Trump. Mr. Spicer called the job creation a result of “the surge in economic confidence and optimism that has been inspired since his election. ” Part of the problem for the administration is that its legislative accomplishments in the first hundred days are falling far short of the expectations — notably, for tax cuts and infrastructure spending — since the election. Whether or not they support Mr. Trump, mainstream economists say it will take many months for policy shifts in Washington to move a economy with 153 million workers. What is more, the tepid numbers for March mask pockets of strength. For example, a few sectors like professional and business services are holding up well, adding 56, 000 jobs last month. Hyland, a business software designer in Westlake, Ohio, plans to hire at least 300 people this year, Bill Priemer, its chief executive, said. That is a 15 percent increase in head count at the company, and it is a sign of just how quickly demand is growing for new technologies like content management, one of Hyland’s specialties. “We are growing faster than the economy and the enterprise software sector overall,” Mr. Priemer said. “Digital transformation is a big buzzword, but it’s just fancy terminology to describe how business can use technology to streamline their operations. ” On the other hand, new technologies are upending venerable industries like retailing, as consumers shift to shopping online and department stores close. The retail sector lost almost 30, 000 jobs last month, after a decline of about 31, 000 in February. The headline numbers for hiring and the unemployment rate are derived from separate surveys by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, one of establishments, the other of households. Although the two tends to converge over time, they can vary widely from month to month, and March was one of those times. So while businesses showed an anemic gain of 98, 000 jobs in terms of payrolls, households reported a 472, 000 increase in employment, without any fall in labor participation. That explains why the unemployment rate could fall by 0. 2 of a percentage point, even as the number for job creation was far short of expectations. “I think the headline number was clearly impacted by the weather,” said Michelle Meyer, head of United States economics at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. But at some point she said, rosy economic expectations are likely to catch up with a more sober reality. “Sentiment surveys moved sharply higher after the election on expectations of policies and tax reform,” she added. “So far, that hasn’t happened, and the big question is whether confidence can remain as strong. ” | 0fake |
Oroville Lake Down 52 Feet, but 9 Upstream Reservoirs to Flood | Although the California Department of Water Resources is claiming Oroville Dam is safer because the water level has fallen by 52 feet, that feat was largely accomplished by 9 upstream reservoirs that are all expected to flood as another Pineapple Express brings 48 hours of heavy rain through Wednesday. [The last winter storm caused an evacuation of about 200, 000 people downstream from Lake Oroville due to the threat of a catastrophic failure of the dam. Although most Americans have been told that the fissure in the side of the dam has been stabilized by opening up the spillway to drain the lake, and helicopters have dropped huge bags of rocks in a crack, the water flow into Oroville Lake has been restricted by overfilling the upstream reservoirs. The nine State Water Project and PGE earthen reservoirs on the Upper Feather River Watershed that feed directly into Lake Oroville were already at maximum capacity prior to the new storms. This next storm is expected to bring inches of rain in the valleys. But the Central Sierras are expecting 10 inches of snow and rain over the next 7 days. With all the higher elevation reservoirs brimming, Supervisor Kevin Goss from mountainous Plumas County told the Sacramento Bee, “I’m watching, and I’m worried. ” Flooding from the last set of storms shut down escape in all directions in his Indian Valley district. The towns of Greenville and Taylorsville were isolated, and sewer systems for the sparsely populated county suffered extensive damage as many roads washed out. The flooding from the new storm is expected to be much more serious. In addition, tRelatively warm temperatures of up to 49 degrees in nearby Tahoe caused snowmelt this week. With the “Snow Water Equivalents” for this time of year in the Central Sierras at 183 percent and the Southern Sierras at 205 percent the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration warned that the mountains could see significant runoff. The total capacity of the upstream dams is about 400, 000 acre feet, or about one tenth the capacity of Lake Oroville. Last week, the upstream reservoirs were allowed to fill in an effort to take pressure of Oroville Dam. But with the dams full, virtually 100 percent of the rain and runoff from the coming storms will flow into Oroville Lake. Despite the upstream restricting of water flow, Lake Oroville added over 1 million acre feet of water in three days during the last storm. Engineers from the California Department of Water Resources hope that a combination of releasing 800, 000 acre feet of water from the lake will be enough to prevent another Oroville Dam flood. | 0fake |
U.S. general backs Germany to host new NATO operations command | BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany is best suited to host a new NATO military logistics command, the top U.S. Army general in Europe said on Tuesday. NATO allies this month backed plans for two new military headquarters - an Atlantic command and a logistics command - to help protect Europe in the event of a future conflict. Lieutenant General Ben Hodges told the Berlin Security Conference that Germany - already host to many U.S. troops - was well-placed to take on the logistics role given its geographical location in the heart of Europe, and its existing capabilities. I can t imagine any other country being better suited than Germany to take on that responsibility, from a geographical standpoint, a capability standpoint, Hodges said. Diplomats have said that Germany is eager to host the logistics command but no decisions have been made. Hodges, who is due to retire next month, has repeatedly pushed for increased focus on improving the ability to move troops and equipment across Europe in the event of a future conflict. NATO began beefing up its defenses after the 2014 annexation by Russia of Ukraine s Crimea peninsula, deploying troops to the Baltic states and Poland, strengthening its presence in the Black Sea and starting to modernizing its forces. The Kremlin, which denies harboring any aggressive intentions toward Europe, has condemned the moves as an attempt to encircle Russia. | 0fake |
Hong Kong leader says Asian financial hub faces 'grave' challenges | HONG KONG (Reuters) - Hong Kong s Chief Executive Carrie Lam warned in her maiden policy speech on Wednesday that the city faced grave challenges and must develop a more diversified economy, unveiling a mix of housing and tax relief policies to raise competitiveness. Hong Kong, one of the world s costliest cities, has battled rising income inequality, the slow implementation of marquee public projects, political tensions with its mainland China and a slide in its competitiveness. In the face of competition from other economies as well as the rise of protectionism in recent years, Hong Kong is facing increasingly grave challenges. We must develop a high value-added and diversified economy, Lam said. Hong Kong has seen its lucrative position as the world s gateway to China eroded as the mainland rapidly builds up its own ports, airlines and financial powerhouses, and opens its markets to foreign investors. Lam said she would bolster support for small and medium enterprises in the Asian financial hub by cutting company profits tax to 8.25 percent from 16.5 percent for the first HK$2 million ($256,000) of earnings. Earnings after that would be taxed at the current 16.5 percent. On Hong Kong s soaring housing prices, Lam said that despite a raft of property cooling measures, the government had no magic wands . Lam pledged to increase land supply where possible and launch a new subsidized starter homes scheme to help families not eligible for cheap-rental public housing. The first phase would provide around 1,000 residential units. Even if our housing policy has broad community support, it takes time to find land for increasing the housing supply, conceded Lam, Hong Kong s first female leader. Hong Kong residents are squeezed into an average living space of just 150 square feet (14 square meters) per person, and apartments are the most expensive in the world, according to a recent UBS report ranking 20 global cities including New York, London, Tokyo and Paris. Even residents with good jobs and wages have struggled to get on the property ladder. Chinese President Xi Jinping also voiced concern over the city s property market when he visited on July 1 for the 20th anniversary of the former British colony s handover to China. Some observers felt Lam s housing initiatives were not bold enough, with local property shares giving up initial gains and closing the day down 1.8 percent. Property shares are down because of the lack of mention of farmland conversion to build first homes. But the chief executive cannot be too specific, so the sell-off doesn t reflect the real picture, said Nicole Wong, a property analyst with CLSA. Lam also said Hong Kong would aim to double expenditure on research and development over the next five years, to 1.5 percent of annual GDP from 0.73 percent, in a bid to bolster its sputtering tech prospects with neighboring Chinese city Shenzhen having galloped ahead in recent years. She said the government needed to be more proactive , and to seize opportunities from China s Belt and Road push to extend trade and transport networks to Europe. She also said the city needed to better integrate with China s Guangdong province as part of a regional economic development blueprint. Income inequality is at its highest level in over four decades in the city of 7.3 million people, stoking discontent that has seen large-scale protests in recent years over calls for more affordable housing as well as democracy. Since taking office on July 1, Lam has sought to heal social divisions amid growing tensions with China, and to forge a softer and more socially engaged leadership style than her predecessor, the staunchly pro-Beijing Leung Chun-ying. Britain returned Hong Kong to China in 1997 under a one country, two systems formula which guarantees wide-ranging autonomy and judicial independence not seen in mainland China. But tensions have heightened in recent years amid concern over Beijing s interference in Hong Kong, sparking large scale pro-democracy protests and some calls for outright independence from China. Lam said Hong Kong has the responsibility to say no to any attempt to threaten our country s (China s) sovereignty, security and development interests, while re-iterating that it was the constitutional responsibility of the government to implement new national security laws, known as Article 23. We need to have a society that is united, harmonious and caring, she said. | 0fake |
Lawmakers vow to fight proposed cuts in Chesapeake, Great Lakes clean-ups | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump’s proposal to defund programs to clean up the Chesapeake Bay and the Great Lakes, two of the country’s largest water systems, brought scorn on Thursday from a bipartisan array of lawmakers who vowed to fight the cuts. Members of Congress said the proposal to wipe out Environmental Protection Agency funds to clean up the Great Lakes and the fragile Chesapeake Bay ecosystem threatened the environment as well as tens of billions of dollars in economic benefits. Senator Rob Portman, a Republican of Ohio, rejected the proposed spending cut for the Great Lakes program. “I have long championed this program, and I’m committed to continuing to do everything I can to protect and preserve Lake Erie,” he said in a statement, referring to the Great Lake that forms his state’s northern border. Without specifically addressing the clean-up program cuts, White House Budget Director Mick Mulvaney said the administration’s proposed 31 percent reduction in EPA spending reflected the president’s view that a big shift was needed in government policies on the environment. “You can expect reductions in the EPA that don’t line up with the president’s view on things like global warming and alternative energies,” Mulvaney told reporters during a briefing on the budget plan, which would slash the EPA budget by $2.6 billion. Trump has called climate change “a hoax.” The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment about lawmakers’ criticism of the programs’ elimination. Trump’s proposal would eliminate $73 million a year that six states and the District of Columbia receive to clean up the Chesapeake, the largest U.S. estuary. The bay is slowly recovering under a federal-state plan to reduce inflows of nitrogen, phosphorus and sediments from farms and urban development. Also on the block is the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative, which has disbursed about $300 million a year to help eight states in the region recover industrial sites in harbors, block invasive species like the Asian carp and stem fertilizer run-off from farmland. Trump’s budget proposal, released on Thursday, says states and local governments should shoulder the funding burden for such projects, while the EPA focuses on top national priorities. Senator Debbie Stabenow, a Democrat whose state of Michigan borders four of the five Great Lakes, in a statement called the proposed cuts “outrageous.” The clean-up program, she said, “has always received bipartisan support and continues to be absolutely critical to protecting our Great Lakes.” A Brookings Institution study last year found that carrying out the Great Lakes clean-up plan would generate $80 billion to $100 billion in