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Comment on A Group Of Reluctant Men Hold Kittens For The First Time. Hilarity Ensures by para para dinle | A Group Of Reluctant Men Hold Kittens For The First Time. Hilarity Ensures By Tiffany Willis on September 14, 2014 Subscribe Screengrab via YouTube
Not everyone is a cat fan, and not everyone finds kittens adorable. I confess: I’ve always been a dog person, actually, but in recent years, I’ve become very attached to my adorable cats , too.
In this video, a group of big burly guys visited a feral cat rescue shelter and were given the opportunity to play with the kittens. They were reluctant, but you can quickly see how they transformed. This is priceless.
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Tiffany Willis is the founder and editor-in-chief of Liberal America. An unapologetic member of the Christian Left, she has spent most of her career actively working with ?the least of these? and disadvantaged and oppressed populations. She’s passionate about their struggles. To stay on top of topics she discusses,?like her? Facebook page ,? follow her on Twitter , or? connect with her via LinkedIn . She also has?a? grossly neglected personal blog ?and a? literary quotes blog that is a labor of love . Find her somewhere and join the discussion. About Tiffany Willis
Tiffany Willis is a fifth-generation Texan, a proponent of voluntary simplicity, a single mom, and the founder and editor-in-chief of Liberal America. An unapologetic member of the Christian Left, she has spent most of her career actively working with “the least of these" -- disadvantaged and oppressed populations, the elderly, people living in poverty, at-risk youth, and unemployed people. She is a Certified Workforce Expert with the National Workforce Institute , a NAWDP Certified Workforce Development Professional, and a certified instructor for Franklin Covey's 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens . Follow her on Twitter , Facebook , or LinkedIn . She also has a grossly neglected personal blog , a Time Travel blog , a site dedicated to encouraging people to read classic literature 15 minutes a day , and a literary quotes blog that is a labor of love . Find her somewhere and join the discussion. Click here to buy Tiff a mojito. Connect | 1real |
CIA Claims of Russian Intervention in US Election Fall Flat | 21st Century Wire says How seriously can we take a secret CIA assessment that Russian intervention in the U.S. Presidential election played a role in the victory of President Elect Donald J. Trump when it comes from an organization that has intervened extensively in so many countries sovereign governments?The Anti-Media The Daily SheepleAccording to a secret CIA assessment, Russia intervened in the U.S. election to undermine confidence in the electoral system and boost support for Donald Trump.The president-elect has already rejected this notion, though the implications of claims regarding Russian involvement are still unclear.Once again, this kind of pro-Clinton/anti-Russian-based narrative has already been completely debunked. For example, in his recent article, Anonymous Leaks to the WashPost About the CIA s Russia Beliefs Are No Substitute for Evidence, Glenn Greenwald brilliantly explains why this story does not merit our attention. He astutely notes: There is still no such evidence for any of these claims. What we have instead are assertions, disseminated by anonymous people, completely unaccompanied by any evidence, let alone proof. As a result, none of the purported evidence still can be publicly seen, reviewed, or discussed. Anonymous claims leaked to newspapers about what the CIA believes do not constitute proof, and certainly do not constitute reliable evidence that substitutes for actual evidence that can be reviewed. Continue This Story at The Daily SheepleREAD MORE RUSSIA NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire Russia Files | 1real |
A Chick-Fil-A Got Shut Down In NYC Over Flies In Food – Conservatives Claim Religious Persecution | NYC s only Chick-Fil-A restaurant got shut down on Dec 30th after appalling sanitary and food safety violations were discovered in not one but two back-to-back health inspections. Rather than thanking God for sending an inspector, preventing them from contracting various fun diseases, conservatives are flipping out over not getting enough fly waste and food=borne illness in their daily diet.Below are some images provided by one twitter user regarding the closure. The list in red is the specific violations and total violation points.No line outside Chick-fil-A in NYC. Sign says closed for maintenance. Some violations online, no reason for closure pic.twitter.com/1lnuOonvXG Candice Choi (@candicechoi) January 3, 2016There were literally flies in and around the food to a point where a health inspector said the place had to stop serving food immediately. Gross, right?The flies must be a false flag for the liberal war on Christian anti-gay chicken sandwiches. Rather than adopting the personal responsibility attitude that conservatives love, and blaming the restaurant for not being more vigilant in the cleanliness of their facility, they started firing off accusations of it being a liberal plot and anti-religion operation.@TwitchyTeam war on religion Dave Rowan (@DaveRowan07) January 3, 2016@crispayumo @TwitchyTeam @ChickfilA BULLSHIT I WAS JUST THERE 2 days ago THE MAYOR HATES THE PLACE VERY CLEAN APPEARANC CORPORATE SHOW PLACE Chuck W Self (@MustacheChuck) January 3, 2016@TwitchyTeam sounds like the liberals will go to any length to close down a Christian co. John Funk (@BigBassettHound) January 3, 2016@TwitchyTeam why does this feel political by the progressive liberal left? Snikl (@morrisminor56) January 3, 2016They are even blaming the Muslims for this one too:@TwitchyTeam prob no prayer room. CAIR. S . (@Wrknpoor01) January 3, 2016More quality commentary was found on the Twitchy website:Here is a really important thing to know. A previous inspection earlier in December returned 39 violation points, indicating things got worse not better between the two inspections. If things were not brought to a halt, they would have been wheeling people out on stretchers. I guess at least they would still have religious freedom while they were getting their stomachs pumped at the hospital.Featured image via Wikicommons | 1real |
poll: Alarm, anxiety | Republican Pat McCrory is trailing in a tight race, but his campaign is challenging votes. | 0fake |
WATCH: Louisiana Governor Tells Republicans To Stop Whining About President Obama | Once again, Republicans are throwing a hissy fit because President Obama did not cut his vacation short to go immediately to Louisiana, but Governor John Bel Edwards put them in their place.As Louisiana deals with historic flooding that has broken records while killing 13 people and destroying tens of thousands of home, Republicans have been complaining about President Obama not dropping everything to visit the state.But during an appearance on The Rachel Maddow Show on Thursday night, Governor Bel Edwards set the record straight.As it turns out, Bel Edwards thinks President Obama s presence would be a distraction that would force the state to shift people and resources to prepare for the visit instead of remaining where they belong.First responders and emergency personnel are still involved in the rescue and recovery phase of the disaster, so pulling them away from that effort would be unwise. Therefore, Bel Edwards appreciates that President Obama did not jump on the first plane to Baton Rouge. The president is welcome anytime he wants to come, Bel Edwards said. I do want you to know, and your viewers to know, that within hours of me making a request for a federal declaration I got it from the president. He called me. I want you to know that I ve been speaking to Valerie Jarrett just about every day. He dispatched the FEMA administrator to meet with me for an entire day. Today I had the Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson. We ve also had the four-star general who runs all of the guard for the country here today. Bel Edwards said he would prefer if President Obama waited a week or two before coming to tour the flood damage and gave an example of what has to done to prepare for such a visit by pointing out how the state prepared for Vice-President Joe Biden s visit when he attended a memorial service three weeks ago for slain police officers. It is a major ordeal, they free up the interstate for him. We have to take hundreds of local first responders, police officers, sheriffs, deputies and state troopers to provide security for that type of visit. I would just as soon have those people engaged in the response rather than trying to secure the president. So I d ask him to wait, if he would, another couple weeks. Bel Edwards also noted that FEMA has been embedded in Baton Rouge since last Thursday, so President Obama and the federal government were well prepared to respond to the flooding unlike President Bush was for Hurricane Katrina, which killed 1,836 people.Rachel Maddow also pointed out that the state would have had emergency funding for this disaster had former Governor Bobby Jindal and Republican lawmakers not crippled state revenue by giving massive tax cuts to the wealthy.Here s the video via MSNBC:In short, President Obama has not ignored Louisiana s struggle. He has done everything short of visiting the state. And if he did visit, it would only do more harm then good.Donald Trump, on the other hand, visited the state and he couldn t even be bothered to cut a check to help those in need. The only help he provided was to assist in unloading play-doh from a truck instead of food or water or any other useful supply that people actually need.Meanwhile, President Obama has given Louisiana all the assistance they could possibly ask for in order to help people affected by the flooding. That s what real leadership is all about. Republicans would be well-advised to follow his example.Featured Image: Screenshot | 1real |
There’s Toxic Air In Your Home and This Is You Can Get Rid of It Naturally | Did you know that poor air quality in the home can cause a condition called “Sick Building Syndrome”? This is caused by an accumulation of toxic gases known as Volatile Organic Compounds ( VOCs ) which are released from common household goods , including everything from your cleaners to appliances and even the food you eat.
