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Oregon Governor Says Feds ‘Must Act’ Against Protesters and Armed Groups in Burns | 21st Century Wire says So far, after nearly 20 days of protests near Burns, Oregon, there s been no one hurt or injured, but it seems the state s chief executive is keen to change that result.According to reports today, Oregon Governor Kate Brown told a news conference hat federal officials, must move quickly to end the occupation and hold all of the wrongdoers accountable. The governor does not appear at all concerned with the Hammond family s plight, nor with any of this story s core issues like legal minimum sentencing, jury nullification, or private, state and federal land rights and yet, seems to want an armed confrontation in her state and not with any of her own state or county law enforcement agents, but by using federal agents instead. PLEADING TO FEDS: Oregon governor Kate Brown.She added, Residents of Harney County have been overlooked and underserved by federal officials response thus far. I have conveyed these very grave concerns directly to our leaders at the highest levels of our government: the U.S. Department of Justice and the White House. The Democratic governor also claims that the protest has cost the state over $500,000 over the last 3 weeks. We ll be asking federal officials to reimburse the state for these costs. It s not clear exactly how she arrived at that figure, but it can t be from calculating Harney County sheriff s deputies overtime pay.Harney County Judge Steve Grasty also voice a desire to see federal agents take a more aggressive approach towards Ammon Bundy and his fellow protesters, saying, I hope they lock it down. People shouldn t be coming and going. Maybe it s time. READ MORE HAMMOND NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire Hammond Ranch | 1real |
Приморские ТОР могут получить 260 млрд руб. инвестиций | 0 комментариев 0 поделились
"На сегодняшний день потенциальные инвесторы подали 56 заявок на получение статуса резидентов территорий опережающего развития в Приморье. Сумма заявленных инвестиций - более 260 млрд рублей. Очень важно, что налажена работа с инвесторами, и эти заявки переходят в реализуемые инвестиционные проекты", приводит ТАСС слова Галушки.
По его словам, к настоящему времени "от общего объема заявленных инвестиций более 75%, более 202 млрд рублей, - это уже подписанные с инвесторами соглашения по реализации проектов в Приморье".
Как отметил Галушка, на совещании было заявлено еще о семи новых потенциальных резидентах с инвестициями на общую сумму 64 млрд рублей.
По каждой территории опережающего развития Приморского края будет сформирована своя проектная команда. В нее войдут представители Минвостокразвития, Корпорации развития Дальнего Востока, администрации региона, инфраструктурных компаний и других заинтересованных организаций и ведомств, сообщил Галушка.
Напомним, в настоящее время в Приморье работают три ТОР: "Надеждинская" со специализаций на логистике, агротерритория "Михайловский" и "Большой Камень", где строится крупнейшая в мире судоверфь.
Правда.ру писала, что власти Приморья выдали 53 "дальневосточных гектара" новым владельцам.
Как пишет Российская газета, документы еще по 88 участкам находятся на подписи у граждан, а более полутора тысяч заявок находятся на рассмотрении у муниципальных властей.
Отметим, что гектары в Приморье находятся на втором месте по популярности у дальневосточников. На первом месте - Якутия, на втором - Сахалин.
Ежедневно более 500 жителей ДФО подают заявки на "гектар". Чаще всего землю жители Дальнего Востока берут под жилищное строительство, сельское хозяйство, пасеки, складское хозяйство и производство.
Любой россиянин сможет получить по "дальневосточному гектару" в 2017 году, а с октября этого года землю будут предоставлять по всей территории региона, заявил министр РФ по развитию Дальнего Востока Александр Галушка.
Галушка в интервью газете "Известия" пояснил, что "с 1 октября 2016 года участки будут предоставляться уже на всей территории Дальнего Востока. А с 2017 года "дальневосточным гектаром" смогут обзавестись не только жители ДФО, а любой россиянин. При этом государство предъявляет одно требование - земля должна быть освоена по истечении пяти лет, иначе она будет возвращена государству. Тем же, кто освоил, ее бесплатно передадут в собственность".
Читайте последние новости Pravda.ru на сегодня Поделиться: | 1real |
PUTIN Steals Famous President Bush Quote In Forceful Denial Of Russian Interference In U.S. Elections…Makes Surprising Announcement About Relations With U.S. | The funny thing is, we all know the media s obsession with Russia would never be happening if Hillary won the election. Where were all the rabid Russian conspiracy journalists when Hillary was selling them our uranium for favors? We re not fans of Putin, but any dummy can see that the left is clearly using Putin s alleged involvement in our elections as a means to destroy the legitimacy of President Trump s election Russian 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 |
Trump Asks Congress To Investigate Former Obama Administration | 21st Century Wire says President Donald J. Trump is leaving no stone unturned by asking the US Congress to investigate the alleged abuse of Executive powers by the Obama administration as part of the investigation into alleged Russian interference in the presidential election.The White House request was directed to congressional intelligence committees and asked them to exercise their oversight authority to determine whether executive branch investigative powers were abused in 2016. More on this report from Russia Today RT The White House has asked the US Congress to investigate alleged abuse of executive power by the Obama administration as part of the investigation into alleged Russian interference in the Presidential Election.The White House request released on Sunday was directed to congressional intelligence committees and required them to exercise their oversight authority to determine whether executive branch investigative powers were abused in 2016. #BREAKING Trump is requesting congressional intel committees to determine whether the Obama adm. abused its investigative powers in 2016 pic.twitter.com/6gUQtxJSpJ Rag p Soylu (@ragipsoylu) March 5, 2017(1/4) Reports concerning potentially politically motivated investigations immediately ahead of the 2016 election are very troubling. Sarah Sanders (@PressSec) March 5, 2017The statement added that no further comments on the issue would come from either the White House or the president.The request comes a day after US President Donald Trump accused his predecessor of ordering the wiretapping of his phones during the election campaign Continue this report at RTREAD MORE TRUMP NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire TRUMP FilesSUPPORT OUR WORK BY SUBSCRIBING & BECOMING A MEMBER @21WIRE.TV | 1real |
FLASHBACK: WATCH TED CRUZ Promise To Support Donald Trump As Republican Candidate [Video] | Yes, he did promise to support Donald Trump: | 1real |
Spain's PM says may use constitution to block Catalan independence | MADRID/BARCELONA (Reuters) - Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy said on Saturday he would not rule out using the constitutional powers to remove Catalonia s autonomous status if it claimed independence as tens of thousands took to the streets to call for talks. The wealthy northeastern region of Catalonia, with its own language and culture, held a referendum on Oct. 1 on independence, in defiance of the Spanish constitutional court which had ruled the vote illegal. Until now, Rajoy has remained vague on whether he would use article 155, the so-called nuclear option, of the constitution which enables him to sack the regional government and call a fresh local election. In an interview with Spanish newspaper El Pais on Saturday Rajoy was asked if he was ready to trigger the article 155 of the constitution, and said: I don t rule out absolutely anything that is within the law ... Ideally, it shouldn t be necessary to implement extreme solutions but for that not to happen things would have to be changed. Tens of thousands of people gathered across Spain earlier on Saturday as Catalonia prepared to declare independence from the rest of the country, many dressed in white and calling for talks to defuse Spain s worst political crisis for decades. The Catalan authorities say around 90 percent of those who voted supported a split from Spain. Madrid says secession is illegal under the Spain s 1978 constitution. Residents of Catalonia who oppose secession largely boycotted the vote. The crisis is a political test for Rajoy, who has been uncompromising. Some 900 people were injured during the vote when police tried to disrupt voting, firing rubber bullets and charging crowds with truncheons. The political stand-off has divided the country, pushed banks and companies to move their headquarters outside Catalonia and shaken market confidence in the Spanish economy, prompting calls from the European Commission for Catalan and Spanish leaders to find a political solution. I hope that the Catalonia that makes pacts, is moderate and for many years contributed to Spain s economic growth and improvement in welfare and wealth returns. It can t be in the hands of extremists, the radicals and the (far-left secessionist party) CUP, he said. However, Rajoy ruled out using mediators to resolve the crisis and also said the issue would not force a snap national election. In peaceful protests called across 50 Spanish cities on Saturday morning, thousands gathered dressed in white and carrying banners calling for peace and dialogue between leaders. In Barcelona, protesters chanted let s talk in Catalan, while many carried signs criticizing political leaders for not finding a diplomatic solution to the impasse. This is producing a social rupture in Catalonia and this has to be resolved through dialogue, never via unilateralism, Jose Manuel Garcia, 61, an economist who attended the protest dressed in white said. I m very worried. This will end badly and everyone will lose (without dialogue). While Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont has said he is open to mediation, Rajoy has demanded he give up the independence campaign before discussions can be held. In Madrid thousands gathered beneath the enormous Spanish flag in Colon Plaza waving their own flags, singing and chanting Viva Espa a and Viva Catalonia . I ve come because I feel very Spanish and makes me very sad what s happened, said Rosa Borras, 47, an unemployed secretary who had joined a noisy gathering in central Madrid. Borras, wearing a Catalonia, we love you sticker and surrounded by thousands waving Spanish flags, added: I wanted to be here for unity, because I also feel very Catalan. My family lives in Catalonia. Rajoy s government mobilized thousands of national police to stop Sunday s vote, leading to clashes with would-be voters as they tried to close polling stations in schools and remove ballot boxes. In the El Pais interview, Rajoy said the around 4,000 extra police shipped in to the region would stay until the conflict had been resolved. The police violence drew widespread condemnation and forced the government to issue an apology on Friday, although tensions continued to rise after reports of plans for the Catalan parliament to vote on a unilateral declaration of independence on Tuesday. The crisis has also caused disquiet among Spain s European Union partners, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel has discussed it with European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, an EU official told Reuters. [L8N1MI08F] Concern is growing in EU capitals about the impact of the crisis on the Spanish economy, the fourth largest in the euro zone, and on possible spillovers to other economies. European finance ministers, gathering in Brussels on Monday and Tuesday for a regular meeting, could discuss the issue, although it is not formally on the agenda, EU officials said. The support given in public statements by EU leaders to Rajoy is combined with concern expressed in private about how the Spanish government s use of police to prevent Catalans from voting last week in the independence referendum could backfire. Some EU states are worried that talk of Catalan independence could fuel secessionist feelings in other parts of Europe. | 0fake |
FLASHBACK: CHICAGO RESIDENT Blasts Chicago Mayor: “This mayor doesn’t care about black people!” [Video] | 1real | |
Bolivians protest Morales' new bid to extend term limits | LA PAZ (Reuters) - Thousands of Bolivians marched through streets across the Andean country on Tuesday to protest a new bid by leftist President Evo Morales to clear the way for him to run for a fourth term in 2019. Morales had accepted defeat in early 2016 when 51 percent of Bolivian voters rejected his proposal to reform the constitution to end existing term limits in a referendum. But last month, Morales Movement to Socialism (MAS) party asked the country s highest court to rescind legal limits barring elected authorities from seeking re-election indefinitely, arguing that these violate human rights. Carrying signs that read Bolivia said no ! and waving the red, yellow and green Bolivian flag, protesters said Morales wants to tighten his grip on power in the vein of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, a leftist ally considered a dictator by the opposition. This is a political dictatorship... we re not Venezuelan, we re Bolivian, Remigio Figueredo, a peasant leader said in La Paz San Francisco square, where thousands gathered at the same time a World Cup qualifying match between Bolivia and Uruguay was televised. The Morales government dismissed the protests as political rallies disguised as a grassroots movement and said the right-wing opposition wants to ensure Morales cannot run in the 2019 race. Any constitutional reform needed can be implemented when the will of the people is at stake, Justice Minister Hector Arce said on TV channel Cadena A. Historically unstable Bolivia has enjoyed relative prosperity and calm under Morales, the country s first indigenous president who came to power in 2006 and whose approval ratings now hover at around 50 percent. Morales has said he would happily give up office but that his supporters are pushing for him to stay. The Plurinational Constitutional Court has until December to rule on the request by Morales party or extend the deadline for doing so. Protests were also held in the Bolivia s biggest city, Santa Cruz, and in regional capitals across the country. | 0fake |
White House hits 'AWOL' Congress for shirking AUMF | Lawmakers may have let President Barack Obama's request for the authorization of military force against ISIS gather dust, but the White House insisted Friday it hasn't given up on the measure, which was introduced in February.
White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest hammered lawmakers -- both Democrats and Republicans -- who have stalled on the war powers resolution, saying the delay has been a "grave disappointment" to the White House.
And he characterized Congress' unwillingness to vote on the plan as ironic, given the steps lawmakers have taken to insert themselves into another of Obama's key foreign policy issues, a nuclear deal with Iran.
"The call from this administration to leaders in Congress to do their jobs has for some reason fallen on deaf ears," Earnest said. "The United States Congress has been essentially AWOL when it comes to that debate."
The White House convened multiple discussions on the AUMF with lawmakers before presenting the authorization measure two months ago. Since then, the White House has sent top national security officials, including Secretary of State John Kerry and Defense Secretary Ashton Carter, to brief members of Congress on the plan. But their explanations for the AUMF didn't work to assuage anxious members of Obama's own party, who worry a vote for the war authorization could lead to another American ground war in the Middle East. Republicans on Capitol Hill blame Democrats for the standstill. Rep. Tom Cole, R-Oklahoma, said on C-SPAN last week, "The president is essentially a war president without a war party." Cole, along with a bipartisan group of 30 other lawmakers, addressed a letter to House Speaker John Boehner last week insisting he bring the AUMF up for debate. But opposition to the plan runs deep in both parties. Republicans say the plan doesn't give the president enough power to go after ISIS terrorists, and they argue for less restrictive language. The measure that Obama presented to lawmakers in February would limit his authority to wage a military campaign against ISIS to three years and does not authorize "enduring offensive ground combat operations." But it doesn't include any limitations on where U.S. forces can combat ISIS should the terror group move outside Iraq or Syria. The White House points out their document was merely a starting point -- and claim they're open to negotiation. Administration officials say they're committed to the absence of geographic limitations, but are open to altering the time limit and ground troop provision. As Congressional action on the AUMF continues to elude Obama, his military is continuing its air campaign against ISIS. The White House claims it already has the authority to target Islamic State terrorists using the 2001 war powers resolution that was passed after the September 11 attacks. But Obama has said a new authorization is necessarily to put forward a united front in the fight against the Islamic State. Ultimately, the White House says it's exhausted its options in pushing the measure forward. "I think we've done just about everything that is imaginable that an executive branch can do to try to move a law through the Congress," Earnest said. "The president has higher expectations for elected leaders." This birth certificate from the Halab Health Department records information for babies born in the ISIS-created province or "wilayat." Mothers are reminded how important children are to God and are then instructed to follow a vaccination timetable against polio, measles and other ailments. This notice declares that the University of Mosul will open on October 18, 2014, but that the philosophy and archeology departments, among others, will remain closed. Staff are told to replace all mentions of the "Republic of Iraq" with "Islamic State." A schedule for final exams at the Mosul College of Medicine shows areas to be tested included students' knowledge of obstetrics, parasites, X-rays and ethics. This notice criticizes the greed of some fishermen and lays out new rules, including no fishing during spawning season and no use of electrical current to catch fish, as it harms other creatures, too. This document poses a question on playing foosball. Readers are told that it's OK, provided that there is no gambling, no cursing or resentment and that the figurines have no heads. This message quotes the Quran, and speaks in favor of charity and helping those in need. It then details how rents above 100,000 dinars (about $85) must be cut. | 0fake |
Head of Germany's FDP offers Macron 'bittersweet' euro zone deal | BERLIN (Reuters) - A leading candidate to be Germany s next finance minister signaled his willingness on Thursday to seek a compromise with Emmanuel Macron over the French President s plans for deeper euro zone integration. Christian Lindner, who leads the Free Democrats (FDP) party negotiating to be part of Chancellor Angela Merkel s next coalition government, said European policy was one of the most important topics in the talks. Lindner said Macron who last month called for a joint euro zone budget and joint finance minister among other reforms had described political progress as a question of finding a balance between carrots and sticks. Let s take him literally (on this) on the European question, Lindner said at a book launch. That means if he wants to get something, he ll have to accept other things - for example an insolvency mechanism for states or for example the binding participation of private investors in any debt restructuring if it should be necessary, he said. This would be the bitter thing he would have to swallow to get something sweet - namely additional funds for investments, Lindner said. Veteran outgoing Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble, wary of anything that might leave German taxpayers shouldering common euro zone debts, has been generally lukewarm about Macron s reform plans. Lindner may succeed him under the three-way coalition that Merkel is trying to form after her conservatives lost support in a federal election last month. It has been widely speculated that the FDP would demand the top finance post as a price for joining in, though Lindner on Thursday stopped short of claiming the ministry for his party. Earlier this week, he had insisted that Merkel s Christian Democrats (CDU) should relinquish it. Lindner has repeatedly criticized Schaeuble, a fiscal hawk, as being too soft on Greece and putting loyalty to Merkel ahead of his own political convictions. Asked which characteristics the next German finance minister should have, Lindner said: Being consistent. | 0fake |
Qatar retools after boycott by top auto parts supplier Dubai | DOHA (Reuters) - In a dusty industrial zone in the south of Doha where the city s auto repair shops are clustered, one unlucky blue Hyundai Santa Fe has been sitting with its front smashed in since June 5, the day four Arab nations announced a boycott of Qatar. The SUV has fallen foul of the tiny state s dependence on Jebel Ali in neighboring Dubai, the first port of call for car companies distributing spare parts across the region but no longer an option for Doha since its neighbors severed ties. The United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia accused Qatar of supporting terrorism, which it denies. With its traditional land, sea and air trade routes cut off, Doha has had to scramble to find new suppliers to replace everything from Saudi Arabian milk to Emirati engine oil. It also has had to quickly pull together complicated new logistics, involving a mix of new air and maritime routes and use of nearby ports in Oman and Kuwait for re-export. In many ways it has been a success. The boycott, which entered its sixth month this week, touches life on the streets only in minor ways, with Turkish dairy and Iranian vegetables taking the place of Arab foodstuffs on store shelves. Items are generally available and prices only modestly higher. One exception has been auto parts, residents say. In car-obsessed Qatar, where status symbol Bentleys and BMWs zip down the Doha corniche at night, spare parts that once arrived in days from Dubai can now take weeks or even months, leaving vehicles languishing in shops and drivers frustrated. A manager at one American automobile dealership in the industrial area, who asked not to be named, described the situation as desperate. You have customers coming in and screaming, saying my car has been here two to three months. And you re just helpless. What do you say? Although most imports have recovered to near pre-crisis levels after dropping sharply on the boycott, auto imports in September were 40 percent lower than their year-earlier level. The manager said attempts to re-route orders from Jebel Ali to Oman and Kuwait for re-export were abandoned because paying two sets of customs fees and additional shipping spiked costs 20 to 40 percent. The situation has improved in recent weeks after the dealership moved to import directly by air from the United States, he said, but the process took months to set up. Until ten days ago we didn t have batteries or oil. We were taking batteries out of the new cars. Some 58 percent of imports to Qatar were either produced in or shipped from the four boycotting countries in 2016, according to a Ministry of Development Planning and Statistics estimate. How much of that is autos and auto parts was not possible to determine, but two parts businesses in Doha said about 80 percent of their supplies previously came through Jebel Ali. The boycott has driven a campaign to make the country less dependent on its Gulf Arab rivals even if the boycott ends. Hundreds of cows have been flown in to scale up dairy farms that traditionally competed with Saudi Arabia, trade ties have increased with Turkey and Iran, and a draft law was passed that would grant greater trade protection to local producers. The legislation is still pending. Nobody will buy from Dubai even if it opens up. Why would we let Dubai take any profit from us? said a spare parts dealer whose goods are now sourced from Vietnam and Korea. At a high-end garage where a cream Porsche 911 Turbo awaited repair, the general manager said his shop has in recent months established direct import links with European suppliers, cutting down average delivery time to about three weeks, about twice as long as before the boycott. It s taught all of us how to import because we have to find new sources ... even if this story ends and the blockade is lifted, we won t go back to buying from Dubai, he said. | 0fake |
NATO Officials Planning For Trump Visit As If He Is A Small Child (DETAILS) | Donald Trump is a small child in a 70-year-old man s body who somehow managed to get elected president of the United States. It seems that world leaders are aware of this, and therefore are now devising methods to deal with him as such. Case in point Trump s very first summit with the other member nations of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).NATO officials are well aware that Trump has the attention span of a toddler who needs a nap, so they are going to keep the topics simple and make sure that any remarks are limited to two to four minute bursts. In addition to the shortened speeches and elementary subject matter, the summit will have no formal statement after the meeting with the heads of state for the 28 countries in the NATO alliance. Officials in the know say that the people involved in setting all of this up to accommodate Trump s childlike ways are really scrambling, as the summit is set to commence on May 25. In short- they are going to Trump- proof the event. From Uproxx: It s kind of ridiculous how they are preparing to deal with Trump, said one source briefed extensively on the meeting s preparations. It s like they re preparing to deal with a child someone with a short attention span and mood who has no knowledge of NATO, no interest in in-depth policy issues, nothing, said the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity. They re freaking out. People are scared of his unpredictability, intimidated by how he might react knowing the president might speak his mind or tweet his mind, [a] former official said. Or, as another current senior NATO official put it before the meeting: We re bracing for impact. As if this isn t bad enough, a big topic of this particular meeting of the NATO alliance will be how to share the costs and other burdens associated with NATO. Of course, we all remember how Trump actually gave German Chancellor Angela Merkel a bill for supposed monies she owes to NATO on her very first visit to our country. So, there s no telling what he ll say to other member nations on this topic at the summit. This worry has not escaped the international officials preparing for this event. Again, from Uproxx: His views of burden-sharing seem to be more ambitious than past presidents, and that could become a source of tension at the big NATO confab, said Alexander Vershbow, former deputy secretary-general of NATO. The burden-sharing conversation may not go entirely smoothly. This is beyond embarrassing. With each passing day, Trump s childish temperament, incompetence, and buffoonery lessens America s standing in the world. When will the Republicans in Congress wake up, admit they made a mistake by getting this man elected, and start preparing to oust him from office?Only time will tell. Until then, #RESIST.Featured image via Mark Wilson/Getty Images | 1real |
Trump talks to U.S. automakers, pushes for new American plants | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump urged the chief executives of the Big Three U.S. automakers on Tuesday to build more cars in the country, pressing his pledge to bring jobs to America and discourage the car industry from investing in Mexico. Trump, who has threatened to impose 35 percent tariffs on imported vehicles, opened a White House meeting with General Motors Co CEO Mary Barra, Ford Motor Co’s Mark Fields and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV’s Sergio Marchionne by saying he wanted to see more auto plants in the United States. In return, the new Republican president has vowed to cut regulations and taxes to make it more attractive for businesses to operate in the United States. He promised during his campaign to be a job-creating president and stressed that message in his inaugural address last Friday. “We have a very big push on to have auto plants and other plants - many other plants,” he told reporters at the start of the meeting. “It’s happening. It’s happening big league.” Matt Blunt, who heads a U.S. automaker trade association and attended the meeting, told Reuters that Trump asked what his administration could do “on domestic and trade policy that would help make the United States more competitive and strengthen the ability of automakers to add production here.” The hour-long meeting was the latest sign of Trump’s uncommon degree of intervention for a U.S. president into corporate affairs as he has repeatedly pressured automakers and other manufacturers to “buy American and hire American.” It was the first time the heads of the big three automakers met jointly with a U.S. president since a 2011 session with Barack Obama to tout a deal to nearly double fuel efficiency standards by 2025. Automakers have urged the Trump administration to rethink those aggressive mandates. The auto executives on Tuesday raised the issue of the fuel efficiency rules, trade policy and other regulatory matters, another person briefed on the meeting said. Marchionne told reporters afterward that Trump did not give them specifics on what regulations he would cut. The companies also discussed autonomous and electric vehicles and Trump asked about advanced vehicles, the person said. With flattening U.S. auto sales and excess capacity in the United States, U.S. automakers have been reluctant to open new U.S. auto plants in recent years. GM and Ford last built new U.S. assembly plants in 2004, while Fiat Chrysler opened a new transmission plant in Indiana in 2014. Kristin Dziczek, an analyst at the Michigan-based Center for Automotive Research, said automakers still had excess capacity in North America after suffering in the 1990s and 2000s from overcapacity and shifts in market share. Building a new plant would take three or more years and cost at least $1 billion, industry experts said. Automakers have expanded operations at existing U.S. plants to meet rising demand for trucks and SUVs. GM, Ford, Fiat Chrysler and foreign automakers have announced new U.S. jobs and investments in recent weeks. Coinciding with Tuesday’s meeting, Toyota Motor Corp said it would add 400 jobs and invest $600 million in an Indiana plant, aiming to boost production of a popular SUV by 10 percent. Ford’s Fields said automakers wanted to work with Trump to create a “renaissance in American manufacturing” and that Trump’s economic priorities were encouraging, including his move on Monday to formally bow out of the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership trade pact championed by Obama. “The mother of all trade barriers is currency manipulation. And TPP failed in meaningfully dealing with that, and we appreciate the president’s courage to walk away from a bad trade deal,” Fields told reporters after the meeting. Barra said there was a “huge opportunity” to work together with the government to “improve the environment, improve safety and improve the jobs creation.” U.S. automakers have collectively added more than 78,000 jobs since 2009, the year when GM and Chrysler, now a unit of Italian-American Fiat Chrysler, filed for bankruptcy as part of government bailouts during the U.S. recession. They have invested more than $40 billion in U.S. facilities during that period. Despite the vocal pressure from Trump, the companies are unlikely to truly change their existing business plans for now, said Sam Fiorani, vice president of global vehicle forecasting with AutoForecast Solutions. “We need to have more concrete policies from the president,” he said. “Automakers will make decisions on whether there is a solid business case. Does it make more sense to build outside the U.S. or to build in the U.S.?” GM said in 2014 it would invest $5 billion in Mexico through 2018, a move that would allow it to double its production capacity, and Barra has said the automaker is not reconsidering the plan. While automakers are adding U.S. jobs, they are also cutting U.S. production of small cars. On Monday, GM ended two shifts of production of small cars in Ohio and Michigan, cutting about 2,000 jobs. Barclays auto analyst Brian Johnson said in a note on Tuesday that “automakers will be willing to make a deal that would bring back jobs to the U.S. in return for a slower ramp of (fuel efficiency) targets and related state-level mandates.” Auto stocks rose on Tuesday. U.S.-listed shares of Fiat Chrysler gained 5.84 percent to $10.88, while Ford was up 2.44 percent to $12.61 and GM rose 0.96 percent to $37. | 0fake |
VIDEO: Journalist Shot by Militarized Police at Standing Rock While Conducting an Interview | jkbj
I was shot by militarized police WHILE interviewing a man on camera at #StandingRock …and here’s the footage. #NoDAPL https://t.co/FfWiSCbiKf pic.twitter.com/4DRwNPkfZ9
— Erin Schrode (@ErinSchrode) November 3, 2016
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Ex-Ally of Christie Links Cuomo to Cover-Up of Lane Closings - The New York Times | NEWARK — The man who has admitted orchestrating the mysterious lane closings at the George Washington Bridge in 2013 testified on Tuesday that he was told that Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey and Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York had agreed to falsely explain the closings as part of a traffic study to try to “put an end” to a growing scandal surrounding them. The confessed culprit, David Wildstein, testified that he had heard from two top Christie appointees at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which operates the bridge, that the governors had hoped to stop the catastrophic traffic jams caused by the lane closings from hurting Mr. Christie’s campaign. Mr. Wildstein, who is cooperating with federal prosecutors in the trial of two former Christie aides accused of approving and directing the scheme, agreed that Mr. Cuomo had told the Port Authority’s executive director to “stand down” from trying to publicly blame Mr. Christie and his aides for the closings, at least until Mr. Christie had won in November 2013. A spokesman for Mr. Cuomo issued a statement sternly denying that the governor and Mr. Christie had discussed a false story and denouncing Mr. Wildstein’s motivations. Mr. Christie, a Republican, and Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat, have previously denied that such a conversation occurred. Both have said they had no role in covering up the cause of the lane closings. The testimony by Mr. Wildstein, a former Christie administration official at the Port Authority, left open the possibility that Mr. Cuomo did not know the true reason for the closings. Mr. Wildstein has said they were meant to punish a mayor who did not endorse Mr. Christie’s . But Mr. Wildstein testified previously that Mr. Christie knew about the closings and their punitive intent as they happened, and that the governor laughed when he heard about the traffic jam and that the mayor’s calls about public safety risks were being ignored. On Tuesday, his seventh day on the witness stand, Mr. Wildstein was by a lawyer for Bridget Anne Kelly, a former deputy chief of staff to Mr. Christie who is on trial with Bill Baroni, Mr. Christie’s former top staff appointee at the Port Authority. Mr. Wildstein testified that top officials in the governor’s office and David Samson, Mr. Christie’s appointee as Port Authority chairman, had decided that New Jersey officials at the agency would write a report trying to legitimize the traffic study story. The report, Mr. Wildstein said, would seek to dismiss the mayor’s complaints by saying there had been a “failure of communication. ” Mr. Christie’s office would review the report, he said, and the authority’s executive director, Patrick J. Foye, appointed by Mr. Cuomo, would approve it. Mr. Foye had ordered the lanes reopened when he learned about the shutdown four days after it began and had never been a fan of Mr. Wildstein. Mr. Foye knew the lane closings were not related to a traffic study, and at least one of his staff members had called reporters to say so, generating intense coverage of the closings and why they happened. But Mr. Foye agreed to sign off on the report, Mr. Wildstein said in court on Tuesday, as long as New Jersey took responsibility. “My understanding at the time was that this would put an end to this issue,” Mr. Wildstein testified, referring to the report by the two governors. “Pat Foye would sign off on a false report?” Ms. Kelly’s lawyer, Michael Critchley, asked him. “Yes, sir, that was my understanding,” Mr. Wildstein said. “And that was a result of conversations with Cuomo and Christie?” Mr. Critchley said. “Yes, sir,” Mr. Wildstein said. Mr. Cuomo’s office, Mr. Wildstein said, had told Mr. Foye to “lay off Christie. ” Mr. Wildstein, who has pleaded guilty to his role in the lane closings, acknowledged that his account was secondhand. He said he had heard about the conversations from Mr. Samson and Mr. Baroni. Mr. Cuomo’s office on Tuesday denied that any such conversation had taken place. “Whatever the admitted Bridgegate architect thought or dreamt about New York’s involvement has no basis in fact,” John P. L. Kelly, a spokesman for Mr. Cuomo, said in a statement. “Anyone can say anything, especially a convicted felon spinning a tale, but it’s just false and delusional. ” No report was ever issued. Federal prosecutors and Mr. Wildstein have said that was because Mr. Baroni was asked to give testimony to a New Jersey legislative committee, and he read a version of the report there. Mr. Wildstein also testified that Mr. Baroni told him that Kevin O’Dowd, Mr. Christie’s chief of staff, had had a conversation with his counterpart in Mr. Cuomo’s office, Lawrence S. Schwartz, in which they agreed that Mr. Foye, who had also been invited to testify at that hearing, would not. Mr. Wildstein said he was also told by Mr. Christie’s spokesman, Michael Drewniak, that he had briefed Mr. O’Dowd on what New Jersey officials took to be Mr. Foye’s meddling in their business. Ms. Kelly’s lawyer asked what that meant. “That Governor Christie was in the middle of an election, that Mr. Foye was becoming involved and could potentially hurt Governor Christie, and that Mr. O’Dowd now understood and had reached out to Albany to get Foye to back off,” Mr. Wildstein replied. Mr. Foye did not testify at the legislative hearing, but later accepted another invitation to speak to the Legislature. Eric Corngold, a lawyer for Mr. Foye, said on Tuesday that “Mr. Wildstein’s testimony on this topic is not accurate. ” “Mr. Foye never had any such conversations or was given any such direction by the governor or any of his staff,” Mr. Corngold continued. The day after Mr. Christie won The Wall Street Journal reported that Mr. Wildstein had been behind the order to close the lanes. Mr. Wildstein testified that he believed Mr. Cuomo’s direction to “stand down,” as Mr. Critchley said, did not extend past Election Day. “I did not believe it was a coincidence that I had been told that Governor Cuomo had spoken to Mr. Foye during the election campaign and then suddenly comments from Mr. Foye went away,” Mr. Wildstein said, “and the day after the election a reporter called the Port Authority, called me, to talk about my involvement. ” | 0fake |
How Mike Pence and Donald Trump Compare on the Issues - The New York Times | Mike Pence, who has served as governor of Indiana since 2013, will be Donald J. Trump’s running mate on the Republican presidential ticket. Mr. Pence, a staunch social conservative, was elected in 2000 to the House of Representatives, where he served in the party leadership. Here is a look at his stand on important issues, and how he compares with Mr. Trump. Mr. Pence is opposed to granting amnesty for people who have come to the United States without authorization. He has supported increased border security measures, strict enforcement of laws prohibiting unauthorized residents from working in the United States and a guest worker program that would place prospective immigrants with employers who cannot find American workers to fill open jobs. Earlier this year, he sought to bar the resettlement of Syrian refugees in his state. Where they differ After Mr. Trump called for a ban on Muslim migration to the United States, Mr. Pence said on Twitter that the proposal was “offensive and unconstitutional. ” Mr. Trump also initially said that Syrian refugees should be taken in, but he quickly reversed that opinion. _____ Mr. Pence, who has supported numerous legislative efforts to ban marriage in Indiana, was at the center of the national debate over religious freedom laws that critics said could make it easier for businesses to refuse service to gay couples. As a congressman, Mr. Pence opposed federal funding that would support treatment for people suffering from H. I. V. and AIDS, unless the government simultaneously invested in programs to discourage people from engaging in relationships. He also resisted changes to laws that would have included acts against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. And he opposed the end of “don’t ask, don’t tell,” a Clinton administration policy that allowed closeted L. G. B. T. people to serve in the military. Where they differ In the 1980s and 1990s, Mr. Trump donated to charities that worked to combat the AIDS crisis, and in 2000 he said that he supported amending the 1964 Civil Rights Act to “include a ban of discrimination based on sexual orientation. ” _____ As governor, Mr. Pence signed into law several regulations that add broad limits to women’s access to abortions. He approved a bill in March that outlawed abortions based on a fetus’s “race, color, national origin, ancestry, sex, or diagnosis or potential diagnosis of the fetus having Down syndrome or any other disability. ” The bill led to backlash on social media from opponents of the regulation. Mr. Pence also called for an investigation of Planned Parenthood after footage leaked by abortion rights opponents that outraged many abortion rights advocates. The videos turned out to have been altered by the people who released them and the videographers were later indicted on a charge of tampering with a government record. Where they differ Mr. Trump supported abortion rights until 2011. Earlier this year, he said that abortion should be banned and then said that women violating the ban should face “some sort of punishment. ” He recanted within hours, after he was criticized — even by some conservatives — and said that doctors who perform abortions should be held legally responsible women, he said, were the victims. _____ Mr. Pence’s foreign policy views mesh well with Mr. Trump’s “America First” framework, which is built around the idea of a robust American military. The Indiana governor called for big increases in military spending during a speech in 2015 and he has criticized Democrats who do not use the phrase “Islamic extremism” when discussing jihadists. As a member of Congress, where he was on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Mr. Pence was a strong supporter of Israel and a proponent of tough interrogation measures for prisoners at Guantánamo Bay. Mr. Pence voted to authorize military action in Iraq in 2002 and opposed proposals to set a date to withdraw troops from Iraq. Where they differ The biggest difference between the Mr. Trump and Mr. Pence when it comes to foreign policy is their respective stances on the Iraq war. Mr. Pence supported it, while Mr. Trump claims that he was against it from the beginning. _____ Mr. Pence has received an “A” rating from the National Rifle Association, which has financially supported his campaigns for the House and for governor. He supports a national right to carry a firearm in public and in 2004, as a member of the House, he voted to repeal gun control laws in Washington, D. C. He wrote on Twitter in June that he “will always be a strong proponent of the Second Amendment. ” Where they differ Mr. Trump is also very but he has expressed openness to restricting people on terrorist watch lists from buying firearms. _____ Mr. Pence has said he supports free trade, but he has also raised concern over the enforcement of trade agreements with China. Specifically, he asked the federal government to investigate allegations that Chinese steel companies were dodging tariffs in deals with American businesses. As governor, Mr. Pence visited nations like Japan and Germany on trade missions meant to stoke Indiana’s trade relationships with international businesses. Where they differ While Mr. Pence has expressed support for the Partnership trade deal, Mr. Trump regularly rails against it. Mr. Trump has also threatened to impose tariffs on imports from foreign countries to protect American jobs. _____ The Cato Institute, a group, called Mr. Pence a “champion tax cutter” and lauded his “frugal” spending record. As governor, he repealed Indiana’s inheritance tax and lowered taxes on corporate income and business property. In 2010, Mr. Pence proposed a bill in the House that would have instituted a limit on federal spending, but the idea did not have enough support to pass. Where they differ Mr. Trump has promised big tax cuts, but he does want to close some loopholes, such as the one on carried interest, that benefit the rich. _____ In 2015, Governor Pence threatened to disobey the Obama administration’s orders to lower carbon emissions unless the regulations underwent extensive changes. Mr. Pence said the regulations would “raise electricity costs on Hoosiers, result in less reliable electricity and impede economic growth and prosperity in Indiana and the rest of the country. ” He said the Clean Power Plan was “ill conceived and poorly constructed,” and he accused the Environmental Protection Agency of going beyond its legal authority in enacting the rules under the plan. Under Governor Pence, Indiana joined several other states that have tried to block the Clean Power Plan in court. Where they differ Mr. Trump and Mr. Pence are largely in agreement on energy and the environment. Mr. Trump is also against regulations to limit carbon emissions. Like Mr. Pence, he has doubts about the reality of climate change. And he has expressed concern about the dangers that windmills pose to birds. _____ Mr. Pence was one of only 25 Republican congressmen who voted against President George W. Bush’s No Child Left Behind policy. As governor, he challenged conservative Republicans in the State Senate to support legislation to establish a preschool program that would primarily serve children in poor families. He vocally supported school choice and setting learning standards at the local level, and pushed to direct state support toward technical and vocational education programs. Where they differ Mr. Trump has said little about his education plans other than that he is against Common Core and that “education has to be at a local level. ” | 0fake |
Trump and the Power of Money | Trump and the Power of Money
By Peter Koenig
" PIPR " - Imagine, Donald Trump would accede to the US Presidency, an unlikely event with the presstitute media relentlessly slamming, slashing and demonizing him, not unlike they do with President Putin while cheering no-end for the warmonger Killary, no matter what atrocities she has on her hands and body, no matter that blood is dripping out of her mouth every time she opens it like Iraq, Libya, Syria, Palestine, Afghanistan, Sudan and more, much more. They, the elite, the military-security complex, the financial mafia, want more blood, more than is already covering the entire current Obama Administrations structure of psychopaths. Blood is weapons, blood is money, blood is more profit, blood is good for business so said the Washington Post, just slightly translated from war is good for business. The warmongering MSM (mainstream media) also propagate for more weapons to enrich the military-security complex that pays them. But just for a moment, lets assume, Trump would get elected with such a large margin that voter fraud would be difficult to manage.