economic benefits, including tourism, increased property values and reduced costs to local governments. Portman and Stabenow were among 11 senators who sent a letter to EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt before the proposed budget came out. The lawmakers urged him to keep Great Lakes spending intact. Another 17 lawmakers sent a similar letter to Trump about the Chesapeake Bay program. Senator Mark Warner, a Virginia Democrat, called the planned cuts short-sighted because the Chesapeake Bay generated millions of dollars in revenue each year and supported thousands of fishery and tourism jobs. “I will be working with all my colleagues from the region to urge congressional appropriators to reject the President’s request and ensure we don’t endanger the years of progress that have been made in restoring the health of the Chesapeake Bay,” he said in a statement. Senator Chris Van Hollen, a Democrat of Maryland, also said the spending cuts would damage the environment and threaten jobs that depend on a healthy Chesapeake Bay ecosystem. Representative Andy Harris, the sole Republican in Maryland’s congressional delegation, defended the budget proposal. He said he would work with the Trump administration to prioritize EPA programs that would preserve the bay clean-up, but increases in defense and national spending were needed to keep Americans safe. Amelia Chasse, a spokeswoman for Maryland Republican Governor Larry Hogan, said in an email that if the proposed Chesapeake Bay cuts program went through, Hogan’s administration would try to deal with them in the state budget next year. “He will always fight to protect our state’s most important natural asset,” she said. The Chesapeake Bay Foundation, a conservation group, called on supporters to urge Congress to fight the proposed cuts. Bob Irvin, president of American Rivers, an environmental group, said the cuts threatened the success that had been made with the Chesapeake Bay. “I can’t imagine that any people of the people in the Chesapeake Bay region, when they voted in the last election, that they were voting to stop the clean-up of the Chesapeake Bay,” he said in a telephone interview. | 0fake |
’Call of Duty: WWII’ Reveal Trailer Takes the Series Back to Its Roots - Breitbart | Call of Duty is going back to its roots with Call of Duty: WWII, “a bold cinematic experience that captures the unforgettable heroism of the soldiers who fought together in a war that changed the world forever. ”[In Call of Duty: WWII, players will take on the role of Ronald “Red” Daniels, a member of the US 1st Infantry Division across the European theatre of World War II. “Joining Allied forces from the U. K. and the French Resistance, across the beaches of Normandy, to the liberation of Paris and ultimately into Germany, the squad must fight alongside a global and diverse cast of characters to achieve victory,” publisher Activision states. Sledgehammer Games and Studio Head Glen Schofield noted the developers “want to respect this great generation of soldiers, tell a realistic story set in a true inflection point in human history, and deliver the best experience of our careers. ” and Studio Head Michael Condrey stated, “The team is dedicated to delivering on the intense nature of war that focuses on the heroism and sacrifice of soldiers in WWII. Our rich narrative driven, campaign, and engaging and innovative multiplayer experience immerse players into the boots of a soldier fighting for freedom in a world on the brink of tyranny. ” A number of new features are coming to the franchise’s multiplayer with WWII. According to Activision, players can look forward to: • HEADQUARTERS, Offering a robust social space dedicated to engagement off the frontlines, Headquarters paves the way for avenues of Multiplayer interaction, recognition and awards unlike anything experienced in the franchise to date. • DIVISIONS, A new way to engage in a player’s Multiplayer career — Divisions immerse players in the heroic journey of enlisting in the world’s most historic war. Choose from a variety of Divisions, including Infantry and Armored Divisions. • WAR MODE, A new Multiplayer experience that immerses players in iconic World War II battles, where Allied and Axis clash in gameplay in the fight for strategic objectives. • BOOTS ON THE GROUND GAMEPLAY, Multiplayer marks a return to iconic boots on the ground Call of Duty gameplay that fans know and love, featuring an arsenal of World War weapons, and intense action. More multiplayer details are scheduled to be revealed at E3 in June. Condrey also teased a new mode that “delivers a unique storyline that’s an take on Nazi Zombies that we think fans are going to love,” although players will have to wait for further information on this mode until a later date. Activision says an invitation for the game’s closed beta later this year will also be given to those who . Call of Duty: WWII releases November 3 on Xbox One, Playstation 4, and PC. | 0fake |
Transgender military personnel sue Trump over service ban | (Reuters) - Five transgender members of the U.S. military including Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans sued President Donald Trump on Wednesday, challenging his ban on transgender people serving in the armed forces. Trump said on Twitter on July 26 that the U.S. government “will not accept or allow transgender individuals to serve in any capacity” in the military, a reversal of Pentagon policy that the lawsuit said was made without consulting senior military commanders. The surprise announcement, citing healthcare costs and unit disruption, appealed to some in Trump’s conservative political base but created uncertainty for thousands of transgender service members, many of whom came out after the Pentagon said in 2016 it would allow transgender people to serve openly. Trump’s tweets appeared to dismiss findings from a RAND Corporation study commissioned by the Pentagon that found allowing transgender people to serve would “cost little and have no significant impact on unit readiness.” The White House and the Pentagon said they do not comment on pending litigation. The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C. The service members suing the president are three U.S. Army soldiers, one U.S. Air Force airman and one member of the U.S. Coast Guard who are active duty. All have come out as transgender to their commanding officers but are anonymous in the lawsuit, named only as Jane Doe, for fear of retribution, said Jennifer Levi, a lawyer from GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders. The group filed the lawsuit along with the National Center for Lesbian Rights. The American Civil Liberties Union said it was preparing its own lawsuit. The lawsuit said Trump’s tweets violate the rights of the service members to due process and equal protection under the law. It asks the court to declare Trump’s directive as unconstitutional and to issue injunctions to stop it. The defendants are listed as Trump, Defense Secretary James Mattis and other military leaders including Joseph Dunford, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Dunford said in a memo a day after Trump’s tweets that there would be no change in policy until Mattis received an official order from the president. That order has yet to be issued. “In the meantime, we will continue to treat all of our personnel with respect,” Dunford said. Lawyer Levi said the plaintiffs, some of whom are near retirement, need not wait for an official policy because the tweets alone created uncertainty about their futures. | 0fake |
Jailed German-Turkish reporter sees Turkey drifting toward fascism | BERLIN (Reuters) - Deniz Yucel, a German-Turkish journalist detained by Ankara since February, has accused Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan of subjecting his entire society to a regime of fear and said Turkey is drifting toward fascism. Yucel, 44, a correspondent for the newspaper Die Welt, made the remarks in a lengthy interview with the German newspaper die tageszeitung to be published on Saturday. Turkish authorities arrested Yucel, on Feb. 14 on charges of propaganda in support of a terrorist organization, during a wave of arrests prompted by a failed coup attempt in July 2016. Germany is backing a complaint filed by Yucel with the European Court of Human Rights, and has repeatedly called for him and other Germans being held in Turkey to be released. The detentions have contributed to a sharp deterioration in relations between the two NATO allies. In total, Ankara has jailed more than 50,000 people pending trial and suspended or dismissed some 150,000 state workers including teachers, judges and soldiers since the coup, which Turkey blames on the movement of U.S-based cleric Fethullah Gulen. Gulen has denied any role, and condemned the coup. Yucel told the newspaper he remained in solitary confinement at Silivri prison, west of Istanbul. Solitary confinement is torture, he said. Yucel also said that even his prison guards were afraid of making a wrong move: A regime of fear is not directed solely at its critics, but also affects members of the oppressive apparatus. He said Erdogan himself had the most to fear: He knows what to expect if he loses power, and that is why he is subjecting the whole society to his regime of fear. Yucel said he hoped the European Court would act quickly on his case after a Nov. 28 deadline for Turkey to submit its position, but that he was not sure what to expect. He said that, like many of Erdogan s critics, he was disappointed that the court had rejected cases brought by teachers and government workers affected by the crackdown, which Erdogan says is necessary to guarantee Turkey s stability. But I also know the European Court of Human Rights was founded to deal with individual human rights violations, not to stop a whole country drifting into fascism, he said. The newspaper said the interview had been conducted in writing via Yucel s lawyers. | 0fake |
Internet Under Attack Since Transfer to the UN, Washington Prepares for EMP | Internet Under Attack Since Transfer to the UN, Washington Prepares for EMP Posted on Tweet Home » Headlines » Finance News » Internet Under Attack Since Transfer to the UN, Washington Prepares for EMP
Remember how we pondered whether the internet would be shut off (or highly censored) upon being transferred to the UN on October 1st? Just a few weeks later, large swathes of the internet went down. Coincidence or trial run?
Submitted by Jeff Berwick :
We’ll get into that below.
Beforehand, however, there have been a number of new “Executive Orders” straight from the e-pen of Barack O’Bomber in the last few months of a “very strange” variety.
Over the summer, a number of orders were given for succession plans in the case of multiple deaths in numerous US agencies.
And now, Obama just signed an executive order mandating preparations for a future “extreme space weather event” that has the ability to cripple or destroy the North American power grid and other major electrical infrastructure.
Signed on October 13th, the order states, “Space weather has the potential to simultaneously affect and disrupt health and safety across entire continents.”
What is needed, we’re informed, is an “all-of-nation” endeavor, that includes the military space agency (NASA), the private sector, academia, and the insurance industry – among others. Presumably the federal government would “coordinate” all this – i.e.: mandate it.
There are some very strange things afoot! Why this? Why now?
With each passing day it seems we’re getting closer to a major event. Maybe it’s one that causes a war or economic collapse. Perhaps it will be an “EMP” attack masquerading as a “space event.” It’s also possible a long term internet Denial of Service attack could be the cause of collapse. The bankers need a reason to blame for the collapse they’ve engineered.
We’d be less suspicious of what’s going on if the US wasn’t well down the road toward a kind of neo-fascism. It’s one with two kinds of justice (Hillary and the elites versus the rest of us), a state of deepening economic depression and heightened military confrontation with both Russia and China as part of endless serial warfare abroad – and increased repression and censorship at home. In fact, the amount of censorship of alternative media sources is running at an all-time high. Barely a day goes by where I don’t see one source claiming its post/tweet/video have been removed.
Obviously, the free flow of information doesn’t fit into this “brave, new world” and thus the US is jettisoning it.
No coincidence, for instance, that the internet changed hands in the beginning of October when the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or ICANN, was handed over to the UN by the US’s own Nobel Peace Prize winner, Barack O’Bomber.
Just about a week ago, we witnessed a massive DDOS attack in the US. According to mainstream reports, it was done by “hackers” and naturally Killary Clinton took the opportunity to place blame on Russia. These are the same Russians who she says are behind the Wikileaks emails – which incriminate her – and the same Russians who, she claims, are propping up Donald Trump.
Bloomberg reported that the enormous (and underreported) attack was perpetrated via a Chinese security camera maker. In fact, officials at this Chinese firm admitted that its products, which contained malware, were used to launch the cyber-attack which blocked internet access for millions of users. They then highlighted the threat which they claim is posed by “the global proliferation of connected devices.”
Was this all a coincidence or was it a premeditated attack to test the limits of “control” over the internet? Is it possible that Chinese and US authorities are cooperating to probe internet weaknesses in order to further their ‘net dominance.
Could NASA or the North Atlantic Terrorist Organization (NATO) potentially play a future role in staging an electromagnetic disturbance with the help of the Chinese or the US private sector? These are strange and violent times …
As Franklin D. Roosevelt said, “Nothing happens in politics by accident, if it happens, it was planned that way”.