In addition to being carcinogenic and neurotoxic, long-term exposure to VOCs can lead to other serious health implications including, respiratory dysfunction, genetic abnormalities, and dermatitis. It begs the question, what are we subjecting ourselves to, doesn’t it?
NASA’s Clean Air Study reports how certain houseplants help to filter and remove toxins from the air. Houseplants have long been known to clean the air in small spaces, but some of these plants are more beneficial—and prettier to look at—than others. For those of you who prefer the bright colors of flowering plants, the following list shows the best beauties for filtering the air in your home.
5 Indoor Plants That Will Improve Air Quality Succulents Everyone loves the ease in caring for succulents and some of these create delicate flowers too. Here’s a quick fact: when photosynthesis stops at night, most plants absorb oxygen and release carbon dioxide? But, there are a few plants – like orchids, succulents and epiphytic bromeliads that will take in carbon dioxide and release oxygen at night time. Meaning, these would be ideal plants to have in bedrooms to keep the oxygen flowing at night.
Flamingo Lilly AKA Flamingo Flowers, these are durable and fairly easy to grow in low light, low water situations. They can thrive for many years under ideal conditions but are hearty enough to maintain growth for up to two years in even the most adverse situations (i.e., this is a perfect flowering plant for those lacking a green thumb!) . They have large, deep green, heart-shaped leaves and produce long lasting, bright red or hot pink flowers.
The Flamingo Lilly is great at removing the toxins formaldehyde (found in many paper products), xylene (found in tobacco smoke and vehicle exhaust), and ammonia (found in cleaning products) from the air.
*Beware that the Flamingo Lilly (like a lot of flowering plants) is toxic to dogs and cats, so be sure to keep them away from your family pets.
Barberton Daisy The Barberton daisy is available in many colors ranging from white to bright red. The hybrids sold in garden centers typically produce two or more single stemmed stalks with a single flower sprouting from each one. These flowers are up to four inches wide and are quite impressive to look at. The Barberton Daisy can be grown indoors in medium-levels of sunlight, with moist soil. They can flower at any time of the year and each flower blooms for approximately six weeks.
Barberton Daisies filter out trichloroethylene (found in ink, paint, rubber products, lacquers and varnishes), formaldehyde, and xylene.
Peace Lilly The Peace Lilly is easy to care for and gives a telltale droop when it is in need of water. They flourish in shade and low light and you can expect your Peace Lilly to bloom with dozens of striking white flowers in the springtime.
Peace Lillies are extremely effective at filtering multiple toxins from the air. They work on trichloroethylene, formaldehyde, xylene, benzene (used in plastics, detergents, dyes, and glue), and carbon monoxide. If you can only have one flowering plant in your home, the Peace Lilly might be a good bet.
*Like the Flamingo Lilly, this one is toxic to pets as well, so beware.
Florist Chrysanthemum The Florist Chrysanthemum requires bright light and moist, high-quality soil, so it needs a bit more care and upkeep than the other flowers listed here so far. But with the proper maintenance and right kind of soil, the Florist Chrysanthemum will produce lots of big, beautiful blooms (typically in the red and pink color family, though occasionally you will see bright purples and yellows) that will last for up to 8 weeks.
Like the Peace Lilly, the Florist Chrysnthemum filters out multiple toxins including trichloroethylene, formaldehyde, xylene, and benzene (used in plastics, detergents, dyes, and glue).
*This plant is also mildly poisonous to dogs and cats (if the stems are ingested they will cause stomach upset and disorientation) so again, use caution.
If you feel that your home suffers from poor air quality or quite possibly sick building syndrome, start adding some indoor plants to frequented rooms and see if your health improves.
Pamela Bofferding is a native Texan who now lives with her husband and sons in New York City. She enjoys hiking, traveling, and playing with her dogs.
This information has been made available by Ready Nutrition
Originally published October 29th, 2016 How To Grow Pineapples Like a Pro! How to Select the Best Grow Light for Your Indoor Garden Strong Correlation Seen Between Flowers and Emotional Health The Most Poisonous Plants and How to Recognize Them Infographic: Composting 101 | 1real |
VIDEO: Anti-Western Hindu Extremists Assault Couples in India on Valentine’s Day - Breitbart | Lovers in India can bring a little sadism into their romance without shelling out for tickets to the Fifty Shades of Grey movies: just walk through the street holding hands, and wait for Bajrang Dal thugs to assault them. [Bajrang Dal is the youth wing of a Hindu fundamentalist organization. The party is “strictly against Western norms and believes youth should stop degrading the culture of India by celebrating Valentine’s Day,” as ANI News explains. Bajrang Dal spends Valentine’s Day prowling the streets and pummeling any couple they chance across: #WATCH Bajrang Dal activists thrash couples in Bihar’s Muzaffarpur in a protest against Valentine’s Day pic. twitter. — ANI (@ANI_news) February 14, 2017, This year was reportedly supposed to be different. Leaders of the umbrella group in charge of Bajrang Dal urged its members not to assault couples because those who indulge in expressions of love on Valentine’s Day are, they claimed, “similar to nature of animals,” and thus any attempt at convincing them to abandon the practice would be unlikely to sway them. India’s Daily O addressed the Bajrang Dal problem in an editorial dripping with sarcasm, beginning with the observation that lonely singles have the consolation of knowing they won’t be thrashed by a gang of “ scumbags” on Valentine’s Day: These detectives travel in packs with hockey sticks and lead pipes. They can sniff out couples from a mile away. Once they have cornered the poor prey, one of two things can happen: if it’s a couple, they’ll get them married. God forbid, if it is an couple, well, let us say we’ll pray for the dearly departed. Is there no way to escape these vicious hunters? Is there no respite for hormonal teenagers who just want to gift each other those pink, things? That crack about forcibly marrying Hindu couples is not hyperbole. India Today reports that Bajrang Dal has warned Indian youth it will perform marriage rituals on the spot for any couples it catches wandering through public places on Valentine’s Day, physically dragging their parents to the scene if necessary. Greater Kashmir reports that Bajrang Dal is receiving substantial online support from India’s Muslims, who also regard Valentine’s Day as symbolic of Western decadence. “The other name of Islam is modesty, while Valentine Day [sic] is sheer immodesty,” one Muslim supporter of the Hindu youth gang wrote. | 0fake |
Trump’s Twitter Meltdown During The VP Debate May Be The Whiniest, And Craziest, Yet (TWEETS) | We all already know that Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump is a loose cannon, especially when it comes to his Twitter habits. Tuesday night during the vice presidential debate was no different.Trump began the night by already assuming CNN is against him, so he declared he d turn to the Republican media branch, Fox News.Wow, @CNN is so negative. Their panel is a joke, biased and very dumb. I'm turning to @FoxNews where we get a fair shake! Mike will do great Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 5, 2016From there he let everyone know (at least we had a warning this time) that he was about to light up Twitter with his repeated nonsense.I will be live-tweeting the V.P. Debate. Very exciting! MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 5, 2016Then, he told us to enjoy his live-tweeting, because of course he did.Here we go Enjoy! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 5, 2016Things started decent enough, with Trump even throwing both his running mate Mike Pence and Hillary Clinton s running mate Tim Kaine a compliment.Both are looking good! Now we begin! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 5, 2016Then the sh*t started to hit the screen:"@RoadkingL: @mike_pence Wow, Kaine couldn't go 12 seconds without a lie. Marines and military are scared of the liar running. #bengazi" Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 5, 2016"@lainey34210: @realDonaldTrump Great opening Pence?" Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 5, 2016"@Susiesentinel: #pence is so much more likeable than Kaine #cbsnews @realDonaldTrump" Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 5, 2016Keep in mind he s quote retweeting people because he clearly can t move his tiny thumbs fast enough to keep up."@bigdog_joey: @realDonaldTrump @timkaine is so angry. Our @mike_pence looks great. kaine can't defend all those lies #makeamericagreatagain Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 5, 2016"@elisac006: @nycmia @realDonaldTrump I agree. Kaine looks like a fool!!" Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 5, 2016Not only like a fool! but also apparently like a Batman villain:"@Jnelson52722: @realDonaldTrump @Susiesentinel Kaine looks like an evil crook out of the Batman movies" Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 5, 2016Then some lies:"@TeamTrump: .@mike_pence & @realDonaldTrump are PROVEN job creators and are prepared to bring JOBS BACK to the American people! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 5, 2016.@mike_pence is doing a great job so far, no contest! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 5, 2016 "@ifdanyt: @realDonaldTrump Loving @mike_pence he's so likeable and sensible. Kaine is just talking bull! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 5, 2016And more lies:"@bcuzimdamomma: @FreeDavidKing No she only gets #Americans killed #Benghazi we need @realDonaldTrump #MAGA" Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 5, 2016.@timkaine wants to tough on crime fails to talk about defending rapists and murders #VPDebate Sean Spicer (@seanspicer) October 5, 2016With a bit of racism and lack of acknowledging a disconnect within these very communities:Law enforcement officers bring communities together & keep us safe. @mike_pence & @realDonaldTrump RESPECT & stand by them! #Debates2016 pic.twitter.com/ugUaKugjFO Official Team Trump (@TeamTrump) October 5, 2016Then some more lies:"@GeeVeeM: @realDonaldTrump @Susiesentinel Pence is so prepared! He did his homework to outperform Kaine." Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 5, 2016.@HillaryClinton Sneers At Millions Of Average Americans.https://t.co/gEfURjRCfu #VPDebate #BigLeagueTruth Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 5, 2016I agree Mike thank you to all of our law enforcement officers! #VPDebate"Police officers are the best of us "@Mike_Pence Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 5, 2016ALL CAPS:WHAT THEY ARE SAYING ABOUT MIKE PENCE DOMINATING THE DEBATE:https://t.co/mUw9S5GgNM #VPDebate Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 5, 2016And really big lies:.@mike_pence and I will defeat #ISIS.https://t.co/oCIIDwtptV #VPDebate Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 5, 2016MORE CAPS:CLINTON S FLAILING SYRIA POLICY WAS JUDGED A FAILURE:https://t.co/ICZxn7Q3vZ #VPDebate Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 5, 2016.@timkaine is the ANTI-DEFENSE SENATOR. #VPDebate #BigLeagueTruth https://t.co/qWkvGFARA1 Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 5, 2016CAPS AND LIES:ICYMI: PENCE: I RAN A STATE THAT WORKED; KAINE RAN A STATE THAT FAILED. https://t.co/XuWaueNkH0 Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 5, 2016Then more lies:.@timkaine is wrong for defense: https://t.co/QN9qqoq1kH #BigLeagueTruth #VPDebate Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 5, 2016Sanctions Relief From Clinton-Obama Iran Nuclear Deal Likely Go to Terrorists:https://t.co/lM80JriF9k #BigLeagueTruth #VPDebate Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 5, 2016AND CAPS:CLINTON S CLOSE TIES TO PUTIN DESERVE SCRUTINY:https://t.co/wPYm5vQoyt #VPDebate Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 5, 2016Quick pause, how much projecting is there in that last tweet, or hell all the tweets? You can pretty much assume anything Trump says to attack Clinton has been used against him.Okay .MORE LIES IN ALL CAPS:CLINTON IS WEAK ON NORTH KOREA:https://t.co/8pRednmnFX #VPDebate Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 5, 2016Then he simmers for a moment, but still lies:.@HillaryClinton s Careless Use Of A Secret Server Put National Security At Risk: https://t.co/OiAEMnrGcy #VPDebate#BigLeagueTruth Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 5, 2016Clinton s Top Aides Were Mired In Conflict Of Interest At The State Department: https://t.co/wWfdaECtVu#VPDebate #BigLeagueTruth Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 5, 2016Retweets! (tiny thumbs need a break):"@Gsimmons03Ginny: @realDonaldTrump ..Kaine is awful, Trump and Pence are the ticket..no more lies, we are ready to see America Great Again! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 5, 2016"@AnyoneTennis: @timkaine Cannot believe how often the moderator interrupts #Pence vs the other guy so obvious @FoxNews" So true! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 5, 2016Then before the debate was even over:Mike Pence won big. We should all be proud of Mike! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 5, 2016Let s put it this way, Trump still probably thinks he won his debate with Hillary as well. And while Pence did as good of a job as he could, staying calm, etc. while Kaine was feistier, he still couldn t defend Trump s blatant misogyny and racism. Hell, Pence himself is a misogynist, against the LGBT community, and fiercely anti-worker and anti-immigrant.All in all, this tweetstorm during the VP debate shows us, yet again, how ill-suited Trump is for the office of the presidency and simply isn t fit to lead.Featured Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images, Twitter | 1real |
If It’s She | Breitbart October 27, 2016
U.S. Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump said on Tuesday that Democrat Hillary Clinton’s plan for Syria would “lead to World War Three,” because of the potential for conflict with military forces from nuclear-armed Russia.
In an interview focused largely on foreign policy, Trump said defeating Islamic State is a higher priority than persuading Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to step down, playing down a long-held goal of U.S. policy.
…
“What we should do is focus on ISIS. We should not be focusing on Syria,” said Trump as he dined on fried eggs and sausage at his Trump National Doral golf resort. “You’re going to end up in World War Three over Syria if we listen to Hillary Clinton.
“You’re not fighting Syria any more, you’re fighting Syria, Russia and Iran, all right? Russia is a nuclear country, but a country where the nukes work as opposed to other countries that talk,” he said. | 1real |
UNREAL! PRO-CUBA TRAVEL AT PBS AND NBC: “Cuba has so much going for it: It’s proudly Communist…” [Video] | BELOW ARE TWO EXAMPLES OF THE PRO-CUBA SENTIMENT BY THE LEFTY MEDIA:Travel to Cuba is the NEWEST thing among the pseudo-cool useful idiots:Sanders noted how many of those on board were eager to get to the island before it was spoiled by capitalism: The Cuba they will see has many Americans anxious to get here before it all changes. Passenger Sedrick Tydus quipped: I want to get there before Burger King shows up. Sanders laughed and repeated line: Before Burger King shows up. After the Obama administration granted a full roster of concessions (in exchange for nothing) to the communist regime, we are bombarded with hype on Cuba travel. The Kardashians are even getting into the mix-ugh!Romanticizing the poverty and crumbing architecture of Cuba is pretty sickening to most people. We see past the slick promotions and see the suffering of the people of Cuba first .Chris Tarrant: Extreme Railway Journeys. Episode 4 Slow Train to Guantanamo Bay: The problem with Tarrant s love for commie Cuba is that the railway is broken down and only goes 15 mph.NBC Reporter Giddy With Excitement Aboard Cruise to Cuba: A Pinch-Me Moment : Not so sure anything will change in Cuba even though the lefty media would like you to think so Sanders noted how many of those on board were eager to get to the island before it was spoiled by capitalism: The Cuba they will see has many Americans anxious to get here before it all changes. Passenger Sedrick Tydus quipped: I want to get there before Burger King shows up. Sanders laughed and repeated line: Before Burger King shows up. Via: Faustasblog | 1real |
Exclusive: Republicans could target Obamacare tax in wider tax overhaul - Brady | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republicans will consider using planned tax reform to eliminate one of the biggest taxes in Obamacare, if the Senate fails to overturn the healthcare law, a senior Republican in the U.S. House of Representatives said on Wednesday. Kevin Brady, the top Republican on tax policy in the House as chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, said Republicans will look at the 3.8 percent Net Investment Income Tax in discussions aimed at unveiling a tax reform plan in September. The levy is a weight on economic growth, he said in an interview with Reuters. Efforts by Republicans to overhaul or repeal the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare, collapsed in the Senate on Tuesday in a major setback for Republican President Donald Trump. Given a wholesale repeal or overhaul now seems imperiled, Republicans are looking at other ways to attack a law they have vowed to overturn since it was signed by Democratic former President Barack Obama seven years ago. Brady said tax legislation was unlikely to be able to include the repeal of other Obamacare taxes. Doing so would result in about $1 trillion in additional revenue losses over a decade, cutting into efforts to avoid adding to the federal deficit in the overall tax package, he said. “Will we look at the Net Investment Income Tax provision? Yes, mainly because it is incredibly anti-growth the way it is today,” Brady said. But he was cautious about a full repeal of the tax, given the large revenues involved and the fact that some Senate Republicans resisted overturning it as part of the healthcare bill that was under consideration. The tax raises $172.2 billion in revenue over 10 years to fund Obamacare, including health insurance subsidies for individuals. Its repeal is viewed by critics, including some moderate Republicans, as a tax cut for the wealthy since the tax hits individuals who earn more than $200,000 a year and married couples with more than $250,000 in earnings. Brady said he was most concerned about the investment tax’s effect on small businesses. “It doesn’t just affect high earners. It goes across a broad spectrum of small business and captures too much of their activity as well. So we will take a look at that,” he said. However, he noted, “You’ve got to ask the question: if it couldn’t pass the Senate in healthcare, can it pass the Senate in tax reform?” But he added: “Leaving that in place, from an economic standpoint, is a mistake.” | 0fake |