Trump is sending a different narrative from that of eternal war. Trump seems to be looking into a different direction. He essentially says stop the conflict with Russia, make Russia a partner, stop outsourcing jobs, bring them back, give labor back to Americans, slash the unemployment rate which is, of course, everybody knows, way above the silly fabricated 5%. The reality is that unreported but real unemployment in the US is hovering between 22% and 25%, a real hammer for the economy, increasing anger and unhappiness and crime. Trump also says in the same vein as bringing back jobs STOP globalization, restrain NATO, rein in the banks yes, Wall Street, the Goldman Sachs-es and Co. of this world of fake pyramid money, dominated by the Rothschild-Rockefeller-Morgan clan. Trump says, lets have a financial system that works for the people.
Does he mean it? I dont know. Could be true. Most of what he says makes sense for America, for Americans and by extension for much of the rest of the world, especially Europe, the genuine Europe, not the puppet-commandeered Europe. He also says a lot of outright discriminatory and xenophobic rubbish like building a wall separating Mexico from the US of A, emulating Israel; and propagates a crackdown on Moslems. Does he mean it? Or does he want to please potential voters? Such statements are indeed dangerous rubbish, but they are secondary to all the other things that are PRIORITARY, as they would help restore American society, workforce, dignity most important: DIGNITY. Dignity is important for Americans to wake up to realize that they are living in a country that wastes their money, the peoples resources on countless criminal wars around the world, feverishly racing towards Full Spectrum Dominance to benefit a few. The secondary stuff is important too, but can be dealt with in parallel by Americans that have come to senses.
Trump is in many ways like Frances Marine LePen, representing the extreme right, and therefore, no matter what sensible things she says and has on her agenda to do and I dont doubt one minute that she means what she says like EUREXIT and send NATO to hell she is still framed by the left intellectuals if such a thing still exists in our neoliberal universe as a discriminatory xenophobe who would expel all colored and veiled foreigners. Of course, thats bad. But let her first initiating France exiting from the EU, the Euro and NATO the likely salvation of Europe, then tackle the other issues. First comes first. A true intellectual left would have to understand that and not bend to the presstitute promoted clichés.
Trump has enough money power. He doesnt have to bend to the military security complex, to the banks, to the Obamacare pharma-fiefdom. He doesnt really have to bend to anybody. That worries the elite. He is independent. Lets give him the benefit of the doubt. In no case could he be worse than Hillary the killer so much can be read from every word she says. Her pattern of pathology We came, we saw, we won , when she saw the bloodstained image of the NATO-slaughtered Ghaddafi indicates that she would not stop from pressing this infamous Red Button of Death and total world annihilation perhaps even repeating that same smirk, , We came, we saw, we won .
Now lets go to the next hypothesis, assuming Trump would be elected and they the elusive high-powered small elite that pulls the strings on Washington and the White Houses overseas puppets, and lets assume they would let him live, at least for a while, Trump might be doing irrational things in the eye of the Beltway slaves. Recognizing the perils for his own country and those for his neighbor, Canada, Mr. Trump might call on the western stooges, in Europe particularly, who for the sake of brown-nosing the naked king in Washington, are prepared to sell-out 500-plus million European and their future generations to the most nefarious trade deals the world has ever known CETA, TTIP and TiSA (let alone the TPP, where 12 Pacific countries are about to kiss ass in Washington) telling them to come to senses, think democracy and stop the deals that 80% or more of Europeans despise and reject.
As a parenthesis and philosophically speaking, one could say that given the hundreds of years of colonization around the globe, of shameless exploitation, of raping and killing millions of people throughout Africa, Asia, and Latin America, that these trade deals are Europes historically deserved heritage.
The Saker wrote a great essay on the aberration of this upcoming election and what might follow after the election, The US Is About To Face The Worst Crisis in Their History http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article45729.htm . One of the articles commenters pinned it down to the point: If Trump does become Commander in Chief, his first job will be securing his life. Those who really run the show in the US will stop at nothing to safeguard their empire. Truly the US is at a cross roads and by extension the world. Times are really scary .
What Trump says he would do during his first 100 days in office, he presented in a groundbreaking speech at Gettysburg, Pa. this past weekend, is for the most part truly astounding http://www.veteransnewsnow.com/2016/10/24/donald-trump-delivers-a-powerful-policy-speech-on-his-first-100-days-in-office/ . It is not less than revolutionary, because no US politician, let alone a Presidential candidate or President has said something for the most part so sensible as did Presidential candidate Trump. Summarizing, he promises bringing back overseas jobs, would prevent the continued outsourcing of the American production processes, bring order to the crime-ridden communities, he would seek friendly partnership with Russia, defusing the WWIII threat and he would tackle, restrain and control the corrupt banking system, including the endless money-making machine, the privately owned, Rothschild dominated FED. That is a challenge other Presidents have failed to master, including Lincoln and JFK. We know how they ended.
Trump has already hinted that to revive the American economy the zero-interest policy may have to be changed, so that banks become more responsible. The owners off the system would hardly allow Trumps interference in their obscene profit-making scheme. Theyd rather at their calling let the bomb loose. A sudden change of this policy would hit many over-stretched banks like a bombshell reminiscent of 2008 Lehman Brothers, just magnified by a factor of 10. There are currently at least three, possibly five Wall Street giants that are on the edge. They get by, because of the FEDs zero interest policy- and they make sure that this doesnt change, as several if not all of them are part of the private FED system. Would Trump dare touching this system? Its a deadly challenge. He knows it.
This time there may be more at stake then just another banking collapse, a planned emulation of the 2007 / 2008 crisis, where Wall Street was copiously rewarded for its excesses by tax-money bail-outs. Be aware, this time it would not be tax-payers money that would rescue the Too-Big-To Fail (TBTF) banks, but it would be YOUR money, your deposits, your savings, your pension funds, possibly even your shares if you have any in the bank being collapsed and the process would be called bail-ins.
The (western) world is under the hegemon of a privately-owned money system, the US-dollar and most people dont even know it. The accent is on the western world , because the east, comprising Russia, China, the SCO countries (Shanghai Cooperation Organization comprising China and Russia and most of the Central Asian former Soviet Republics, plus Iran and Pakistan and others are waiting in the wings), the EEU (Eurasian Economic Union), as well as most of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa), are forming their own eastern economic and monetary block. I have said this before, but will repeat it for readers to realize this economic block is largely, if not entirely, delinked from the dollar scheme. It consists of about half the worlds population and one third of the worlds GDP, a solid GDP that is. In contrast to the western, especially the US GDP; in the eastern block much of the GDP is based on real labor output and manufacturing.
In reality, this eastern economic power block which is also displaying the worlds largest economic development potential, since history remembers, the New Silk Road or the One Belt, One Road (OBOR) economic development scheme, stretching from Vladivostok to Lisbon (if Europe chooses to participate), does not need the west anymore. The OBOR project has already begun. It represents a view into the future, with job opportunities and the outlook for a truly better life for hundreds of millions, possibly billions of people during coming generations a dynamic vision for the future. The east is where the future lays.
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Donald Trump as President notwithstanding, a new western well-planned banking collapse may start in the US, the ramifications and impact would be felt around the globe sinking millions, hundreds of millions of people into poverty, misery, the like we havent seen in recent history. The banks depositors money might not be enough. The reptiles are hungry. They might privatize public properties, infrastructures, roads, ports railways, health care, education, pensions, natural resources anything that is still in the hands of the people. If Greece is a reminder, then think of Greece blown up by a factor of 1000 all around the globe, touching in extremis the vulnerable people of the vulnerable countries billions of people. While the money flows again from the poor to the rich, to an ever-shrinking pool of super-rich; widening the rich-poor gap to a disgusting yawn. Leaving the 99.99 % by now the 99. % ever more powerless, having to fend for sheer survival seeking refuge in better lands Its a war by money. Canons, bombs and guns could rest for a while.
For years, I have felt the Empire will have to be brought down from inside from the people who cant take it anymore, from an internal revolt that eventually would break the worldwide extended monsters back. Rome and most subsequent empires have fallen this way. It may still happen. But now I side more with The Sakers theory, namely that the defeat may come from a combination of inside revolt and outside forces, not so much military forces, but economic forces. In theory, it could happen tomorrow. Just imagine, the one third of world-GDP-countries would drop all their dollar reserves, all the dollar denominated international contracts, all dollar issued trade agreements and in particular, abandon at once the unwritten rule of hydrocarbons to be traded only in US-dollars. It would most likely wipe out the western economy.
This will not happen, of course. Simply, because the One Third GDP holders do not want to destroy the economy of the rest of the world, especially the so-called developing and emerging countries, many or most of them eventually to become allies of this eastern block that promises peaceful co-existence rather than the current western pattern of ever multiplying wars and conflicts a sheer dollar-fed killing spree, with destruction and weapons manufacturing no end.
The Power of Money. Would Donald Trump, as President, himself a moneyed powerhouse, survive such a calamity? In fact, would he be able and strong enough to veer the ship around, guiding the world away from such destructive scenarios and towards peace and cooperation between East and West? Or is the train already too far out of the station? No telling at this time. The signals are certainly not good. But, lets put in a grain of optimism and bank on a positive strand of dynamics fueled by an increasing human consciousness one that would not allow Hillary to push the Death Button.
Peter Koenig is an economist and geopolitical analyst. He is also a former World Bank staff and worked extensively around the world in the fields of environment and water resources. He writes regularly for Global Research, ICH, RT, Sputnik, PressTV, The 4th Media, TeleSUR, TruePublica, The Vineyard of The Saker Blog, and other internet sites. He is the author of Implosion An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed fiction based on facts and on 30 years of World Bank experience around the globe. He is also a co-author of The World Order and Revolution! Essays from the Resistance .
John Pilger : The specter haunting Europe, Asia, Africa, and Latin America: | 1real |
U.S. Republicans want to slash Obama's security council | (This version of the May 11 story, corrects figure in second paragraph to 100.) WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A senior U.S. Republican filed legislation on Wednesday seeking to rein in the White House’s National Security Council, saying it has grown too large and seeks to play too big a role in foreign policy. Representative Mac Thornberry said his measure would increase oversight of the NSC, capping it at 100 people or allowing it to be larger but subjecting the National Security adviser to confirmation by the Senate. Thornberry estimated the NSC currently has 400 staff. “All of President (Barack) Obama’s former Defense Secretaries have complained about micromanagement by the NSC,” Thornberry, chairman of the powerful House of Representatives Armed Services Committee, said in a statement. “I have personally heard from troops on the frontlines who have received intimidating calls from junior White House staffers. “Now we hear reports of NSC staffers running misinformation campaigns targeted at Congress and the press,” Thornberry said. He was referring to a recent New York Times profile in which a deputy national security adviser, Ben Rhodes, discussed ways the administration had communicated about last year’s Iran nuclear deal to the Washington press corps. Administration officials have dismissed proposals like Thornberry’s as political ploys. Ned Price, a spokesman for the NSC, commented that the White House has already taken steps to trim staff and streamline procedures. Thornberry introduced his legislation as an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA, a must-pass annual defense bill. To become law, a version of the NDAA including Thornberry’s amendment would have to pass both the House and Senate and be signed into law by Obama. | 0fake |
Wife of Muslim jihadist who killed and wounded over 100 in Orlando nightclub massacre says she “knew nothing” | BNI Store Nov 4 2016 Wife of Muslim jihadist who killed and wounded over 100 in Orlando nightclub massacre says she “knew nothing” “I was unaware of everything,” says Omar Mateen’s wife, 30-year-old Noor Salman (whose whereabouts were a matter of controversy for some time after the massacre), has given her first interview since the Pulse Nightclub massacre to the New York Times. The New York Times piece does not go into detail about her movements since the FBI seemingly lost track of her, although it suggests she is still a person of interest to law enforcement. Her lawyers pop up early in the article to insist she “did nothing wrong” and to forbid questions about her discussions with federal agents. Salman said she had no idea what Mateen was up to on the day of the attack. She knew her husband watched jihadist videos, but she did not think much of it. But how could she have not suspected what her husband was planning – she knew he had the weapons, she drove him to the nightclub and dropped him off: Noor Salman, wife of Orlando shooter Omar Mateen, had all the hallmarks of a willing accomplice to her husband’s jihadist slaughter. Georgia State University professor Mia Bloom told The Times that studies show relatives and friends are aware of budding terrorist activities about 64% of the time and argued that Mateen’s abusive relationship with Salman “doesn’t give her a free pass as a bystander to not come forward.” Salman insists she had no dark suspicions about several trips she took with Mateen that have been viewed as preparation for his terrorist career, although the lawyers notably intervened to prevent her from discussing the most notorious of these incidents – the April 2015 trip to Disneyworld that Mateen may have used to case the park for an attack. Salman did nothing to warn the police of her husband’s intentions. When the FBI first questioned Salman, she admitted to bringing Mateen ammunition and a holster. The piece describes her as “shattered and afraid,” to the point that she sometimes has trouble getting out of bed. (Awww…I bet those 49 people her husband slaughtered in cold blood in Orlando would love to have that problem) | 1real |
Driven by fear, Rohingyas keep fleeing Myanmar: Red Cross official | SITTWE, Myanmar (Reuters) - The thousands of Rohingya Muslims thronging the desolate beach had no food or water, except what the Red Cross gives them, and there was no shelter from the tropical sun and rain, yet fear of tomorrow has persuaded them to abandon their homes. Fabrizio Carboni, the top International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) official in Myanmar, described the plight of some 5,OOO people who had made their way to the mouth of the Naf river that divides Buddhist Myanmar from Muslim Bangladesh. He said some had been there as long as a month, unable to afford to pay fishermen to take them to Bangladesh, where most of their fellow Rohingyas have fled to escape the ethnic violence that erupted in Myanmar s Rakhine state two months ago. What I can just tell them is a beach is not a place where you live, Carboni told Reuters on Thursday, a day after visiting this stretch on the frontline of an unfolding humanitarian crisis. Myanmar has blocked humanitarian agencies apart from Red Cross organisations from accessing the northern part of Rakhine state, where the conflict worsened after Rohingya militants attacked 30 security posts on Aug. 25. Many of the 600,000 stateless Rohingya Muslims who have fled Myanmar say they were driven out by a brutal military counteroffensive. The United Nations has called it a campaign of ethnic cleansing , and Myanmar soldiers have been accused of rape, killings and arson. Myanmar s de facto leader, Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, has said the refugees can return, but thousands have continued to arrive in Bangladesh. When you decide to leave everything and go it s because, rightly or not, you believe that tomorrow will be worse than today where you are staying, Carboni told Reuters in Sittwe, the capital of Myanmar s Rakhine state. The stranded people weighed up their access to basic services, intercommunal relations and security before deciding to flee, he said. Probably it s a lack of trust for the future where they are. I don t think we are in a moment now where there s a specific event triggering movement. We are in another phase, he added. The Red Cross, which has about 200 personnel working in northern Rakhine, provided plastic sheets, food and water to the people on the beach. Prior to the attacks on security posts in August, several groups had hundreds of staff and volunteers working in the area, but the government has restricted the movement of aid workers after accusing some groups of aiding Rohingya militants. Ethnic Rakhine Buddhists, who accuse aid groups of favoring Muslims, on Wednesday blocked Relief International staff from visiting a camp for Muslims displaced in earlier violence. Protesters threw petrol bombs to try to block a Red Cross aid shipment in an incident on Sept. 20. Carboni said the Red Cross organisations could not be the only ones working in northern Rakhine for the long run , but said their ability to reach people was ramping up. Food had reached 40,000 people by Monday, and at least 5,000 households would get food in the next week, he said. In our dialogue with the government, we were always very clear, saying we will do our best and more to reach as many people as possible, said Carboni. Now there is a need for the government to re-engage with the rest of the humanitarian community, and find an acceptable way for the people to receive the assistance they need. | 0fake |
Rush Limbaugh: Lack Of Consent Is Just An Excuse Leftists Use To Vilify Rapists (AUDIO) | Nobody with any brains has ever accused Rush Limbaugh of understanding pretty much anything at all, but his latest bout with doltishness just went way over the line, even for him. While whining up a storm about decaying sexual morality in this country, he tried to paint the left as hypocrites because we tolerate anything sexual as long as there s consent. When there s no consent, we send out the rape police, and apparently, this is a problem.Have you ever heard anything so completely asinine in your life? What people do in their bedrooms is their business, but all bets are off when there s no consent. Sex must be consensual or it s rape. End of story. However, Limbaugh actually sees that as evidence of major hypocrisy when it comes to Trump s damning hot mic moment, where he admitted to sexually assaulting women. He said: You know what the magic word, the only thing that matters in American sexual mores today is? One thing. You can do anything, the left will promote and understand and tolerate anything, as long as there is one element. Do you know what it is? Consent. If there is consent on both or all three or all four, however many are involved in the sex act, it s perfectly fine. Whatever it is. But if the left ever senses and smells that there s no consent in part of the equation then here come the rape police. But consent is the magic key to the left. Listen to this vile, pathetic, diseased beer turd of a man below, because holy shit:Of course, this is also the man that said we would legalize rape if we could because we d just call it the Civil Rights Act of 2016. That s kind of odd, though, considering Limbaugh is now jumping on us for sending out the rape police whenever we see instances of rape.When he brought this up, he was discussing bathroom bills intended to keep transgender people out of the bathrooms that correspond with their identities: Now [civil rights] is being expanded. Civil rights, gay marriage; civil rights, transgender bathroom rights; civil rights, whatever the left wants. Except over here, rape has become a safety issue. Sexual assault is a safety issue, but only when we re talking about people that Limbaugh and his loyal fans hate. It s just words when Donald Trump brags about actually doing it.Put another way, these people are terrified of sexual predators posing as transgender people and invading women s public restrooms, despite the fact that there s no evidence this happens. However, their lord and savior, Donald Trump, can brag about actually assaulting women and he s just saying words. No concern for the safety of women who encounter him at all.Hypocrisy? Nobody s being hypocritical except the Trump-supporting right. And if Limbaugh can t understand what consent is, and how lack of consent literally means sexual assault and rape, then it s going to take an iron crowbar to beat it into his brain.Featured image via Bill Pugliano/Getty Images | 1real |
Saudi Arabia suspends any dialogue with Qatar: SPA | DUBAI (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia on Saturday suspended any dialogue with Qatar, accusing it of distorting facts , just after a report of a phone call between the leaders of both countries suggested a breakthrough in the Gulf dispute. Saudi Arabia s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman spoke by the telephone with Qatar s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani on Friday when they discussed the Gulf dispute, state media from both countries reported earlier. Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt and Bahrain cut diplomatic and trade links with Qatar on June 5, suspending air and shipping routes with the world s biggest exporter of liquefied natural gas, which is home to the region s biggest U.S. military base. The nations say Doha supports regional foe Iran and Islamists, charges Qatar s leaders deny. Kuwait has been trying to mediate the dispute. During the call, the Emir of Qatar expressed his desire to sit at the dialogue table and discuss the demands of the four countries to ensure the interests of all, Saudi state news agency SPA reported. The details will be announced later after the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia concludes an understanding with the United Arab Emirates, the Kingdom of Bahrain and the Arab Republic of Egypt, SPA said. The phone call was the first publicly reported contact between the two leaders since the start of the crisis. Qatar s state news agency QNA said the phone call was based on coordination of U.S. President Donald Trump who had earlier talked with Sheikh Tamim. Trump on Thursday said he would be willing to step in and mediate the worst dispute in decades among the U.S.-allied Arab states and Qatar, and said he thinks a deal could come quickly. Both Qatar s Emir and the Saudi Crown Prince stressed the need to resolve the crisis by sitting down to the dialogue table to ensure the unity and stability of the GCC countries, QNA reported. Sheikh Tamim welcomed the proposal of Prince Mohammed during the call to assign two envoys to resolve controversial issues in a way that does not affect the sovereignty of the states, QNA said. Saudi Arabia later issued a second statement citing an unnamed official at the ministry of the foreign affairs denying the QNA report. What was published on the Qatar News Agency is a continuation of the distortion of the Qatari authority of the facts, SPA reported citing the Saudi official. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia announces the suspension of any dialogue or communication with the authority in Qatar until a clear statement is issued clarifying its position in public. | 0fake |
Pennsylvania Governor Ignores Fracking Health Risks to Children | Get short URL 0 8 0 0 Governor Tom Wolf of the US state of Pennsylvania has overlooked more than 600 studies that reveal fracking as a public hazard that endangers the health of children attending school near drilling wells, advocacy group Pennsylvanians Against Fracking (PAF) told Sputnik.
WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — Researchers at the Yale School of Public Health conducted a study that established a connection between fracking and cancer-causing chemicals, which includes some that are known to cause childhood leukemia and lymphoma. Top US Scientist Says Humanity is Too Late to Stop Global Warming "[Wolf] has not made one statement on any of the studies that I’m aware of," PAF founding member Karen Feridun told Sputnik on Wednesday. "The governor has blinders on."
The advocacy group noted in a release that 685 studies conducted in Pennsylvania have linked asthma attacks, migraines, fatigue and chronic nasal and sinus problems to fracking. © RIA Novosti. Aleksey Nikolskyi Hillary Tells Big Oil That Environmentalism is a Russian Hoax to Wreck Economy "Governor Wolf has ignored them all. But the clear next steps laid out in the Yale study demand his attention," the release stated.