And, as John Kerry stated, “This little thing called the internet is making it hard to govern.”
They appear to have their sights set on this little thing called the internet, in one way or another, to make sure these absurd conspiracy theorists and “truthers” can’t report on what is actually and factually, going on.
It certainly seems like the US is preparing for something big – maybe a nationwide electro-magnetic catastrophe. One that many reports state would see the population cut by 90% in a matter of months in today’s uber-connected and digitally dependent world.
Last year, we reported on the North American Aerospace Defense Command’s plan to re-use the subterranean Cheyenne Mountain bunker in Colorado Springs. NORAD’s Commander Admiral William E. Gortney, explained that the EMP hardened mountain base would serve as protection from future “electromagnetic pulses”.
Apparently all this arose over concern for NORAD’s supposed vulnerability to a potential North Korean nuclear missile attack. Cartoonish Kim Jong-un, or Lil’ Kim, who couldn’t blow up his own sock drawer if he tried, supposedly has an operational KN-08 nuclear armed missile capable of shutting down the entire North American electrical grid.
Now, combine these points with Vladimir Putin’s promise that only Donald Trump can prevent a potential nuclear war between world superpowers. Then add in Russia’s war drills and emergency preparations plus Germany moving its military equipment to the Eastern borders. It’s beginning to look like Putin is aware of something “big” on the horizon as well – just like Obama and the Pentagon.
For the record, I don’t enjoy doing these blogs. It seems every day I am warning of some cataclysmic event or nefarious plot. I don’t want to do this. I’d rather live on the beach in Mexico and write about cryptocurrencies or fantastic investment opportunities.
But, I feel an obligation to report on these things. Because hardly anyone else seems to even mention it.
Nobody seems to notice, nobody seems to care.
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John Boehner's parting gift to Paul Ryan | Top Dems want White House to call off Part B demo — The next cancer drug shortage | 0fake |
CBS Reporter Asks Putin How Comey’s Firing Will Affect Russia…His Answer Is PRICELESS! [VIDEO] | Russian President Vladimir Putin got sassy with the press when he was approached by a reporter and asked about Comey: What do we have to do with it? I m off to play hockey with my fans Putin s answer when asked how Comey s firing will affect Russia PRICELESS!HAHAHA #Putin reacts to #ComeyFiring What do we have to do with it? I m off to play hockey with my fans #RussiaInvestigation pic.twitter.com/jLEe6Qw8Uu TRUMP ANOMALY (@ANOMALY1) May 10, 2017THIS ISN T THE FIRST TIME PUTIN S GOTTEN SASSY WITH THE PRESS: PUTIN Steals Famous President Bush Quote In Forceful Denial Of Russian Interference In U.S. ElectionsRussian President Vladimir Putin has denied interfering in the U.S. elections, and he did it by using a famous quote from a U.S. president. Watch my lips, no, Putin said.The Russian strongman made the claim when asked point-blank whether Russia had interfered and whether any evidence to the contrary would get found.He invoked former President Reagan, although the Read my lips quote was actually used by his successor, George H.W. Bush, speaking at a CNBC event on Arctic issues.Putin said claims of Russian interference were lies used for domestic American politics.All those things are fictional, illusory and provocations, lies, Putin continued. All these are used for domestic American political agendas. The anti-Russian card is played by different political forces inside the United States to trade on that and consolidate their positions inside. Then he delivered a friendly message to U.S. audiences. We said on numerous occasions and I reiterate that we are confident And know for sure that opinion polls in the Unites States show that very many people are friendly towards the Russian Federation and I d like to tell these people that we perceive and regard the United States as a great power with which we want to establish good partnership relations. House Speaker Paul Ryan said Thursday in an interview with CBS News, We all knew Russia was trying to meddle with our election. And we already know right now they re trying to do it with other countries. Ryan continued: The world s super power, the American government needs to do everything we possibly can, not only to undercut what they re trying to do but to uncover what they re trying to do and help our allies prevent it from happening. Putin also said Thursday he is ready to meet with Trump if Finland hosts an Arctic summit. Finland is set to take over the rotating leadership of the Arctic Council.For entire story: Daily Mail | 1real |
SHE’S GOT THE SCOOP! CATHERINE HERRIDGE: “Obama Put His Hands On The Scales Of Justice” [Video] | 1real | |
US faces calls to ‘walk away’ from Iran talks | A leading Republican critic of the Iranian nuclear talks is calling on the U.S. to "walk away" from the table after negotiators missed a key deadline, while other lawmakers joined in voicing concern that Iran could extract critical final-hour concessions in the scramble to salvage an agreement.
Negotiations resumed in Switzerland on Wednesday but were almost immediately beset by competing claims, just hours after diplomats abandoned a March 31 deadline to reach the outline of a deal and agreed to press on. And as the latest round hit the week mark, three of the six foreign ministers involved left the talks with prospects for agreement remaining uncertain.
Amid the confusion, Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., told Fox News he's concerned the framework of a deal could allow Iran keep its uranium stockpiles and continue to enrich uranium in an underground bunker.
"You have to be willing to walk away from the table and to reapply leverage to Iran," Cotton said. "And the fact that they're not willing to do that, that we're still sitting in Switzerland negotiating when three of our negotiating partners have already left just demonstrates to Iran that they can continue to demand dangerous concessions from the West."
Speaking on MSNBC, former Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean seemed to agree. He said that while President Obama is "right" to seek a deal, it might be time to "step away" from the table and make clear that the U.S. is not backing off key positions -- including on Iran's uranium stockpile and the pace of sanctions relief.
"I am worried about this," Dean said.
Rep. Martha McSally, R-Ariz., also told Fox News "we're potentially [legitimizing] them having a nuclear infrastructure." She added: "We don't know exactly what's behind closed doors."
Despite all sides agreeing to blow by their deadline in pursuit of a rough agreement, even the White House threatened to abandon the talks if Iran wouldn't budge.
"If they're unwilling to make those kinds of commitments that give us that assurance -- and by us I mean not just the United States, I mean the international community -- then we'll have to walk away from the negotiating table and consider what other options may be available to us, and there is certainly the possibility that that could happen," White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said Tuesday.
Earnest indicated Wednesday that's still an option but called the scenario "hypothetical" as talks are "making some progress." He said talks continue to be "productive" but that "we have not yet received the specific, tangible commitments we and the international community require."
On Tuesday, negotiators had been trying to agree to simply a joint statement that could justify talks continuing until a final June deadline.
Iran's deputy foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, told reporters that if the sides make progress on the text of a joint statement, then that could be issued by the end of the day. But he suggested the statement would contain no specifics.
A senior western official quickly pushed back, saying that nothing about a statement had been decided and that Iran's negotiating partners would not accept a document that contained no details.
The German Foreign Ministry tweeted that "nothing is agreed," although "progress is visible."
Araghchi named differences on sanctions relief on his country as one dispute, along with disputes on Iran's uranium enrichment-related research and development.
"Definitely our research and development program on high-end centrifuges should continue," he told Iranian television.
The U.S. and its negotiating partners want to crimp Iranian efforts to improve the performance of centrifuges that enrich uranium because advancing the technology could let Iran produce material that could be used to arm a nuclear weapon much more quickly than at present.
The exchanges reflected significant gaps between the sides, and came shortly after the end of the first post-deadline meeting between U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, his British and German counterparts and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif in the Swiss town of Lausanne. They and their teams were continuing a marathon effort to bridge still significant gaps and hammer out a framework accord that would serve as the basis for a final agreement by the end of June.
Eager to avoid a collapse in the discussions, the United States and others claimed late Tuesday that enough progress had been made to warrant an extension after six days of intense bartering. But the foreign ministers of China, France and Russia all departed Lausanne overnight, although the significance of their absence was not clear.
Kerry postponed his planned Tuesday departure to stay in Lausanne, and an Iranian negotiator said his team would stay "as long as necessary" to clear the remaining hurdles.
Officials say their intention is to produce a joint statement outlining general political commitments to resolving concerns about Iran's nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief. In addition, they are trying to fashion other documents that would lay out in more detail the steps they must take by June 30 to meet those goals.
The additional documents would allow the sides to make the case that the next round of talks will not simply be a continuation of negotiations that have already been twice extended since an interim agreement between Iran, the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany was concluded in November 2013. Obama and other leaders, including Iran's, have said they are not interested in a third extension.
But if the parties agree only to a broad framework that leaves key details unresolved, Obama can expect stiff opposition at home from members of Congress who want to move forward with new, stiffer Iran sanctions. Lawmakers had agreed to hold off on such a measure through March while the parties negotiated. The White House says new sanctions would scuttle further diplomatic efforts to contain Iran's nuclear work and possibly lead Israel to act on threats to use military force to accomplish that goal.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu continued to question the course of talks on Wednesday.
He said Iran views Israel's destruction as non-negotiable, "but evidently giving Iran's murderous regime a clear path to the bomb is negotiable. This is unconscionable," he said. "At the same time, Iran is accelerating its campaign of terror, subjugation and conquest throughout the region, most recently in Yemen."
Netanyahu said a better deal would "significantly roll back Iran's nuclear infrastructure" and link a lifting of restrictions on its nuclear program to "a change in Iran's behavior."