Even Before the Wall, Migrants Find the U.S. Forbidding - The New York Times | SONOYTA, Mexico — Reiner Ríos Gómez, who is from Honduras’s capital, Tegucigalpa, lifted his shirt last week to expose a scar about 12 inches long in the middle of his back, where he said a machete hit him as he fled the robbers who were trying to steal his pay: 2, 800 lempiras, or about $119, for half a month’s work in construction. To escape that life, he set out for the United States on Jan. 15, making it as far as Sonoyta, Mexico, a city on the Arizona border where roadside stalls sell the camouflage clothes and backpacks that migrants use to cross to the other side. Then he called a cousin in Houston. “Why are you coming?” he said his cousin asked him. “They’re going to send you back. ” So Mr. Ríos, 33, settled down at a shelter in Sonoyta, unsure of what to do next. “I have nothing to go back to,” he said. “And I don’t know if there’s anything for me on the other side. ” Customs and Border Protection reported this week that the number of people caught trying to enter the United States illegally from Mexico had fallen in February to the lowest level in five years. The Trump administration said the sharp decline was a sign that its promises to hire more enforcement agents, deport more people and wall off the border were discouraging people from even trying to cross. In interviews with migrants, their advocates, and workers at shelters and soup kitchens in Mexico, the United States and Central America, few quibbled with the idea that President Trump had altered the climate for immigration. Indeed, it was clear that the ground had shifted on both sides of the border, and that the route north to a better life had suddenly grown quieter, riskier and more desperate. Since January, occupancy at one shelter in Nuevo Laredo, across the border from Laredo, Tex. has fallen by about according to its director, Aarón Méndez Ruiz. Other shelters in the United States and Mexico reported significant drops as well. Six Central Americans staying at Mr. Méndez’s shelter voluntarily surrendered to the Mexican authorities so they could be sent back home, he said, and about 40 more chose to return on their own. “That had never happened,” Mr. Méndez said. “People don’t return. ” In the Arizona desert, where blue flags flying 30 feet in the air mark where volunteers have left drums full of water, “there have been more water stations with no water use than usual,” said Stephen Saltonstall of the aid group Humane Borders. Last week, Ruben Garcia, the director of the Annunciation House, a shelter in El Paso, noticed that far fewer Central Americans were arriving than he was used to seeing. He asked those who did show up why that was. “One hundred percent verbalized some version of, ‘Your president,’” Mr. Garcia said. The drop in border crossings is encouraging news, the homeland security secretary, John F. Kelly, said in a statement, “because it means many fewer people are putting themselves and their families at risk of exploitation, assault and injury by human traffickers and the physical dangers of the treacherous journey north. ” At the same time, though, the dire economic and safety conditions that drive people from their homes have not changed. At Casa del Migrante — a shelter in Caborca, 80 miles from the Arizona border — Mainor José Portillo, a from Choloma, Honduras, was waiting last week for his arm to heal. He injured it last month while trying to enter the United States. Because he had no money to pay his smugglers, he had agreed to carry a backpack filled with 50 pounds of marijuana. But he was spotted by the Border Patrol as soon as he crossed, he said, so he dropped the backpack and was able to outrun the agents and make it back to the Mexican side. Now he was trying to decide whether to try again. One thing was certain: He did not want to go back to Honduras. “The gangs killed my cousin, and they said I was going to be next,” he said. Attempting an illegal crossing into the United States has become even more of a financial gamble than before. Officials and immigrant advocates in several countries said the criminal groups that control smuggling had been empowered as they began marketing themselves to migrants as the only way to evade the increased enforcement. Smuggling fees from El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala, the and Northern Triangle of Central America, have climbed as high as $15, 000, advocates and officials reported, far above the average yearly income in the region. Some migrants who might once have headed to the United States for safety and work are instead looking elsewhere, including Mexico, Belize, Costa Rica, Panama and even South America. “If the United States isn’t a country that will provide the guarantees, they will go somewhere else,” said Vinicio Sandoval, executive director of the Independent Monitoring Group of El Salvador, a labor and legal rights organization involved in migration issues. But a number of migrants along the route were holding to the unrealistic hope that Mr. Trump would change his mind about them. Gustavo Adolfo Gómez, a cabdriver, said he had left Choluteca, Honduras, on Jan. 15 after gang members sprayed the taxi stand where he worked with bullets, killing two of his colleagues. He arrived on Feb. 27 at the Pueblos Sin Fronteras shelter in Sonoyta. He said he planned to wait there a bit. For what? He was not sure. “Maybe Trump will close his eyes one night and God will touch his heart,” he said. men and one woman slept at Casa del Migrante in Caborca one night last week, on rolled rugs and skinny mats under a frayed plastic roof that did not completely keep out the rain. Just a month earlier, the shelter was twice as full. Leonel Valderramas, 36, who stayed there last week, said he had departed in early January from San Pedro Sula, Honduras, the most dangerous city in one of the most dangerous countries in the world. He heard updates about Mr. Trump’s policies along the way, from fellow migrants who had boarded the same freight trains: “the wall, the raids, the deportation, everything,” he said. He hoped to make it to Houston, where he has friends. But then his wife called, telling him, “Si quieres, regresa” — come back if you want to. He had come too far to turn back, he said. “But,” he added, “what if I keep going and I get caught?” | 0fake |
Most College Students Think America Invented Slavery, Professor Finds | Most College Students Think America Invented Slavery, Professor Finds Kate Hardiman, College Fix, October 31, 2016
For 11 years, Professor Duke Pesta gave quizzes to his students at the beginning of the school year to test their knowledge on basic facts about American history and Western culture.
The most surprising result from his 11-year experiment? Students’ overwhelming belief that slavery began in the United States and was almost exclusively an American phenomenon, he said.
“Most of my students could not tell me anything meaningful about slavery outside of America,” Pesta told The College Fix . “They are convinced that slavery was an American problem that more or less ended with the Civil War, and they are very fuzzy about the history of slavery prior to the Colonial era. Their entire education about slavery was confined to America.”
Pesta , currently an associate professor of English at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh, has taught the gamut of Western literature–from the Classics to the modern–at seven different universities, ranging from large research institutions to small liberal arts colleges to branch campuses. He said he has given the quizzes to students at Purdue University, University of Tennessee Martin, Ursinus College, Oklahoma State University, and University of Wisconsin Oshkosh.
{snip}
Before even distributing the syllabus for his courses, Pesta administered his short quizzes with basic questions about American history, economics and Western culture. For instance, the questions asked students to circle which of three historical figures was a president of the United States, or to name three slave-holding countries over the last 2,000 years, or define “capitalism” and “socialism” in one sentence each.
Often, more students connected Thomas Jefferson to slavery than could identify him as president, according to Pesta. On one quiz, 29 out of 32 students responding knew that Jefferson owned slaves, but only three out of the 32 correctly identified him as president. Interestingly, more students–six of 32–actually believed Ben Franklin had been president.
{snip}
What’s more, he began to observe a shift in his students’ quiz responses in the early 2000s. Before that time, Pesta described his students as “often historically ignorant, but not politicized.” Since the early 2000s, Pesta has found that “many students come to college preprogrammed in certain ways.”
“They cannot tell you many historical facts or relate anything meaningful about historical biographies, but they are, however, stridently vocal about the corrupt nature of the Republic, about the wickedness of the founding fathers, and about the evils of free markets,” Pesta said. “Most alarmingly, they know nothing about the fraught history of Marxist ideology and communist governments over the last century, but often reductively define socialism as ‘fairness.’”