More than 8,500 Pennsylvania children go to school within half a mile of drilling activities, according to the release. Moreover, about 58,000 children attend school a mile away from drilling activities and nearly 132,000 children attend school two miles away from drilling activities, the release added.
The PAF is consequently calling for Wolf to halt fracking in Pennsylvania amid the hundreds of research studies that link health concerns to fracking, and especially as they relate to children.
Pennsylvania ranks second in gas production in the United States and about 9,700 unconventional wells have been built in the state since 2004. ... | 1real |
EU maintains summit gesture to May, with conditions | BRUSSELS (Reuters) - European Union leaders will agree this week to start preparing internally for talks with Britain on a post-Brexit transition, according to a new draft summit statement that spells out conditions which London must meet before negotiations start. The draft [L8N1MR56R], seen by Reuters on Monday, was circulated by summit chair Donald Tusk to the 27 other member governments for discussion by ministers on Tuesday, ahead of a summit with British Prime Minister Theresa May on Thursday and Friday. Following objections from heavyweight powers Germany and France to a first draft last week, the text somewhat hardens up the requirement that London meet conditions set by the EU and softens any suggestion that it is a foregone conclusion that leaders will agree to launch trade talks in December. However, it retains an instruction for EU officials to start internal preparatory discussions on how the EU would negotiate a transition and future trade relationship. That, officials say, could save weeks of delay if a December summit does indeed give a green light to a second phase of talks. | 0fake |
Clinton outpaces rivals in drug company donations | WASHINGTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) - Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton has taken more money from employees of America’s 15 biggest pharmaceuticals companies than all of the Republicans who attempted a run for the White House this year combined, according to campaign finance disclosures. The donations, which were nearly double those accepted by Democratic rival Bernie Sanders, came even as the former senator and secretary of state vowed to curb price gouging in the industry if elected. Clinton’s campaign took nearly $240,000 from employees of the industry between its launch and the end of April, compared with just under $168,000 for all of the Republicans together, including around $1,700 for presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump, according to the filings. The money, a drop in the bucket of Clinton’s nearly $190 million in overall individual contributions, has tended to come from people in top jobs: 54 percent of the donors list their position as executive, director, manager or lawyer. Donors and company officials contacted by Reuters declined to comment on the contributions. Industry insiders say the sector may be drawn to Clinton for a few reasons: She has a good chance of winning against Trump in November, her policies are relatively transparent and predictable, and she’s more supportive of international trade than rivals. Many of the biggest pharmaceuticals companies are also headquartered in areas of the country that are more heavily populated by liberals, like New Jersey and New York – another potential reason for the Clinton-heavy employee donations. “(Trade) is, in particular, an issue for the pharmaceutical industry. They all operate trans-nationally,” said Dan Mendelson, president of Avalere Health, a consulting firm that works with companies across the health sector. He added: “We have very limited ability to predict what would happen in a Trump administration. We don’t know the people, we don’t have a lot to go on.” Trump, who largely self-funded his primary bid, only recently began soliciting donations for the general election, meaning his contributions from supporters in all industries are likely to rise in the coming months. Clinton tapped into widespread public frustration over soaring health costs this winter when she outlined a plan to curb drug price hikes and singled out pharmaceuticals company Valeant, saying she would “go after them” if elected. Trump’s campaign seized on Clinton’s donations from the industry as proof that she would be unlikely to follow through. “Hillary Clinton will be totally controlled by the special interests,” Trump spokeswoman Hope Hicks said. Clinton has rejected the idea. “Hillary Clinton has spent her career fighting to crack down on rising prescription drug prices and hold drug companies accountable,” spokesman Josh Schwerin said. Clinton’s donations from drug companies have grown since the last time she ran, in 2008, but fall far short of her rival in that race, President Barack Obama, who took in more than $500,000 in contributions from employees of pharmaceutical companies during the equivalent period of time. Clinton’s total in this race so far, however, beats the combined take in the 2012 election of Obama and Republican nominee Mitt Romney from employees of the industry of $170,000, according to the filings. | 0fake |
Puerto Rico's PREPA says will make full debt payment on Friday | SAN JUAN (Reuters) - Puerto Rico’s semi-public power utility, known as PREPA, on Thursday said it would make all of a $415 million debt payment due on Friday, a relief for bond insurers who might have been on the hook in the event of default. PREPA, which had been on the brink of collapse under $8.3 billion in debt, last year reached an exchange deal with most of its creditors, which is being finalized. On Thursday, the utility said it would make its $415 million payment using operational funds and proceeds from the new bond sales. “Today’s outcome is another step toward PREPA’s transformation,” Lisa Donahue, the utility’s chief restructuring officer, said in a statement. The payment is not a shock because PREPA and its creditors have had the framework of a restructuring deal in place since December. But debt payments in the U.S. territory are being watched closely as the island is expected to default on pieces of $1.9 billion owed on Friday, and President Barack Obama prepares to sign a bill putting the island’s finances under federal oversight. Puerto Rico faces $70 billion in total debt, a stalled economy, and high poverty and unemployment. The $1.9 billion due on Friday - of which PREPA’s payment was a portion - includes nearly $800 million in general obligation (GO) debt, the island’s highest-ranking debt protected by a constitutional pledge. It was unclear on Thursday whether Puerto Rico would make that payment. On Wednesday night, the U.S. Senate passed the Puerto Rico Oversight, Management, and Economic Stability Act (PROMESA), which Obama has said he will sign, providing for a bankruptcy-like debt restructuring process for Puerto Rico, as well as federal oversight of its finances. While PROMESA contemplates a stay on litigation in the event of default, missed payments matter for the insurers who have to pay out on claims. MBIA’s National Public Finance Guarantee insures about $139 million of the PREPA payment due on Friday, while Assured Guaranty covers about $35 million. National insures another $211 million in other debt due on Friday, including $173 million in GO debt, a company spokesman said on Wednesday. Assured covers another $329 million due Friday, about $184 million of which is GO debt, a spokeswoman said. Ambac, which insures more than $2 billion of Puerto Rican bonds, is on the hook for $122 million in principal and interest due on Friday, including some $40 million in GO or GO-guaranteed debt, according to the company’s public documents. | 0fake |
DID HILLARY REALLY THINK She’d Get Away With Telling Big Fat Lie About Obama’s “Red Line” Comment? | It s not a big surprise given her propensity for lying, but when Hillary knew she was getting destroyed by Trump on her ineffective, embarrassing record as Secretary of State, she lied about not being Obama s Secretary of State during his ridiculous red line comment During Sunday night s presidential debate, Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton denied that she was in office as Secretary of State when President Barack Obama refused to punish Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad for using chemical weapons against civilians after calling chemical weapons use a red line which could not be crossed. They had a chance to do something with Syria, and that was the line, Republican nominee Donald Trump said of his Democratic rival and the administration in which she worked. You were there as Secretary of State with the so-called line in the sand. No, I wasn t, I was gone, Clinton replied.President Obama delivered his famous red line speech in which he described the use of chemical weapons against civilians by Assad as a red line that Assad could not cross without suffering serious international consequences in August 2012. We have been very clear to the Assad regime, but also to other players on the ground, that a red line for us is we start seeing a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around or being utilized. That would change my calculus, President Obama said at the time.Hillary Clinton served President Obama as Secretary of State from January 21, 2009 to February 1, 2013, according to the State Department. She was not in office when Assad used chemical weapons yet again in 2015, violating international law. The White House did not respond to Assad with any direct military retaliation. Via: Breitbart | 1real |
Factbox: Trump on Twitter (Sept 18) - U.S. Air Force, CIA | The following statements were posted to the verified Twitter accounts of U.S. President Donald Trump, @realDonaldTrump and @POTUS. The opinions expressed are his own. Reuters has not edited the statements or confirmed their accuracy. @realDonaldTrump : - Happy 70th Birthday @USAirForce! [0914 EDT] - Happy 70th Birthday @CIA! [0916 EDT] -- Source link: (bit.ly/2jBh4LU) (bit.ly/2jpEXYR) | 0fake |
ESPN’s Historic Setback: Celebrate It, but Not for Too Long - Breitbart | The era of big cable sports is over. [It ended on Wednesday, April 25, 2017, when ESPN began laying off 100 writers and radio and television talent. The era began after 2011, ESPN’s high water mark, with the network viewed in over 100 million households. Then, resulting from a combination of and wanton leftist propaganda disguised as sports coverage, the cable dinosaur saw its once flourishing empire reduced to a relative fiefdom. ESPN lost over twelve million subscribers since 2012, and according to some reports, 10, 000 subscribers a day. The subscriber losses led to layoffs in 2013, and again in 2015. For much of America, and certainly most on the right, the message of ESPN’s historic setback seems clear: stop bringing leftist activism into our sports escapism. Cease using sports as a Trojan horse to masquerade a social justice agenda, and maybe people will want to watch your network. But, what lesson did ESPN take from their setback? For the purposes of this discussion, it’s more important to take a look at who ESPN didn’t layoff, as opposed to who they did. According to the sports media site Awful Announcing, which kept a tracker of the ESPN layoffs throughout Wednesday, of the 60 talent and writers who publicly acknowledged being laid off before midnight central time on Wednesday, none of them, not a single one, were among the usual suspects when it comes to purveying leftist activism at ESPN. Tony Kornheiser, who once likened Tea Party Republicans to ISIS remains at ESPN. So does his partner Michael Wilbon. Bomani Jones, who once appeared on Mike Mike in a “Caucasians” tee shirt remains at ESPN as does Kevin Blackistone, who once ripped Michael Jordan for donating one million dollars to the police. Granted, only 60 of the reported 100 have been laid off, and some of the more liberal personalities at ESPN could very well find themselves without a job on Thursday. However, as of the time of this writing, one thing is clear: If America’s and ratings killing of ESPN was an attempt to send the message that we wanted less politics in their sports coverage, that message fell on deaf ears. Not that anyone should shed a tear about what happened on Wednesday. ESPN losing influence and power is a great thing. Anytime the people who gave Caitlyn Jenner the Arthur Ashe Courage Award lose the ability to influence young minds, that’s a win for America. However, the fact that ESPN laid off none of their worst political offenders, clearly shows that the leftists are still very much in control in Bristol, and if that didn’t change after losing twelve million subscribers, it won’t change anytime soon. Why does that matter? ESPN may have laid off nearly half their total talent on Wednesday, but they didn’t hang the “going out of business” sign on the door either. The era of big, cable sports died Wednesday, but the era of big liberal sports will go on. ESPN is currently investing massively in their digital properties, sensing that digital and online offerings will become the wave of the future as more and more people move away from cable and traditional television. But, if the same people who turned the ESPYs into an Amendment infomercial are still calling the shots, then ESPN’s future digital properties will represent just as big a threat to our culture as they did when they appeared on Channel 206 of your DirecTV package. In fact, if anything, ESPN will likely become more political in the future, especially after their social justice agenda was so roundly rejected by so many. Sports fans who want to watch games and debate free of political persuasion won a battle yesterday. But, the war will go on. Follow Dylan Gwinn on Twitter: @themightygwinn | 0fake |
Watch: White House Hosts Panel With Jeremy Irons and Mathematicians on Math and the Movies | Watch: White House Hosts Panel With Jeremy Irons and Mathematicians on Math and the Movies Posted on Oct 28, 2016 Jeremy Irons as G.H. Hardy in “The Man Who Knew Infinity.”
“The Man Who Knew Infinity” is a 2015 film about the life of Srinivasa Ramanujan, a prominent mathematician in the early 20th century.
Ramanujan was born poor in India and rose to prominence at Cambridge University during World War I with the guidance of his mentor, G.H. Hardy.
Academy Award-winning actor Jeremy Irons plays Hardy in the film , and many of the contributions Ramanujan made to mathematics still impact us today.
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On Friday, the White House hosts a panel discussion on the role of storytelling, cinema, and media in disseminating science and mathematics. The panel discussion features the following people:
Jeremy Irons , actor, “The Man Who Knew Infinity” DJ Patil , U.S. chief data scientist Jo Handelsman , associate director for science, White House Office of Science and Technology Policy Knatokie Ford , senior policy advisor, White House Office of Science and Technology Policy France Córdova , director, National Science Foundation Andrea Hairston , mathematician, National Security Agency Ken Ono , professor of mathematics at Emory University, founder of Spirit of Ramanujan Initiative
Watch the panel below. | 1real |
Trump urges Republicans to force majority vote on Gorsuch if Democrats block | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday said he would urge fellow Republicans in the Senate to invoke a rule change to force a simple majority vote on his Supreme Court nominee if Democrats block his choice. With some Democrats questioning Trump’s choice of federal appeals court Judge Neil Gorsuch the day after the president announced him, Trump said he would not want congressional gridlock to interfere with Gorsuch. He spoke at a meeting with interest groups who will support his choice of Gorsuch, who, if confirmed, will restore a conservative majority on the Supreme Court. Trump was asked whether he would urge Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to use the so-called “nuclear option” to change the rules to make it easier to confirm him. “Yes, if we end up with the same gridlock we’ve had in Washington for longer than eight years; in all fairness to President (Barack) Obama, a lot longer than eight years,” Trump said. “If we end up with that gridlock, I would say, ‘If you can, Mitch, go nuclear,’” Trump said. He said it would be “an absolute shame if a man of this quality” was blocked by Democrats and to avoid that eventuality, “I would say it’s up to Mitch, but I would say, ‘Go for it.” | 0fake |
UNREAL! NEW YORK TIMES Blames Conservatives For Berkeley Violence…Watch This Video For The Truth! [Video] | Typical! The New York Times tries to blame conservatives for the violence TOTALLY caused by the Antifa thugs. Why does this not surprise us? Leave it to the left to twist and turn the truth to fit their narrative.The New York Times wrote: conservatives are eagerly putting themselves into volatile situations on campuses Watch this video and then tell us the Conservatives are to blame NO WAY, NO HOW!MORE PROOF THAT ANTIFA THUGS ARE TO BLAME FOR VIOLENCE: The irony in this entire cancellation of a tradition in Portland, Oregon is that now the Antifa (Anti Fascists) have pissed off the more moderate lefties. One group was going to speak at the parade event against white supremacy but now they won t get the chance. It s turning out that the Antifa group is more violent than any other radical group we ve known. They re even selling knives on their website! A threatening email has derailed one of the Portland Rose Festival s signature events, and spurred new debate about the ongoing political protests in Portland.Organizers of the 82nd Avenue of Roses Parade announced Tuesday that the event will be canceled, for fear that the east Portland parade could be disrupted by the type of riots which happen in downtown Portland. (see video below)Originally scheduled this Saturday, April 29, the parade is meant to highlight the local community and businesses along Southeast 82nd Avenue, aiming to turn around the negative perception many people have of the area. It started in 2007 and has since become a popular event on the Rose Festival calendar.This year s parade was once again set to feature the Multnomah County Republican Party as one of the many groups slated to march, but that inclusion drew ire from some of the city s left-leaning protest groups.At least two protests were planned for the day of the parade, one by Oregon Students Empowered and another by Direct Action Alliance. Both events were mentioned in an email sent to parade organizers on Saturday, threatening to shut down the event with hundreds of protesters in the street. You have seen how much power we have downtown and that the police cannot stop us from shutting down roads so please consider your decision wisely, the anonymous email said, telling organizers they could cancel the Republican group s registration or else face action from protesters. This is non-negotiable. The parade is organized by the 82nd Avenue of Roses Business Association, a part of the neighborhood business organization Venture Portland. Representatives from neither organization returned calls for comment.The cancelation isn t necessarily a win for the protest groups. Jacob Bureros, an organizer with the Direct Action Alliance, said the organization which intended to speak out against fascism and white supremacy during the parade is sad to hear the news. We are disappointed that the parade was canceled, he said. We re members of this community and this is an awesome parade. James Buchal, chairman of the Multnomah County Republican Party, said his group was ready to march despite the protesters. He said the party had no hand in cancelling the event, and was taken by surprise when they heard the news. After seeing the email last weekend, they had no plans to back out. We weren t willing to just walk away quietly, he said. The next thing we knew the whole thing was canceled. The problem is the police said they couldn t offer additional security for the parade so the organizers backed out. We know the Portland Police Department can move to stop this type of activity.Check out this recent shut down of protesters blocking a bus in downtown Portland:Portland protesters were doing the usual idiotic tactic of blocking the street and not letting traffic proceed What they didn t realize is that the police aren t taking this anymore Watch the takedown of these punks Awesome!Check out the lady with the thumbs up! Haha!Read more: Oregon Live | 1real |
Scientists decry Arctic oil expansion in letter to U.S. senators | NEW YORK (Reuters) - A group of 37 U.S.-based scientists whose research focuses on Arctic wildlife asked two U.S. senators in a letter on Thursday not to open the National Arctic Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas exploration, according to a copy seen by Reuters. The scientists, including several retired former officials from the Alaska Department of Fish & Game, the U.S. Geological Survey and the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, said in a letter to Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Senator Maria Cantwell of Washington that drilling for oil and gas in the refuge would be “incompatible with the purposes for which the refuge was established,” protecting fish and wildlife populations and the environments in which they live. Murkowski, a Republican, introduced legislation on Wednesday that would create an oil and gas exploration program on the refuge’s coastal plain, letting prospectors build any roads and other infrastructure they deemed necessary inside the refuge to carry out their operations. Half of the available drilling royalties would go to the state of Alaska and half to the federal government. The program’s administrator would be required to hold at least two lease sales within 10 years after the bill became law. The scientists said drilling on the coastal plain would be particularly harmful because it contains a “unique compression” of habitats supporting animals like polar bears, grizzly bears, wolverines, representing “the greatest wildlife diversity of any protected area above the Arctic Circle.” In a Reuters interview, Cantwell praised the scientists for spelling out why drilling would be so harmful to the refuge and she would work to oppose the legislation. “To try to legislate mandated drilling in a wildlife refuge is just not where America is,” she said. Murkowski’s spokeswoman declined to comment and referred a comment request to the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. The conflict over whether to allow drilling inside the refuge has deep roots. The U.S. Geological Survey estimates the area on the Prudhoe Bay in Northern Alaska has up to 12 billion barrels of recoverable crude, and Republicans, who now control Congress and the White House, have long wanted to open a portion of the refuge called the 1002 area. Murkowski, who chairs the Senate Energy Committee, called the 1002 portion a “non wilderness area” because the government put it aside decades ago for petroleum exploration. Last month, Democrats tried and failed to pass legislation blocking drilling there. | 0fake |
Ireland's historic vote for marriage equality prompts amazing Twitter celebration | Although only a fifth of constituencies have returned their official results thus far, the referendum looks set to pass by an overwhelming margin. According to the Guardian, current estimates suggest that close to 65 percent of voters voted to legalize same-sex marriage.
Opposition leader David Quinn, the director of the Iona Institute, has already conceded the vote, tweeting, "Congratulations to the yes side. Well done." The Iona Institute also issued a statement congratulating the yes supporters on their win.
Turnout was bolstered by the #hometovote campaign, which encouraged Irish citizens living abroad to return home to cast their ballots in the referendum.
As it became increasingly clear that the referendum was going to pass, jubilant Irish people took to Twitter to celebrate. Pictures purporting to show actual rainbows over Irish cities as the vote went on were particularly popular:
But people also had all sorts of other ways of celebrating. Like this one, from Ireland's Minister of State for Equality: | 0fake |
DAY 2 RESULTS Of Wisconsin Recount Are In…And Hillary’s Not Gonna Like It | The Wisconsin Election Commission posts recount data on a spreadsheet every day. The latest spreadsheet totals as of 1:30 p.m. CST on December 3 show that the recount isn t changing much, although a smattering of errors have been found throughout the state. The candidates each lost and gained a smattering of votes in towns, cities, and villages that are reporting, so any losses were basically cancelled out.The Election Commission doesn t tally the returns, but, rather, just posts a raw spreadsheet of numbers. Heavy went through the spreadsheet and tallied the lost and gained votes for Trump and Clinton for each county so far, and then subtracted the two totals for a net gain or loss for day 2.Here s what the returns show so far:Day 2 totals Clinton gained 89 votes but lost 86 for a net gain of 3 votes. Trump gained 98 votes but lost 92 for a net gain of 6 votes.OVERALLClinton gained 3 votes Trump gained 6 votes Net Trump gain of 3 votes on Day 2Trump won Wisconsin by more than 22,000 votes.That means that Trump inched ahead by a grand total of 3 votes in a recount expected to cost more than $3.5 million. Green Party nominee Jill Stein raised more than $6 million to fund recounts in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. The latter two recounts are now bogged down in legal issues and challenges. On December 3, Stein dropped her request for a Pennsylvania recount, saying she couldn t afford the $1 million required, even though she raised $7 million overall for recounts. Clinton would have needed all three states Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan to flip in order to take the White House back from Trump, an exceedingly tall order.In Wisconsin, Trump supporters sued to stop the recount, alleging it was not being conducted uniformly (some counties use paper ballots and others use machines). A judge said the recount could continue at least until a December 9 hearing. The Wisconsin recount is the first in the 2016 presidential election. Heavy | 1real |
FORMER JOE BIDEN Secret Service Agent Claims They Had to Protect Women From Him…Biden “would grope all of our wives and girlfriend’s a**es” | Several uncomfortable videos have surfaced this week, showing former Vice President Joe Biden groping little girls. Apparently, according to a former secret service agent, Vice President Joe Biden is not only interested in touching little girls in inappropriate ways, he s also someone the Secret Service felt they needed to protect from their female agents.Here s one example of Creepy Joe touching and rubbing a little girl who is clearly uncomfortable with his inappropriate actions:Big League Politics Cassandra Fairbanks dropped a bombshell report on Gateway Pundit, where she released a stunning report from a former Secret Service agent assigned to the Vice President Joe Biden residence claims that the Service often had to protect female agents from him.Speaking on the condition of anonymity, the agent asserted that, We had to cancel the VP Christmas get together at the Vice President s house because Biden would grope all of our wives and girlfriend s asses. The annual party was for agents and Navy personnel who were tasked with protecting the Biden family. He would mess with every single woman or teen. It was horrible, the agent said.According to the source, a Secret Service agent once got suspended for a week in 2009 for shoving Biden after he cupped his girlfriend s breast while the couple was taking a photo with him. The situation got so heated, the source told Cassandra Fairbanks, that others had to step in to prevent the agent from hitting the then-Vice President.Additionally, the agent claims that Biden would walk around the VP residence naked at night. I mean, Stark naked Weinstein level stuff, he added.He said that the men on duty would frequently stand in front of female agents and Navy women that were present like a damn guardian. On some occasions, they would make up reasons to get the women away from where he was.The agent said he was specifically concerned about women in the Navy. They weren t allowed to disobey him at all, but we d take them away under pretend auspices, the agent stated.Best-selling author Ronald Kessler wrote about Biden s problem with female agents in his book The First Family Detail.Go to the 2:00-minute mark to hear Kessler tell Sean Hannity how Vice President Joe Biden likes to swim naked in front of female secret service agents:Next time you hear the liberal media talking about how Judge Roy Moore should step down from his bid to become Alabama s next US Senator, with absolutely no evidence that he has ever even made a teenage girl feel uncomfortable remember the actual videos of Joe Biden, the so-called future of the Democrat Party, groping numerous little girls in plain view of the media, and of the little girls families, while everyone tried to pretend it wasn t happening. | 1real |
Zimbabwe judge frees ousted finance minister on bail | HARARE (Reuters) - A Zimbabwean judge freed ousted finance minister Ignatius Chombo on bail on Thursday in a ruling that underlined judicial independence just three weeks after the army helped depose Robert Mugabe. Chombo, a senior member of the G40 faction of the ruling party that was targeted in the military s Nov. 15 intervention, was dragged from his home in the middle of the night and held incommunicado by soldiers at an undisclosed location for a week. During that time he was beaten, according to his lawyer. He was arrested by police on his release and charged with fraud and abuse of office relating to his time as a government minister over a decade ago. The Harare magistrate s court denied him bail. However, High Court judge Edith Mushore condemned that ruling as littered with mis-directions and wading into the muddy court of public opinion after the massive army-backed protests that helped topple Mugabe after 37 years in power. Chombo, 65, was ordered to be released on $5,000 bail, surrender his passport and the title deeds of his Harare mansion and report to a police station in the capital three times a day. The tone and substance of Mushore s ruling also sent a stern message to the army-backed administration of President Emmerson Mnangagwa about the independence of the courts and the primacy of the law, aspects of public life often ignored by Mugabe. During his detention by the military, Chombo had been denied basic rights enshrined in the constitution such as access to justice and presumption of innocence, Mushore said. In particular, she said Zimbabweans needed to know they can sleep at night without the fear of arbitrary detention in secret locations beyond the reach of lawyers or family - a common feature of the police state run by Mugabe. The public in Zimbabwe needs to know that they have a right to access to justice, she said. Chombo was one of several G40 figures detained during the military s Operation Restore Legacy that was officially launched to remove criminals around Mugabe. Most Zimbabweans interpreted this as meaning Mugabe s 52-year-old wife Grace, who was positioning herself as a successor to her 93-year-old husband at the expense of Mnangagwa, who was purged from the ruling party in early November. Chombo s lawyer says he will deny the charges when his trial starts. In a cursory analysis, Mushore characterized the state s case against him as mere allegation . | 0fake |
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 |
18 State Swat Team Drill In Prep for Backlash Against a Stolen Election |
Paul Martin, through his sources has learned of an 18 state Swat Team Drill. The drill is exceptionally covert but The Common Sense Show has learned that the intent of the drill is centralize and coordinate martial law activities over a large swath of states at the same time.
It is apparent that the election is going to be stolen and the establishment and their minions are expecting a violent backlash. Remember, both the New York Times and the Washington Post contacted Dave Hodges and Mike Adams fishing for information regarding any potential headlines related to a planned violent backlash should Clinton steal the election.
More on this coming suppression of the will of the people is included in the following video.
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Clinton calls for 'common-sense' gun control after Charleston terrorist attack | Hillary Clinton also spoke forcefully about the 'deep fault line' of racism, noting that 'millions of people of color still experience racism in their everyday lives.'
How SNL's 'the bubble' sketch about polarization is all too true
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton is applauded by the president of the US Conference of Mayors, Sacramento. Mayor Kevin Johnson (l.) and the conference vice President, Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, Saturday June 20, 2015, at the U.S. Conference of Mayors 83rd Annual Meeting in San Francisco.
Hillary Rodham Clinton issued an emotional plea Saturday following the South Carolina church shooting, calling for "common-sense" gun control reforms and a national reckoning with the persistent problem of "institutional racism."
Three days after nine black church members were gunned down in Charleston, the Democratic presidential contender said the country must take steps to keep guns from criminals and the mentally ill.
Regulations, she said, can be passed while still respecting the Second Amendment and "respecting responsible gun owners." The US Constitution's Second Amendment guarantees the right to bear arms.
"The politics on this issue have been poisoned, but we can't give up," Ms. Clinton told the US Conference of Mayors meeting in San Francisco on Saturday. "The stakes are too high. The costs are too dear."
In 2013 Congress rejected legislation that would have expanded background checks on firearms sales and banned some semi-automatic weapons.
While public opinion is sharply divided on the issue of gun rights vs. gun control, the scientists who research it are not, as Christian Science Monitor's Alexander LaCasse reported in April:
Does owning a gun make your home more dangerous? Most professionals who research the effects of gun ownership say yes. This is what David Hemenway, a professor at Harvard's School of Public Health saw when he began sending out monthly surveys almost a year ago to scientists engaged in research in public health, criminology, or other social sciences. A clear majority found that a gun in the home increases the risk of suicide, makes women more likely to be victims of homicide, and make homes more dangerous. In an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times, titled, " There's scientific consensus on guns – and the NRA won't like it," Hemenway writes: "Scientific consensus isn't always right, but it's our best guide to understanding the world. Can reporters please stop pretending that scientists, like politicians, are evenly divided on guns? We're not." [Among the general public, support] for gun ownership was most pronounced among whites who believed that crime rates in the United States are on the rise. This belief runs counter to crime statistics, which in particular have found that the gun homicide rate has plunged by 49 percent since its peak in 1993.
President Barack Obama has blamed the continued national political inaction on the issue on the influence of the National Rifle Association, the leading gun rights lobbying group.
While Clinton did not propose any specific legislation in her address, she's previously supported limits on gun sales and extending the assault weapons ban.
On Friday, former Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley, who's challenging Clinton for the Democratic Party nomination, called for an assault weapons ban, stricter background checks and tougher requirements to buy a gun.
"I'm pissed," he wrote in an email to supporters. "It's time we called this what it is: a national crisis."
As the Christian Science Monitor's Brad Knickerbocker noted on Friday, advocates on both sides promptly staked out their now-familiar positions after the shooting:
National Rifle Association board member Charles Cotton wrote, “Eight of [Pinckney’s] church members who might be alive if he had expressly allowed members to carry handguns in church are dead. Innocent people died because of his position on a political issue.” Dan Gross, president of the Brady Campaign and Center to Prevent Gun Violence, said in a statement: “[E]very day, 88 lives are lost in shootings across our nation. Most of these tragedies are preventable through sensible solutions that just keep guns out of the wrong hands: solutions like expanding Brady background checks on all gun sales, and shutting down the small number of ‘bad apple’ gun dealers that supply almost all crime guns.”
Clinton's remarks also marked a forceful entry into the heated topic of race relations, an issue that's become a major theme of her campaign. Clinton called race a "deep fault line" in America, noting that "millions of people of color still experience racism in their everyday lives."
The problem of racism was not limited to "kooks and Klansmen," she said, but included the off-hand, off-color jokes, as well as whites not speaking up against poverty and discrimination.
In previous appearances, Clinton has taken up a number of issues that are important to African-Americans, calling for changes to the criminal justice system, voting laws and assistance for minority small business owners. Her campaign is trying to motivate the coalition of minority, young, and liberal voters that twice elected Obama to the White House.