The Associated Press contributed to this report. | 0fake |
ALERT!!! ALERT!!! ALERT!!! World war 3 start at 7:00pm NOV 8 2016 in RUSSIA | source Add To The Conversation Using Facebook Comments | 1real |
Lawyer withdraws from consideration for US Justice Dept post | NEW YORK (Reuters) - New York lawyer George Conway, who had been expected to be nominated to head the U.S. Department of Justice’s civil division, has withdrawn from consideration. Conway, the husband of White House counselor Kellyanne Conway, said in a statement received on Friday that he was “profoundly grateful to the President and to the Attorney General” for selecting him to serve in the Justice Department. However, he said, he had concluded that it is “not the right time for me to leave the private sector.” Conway had notified the White House of his decision on Wednesday in a letter, according to a person familiar with the matter. A White House spokeswoman referred a request for comment to the Justice Department. A Justice Department spokesman declined to comment on the withdrawal. “We don’t comment on personnel matters,” the spokesman, Ian Prior, said in a statement. Conway joins a number of potential hires who have withdrawn from consideration for posts in the Trump administration in recent weeks, including candidates for director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation after President Donald Trump fired James Comey. It has been increasingly difficult to attract people to work in the administration, Reuters reported last month, citing sources. Conway, a Harvard University and Yale Law School graduate, is a partner at the prestigious New York law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz. He has worked on major securities and takeover matters, including a 2010 case in which the U.S. Supreme Court said federal securities laws typically do not apply to conduct in foreign countries. That decision has likely saved companies billions of dollars in potential liability. Conway also has been involved in politically charged cases, including a behind-the-scenes role in the sexual harassment lawsuit that former Arkansas state employee Paula Jones brought against then-President Bill Clinton. That case led to the eventual impeachment of Clinton on charges stemming from his relationship with a White House intern, Monica Lewinsky. Kellyanne Conway was Trump’s campaign manager before taking her White House post. The Republican pollster and political strategist has been one of the administration’s most visible faces. The Conways, who have four children, just purchased a nearly $8 million mansion in Washington’s Massachusetts Avenue Heights. Wachtell does not have an office in Washington. | 0fake |
Prison Officers face gaol for striking over prison overcrowding. More soon. | Posted: Nov 15th, 2016 by Guest Click for more article by Guest .. More Stories about: Ticker | 1real |
Cambodia's opposition puts out banners calling for leader's release | PHNOM PENH (Reuters) - Cambodia s main opposition party on Monday put up banners around the country calling for the release of its detained leader Kem Sokha in a challenge to the government of Prime Minister Hun Sen, which has accused him of treason. Kem Sokha, the leader of the Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP), was arrested on September 3 and charged with plotting against the state. Western countries and human rights groups have condemned the arrest and said it raises severe doubt over whether next year s general election can be fair. In the ballot, Hun Sen could face his greatest electoral test of more than three decades in power. The party s banners, which have a picture of Kem Sokha waving from a vehicle during the last election campaign in 2013, called for the leader s immediate and unconditional release. Hun Sen has said the opposition must drop Kem Sokha and choose a new leader or face a total ban. We will put up the banners, not just here, but we will put up banners at our branches in provinces, said Pol Ham, a deputy leader of the party. Son Chhay, another senior member of the party, said the crisis was worsening and talks were needed to resolve it. The evidence presented against Kem Sokha so far is a video recorded in 2013 in which he discusses a strategy to win power with the help of U.S. experts. Hun Sen says his rival was getting help from the United States. The U.S. embassy has rejected any suggestion of interference in politics. Government spokesman Phay Siphan said the opposition party s banners amounted to pressure on the court and an attempt to interfere with its work. This is unacceptable, he said. A court is scheduled to hold a hearing to determine the legality of Kem Sokha s detention on Tuesday. | 0fake |
Trump, UK's May agree that China must do more on North Korea: UK | LONDON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump and British Prime Minister Theresa May agreed during a telephone call on Tuesday that China must do more to persuade North Korea to cease its missile tests, a spokesman for May said. The prime minister and the president agreed on the key role which China has to play, and that it was important they used all the leverage they had to ensure North Korea stopped conducting these illegal acts so that we could ensure the security and safety of nations in the region, he said. May also said she would also work with EU leaders on further measures the EU could take to pressure the North Korean leadership, the spokesman said. | 0fake |
Syrian Kurdish YPG accuses Turkey of Afrin aggression | BEIRUT (Reuters) - A Syrian Kurdish militia accused Turkish forces on Tuesday of aggression and escalation in the Afrin region, which it controls, on Syria s northwestern border with Turkey. Ankara has sent forces into areas of Syria adjacent to Afrin to oppose the influence of the YPG militia, which it sees as a branch of the PKK movement that has waged a three-decade insurgency inside Turkey. The YPG spearheads the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), an alliance of Kurdish and Arab militias fighting Islamic State with the help of a U.S.-led coalition. Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said last week that Turkey needed to cleanse Afrin of the YPG. On Monday, Ankara accused it of attacking an observation post in Idlib province. In an apparent response to that charge, the YPG said in a statement that Turkey was spreading several rumors about our forces attacking Turkish lands . It said Turkey had fired artillery and machine guns at several villages in Afrin on Monday. Turkey backed an incursion into a part of Syria immediately east of Afrin last year in support of anti-government Syrian rebel factions, which led to frequent clashes with the YPG. Last month, Ankara also sent some troops into Idlib, south and west of Afrin, as part of a deal it has agreed with Russia and Iran to set up so-called de-escalation zones to reduce fighting. | 0fake |
Apple case exposes ongoing government rift over encryption policy | SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Even as the Department of Justice battles Apple in court over access to encrypted data, the Obama administration remains split over backing requirements that tech manufacturers provide law enforcement with a “back door” into their products, according to a dozen people familiar with the internal debate. FBI Director James Comey and the DOJ - who are fighting to access an iPhone tied to the San Bernardino attacks – have long tried and failed to convince other departments to join the broader battle against unbreakable encryption, the current and former government officials said. Federal justice officials argue that strong encryption makes it harder to track criminals, a central contention in the iPhone case. But officials in other departments - including Commerce, State and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy - counter that encryption is integral to protecting U.S. secrets and the technology industry. The issue has been discussed in meetings of the interagency National Security Council and elsewhere. Some government officials also worry that confronting the tech sector on the issue could heighten distrust of American products overseas and drive terrorists and top criminals to seek foreign-made encryption. Several key officials in the National Security Agency and the Department of Homeland Security opposed the fight with Apple based on those concerns, the sources said. Luke Dembosky - until recently the deputy assistant attorney general for national security and the senior cybersecurity prosecutor on some of the biggest hacking cases in recent years - cast the broader disagreements over encryption as “very healthy.” “It’s a very big government, and everyone is trying to do the right thing,” said Dembosky, who last week joined the law firm Debevoise & Plimpton LLP. “There are countries where they don’t have these debates.” NSA Director Michael Rogers has taken a middle ground, saying that strong encryption is important but compromise is desirable. Years of interagency debates over encryption have left the Obama administration lacking a cohesive policy stance on the issue, many tech industry leaders have said. The Justice Department last month persuaded a federal judge to order Apple Inc (AAPL.O) to write software to help unlock an iPhone used by shooter Rizwan Farook in the December attack in San Bernardino. Apple is fighting the order, calling the case an overreach by prosecutors that threatens the security of all iPhones. A hearing on the matter is scheduled for later this month. As is customary in such cases, the decision to take action against Apple was made without consulting the White House, said two sources familiar with the matter. “The DOJ and FBI pursue all such matters independent of the White House,” a senior administration official said. The official added that the White House does not intend to seek legislation mandating back doors. In an interview, John Carlin, assistant attorney general for national security, dismissed suggestions that some administration officials did not support the Justice Department’s action in the Apple case. The effort was never intended to settle the encryption debate, he said, but rather to assist San Bernardino County, which asked for help in unlocking Farook’s county-owned iPhone 5c. The tech industry has united behind Apple, with more than 40 companies this week submitting legal briefs arguing that compliance with the judge’s order would undermine encryption and public trust in Internet security. By contrast, the division among government agencies has left some administration officials in an awkward position of publicly supporting the Justice Department’s case against Apple while also acknowledging the need for strong encryption. They have been more vocal about their concerns behind closed doors, according to four people who have spoken with them or their subordinates. “Just to cut to the chase, I’m not a believer in back doors or a single technical approach,” Defense Secretary Ash Carter told a largely pro-Apple crowd at the RSA security conference on Wednesday. “I don’t think we ought to let one case drive a single solution.” Congress is also divided on the issue, with liberal Democrats joining libertarian Republicans in opposing government back doors. The lack of consensus prompted the White House last year to abandon a push for legislation that would require U.S. technology firms to provide law enforcement a way around encryption. Privately, however, President Obama sought a compromise, asking large telecommunications and technology firms, including Apple and Microsoft, to work toward an “exceptional access” agreement that would provide investigators access to content that is typically encrypted, said two sources with knowledge of the discussion. An Apple spokesman said that the company never seriously considered installing a back door and tried to shift the discussion to a broader conversation about law enforcement cooperation. Either way, Apple CEO Tim Cook lambasted the White House for not publicly affirming support for strong encryption at a January summit in San Jose, Calif. between technology executives and senior national security officials convened largely to discuss online extremism, sources familiar with the meeting said. Cook’s comments aggravated White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough, who thought the iPhone maker was backtracking on its earlier commitment to work collaboratively on resolving law enforcement’s encryption concerns, according to one person with knowledge of the situation. That confrontation helps explain why, after months of apparent respectful disagreement in public and private pursuit of compromise, both sides suddenly came to battle heavily armed. Amid the hostilities between Apple and the FBI, some have called for President Obama to weigh in to help resolve the standoff. “I’m waiting to hear what the president has to say about it,” Democratic Senator Ron Wyden, who supports Apple, said in an interview. “I know [White House Press Secretary] Josh Earnest has said he is for the Justice Department, [but] I want to hear from the president.” | 0fake |
Commander-In-Chief Donald Trump Will Have Terrifying Powers. Thanks, Obama. | Written by Alex Eammons When Donald Trump becomes commander in chief in January, he will take on presidential powers that have never been more expansive and unchecked.He’ll control an unaccountable drone program, and the prison at Guantanamo Bay. His FBI, including a network of 15,000 paid informants, already has a record of spying on mosques and activists , and his NSA’s surveillance empire is ubiquitous and governed by arcane rules, most of which remain secret. He will inherit bombing campaigns in seven Muslim countries, the de facto ability to declare war unilaterally, and a massive nuclear arsenal — much of which is on hair-trigger alert .Caught off guard by Hillary Clinton’s election defeat, Democrats who defended these powers under President Obama may suddenly be having second thoughts as the White House gets handed over to a man they described — with good reason — as “unhinged, ” and “dangerously unfit.” In the years after the 9/11 terror attacks, Vice President Dick Cheney and his legal adviser David Addington dramatically expanded the powers of the presidency, asserting the unilateral right in wartime to ignore legal limits on things like torture and government eavesdropping. Congressional Democrats generally caved , but made a few efforts to push back .The Democrats went silent on executive overreach when Obama was elected, however.When the New York Times revealed Bush’s warrantless wiretapping program in 2005, 60 percent of registered Democrats thought the program was “unacceptable.” But after NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden revealed a dramatically larger surveillance apparatus in 2013, a 61 percent of Democrats said the opposite — presumably because they trusted the man in charge.The Obama administration has counted on that trust repeatedly. When defending the drone program in 2012, instead of referencing its legal standards, administration officials reassured the New York Times that Obama is “a student of the writings on war by Augustine and Thomas Aquinas,” and that CIA director John Brennan is like “a priest with extremely strong moral values who was suddenly charged with leading a war.”After eight years of trusting the President with expanding military power, liberals must now reckon with the fact that Obama will pass the same capabilities to a man who has proposed killing terrorists’ innocent family members, who has said he would do “a hell of a lot worse than waterboarding,” and who has suggested dipping bullets in pigs’ blood is sound counterterrorism strategy.And most of the paltry few legal limitations that regulate the security state could easily be repealed by a President Trump...
Obama has continued the Presidential tradition of going to war without Congress, sometimes in almost absurd ways. In 2011, for example, the White House needed to argue that it could continue bombing Muammar Gaddafi’s forces in Libya without Congressional authorization. So the top lawyer in the State Department sent a memo to Congress arguing that a bombing campaign did not amount to wartime “hostilities,” mainly because the enemy could not fire back.
Even when the Obama administration sought Congressional authorization in 2013 to strike Syrian President Bashar Hafez al-Assad’s forces in retaliation for using chemical weapons, he insisted that he didn’t really need to. And he has not sought out a separate authorization to extend the war on terror to fight ISIS in Syria, ISIS in Libya, Al Shabaab in Somalia, or Boko Haram in Nigeria.