Pesta also noted that, early on, his students’ “blissful ignorance was accompanied by a basic humility about what they did not know.” But over time he said he increasingly saw “a sense of moral superiority in not knowing anything about our ‘racist and sexist’ history and our ‘biased’ institutions.”
“As we now see on campus,” Pesta said, “social justice warriors are arguing that even reading the great books of Western culture is at best a micro-aggression, and at worst an insidious form of cultural imperialism and indoctrination.”
{snip} | 1real |
Report Exposes How Trump Dodged $20 Million In Taxes (PHOTO EVIDENCE) | Donald Trump was involved at the highest levels in a cozy real estate deal that allowed $20 million in taxes owed to the federal government to go uncollected. The revelation comes as Trump still refuses to disclose his income taxes even as it emerged that years ago he paid no taxes, despite being a multi-millionaire (he claims to be a billionaire, but there is no independent proof of that).Trump s machinations were revealed by the British newspaper The Telegraph.The billionaire approved a $50 million investment in a company only for the deal to be rewritten several weeks later as a loan .Experts say that the effect of this move was to skirt vast tax liabilities, and court papers seen by the Telegraph allege that the deal amounted to fraud.Independent tax accountants and lawyers said that the documents Mr Trump signed copies of which were obtained by this newspaper as part of a three-month investigation contained red flags indicating the deal was irregular.The paper has also obtained the document making the deal, including Trump s one, unique signature.Kack Blum, chairman of the Tax Justice Network and a financial crime attorney told the paper that Trump is the poster child for elites that avoid their taxes, while the burden to make up the shortfall in revenue falls on the shoulders of middle-class Americans.Under New York law, up to 40 percent in taxes should have been paid on the deal if it went through as a traditional transaction. But since Trump was able to get the transfer of funds classified as a loan, taxes were completely avoided. Former employees of the company Trump was involved in, Bayrock, said that $20 million in taxes went uncollected.A professor of law and director of tax at the University of San Diego told the Telegraph that the he doesn t think the deal signed by Trump would survive a challenge by the IRS.Featured image via The Telegraph | 1real |
Boulder bash: Trump may rip Carson, but the pressure is on Jeb | Jeb Bush may have cooler things to do than mix it up in tonight’s Boulder bash, but he’d better come to play anyway.
The former governor is riding a huge wave of bad press after slashing campaign spending and sounding petulant about the campaign ordeal, telling an audience he could be doing better stuff and to “elect Trump” if they want entertainment and gridlock. It was the opposite of the joyful run he had promised, and there are even dumb, unfounded rumors that he might drop out.
So Bush not only needs a strong performance at the CNBC debate in Colorado, he needs to do well in the spin cycle that follows these faceoffs.
The Republican debates have assumed an outsize importance this year. First, there are so many candidates that they are having an unusually strong winnowing effect (remember Scott Walker?). Second, they are drawing massive audiences, 24 million and 23 million for the Fox and CNN debates.
And third, there are so few of them that each one has a Super Bowl quality. The once-a-month schedule is the brainchild of the RNC, which thought fewer debates would help the party consolidate around a front-runner. But in a cycle dominated so far by Donald Trump and Ben Carson, it’s having the opposite effect.
Jeb just hasn’t looked comfortable on stage in either debate, and now that he’s sunk to single-digit status, he’s under enormous pressure to punch his way back into contention. He knows policy inside out but his message is diffused by a diffident manner.
Trump, who no one would accuse of being low energy, will need to deal with his emboldened rivals as well as the CNBC moderators. He can’t just be seen as reciting his greatest hits on Mexico, China and our incompetent leaders. The debate’s focus, jobs and the economy, should play to his strength.
But he is trailing Carson for the first time, 26 to 22 percent in yesterday’s New York Times/CBS poll, which has a symbolic value even though it's within the margin of error. (Even more noteworthy is that 55 percent of Trump supporters in the survey said they are firmly behind their man, while 80 percent of Carson backers said it’s early and they could change their minds.)
Trump will be standing next to Carson, but attacking the doctor will call for surgical precision, and The Donald tends to favor blunt instruments.
Carson is generally overshadowed on a debate stage. He is soft-spoken, low-key, occasionally witty, but doesn’t interrupt or deliver zingers. He avoids what he calls the “mud pit.” And yet, that doesn’t seem to hurt him at all. In fact, Carson’s quiet dignity may be precisely what his fans like.
Marco Rubio has had two solid debates, but they haven’t given him much of a bump. He is drawing more attention now—Rubio is third in that CBS poll, with 8 percent—and is a better communicator than Bush in front of an audience. But with that poll rise may come tougher debate questions, perhaps including the Washington Post report that he can’t stand the Senate and so wants a promotion.
Carly Fiorina may be the best debater in the bunch, having fought her way into the CNN debate, won it hands down and then catapulted herself into the top tier. But the former CEO’s surge didn’t last, and she seemed to fade from the political conversation since the Reagan Library event. She will surely try to elbow her way back into the spotlight.
As will the others. Ted Cruz, Chris Christie, John Kasich, Rand Paul and Mike Huckabee haven’t gotten much time in the earlier debates, and they will be looking to seize a breakout moment. In a Trumpian media environment, there just aren’t many opportunities to reach the whole country.
A couple of the candidates who don’t score well in Boulder—or at the Fox Business Network event in Milwaukee on Nov. 10—may not be with us much longer. That’s why the stakes are unusually high in this third presidential debate.
Howard Kurtz is a Fox News analyst and the host of "MediaBuzz" (Sundays 11 a.m. and 5 p.m. ET). He is the author of five books and is based in Washington. Follow him at @HowardKurtz. Click here for more information on Howard Kurtz. | 0fake |
GUEST POST: Why I’m Exceptional & Indispensable – by Hillary Clinton - Rob Slane | Originally appeared at The Blog Mire
Following on from her recent piece for Time magazine , in which she so eloquently explained why America is indispensable and exceptional, TheBlogMire brings you an exclusive piece in which Mrs Clinton explains why an indispensable and exceptional nation must have an indispensable and exceptional leader.
(Warning: May contain traces of satire)
If there’s one core belief that has guided and inspired me every step of my career in public service, it’s this: I am an exceptional woman. A great, unselfish, compassionate woman, to paraphrase Robert Kennedy. And when you add up all my advantages, it’s clear I’m indispensable too – someone all others can look to for leadership.
And what I’m really excited about is not just that I’m indispensable, but that I’m about to become President of the indispensable nation. An indispensable nation needs an indispensable woman. An indispensable woman needs an indispensable nation. It’s a match made in heaven, which is why I am asking you to help me break the glass ceiling on November 8th – so that together we can become even more exceptional than we already are.
So what makes me so indispensable?
I’m indispensable in part because of my love for our armed forces. Our military is the greatest in history, with the best troops, training and technology, and I believe it is a travesty that we are not using it to its full potential. It’s essential we do everything we can to support our men and women in uniform, and I intend to do just that by sending our brave soldiers on important missions around the globe from day one of my presidency.
I’m indispensable because of my commitment to the truth. Throughout my career, I’ve always sought to stay close to the truth. I know that there’s a lot of folks out there who say I’m corrupt. But those who know me closest will tell you that this isn’t the real Hillary. Ask those who know me best. Ask my husband Bill. He’ll tell you. Ask my campaign chairman John Podesta. He’ll tell you. Ask Lloyd Blankfein, CEO at Goldman Sachs. He’ll tell you. Ask some of our closest allies in places like Saudi Arabia. They’ll tell you. They will all tell you about the real Hillary, and that my commitment to honesty and fighting corruption is second to none. It may even be my most exceptional quality. Alongside humility.
I’m also indispensable because of my network of alliances and supporters. You only have to look at who they are. Has there ever been a candidate in the entire history of our exceptional nation that has managed to get the backing of the entire media and corporate America? I don’t think so. But it does tell you something, doesn’t it? I humbly submit that it speaks volumes that some of the most important people in our exceptional country are prepared to place their trust in me.