"We can't hide from any of these hard truths about race and justice in America," she said. "We have to name them and then own them and then change them." | 0fake |
Donald Trump’s ‘Charity’ Foundation Is About To Be Shut The F**k Down NATIONWIDE | Things really aren t looking too great for Donald Trump s charity foundation. With recent developments prohibiting the Trump Foundation from soliciting funds in New York state, it s now looking like a good majority of states may be following suit.The Trump Foundation has also been being looked at by the Attorney General for how it is getting and spending funds, especially after what happen with veterans organizations earlier this year.According to The Daily Beast: To make matters worse for the Trump Foundation, the probe may not be limited to New York: Charity experts and lawyers tell The Daily Beast that the attorneys general of other states may soon get involved in a long, drawn-out process.All major charities are required to register with 41 different states across the nation in order to individually request permission to fundraise. When Trump raised money for veterans, he may have broken the rules in dozens of states. The president of the National Committee for Responsible Philanthropy, Aaron Dorfman, stated: The Trump Foundation would be required to file similar paperwork with the attorneys generals of nearly every other state, and they could all take similar action. It is likely that other states will follow suit and they will be issued cease and desist orders denying them fundraising privileges in other states. That is the most likely next step. This is not good news for Trump who keeps trying to pivot to slamming Hillary Clinton s Clinton Foundation. You know, the one that helps fight AIDS in nations globally.Trump, of course, likes to pretend that he s holier than thou, which might explain why Trump Foundation money was used to buy pictures of, well, himself.And according to Real Clear Politics: From 2011 through 2014, Trump harnessed his eponymous foundation to send at least $286,000 to influential conservative or policy groups, a RealClearPolitics review of the foundation s tax filings found. In many cases, this flow of money corresponded to prime speaking slots or endorsements that aided Trump as he sought to recast himself as a plausible Republican candidate for president. Finding out Trump is a scam artist using a shell charity with his same name really should come as no surprise. Especially to fund his political ambitions of grandeur. However, it will be interesting to see how this story develops as the November election draws nearer.Featured Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images | 1real |
U.S. civil rights groups to fan out on Nov. 8 to fight voter intimidation | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Donald Trump supporters who plan to stake out polling sites on Election Day may find their own activities tracked closely by thousands of civil-rights activists who are mounting a nationwide effort to prevent problems at the polls. The Republican presidential candidate, who has repeatedly said that the election is rigged, has urged his backers to monitor voting sites for evidence of fraud, raising concerns that overzealous supporters could intimidate voters in the Nov. 8 election. They will not be the only ones out in force on Election Day. Civil rights groups say they plan to deploy thousands of volunteers on the ground in 27 states to ensure that voters will not be turned away by harassment, long lines or confusing rules. Teams of lawyers will file legal challenges if necessary. While previous elections have been marred by irregularities, Trump’s rhetoric might lead to greater problems at the polls this year, activists say. “When Trump says, ‘Go and watch certain areas of Philadelphia,’ that’s either intentionally reckless or it’s a thinly veiled call to engage in racial profiling,” said Dale Ho, the head of the American Civil Liberties Union’s voting rights project. “Whether people will heed it, I don’t know.” Non-partisan groups have mounted “election protection” programs since the disputed Bush-Gore presidential election of 2000, but they faced a more daunting landscape this year even before Trump began warning of a “rigged election.” The Supreme Court in 2013 weakened the U.S. government’s ability to monitor voting activity in states with a history of racial discrimination, and dozens of Republican-led states have also passed laws that require voters to present photo identification or that restrict voting in other ways. As early voting gets underway in many states, voting-rights groups are publicizing a national hotline, 866-OUR-VOTE, and establishing lines of communication with the election officials who are tasked with resolving problems. “We haven’t encountered a situation yet where we feel there’s a need to call the police,” said Marcia Johnson-Blanco, a co-director of the voting rights project at the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. This year, civil-rights groups are broadening their efforts beyond perpetual battlegrounds like Ohio and Florida to conservative states like Texas, where they plan to field 200 volunteers to monitor polling sites in Houston’s Harris County. “We’ve seen an uptick of folks saying they’re going to be out patrolling in a way that we think is trying to be intimidating,” said Zenen Jaimes Perez, communications director for the Texas Civil Rights Project. In New York, volunteers with Common Cause are expanding their monitoring programs to Muslim neighborhoods in New York City and some areas of the rural Hudson Valley. “What Trump’s efforts have caused us here in New York to think about are places where there are concentrations of voters who, I hate to say, are easy targets - a magnet for people who are extreme,” said Susan Lerner, executive director of Common Cause New York. Democratic officials have stepped up their efforts as well. In Arizona, a traditionally Republican state that is competitive this year, Democrats plans to deploy a record 200 lawyers to make sure that everybody who is in line when polls close at 7 p.m. will get a chance to cast a ballot, said Spencer Scharff, the state party’s voter protection director. But at the end of the day, poll monitors do not have the power to fix problems - they can only point them out to election officials. “States have the most important role. They’re the ones who write these laws and they have to enforce these laws,” said Danielle Davis, a staff attorney at the Advancement Project, a national civil-rights group. | 0fake |
China sees THAAD deployment as 'weather vane' under Trump | BEIJING (Reuters) - Whether President-elect Donald Trump goes through with a deployment of a U.S. anti-missile system in South Korea will be a key indicator to how political ties unfold with China, sources with ties to the leadership in Beijing said. Beijing will also be keeping a close eye on Trump’s meeting on Thursday with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan, its key regional rival, for clues on how the President-elect, who has never held public office, is likely to conduct foreign policy, they said. South Korea and the United States have agreed to deploy a Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (THAAD) anti-missile system to counter missile threats from North Korea. It is expected to be in place within eight to 10 months, the commander of U.S. forces in South Korea said earlier this month. China has argued the planned deployment undermines strategic stability in Northeast Asia, and worries that THAAD’s powerful radar provides coverage of China’s missile installations. “Whether deployment of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense is delayed is a political weather vane,” one source said. A security adviser to Trump said last week his meeting in New York with Abe on Thursday may mark the start of talks to garner Tokyo’s support for a push-back against China’s growing influence in Asia. “We have heard what he said. We will now watch what he does,” said the source, requesting anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to media. “We will play it by ear,” the source said, invoking an idiom that translates to blocking a punch or a kick as it comes. Trump has created doubts over his commitment to security alliances with Japan and South Korea, suggesting they need to pay more for a U.S. military presence and even hinting they should develop their own nuclear weapons capability. Japan going nuclear would be China’s worst nightmare and is likely to provoke strong reaction, diplomats and analysts have said. China’s relations with Japan have long been poisoned by what Beijing sees as Tokyo’s failure to fully atone for its invasion and occupation of parts of China before and during World War Two as well as competing claims over a group of East China Sea islets. “Northeast Asia would be a powder keg,” a second source said, referring to a nuclearized sub-region including China, Japan, North and South Korea. The State Council Information Office, or cabinet spokesman’s office, had no immediate comment. China is generally opposed to military alliances, seeing them as Cold War relics. China’s stability-obsessed leaders do not know what to make of the 70-year-old Trump, whose win over Hillary Clinton was unexpected, and has backpedaled on some of his more controversial campaign statements. For example, Trump pledged his commitment to defending South Korea under an existing security alliance during a phone call last week with South Korean President Park Geun-hye. Trump had said during the election campaign he would be willing to withdraw the 28,500 U.S. troops stationed in South Korea unless Seoul paid a greater share of the cost of the U.S. deployment. Trump told Reuters in an interview in May he was willing to talk to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to try to stop Pyongyang’s nuclear program - a major shift in U.S. policy toward the isolated nation - but has also called for China to do more to rein in Pyongyang. Sino-U.S. relations after Trump takes office on Jan. 20 are expected to be fluid, although Chinese President Xi Jinping told Trump during a telephone call on Monday cooperation was the “only correct choice” for the two giants. A statement from Trump’s presidential transition office said the two men “established a clear sense of mutual respect for one another” and he believes the two countries will have one of the strongest relationships moving forward. Trump’s election does offer some good news for China: it signals the demise of the U.S.-led Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which excludes China; it raises the possibility of belated U.S. backing for the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, and possibly marks an end to President Obama’s strategic “pivot” to Asia. The bad news is that Trump has often made provocative remarks about China during his campaign, including threats to slap 45 percent tariffs on imports from China and label the world’s second-biggest economy a currency manipulator. Wei Jianguo, a retired vice commerce minister, was optimistic a trade war could be avoided. “Protectionism is on the rise, but a trade war between China and the United States is unlikely,” Wei, vice chairman of the China Center for International Economic Exchanges, a government-backed think-tank, told Reuters. “That was just election rhetoric,” he said. | 0fake |
HOLY CASH COW! Check Out How Much Wall Street Funneled Into HILLARY’s Foundation/Slush Fund | Thank God she has a vagina, otherwise her blatant hypocrisy might be an issue with voters Hillary Clinton is facing more questions about her close ties to Wall Street financial institutions. Last week, the New York Times urged Clinton to release transcripts of her highly-compensated speeches to Wall Street firm Goldman Sachs.The paid speeches are just a slim chapter of her relationship with financial titans. According to Clinton Foundation records, Wall Street financial institutions have donated around $40 million to the eponymous family foundation.As a non-profit, the Clinton Foundation isn t legally required to disclose its donors or contributions. The Foundation has publicly disclosed some contributions on its website. It only provides ranges for contributions, e.g. $1-5 million, and doesn t detail when the contribution was made or for what purpose, if any.Here s the chart of contributions from Wall Street to the Clinton Foundation.All together, contributions from readily identifiable Wall Street institutions to the Foundation total somewhere between $11 million and $41 million in contributions. If we assume the donations fall in the middle of the ranges disclosed by the Clinton Foundation, the contributions would total just under $30 million.As with most things involving the Clintons, the devil is in the details. This total of contributions does not include those made by individuals with strong Wall Street ties. It also does not necessarily represent the total amounts contributed to the Foundation from those donors listed. It only accounts for the donations which the Foundation has chosen to disclose.The failure of the Foundation to include any information on the timing of the donations is especially worrisome. In terms of donor relationships, there is a real difference between a one-time gift of $1 million and an ongoing gift of $200,000 for 5 straight years. The total dollar amount may be the same, but an ongoing gift usually requires a more substantive relationship between the Foundation and the donor.There is, of course, an added dimension to the timing issue with the Clintons. During the life of the Foundation, Hillary Clinton has been a US Senator, Secretary of State and two-time candidate for President.When the Clinton Foundation discloses that the Friends of Saudi Arabia contributed $1-5 million, it begs the obvious question of when that donation was made. The specific date of that donation is particularly important, given Clinton s considerable focus on the Middle East while she was Secretary of State.It is also important to note that these contributions are completely seperate from the paid speeches made by Bill and Hillary Clinton. In 2013 alone, Hillary earned just over $3 million in paid speeches to financial firms and institutions.These contributions, obviously, also don t include direct contributions made by Wall Street institutions and individuals to either of Clinton s Presidential campaigns.For entire story: Breitbart News | 1real |
Euro-Russian Mars Lander May Have Exploded Due to Software Glitch | Get short URL 0 13 0 0 This would actually be a best-case scenario for the European Space Agency, as a software glitch on the ExoMars Schiaparelli lander, which crashed on the surface of Mars October 19, would be easier to remedy than a hardware issue.
Andrea Accomazzo, the ESA’s head of solar and planetary missions told the journal Nature, "If we have a serious technological issue, then it’s different, then we have to re-evaluate carefully…But I don’t expect it to be the case." © Photo: Pixabay If a Trip to Mars Doesn't Kill You It Might Cause Massive Brain Damage and More The spacecraft consisted of a Schiaparelli entry, descent and landing demonstrator module, and a Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO), and was a joint venture between ESA and Russian space agency Roscosmos.
ExoMars’ chief objective was to confirm markers of active geological and biological processes on the red planet by seeking evidence of methane gases, which have been detected by past Mars missions, along with other atmospheric gases.
Nature noted that the mission was "a prelude to a planned 2020 mission, when researchers aim to land a much larger scientific station and rover on Mars, which will drill up to 2-metres down to look for signs of ancient life in the planet’s soil." © Photo: Pixabay Next Small Step & Giant Leap: United States to Send Humans to Mars by 2030
The TGO entered Mars orbit last week after a seventh-month trek and now makes it way around the planet every 4.2 days, but never sent back signals indicating that the descent module made a successful landing on the planet’s surface. NASA released images Friday taken by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) that show what appeared to be scorch marks near the area where the craft was supposed to have touched down, implying that it may have exploded on impact.
Project scientist Jorge Vago suggested that ExoMars’ parachute and heat shields may have deployed prematurely, and the thrusters, which are supposed to engage for 30 seconds, shut after three seconds due to a software glitch. © Photo: Pixabay Mars 'Ain't No Limit': Elon Musk Envisions Future Colonization of Space
He told Nature, "My guess is that at that point we were still too high…And the most likely scenario is that, from then, we just dropped to the surface." An investigation is ongoing, and data gleaned over the near future will determine whether ExoMars is intact, but the ESA said all of the craft’s main goals had been achieved and the mission was a success, despite the unexpected impact.
"As it is, we have one part that works very well and one part that didn’t work as we expected,” said Vago. “The silver lining is that we think we have in hand the necessary information to fix the problem."
The ESA had a similar experience in 2003 when the British-led Beagle 2 mission disappeared attempting to make a Christmas Day landing on Mars. ... | 1real |
Migrant deaths in the Sahara likely twice Mediterranean toll: U.N. | GENEVA (Reuters) - West African migrants trying to reach Europe are dying in far greater numbers in the Sahara than in the Mediterranean but efforts to dissuade them may cause new routes to open up, the United Nations migration agency said on Thursday. So far this year 2,569 migrant deaths have been recorded in the central Mediterranean, while more than 107,000 migrants, mainly West Africans, have reached Italy. One thing we still don t have is any estimate of number of deaths in the desert, Richard Danziger, the U.N. International Organization for Migration director for West and Central Africa, told a news conference in Geneva. We assume, and I think we have said before, that it has to be at least double those who die in the Mediterranean. But we really have no evidence of that, it s just an assumption. We just don t know. In Niger, a main transit route, people smugglers were increasingly scared of the authorities, which might make them more prone to abandon migrants in the desert, he said. Many migrants had told of deaths in the desert, and some said the smugglers believed that if they drove fast through minefields they would be safe, said the IOM s Niger mission chief, Giuseppe Loprete. Migrant numbers heading through Niger have fallen dramatically after strong action by the government to close migrant ghettoes and arrest people smugglers, he said. IOM was also trying to spread the word that you do not want to get caught in Libya, Danziger said. What happens in Libya is far scarier to people than dying, the horror stories that returnees come back with. Many of the smugglers did not see themselves as criminals, and were often former desert guides trying to make money. Many of them had given up, while organized criminals with contacts in Libya were continuing, Loprete said. Right now they are looking for alternative routes, I think at least equally dangerous, he said. When you plug one hole, other holes are going to open up, Danziger said. Niger had two routes to Libya: one closer to Chad that was used to smuggle migrants and one closer to the Algerian border that was far more dangerous and was used by extremist groups and for drugs and gun-running. An alternative was through northern Mali, a region beset by conflicts between rival groups, but but there did not seem to have been a dramatic rise there, Danziger said. The route considered the safest was along the western coast of Africa, via Senegal, Mauritania and Morocco to the Strait of Gibraltar, and migrant flows there had increased, he said. | 0fake |
Final votes on Patriot Act, trade deal bill set dramatic stage for Congress’ return | The Senate’s failure to extend the USA Patriot Act will bring the legislation on NSA phone-record collection and other key surveillance activities perilously close to expiring on June 1, forcing senators to return early from recess for a rare Sunday session.
The Senate vote was just one of two this weekend that set the stage for dramatic showdowns on Capitol Hill in the coming weeks and months.
The GOP-led upper chamber passed bipartisan legislation Friday night to strengthen President Obama's hand in global trade talks. However, the legislation must now pass the Republican-led House, with help from Democrats because some conservative members oppose the legislation.
Speaker John Boehner supports the measure and says Republicans will do their part to pass it.
Dozens of House Republicans oppose the legislation either out of ideological reasons or because they are loath to enhance Obama's authority, especially at their own expense.
Senate and now House Democrats are showing little inclination to support legislation that much of organized labor opposes.
On the Patriot Act bill, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell says he will bring the upper chamber back into session on Sunday, May 31 -- roughly 24 hours before the post-9/11 legislation expires.
Meanwhile, the National Security Agency is starting to winding down its bulk collection of domestic-calling records in preparation for the Senate voting again against the legislation, according to the Justice Department, which says the collection takes time to halt.
The Senate went into the early hours on Saturday morning to vote on the legislation before leaving Washington for Memorial Day recess.
By the time senators broke for the holiday, they had blocked a House-passed bill and several short-term extensions of the key provisions in the Patriot Act.
The main stumbling block was a House-passed provision to end the NSA collecting the phone-call metadata and instead have the records remain with telephone companies subject to a case-by-case review.
McConnell warned against allows the NSA and other key surveillance programs under the act to expire.
However, he and other key Republican senators oppose the House approach, backed by officials who argued it is the best way for the United States to keep valuable surveillance tools.
Fellow GOP Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, also a 2016 presidential candidate, called the Senate's failure to allow the extension a victory for privacy rights.
"We should never give up our rights for a false sense of security," Paul said in a statement. "This is only the beginning -- the first step of many. I will continue to do all I can until this illegal government spying program is put to an end, once and for all."
The White House has pressured the Senate to back the House bill, which drew an overwhelmingly bipartisan vote last week and had the backing of GOP leaders, Democrats and the libertarian-leaning members.
But the Senate blocked the bill on a vote of 57-42, short of the 60-vote threshold to move ahead. That was immediately followed by rejection of a two-month extension to the existing programs. The vote was 54-45, again short of the 60-vote threshold.
McConnell repeatedly asked for an even shorter renewal of current law, ticking down days from June 8 to June 2. But Paul and other opponents of the post-Sept. 11 law objected each time.
At issue is a section of the Patriot Act, Section 215, used by the government to justify secretly collecting the "to and from" information about nearly every American landline telephone call. For technical and bureaucratic reasons, the program was not collecting a large chunk of mobile calling records, which made it less effective as fewer people continued to use landlines.
When former NSA contractor Edward Snowden revealed the program in 2013, many Americans were outraged that NSA had their calling records. President Obama ultimately announced a plan similar to the USA Freedom Act and asked Congress to pass it. He said the plan would preserve the NSA's ability to hunt for domestic connections to international plots without having an intelligence agency hold millions of Americans' private records.
Since it gave the government extraordinary powers, Section 215 of the Patriot Act was designed to expire at midnight on May 31 unless Congress renews it.
Under the USA Freedom Act, the government would transition over six months to a system under which it queries the phone companies with known terrorists' numbers to get back a list of numbers that had been in touch with a terrorist number.
But if Section 215 expires without replacement, the government would lack the blanket authority to conduct those searches. There would be legal methods to hunt for connections in U.S. phone records to terrorists, said current and former U.S. officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly. But those methods would not be applicable in every case.
Far less attention has been paid to two other surveillance authorities that expire as well. One makes it easier for the FBI to track "lone wolf" terrorism suspects who have no connection to a foreign power, and another allows the government to eavesdrop on suspects who continuously discard their cellphones in an effort to avoid surveillance.
The Associated Press contributed to this report. | 0fake |
COVFEFE Act would preserve Trump's tweets as official statements | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - From the incomprehensible “covfefe” to a post labeling fired FBI director James Comey a “leaker,” President Donald Trump’s tweets would be preserved as presidential records if a Democratic lawmaker’s proposed COVFEFE Act becomes law. Representative Mike Quigley of Illinois introduced on Monday the “Communications Over Various Feeds Electronically For Engagement” Act that would amend the Presidential Records Act and require the National Archives to store presidential tweets and other social media interactions. “If the president is going to take to social media to make sudden public policy proclamations, we must ensure that these statements are documented and preserved for future reference,” Quigley, a member of the House intelligence committee, said in a statement. “Tweets are powerful, and the president must be held accountable for every post.” The law would bar the prolifically tweeting president from deleting his posts, as he has sometimes done. This has inspired websites archiving his erased tweets. White House spokesman Sean Spicer said last week that Trump’s tweets “are considered official statements by the president of the United States.” The White House did not immediately reply to a request for comment on the proposed legislation. Trump, who has more than 32 million followers on Twitter for his 8-year-old personal @realDonaldTrump profile, is known for messages on the social media site that are sometimes riddled with spelling and grammar mistakes. Trump famously sent a tweet at 12:06 a.m. ET (0406 GMT) on May 31 that said: “Despite the constant negative press covfefe.” The message remained on the internet for hours, spurring a wave of speculation about what Trump intended to say. The message was later deleted. Trump’s next communication that day at 6:09 a.m. ET (1009 GMT) made light of the tweet, saying: “Who can figure out the true meaning of “covfefe”??? Enjoy!” Spicer, asked at a news briefing at the time whether people should be concerned about the covfefe tweet, said, “no” and added, “I think the president and a small group of people know exactly what he meant.” | 0fake |
New Ferguson Video Adds Wrinkle to Michael Brown Case - The New York Times | In the two and a half years since Michael Brown, a black was shot and killed by a white police officer in Ferguson, Mo. the explosive case has been parsed in intricate detail. Witnesses offered varying descriptions of the fatal encounter. Investigators examined bloodstain evidence on the street where Mr. Brown died. And the police released a security video from a nearby store that showed Mr. Brown pushing a worker and taking cigarillos minutes before the shooting. But a second, previously unreported video from that same convenience store included in a new documentary is raising new questions about what happened in the hours before the shooting on Aug. 9, 2014. The footage shows Mr. Brown entering the store, Ferguson Market and Liquor, shortly after 1 a. m. on the day he died. He approaches the counter, hands over an item that appears to be a small bag and takes a shopping sack filled with cigarillos. Mr. Brown is shown walking toward the door with the sack, then turning around and handing the cigarillos back across the counter before exiting. Jason Pollock, a documentary filmmaker who acquired the new tape, says the footage challenges the police narrative that Mr. Brown committed a robbery when he returned to the store around noon that day. Instead, Mr. Pollock believes that the new video shows Mr. Brown giving a small bag of marijuana to store employees and receiving cigarillos in return as part of a negotiated deal. Mr. Pollock said Mr. Brown left the cigarillos behind the counter for safekeeping. “There was some type of exchange, for one thing, for another,” Lesley McSpadden, Mr. Brown’s mother, says in Mr. Pollock’s documentary, “Stranger Fruit,” which premiered Saturday at the South by Southwest festival in Austin, Tex. and examines the shooting from the family’s perspective. But Jay Kanzler, a lawyer for the convenience store and its employees, strongly disputes that version of events, and said the new footage is unrelated to Mr. Brown’s later visit to the store. “There was no transaction,” Mr. Kanzler said. “There was no understanding. No agreement. Those folks didn’t sell him cigarillos for pot. The reason he gave it back is he was walking out the door with unpaid merchandise and they wanted it back. ” Regardless of what happened at the store in the hours, the new security footage does not resolve questions about Mr. Brown’s encounter with Officer Darren Wilson along a Ferguson street that day. Officer Wilson, who claimed that he feared for his life and had been assaulted by Mr. Brown, was cleared of criminal wrongdoing by a county grand jury and federal civil rights investigators. He resigned from the Police Department. Mr. Brown’s death and the sometimes violent protests that followed raised broad questions about how police officers treat black people, both in the St. Louis area and across the country, and many remain steadfast in their belief that Mr. Brown was murdered. Protesters were particularly offended by the Ferguson Police Department’s decision to release the video that showed Mr. Brown shoving the store clerk, perceiving it as part of an effort to defame and demonize the young man. Ms. McSpadden, who also spells her first name as Lezley, questioned why that tape was released publicly while her son’s earlier visit to the store had been kept quiet. “They destroyed Michael’s character with the tape, and they didn’t show us what actually happened,” said Mr. Pollock, who spent more than two years in Ferguson conducting research for his documentary, and who questions the decision to not charge Officer Wilson. “So this shows their intention to make him look bad. And shows suppression of evidence. ” The St. Louis County Police Department briefly mentioned Mr. Brown’s visit to the store in a lengthy report on the case, which tipped Mr. Pollock off to the existence of an additional video. Sgt. Shawn McGuire, a spokesman for the county police, said in an email on Saturday that footage of the earlier encounter had not been released because it was not relevant to the investigation. He added later that he could not confirm the video’s authenticity. Spokesmen for the city of Ferguson and the St. Louis County prosecutor’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Saturday. Mr. Brown’s parents have filed a federal lawsuit against Officer Wilson, the city of Ferguson and the former Ferguson police chief. A civil trial is scheduled to start next year. | 0fake |
DONALD TRUMP, JR Delivers Powerful Speech: “A President Who Will Unleash The Greatness In Our Nation” [Video] | Donald Trump, Jr was such a natural in his delivery of a very powerful speech at the RNC. He hit on the topics of jobs and education but the main takeaway from his speech is his honesty when speaking about the great character of his father. | 1real |
No rehearing for ex-Illinois Governor Blagojevich; appeal planned | (Reuters) - A federal appeals court on Monday refused to reconsider its recent decision upholding former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich’s corruption conviction and 14-year prison term. The order from the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago likely ends Blagojevich’s chance for a new trial or shorter sentence unless he can persuade the U.S. Supreme Court to take up his case, a long shot. Leonard Goodman, a lawyer for Blagojevich, in an interview said his client will appeal to the Supreme Court. “The issues are important not just for Mr. Blagojevich and his family, which never used the office to enrich themselves—and yet he is serving one of the longest sentences issued to a governor—but also to every elected official who is not independently wealthy and has to raise campaign funds,” Goodman said. In its April 21 decision, the appeals court rejected arguments that Blagojevich deserved leniency because of his good behavior during his five years in prison, and because parts of his original 2011 conviction had been thrown out. Prosecutors accused Blagojevich of soliciting campaign money in exchange for raising pediatric reimbursement rates and legislation supporting Illinois’ horse racing industry. They said he also tried to sell or trade the U.S. Senate seat that Barack Obama, a fellow Democrat, vacated after winning the 2008 U.S. presidential election. Blagojevich, 60, was convicted on charges including wire fraud, extortion and soliciting bribes while governor, a job he held from January 2003 to January 2009 before being removed from office. He is eligible for release from prison in May 2024. | 0fake |
Trump seeks to 'reboot' U.S. relationship with Egypt in Monday talks | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump will seek to rebuild the U.S. relationship with Egypt at a Monday meeting with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi focused on security issues and military aid, a senior White House official said on Friday. “He wants to use President Sisi’s visit to reboot the bilateral relationship and build on the strong connection the two presidents established when they first met in New York last September,” the official said, briefing reporters on condition of anonymity. Egypt has long been one of Washington’s closest allies in the Middle East, receiving $1.3 billion in U.S. military aid annually. The country is fighting an Islamist insurgency in Sinai, and hundreds of Egyptian soldiers and police have been killed fighting insurgents. The bilateral relationship was strained when former President Barack Obama criticized Sisi for cracking down on the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt’s oldest Islamist group. Sisi does not make a distinction between the Brotherhood, which says it is peaceful, and Islamic State militants. Egypt considers the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist group. Obama froze aid to the country for two years after Sisi, then a general, overthrew President Mohamed Mursi in mid-2013 after mass protests against Mursi’s rule. Mursi, a Muslim Brotherhood member, had been elected the previous year. Human rights groups have estimated that at least 40,000 political prisoners have been detained by Sisi’s government. Trump’s relationship with Sisi got off to a good start when they met last September in New York while Trump was running for president, the White House said. Trump supports Sisi’s approach to counterterrorism, which includes both military and political efforts, his efforts to reform Egypt’s economy, and Sisi’s calls for “reform and moderation of Islamic discourse,” the official said. Asked whether the United States would designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist group, as Egypt has, the official said Trump was interested in hearing Sisi’s views during the meeting. “We, along with a number of countries, have some concerns about various activities that the Muslim Brotherhood has conducted in the region,” the official said. Sisi’s visit comes as the Trump administration has proposed massive cuts to U.S. foreign aid, the details of which are still to be determined. The White House anticipates aid to Egypt will continue but provided no details on Friday. “We’re in the budget process right now and those discussions are ongoing as to how it will be broken out,” the official told reporters. Some U.S. lawmakers have opposed loosening restrictions on aid to Egypt because of concerns about human rights in the country. The Trump administration intends to address human rights issues behind closed doors, the White House official said. “Our approach is to handle these types of sensitive issues in a private, more discreet way. We believe it’s the most effective way to advance those issues to a favorable outcome,” the official said. The official would not say whether Trump would discuss with Sisi the case of Aya Hijazi, an Egyptian-American who works with street children and was arrested in May 2014 on human trafficking charges. Rights groups have called for her release. Hijazi has been held in custody for 33 months in violation of Egyptian law, which states that the maximum period for pretrial detention is 24 months. A verdict was set to be read in a March 23 court session, but was postponed with no reason stated by the judge until April 16. The maximum possible jail sentence in her case is 25 years. The White House is aware of Hijazi’s case “at the most senior levels,” the official told reporters. “We are going to address this with Egypt in a way that we think maximizes the chances her case will be resolved in a satisfactory way,” the official said. | 0fake |
Treasury's Weiss to be witness at House Puerto Rico hearing: official | NEW YORK (Reuters) - Puerto Rico will be the subject of two U.S. House of Representatives hearings on Feb. 25, with U.S. Treasury Secretary Counselor Antonio Weiss the sole witness at one, Pedro Pierluisi, the island’s non-voting representative in Congress, said in a statement on Thursday. Following the hearings, Pierluisi said he expected that the drafting process would begin “in earnest” for legislation for the island and that he would be involved in negotiations. Republicans plan to bring a bill addressing Puerto Rico’s debt crisis to the floor of the House by the end of March. The first hearing next Thursday, examining the impact of Puerto Rico’s fiscal crisis on the bond market, will be in a subcommittee of the House Committee on Financial Services. The second, examining the Treasury’s analysis of the island, will be a full committee hearing before the House Natural Resources Committee, according to Pierluisi’s statement. Puerto Rico, with around $70 billion in debt, has been trying to solve a fiscal crisis before substantial debt payments come due in May and July. It has already defaulted on some debt and is trying to persuade its creditors to take concessions. | 0fake |
Thousands march to mourn slain Boris Nemtsov | MOSCOW — Tens of thousands of people marched in the sleet Sunday through central Moscow to mourn slain Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov, gunned down just steps away from the Kremlin.
"I wasn't planning to go to the rally initially, I had no faith in them," said Tatyana Shakhova, a young demonstrator holding a sign that said "propaganda kills."
"But (Nemtsov's killing) crosses all the lines," she said. "I have no faith that the organizers of the murder will be found."