With such expansive war powers, and armed with the broad, Bush-era 2001 Congressional resolution authorizing war “in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism,” the next President could conduct military operations on a whim. Fair Use excerpt. Read full article here . Related | 1real |
The Oil-Gas War Over Syria, in Maps | The Oil-Gas War Over Syria, in Maps Eric Zuesse Turkey’s Anadolu News Agency, though government-run, is providing remarkably clear and reliable diagrammatic descriptions of the current status of the U.S-and-fundamentalist-Sunni, versus Russia-and-Shia-and-NON-fundamentalist-Sunni, sides, in the current oil-and-gas war in the Middle East, for control over territory in Syria, for construction of oil-and-gas pipelines through Syria supplying fuel into the world’s largest energy-market: Europe. Russia is now the dominant supplier of both oil and gas, but its ally Iran is a Shiite gas-powerhouse that wants to share the market there, and Russia has no objection. Qatar is a Sunni gas-powerhouse and wants to become the main supplier of gas there, and Saudi Arabia is a Sunni oil-powerhouse, which wants to become the major supplier of oil, but Saudi oil and Qatari gas would be pipelined through secular-controlled (Assad’s) Syria, and this is why the U.S. and its fundamentalist-Sunni allies, the Sauds, and Qataris, are using Al Qaeda and other jihadists to conquer enough of a strip through Syria so that U.S. companies such as Halliburton will be able safely to place pipelines there, to be marketed in Europe by U.S. firms such as Exxon. Iran also wants to pipeline its gas through Syria, and this is one reason why Iran is defending Syria’s government, against the U.S.-Saudi-Qatari-jihadist invasion, which is trying to overthrow and replace Assad. Here are the most-informative of Anadolu’s war-maps: The first presents the effort by many countries to eliminate ISIS control over the large Iraqi city of Mosul. A remarkably frank remark made in this map is “An escape corridor into Syria will be left for Daesh [ISIS] so they can vacate Mosul”— an admission that the U.S.-Saudi-Qatari team want the ISIS jihadists who are in Mosul to relocate into Syria to assist the U.S.-Saudi-Qatari effort there to overthrow and replace the Assad government: The second is about the Egyptian government’s trying to assist the Syrian government’s defense against the Saudi-U.S.-Qatari invasion of Syria, at Aleppo, where Syria’s Al Qaeda branch is trying to retain its current control over part of that large city. The Saud family are punishing the Egyptian government for that: Here is Russia’s proposed gas-pipeline, which would enable Russia to reduce its dependence upon Ukraine (through which Russia currently pipelines its gas into Europe). Obama conquered and took over Ukraine in February 2014 via his coup that overthrew the democratically elected neutralist Ukrainian President there : In addition, there is the following map from oil-price.com : That map shows the competing Shia (Russia-backed) and Sunni (U.S.-backed) gas-pipelines into Europe — the central issue in the invasion and defense of Syria. On 21 September 2016, Gareth Porter headlined “The War Against the Assad Regime Is Not a ‘Pipeline War’,” and he pointed out some errors in Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s account that had been published under the headline “Syria: Another Pipeline War” . Porter argued: “It’s easy to understand why that explanation would be accepted by many anti-war activists: it is in line with the widely accepted theory that all the US wars in the Middle East have been ‘oil wars’ — about getting control of the petroleum resources of the region and denying them to America’s enemies. But the ‘pipeline war’ theory is based on false history and it represents a distraction from the real problem of US policy in the Middle East — the US war state’s determination to hold onto its military posture in the region.” Porter ignored the key question there, as to why “the US war state” has a “determination to hold onto its military posture in the region.” Opening and protecting potential oil-gas-pipeline routes are important reasons why. Clearly, Kennedy’s documentation that the CIA was trying as early as 1949 to overthrow Syria’s secular government so as to allow to the Sauds a means of cheaply transporting their oil through Syria into Europe, remains unaffected by any of the objections that Porter raised to Kennedy’s article. The recent portion of Kennedy’s timeline is affected, but not his basic argument. Furthermore, any military strategist knows that “the US war state” is intimately connected to the U.S. oil-and-gas industries, including pipelines (“oilfield services”) as well as marketing (Exxon etc.). And Porter got entirely wrong what that connection (which he ignored) actually consists of: it consists of U.S. government taxpayer-funded killers for those U.S. international corporations. Here is how Barack Obama put it , when addressing graduating cadets at West Point, America’s premier military-training institution: Russia’s aggression toward former Soviet states unnerves capitals in Europe, while China’s economic rise and military reach worries its neighbors. From Brazil to India, rising middle classes compete with us, and governments seek a greater say in global forums. And even as developing nations embrace democracy and market economies, 24-hour news and social media makes it impossible to ignore the continuation of sectarian conflicts and failing states and popular uprisings that might have received only passing notice a generation ago. It will be your generation’s task to respond to this new world. The question we face, the question each of you will face, is not whether America will lead, but how we will lead — not just to secure our peace and prosperity, but also extend peace and prosperity around the globe. He was saying there that America’s military is in service to U.S.-based international corporations in their competition against those of Russia, Brazil, China, India, and anywhere else in which “rising middle classes compete with us.” Those places are what Gareth Porter referred to as “America’s enemies.” Economic competitors are “enemies.” Obama thinks that way, and even a progressive journalist such as Porter doesn’t place into a skeptical single-quotation-mark-surround, the phrase ‘America’s enemies’ when that phrase is used in this equational context. On both the right (Obama) and the left (Porter), the equation of a government and of the international corporations that headquarter in its nation — the treatment of the military as being an enforcement-arm for the nation’s international corporations — is simply taken for granted, not questioned, not challenged. RFK Jr. was correct, notwithstanding some recent timeline-errors. Syria is “Another Pipeline War,” and Obama is merely intensifying it. (On 9 November 2015, I offered a different account than RFK Jr. provided of the recent history — the Obama portion — of the longstanding U.S. aggression against Syria; and it links back to Jonathan Marshall’s excellent articles on that, and to other well-sourced articles, in addition to primary sources, none of which contradict RFK Jr.’s basic view, “Syria: Another Pipeline War.”). Another portion of Porter’s commentary is, however, quite accurate: America’s ‘Defense’ (or mass-killing-abroad) industries (such as Lockheed Martin) are not merely servants of the U.S. government, but are also served by the U.S. government: “the US war state’s determination to hold onto its military posture in the region” is protection of the major market — the Middle Eastern market — for U.S. ‘Defense’ products and services. It’s not only America’s firms in the oil, gas, and pipelines, industries, which benefit from America’s military; it is also America’s firms in the mass-killing industries, that do. To the extent that the public (here including Barack Obama and Gareth Porter) do not condemn the presumption that “the business of America is business,” or that a valid function of U.S.-taxpayer-funded military and other foreign-affairs operations is to serve the stockholders of U.S. international corporations, the hell (such as in Syria) will continue. Gareth Porter got lost among the trees because he failed to see (and to point to) that forest. | 1real |
Russia: The West Is Trapped in Its Own ‘Propaganda-Created World’ |
By James Holbrooks
As the American corporate media continues to tow the official line that Russia is working to undermine U.S. elections, the head of the U.K.’s MI5 spoke with the Guardian on Tuesday. It was the first time an acting spy chief has given a newspaper interview in the agency’s 107-year history, and the subject matter important enough to prompt such an atypical occurrence was hardly a surprising one — Russia.
Or, more accurately, Russia as the big bad enemy.
“Russia increasingly seems to define itself by opposition to the west and seems to act accordingly,” MI5 chief Andrew Parker told the Guardian . “You can see that on the ground with Russia’s activities in Ukraine and Syria. But there is high-volume activity out of sight with the cyber-threat.”
“Russia has been a covert threat for decades,” he continued. Then, evoking the U.S. election hacking hype, he added, “What’s different these days is that there are more and more methods available.”
And according to Parker, Vladimir Putin’s Russia is utilizing these methods in “increasingly aggressive ways” to project its global influence:
“It is using its wide range of state organs and powers to push its foreign policy abroad in increasingly aggressive ways — involving propaganda, espionage, subversion and cyber-attacks. Russia is at work across Europe and in the U.K. today.”
The Kremlin was quick to issue a response to the Parker interview, one the Guardian detailed in a follow-up piece .
“Those words do not correspond to reality,” spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said flatly. With regard to alleged U.S. election tampering, he added, “Until someone produces proof, we will consider those statements unfounded and groundless.”
Russia’s embassy in London, meanwhile, stated on Twitter it was “saddened to see a professional trapped to [sic] his own propaganda-created world.” Accompanying that tweet was the movie poster for the 1966 film The Russians are Coming, the Russians are Coming .
In the buildup to the U.S. presidential election on November 8 — and as Russian submarines are spotted off the British coast — Western nations are again amping up the anti-Russian narrative .
On October 7, for instance, the United States officially accused Russia of attempting to intervene in the U.S. political system. Then, just days ago, Western member countries of the G7 alliance agreed that continued sanctions against Russia for its role in Ukraine and Syria were “vital.”
For his part, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s response to such recriminations has been largely one of amusement, as demonstrated by comments he made last week.
While speaking to foreign policy experts in Sochi, Putin dismissed the “hysteria about Russia’s influence on the U.S. presidential election,” adding the “mythical and fictitious” issue has been used to distract the American voter from real problems facing the United States government.
“Does anyone seriously think Russia can somehow influence the American people’s choice?” Putin asked. “Is America some kind of banana republic? America is a great power!”