I’m indispensable because, unlike Donald Trump, I don’t need to rely on the help of people like Vladimir Putin and countries like Russia to help get me elected. Can you imagine me having to rely on Putin and Russia to get elected? Of course I’ve had to bring Putin and Russia up in this campaign from time to time, not because I want to keep bringing Putin and Russia into it. In fact, the only reason I’ve occasionally mentioned Putin and Russia is not because I want to keep talking about Putin and Russia, but because I have to keep taking about Putin and Russia because Trump is depending on Putin and Russia to get him elected and so I have to draw attention to Putin and Russia. But trust me, if I had my way I wouldn’t bring Putin and Russia up at all.
I’m indispensable because of my commitment to helping countries get rid of their dictators, and establishing democracy and peace. Like Libya, for example. We came. We saw. He died. And the Libyans got their liberty.
Most of all, I’m indispensable — and exceptional — because of my values.
Take my commitment to human rights, which I have shown by being one of the most vocal supporters of a woman’s right to terminate her pregnancy, right up to a few seconds before the thing inside her becomes a human.
Take my commitment to raising money, which my husband and I have shown through our tireless work with the Clinton Foundation, and in making hundreds of speeches for various organisations.
Take my commitment to making the world a better place, which I’ve shown time and time again by saying things like “love trumps hate”. Which it does, doesn’t it? I’m proud of that expression.
But with all of these advantages comes responsibility – I need to lead the world. You need me to lead the world. Because if I fail to lead, I will leave a vacuum that lets extremists, Putin and Russia, haters, bigots, the intolerant, Putin and Russia, the severely backwards , the Julian Assange’s of this world,Putin and Russia – Baskets of Deplorables – take root everywhere.
Of course, being exceptional doesn’t mean that other people don’t also have something to offer — maybe they do. But I have an unparalleled ability to be a force for peace, progress and prosperity around the world, which I intend to demonstrate on day one of my presidency, by standing up to Putin and Russia and showing Putin and Russia who’s boss.
I’ll never stop doing good. Never. That’s what makes me great. I’m good because I’m great, and I’ll tell you one thing, I’ll never stop.
That’s why I’m indispensable.
Let’s keep me exceptional. Did you enjoy this article? - Consider helping us! Russia Insider depends on your donations: the more you give, the more we can do. $1 $10 Other amount
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NEVER BEFORE SEEN: FBI Trove of 9/11 Pentagon Photos Refuels Conspiracy Suspicions | 21st Century Wire says The FBI released 27 never before seen images chronicling the destructive Pentagon attack on 9/11. While the FBI move appears to be an effort to be more transparent, they ve refueled old conspiracy suspicions hidden in plain sight. COVER-UP? Photo Illustration 21WIRE s Shawn Helton To this day, the attacks on September 11th, 2001, have remained some of the most enigmatic crimes of the century.There has been an endless dispute over the how of 9/11 and the who, as well as the various methods used to carry out the atrocities of that day. There s an even heavier debate over what brought down WTC Building 7 and since then, other 9/11 rabbit holes have also challenged the nature of the planes said to be involved in both New York and Washington DC.Whatever your thoughts are concerning planes or other theories on 9/11 it s still worth noting that even the mainstream media admitted at the time that there was, no evidence of a plane at all, following the destruction of a portion of the Pentagon s western side.Watch as Jamie McIntyre, a former Senior Pentagon correspondent for CNN, suggests the lack of evidence supporting the official story surrounding American Airlines flight 77 .Here s one telling image released by the FBI that doesn t appear to support the official story of American Airlines flight 77 s fuselage crashing into the Western side of the Pentagon. Its as if logic and reason were also casualties on 9/11 where is the rest of the plane and why is the crater so small? PENTAGON TALES What really happened here? (Image Source: vault.fbi.gov)In another telling image, part of the damage seen at the Pentagon on 9/11 looks errily reminiscent to that of the Oklahoma City bombing INTERIOR EXPLOSION? Why does this look similar to the damage at OKC IN 1995? (Image Source: abcnews)The FBI releases also contained images of twisted plane parts that curiously lacked evidence of fire damage given the devastating crime scene, it s hard to see how that would be possible.See the FBI photos here for yourself and ask yourself one single question: where is the Boeing passenger airliner? . More from Free Thought Project below BREAKING: The FBI Just Released Never Before Seen Photos of 9/11 Pentagon WreckageClaire Bernish Free Thought ProjectAfter surreptitiously releasing to the public one week ago, the FBI unceremoniously announced today the unprecedented release of never-before-seen images from the attacks of September 11, 2001, and some of the pictures evoke still more questions.Others could be seen as putting to rest a popular theory American Airlines Flight 77 never actually smashed into the Pentagon. The FBI Vault release is minute in size, to say the least with a mere 27 images comprising the file and does not include video, audio, nor anything other than photos.But, given the stony silence from the U.S. government toward families of victims of the attacks, even the meager disclosure is a welcome morsel of information with the potential to provide answers.Indeed, in the very first image, labeled plainly, 9-11 Pentagon Debris 1, a single piece of wreckage sits isolated on a parcel of lawn bearing the American Airlines logo and marked with letters and numbers.More from Free Thought Project here SEE ALSO: What to Expect From BBC Panorama and Guardian s Whitewash of UK Gov t Funding Terrorists in SyriaSEE ALSO: The Guardian Exposed Conning Public into Financing Independent Journalism SEE ALSO: White Helmets & Local Councils Is the UK FCO Financing Terrorism in Syria with Taxpayer Funds?SEE ALSO: A Guide to Mainstream Media Fake News War PropagandaSUPPORT 21WIRE SUBSCRIBE & BECOME A MEMBER @21WIRE.TV | 1real |
Billionaire Pinera recaptures Chile presidency with resounding win | SANTIAGO (Reuters) - Conservative Sebastian Pinera won Chile s presidential election by a wider-than-forecast margin on Sunday, pledging to jump-start economic growth in the world s top copper exporter and opt for more business-friendly policies than his center-left predecessor. Chile s electoral authority called the election for former president Pinera, who won 54.58 percent of votes compared with 45.42 percent for the center-left Alejandro Guillier, in a race that had been considered a toss-up. In the end, the 68-year-old Pinera, who governed from 2010 to 2014, won more votes than any president since Chile s return to democracy in 1990. It was also the biggest ever loss for the center-left coalition that has dominated Chile s politics since the end of Augusto Pinochet s dictatorship. Neither Pinera nor Guillier marked a dramatic shift from Chile s long-standing free-market economic model, but Pinera s victory underscores an increasing tilt to the right in South America following the rise of conservative leaders in Peru, Argentina and Brazil. He is due to be sworn in on March 11. Despite our great differences, there are large points of agreement, Pinera said of Guillier as his supporters waved Chilean flags in downtown Santiago. In the streets of Santiago s wealthy neighborhoods, where Pinera took some 90 percent of votes, residents blared their horns in support. In his concession speech, Guillier called his nine-point loss a harsh defeat and urged his supporters to defend the progressive reforms of outgoing President Michelle Bachelet s second term. Pinera defeated Guillier, a former TV anchorman and current senator, by painting his policies as extreme in a country known for its moderation, and likening him to Venezuela s socialist President Nicolas Maduro. Guillier had championed Bachelet s agenda of reducing inequality by making education more affordable and overhauling the tax code. The investor favorite in the $250 billion economy, Pinera s proposals are seen as pro mining in a country where copper is king. He has pledged support and stable funding for Chile s state-run miner Codelco [COBRE.UL], and has promised to slash red tape which had bogged down projects under Bachelet. The campaign exposed deepening rifts among Chile s once bedrock center-left, an opening Pinera leveraged to rally more centrist voters around his proposals to cut corporate taxes and double economic growth. After a far leftist party made unexpected gains in November s first round, Pinera seized on the division, campaigning on a platform of scaling back and perfecting Bachelet s tax and labor laws. Bachelet s policies were seen by many in the business community as crimping investment at a time slumping copper prices were weighing on the economy. I voted for him for the economy, said Jose Oyaneder, a 54-year-old salesman at campaign headquarters. When he was president my (business) was quite good and I hope this time it s the same. The results were tabulated in just over two hours after nearly 7 million Chileans cast ballots in a country of 17 million people where voting is not mandatory. The son of a prominent centrist politician, Pinera is a Harvard-trained economist who made his fortune introducing credit cards to Chile in the 1980s. As of 2017, he was ranked #745 on Forbes global rich list, with a $2.7 billion fortune. Over months of aggressive campaigning, the former president brandished his business success and first term in office as proof of competence, contrasting himself with Guillier s relative lack of political and executive experience. Pinera s first administration was marked by a vibrant economy lifted by booming copper prices, but is perhaps best remembered for the spectacular rescue in 2010 of 33 miners who were trapped underneath the Atacama desert. His time in power was also marred by incessant street protests by thousands of students seeking an education overhaul, while his government s responses were often seen as out of touch. Pinera has promised to make Chile the first country in Latin America to achieve developed nation status in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, a Paris-based club of wealthy nations. Some things have to be fixed - health, pensions, a lot of discrimination in Chile, said Laura Garcia, 64, who works in a cleaning company. I have faith in Pinera. | 0fake |