Nemtsov's death is a "critical turning point for Russia," said one of the rally's organizers, Gennady Gudkov, a former member of parliament who was kicked out in 2012 because of his opposition activity. "Either something starts getting better in this country, or it could go the way of more (political assassinations and repressions.)"
Russian President Vladimir Putin, whom Nemtsov staunchly criticized in the past, condemned Friday's killing and took personal control of the investigation. Russia's Investigative Committee on Sunday pledged to award 3 million rubles (about $50,000) for valuable information about Nemstov's death.
Up to 100,000 people turned out for the march, according to Gudkov, after the location was changed from the outskirts of Moscow to the center of the city. Moscow police, which often downplay the turnout for opposition rallies, put the crowd at 44,000.
Demonstrators holding Russian flags and portraits of Nemtsov marched from the Kitai-Gorod subway, along the southeastern wall of the Kremlin, to the bridge by Red Square where Nemtsov was slain.
The march was initially planned as a protest against Russia's involvement in Ukraine and the resulting economic crisis. Nemtsov, who reportedly had been gathering evidence that Moscow was arming and aiding pro-Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine, was to speak at the rally. But organizers on Saturday canceled the demonstration to instead hold a march of mourning.
Nemtsov, 55, who served as first deputy prime minister under the late president Boris Yeltsin, was shot four times in the back from a passing car as he walked with a female friend across a bridge Friday night, the Interior Ministry said. At least seven shots were fired by several assailants. His companion was not hurt.
The hunt for his killer continues.
Investigators said Sunday that they were again questioning the woman, Ukrainian citizen Anna Duritskaya, the Associated Press reported. LifeNews, a television station with ties to the security services, said Duritskaya told investigators that she was in shock and could not remember what the killer looked like or the car he was in.
At Sunday's march, thousands of Russian tricolor flags peppered the gathering, which was an unusual display for opposition protests. Volunteers handing them out explained that the flags had been "usurped" to represent only the government in power, and it was time for people to take back the flags to represent the country.
"We decided on the flags spontaneously. We wanted to move away from politics toward something that unites us," Gudkov said. "Also, Boris (Nemtsov) was a patriot of Russia."
Russian flags intermingled with Ukraine's colors of blue and yellow, as many demonstrators spoke out for peace between the two countries.
"Russia and Ukraine must be together," said Dasha Ilyasova, who carried a joined Russian and Ukrainian flag with a black ribbon to commemorate Nemtsov.
"A good person was killed," she said. "If it was a bad person or a person who supported Putin, he wouldn't have been killed."
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said the United States had no intelligence on who was behind the shooting. "We hope there will be a thorough, transparent, real investigation, not just of who actually fired the shots, but who, if anyone, may have ordered or instructed this or been behind this," Kerry said Sunday on ABC's This Week.
The theme of Sunday's protest was "propaganda kills," in reference to a propaganda campaign on Russian television that termed Kremlin critics "traitors" and "fifth columnists."
Russian state media turned nationalist in the wake of Ukraine's pro-Western coup a year ago and Russia's move to annex Ukraine's breakaway Crimea. While Russia has persistently denied sending troops and arming separatist rebels in eastern Ukraine, Russia's media have staunchly supported the fight against Kiev's new government.
A pro-Kremlin rally on Feb. 21 included demonstrators calling for a "purge of the fifth column," a slogan remembered with fear following Nemtsov's slaying. But there was doubt that Nemtsov's death would change the status quo.
"I think public sentiment will only escalate. Neutrality has disappeared. There are people for or against, and they are irreconcilable." said Mark Feigin, the firebrand lawyer who defended the Pussy Riot protest singers and Ukrainian pilot Nadezhda Savchenko, who was captured by pro-Russian fighters and is imprisoned in Russia.
Savchenko, who is accused by Russia of being involved in the death of two Russian reporters in Ukraine, has been on a hunger strike for 79 days to protest her imprisonment. While Nemtsov's murder won't change public sentiment, Feigin said he hoped the rally could help his defendant.
"Unwillingly, Nemtsov became part of a cumulative effect that could lead to a political decision that could free Savchenko," he said. | 0fake |
HOCUS POCUS: Pope Francis Laughably Announces He Extends Priests ‘Power To Forgive Abortions’ | NTEB Ads Privacy Policy HOCUS POCUS: Pope Francis Laughably Announces He Extends Priests ‘Power To Forgive Abortions’ The letter continues: "May every priest, therefore, be a guide, support and comfort to penitents on this journey of special reconciliation. "I henceforth grant to all priests, in virtue of their ministry, the faculty to absolve those who have committed the sin of procured abortion." by Geoffrey Grider November 21, 2016 Pope Francis has extended indefinitely the power of Catholic priests to forgive abortions, making the announcement in an apostolic letter released Monday.
“For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus;” – 1 Timothy 2:5 (KJV)
EDITOR’S NOTE: There is not a man on the face of the earth who has power to forgive your sins. The best anyone can do is point you to where forgiveness is, and that journey begins and ends with Jesus Christ . He shed God’s own blood on the cross at Calvary to obtain that pardon for you, and He did not “transfer that power” to any other human agency. When you step into the Catholic “confessional” and ask a man for forgiveness, you step out of that box just as dirty as you went in. Cut out the phony middleman, and go straight to the Source if you want to be clean. If you put your trust in the black-robed, “hocus-pocus” man from Rome, you will be gravely disappointed. Pun intended.
It continues a special dispensation granted last year for the duration of the Year of Mercy — which finished Sunday — which gave all priests, rather than just bishops and specially designated confessors, the power to absolve the sin of abortion.
While the practical effect of Francis’ announcement remains unclear, it draws attention to the prevailing theme of his papacy: That the doors of the Church must remain open, just as God’s forgiveness and mercy extend to all those who repent from sin. THE GOSPEL TRUTH ABOUT VATICAN CITY AND THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH
That said , the Catholic Church’s stance on abortion has not changed — it is still viewed as a “grave sin.” But it makes it easier for women who have had abortions to be absolved for their actions, and rejoin the church.
“I wish to restate as firmly as I can that abortion is a grave sin, since it puts an end to an innocent life,” the Pope’s letter states. “In the same way, however, I can and must state that there is no sin that God’s mercy cannot reach and wipe away when it finds a repentant heart seeking to be reconciled with the Father.”
The letter continues: “May every priest, therefore, be a guide, support and comfort to penitents on this journey of special reconciliation. “I henceforth grant to all priests, in virtue of their ministry, the faculty to absolve those who have committed the sin of procured abortion.”
“For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:” Ephesians 2:8,9 (KJV)
Forgiveness for the sin of abortion , and for all sins, is found only in Jesus Christ and Him alone.
| 1real |
Kate Steinle's death and sanctuary cities: What good are our laws without enforcement? | According to the Wall Street Journal, the last serious attempt to count the number of federal criminal laws appears to have been made in 1982 by a retired Justice Department official named Ronald Gainer. He failed, but the estimate then was “…50 titles and 23,000 pages of federal law.” Many more laws have been added since then.
One thing is certain: If you violate federal law you are likely to be punished with a fine, imprisonment or both. These laws are supposed to apply to everyone, unless, it seems, you are an illegal alien living in San Francisco, or any of the other sanctuary cities around the country.
By now, anyone not preoccupied with stories about shark attacks, the Confederate flag or singer Ariana Grande “maliciously licking” donuts she did not buy, has heard about 32-year-old Kathryn Steinle gunned down by an illegal alien while walking on a San Francisco pier with her father. Her accused killer is Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez, a felon from Mexico, who had been deported five times but always managed to sneak back in, choosing San Francisco, he reportedly said, because he knew it was a “sanctuary city” that would not deport him.
The concept of a sanctuary city comes from the Old Testament.
“…if someone deliberately kills another person, then the slayer must be dragged even from my altar and be put to death. (Exodus 21:14). But if it was simply an accident permitted by God, I will appoint a place of refuge where the slayer can run for safety. (Exodus 21:13). These cities will be places of protection from a dead person’s relatives who want to avenge the death. The slayer must not be put to death before being tried by the community. (Numbers 35:19) “Then the congregation shall judge between the slayer and the blood avenger. ... The congregation shall deliver the manslayer from the hand of the blood avenger, and the congregation shall restore him to his city of refuge to which he fled; and he shall live in it until the death of the high priest who was anointed with the holy oil…” (Numbers 35:24-28).
This ancient concept for a sanctuary city was not to shield a suspect from justice, but to guarantee justice was done. The suspected murderer would be given safe haven only until a trial was held. If he was found guilty, he was executed. If he was acquitted he was set free. But if he left the sanctuary city before the trial, “the avenger of blood” could kill him.
Officials in “sanctuary cities” pervert the concept of sanctuary by helping suspects evade the law. Congress should deny federal funds to these cities as long as they continue to ignore the law. President Obama is unlikely to speak, much less lead on this issue, because the Democratic Party thinks it can win the Hispanic vote in 2016. Republicans and the Chamber of Commerce want cheap immigrant labor, so they will huff and puff but do nothing, hoping the controversy goes away. The public must not let this happen.
According to the Washington Post, there are an estimated 60 sanctuary cities around the country, including major cities like New York, Los Angeles and Houston, and these cities are unlikely to change their sanctuary policies anytime soon.
In fact, writes International Business Times, “…a number of local leaders in U.S. cities have renewed their efforts to foster welcoming and inclusive communities for illegal aliens. So-called ‘sanctuary policies’ … are intended to signal to the undocumented community that it’s safe to come out of the shadows without the fear of being reported to federal authorities.”
If laws are not enforced, what is the point of having them?
If politicians are so afraid of losing the Hispanic vote that they do nothing in response to the murder of Kathryn Steinle, they should be removed from office. The notion that Hispanics won’t vote for a party that stands for justice is racist.
Cal Thomas is America's most widely syndicated op-ed columnist. He joined Fox News Channel in 1997 as a political contributor. His latest book is "What Works: Common Sense Solutions for a Stronger America" is available in bookstores now. Readers may email Cal Thomas at tcaeditors@tribune.com. | 0fake |
Every American Knows a 'Gerald' in Their Neighborhood -- His Wife Wants You to Re-elect Him...Please | Share on Twitter
While many campaign ads feature candidates and their surrogates slinging the proverbial mud at their opponents, Travis County (Austin, TX) Commissioner Gerald Daugherty tried something a little different: he had his friends, his neighbors, and even his wife sling a little (good-natured) mud at him.
The resulting ad was so touching and relatable that Americans of all political stripes are calling it “the best political ad of the entire election”: my favorite political ad of the year, for a Texas county commish @teamdaugherty https://t.co/tBVtTde4sF — Jon Ward (@jonward11) October 24, 2016 Fun ad: "Please re-elect Gerald" to the county commission so he'll stop annoying his family with policy nerdery. https://t.co/5LiiBpfg6X — Josh Barro (@jbarro) October 27, 2016
“Re-Elect Gerald...Please” even got the attention of Hollywood: "Please re-elect Gerald." Best political Ad of the election. https://t.co/BAuGdWLrTx — Jenna Fischer (@jennafischer) October 26, 2016 Okay. This is the funniest campaign ad ever!!! Please Re-Elect Gerald https://t.co/50P8nWmPXk via @YouTube — James Woods (@RealJamesWoods) October 23, 2016
Even liberal bastion The Daily Kos is suggesting that their readers “put party politics aside” and watch the hilarious ad.
Daugherty, who was a one-time prospect for the Boston Red Sox, has channeled his energy into a platform of “good roads and fiscal responsibility”...and, apparently, savvy advertising. | 1real |
DIRECTOR OF COMMUNITY RELATIONS AT UNIV of WI: “Stealing From Wal-Mart Shouldn’t Be A Crime” [VIDEO] | As the anarchists and local thugs sit and nod their heads in agreement Everett D. Mitchell is the Director of Community Relations at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is also an attorney, pastor, and community leader.At a recent panel discussing Best Policing Practices, Mitchell said that police should stop prosecuting individuals who shoplift from Wal-Mart and Target.His reasoning? He simply does not believe that police have any justification to engage in policing practices with thieves who steal from Wal-Mart or Target because they are big box stores with insurance: I just don t think they should be prosecuting cases for people who steal from Wal-Mart. I don t think that. I don t think that Target, and all them other places the big boxes that have insurance they should be using the people that steal from there as justification to start engaging in aggressive police behavior. He begins his speech by advocating legal relativism the notion that communities should decide for themselves which laws be enforced and which laws are not in order to better recognize what safety means for the specific community.Where is the line drawn with these anti-police activists?Just a few weeks prior to his speech, fellow Wisconsin professors, Karma Ch vez and Sara L. McKinnon wrote a letter to the Capital Times (progressive Wisconsin news outlet) titled: Sara L. McKinnon and Karma Ch vez: Request for no police interaction is reasonable In it, they argue that police are an occupying force and have no valid reason to patrol certain neighborhoods.Via: MRCTV | 1real |
One dead at protest against extending Ugandan president's rule | KAMPALA (Reuters) - At least one person died as police fired bullets and teargas to disperse a crowd of opposition supporters rallying on Wednesday against plans to extend Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni s rule. Police have broken up a series of protests in recent days against a bill to let the 73-year-old president stand again in 2021 elections - the constitution currently sets an age limit for candidates at 75. Rights organizations and activists have criticized moves by several other long-serving African rulers, notably in Rwanda, Burundi and Burkina Faso, to stay in power by extending term limits. Police spokesman Elly Maate said one person died after officers fired bullets in the air to disperse a crowd gathering for what he called an illegal rally near a stadium in the southwestern town of Rukungiri. Opposition party member Ingrid Turinawe and a local government official both said two men died. Turinawe said a bullet also struck a vehicle carrying opposition leader Kizza Besigye. He was not hurt but an image showed a gaping hole in the rear window of his vehicle. A Museveni-allied legislator introduced the bill to remove the presidential age limit last month. Museveni met MPs backing the measure last week and for the first time openly expressed his support for the legislation, several local media outlets reported. | 0fake |
Molly Ball: Don’t Trust Pelosi’s Predictions About Dems Retaking the House - Breitbart | Friday, on CNN’s “Inside Politics,” the Atlantic’s Molly Ball reacted to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s ( ) prediction that the House’s passage of the revised version of the American Health Care Act (AHCA) could help Democrats take back the majority in the House by saying Pelosi has a history of incorrect predictions on House control. Ball said, “We also, I don’t think, should ever take Nancy Pelosi’s word for what’s going to happen in the House, because I recall she predicted Democrats were going to take back the House in 2012, in 2014, and in 2016, so she always makes that prediction. ” ( NTK) Follow Pam Key On Twitter @pamkeyNEN, | 0fake |
U.S. attorney general unveils 12-city partnership to fight crime | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Justice Department has launched a 12-city partnership to combat spikes in violent crime as part of President Donald Trump’s vow to support law enforcement, Attorney General Jeff Sessions said on Tuesday. The program features a three-year initiative to help coordinate crime-fighting efforts among federal, state, local and tribal law enforcement and prosecutors, Sessions said in unveiling the new National Public Safety Partnership. Trump, a Republican, made tough-on-crime rhetoric a focus of his 2016 campaign. The new program stems from an executive order he signed in February mandating that the Justice Department provide support for local law enforcement. “We have a duty to make sure our country does not abandon all the progress we have made against crime over the past few decades,” Sessions said at a national meeting of law enforcement officials. His remarks were released by the Justice Department. Sessions did not disclose any new funding for the initiative, which will focus on gun crime, drug trafficking and gang violence. The federal government will provide help in areas that include training, crime analysis, gun violence, community engagement and investigations. A spike in violent crime in 2015 continued into the first half of last year, with big cities seeing an average increase in murders of almost 22 percent compared with the same period the year before, Sessions said. The dozen cities chosen for the program are Birmingham, Alabama; Indianapolis; Memphis, Tennessee; Toledo, Ohio; Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Buffalo, New York; Cincinnati; Houston; Jackson, Tennessee; Kansas City, Missouri; Lansing, Michigan; and Springfield, Illinois. Sessions said more communities could be announced for the partnership this year. The 12 cities were picked because they have levels of violence well above the national average and are ready to receive training and aid, Justice Department spokesman Devin O’Malley said. Federal prosecutors and law enforcement officials also helped choose them, he said. Chicago and nine other cities that were in a pilot program called the Violence Reduction Network will also take part in the initiative. Trump had vowed in January to bring federal intervention to bear to quell gun violence in Chicago. | 0fake |
VIDEO: The Dallas Shooting Agenda | Daily Shooter 21st Century WireThe Dallas Sniper Production. What was it really about?Dallas, like so many other mass shooting events, coincidentally triggers a familiar pattern of convenient political and social conditioning effects.Brasscheck TV says: It is odd, isn t it?High profile school shooting, followed by high profile church shooting, followed high profile gay nightclub shooting now this. It s as if they re checking off all the demographic boxes and the conclusion is always the same:1. Guns are the problem 2. Domestic terrorism is out of control 3. We need to assemble a list of risky people and take away their guns 4. Who do they want to put on these lists? Veterans, blacks, anyone with political opinions, anyone deemed mentally unstableWe need to do all this to protect school children, church goers, gays, and cops. What reasonable person can say no to this, right ? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuBgcYWL6sQ . https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctDIWrFN3q8 . READ MORE DALLAS SHOOTING NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire Dallas Files | 1real |
U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara Says He Was Fired After Refusing to Quit - The New York Times | The call to Preet Bharara’s office from President Trump’s assistant came on Thursday. Would Mr. Bharara, the United States attorney in Manhattan, please call back? The following day, Mr. Bharara was one of 46 United States attorneys appointed by President Barack Obama asked to resign — and to immediately clean out their offices. The request took many in his office by surprise because, in a meeting in November, Mr. Bharara was asked by the to stay on. Mr. Bharara refused to resign. On Saturday, he announced on Twitter that he had been fired. It was unclear whether the president’s call on Thursday was an effort to explain his change of heart about keeping Mr. Bharara or to discuss another matter. The White House would not comment on Saturday. However, there are protocols governing a president’s direct contact with federal prosecutors. According to two people with knowledge of the events who were not authorized to discuss delicate conversations publicly, Mr. Bharara notified an adviser to the attorney general, Jeff Sessions, that the president had tried to contact him and that he would not respond because of those protocols. Mr. Bharara then called Mr. Trump’s assistant back to say he could not speak with the president, citing the protocols. Mr. Bharara was a highly public prosecutor who relished the spotlight throughout more than seven years in office. He pursued several cases involving Wall Street, and he was in the midst of investigating by Bill de Blasio, the mayor of New York, and preparing to try former top aides to the governor of New York, Andrew M. Cuomo, who are both Democrats. It was not immediately clear how his departure would affect those cases and others that were pending. Mr. Bharara stayed quiet until Saturday afternoon. Then, on his personal Twitter account, he wrote: “I did not resign. Moments ago I was fired. ” Referring to the Southern District of New York, he continued, “Being the US Attorney in SDNY will forever be the greatest honor of my professional life. ” Peter Carr, a Justice Department spokesman, declined to characterize Mr. Bharara’s departure that way, saying only, “I can confirm that Mr. Bharara is no longer the U. S. attorney for the Southern District of New York. ” All presidents choose their own appointees for United States attorney positions and almost always ask those from their predecessors to leave. But the process under Mr. Trump was unusually abrupt, and it was yet another rocky encounter between the Trump administration and the nation’s law enforcement apparatus. Mr. Bharara’s job had appeared to be secure. In November, he met at Trump Tower with the and several of his advisers, including Mr. Trump’s Jared Kushner, and his chief strategist, Stephen K. Bannon, according to two people briefed on that discussion who requested anonymity. At the meeting, according to those briefed, Mr. Trump asked Mr. Bharara to remain in the job, which Mr. Bharara relayed to reporters and television cameras in the Trump Tower lobby. Then came the order to resign on Friday, creating what was described as a feeling of whiplash in the prosecutor’s Manhattan office. One person familiar with the views of current prosecutors described an oddly subdued reaction mixed with anxiety as the events unfolded. “You have a sense of how it’s going to end, and it’s not going to end well,” the person said. But Mr. Bharara, unlike his fellow United States attorneys, publicly refused to leave. He gave no statement citing a policy or legal issue affecting his decision to refuse the resignation order. It was unclear how many of the 46 holdovers had submitted resignations. Mr. Bharara’s colleague Robert L. Capers, the United States attorney in Brooklyn, announced his resignation Friday. Two White House officials, speaking on condition of anonymity to avoid offending the president, said the promise to keep Mr. Bharara on was a product of a chaotic transition process and Mr. Trump’s desire at the time to try to work with Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York, with whom Mr. Bharara is close. The relationship between Mr. Trump and Mr. Schumer, the Senate minority leader, has since soured. It was Dana Boente, the acting deputy attorney general, who called Mr. Bharara on Saturday. According to a Justice Department official, Mr. Boente told Mr. Bharara that he was one of the 46 United States attorneys being told to resign. Mr. Bharara, the official said, replied that that was in conflict with Mr. Trump asking him to stay on. Mr. Boente reiterated that Mr. Bharara was being asked to resign, and Mr. Bharara said that he was interpreting that as being fired. Mr. Boente then said again that the department was asking him to step down, according to the official. Mr. Bharara’s office is overseeing the case against the former aides to Mr. Cuomo and the inquiry into by Mr. de Blasio, who has been a target of Mr. Trump’s ire as he has positioned himself as a vocal opponent of the president’s on the left. His office is also overseeing an investigation into whether Fox News, which is owned by the media magnate Rupert Murdoch, failed to properly alert shareholders of settlements with female employees who had accused the channel’s former chief, Roger Ailes, of sexual harassment. The investigation of Mr. de Blasio’s campaign has been going on for about a year and is examining whether the mayor or his aides traded beneficial city action for political donations. Mr. de Blasio was interviewed recently by prosecutors who appeared to be in the final stages of determining whether to seek charges in the matter. Mr. de Blasio’s press secretary has said that the mayor has cooperated with Mr. Bharara’s inquiry and that he and his staff had “acted appropriately and well within the law. ” White House officials have said little about the timing of the mass push for resignations, other than insisting it had not been a response to a call for a purge on Fox News, where one host, Sean Hannity, urged the president to clean house at the Justice Department. Phil Singer, a former aide to Mr. Schumer and a Democratic strategist, called it “absurd” to suggest that Mr. Bharara’s firing had been meant to punish Mr. Schumer. He noted that any investigation involving Trump Tower would fall within the purview of Mr. Bharara’s office. The Southern District of New York, which Mr. Bharara has overseen since 2009, encompasses Manhattan, Mr. Trump’s home before he was elected president, as well as the Bronx, Westchester County and other counties north of New York City. The Thursday afternoon phone call from the Oval Office was a curious sidelight to the events. Mr. Trump’s assistant asked the prosecutor to return the call. Before doing so, Mr. Bharara called Mr. Sessions’s chief of staff, Jody Hunt, to alert the Justice Department to the call and express concern about contacts between presidents and federal prosecutors. Aides to Mr. Trump did not respond to three emails seeking comment about the nature of Mr. Trump’s call to Mr. Bharara. | 0fake |
New Poll: Americans Feel Less Safe After 15 Years Of War | Written by Daniel McAdams We were told that we had to attack Iraq because the Saddam Hussein government made us less safe. We were told we had to bomb and kill Gaddafi in Libya because his regime made us less safe. Ditto with the Taliban in Afghanistan and Assad in Syria. Now. 15 years after 9/11, Americans are seeing through the endless wars that have lasted through the Bush and Obama Administrations. Trillions spent, untold thousands killed, societies destroyed, people displaced. A new poll sponsored by the Center for the National Interest and the Charles Koch Institute has found that Americans feel less, not more safe after a decade and a half of war. We are reaching the critical mass where Americans begin to demand a change in our interventionist foreign policy. More on the encouraging poll in today's Liberty Report: Copyright © 2016 by RonPaul Institute. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted, provided full credit and a live link are given. | 1real |
Italy's 5-Star tells France's Macron movement is no threat to EU | ROME (Reuters) - Italy s anti-establishment 5-Star Movement told French President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday that it does not represent a threat to the European Union, and sought to shrug off the label populist . Leader Luigi Di Maio, whose party tops polls ahead of a national election due early next year, wrote an open letter to Macron after the French leader reportedly expressed concern about anti-system forces in Italy. I am sure that when we get to know each other better, you will realize that our movement is not only not a threat, but is cultivating the best solutions for many of Europe s problems, Di Maio said in the letter published on the 5-Star movement s blog. Italian media reported this week that Macron had told former Italian prime minister Matteo Renzi he was worried about the rise of 5-Star and the Northern League, which is close to France s National Front. Allied to Britain s United Kingdom Independence Party in the European Parliament, 5-Star is trying to distance itself from anti-immigrant, Eurosceptic parties in the rest of the bloc. Di Maio, a sober 31 year-old who has taken over leadership of the movement founded by comedian Beppe Grillo, said 5-Star shared with Macron the desire to rebuild Europe. They lazily call us populist without knowing what this means, when in reality we are ... close to the people, who want pay-back and a role in changing our country, he said. Di Maio made no mention of a referendum on Italy s use of the euro which 5-Star originally pledged when it burst onto the political scene in 2013, but has since backed away from. Regarding EU budget rules, Di Maio said that 5-Star s point of view was very close to that of France, which he said had let its budget deficit rise to accommodate spending on welfare and other investments. In January, 5-Star s European parliamentarians tried and failed to split from UKIP, which successfully campaigned for Britain to leave the EU. 5-Star eventually gave up a leading role in the group. | 0fake |
BREAKING UPDATE : POLICE OFFICER HAS DIED… [Video] PASSING MOTORISTS TACKLE MAN AFTER SHOOTING OFFICER IN HEAD DURING TRAFFIC STOP….Officer In Critical Condition | Good for these brave motorists! America needs to stop being afraid to speak out and stand up to this culture of hate for cops being promoted by Obama, Holder, Soros and Sharpton Kevin Daigle, 54, was arrested Sunday in suspicion of shooting Louisiana State Police Trooper Steven Vincent in the head.A gunman who critically wounded a decorated Louisiana State Police trooper Sunday afternoon near Lake Charles was tackled by passing motorists, authorities said.Army veteran and 13-year veteran of the state agency Trooper Steven Vincent stopped to check on a suspected impaired driver stuck in a ditch along Highway 14 only to be shot in the head during the ensuing arrest, Sgt. James Anderson told the Daily News. It was pandemonium out here, Anderson said.Several good Samaritans pulled over to help the 43-year-old trooper and used his radio to call authorities. The motorists then detained the suspect on their own with Vincent s handcuffs.The suspect was later identified as 54-year-old Kevin Daigle, of Lake Charles. We re so thankful for them, Anderson added. They arrived on scene and called for assistance for the trooper. The agency s top cop, Col. Michael Edmonson, first shared news of Vincent s injuries in a widely-shared Facebook post. Please take a moment from your Sunday afternoon to send prayers and well wishes to the Trooper and his family in this critical time, Edmonson wrote.Vincent was airlifted to a local hospital where he is in critical, but stable condition.UPDATE: OFFICER VINCENT HAS DIEDAnderson said the Daigle appeared belligerent. A photo later shared by authorities showed Daigle grimacing in a photograph. His cheeks were red and puffy with what appeared to be facial injuries.Via: NY Daily News | 1real |