A great power, the Russian president made certain to note, with a top notch propaganda arm:
“I would like to have such propaganda machine in Russia, but, regrettably, there is no such thing,” Putin said, touching on the bought and paid for nature of Western corporate media. “We don’t have such global media as CNN, BBC and others.” Delivered by The Daily Sheeple
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‘Unbelievable Turmoil’: Trump’s First Month Leaves Washington Reeling - The New York Times | WASHINGTON — The resignation of Michael T. Flynn as national security adviser caps a remarkably tumultuous first month for President Trump’s White House that has burdened the early days of his presidency with scandal, legal challenges, personnel drama and questions about his temperament during interactions with world leaders. Mr. Flynn, a retired Army lieutenant general, lasted only 24 days before his tenure was cut short by an admission that he had misled the vice president and other White House colleagues about the contents of a phone call with the Russian ambassador to the United States. The resignation on Monday night and the continuing turmoil inside the National Security Council have deeply rattled the Washington establishment. Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, railed against the administration on Tuesday, decrying the “dysfunction” of the country’s national security apparatus and accusing the White House of being a place where “nobody knows who’s in charge and nobody knows who’s setting policy. ” Gen. Tony Thomas, head of the military’s Special Operations Command, expressed concern about upheaval inside the White House. “Our government continues to be in unbelievable turmoil. I hope they sort it out soon because we’re a nation at war,” he said at a military conference on Tuesday. Asked about his comments later, General Thomas said in a brief interview, “As a commander, I’m concerned our government be as stable as possible. ” But Mr. Flynn’s departure just added to the broader sense of chaos at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. In record time, the 45th president has set off global outrage with a ban on travelers from countries, fired his acting attorney general for refusing to defend the ban and watched as federal courts swiftly moved to block the policy, calling it an unconstitutional use of executive power. The president angrily provoked the cancellation of a summit meeting with the Mexican president, hung up on Australia’s prime minister, authorized a commando raid that resulted in the death of a Navy SEAL member, repeatedly lied about the existence of millions of fraudulent votes cast in the 2016 election and engaged in Twitter wars with senators, a sports team owner, a Hollywood actor and a major department store chain. His words and actions have generated almost daily protests around the country. “I’ve never been so nervous in my lifetime about what may or may not happen in Washington,” said Leon Panetta, a Democrat who served as chief of staff, secretary of defense and C. I. A. director during a career that spanned nine presidents from both parties. “I don’t know whether this White House is capable of responding in a thoughtful or careful way should a crisis erupt,” he said in an interview on Tuesday. “You can do stuff over a period of time. But at some point, I don’t give a damn what your particular sense of change is all about, you cannot afford to have change become chaos. ” Mr. Trump’s allies note that the president has moved forward in areas that are more typical of the early days of a administration. Mr. Trump nominated a Supreme Court justice 12 days into his tenure, and has issued a dozen executive orders, including ones to limit the influence of lobbyists, reduce regulations, pare the Affordable Care Act, move forward on pipeline construction, end trade deals and speed up deportations. Those accomplishments are catnip for the president’s most fervent supporters across the country, said Sara Fagen, who served as a senior aide and political director for former President George W. Bush. The perspective on the White House is very different far outside the interstate freeway that rings Washington, she said.’ ”“If you’re someone inside the Beltway, you think it’s been really rocky,” she said. “If you are outside the Beltway, you think, ‘That’s why we sent him there.’ There has been a lot of chaos and a lot of growing pains, but they have gotten a lot done. ”” ’Still, half of the president’s cabinet has yet to be confirmed by the Senate, and several other key White House aides have become lightning rods for daily mockery by comedians. It all has official Washington reeling and exhausted as it tries to make sense of — and keep up with — the nearly constant tornado of activity swirling around the president and his advisers. “If you had Obama, you’ve got Trump,” said John Feehery, a veteran Republican strategist, who compared the last several weeks to the chaotic start to Newt Gingrich’s tenure as speaker of the House in 1995. “Newt never settled down. It was always one crisis after another,” Mr. Feehery recalled. “This might be the new normal. People will start getting used to the new normal, but will also be exhausted by it. ” As a candidate, Mr. Trump promised to move quickly to stop illegal immigration, bring jobs back, end trade deals and reduce crime. Central to his campaign agenda was his pledge to be a disruptive force in Washington — and he has certainly done that. Since winning the election, Mr. Trump and his closest aides have embraced the turmoil, viewing it as evidence of their aggressive efforts to fundamentally reorient the government. The West Wing also uses the chaos as a tactical weapon, believing that the flurry of presidential tweets, controversial statements during the afternoon briefing and surprise executive actions work to keep their adversaries, the media and others off balance. On Tuesday, Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary, happily kept reporters waiting while he did “a quick recap of the president’s activity,” proceeding to offer a long list of meetings and phone calls with foreign leaders, female entrepreneurs, local officials and educators. Yet the disruptions have come at a cost: the president has so far made little progress on legislation that would repeal President Barack Obama’s signature health care law. The White House has not proposed a promised infrastructure bill to repair deteriorating roads, bridges and tunnels. And the president’s aides have not yet drawn up plans for an overhaul of the nation’s tax code. “It’s pretty predictable,” Mr. Feehery said. “This guy has never been in government before and he promised to be disruptive. ” It may also have consequences for Mr. Trump’s ability to help Republicans win in the 2018 midterm elections. And Republican campaign experts acknowledge that his chances for winning may hinge on his ability to contain the White House frenzy. “You are processing so much information in a day now. This stuff would have doomed anyone else, just one or two of them,” said Thomas M. Davis, a former Republican member of Congress from Virginia. “They have got to produce something. If all you’ve got is a bunch of executive orders and a Twitter feed, you don’t want to go into an election like that. ” Kevin Madden, who served as a senior adviser to Mitt Romney during both of his presidential campaigns, said Mr. Trump’s voters in 2016 wanted him to overhaul an establishment in Washington, which they view as long on promises, long on process but short on action. “Voters certainly asked for change. They certainly wanted to see disruption,” Mr. Madden said. “But if change begins to look like confusion and disruption morphs into disorder, you risk losing a certain level of confidence with voters. ” | 0fake |
Dutch Men Hold Hands in Solidarity With Attacked Gay Couple - The New York Times | From Amsterdam to New York, London to Havana, Dutch men across the world held hands this week to show solidarity with a gay couple who say they were brutally beaten in Arnhem, the Netherlands. The outpouring of support came after the married couple, Jasper and Ronnie said they were attacked by a gang of youths while holding hands on their way home from a party early Sunday. According to a statement the Arnhem police posted on Facebook, the two said they had been attacked by men wielding bolt cutters one had some of his teeth smashed out. Prosecutors said five teenage suspects would be charged on Thursday with serious bodily harm. The authorities are still investigating the motivation for the attack, which the victims have characterized as a hate crime. The beating caused particular outrage in the Netherlands, which has long prided itself on its tolerance. Amsterdam, the capital, has been a haven for sexual minorities for centuries, and it has marketed itself as the “gay capital of Europe. ” Homosexuality was removed from the Dutch criminal code in 1811, and the Netherlands was the first country in the world to legalize gay marriage, with the first ceremonies in 2001. Gay rights are supported across the political spectrum in the Netherlands. The attack comes as the country has been grappling with growing sentiment, fueled in part by the leader Geert Wilders, who has railed against immigrants and Muslims in particular, saying that “Islamization” is a threat to European liberal values, including gay rights and women’s rights. The populist party of Mr. Wilders, who likens himself to Donald J. Trump, came second in recent Dutch elections. He is an ideological heir of Pim Fortuyn, a politician who derided Islam, immigration and multiculturalism, and who was openly gay. Mr. Fortuyn was killed in 2002, days before his party placed second in national elections. The Dutch news media quoted Gerald Roethof, a lawyer for one of the suspects, as saying that the couple had instigated the fight by acting aggressively toward the teenagers, an accusation the two vehemently denied. Mr. Roethof also denied that bolt cutters had been used, or that the men were targeted because they were gay. But he said his client had acknowledged punching one of the men in the mouth. Mr. 31, told the Dutch public broadcaster NOS that he and his husband seldom held hands in public for fear of provoking an attack. “But we’d had a nice evening, it was late, and we thought we were alone,” he said. Then suddenly six to eight youths set upon them, he said, and “before I knew it, I was on the ground fighting with three men on top of me. ” After the attack, which Mr. 35, recounted on his Facebook page, Dutch politicians, actors, police officers, soldiers and athletes took to the streets, holding hands. Hundreds of people marched through the streets of Amsterdam to show their support for gay rights. The expressions of support grew after the journalist Barbara Berend appealed on Twitter for men, whether straight or gay, to walk hand in hand. Dozens heeded her call and posted photographs of themselves doing just that, often with the hashtag #allemannenhandinhand (all men holding hands). Two politicians — Alexander Pechtold, leader of the party D66, and Wouter Koolmees, a lawmaker in the party — showed up for coalition talks on Monday holding hands. COC Netherlands, an advocacy group for gay rights based in Amsterdam, said the number of reported cases of violence against gay men, lesbians, bisexuals and transgender people had increased to 1, 600 in 2015 from about 400 in 2009. Of the 1, 600, nine resulted in convictions for offenses, including hate crimes. It cautioned, however, that the increase in reporting could also be a result of greater awareness of the issue. | 0fake |
Republican Asks Trump To Roll Back Protections Against Rape On College Campuses | The party of rape is at it again.Republicans are drunk with power and the impending inauguration of a sexual predator has emboldened them to target the strong campus rape rules that universities have been implementing since 2011.North Carolina GOP Rep. Mark Meadows even wrote a list of 300 rules he wants Donald Trump to repeal in his first 100 days in office, including rules that are designed to push back against rape culture on college campuses.According to USA TODAY,One new entry is an April 2011 guidance document from the Department of Education s Office of Civil Rights setting out standards for how universities should handle sexual harassment and sexual violence complaints.Meadows updated report says the guidance has pressured colleges to spend hundreds of millions of dollars and to create vast campus bureaucracies to investigate sexual assault and date rape the incidence of which may be overstated. The guidance virtually dictates one-size-fits-all procedures which provide less protection to the accused, the report claims, and denies the rights of the often-innocent accused. This proves without a shadow of a doubt that Republicans hate women and want to see rape culture flourish on college campuses.Meadows is literally using his time and position to defend rapists instead of the victims these rules are designed to protect. There is a huge amount of evidence that campus sexual assault is a problem, End Rape on Campus director of education Sofie Karasek said in response to Meadows claims, pointing out that the number of false rape accusations is between 2% and 8% on par with the rate of false accusations for other crimes. Young women across the country now have to be more concerned about a Trump presidency more than ever before because it is clear that Republicans intend to do more to benefit rapists over the next four years while trying to repeal every protection and right women have gained over the last few decades, including the right to choose. Let s not forget that Republicans want to force rape victims to have their rapist s baby.Let s also not forget that Republicans have made many offensive statements about rape over the years, with the consensus being that women should just lay back and enjoy being raped.Meadows is certainly making advocates for legal rape happy. They want Trump to make rape legal across the country, and rolling back these rules would be a step toward that evil goal.One would hope that Ivanka Trump would step up and tell her dad that he should not support such an agenda, but right now, Republicans think they have a puppet in the White House who will do whatever they want him to do, and that makes Trump and the GOP incredibly frightening.Featured Image: Woman s Survival | 1real |