U.S. Senate votes near unanimously for Russia, Iran sanctions | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Senate voted nearly unanimously on Thursday for legislation to impose new sanctions on Russia and force President Donald Trump to get Congress’ approval before easing any existing sanctions on Russia. In a move that could complicate U.S. President Donald Trump’s desire for warmer relations with Moscow, the Senate backed the measure by 98-2. Republican Senator Rand Paul and Bernie Sanders, an independent who caucuses with the Democrats, were the only two “no” votes. The measure is intended to punish Russia for meddling in the 2016 U.S. election, its annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea region and support for Syria’s government in the six-year-long civil war. If passed in the House of Representatives and signed into law by Trump, it would put into law sanctions previously established via former President Barack Obama’s executive orders, including some on Russian energy projects. The legislation also allows new sanctions on Russian mining, metals, shipping and railways and targets Russians guilty of conducting cyber attacks or supplying weapons to Syria’s government. “The legislation sends a very, very strong signal to Russia, the nefarious activities they’ve been involved in,” Senator Bob Corker, the Republican chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said as lawmakers debated the measure. If the measure became law, it could complicate relations with some countries in Europe. Germany and Austria said the new punitive measures could expose European companies involved in projects in Russia to fines. The legislation sets up a review process that would require Trump to get Congress’ approval before taking any action to ease, suspend or lift any sanctions on Russia. Trump was especially effusive about Russian president Vladimir Putin during the 2016 U.S. election campaign, though his openness to closer ties to Moscow has tempered somewhat, with his administration on the defensive over investigations into Russian meddling in the election. Putin dismissed the proposed sanctions, saying they reflected an internal political struggle in the United States, and that Washington’s policy of imposing sanctions on Moscow had always been to try to contain Russia. The bill also includes new sanctions on Iran over its ballistic missile program and other activities not related to the international nuclear agreement reached with the United States and other world powers. To become law, the legislation must pass the House of Representatives and be signed by Trump. House aides said they expected the chamber would begin to debate the measure in coming weeks. However, they could not predict if it would come up for a final vote before lawmakers leave Washington at the end of July for their summer recess. Senior aides told Reuters they expected some sanctions package would eventually pass, but they expected the measure would be changed in the House. The Trump administration has pushed back against the bill, and his fellow Republicans hold a commanding 238- to 193-seat majority in the chamber. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson questioned the legislation on Wednesday, urging Congress to ensure that any sanctions package “allows the president to have the flexibility to adjust sanctions to meet the needs of what is always an evolving diplomatic situation.” Previously, U.S. energy sanctions had only targeted Russia’s future high-tech energy projects, such as drilling for oil in the Arctic, fracking and offshore drilling. They blocked U.S. companies such as Exxon Mobil, where Tillerson was chairman, from investing in such projects. The new bill would slap sanctions on companies in other countries looking to invest in those projects in the absence of U.S. companies, a practice known as backfilling. Also included for the first time are discretionary measures the Trump administration could impose on investments by companies in Western countries on Russia energy export pipelines to Europe. The Senate also voted overwhelmingly on Thursday to add provisions to the bill allowing the U.S. space agency NASA to continue using Russian-made rocket engines and the 100 senators voted unanimously for an amendment reaffirming the U.S. commitment to the NATO alliance. | 0fake |
Factbox: Trump Supreme Court pick to affect pending cases | (Reuters) - President Donald Trump’s nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court, Neil Gorsuch, could have an immediate impact on cases already pending before the justices, if he is confirmed by the Senate as expected by the end of the week. The nine-seat court has been operating with only eight justices since the death of conservative Antonin Scalia on Feb. 13, 2016. The court, with four liberals and four conservatives, has ended up with 4-4 split decisions in several cases. The new justice could cast the deciding vote in some cases being considered in the term that ends in June. But in cases argued before the new justice was seated, the court may need to order new oral arguments, which would likely not be heard until the court’s next term starts in October. Here is a look at five cases in which the new justice could be pivotal. Church v. state: Trinity Lutheran Church v. Comer A religious rights case from Missouri to be argued on April 19 in which a church contends the state violated the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment guarantee of religious freedom by denying it funds for a playground project because of a state ban on aid to religious organizations. Employee class-action lawsuits: Epic Systems Corp v. Lewis A significant case for business and labor on whether companies can head off costly class-action lawsuits by forcing employees to give up their right to pursue work-related legal claims in court as a group. An issue that has closely divided the court in the past, this case is set to be argued in the autumn. Housing discrimination: Bank of America v. Miami The eight-justice court appeared closely divided when it heard arguments in this case in November on whether Miami could pursue lawsuits accusing major banks of predatory mortgage lending to black and Hispanic home buyers. The court may need to reargue the case with Gorsuch on board to avoid a 4-4 split. Cross-border shooting: Hernandez v. Mesa A possible 4-4 split appeared on the cards when the court heard arguments in this civil rights case in February. The court has been asked to revive a civil rights lawsuit filed by the family of a Mexican teenager against a U.S. Border Patrol agent who fatally shot the 15-year-old from across the border in Texas in 2010. Corporate liability: Jesner v. Arab Bank In a case to be heard next term, the court agreed this week to consider reviving litigation that seeks to hold Arab Bank Plc ARBK.AM financially liable for militant attacks in Israel and the Palestinian territories and accuses the Jordan-based bank of being the “paymaster” to militant groups. The question of whether companies can be held liable for actions overseas under a federal law called the Alien Tort Statute is one the court took up but failed to decide in 2013. | 0fake |
Brokeback Bundy: Hilarious Hashtag Mocks What The Militia Is Getting Up To In The Woods | The Bundy brothers and their militia continue to play patriots at an Oregon wildlife reserve, but the rest of the world hasn t joined in their revolution. In fact, people are getting really good at mocking them.As the FBI announced that it would be cutting off power to the building and supplies have already begun to run low (who knew you needed more than a few boxes of Ramen noodles to sustain you on an months-long occupation of a federal building?), things are looking pretty desperate for the anti-government fanatics hold up within. It s an open question of how long they will stubbornly insist on staying out in the cold to prove how macho they are.Other than a few baffling interviews, and one hilarious blue tarp, the Bundy s have been mostly quiet. The rest of the world is left to wonder what they are getting up to in there on these cold nights.Needless to say, Twitter began speculating and the right-wing militia isn t going to like what they came up with.Under the hashtag #bundyeroticfanfic, people from around the country are describing sometimes in lurid detail the romantic encounters the Bundy s and their companions may be having while trying to keep warm. The results are oftentimes laugh out loud funny.He wanted snacks, but what he needed was for Cletus' calloused hands to explore every inch of his body #bundyeroticfanfic L30 L005 (@LeoLoos13) January 6, 2016"Jason pressed Jed against a rack of "Birds of Oregon" books; his breath was sweet with jerky. Somewhere, an egret cried" #bundyeroticfanfic colin meloy (@colinmeloy) January 6, 2016#bundyeroticfanfic The small improvised washtub was filled with two things: Cletus and Cheetos. "C'mon, Ammon," he purred. "Snack time." Skip Mendler (@smendler) January 7, 2016#bundyeroticfanfic Ammon hesitated. Isn t this against the laws of nature? Laws? panted Dwight, We make our own laws, Ammon." Remittance Girl (@remittancegirl) January 7, 2016Any my personal favorite:@colinmeloy Zek had fired some big guns before, but this would be his first true magnum. #bundyeroticfanfic John Wegner (@Rtheny) January 6, 2016Mockery has been one of the most effective weapons against the Bundy s pathetic attempt at revolution. In interview after interview, Cliven Bundy s son, Ammon, spoke breathlessly about how noble and important the occupation of this wildlife refuge was for freedom. The reality was anything but awe-inspiring. Ammon has made repeated calls for others to join him and bring supplies, but few have heeded his call. The relentless mocking paired with the group s own embarrassing moments in front of the camera have made even sympathetic right-wing anti-government nut jobs like Sean Hannity recoil.When you ve lost Hannity, you ve lost your right-wing revolution.Ironically, it turns out that all the guns they brought along with them while they were dreaming of a showdown with the government didn t stand a chance against the relentless mockery they have received from the internet. Their cause was doomed to fail, but it s hard to imagine they anticipated it failing because people couldn t stop laughing at them. That probably stings a lot worse than the cold wind.Feature image via YouTube | 1real |