LEFTIST MEDIA EXPOSES Democrat Party For Ignoring Rape Allegations Against Bill Clinton and For Giving Hillary A Pass After Threatening His Victims | Hollywood producer kingpin and mega-Democrat Party donor, Harvey Weinstein s abusive sexual predator behavior has shined a light on all of Hollywood, and in the process has shined an even brighter light on the hypocrisy of the Democrat Party and their media allies. The leftist media is now being forced to discuss how Democrats have turned a blind eye to decades of criminal sexual assaults by Bill Clinton and given a pass to his wife Hillary, who enabled him by threatening his victims to remain silent.Four days ago, the hard-left MSNBC host Chris Hayes made a stunning admission about the hypocrisy of the Democrat Party, and how they are long overdue for a real reckoning with the allegations against Bill Clinton that have been swept under the carpet, while the victims were shamed.As gross and cynical and hypocrtical as the right's "what about Bill Clinton" stuff is, it's also true that Democrats and the center left are overdue for a real reckoning with the allegations against him. Chris Hayes (@chrislhayes) November 10, 2017Yesterday, The Atlantic came out with a damning article that blames the fake feminism movement on the left, as well as the Democrat Party, who has allowed a double standard to exist when it comes to blindly protecting and defending the Clinton s against any, and all sexual misconduct allegations.Yet let us not forget the sex crimes of which the younger, stronger Bill Clinton was very credibly accused in the 1990s. Juanita Broaddrick reported that when she was a volunteer on one of his gubernatorial campaigns, she had arranged to meet him in a hotel coffee shop. At the last minute, he had changed the location to her room in the hotel, where she says he very violently raped her. She said that she fought against Clinton throughout a rape that left her bloodied. At a different Arkansas hotel, he caught sight of a minor state employee named Paula Jones, and, Jones said, he sent a couple of state troopers to invite her to his suite, where he exposed his penis to her and told her to kiss it. Kathleen Willey said that she met him in the Oval Office for personal and professional advice and that he groped her, rubbed his erect penis on her, and pushed her hand to his crotch.It was a pattern of behavior; it included an alleged violent assault; the women involved had far more credible evidence than many of the most notorious accusations that have come to light in the past five weeks. But Clinton was not left to the swift and pitiless justice that today s accused men have experienced. Rather, he was rescued by a surprising force: machine feminism. The movement had by then ossified into a partisan operation, and it was willing eager to let this friend of the sisterhood enjoy a little droit de seigneur.The Atlantic went on to point out an op-ed by the so-called Champion of women s rights Gloria Steinem, where she slut-shamed and bashed the women who dared to come forward and accuse Bill Clinton of rape and other forms of criminal sexual assault.The notorious 1998 New York Times op-ed by Gloria Steinem must surely stand as one of the most regretted public actions of her life. It slut-shamed, victim-blamed, and age-shamed; it urged compassion for and gratitude to the man the women accused.Called Feminists and the Clinton Question, it was written in March of 1998 when Paula Jones s harassment claim was working its way through court. It was printed seven days after Kathleen Willey s blockbuster 60 Minutes interview with Ed Bradley. If all the various allegations were true, wrote Steinem, Bill Clinton was a candidate for sex addiction therapy. To her mind, the most credible accusations were those of Willey, who she noted was old enough to be Monica Lewinsky s mother. And then she wrote the fatal sentences that invalidated the new understanding of workplace sexual harassment as a moral and legal wrong: Even if the allegations are true, the President is not guilty of sexual harassment. He is accused of having made a gross, dumb, and reckless pass at a supporter during a low point in her life. She pushed him away, she said, and it never happened again. In other words, President Clinton took no for an answer. Steinem said the same was true of Paula Jones. These were not crimes; they were passes. Broaddrick was left out by Steinem, who revealed herself as a combination John and Bobby Kennedy of the feminist movement: the fair-haired girl and the bare-knuckle fixer. The widespread liberal response to the sex-crime accusations against Bill Clinton found their natural consequence 20 years later in the behavior of Harvey Weinstein: Stay loudly and publicly and extravagantly on the side of signal leftist causes and you can do what you want in the privacy of your offices and hotel rooms. But the mood of the country has changed. We are in a time when old monuments are coming down and men are losing their careers over things they did to women a long time ago.When more than a dozen women stepped forward and accused Leon Wieseltier of a serial and decades-long pattern of workplace sexual harassment, he said, I will not waste this reckoning. It was textbook Wieseltier: the insincere promise and the perfectly chosen word. The Democratic Party needs to make its own reckoning of the way it protected Bill Clinton. The party needs to come to terms with the fact that it was so enraptured by their brilliant, Big Dog president and his stunning string of progressive accomplishments that it abandoned some of its central principles. The party was on the wrong side of history, and there are consequences for that. Yet expedience is not the only reason to make this public accounting. If it is possible for politics and moral behavior to coexist, then this grave wrong needs to be acknowledged. If Weinstein and Mark Halperin and Louis C. K. and all the rest can be held accountable, so can our former president and so can his party, which so many Americans so desperately need to rise again.Watch Gloria Steinem several years after writing the op-ed where she shamed Bill s victims, helping to celebrate Hillary s birthday while honoring the woman who threatened the women bravely stepped forward to expose her sexually abusive husband Bill Clinton.Grant J. Kidney s video that he posted to Twitter, really shows the slow, but necessary admission by the leftist media, that they too, bear responsibility for shaming Bill Clinton s victims, simply because believing them, or giving them any kind of credibility, would ve harmed the Democrat Party they are beholden to. Fake News CNN admits that Bill Clinton is a rapist. Attorney General Jeff Sessions must launch an immediate criminal probe into the dirty dealings of the Clinton Foundation as well as into the sexually perverted past of former President Bill Clinton. pic.twitter.com/oVUHn1LPej GRANT J. KIDNEY (@GrantJKidney) November 14, 2017Who can forget how the media attacked Donald Trump for bringing up the allegations of sexual abuse by Bill Clinton s abusers during his debate with Hillary? Will the media apologize to President Trump, now that they ve come to the conclusion they are as guilty as the Democrat Party for hiding decades of sexual abuse, and then criticizing Trump for defending Bill and Hillary s victims?For anyone who is wondering if Gloria Steinem has had a change of heart, after having a significant time to reflect on her defense of the Clinton Crime family and slut-shaming Bill s innocent victims, you don t need to wonder anymore. On October 20, 2017, Gloria Steinem announced that she will be warding that Hillary Clinton would be the first recipient of her Wonder Woman Award. The Women s Media Center, co-founded by feminist Gloria Steinem, told us that it is giving the latest Democratic presidential candidate its first Wonder Woman Award for her extraordinary accomplishments and public service. Like Wonder Woman, she seems to have superhuman strength, resilience, and courage, said the group in a reference to the famous comic and TV character. Hillary Clinton s actions have inspired and protected women and men on every continent, said Steinem. She has battled negative forces and helped to maintain a fragile peace with her negotiating skill on behalf of this country and peace-seekers everywhere. She has handled all this with grace, grit, determination, integrity, humor and fortitude while remaining a steadfast feminist, advocate, activist, sister and tireless leader in the revolution. With this award, the Women s Media Center declares Hillary Clinton our Wonder Woman. The Washington Examiner | 1real |
READY FOR FINANCIAL CRISIS ROUND TWO? HOW CRONY CAPITALISM AND CENTRAL PLANNING HAVE DRAINED US | This is the definition of insanity-doing the same thing over and over. We just need a Congress strong enough to stop the madness.For over 30 years, sovereign nations, particularly in the West have been buying votes by offering social payments in the form of welfare.The ridiculousness of this should not be lost on anyone. Politicians, in order to be elected, promise to allocate taxpayer funds on social programs that will benefit said taxpayers down the road (we re simply talking about social spending, not infrastructure or other costs).The concept that taxpayers might simply just keep the money to begin with never enters the equation. And because everyone believes that they are somehow spending someone else s money, they play along.When you believe that you are spending someone else s money, it s very easy to write a blank check, which is precisely what Western nations have been doing for years, promising everyone a safe and secure retirement without ever bothering to see where the money would come from.When actual bills came due to fund this stuff, Governments quickly discovered that current tax revenues couldn t cover it so they issued sovereign debt to make up the difference.And so the bond bubble was created.The large banks, that have a monopoly on managing sovereign debt auctions, were only too happy to play along with this. The reasons are as follows:1) They can use these alleged risk-free assets as collateral to backstop tens of trillions worth of derivatives trades. A $1 million investment in your typical US Treasury can backstop over $15 million worth of derivatives if not more. The profits from the derivatives markets remains a primary source of revenue for the banks.2) Sovereign Governments are only too happy to bail out the big banks if the stuff ever hits the fan on the trades that are backstopped by the sovereign debt (see 2006 onwards). Since the banks are the ones holding the sovereign debt, they can always threaten to dump bonds, which would render the whole social welfare Ponzi bankrupt (see what happened in Europe when sovereign bonds collapsed in 2011-2012).3) In a debt-based financial system such as the current one, sovereign bonds are the senior most assets in the system. Those who own these in bulk are at the top of the financial food chain in terms of financial, economic, and political clout.Since it was rarely if ever a problem to issue sovereign debt, Governments kept promising future payments that they didn t have until we reach today: the point at which most Western nations are sporting Debt to GDP ratios well north of 300% when you consider unfunded liabilities (the social spending programs mentioned earlier).Now, cutting social spending is usually considered political suicide (after all, the voters put you in office in the first place based on you promising to pay them welfare payments down the road). So rather than default on the social contract made with voters, the political class will simply push to issue MORE debt to finance old debt that is coming due.The US did precisely this in the fourth quarter of 2014, issuing over $1 trillion in new debt simply to pay back old debt that was coming due.Read more: Zero Hedge | 1real |
Swedish Library Bans Factual Book on Immigration, Says Contents are ’Contrary to Human Rights’ - Breitbart | A library in Sweden’s capital is refusing to stock Kurdish economist Tino Sanandaji’s “sincere and analysis” of the country’s immigration policy because the book ‘supports racism’. [An examination into the results of mass migration to Sweden over recent decades, ‘Mass Challenge’ was topping Sweden’s book charts within days of its release earlier this month. Sanandaji’s analysis of the nation’s importation of people from the third world, the resulting social problems and the effects on Sweden’s economy, is based on facts sourced from Statistics Sweden, the National Crime Prevention Council, the National Board of Health and other mainstream and respected agencies. But local media reports that Swedes who are wanting to borrow a copy of the book from their local library are running into difficulties, with librarians rejecting Mass Challenge for political reasons. Nina Sundberg at Stockholm’s Ekero library, which is refusing to stock Sanandaji’s new book, argues that libraries should only purchase books which are politically correct. “Library collections should be characterized by diversity and pluralism. The goal is to not buy books that support racism, persecution, gender stereotypes or anything else that’s contrary to human rights” wrote the librarian, explaining the facility’s motivation in rejecting Mass Challenge. Ekero library regular Maria Halkiewicz, who had wanted to borrow the book, condemned the decision. “It’s strikingly obvious that this is censorship” she told Nyheteridag. On Saturday, Malmö University lecturer Martin Kroon noted the apparent absence of Mass Challenge from Sweden’s libraries in an article which asks whether politically motivated ‘censorship’ of certain titles is a problem across the country. Sanandaji has sounded the alarm on the “quite disastrous” effects of mass migration in Sweden for a number of years. Warning that Swedes will become a minority in their own country without a serious cut to the number of migrants it accepts, he said in 2015: “This is an irreversible social experiment that no wealthy state has ever attempted. There are almost no ideas or visions over how this can be solved. “You can’t combine open borders with a welfare state. If you offer generous benefits, and anyone can come and use these benefits, a very large number of people will try to do that. It’s just mathematically impossible for a small country like Sweden to fund that. ” | 0fake |
RNC Creates Obstructionist Force To Stop Obama From Performing His Duties As POTUS | Before Supreme Court Justice Scalia s body was even cold the Republican Party vowed to stop any attempt by President Obama to nominate a replacement for his seat. Now, the Republican National Committee (RNC) is announcing that they have created a task force to do just that.According to The Hill the RNC has joined forces with an advocacy group, America Rising Squared, to attack Obama. The new obstructionist force is apparently going to launch television and radio ads, media appearances and petitions to support Senate Republicans who have vowed to not hold hearings when Obama nominates a replacement for Scalia. The group also plans to go after Democrats who are up for re-election in the Senate and the two Democratic candidates (Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton) who are running for president.RNC Chairman Reince Priebus commented on the campaign to prevent Obama from carrying out his Constitutional duties, calling it: the most comprehensive judicial response effort in our party s history We re going to hold everyone accountable and make sure Democrats have to answer to the American people for why they don t want voters to have a say in this process. What s really clear here is just how delusional the Republican Party is. They keep saying that the want to make sure we have a voice in this process as if we don t already.When we elected and re-elected Barack Obama we did so with the full knowledge that he would have the responsibility to pick a Supreme Court justice if a seat opened up. We expect him to fill the vacancies in the court and uphold the checks and balances that our founding fathers thought were so important. We elected him with the understanding that he would be president for eight years, not seven.Furthermore, I ve heard the GOP call him a lame duck president even though it is only March of his last year. A lame duck president is not at all what they seem to think it is. According to Merriam-Webster a lame duck is: an elected official or group continuing to hold political office during the period between the election and the inauguration of a successor. President Obama will not be a lame duck until after we pick a new commander-in-chief in November. So, even by their very own statements, he has an absolute right to pick the next justice for the Supreme Court. Of course, it is the GOP we are talking about and they seem to just make shit up as they go along.Featured image via Wikimedia (Obama)/ Flickr (Priebus) | 1real |
A MUST WATCH! JUDGE NAPOLITANO: “For the first time in the modern era the man in the Oval Office is an adversary of the Deep State and not a tool of it” [VIDEO] | 1real | |
Concerned About Fluctuating Blood Pressure? | Bel Marra Health October 28, 2016
There are many reasons for fluctuating blood pressure, from the foods we eat to serious health conditions. Understanding your fluctuating blood pressure can help you protect your heart and lower your risk of any cardiovascular events.
There is an ongoing debate on what is considered healthy or normal blood pressure , but the general consensus is a reading of less than 120/80 mmHg. Blood pressure can fluctuate in a second, so if you’re concerned about yours, you should check it frequently and chart the results for your doctor to review.
Below we will outline the many different causes of fluctuating blood pressure along with tips to help manage your blood pressure.
Common causes for fluctuating blood pressure
Food sensitivities: Consuming foods that don’t agree with us can cause a spike in blood pressure. This is commonly seen in salt sensitivities or after consuming high amounts of salt. Although this issue will resolve on its own a few hours after consuming the trigger food, you may want to make diet changes in order to prevent future fluctuations.
Stress: During times of stress, our arteries constrict, causing the heart to work harder. This, in turn, raises blood pressure along with blood sugar and heart rate. If you live with chronic stress, this constant strain on the heart can lead to artery and heart damage, increasing your risk of a cardiovascular event.
Caffeine consumption: Caffeine is a stimulant, so our hearts tend to race when we consume something containing caffeine. As a result, a faster-pumping heart causes blood pressure to rise. This usually resolves within a few hours. Regular caffeine consumers may not notice the changes, but those who consume caffeine infrequently will.
Medications: Certain medications, such as decongestants and anti-inflammatories, may result in a temporary elevation of blood pressure. Illegal drugs tend to have the highest impact on blood pressure, which is what in part makes them life threatening.
Adrenal fatigue: The adrenals regulate different hormones and can take a toll on your cardiovascular health. When the adrenals become fatigued – for example, as a result of chronic stress or illness – they cannot regulate blood pressure properly, so it rises and falls.
Fever: Often a result of fighting infection, a fever can speed up heart rate, leading to a rise in blood pressure.
Calcium or cholesterol deposits in the arteries: The arteries become narrower when lined with calcium or cholesterol deposits, so the heart must work harder in order to push the blood through.
Dehydration: Insufficient hydration can result in blood pressure fluctuations with a large decrease.
Increased blood pressure fluctuations linked to impaired cognitive function in older adults
A study found that increased blood pressure fluctuations are linked to impaired cognitive function in older adults. Researchers investigated visit-to-visit blood pressure variability with cognitive function among seniors who were at a high risk for cardiovascular disease.
The study looked at 5,461 seniors over the age of 70 with an average follow-up time of three years.
Blood pressure was measured every three months in the same clinical setting, and the variability between the measurements was analyzed.
Selective attention and reaction time, general cognitive speed, immediate and delayed memory performance were also assessed.
The researchers found that blood pressure variability was associated with worse performance on all cognitive tests, and the results remained the same even after taking into consideration cardiovascular disease risk factors.
Higher visit-to-visit blood pressure variability was associated with the lower cognitive function, as well as higher stroke risk.
Researcher Simon Mooijaart explained , “We showed that high visit-to-visit systolic and diastolic blood pressure variability associated with worse performance in different domains of cognitive function, including selection attention, processing speed, immediate verbal memory, and delayed verbal memory.”
Whether higher blood pressure variability is a cause or a result of cognitive impairment is still unclear.
The researchers concluded , “Higher visit-to-visit blood pressure variability independent of average blood pressure might be a potential risk factor with worse cognitive performance in older subjects at high risk of cardiovascular disease.”
Tips to manage blood pressure fluctuations naturally
In order to manage your blood pressure fluctuations, it’s important to understand their cause. For example, avoiding trigger foods, staying well hydrated, reducing your LDL cholesterol , preventing illness and fever, watching your caffeine intake, and reducing stress naturally can all help better manage your blood pressure fluctuations.
Generally, to maintain healthy blood pressure, it’s important to quit smoking, reduce alcohol intake, eat healthy meals, exercise regularly, reduce stress, sleep well, and maintain a healthy weight. By making these healthy lifestyle adjustments you can achieve healthier blood pressure readings. The Best of Dr. Victor Marchione Tags: Dr. Victor Marchione [ ] is a respected leader in the field of smoking cessation and pulmonary medicine. He has been featured on ABC News and World Report, CBS Evening News with Dan Rather and the NBC Today Show. He is also the Editor of The Health eTalk Newsletter. | 1real |
Revelation Unleashed: Unlocking The Mysteries Of The Bible’s Most Mysterious Book | Revelation Unleashed: Unlocking The Mysteries Of The Bible’s Most Mysterious Book On this episode of Rightly Dividing, join us as we drop some pins and create an easy to understand roadmap to the amazing, awesome, and very much knowable book of Revelation! Join us as we apply Paul’s command found in 2 Timothy 2:15 to ‘rightly divide’ our Bible and put everything in it’s proper perspective and place.
“ And one of the elders saith unto me, Weep not: behold, the Lion of the tribe of Juda, the Root of David, hath prevailed to open the book, and to loose the seven seals thereof.” Revelation 5:5 (KJV)
CLICK HERE TO LISTEN LIVE when the show starts Sunday night at 9:00PM EST!
For centuries, the Catholic Church had locked up the Bible and kept it out of reach of the common man. As a result, when the Protestant Reformation ended the Dark Ages and removed the Bible from its Vatican shackles, it was a book that remained quite a mystery to most people. Out of all of its 66 books, the most misunderstood, most debated over and most feared book is, ironically and undoubtedly, the book of Revelation.
On this episode of Rightly Dividing , we apply Paul’s command to “rightly divide” to the book of Revelation, and in the process of doing so remove much of the mystery in the process. God didn’t write any part of the Bible to be out of reach of anyone who, by faith, wanted to plumb its depths and unlock its mysteries. Join us as we drop some pins and create an easy to understand roadmap to the amazing, awesome, and very much knowable book of Revelation!
CLICK HERE TO LISTEN LIVE when the show starts Sunday night at 9:00PM EST! | 1real |
Michael Flynn Was Paid to Represent Turkey’s Interests During Trump Campaign - The New York Times | WASHINGTON — The candidate he was advising last fall was running on a platform of America First. The client he was working for last fall was paying him more than $500, 000 to put Turkey first. Michael T. Flynn, who went from the campaign trail to the White House as President Trump’s first national security adviser, filed papers this week acknowledging that he worked as a foreign agent last year representing the interests of the Turkish government in a dispute with the United States. His surprising admission, coming more than four months after the election, raised further questions about the rise and fall of a presidential confidant who was forced to resign after 24 days in office for withholding the full story of his communications with Russia’s ambassador. Even now, out of government and out of favor, Mr. Flynn and his contact with foreign figures presented a new headache for a White House eager to move on. Mr. Flynn, a retired Army lieutenant general, registered as a lobbyist last year but did not file papers with the Justice Department registering as a foreign agent, providing a fuller understanding of his role, until Tuesday. While he did not work directly for the Turkish government, the firm that hired him, Inovo, is owned by a businessman with links to leaders in Ankara and asked him to work on an issue important to the government. The White House said that Mr. Trump did not know that Mr. Flynn was acting as a foreign agent when Mr. Trump appointed him national security adviser, a position that gave him access to classified meetings and materials. But a person briefed on the matter, who insisted on anonymity to describe private conversations, said Mr. Flynn’s lawyer contacted a lawyer for Mr. Trump’s transition team before the inauguration to ask whether Mr. Flynn should register given his work for Inovo. The transition lawyer offered no advice, saying it was up to Mr. Flynn. After the inauguration, the person said, Mr. Flynn and his lawyer each raised it again with a White House lawyer, only to be told once more it was up to him. Mr. Flynn had no comment on Friday. His lawyer wrote the Justice Department that Mr. Flynn decided to register retroactively “to eliminate any potential doubt. ” The White House said its lawyer considered it a private decision and saw no reason to intervene. “It’s not a question of raising a red flag,” said Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary. “It’s a question of whether or not they gave him the advice that they are supposed to, which is it is not up to them to make decisions as to what you need to do or not do. ” Vice President Mike Pence, who was upset that Mr. Flynn had misled him about the conversation with the Russian ambassador that got him dismissed, seemed less forgiving. News reports on the matter were “the first I heard of it,” the vice president said during an interview on Fox News Thursday night, “and I think it is an affirmation of the president’s decision to ask General Flynn to resign. ” Throughout the campaign, Mr. Flynn positioned himself as someone willing to call out a national security establishment that was too corrupt to keep America safe. When former colleagues criticized him for becoming overtly partisan, he shot back by castigating them for using their titles to enrich themselves by joining corporate boards. In an interview in October, Mr. Flynn insisted that he had eschewed financial rewards to follow his political convictions and join the Trump campaign. “I would love to be making some money,” he said. “I wish I could stop what I’m doing. ” On behalf of his firm, the Flynn Intel Group, Mr. Flynn signed a contract on Aug. 9 with Inovo, a Dutch firm owned by Ekim Alptekin, the chairman of the Business Council. Mr. Flynn’s firm was to receive $600, 000 for 90 days of work. His initial registration as a lobbyist last year indicated he would receive less than $5, 000 for lobbying, although that presumably indicates that he did not define most of the services he would provide Mr. Alptekin as lobbying under the law. Mr. Alptekin has links to the government of Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, which has engaged in a political crackdown after surviving a military coup attempt in July. In documents disclosed by the group WikiLeaks, Mr. Alptekin emailed frequently with Egemen Bagis, the former Turkish minister for European Union affairs. In one email in 2013, Mr. Alptekin sent an article from The Wall Street Journal to Mr. Bagis, who then forwarded it to Berat Albayrak, Mr. Erdogan’s and now the country’s energy minister. Mr. Flynn was assigned to investigate Fethullah Gulen, a Turkish cleric who lives in Pennsylvania and was blamed by Mr. Erdogan for helping instigate the failed coup. Mr. Erdogan has demanded the United States extradite Mr. Gulen, which the Obama administration refused to do. The forms filed this week indicate that Mr. Flynn’s firm was “to perform investigative research” on Mr. Gulen and “develop a short film piece on the results of its investigation. ” In the end, the video was never completed, and Mr. Flynn’s firm received $530, 000 before the contract terminated in November. But on Election Day, Mr. Flynn published an article in The Hill, a newspaper serving Congress, calling Mr. Gulen “a shady Islamic mullah” and “radical Islamist. ” “To professionals in the intelligence community, the stamp of terror is all over Mullah Gulen’s statements,” he wrote. “Gulen’s vast global network has all the right markings to fit the description of a dangerous sleeper terror network. From Turkey’s point of view, Washington is harboring Turkey’s Osama bin Laden. ” The forms said Mr. Flynn decided to write the piece “on his own initiative” and not at Inovo’s request, although they said that he shared a draft of it with Inovo before it was published. The Hill appended a note to the online version of the piece after this week’s filing: “Neither General Flynn nor his representatives disclosed this information when the essay was submitted. ” During the course of the work, Mr. Alptekin introduced Mr. Flynn to Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu and Mr. Albayrak, the president’s in New York on Sept. 19, the forms said. In a letter to the Justice Department this week, Mr. Flynn’s lawyer said that he did not initially register as a foreign agent because the firm that hired him was not a foreign government. But the lawyer, Robert K. Kelner, said Mr. Flynn had decided to register after the fact because “the engagement could be construed to have principally benefited the Republic of Turkey. ” This week, Mr. Alptekin disputed the notion that he hired Mr. Flynn to influence the next president. “When I engaged Flynn Co. polls showed 85% likelihood of Hillary winning,” he wrote on Twitter after the filings. “If intention was to lobby USG I would have hired Podesta like Gulen,” he added, referring to the United States government and Tony Podesta, a prominent Washington lobbyist and brother of John D. Podesta, who was Mrs. Clinton’s campaign chairman. But the filings this week contradict past assertions by Mr. Alptekin, who told The New York Times in an interview after the November election that the contract with Mr. Flynn was worth “tens of thousands of dollars, not hundreds of thousands of dollars. ” In the same interview, he said that Mr. Flynn “never consulted with me” about the article in The Hill and that he “would have advised against it. ” Mr. Alptekin repeated the latter assertion even after the filings this week. “For the record: nobody remotely linked to the Gov. of Turkey knew about Gen. Flynn’s article in advance and I wasn’t consulted either,” he wrote on Twitter. Mr. Flynn opened the Flynn Intel Group in October 2014, two months after he was forced out as director of the Defense Intelligence Agency. The business was opaque, making little public, not even an address. When a reporter went looking for it last fall, he tracked it down to an Alexandria, Va. office building operating out of the nondescript headquarters of another firm, called the White Canvas Group. In the interview in October, Mr. Flynn offered only a vague description of the firm. He said he had clients in Japan and the Middle East and that he worked on cybertraining, aviation operations and energy business. The firm was shuttered after the election when Mr. Flynn was headed for the White House. | 0fake |
U.S. senators denounce Trump plan to focus counter-extremism program on Islam | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A dozen Democratic U.S. senators on Thursday denounced a Trump administration plan to revamp a government program on countering violent extremism, saying narrowing its focus solely to Islamic threats could jeopardize security and may be illegal. Restructuring the program to omit white supremacists and other non-Islamist groups “would severely damage our credibility with foreign allies and partners as an honest broker in the fight against violent extremism, and prove divisive in communities across our country,” Senators Cory Booker, Brian Schatz and 10 others wrote in a letter addressed to cabinet secretaries. Reuters reported last week that Republican President Donald Trump’s administration wants to rename the “Countering Violent Extremism,” or CVE, program introduced by the previous Democratic administration of Barack Obama to “Countering Islamic Extremism” or “Countering Radical Islamic Extremism.” The potential name change reflects a broader goal of Trump’s to exclude groups in the program’s purview such as white supremacist, whose followers have also carried out bombings and shootings in the United States, five sources familiar with the matter said. CVE aimed to address the causes of why some people are drawn to violence or extremism by providing grants and other resources to community groups to develop prevention efforts, including using social media. Earlier this month, Trump signed an executive order temporarily blocking travel to the United States by people from seven predominantly Muslim countries, prompting a global outcry and charges from his critics that he was advancing a white nationalist agenda. Trump has rejected characterizations of the order as a “Muslim ban” and said it is necessary to protect national security. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officials who work on CVE met on Tuesday to continue discussions about the proposed changes, according to two sources who have worked closely with DHS on the program. Refocusing CVE efforts largely on Islam would “alienate Muslim organizations and individuals in the United States”, the senators wrote to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Secretary of Defense James Mattis, Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly and Wade Warren, acting administrator for the U.S. Agency for International Development. “It will also put U.S. service members, diplomats, development practitioners, and citizens traveling the world at significant risk, and will increase the likelihood of more attacks,” the letter said, and could “violate constitutional protections and the rights of American citizens.” At least three community organizations have already declined funding collectively totaling nearly $1.4 million awarded under the auspices of the CVE task force, citing concerns about the Trump administration’s posture toward Muslims and the possible changes to the program. White House press secretary Sean Spicer declined to comment on the reported changes last week, but said during a briefing that the program was initially intended to focus on “rooting out radical Islamic terrorism.” Several former DHS officials told Reuters the CVE program was not conceived with that goal, although it has been criticized by even some supporters as tacitly too focused on Muslims or largely ineffective. | 0fake |
The Phoenix Police Department Just Sent Trump A Cease-And-Desist Letter — They’re Furious (VIDEO) | The Phoenix, Arizona police department is not at all happy with Donald Trump after the GOP presidential nominee aired an ad implying they were endorsing him. They weren t and now the police department wants the ad taken off the air.The ad includes a short clip of Trump being surrounded by Phoenix police. He was seen shaking hands with one. While the ad didn t specifically say that the Phoenix PD was endorsing Trump, it was a implied and for that, the Phoenix Police Department sent Trump a cease and desist letter demanding the ad be taken down. Phoenix has not approved and will not approve the creation or use of any media bearing the faces and likenesses of its on-duty police officers in any political advertisement for any political candidate, (City Attorney Brad) Holm wrote in the letter. The officers were unaware they were photographed and videotaped, and they did not consent to the use of their on-duty images in any Trump (or any other) campaign advertisement. Source: ABC 15Holm went on to say that Trump, in his ad, unmistakably and wrongfully implied the city and its police officers endorsed Trump. Not only that, the inclusion of the uniforms violates, according to Holm, copyright laws. As owner of this intellectual property, the City of Phoenix hereby orders the Trump campaign to immediately cease and desist from your unauthorized use of Phoenix Police Department uniforms, bird emblem, police badge, police insignia patch, and all other imagery of official City of Phoenix materials and on-duty employees, Holm wrote.Here s the ad. The brief and objectionable moment comes at the :22 mark.There seems to be a bizarre war going on in normally very red Arizona. Even before the Phoenix police balked at Trump s campaign ad, the Arizona Republic newspaper gave a rousing endorsement of Hillary Clinton and a thorough takedown of Donald Trump. Trump is asking his followers to cancel their subscription to the Arizona Republic and to the other papers that are lining up against the dangerous presidential candidate.The people are really smart in cancelling subscriptions to the Dallas & Arizona papers & now USA Today will lose readers! The people get it! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 30, 2016His supporters, of course, are going even further. The paper has been receiving death threats. You have to wonder if the police department will also receive death threats, or just its lawyer.Featured image via Mark Wilson/Getty Images | 1real |
POLITICS: Xi Jinping's compliant generation | (Reuters) - The relative stability and comfort around them as they grew up, plus the steady drip of propaganda, have engendered a deep sense of patriotism in the Class of 2012 . They spend little time thinking about politics, though, focusing instead on what they can control. They are the product of the government bargain with society after the crackdown on the Tiananmen protests in 1989 that the ruling Communist Party would unshackle the economy and let the people get rich, so long as they steered clear of politics. Here is a selection of their views on politics. Qin Lijuan, a senior wealth management consultant, who expressed confidence in President Xi Jinping - popularly known as Xi Dada, or Uncle Xi: I understand Xi Dada. He manages the country from the bigger picture. We little citizens just need to comply ... I can accept it. He has created some advantages and achievements on the political front. For instance, we ve gotten stronger in terms of protecting national sovereignty abroad. When going abroad you can clearly feel the respect of other countries for China. This is a very good beginning. When the state is strong, the people are strong. Qi Jing, a township leader for the Communist Youth League: It s so true that today s China could never have development like this without the Communist Party. I feel I ve ... found a sense of belonging. Wu Qiong, who works in international settlements at a foreign bank: I don t focus too much on state leaders to see if what they do affect my life. Really. I would never say I have an idea and then hope our state leaders would go and implement it and help my friends and me to change something. Never ... I should rely on myself to get things done. Zheng Yue, an interior designer: I don t care about politics because my job has nothing to do with politics. And also I can t solve political problems. Even if I cared a lot about it, it s no use. I can t change anything ... I feel that they have made China faithless. I don t know the reason, but that s what I feel. I think Chinese people have no beliefs, and that s related to the ruling party. Hu Ruixin, computer technician: I don t pay attention. I don t like politics. I feel it s too restricted. I like freedom. GRAPHIC: China's leadership tmsnrt.rs/2xKEEQZ | 0fake |
Alien Insects Capture In UK | Alien Insects Capture In UK # John Wood 0
As you see by this video Alien life has found it's way onto Earth it seems if your a sceptic that they just could be dragon fles or moths but you slow it down yousee the wings look like and move like that of a cuttle fish fins their bodie seem translucent and highly colored and there seems to be plenty of them in my local area. Tags | 1real |
PressTV-‘Clintons worked with US enemies’ | Interviews The FBI probe was inevitable “because of the metastasizing of the links and the connections that the Clinton Foundation had, most specifically and grievously to Saudi Arabia, to Qatar,” says American analyst Scott Bennett.