Lebanese army gets two A-29 light-attack aircraft from U.S. | HAMAT, Lebanon (Reuters) - The United States delivered two A-29 Super Tucano light attack aircraft to Lebanon s army on Tuesday, a sign of continued U.S. support despite Israeli accusations that the Lebanese military is controlled by Hezbollah. The planes will be used as armed observation aircraft, a security source in Lebanon said, and represent a big upgrade for the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF). Earlier this month, U.S. ally Israel said Hezbollah, an Iran-backed Shi ite Muslim movement, had gained control over Lebanon s conventional military, a charge the Lebanese army denies. Hezbollah, which was designated as a terrorist group by the U.S. State Department in 1997, last fought Israel in a war in 2006. Lebanon is formally in a state of war with Israel. The significant increase in LAF combat capability that this aircraft represents will ensure that the LAF will remain a national unifying force, a bulwark against extremism and terrorism, said U.S. Ambassador Elizabeth Richard. The Islamic State militant group held a pocket of land straddling Lebanon s border with Syria until August. Over the last decade, the U.S. government has invested over $1.5 billion in training and equipment, and has trained over 32,000 Lebanese troops, Richard said. We have recently announced another $120 million in foreign military financing, which brings the total investment in the LAF to over $160 million just this year, she said. The United States will deliver another four Super Tucanos to Lebanon. The two new aircraft - which have advanced combat and surveillance capabilities - will make a qualitative leap in improving the aerial capabilities of the LAF, said Lebanese Army Commander General Joseph Aoun. | 0fake |
Puerto Rico creditors cancel lawsuit after governor's emergency order | SAN JUAN (Reuters) - - Creditors of Puerto Rico’s Government Development Bank on Wednesday withdrew a lawsuit that sought to prevent a run on the bank ahead of a $422 million debt payment due on May 1. Hedge funds including Brigade Capital Management and Claren Road Asset Management, which hold some of GDB’s $3.75 billion in debt, said in a statement that the lawsuit had no purpose now that Puerto Rico Governor Alejandro Garcia Padilla has declared a fiscal emergency at the bank. The emergency declaration, issued on Saturday, prevents GDB from lending and paying certain debts, and blocks depositors from withdrawing any money not required to fund essential services. This is essentially what the creditors had sought in their lawsuit, which was filed four days before Garcia Padilla’s declaration. Puerto Rico faces $70 billion in total debt, a 45 percent poverty rate, and a shrinking population, all of which threaten to collapse its economy. GDB owes creditors $422 million on May 1, a payment Garcia Padilla has said it cannot afford. The emergency declaration aimed to keep money in the bank while the bank negotiates a restructuring with creditors. While the U.S. territory has missed some minor debt payments in the last year, a default at GDB - the primary liquidity source for the island’s public entities - would be by far the most significant. Default would also likely push the bank into receivership. Efforts to avoid that fate parallel a push by federal lawmakers to find a legislative solution to Puerto Rico’s debt. | 0fake |
With Zero Liability, A Gun Was Just Made To Look Like This Toy (IMAGES) | When you re given a free pass by the government to pretty much make whatever you want with no responsibility if something devastating were to happen because of your product, you d probably make whatever the hell you wanted with no remorse. After all, profit is more important that human life, right? At least, that s what the government is telling gun manufacturers with the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act. The law, prohibit(s) civil liability actions from being brought or continued against manufacturers, distributors, dealers, or importers of firearms or ammunition for damages, injunctive or other relief resulting from the misuse of their products by others. With one of the reasons for the law literally being, To prevent the use of such lawsuits to impose unreasonable burdens on interstate and foreign commerce. In other words, they don t want any silly lawsuit to get in the way of profit.On paper, it may look like it makes sense to not hold gun manufacturers liable for how their product is used. After all, it s not their fault if a gun is not handled properly or used to harm someone else. However, what so many fail to see is the fact that with no responsibility it gives gun manufacturers a free pass to basically make whatever they want, regardless of public safety. If they can make it, people will buy it, and after that, well, they re off the hook.So, with all that being said, gun manufacturer Precision Syndicate, LLC made a gun for a client to look like the gun from Nintendo for the game Duck Hunt. Calling it the Nintendo Glock. The gun literally looks like a toy.via Facebook Here s the toy for comparison: It was always fun Duck Hunting and then Switching to Super Mario Bros. For some reason I would panic when I thought I shot the poor pup! ??? who else had fun with this? #retro #retrogaminglife #nintendo #nintendocontroller #nintendozapper #zapper #supermariobros #duckhunt #nintendocartridge #1985A photo posted by [CXG]Conspiracy Xtreme Gaming (@conspiracyxtremegaming) on Mar 5, 2016 at 11:35pm PSTHowever, after posting the picture to their Facebook page about the gun, they apparently got two reactions; request for purchase, and/or outrage. All in all, the image got over 8,000 comments, and nearly 150 thousand shares. They then had to make a follow-up post stating:In light of the Nintendo Glock drama, we feel that the media and our fans need to know that this firearm will not be mass produced nor will it ever be. This is a one off custom build for a friend of ours. Do to the thousands of emails and messages we have received in the past 2 days we have been unable to contact everyone in a timely manner, please be patient we will get to you as soon as possible. Thank you all for your support! Oh, and please.. keep your guns locked up and away from children, it s common sense.via FacebookHow nice of them to be condescending enough to remind people to lock up their guns to keep them away from children. If only they could use that common sense know-how to think twice before making a gun that looks exactly like a popular toy that children would want to play with.Now, say this gun were to get into the hands of a child for any number of reasons. This gun manufacturer is essentially off the hook, because assuming it functions properly and has no mechanical faults that cause injury, if someone were to just use the gun, the maker has no liability according to the law.There will certainly be people who disagree that gun manufacturers should have liability over how their product is used, but when something is made that so obviously could be mistaken for a toy, a toy that a child could point and shoot, there needs to be better well regulated standards to guns. After all, the Second Amendment was written for the intent to arm the state militias, not so gun enthusiasts can have firearms that look like toys or so that gun manufacturers can make as much profit as possible.Featured Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images | 1real |
Texas Students Skip School to Protest Arrests of Violent Criminals | High school students from Austin, Texas, skipped school to protest the arrest by immigration officials of violent criminals and people who sexually assault children. The truant protesters handed out flyers advising illegal aliens of their rights when encountering an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer. [The students are passing out flyers to cars driving by, with advice for dealing with immigration officers by remaining silent pic. twitter. — Brianna Stone (@bristone19) February 17, 2017, Approximately 30 high school students from various Austin schools left the classrooms and gathered near a north Austin HEB store to protest recent immigration arrests. The arrests, which occurred late last week, landed 51 criminal aliens in jail facing deportation, Breitbart Texas reported. Among the 51 criminal aliens rounded up by ICE agents on Thursday and Friday were 16 convicted criminals. Those included a Mexican national previously deported following a conviction for aggravated assault a Salvadoran national who pleaded guilty to sexual assault of a child and another Mexican national convicted of domestic violence as a repeat offender, information obtained by Breitbart Texas from ICE officials revealed. These are the kinds of people whose arrests these students are choosing to protest. Austin high school students protesting ICE raids at the intersection of Rundberg and Lamar. pic. twitter. — Brianna Stone (@bristone19) February 17, 2017, Students chanted, “We are the movement,” according to a report in the Austin . “We want the ICE raids to stop because they’re ruining families. It’s sad and unfair to see families get broken apart,” Lamar High School student Davis Ogbedie told reporters. “We might not change the law, but we’re standing up for ourselves and making a point. ” He told the local newspaper the students were from high schools in Austin and Pflugerville. ICE officers arrested criminal aliens in both communities during the enforcement action. “We are the movement” pic. twitter. — Brianna Stone (@bristone19) February 17, 2017, The students gathered at Rundberg Lane and Lamar Boulevard, the scene of several arrests and subsequent protests. They carried homemade signs that read, “Keep Families Together,” and “Blacks, Hispanics, Whites Unite Together. ” No mention was made of the violent criminal arrested by ICE officers. Bob Price serves as associate editor and senior political news contributor for Breitbart Texas. He is a founding member of the Breitbart Texas team. Follow him on Twitter @BobPriceBBTX. | 0fake |
HOW CAN WE TRUST Voting Machine Company Servicing 22 States Who Just Got Busted Making Donation To Clintons? | Here s Wikipedia on Dominion Voting: Yes, they cover half of our states with voting machines If you click on the corresponding highlighted link it now takes you to a closed page. Think they re on to us?This is yet another reason why we must vote TRUMP and drain the swamp in Washington. Make sure when you got that your vote is for TRUMP! We need this election to be a landslide! Please vote but check to verify your choices are right!Via: GP | 1real |
No visas, bad jobs: Venezuelan emigrants reluctantly return home | CARACAS/SAN CRISTOBAL, Venezuela (Reuters) - Early last year, Leandro Colmenares sold his car and his apartment and fled Venezuela s profound economic crisis, joining a wave of emigration to other Latin American countries. Colmenares, a medical equipment repairman, first set up in Panama with $7,000 in hand. When he could not get a visa and struggled to find work, he ended up with odd jobs like painting houses and doing electrical wiring for $25 a day. In Venezuela, I was rubbing shoulders with doctors. Months later I was mopping the floor in a Panama furniture shop, said Colmenares, who has two sons, including one who is disabled. He then tried his luck in Colombia, where he again took odd jobs, mostly cooking. He opened a small cafe with other Venezuelans but it failed. It was bad, I was going hungry. On weekends I ate once, he said. And once again, he could not get a visa. Crushed and having run out of money, Colmenares decided in February he had no choice but return to Venezuela empty-handed and by bus - one of an apparently growing number of Venezuelan emigrants forced to go home after failing to start a new life elsewhere in Latin America. These recent migrants are often poor, hopping on buses to Latin American capitals with as little as a few hundred dollars and scant prospect of finding a decent job. The country I left was bad. When I came back it was worse, said Colmenares, noting steep prices and ever less food on store shelves. He spends his days in his home in poor central Caracas, scraping out a living making dough for corn patties. For decades after World War II, Venezuela s flourishing oil economy made it a destination for mass immigration from southern Europe, with Portuguese bakeries and Spanish bars a common sight across Caracas. But during 18 years of Socialist rule, an increase in crime, economic decay and political protests have prompted emigration to Miami, Madrid, and the rest of Latin America. Sociologist Tomas Paez estimates over 2 million Venezuelans have left the country of 30 million, accelerating in the last two years as the OPEC member s recession has worsened, leading to shortages of vital medicines and food, runaway inflation and lack of formal jobs. While the early diaspora was mostly a middle-class phenomenon, recent migrants are more likely to be poor, heightening the chances that they will struggle. There is no data on returnees but Reuters interviewed 10 Venezuelans who had emigrated after President Nicolas Maduro took office in 2013 only to return. For Miguel Blanco, a Caracas-based sociologist, the degree of poverty among people now leaving the country has led to more of them returning. When migration is triggered by push factors, it can lead the migrant to fail because of lack of money, said Blanco. Pockets of Venezuelan economic migrants, once a relatively rare sight in South America, have sprung up in cities from Bogota to Santiago de Chile. They are often seen hawking traditional corn patties on the streets or offering door-to-door beauty treatments. Panama s head of migration said in August that some 2,000 Venezuelans were setting up there every week, compared with about 500 to 600 before August, when Maduro s government created a legislative superbody that was widely condemned by the opposition and other countries as a power grab. With about 60,000 Venezuelans already in Panama, the government has implemented visas as an entry requirement. Peru has estimated that in the first half of 2017 some 40,000 Venezuelans entered the country. Venezuelan government supporters have said the extent of emigration has been exaggerated. Maduro s administration scoffs at those who leave as selfish and unpatriotic. The Information Ministry did not respond to a request for data. Colombia, which shares a porous border of some 2,219 kilometers with Venezuela, has estimated that about 36,000 Venezuelans enter daily, and that some 2,000 do not immediately return to their country. Gerson Lopez, a 30-year-old graphic designer, said he was paid less by a Colombian beauty product company because he did not have legal documents. Informal work there is very exploitative, said Lopez. Venezuelans are doing the work Colombians don t want to do. Lopez was broke when he returned to Venezuela in late January after being unable to find good work in Bogota. You have to think very hard if you re going to leave, he said, adding bitterly, (But) here you don t have any opportunities. All you do is survive. | 0fake |