The ongoing federal investigation into the Clinton Foundation was expected because of the Clinton family’s ties with US enemies, says Scott Bennett, a former US Army psychological warfare officer.
The FBI has been probing possible pay-to-play schemes at the family foundation for over a year now and is “likely” to press charges against it, Fox News reported Wednesday, citing informed officials.
Bennett told Press TV on Friday that the probe was inevitable “because of the metastasizing of the links and the connections that the Clinton Foundation had, most specifically and grievously to Saudi Arabia, to Qatar,” and many other countries blacklisted by Washington.
It was revealed on Friday that the Clinton Foundation took a $1 million gift from Qatar during Hillary Clinton’s tenure as the US secretary of state, without her informing the State Department.
Hillary decided to not inform the department of the transaction, despite signing an ethics agreement with regards to the foundation when she became secretary of state.
According to the foundation’s website, Qatar has so far given the Clintons a total of between $1 million and $5 million over the years.
Aside from Qatar, Saudi Arabia has also been one of the Clinton Foundation’s biggest donors. It became known in 2008 that the kingdom had given them between $10 million and $25 million.
“So those terrorist entities, which have been labeled as the enemies of the United States, have been appearing as Clinton Foundation donors,” Bennett said.
“That is a serious crime, it is treason, it is corruption, it is bribery of officials,” said the analyst.
Bennett argued that all the leaks and investigations concerning the Clinton family were coming from “those personnel in the American government who have had enough.”
“They have stepped up, they have released emails, they have hacked into their own computers and in some cases they have provided it to WikiLeaks,” he added.
Whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks has released thousands of Hillary’s campaign chairman and top aide John Podesta’s emails since last month, exposing some of the well-kept secrets surrounding the Clinton family and Hillary Clinton’s bid for the White House.
Bennett predicted that the case would “most probably” lead to indictments and some people would be arrested as early as this weekend. Loading ... | 1real |
Search ends for bodies in Mexico City after earthquake | MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - The search for victims of an earthquake that killed hundreds in Mexico City ended on Wednesday as rescue workers recovered the body of the last person known to be missing beneath the rubble of collapsed buildings. Deputy Interior Minister Roberto Campa said all the bodies had been recovered from the ruins of an office building in the upscale Roma district of the capital. The search at other buildings that collapsed ended several days ago. In total 369 people died in the Sept. 19 earthquake, the most deadly in a generation, with almost two-thirds of the fatalities in the capital. Earlier that month, 98 people died when an even more powerful tremor hit the south of the country. | 0fake |
BOOM! Fed Judge Ruling UNBLOCKS Trump Travel Ban…Asks ACLU Lawyer: “Where Does It Say Muslim Countries?” | ***UPDATE to story below***In a blow to every mainstream media news outlet (and likely hurting a lot of feelings), President Donald Trump s ban on immigrants from seven Muslim-majority countries will take effect in Boston on Sunday after a federal judge refused to extend a temporary ruling blocking its enforcement.As Bloomberg reports, the decision by U.S. District Judge Nathaniel Gorton on Friday dealt a setback to rights advocates who argued that blocking people from seven nations in the Middle East was unconstitutional. Gorton was weighing whether to extend a seven-day order blocking parts of Trump s Executive Order.The case, filed by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of several affected immigrants, is one of several that followed Trump s Jan 27 order, which roiled global travel by barring entry to the U.S. of citizens of Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. Individuals, organizations, politicians and some states called it unconstitutional religious discrimination against Muslims.As GMA News Onine reports, U.S. District Judge Nathaniel Gorton on Friday asked Matthew Segal, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) representing the plaintiffs in the Boston case. If your honor s question is, Does the word Muslim make a profound presence in this executive order?, my answer is that it doesn t, But the president described what he was going to do as a Muslim ban and then he proceeded to carry it out. Am I to take the words of an executive at any point before or after election as a part of that executive order? Judge Gorton on Friday asked U.S. Justice Department lawyer Joshua Press how the seven countries had been selected.Press responded that the list had come from a law passed in 2015 and amended early last year requiring that citizens of the seven countries apply for visas to enter the United States, out of concern about the refugees that were coming, mainly from Syria at that time and terrorist events that were occurring in Europe. As we noted previously, only 12.5% of the world s Muslims live in the seven countries on Trump s immigration ban list Which left the judge to decide (as the full docket explains here), The language in Section 5 of the EO is neutral with respect to religion, The provisions of Section 5, however, could be invoked to give preferred refugee status to a Muslim individual in a country that is predominately Christian. Nothing in Section 5 compels a finding that Christians are preferred to any other group. The order provides a reasonably conceivable state of facts (which concerns national security and) that could provide a rational basis for the classification, he wrote. Accordingly, this Court declines to encroach upon the delicate policy judgment inherent in immigration decisions. ORDERFor the forgoing reasons, the Court declines to impose any injunctive relief and will not renew the temporary restraining order that was entered on January 29, 2017 (Docket No. 6). Full Order at Zero HedgeUPDATE:Two federal judges across the country from each other issued two separate and equally different decisions late Friday one refusing to extend an injunction against President Donald Trump s U.S. travel suspension and one blocking its effect nationwide.First, U.S. District Judge Nathaniel M. Gorton, in Boston, said in a preliminary 21-page ruling that he would not extend a seven-day restraining order that has prevented the travel restrictions from being implemented this week.A short time later on Friday, though, U.S. District Court Judge James Robart, in Seattle, upheld a challenge to Trump s order from the attorneys general of Washington state and Minnesota and issued another temporary national restraining order. The state has met its burden in demonstrating immediate and irreparable injury, Robart saidThe Boston ruling was a key victory for the Trump administration on the matter, but the win didn t last very long. The subsequent Seattle decision, meanwhile, represented the most significant legal setback yet in the battle over the president s directive as it blocks the order with a new injunction. UPI | 1real |
Venezuela slams Canada sanctions, says Ottawa submitting to Trump | CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuela s government criticized Canada s Friday announcement of targeted sanctions against 40 of its senior officials, accusing Ottawa of submission to U.S. President Donald Trump in a bid to overthrow the South American country s leftist administration. Canada s move, which followed a similar decision by the United States, came after months of protests against President Nicolas Maduro s government. At least 125 people were killed in the demonstrations. Critics say Maduro has plunged the nation into its worst economic crisis ever and brought it to the brink of dictatorship. Maduro says he was facing a U.S.-backed armed insurrection seeking to foment a coup. Canada s measures include freezing the assets of the officials and banning Canadians from having any dealings with them. Caracas late on Friday night decried the sanctions as a sign of external meddling and an attempt to churn up turmoil in Venezuela. Canada s government established ... an immoral association of subordination with the government of President Donald Trump with the clear aim of overthrowing Venezuela s constitutional government using economic sanctions as political weapons, the government said in a statement. Last month, Trump signed an executive order that prohibits dealings in new debt from the Venezuelan government or its state oil company in an effort to halt financing that the White House said fuels Maduro s dictatorship. The Trump administration also sanctioned Maduro in July. | 0fake |
Angry right’s secret playbook: How it uses a good story to peddle an agenda America hates | This recent midterm election was my first real setback since I became a committed liberal (after years on the other side), and what I don’t understand is why so many well-meaning liberals refuse to fight dirty. Sure, some Democratic politicians “sling mud,” but the “professional left” (as they are often derisively called) spend too much time debating the exactitude of certain issues and not enough time shutting down the bad ideas of the opposition. It might speak well to one’s character, but it’s an ineffective way to do battle. There is a place for self-examination, but it’s not on the battlefield. Sometimes the proper reaction to cruelty or stupid ideas is disgust or even a well-timed insult. For many on the left this art is sadly as dead as the late hero of mine quoted above.
I got married, dropped out of college, joined the military and became a father all before I was 21 years old, and I spent the next 20 years dealing with my early missteps. It was a painful climb, but one benefit of the circuitous route I took is that I understand the angry, white and rural right wing of America better than most. It’s a group that grows ever more desperate and irrational no matter which way the electoral winds blow.
As a member of the frothing right wing, I always spouted nonsense, even when I wasn’t sure I believed it. Sometimes I would throw out really crazy stuff just to see how it fit the big picture and sometimes to get a rise from the opposition. Rhetorical bomb throwing is well respected on the right, and it’s not always a bad thing. There is nothing wrong with trying out ideas, letting them roll off the tongue to see how they sound. I’m always playing with ideas, most of which get discarded before I let myself believe them or write them down. There is one caveat to this and that’s the racist, hateful and homophobic rants that have become too common among the worst of the Tea Party. This ugly side of conservative rage is one of the major factors that drove me (and many others) away from right-wing politics.
When I lived conservative values, I attended many events with like-minded people. Conservative movements foster a herd mentality. Even when someone stood up to “lead,” he or she often regurgitated well-accepted talking points while crowds nodded in unison. Listen to talk radio or watch Fox News, and you can barely tally the number of times you hear, “yes, I think that’s true.” A perfect example of thoughtless regurgitation is when callers on talk radio mention “Saul Alinsky Democrats.” Still others like to sling the insult of “Obama’s Chicago political machine,” with no context whatsoever. I’m going to make the obvious point that few if any of these callers have read one word of Alinsky, and fewer still have any direct, pointed or even third-hand knowledge of “Chicago politics.” These goofy phrases have become totems of the insider, and like children, these listeners mindlessly repeat what someone else has said as if they had insight.
Now that I’ve been in the liberal camp for a few years, I’ve noticed the complete opposite with the politically engaged left. They often identify as “contrarian.” They question everything and have a hard time taking a firm stand, even when 70% of the public is with them (on minimum wage, for instance). In an ideological battle, the tendency toward inclusion and reflection can become a handicap. As a side effect of all this soul-searching, the left becomes ineffectual at fighting even the worst excesses on the right. I’m boiling this down to a false dichotomy to illustrate a point. Of course there is every gradation of political belief on the right and left; yet our system itself is incapable of nuance, because only one side has even heard of the word.
Most people know that individuals will suffer because of the results of the latest midterm election. People won’t get health care and some will lose food stamps. Discrimination will find a better foothold and the advance of science will lose ground. People I love, personally, will be vilified for being gay, because conservative voices of discrimination will feel empowered to act like jerks. Much of the latest loss stems from an inability to talk to regular people — especially working-class men — about liberal ideas. If Homer Simpson is America (he is), then liberals should learn to talk to him.
Rich people have won over the white working class even though those same wealthy people don’t do shit for the working class, ever. The wealthy have bought elections and government, wholesale. Working-class Americans are scared, battered and desperate. They are ready to listen to liberal messages, but not if we act like “wimps.” The thing conservatives can’t stand the most is what they charmingly call “pussy liberals.” A white, conservative man would walk through hot coals or swallow shards of glass to prove to a stranger on the barstool next to him that he’s not one. (My wife, a nuanced liberal, vehemently objects when I use the term. As a feminist I totally understand. It’s offensive. But I didn’t create this usage. I’m only pointing it out.) One of the reasons I became a liberal is not only because they have better ideas but also because they are willing to reconsider them, sometimes ad infinitum. The debates and discussion and endless self-examination appeal to me, because of who I am. Liberals do a lot less yelling and a whole lot more making everyone feel welcome. Yet the same strength in debating, self-awareness and the Socratic Method are the enemies of a good story. The retired guy in a modest home on a fixed income defends the rights of billionaires to exploit him, because he’s been sold a narrative. The story matters, and Republicans spin a hell of yarn about America and “freedom,” even though most of it is bullshit or a straight-out rewriting of history. They talk about Jefferson, Madison and Washington, men who would despise the science-hating, ignorant and reactive group the right has become. But it doesn’t matter what or who you really stand for, it’s just a matter of what you can sell. People with a billion dollars in the bank who benefit from low taxes and who exploit American labor could give two shits about patriotism, but they sing “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” as loud as possible while owning sprawling mansions in five countries. Alice Walton, Wal-Mart heiress and professional layabout, is hardly your relatable, average American. Certainly the left should be able to find an explanation for why her brand of capitalism is evil. If liberals want to win the war of ideas they can’t be afraid to use the word “evil.” If Ms. Walton is not an evil person, we should at least not be afraid to call the practices of Wal-Mart by that powerful and often factual label. Too harsh? Have you heard the dreck slung at immigrants lately? How about the word “traitor,” so easily thrown at the president almost daily, every day for six years? If you think those on the right are reasonable, wish one “happy holidays.” You might get your ass kicked. The worst part is that people do not prefer conservative ideas. In the last election they voted to increase the minimum wage in red states, to impose gun background checks and to legalize marijuana. The problem with all three of these issues is that Democrats refuse to stand up for them or do so only tepidly. They won’t fight, argue and, if necessary, insult the increasingly unbalanced platform of the opposition. I call on my fellow liberals to embrace the rough stuff. Engage in battle with people who hate you and feel free to throw crazy right back, even if you only half believe it. Let it out and taste it on the way by. See if it flies. If it doesn’t, screw it — just fix it up next time. Refer to your political opponent as “the honorable shithead from New Jersey.” Use the words, images and for god’s sake, the passion of the street. People who hate and fear you will always hate you unless they die out, change their minds or we can beat them in a heated contest of ideas. You’re not playing checkers — and they’re winning by giving zero shits about reality, so cut the crap and fight like you mean it. | 0fake |
Republicans face challenge in holding on to Senate majority in 2016 | Congratulations, Republicans! You won the Senate majority! Now, can you hold on to it for more than two years?
Looking at the 2016 Senate map, there’s reason for doubt. Republicans will have to defend 24 seats, compared with 10 for Democrats. And the raw numbers don’t even tell the whole story. Seven seats held by Republicans — Florida, Illinois, Iowa, New Hampshire, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — were carried by President Obama in 2008 and 2012. And there is chatter about potential Republican retirements in Arizona and Iowa. If either John McCain or Chuck Grassley decided to call it a career, each of those races would be major Democratic targets.
On the other side of the coin, Republican takeover opportunities are few and far between. By far, the most endangered Democrat is Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who survived in 2010 but could face Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval (R), who won a second term Tuesday with more than 70 percent of the vote. Reid has said he will run again, although his demotion from majority leader to minority leader might make him rethink those plans. The only other Democrat who starts the 2016 cycle in serious jeopardy is freshman Michael Bennet (Colo.), who, like Reid, was a surprise winner in 2010. The convincing win by Cory Gardner (R) over Sen. Mark Udall (D) on Tuesday in the Rocky Mountain State will undoubtedly energize Republicans, though it’s less clear what the GOP bench looks like in a race against Bennet.
Outside of those two seats, there’s almost no vulnerability on the Democratic side. Even if Sen. Barbara Boxer (Calif.) or Barbara Mikulski (Md.) decide not to run again, both sit in very, very Democratic states — particularly at the federal level.
To win back the Senate majority in two years, Democrats will probably need to net four (if they hold the White House in 2016) or five (if they don’t) seats. Republicans control 52 Senate seats in the 114th Congress, but Sen. Mark Begich (D) is behind by 8,000 votes in Alaska and is likely to lose, and chances for Sen. Mary Landrieu (D) don’t look great in Louisiana’s Dec. 6 runoff.
Gaining five seats is not out of the question for Democrats — though it might be a bit of a stretch — given the Senate map of 2016. Of the 10 most vulnerable seats listed below, Republicans hold eight. The No. 1 race is the most likely to flip party control in 2016.
10. Kentucky (Republican-controlled): As Tuesday’s election showed, Kentucky isn’t exactly fertile ground for Democrats. But something interesting happened even as Mitch McConnell walloped Alison Lundergan Grimes: Democrats held on to their majority in the state House. That means Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) can’t count on changing state law to be able to run for president and Senate at the same time. Hence, a possible open seat.
9. Florida (R): Sen. Marco Rubio (R) has suggested that he won’t run for both president and reelection to the Senate in 2016. If he pursues the former and isn’t on the Senate ballot, this becomes an open-seat race in a true swing state in a presidential year — in other words, a good opportunity for Democrats. If Rubio passes on a White House bid or drops out with enough time to mount a Senate bid, Republicans would probably feel better about holding this seat.
8. Ohio (R): Sen. Rob Portman is one of several Republican members of Congress who have been mentioned (or mentioned themselves) as possible White House contenders. So, this could end up being an open seat. If Portman decides to run for reelection, his deep connections to donors through his work as National Republican Senatorial Committee vice chairman should ensure that he will be a financial behemoth. Portman is not terribly polarizing, and there is no obvious Democratic recruit waiting in the wings.
7. New Hampshire (R): The Granite State was one of the few bright spots for Democrats nationally as Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D) beat back a challenge from Scott Brown. It could be a Senate battleground again in two years if Gov. Maggie Hassan (D), who won reelection Tuesday with 53 percent of the vote, decides to take on freshman Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R). There is also considerable chatter among conservative activists about a primary challenge to Ayotte, though it remains to be seen whether a serious one might materialize. And, just to make things more complicated, Ayotte is likely to be in the vice presidential mix no matter who wins the Republican presidential nomination.
6. North Carolina (R): The GOP picked off a seat here Tuesday. It’s safe to assume, however, that if the environment wasn’t so good for the GOP, Kay Hagan would still be a senator come January. Her colleague, Sen. Richard Burr (R) is up for reelection in 2016, and even if he doesn’t retire — he has raised very little money the past two years, which is usually a precursor to retirement — he is likely to find himself targeted.
5. Colorado (Democrat ic-controlled): Bennet probably doesn’t want to think about 2016 yet. He just finished a stint as chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, during which his party lost the Senate majority and he became the first chairman in more than four decades to lose a home-state colleague in the process. But Bennet won by the narrowest of margins in 2010 and probably would have lost had Ken Buck, the Republican candidate, not said some unhelpful things.
4. Pennsylvania (R): 2010 was about as good a year as a Republican could hope for in Pennsylvania. And Sen. Pat Toomey (R) still won with only 51 percent of the vote. In a presidential year, Toomey’s challenge will be even more serious. Republicans haven’t carried the Keystone State at the presidential level since 1988. One thing working in Toomey’s favor: a relatively weak Democratic bench. State Attorney General Kathleen Kane apparently has no interest in running for the Senate. The only person actively looking at a bid is former congressman Joe Sestak, who lost to Toomey in 2010.
3. Illinois (R): The first big question that needs to get answered in this race is whether Sen. Mark Kirk (R) will run again. Kirk, who suffered a severe stroke in early 2012, has insisted that he plans to seek a second term, but even some Republicans are taking a wait-and-see approach. Democratic speculation — matter what Kirk does — will center on state Attorney General Lisa Madigan, but she seems a much more likely 2018 challenger to Gov.-elect Bruce Rauner (R). Assuming Madigan is a no-go, look for Rep. Tammy Duckworth to be at the top of Democratic wish lists.
2. Nevada (D): Reid will soon no longer be majority leader. The question is whether he wants to be minority leader and whether he sticks around. He’s got bad approval numbers and is staring at a potential matchup with Sandoval. Tuesday’s election was actually pretty big here. Not only did Sandoval cruise to reelection with 71 percent of the vote — 71 percent! — the GOP also cruised in the lieutenant governor’s race, a huge proxy war that Reid badly wanted to win. That means Sandoval can run in 2016 without worrying about the governor’s seat going to a Democrat.
1. Wisconsin (R): Sen. Ron Johnson starts the 2016 election cycle as the most vulnerable senator on the map. He’s undefined in the eyes of many, and he’s running in a state that has gone Democratic in seven straight presidential elections. To boot, there are rumors that Democrat Russ Feingold, whom Johnson unseated in 2010, may run. | 0fake |
PM May working towards EU summit, progress made in talks - spokesman | LONDON (Reuters) - British Prime Minister Theresa May is working towards unlocking Brexit talks at an EU summit later this month and, despite there being more work to be done, has made good progress, her spokesman said on Wednesday. Asked whether there was any truth in reports that there would be no deal with Northern Ireland s Democratic Unionist Party over the border with EU member Ireland this week, the spokesman said: As the PM said earlier this week, good progress has been made but there is work still to do. We continue to work towards making further progress at the EU Council later this month. | 0fake |
U.S. monitoring sanctions regime in response to Myanmar situation: official | DHAKA (Reuters) - The U.S. government will constantly monitor its sanctions regime to respond to violence in Myanmar s Rakhine state that has sent hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslim refugees across the border to Bangladesh, a senior U.S. official said on Saturday. We are constantly evaluating the situation, Simon Henshaw, Acting Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration, told reporters at a news briefing in Dhaka after visiting camps in Cox s Bazar where hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees are sheltering. Congress has given us a number of tools we can use, he said, noting disturbing reports of atrocities in Rakhine state. We call for a full investigation of these reports, we call for those who committed (the atrocities) to be held accountable, he said. It is incredible that only within two months more than 600,000 refugees have taken shelter in a country. A seven-member delegation led by Henshaw visited Myanmar from Oct. 29 before traveling to Bangladesh on Wednesday. It went to Cox s Bazar on Thursday. During our meetings with Myanmar government officials we told them that it is their responsibility to return a secure and stable situation in Rakhine state. It is also their responsibility to investigate the reports of atrocities. The delegation also asked Myanmar to allow Rohingya people back to their land and to rehabilitate the villages that were burned. He said they had been shocked by Rohingya accounts of atrocities, murder and sexual assaults. The delegation called on the Myanmar government to allow access to press and international organizations so they could see the situation on the ground, he said. U.S. State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said the issue has been taken to the highest level of authority in the U.S. government. The statements related to the situation in Myanmar have been issued from the White House and also from the State Department. She said the delegation would update U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson before his visit to Myanmar on Nov. 15. Some 2,500 Rohingya refugees crossed into Bangladesh on Friday through two border crossings, a senior security official said on Saturday. Those refugees are already being sent to different camps under the supervision of Bangladesh Army, Major Mohammad Iqbal, Deputy Commanding Officer of Bangladesh Border Guard of Cox s Bazar district told Reuters. | 0fake |
BREAKING NEWS: OBAMA’S AG Loretta Lynch Ordered Manafort’s Phone Tapped During Meeting With Russian Lawyer | Is anyone really shocked that another fake Trump-Russian collusion story points to Obama and his crooked administration?Today, Fusion GPS employee Rinat Akhmetshin today confirmed his attendance at a meeting with Donald Trump Jr, Paul Manafort, and Jared Kushner along with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya.Accusations have arisen that the meeting was part of a wider setup to achieve a FISA warrant to wiretap phones of the Trump campaign during 2016. President Trump himself has accused the FBI under Loretta Lynch of wiretapping his campaign. Now, a former Trump campaign official reports that Paul Manafort s phone was subject to FISA wiretap during the infamous meeting.If true, this FISA warrant would have been carried out under Loretta Lynch, Attorney General to Barack Obama. Former FBI Director James Comey has testified under oath to instances of collusion between AG Lynch and the Clinton campaign during 2016, as well as obstruction of justice in the Clinton investigation. Yesterday, multiple news agencies and President Trump all stated that Veselnitskaya was granted special permission to enter the US by Attorney General Lynch after her visa had been initially blocked.FISA transcripts of the meeting in June 2016 may have also served the basis of the FBI s investigation into the Trump campaign s ties to Russia, now headed by Bob Mueller.Other senior members of the Trump campaign may have participated in the meeting via conference call. Update: This would have been illegal, as FISA court denied Obama s June 2016 request.For entire story: Jack Posobiac, The Medium | 1real |
HOLLYWOOD HYPOCRITES: These Lefty Celebs Play For Brutal Dictators But Not For Trump | J-Lo was sorry. She didn t mean to sing Happy Birthday to someone accused of grave human rights abuses.That s what she did when she serenaded Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow, president of Turkmenistan, over the summer.Turkmenistan is known as one of the world s most repressive countries, according to Human Rights Watch. The former Soviet bloc country is regularly criticized for its poor treatment of women, the condition of its prisons as well as the intimidation of journalists.But J-Lo didn t know any of that, and if she had, says her rep, she wouldn t have accepted $1.5 million for the pleasure of singing to its head of state. Via: prl As our childish and biased media chuckles at President-elect Donald Trump s inability to attract some big name stars to perform at his upcoming inauguration celebration, there is a vital part of the story this very same media does not want to tell. The inconvenient part about how a number of these rich and famous celebrities, many of them Obama and Hillary supporters, have willingly performed in the past for murderous dictators, human rights abusers, and Russian gangsters.RELATED: 9 CELEBS WHO PLAYED FOR EVIL FOREIGN TYRANTSDid you know that Beyonc , who has performed live for both President Obama and Hillary Clinton, has also performed for the family of Libya s murderous dictator, the late-Muammar el-Qaddafi? For a fat seven-figure paycheck on New Year s Eve 2009, Bey belted out her hits for the Qaddafis at a lavish, champagne-soaked party. Also in attendance, her husband Jay-Z, hip-hop kingpin Russell Simmons, Usher, and Jon Bon Jovi.Read more: The Daily Wire | 1real |
Trump has been playing a part, will become more presidential: adviser | HOLLYWOOD, Fla./WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Top advisers to Donald Trump assured Republican Party leaders on Thursday that the New York billionaire would adopt a more presidential demeanor soon, to temper the image projected during his campaign so far. Trump’s representatives, including newly recruited senior advisers Paul Manafort and Rick Wiley, met privately with leaders of the Republican National Committee at an oceanside resort hotel where the party is holding a three-day meeting. “The part that he’s been playing is now evolving into the part that you’ve been expecting. The negatives will come down, the image is going to change,” Trump senior adviser Paul Manafort assured the party leaders, according to an audiotape of the session heard by Reuters. Trump has been “projecting an image” to energize voters, Manafort said, adding that he will soon concentrate on “crooked Hillary,” the nickname that Trump has given to Democratic favorite Hillary Clinton. “You’ll see a different guy,” said Manafort. But in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Trump suggested he was not ready to change from the style that has brought him close to the Republican presidential nomination. “I just don’t know if I want to do it yet,” he said. In recent weeks, Trump has railed against the party for developing what he said was a “rigged” system in which Cruz was able to amass delegates in Colorado without Republicans actually voting. Chatting over shrimp, crab legs and an open bar, Trump’s advisers expressed confidence that their candidate would win the Republican presidential nomination without the party having to resort to a contested convention in Cleveland in July, according to three attendees. Trump, 69, needs 1,237 delegates to win the nomination outright for the Nov. 8 election. Rivals Ted Cruz, 45, and John Kasich, 63, are trying to stop him from getting a majority of delegates, so they can force a contested convention in which one of them could emerge as the nominee. Cruz told a conservative talk radio host, Mark Levin, that Manafort’s comments show that Trump’s campaign style “is just an act.” Party leaders told reporters after the session that Trump’s envoys said Trump, as the Republican nominee, would be able to expand the party’s electoral map to include several states Republicans have not won in a general election in a generation. One attendee, South Carolina Republican Party Chairman Matt Moore, said the Trump team told the group it expected Trump to adopt a “more presidential demeanor” over the next few weeks.Moore said he was taking a wait-and-see attitude on whether Trump would change. “The proof is in the pudding,” he said. Manafort told reporters after the meeting that “we talked about how we’re going to expand the map.” As for how to change the negative image some voters had of Trump, Manafort said: “We just have to present him in a way that shows all sides of Donald Trump.” Former presidential candidate Ben Carson, the retired neurosurgeon who has endorsed Trump, also addressed the group. Talking to reporters as he walked into the meeting, Carson said his message was that Republicans should “stop fighting among ourselves” and unite behind Trump. “I don’t think anyone can win if the Republican Party and the conservatives don’t consolidate,” he said. Trump, who has alarmed some establishment Republicans with his comments on immigration, Muslims and trade, has begun to moderate his message in recent days. Trump’s campaign has hired staff versed in the ways of Washington and has begun holding regular meetings on Capitol Hill with current and potential supporters. Trump clashed again on Thursday with Cruz, a U.S. senator from Texas, this time over a North Carolina law passed last month requiring transgender people to use government and school bathrooms that correspond with the sex on their birth certificates. During an appearance at an NBC “Today” show town hall, Trump sided with critics of the law, passed by a Republican-controlled legislature, saying it was unnecessary and that North Carolina was “paying a big price” because of negative business reaction. His comments drew immediate criticism from Cruz, a staunch social and fiscal conservative who supports the law and said Trump had caved to political correctness as he seeks to broaden his appeal. | 0fake |
300 US Marines Deployed To Norway Near Russian Border For First Time Since World War II | By wmw_admin on October 29, 2016 US Preparing For War With Russia? Cristina Silva — IBT Oct 25, 2016 This 1997 aerial photograph shows the entrance to a cave facility the U.S. military uses in the Trondheim region of central Norway. Heavy armour, tanks, artillery and Armoured Personnel Carriers are pre-positioned in the cave complex ready for use by thousands of NATO troops who could be flown into Norway should conflict erupt with Russia. (Defense Department photo courtesy of the National Archives). Click to enlarge
More than 300 Marines will be deployed to Norway along the Russian border as tensions between Moscow and Washington over conflicts in Ukraine and Syria have provoked new threats of sanctions and military upgrades. The deployment marks the first time a foreign military will be on the ground in Norway since World War II, according to Reuters.
The Marines will take part in training and manoeuvres in near Arctic conditions. They will be stationed at the Vaernes military base in central Norway about 600 miles from Russia and will “increase NATO’s ability to rapidly aggregate and employ forces in northern Europe,” Major General Niel Nelson, commander of U.S. Marines in Europe, said Monday.
Norway typically maintains good relations with the Kremlin and the two nations share a 122-mile border in the Arctic. But the Russian military has raised concerns in recent months after ordering its troops to train along Norwegian airspace and expand remote border roads. Moscow’s recent military exercises near Sweden, Denmark and Finland, as well as the former Soviet Union states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, have also stroked fears of a miltary build-up.
“This U.S. initiative is welcome and also fits well within ongoing processes in NATO to increase exercises, training and interoperability within the Alliance,” Norwegian Defence Minister Ine Eriksen Soreide said in the statement. “The defence of Norway is dependent on allied reinforcements, and it is crucial for Norwegian security that our allies come here to gain knowledge of how to operate in Norway and with Norwegian forces.”
NATO previously deployed four multinational battalions to Poland and the Baltic States to temper Russian agression, and U.S. tanks have been stationed in Europe. Norway has been a NATO member since 1949, but under a deal with Russia it had prevously said it would not allow foreign troops on its land. But Russia’s ongoing military conflicts in Ukraine and Syria have drawn rebuke from Europe and the United States, including threats of further sanctions. Meanwhile, Moscow continues to spend big on defense .
Former senior Norwegian army officer Jacob Borresen told broadcaster NRK the latest deployment “sends negative signals eastwards” that could incite a Cold War-style “confrontation zone.”
Russia has already denounced the move . “Taking into account multiple statements made by Norwegian officials about the absence of threat from Russia to Norway, we would like to understand why Norway is so much willing to increase its military potential, in particular through the stationing of American forces in Vaernes, “embassy spokesman Maxime Gourov said in an email to Agence France-Presse. | 1real |
The Modern Love Podcast: Taissa Farmiga Reads ‘Friends Without Benefits’ - The New York Times | The actress Taissa Farmiga (“The Bling Ring,” “American Horror Story: Murder House”) reads “Friends Without Benefits” by Hannah Selinger, an essay about romantic infatuation and learning to finally let someone go. You can also hear the episode on iTunes and Stitcher. Afterward, we’ll talk with Ms. Selinger, a freelance writer and wine sales representative living in New York, and the Modern Love editor Daniel Jones. Ms. Farmiga stars, with Ethan Hawke, John Travolta and Karen Gillan, in “In a Valley of Violence. ” Follow Hannah Selinger on Twitter and Taissa Farmiga on Twitter and Instagram. | 0fake |
‘You Can’t Code Your Way Out of Racism’ - The New York Times | This week, we meet for breakfast to talk through our conflicting feelings about the new film “When the Bough Breaks,” the No. 2 movie in America. Jenna loved it Wesley not so much. We also decode the inherent racism of the sharing economy. Airbnb recently issued a report about how they plan to fight discrimination on the site. One of the proposed solutions is to make the avatar photos of smaller, making it harder to discriminate. Um, what? “I’ve got to be honest with you,” Wesley tells Jenna on the show. “If AirbnB wants to make the avatars smaller, make mine twice as big! If you don’t want me staying in your house, don’t front like you’re happy to have me. ” “This moment of reckoning is bigger than has ever happened before with the whole tech wave,” Jenna says. ”The fact that we have these founders that want to be woke,” Jenna says, is a big step in the right direction. But even with that awareness, she says, the fact remains: “You can’t code yourself out of racism. ” We also bring in the dance writer Shanti Crawford to review the moves we watched at the United States Open. From a desktop or laptop, you can listen by pressing play on the button above. Or if you’re on a mobile device, the instructions below will help you find and subscribe to the series. On your iPhone or iPad: 1. Open your podcast app. It’s a app called “Podcasts” with a purple icon. (This link may help.) 2. Search for the series. Tap on the “search” magnifying glass icon at the bottom of the screen, type in “Still Processing” and select it from the list of results. 3. Subscribe. Once on the series page, tap on the “subscribe” button to have new episodes sent to your phone free. You may want to adjust your notifications to be alerted when a new episode arrives. 4. Or just sample. If you would rather listen to an episode or two before deciding to subscribe, tap on the episode title from the list on the series page. If you have an internet connection, you’ll be able to stream the episode. On your Android phone or tablet: 1. Open your podcast app. It’s a app called “Play Music” with an icon. (This link may help.) 2. Search for the series. Click on the magnifying glass icon at the top of the screen, search for “Still Processing” and select it from the list of results. You may have to scroll down to find the “Podcasts” search results. 3. Subscribe. Once on the series page, click on the word “subscribe” to have new episodes sent to your phone free. 4. Or just sample. If you would rather listen to an episode or two before deciding to subscribe, click on the episode title from the list on the series page. If you have an internet connection, you’ll be able to stream the episode. | 0fake |
An Alt-Right Makeover Shrouds the Swastikas - The New York Times | A small but determined political organization in Detroit began to worry that its official symbol was a bit . With the group’s central philosophy suddenly finding traction in the daily discourse, appearances mattered. So in November, as the country’s divisive presidential campaign became ever more jagged, the National Socialist Movement, a leading group, did away with its swastika. In its stead, the group chose a symbol from a alphabet that was also adopted by the Nazis. According to Jeff Schoep, the movement’s leader, the decision to dispense with the swastika was “an attempt to become more integrated and more mainstream. ” Let us pause. Not even two years ago, white supremacists like Mr. Schoep would rant from the fringe of the fringe, their events rarely worth mention. Today, though, the Schoeps of America are undergoing a rebranding, as part of the : a grab bag of groups generally united by the belief that white identity has become endangered in what they deride as this era of dangerous diversity and political correctness. The deceptively benign phrase “ ” now peppers the national conversation, often in ways that play down its fundamental beliefs, which have long been considered intolerant and hateful. The term’s recent prevalence corresponds with the rise of Donald J. Trump leaders say his inflammatory statements and Twitter habits in the campaign energized, even validated, their movement. The movement is also acutely seeing the burning crosses, swastikas and language of yesteryear as impediments to recruitment. Its adherents talk of “getting ” a reference to the movie “The Matrix,” in which the protagonist ingests a tablet that melts away artifice to reveal the truth. New, coded slurs have emerged. Fewer pointed hoods, more khaki pants. But the movement is hardly monolithic, despite a gathering last month in Washington — one that might have been mistaken for just another corporate conference were it not for the sentiments and the Nazi salutes. The factions within its ranks can differ on any number of subjects: white supremacy versus white nationalism, for example, or the vexing “J. Q. ” — the “Jewish Question. ” James Edwards, a talk radio host who describes himself as a “ advocate” — and who interviewed the ’s son Donald Trump Jr. this year — wrote in an email that the movement was “a group of marauding conservatives who reject both the failures of establishment conservatism and the false gods of political correctness. ” Race is the uniting factor, Mr. Edwards wrote. “One fundamental element of the that brings the disparate factions together is the awareness of the reality of race and the need for European Americans to have organizations and spokespeople that explicitly advocate for our unique group interests. ” For many years, the gaggle now called the existed in the shadowed alleys of American culture, sharing views through newsletters, online radio and crude websites. The news media often debated whether to cover their sparsely attended rallies, considering that any attention might grant the groups a veneer of legitimacy. Andrew Anglin, the founder of the website The Daily Stormer, described the current moment in a recent essay as “a reboot of the White Nationalist movement” — one infused with youthful energy. The foot soldiers of the movement are not old white supremacists marching under a new banner, Mr. Anglin explained, but a mostly younger generation drawn from various online cultures, including conspiracy theorists and that misogynistic stratum of the internet known as the “manosphere. ” Then came Mr. Trump, whose opening gambit as a presidential candidate included his promise to build a wall to keep out Mexican immigrants, whom he called rapists and criminals. The raised its collective head to listen. “I’d been waiting to hear those words from a mainstream political candidate all my life,” said Gerald Martin, a retired teacher from Dallas who grew up in a family that opposed desegregation. He is a veteran of both the Army and a number of white supremacist movements, and the likes of William Luther Pierce III, a white supremacist who wrote “The Turner Diaries,” a novel about an underground band of white Americans who fight a government controlled by Jews. Before the Trump candidacy, Mr. Martin said, few in the were talking about politics the movement was more about winning the battle of ideas. But once Mr. Trump began to talk, he said, “suddenly we’re all talking politics and we’re politically energized. ” “We’re almost intoxicated,” Mr. Martin continued. “We don’t have any power — but now we’re close enough to smell it. ” Perhaps in another age, any candidate’s engagement with white supremacists and separatists would have resulted in an awkward news conference announcing the end of his campaign. But this is a new age, in which Mr. Trump went unscathed for engaging with Twitter users like WhiteGenocideTM, who listed his location as “Jewmerica” and used an image of the founder of the American Nazi Party as his Twitter profile’s photograph. Mr. Trump brushed off his sharing of messages on social media as inconsequential — the sort of thing that just happens on Twitter. He also denied at one point the existence of any movement. “Nobody even knows what it is,” he told CNN in August. “This is a term that was just given that — frankly, there’s no or . ” As if to clarify matters, members of the movement gathered in Washington about two weeks after Mr. Trump’s election for a conference sponsored by the National Policy Institute, an organization that describes itself as being “dedicated to the heritage, identity and future of people of European descent. ” Its president, Richard B. Spencer, 38, is a prominent leader who wears his brown hair in an undercut style once popular among the Hitler Youth. It’s called a “fashy,” as in fascist. Mr. Spencer said in an interview that as he saw it, the principles of American conservatism throughout most of the 20th century had been wrongly defined within the context of capitalism and its ideological battle with communism. The matter of European identity, he said, was assumed, but never stated outright. “Race is real,” he said. “Race matters. Race is the foundation of identity. ” Not everyone in the movement appreciated the moment at the end of the conference when some in the audience raised stiffened arms, echoing the Nazi salute. Discussions afterward reflected the divisions in the loosely aligned ranks, as well as an acute awareness of public perception and the need to make their messages somehow more palatable. Paul Ramsey, a blogger and retired computer programmer in Oklahoma, generally follows an ideology, though he said he did not believe in a white . He said he had long feared a hijacking of the movement by the “ . K. K. element,” which would lead to vilification and a relegation back to the fringe. Those salutes confirmed his fears, Mr. Ramsey said, and he is now disassociating from the movement, even though he understands that Mr. Spencer may believe in a philosophy. “The new Nazism is very demonized and toxic, and associating your brand with that is crazy,” he said. Mr. Martin, the retired teacher, who attended the conference, also didn’t care for the salutes, calling them “very foolish. ” But he suggested that most of those raising their arms were using the salute as “their version of the middle finger” — a defiant gesture “to the media, to the Trump haters, to everybody they feel alienated from. ” Indeed, the movement has the feel of a dispossessed youth rising up. Hours of interviews with young leaders suggest a pattern toward their radicalization. Seeing domestic and global strife often rooted in racial and ethnic differences. Finding validation from people on the internet. Hearing a major presidential candidate echo their grievances. “The political establishment has made an entire generation of young white men and women into fascists, and that’s a beautiful thing!” said Matthew Heimbach, 25, who runs the Traditionalist Worker Party out of his trailer in Indiana. His group advocates replacing the United States with based on races, ethnicities and religions. In Northern California, a university student, felon and Marine veteran, Nathan Damigo, oversees a group called Identity Evropa, which he described as a “fraternity” of mostly young, men who celebrate European heritage — that is, an embrace of white identity and a rejection of multicultural coexistence. Ever conscious of the importance of marketing, Mr. Damigo, 30, pointed out that Identity Evropa’s website “looks completely mainstreamed. ” And it does, featuring men in business suits who also happen to be sporting the Hitler haircut. But for all the fresh approaches — the slick marketing, the internet savviness — the message remains the same. It is one of separation, of supremacy, of a refusal to recognize the equal worth of others who do not have the same skin tone or share the same religion. The ascension of the has lifted some familiar names from the muck of the past, including David Duke, the white nationalist, Holocaust denier and former Louisiana state representative whose national profile has been resurrected. When a reporter telephoned him recently to discuss the movement, Mr. Duke wasted little time with a question of his own: “Are you Jewish?” | 0fake |
Kerry Rebukes Israel, Calling Settlements a Threat to Peace - The New York Times | WASHINGTON — Secretary of State John Kerry accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel on Wednesday of thwarting peace in the Middle East, speaking with a clarity and harshness almost never heard from American diplomats when discussing one of their closest and strongest allies. With only 23 days left in his turn as secretary of state, during which he made the search for peace in the Middle East one of his driving missions, Mr. Kerry said the Israeli government was undermining any hope of a solution to its conflict with the Palestinians. The American vote last week in the United Nations allowing the condemnation of Israel for settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, he added, was driven by a desire to save Israel from “the most extreme elements” in its own government. “The status quo is leading toward one state and perpetual occupation,” Mr. Kerry said, his voice animated. His speech was a powerful admonition after years of tension and frustration, with the Obama administration giving public voice to its concern that Israel was headed off a cliff toward international isolation and was condemning itself to a future of perpetual warfare with the Palestinians. Reaction was immediate and harsh, not only from Mr. Netanyahu, but also from Senators John McCain, Republican of Arizona, and Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York. Donald J. Trump did not even wait for Mr. Kerry to speak before condemning the secretary of state. The United States and Israel are in the middle of a breach rarely seen since President Harry S. Truman recognized the fragile Israeli state in May 1948. In a direct response to Mr. Netanyahu’s barb over the weekend that “friends don’t take friends to the Security Council” — a reference to the Obama administration’s decision to abstain from the resolution condemning the building of new settlements in disputed territory — Mr. Kerry said the United States acted out of a deeper understanding of the meaning of its alliance. “Some seem to believe that the U. S. friendship means the U. S. must accept any policy, regardless of our own interests, our own positions, our own words, our own principles — even after urging again and again that the policy must change,” he said. “Friends need to tell each other the hard truths, and friendships require mutual respect. ” Toward the end of his speech in the State Department’s auditorium, Mr. Kerry acknowledged that Mr. Trump may well abandon the major principles that the United States has used for decades of Middle East negotiations, including the solution that both Republicans and Democrats support. Mr. Trump is nominating a new American ambassador, David M. Friedman, who has broken with even the pretense of supporting a negotiated agreement and has helped fund some of the settlements Mr. Kerry denounced. On vacation in Palm Beach, Fla. Mr. Trump posted two Twitter messages rejecting the speech before it was delivered. “We cannot continue to let Israel be treated with such total disdain and disrespect,” he wrote on Wednesday morning. After assailing the nuclear deal in Iran and last week’s vote at the Security Council, he said, “Stay strong Israel, January 20th is fast approaching!” He was soon praised — also on Twitter — by Mr. Netanyahu, who later released a video statement that was unsparingly direct and dismissive of Mr. Kerry. “The entire Middle East is going up in flames, entire countries are toppling, terrorism is raging and for an entire hour the secretary of state attacks the only democracy in the Middle East,” Mr. Netanyahu said. “Maybe Kerry did not notice that Israel is the only place in the Middle East where Christmas can be celebrated in peace and security. Sadly, none of this interests the secretary of state. ” Mr. Kerry’s speech was criticized at home as well. Mr. McCain called it a “pointless tirade,” while Mr. Schumer, the incoming Senate Democratic leader, said he feared that Mr. Kerry had “emboldened extremists on both sides. ” Mr. Kerry did make note of the Palestinian violence, the “extremist agenda” of Hamas, and the Palestinian unwillingness to recognize Israel. All, he said, were at the heart of the conflict. But Mr. Netanyahu’s continued support of settlements, “strategically placed in locations that make two states impossible,” he said, is driving a solution further and further away. Mr. Kerry argued that Israel, with a growing Arab population, could not survive as both a Jewish state and a democratic state unless it embraced the approach that a succession of American presidents have endorsed. Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, responded to Mr. Kerry’s speech by calling on Israel to freeze housing construction in order to restart negotiations. “The minute the Israeli government agrees to cease all settlement activities, including in and around occupied East Jerusalem, and agree to implement the signed agreements on the basis of mutual reciprocity, the Palestinian leadership stands ready to resume permanent status negotiations,” he said. Mr. Netanyahu has said he is willing to meet Mr. Abbas anytime for talks as long as there are no preconditions. It was notable that it was Mr. Kerry who delivered the speech rather than President Obama, who has long kept a distance from Middle East peace negotiations, a pursuit he has always doubted would succeed. After talks at Camp David collapsed in 2000, it was President Bill Clinton himself who gave a speech laying out the parameters of an ultimate deal, about 10 days before leaving office in 2001. At the time, Mr. Clinton also censured Israel for its settlements, but in far more measured terms. Mr. Kerry called them a violation of international law, a position he said the State Department had taken since 1978. “The Israeli prime minister publicly supports a solution, but his current coalition is the most in Israeli history, with an agenda driven by its most extreme elements,” he said. “The result is that policies of this government — which the prime minister himself just described as ‘more committed to settlements than any in Israel’s history’ — are leading in the opposite direction, towards one state. ” Seldom in modern American diplomacy has an American administration so directly confronted — and disavowed — a close ally’s actions as Mr. Kerry did on Wednesday, dropping most of the restraint he had shown in public over the past four years. One of the last times was during the Eisenhower administration, when the United States broke with Britain, France and Israel over the 1956 invasion of the Egyptian Sinai. Eisenhower had warned against the invasion and threatened to harm Britain’s financial system in retaliation. When Mr. Kerry got to the principles for a future settlement, they were unsurprising. Many date to the 1990s or earlier, and many to past United Nations resolutions. The principles he described started with a “secure and recognized border between Israel and a viable and contiguous Palestine,” based on Israel’s withdrawal from territory occupied since the 1967 war and land swaps to “reflect practical realities on the ground. ” A second principle was the creation of a state for the Palestinian people, and a third was a “fair and realistic solution to the Palestinian refugee issue,” including compensation. There was no mention of a “right of return” for refugees and their descendants forced to leave Israel and the Palestinian territories, back to 1948. The fourth principle called for Jerusalem to be the recognized capital of both states, which Mr. Kerry said was “the most sensitive issue for both sides. ” The fifth was an agreement to satisfy Israel’s security needs while ending its military occupation of Palestinian territories. Mr. Kerry, who has cast himself as one of Israel’s greatest friends, said in recent months it became clear he had to “save the solution while there was still time. ” “We did not take this decision lightly,” he said of the vote in the United Nations Security Council, where the American abstention allowed a condemnation of Israel go forward. “Israelis are fully justified in decrying attempts to delegitimize their state and question the right of a Jewish state to exist. But this vote was not about that. It was about actions that Israelis and Palestinians are taking that are increasingly rendering a solution impossible. ” It was also about Mr. Kerry’s own personal disappointment. As soon as he took over from Hillary Clinton as secretary of state in 2013, Mr. Kerry plunged into the tar pit of Middle East peace negotiations with an enthusiasm neither Mrs. Clinton nor Mr. Obama shared. The goal was a negotiation leading to a “final status” of the conflict by the summer of 2014. It never got that far. Despite scores of meetings between Mr. Kerry and his two main interlocutors, Mr. Abbas, the Palestinian president, and Mr. Netanyahu, Mr. Kerry and his lead mediators, Martin S. Indyk and Frank Lowenstein, could not make progress. They blamed both sides for taking actions that undermined the process, but the continued expansion of the settlements was one of their leading complaints — an effort, in the American and European view, to establish “facts on the ground” so that territory could not be traded away. Mr. Netanyahu has accused the United States of “orchestrating” the vote, and his aides have said that Mr. Kerry and Mr. Obama effectively stabbed Israel in the back. Israeli officials have said they have evidence that the United States organized the resolution. Mr. Kerry pushed back at that narrative on Wednesday. Mr. Netanyahu, for his part, is biding his time and waiting for Mr. Kerry and Mr. Obama to move on. Israeli leaders postponed plans on Wednesday to move ahead with new housing in East Jerusalem, just hours before the speech. | 0fake |
EU withdrawal bill vital to ensuring orderly Brexit: minister | LONDON (Reuters) - Legislation to sever political, financial and legal ties with the European Union is vital to ensuring Britain leaves the bloc in an orderly manner, Brexit minister David Davis said on Thursday. Davis also said the powers offered by the EU withdrawal bill, which seeks largely to copy and paste EU law into British legislation, would allow the government to make sure the statute book works on the day Britain leaves the EU. This bill is vital to ensuring that as we leave, we do so in an orderly manner, Davis said at the start of a debate in parliament on the bill. | 0fake |
Betsy DeVos: Black Colleges That Came From Jim Crow Are Models Of ‘School Choice’ | Donald Trump s secretary of education, Betsy DeVos, doesn t just have trouble with grammar. Apparently, she struggles with American history as well.Following Trump s meeting with the leaders of Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), DeVos sent out a tweet that can only be described as completely clueless. According to the new education secretary, HBCUs are pioneers of school choice. Wowwowwow. These paragraphs are from a real, official US Department of Education statement from Betsy DeVos released today. pic.twitter.com/I2FDZfzdmt Ankit Panda (@nktpnd) February 28, 2017DeVos couldn t have gotten things more backward if she had tried. Historically black schools aren t models of school choice. In fact, it is the exact opposite. These schools arose because there was no choice. Slaves were forbidden from learning how to read and write. Following their emancipation, most white schools refused to let black students in.The first HBCUs were started to educate black teachers so that black children would have a shot at receiving any type of education at all. Later, in addition to the private institutions that had been founded, southern states set up public colleges to serve blacks rather than integrate existing schools.If DeVos really believes this is something to aspire to, it certainly does explain a lot. As secretary of education, she plans to fix our broken education system by diverting federal funds from public schools to private schools, which are largely unregulated. Critics argue that this will serve only to accelerate the resegregation of American schools.Following the integration of public schools in America, white parents who didn t want their children to share classrooms with black students opted to send their children to private schools. In the decade following the passage of the Civil Rights Act, approximately half a million white students left public schools for private ones.Maybe DeVos isn t just an idiot with no understanding of history after all. Between her tweet and her vision for the future of American schools, we are forced to ask if taking our children and their education back to the days of Jim Crow has really been her intention all along.Featured image via Mario Tama/Getty Images | 1real |
Austria promises to consult Rome on passport offer to Italians | VIENNA (Reuters) - Austria s new coalition government will press ahead with plans to offer citizenship to the German-speaking minority in northern Italy, it said on Tuesday, but pledged to consult Rome on the project, which risks reopening century-old wounds. The dual-citizenship plan for the northern Italian region of Alto Adige was included in a 180-page coalition agreement published over the weekend by Chancellor Sebastian Kurz s conservative People s Party and the far-right Freedom Party (FPO). Alto Adige was ceded to Italy by Austria after World War One. Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini tried to settle thousands of ethnic Italians there in the 1920s, but German-speakers still outnumber Italians by around two to one. Italian and German speakers have their own schools and largely frequent different bars and restaurants. But the region enjoys enormous autonomy and generous handouts from Rome, which have helped dampen secessionist sentiment in the province. Kurz has said the scheme, which the FPO has long pushed for, is only meant to encourage cooperation between European states. That is something that of course we only plan to do in close cooperation with Italy and with the government in Rome, Kurz told a joint news conference with FPO chief and Vice Chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache after their government s first cabinet meeting. Italian politicians have already roundly condemned Austria s plan, calling it a gesture to nationalism and saying it will threaten the delicate ethnic balance in Alto Adige, also known as South Tyrol. Italy s foreign minister was quoted by Italian news agency ANSA on Monday as saying that discussing the issue would be a conversation that requires enormous delicacy . Kurz, however, downplayed any tension. We have excellent contact with Rome. I am a personal friend of the head of government. I am a personal friend of the foreign minister s, said Kurz, who was foreign minister until his new government was sworn in. In our government program, we have complied with a wish of South Tyroleans that was expressed by all parties in South Tyrol and that above all was also expressed by the South Tyrolean provincial government, Kurz said. Strache said Italy already has a similar arrangement in place for Italian minorities in Slovenia and Croatia. The Italian Foreign Ministry website lays out conditions under which people who lost their citizenship when some territories became part of Yugoslavia can apply for an Italian passport. The issue did not feature in Austria s parliamentary election in October, which Kurz s party won with a hard line on immigration that often overlapped with the FPO s. Austria took in a large number of asylum seekers during Europe s migration crisis. Both parties pledged to stop another such influx. In Austrian Tyrol, however, where maps of the province often still show the region to the south that is now part of Italy, it is still an emotional issue. That province, a stronghold of Kurz s conservatives, is due to hold an election for the local parliament in February. The head of Alto Adige s government, Arno Kompatscher, said he supported the plan as long as it was put in a European context of uniting nations rather than dividing them - a possible reference to any objections Italy might have. It therefore has nothing to do with secession or moving borders or anything else. Rather it has to do with this expression of personal connection (to Austria) and the debate should take place in this context, he told a news conference. The criteria on which citizenship would be offered were still open and should be the subject of discussions between Austria and Italy, he added.. Austria and Italy have clashed repeatedly in recent years over Austria s threat to introduce controls at the Brenner crossing, a vital transport link on their shared border, if the number of migrants arriving there from Italy rises sharply. So far that has not happened. | 0fake |
Democrats Just CRUSHED A Bunch Of Republicans In Illinois Because Of Backlash Against Trump | The Democratic wave has commenced.In 2010, Republicans gloated about the Tea Party wave that gave them control of the House and have since been bragging about the conservative wave that gave them control of the Senate and the White House in 2016.But because of Donald Trump and his incompetence, Republicans are now staring at an oncoming Democratic wave that could sweep them out of power.Unlike the Republican wave, however, the Democratic wave has genuine grassroots support and it s looking more like a growing tsunami.In Illinois, Democrats demonstrated this firsthand by taking down a bunch of Republicans in local elections in places they had never won before.According to the Huffington Post,The city of Kankakee elected its first African-American, Democratic mayor. West Deerfield Township will be led entirely by Democrats for the first time. Elgin Township voted for a complete changeover, flipping to an all-Democratic board. Normal Township elected Democratic supervisors and trustees to run its board the first time in more than 100 years that a single Democrat has held a seat. We had a pretty good day, said Dan Kovats, executive director of the Illinois Democratic County Chairmen s Association. We won in areas we normally would win, but we also won in areas Republicans never expected us to be competitive in. They were caught flat-footed. Republicans apparently thought their seats were safe and that they would be able to easily run over their opponents for victory. But that did not happen last week.Donald Trump has done such a horrible job since taking office that even people who voted for him are seeing the light and turning on him.Because as it turns out, Trump s policies are going to hurt conservatives more. His attempt to kill the Affordable Care Act would have stripped millions of Americans of their healthcare. Trump is also launching assaults on Social Security and Medicare, environmental protections, education, etc And it s only getting worse as Trump is now close to dragging America into more wars as more fighting breaks out in the Middle East and North Korea makes threats.Trump has repeatedly proven that he doesn t give a damn about the American people. He only cares about himself and Americans who never paid attention to politics before are waking up and getting involved.That brings us back to the wins by Illinois Democrats and the rising tide that could bury Republicans in 2018 if they don t reverse course fast.Democrats are literally running competitive races and winning in areas that are dominated by a conservative population.They should be striking fear in the hearts and minds of every Republican lawmaker across the country right now. Because if Democrats can win here, they can win anywhere and even Republicans in the most staunchly Republican stronghold are not safe.These may have been just some local elections but grassroots efforts are the tip of the spear.At the state level, Republicans have also been struggling to keep long-held seats. A Kansas special election almost turned into a win for Democrats if not for a last minute flood of cash into the race by the Republican Party.And Democrats in Georgia are running a winning anti-Trump campaign that could give them another seat in the House that had traditionally been held by the GOP.Republicans also got their asses handed to them in Delaware by a Democrat running a similar campaign.In short, Trump has poisoned the Republican Party and Republicans only have themselves to blame. They picked Trump to be their leader, and he is now the face of their party. Everything he does reflects on them and the American people are incredibly angry about what Trump has been doing to our nation over the last three months. He has made us a laughingstock around the world.However, Republicans won t be laughing when the 2018 Election rolls around. They ll be devastated. And so will Donald Trump, because a Democratic wave in 2018 means he s likely to be a failed one-term president.Featured Image: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images | 1real |
Before G-20, Obama Tries to Smooth Things Over With Turkey - The New York Times | HANGZHOU, China — President Obama sought on Sunday to heal a rift with Turkey, expressing his wholehearted support for its president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in the wake of a failed effort to oust him and promising America’s help in bringing the coup plotters to justice. Mr. Obama’s comments, after he met with Mr. Erdogan before a Group of 20 summit meeting here, seemed calculated to smooth over hard feelings in Turkey, where some officials had blamed the United States for fomenting the July 15 uprising by elements of the military. He said nothing about Mr. Erdogan’s crackdown after the coup, in which tens of thousands of people were arrested. And his reference to helping Turkey bring the perpetrators of the uprising to justice was not accidental: Mr. Erdogan is demanding that the United States extradite Fethullah Gulen, a Turkish Muslim cleric living in Pennsylvania whom he accused of inciting the coup. “This is the first opportunity that I’ve had to meet face to face with President Erdogan since the terrible attempted coup,” Mr. Obama said, facing the Turkish leader across a long table. “We’re glad you’re here, safe, and that we are able to continue to work together. ” He papered over the fact that Turkey’s interests have diverged recently from those of the United States, particularly in Syria, where Turkish forces have intervened to prevent Syrian Kurds from making further gains in the northern part of the country. The Kurds are trained and equipped by the United States, which views them as critical in the military campaign against the Islamic State. But Mr. Erdogan fears they are trying to create an unbroken Kurdish corridor just south of Turkey’s border with Syria. The Syrian Kurds have links to Turkish Kurds, who have been fighting his government. Mr. Erdogan said it was important for the United States and Turkey to fight against all terrorist groups, not just the Islamic State. He mentioned the acronyms of two Syrian Kurdish groups. “We have to embrace the same stance against all terrorist organizations around the world,” he said. “Our hope is never to see a belt of terrorism, a corridor of terrorism emerging in or around our region. ” Still, Mr. Erdogan was more conciliatory to Mr. Obama than he had been toward Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. when Mr. Biden traveled to Turkey last month. Mr. Biden apologized for not having visited sooner, but Mr. Erdogan sat complaining that Mr. Gulen used his home in Pennsylvania as a base to destabilize the Turkish government. On Sunday, Mr. Erdogan did not repeat those claims. He merely said that the Turkish government planned to submit additional legal evidence against Mr. Gulen to the Justice Department, which will recommend to a federal judge whether to extradite him. Mr. Erdogan noted that the Justice Department had sent officials to Turkey to investigate the case. Earlier in the day, Mr. Obama held his first meeting with Britain’s new prime minister, Theresa May. He reassured her, as he had her predecessor, David Cameron, that Britain’s vote to leave the European Union would have no effect on its relationship with the United States. | 0fake |
Ask Holly: Why am I such a miserable git? | Ask Holly: Why am I such a miserable git? 03-11-16 Why am I such a miserable git? Jose Manchester Dear Jose, Happiness comes from sweets and things made of plastic and sparkly items you see in the adverts on Channel 5. All you need to do is get a job which pays you about £21.99 a week. If you are too young to work, ask your mum and dad every half an hour for several days to give you the money and then you can get some wine gums, a Sherbet Dip Dab, some Shopkins and a Barbie and you will be happy for at least five minutes. Hope that helps, | 1real |
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