Torn Over Donald Trump and Cut Off by Culture Wars, Evangelicals Despair - The New York Times | GRIMES, Iowa — Betty and Dick Odgaard used to own the tiny church next door to their home. They had built it over 13 years into an art gallery, bistro, flower shop and framing service. They even rented out the chapel, with its bright stained glass windows, for social events. But three years ago, the Odgaards refused to rent the quaint site to two gay men for a wedding, saying it would violate their religious beliefs about marriage. The men filed a civil rights complaint, and the Odgaards settled, paying a penalty because it is illegal to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation. After the controversy, regular customers stopped coming. Friends and family members stopped speaking to them. The Odgaards were vilified as bigots and haters. But it was not long before the Odgaards found themselves cast as heroes as well. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, then a Republican candidate for president, visited the Odgaards’ business and videotaped a sympathetic interview with them. They joined a troupe of business owners upheld as Christian martyrs in the nation’s culture wars: the cake baker, the florist and the photographers who stood up for their religious beliefs and lost legal battles. They received a standing ovation at a Cruz rally and signed on as “religious liberty ambassadors” in his campaign. Now, a year later, the Odgaards and other conservative evangelicals interviewed in central Iowa say they feel as if they have been abandoned. Many say that they have no genuine champion in the presidential race and that the country has turned its back on them. Americans are leaving church, marriage is the law of the land, and the country has moved on to debating transgender rights. While other Americans are anxious about the economy, jobs and terrorism, conservative Christians say they fear for the nation’s very soul. Some worry that the nation has strayed so far that God’s punishment is imminent. So, in a year when many voters see nothing but bad choices, many evangelicals feel deeply torn. Long part of a reliable Republican voting bloc, many are appalled to find Donald J. Trump their only alternative to Hillary Clinton. They say he has taken positions all over the map on couples and abortion and does not have the character to be president. Others are still bewildered that Mr. Trump defeated not only Mr. Cruz — a pastor’s son who made “religious liberty” a signature issue — but also half a dozen other conservative Christian contenders they would have gladly supported. Nevertheless, polls show that the vast majority of evangelicals are now coalescing around Mr. Trump, largely out of fear that a President Clinton will appoint liberal Supreme Court justices. The change in America seemed to happen so quickly that it felt like whiplash, the Odgaards said. One day, they felt comfortably situated in the American majority, as Christians with shared beliefs in God, family and the Bible. They had never even imagined that two people of the same sex could marry. Overnight, it seemed, they discovered that even in Iowa they were outnumbered, isolated and unpopular. Everyone they knew seemed to have a gay relative or friend. Mr. Odgaard’s daughter from his first marriage disavowed her father’s actions on Facebook, and his gay second cousin will not speak to him. Even their own Mennonite congregation put out a statement saying that while the denomination opposes gay marriage, “not every congregation” or Mennonite does. Mrs. Odgaard, 64, the daughter of a Mennonite minister, was devastated. “It all flipped, so fast,” said Mr. Odgaard, a patrician who favors khakis and boat shoes. “Suddenly, we were in the minority. That was kind of a scary feeling. It makes you wonder where the Christians went. ” The beginning of the end of the Odgaards’ familiar life came Aug. 3, 2013, when Lee Stafford and Jared Ellars arrived at the Odgaards’ gallery, Görtz Haus. The couple were in a panic because the hotel they had booked for their wedding had gone bankrupt two months before the date, and they had already sent the invitations out. Mr. Odgaard spent about 45 minutes showing them the property and figuring out seating, flowers and how many guests needed meals. It was only when Mr. Odgaard asked if it was a wedding that his tone changed, they said. “I’ll remember these words for the rest of my life,” said Mr. Ellars, 35, a database administrator. “He looked at us and he said, ‘I can’t take your money, and we don’t do anything for free. ’” The couple, together for 13 years, say they never wanted the Odgaards to go out of business. They say they wanted them to stop discriminating against gay people and never put another gay couple through the rejection they experienced. The case was settled in arbitration, and the Odgaards had to pay $5, 000 to Mr. Stafford and Mr. Ellars, which they donated to an program for gay students. Their wedding was held in a barn, officiated by a minister with the Disciples of Christ church that Mr. Stafford attends. To this day, Mr. Stafford, who is 43 and a business systems analyst, is troubled that the debate over religious liberty appears to be “so ” he said. “Their religious beliefs say they don’t approve of gay marriage, but my religious beliefs say that we can,” he said. “Why does their religion trump mine?” About a year ago, the Odgaards sold Görtz Haus to Harvest Bible Chapel, a church that had been meeting in rented quarters. Its senior pastor, Ryan Jorgenson, 36, leads Sunday services in sneakers and jeans. He was trained and sent to Des Moines three years ago by a network of conservative evangelical churches based in Elgin, Ill. that believe the Bible is God’s inerrant word. Mr. Jorgenson jumped at buying the Odgaards’ picturesque property on the busiest street in Grimes, a suburb of Des Moines. He converted the lower floor, where the flower shop once stood, into a children’s ministry, and installed soundproofing to insulate the children’s ruckus downstairs from the electric guitars and drums of the church’s worship band upstairs. He liked the symbolism of converting a landmark site that had represented a defeat for conservative Christians into an outpost for preaching “God’s word, without apology,” he said. The church now draws up to 300 on a weekend, and is already outgrowing the space. On a recent weekday, the secretary sat working on a stool in a hall closet. The staff was planning a conference to teach Christians how to evangelize to atheists, agnostics and Mormons. It is necessary to train believers to hold their own, the pastor said, because “mainstream biblical Christianity is less and less mainstream. ” On Sundays, he notices that half of his neighbors do not even go to church. He expects that more and more Christians will, like the Odgaards, suffer “persecution” for their beliefs. He regularly visits the Capitol in Des Moines to pray with and lobby legislators with the Family Leader, a conservative Iowa group. Mr. Jorgenson was among many Iowa pastors who publicly supported Mr. Cruz, though not from the pulpit, and he is not sure if he will vote for Mr. Trump in November, even though Mr. Cruz has now said he will vote for Mr. Trump. Mr. Jorgenson would not even consider voting for Mrs. Clinton, the Democratic presidential nominee, and said he did not know anyone in his church who would. But asked how much hope he had that Mr. Trump would protect the religious liberty of conservative Christians, Mr. Jorgenson held his two fingers a apart. “My hope is not ultimately in the government,” he said. “I am not of this world. Jesus is going to come back. He’s going to bring the perfect government. Until then, we live in a world of sin. ” Melissa and Tom Berkheimer started attending Mr. Jorgenson’s church after hearing him interviewed on Christian radio. They had become frustrated that their minister “watered down” his sermons and never said a word about marriage even after the Iowa Supreme Court legalized it in 2009. She is an accountant, he a chemist, and they met in a Christian chat room. They had something in common, aside from their faith: Mr. Berkheimer is and Mrs. Berkheimer had lived in Japan, and her children from her first marriage are . Over dinner at a steakhouse recently, the Berkheimers said they had nothing against gay people — a refrain the Odgaards also repeatedly sounded. “My brother was a homosexual,” Mrs. Berkheimer said. Her brother became a Christian before he died of complications from AIDS many years ago, and she named her son after him, she said. She said she became seriously alarmed about the nation in the past year as Congress failed to cut off funding for Planned Parenthood after an group released videos taken surreptitiously of the organization. The Berkheimers are in the “Never Trump” camp. “I’m worried for America if we don’t turn away from abortion,” said Mrs. Berkheimer, who is 48. “I think our country is going to be punished, with a nuclear weapon. I don’t think you can mock God forever. ” She quickly added that she was worried she would sound crazy saying such things. “The Truth” 99. 3 FM, a Christian station that features daily clips of Mr. Jorgenson’s sermons, broadcasts from a drab office building in a shopping center in Des Moines. In a studio on the sixth floor, the host of a daily afternoon talk show, J. Michael McKoy, known as Mac, sat at a broad table recently facing his three . Leaning into the microphone, he asked his listeners, “Do you boycott businesses that go against your walk with Jesus?” Should Christians boycott Target for announcing that transgender people could use the restrooms of their choice, he asked, or Ikea for a winsome ad featuring gay families? Callers’ reactions were mixed. A woman said Target “only cares about political correctness. ” A man pointed out, “Even gay parents need furniture. ” Mr. McKoy steered the conversation to the Odgaards. He had quietly played a part in their story: When Mrs. Odgaard was in the depths of despair over a boycott of Görtz Haus, she often called Mr. McKoy, and he prayed with her. He introduced the Odgaards to Mr. Jorgenson, the young pastor looking for a permanent place for his church. On air, the radio hosts suggested that the Odgaards’ story showed that Americans were developing a double standard on the notion of tolerance. “I just wish that this tolerance went across the board for Christian businesses,” said one host, Frank Thomas Holzhauser, who on air calls himself Frank (the Verse) Thomas — a nod to his facility with Scripture. When the show ended, the hosts debated the election. Only Mr. Holzhauser said he was certain he would vote for Mr. Trump, but he admitted it had caused him to lose some friends who “can’t stomach Trump. ” The others said they had not decided how they would vote. None had supported Mr. Trump in the Iowa caucuses. Mr. McKoy and Chris Rohloff had supported Senator Marco Rubio, Mr. Holzhauser had favored Ben Carson, and Bob Monserrate had backed Mr. Cruz. Mr. Rohloff said he had thought that Mr. Trump was finished last year, the moment he said at a candidates’ forum in Iowa that he had never asked God for forgiveness. “Everyone in the room just went, ‘Are you kidding me?’ Even if you’ve never done it, you should at least know the right answer,” Mr. Rohloff said. “That’s a fundamental thing for Christians. ” But by late September, Mr. McKoy said in a telephone interview that he and his had decided to vote Trump: “It’s the lesser of two evils. And I don’t know by how much. ” Some evangelicals in Iowa said Christians who praised Mr. Trump were giving Christianity a bad name. They blamed evangelicals in the South or “Nascar Christians” who go to church only when car races are not on. Some Republicans are working to lift evangelicals’ enthusiasm. Before Mr. Trump’s arrival at Senator Joni Ernst’s annual Roast and Ride in an arena at the Iowa State Fairgrounds in Des Moines last month, Steve Scheffler was working a crowd of bikers and farmers sitting on hay bales near the stage. Mr. Scheffler, the president of the Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition, used a line borrowed from the conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly: “If you’re looking for a perfect candidate, you will not find Jesus Christ’s name on the ballot. ” He sounded exasperated with Christians who disparaged Mr. Trump. “I hope the good Lord shows more grace to me as a sinner than these people show to Donald Trump,” he said. On a recent Sunday, the Odgaards walked into the church and sat in the rear, where Mrs. Odgaard, an artist whose paintings once filled the space, used to design frames for customers. The seats — stackable banquet chairs that the Odgaards had bought for their wedding business — were nearly full of mostly young worshipers. They rested their coffee cups on the hardwood floor that the Odgaards had stripped of carpet and sanded when they bought the place, spending a week on their knees. One Sunday in church, the memories were so raw that Mrs. Odgaard said she began to cry and left for home. “It’s like losing a child,” Mr. Odgaard said. Mr. Jorgenson asked the congregation to stand, and the worship band struck up a catchy song called “I’m Going Free (Jailbreak),” played with a hoedown lilt. The lyrics were projected onto a screen placed under faded windows that Mrs. Odgaard had painted long ago to resemble stained glass. While the worshipers clapped and pumped fists in the air, the Odgaards gamely sang along: “Jesus is my liberty. I’m going free. ” Church members were invited to stay afterward for a quarterly meeting. Dylan Knudsen, a made a major announcement. Harvest Bible Chapel had just been approved for a loan to buy the Odgaards’ tidy red brick house next door. The Odgaards were about to move to another town. But they planned to keep attending Harvest Bible Chapel, Mr. Knudsen said. There was brief applause. “Please thank them,” Mr. Knudsen said, “for their sacrificial role. ” | 0fake |
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