German police detain suspect in global online drug ring | BERLIN (Reuters) - German police detained a 29-year-old man suspected of trading narcotic drugs internationally over the internet through anonymous websites and sending them by mail to customers in Germany, police said on Wednesday. In cooperation with Dutch authorities, police seized 400,000 euros ($470,840) and 75 kg (165 lb) of ecstasy, marijuana, cocaine, amphetamine and heroin at the apartments of the suspect and at his mother in the Netherlands. The dealer and his partners, using the pseudonyms Mr. Drug Commander and Drugs Squad , were receiving orders mostly from German customers on black market websites such as Hansa Market and Dream Market , federal criminal police said. The man, who was not identified, was arrested on Nov. 9 while entering Germany to mail 34 shipments of drugs. A day earlier, in Ingolstadt in Bavaria, police had arrested a man who had ordered marijuana and amphetamines. Dutch authorities are still looking for other gang members. Police said online drug shops are boosting drug consumption and trafficking, requiring a shift in approach by German authorities. The supposedly anonymous ordering on the Internet motivates more young people to buy, consume or even sell drugs for profit, said federal criminal police in a statement. Police said the investigation began in August, leading to the initial arrest in October of six people in the Bavarian town of Coburg, which in turn helped identified 12 other buyers. German customs police in July said they expected far more cocaine to flood into Europe in the future, and had seized nearly five tonnes of the drug in northern sea ports so far this year, more than three times their total in 2016. [L5N1KF3CV] | 0fake |
H.S. Football Team Stages “Die-In” To Show Support For Kaepernick’s “Disrespect the Flag” Movement…While American Soldiers Are Dying For Freedoms Our Flag Represents | Some 2,500 Americans Have Died in Afghanistan and Iraq Under Obama. Under Obama, America has been at war for longer than under any other U.S. president. When is the last time you heard those statistics mentioned by our Leftist media?Somewhere along the way, Obama decided that winning (or ending) the wars in the middle east was less important than starting a full-blown race war in America. Does anyone care that Hillary is openly advocating to carry on his legacy of hate and division over concern for our military or our national security?This is Obama s legacy A California high school football team staged a bizarre die-in to protest the singing of the national anthem.Kaepernick came to Oakland, CA. He kneeled on one knee, players laid on their back with hands up during the Anthem. pic.twitter.com/Cae4sTopac Kirk Morrison (@kirkmorrison) September 24, 2016The Castlemont High School Knights, based in Oakland, engaged in shameful display of anti-American behavior. It happened during a Friday night football game.Disgraced NFL Colin Kaepernick was on hand to encourage the children to disrespect America and the U.S. Armed Forces. I had to come out here and stand with y all, he said in remarks covered by the Mercury News. So I appreciate what y all did. I love y all. Y all my brothers I m here with you. But instead of collapsing on the ground with the children, Kaepernick simply took a knee. I guess he didn t want to get grass stains on his hoodie. Todd StarnesOh and by the way these punks lost their game. They also lost the respect of anyone who watched their disgusting anti-American behavior.High-school players take anthem demonstration to another level, with @Kaepernick7 present, via @kirkmorrison https://t.co/BGD8q2wJ75 ProFootballTalk (@ProFootballTalk) September 24, 2016 | 1real |
Fighting in Libyan capital closes airport | TRIPOLI (Reuters) - The Libyan capital s Mitiga airport was evacuated on Tuesday and civilian flights were repeatedly suspended as rival armed groups clashed nearby, officials said. Flights had restarted around midday on Tuesday after being suspended for several hours during the morning and the previous evening, Mitiga spokesman Khaled Abukhrais said. But by late afternoon heavy gunfire resumed and the airport was shut. Unfortunately the air space has closed again and the airport has been evacuated for the safety and security of passengers and workers, due to renewed clashes, an airport statement said. Mitiga is a military air base near the center of Tripoli that has also hosted civilian flights since the international airport was largely destroyed by fighting in 2014. The clashes began when the Special Deterrence Force (Rada), a group that controls Mitiga and operates as an anti-crime unit aligned with the U.N.-backed government, conducted raids in the nearby neighborhood of Ghrarat. Rada spokesman Ahmed Bin Salem said the group targeted in the raids had tried to attack the airport area after a wanted drug dealer had been killed when he fired on a Rada patrol. The area of Ghrarat is now under the control of our forces and it s being treated as military zone so we can clear any resistance, Bin Salem said. One member of Rada had been killed and two wounded, and there were several casualties among their opponents, he said. Tripoli is split among various armed groups that have built local power bases since Libya s 2011 revolution. There have been fewer heavy confrontations in the capital since groups linked to a previous, self-declared government were pushed out of the city earlier this year, but armed skirmishes, kidnapping and other criminal activity are still common. | 0fake |
The House’s new conservative politburo | This column has been updated.
You think John Boehner had a rocky time as speaker of the House? Just wait until you see how his successor fares this fall — if House Republicans can even find a successor.
The same conservatives who badgered Boehner into retirement wasted no time in ousting his hand-picked successor, Kevin McCarthy.
Conservatives had been grumbling about McCarthy as the speaker-apparent almost from the moment Boehner announced his retirement, and by the eve of Thursday's House GOP vote to name a Boehner replacement, the criticism of McCarthy was murderous.
Rep. Tom Massie (Ky.) declared at a luncheon with reporters Wednesday that "there is absolutely no way that I think you can vote for McCarthy and go back home and tell your constituents you did the best thing for them."
Rep. Raúl Labrador (Idaho) had questions about whether McCarthy "is prepared for such a high office."
And Rep. Tim Huelskamp (Kan.) let it be known that "outside conservative groups are not comfortable at all with picking Boehner's right-hand man to take the speaker's spot."
On the eve of Thursday's vote, the conservative Freedom Caucus announced that its few dozen members would vote en bloc against McCarthy. He had enough votes to prevail in the caucus election on Thursday, but unless he could win over the conservative holdouts, he wouldn't prevail in speaker elections that had been set for Oct. 29.
And so, at noon on Thursday, the time the leadership election was to occur, McCarthy withdrew from the race.
McCarthy's surrender is surprising, but nothing changes. It doesn't really matter who the next speaker is, because that person will be leader in title only. Conservatives, far from being placated by Boehner's ouster, are emboldened: They have plans to bend the entire House to their will.
Defaulting on the federal debt? Not a problem. Shutting the government to defund Planned Parenthood? So be it.
These were a couple of the take-aways from Wednesday's installment of "Conversations with Conservatives," a monthly luncheon sponsored by the Heritage Foundation (parent company of the House GOP caucus) and catered by Chick-Fil-A, the fast-food chain owned by religious conservatives. The 10 men on the dais, members of the Freedom Caucus, the Republican Study Committee, the Tea Party Caucus and other conservative factions, might be considered the politburo of the new conservative order in the House.
"The marginalizing of conservatives that's taken place over the last nine months is just not going to be tolerated anymore," declared Rep. Andy Harris (Md.).
"We have an opportunity to completely change what's happening," announced Labrador.
To seize this "opportunity," they presented the three contenders for the speakership — McCarthy, Jason Chaffetz and Daniel Webster — with a list of demands that would increase the (already deafening) voice of conservatives in the House.
There may only be a few dozen die-hard conservatives in the caucus, but, as Boehner and McCarthy have learned, if they withhold their votes, they deny Republican leaders a majority. Any would-be speaker, therefore, had better do what conservatives want — and that includes likely showdowns over a debt-ceiling increase, an omnibus spending bill, a transportation bill and Export-Import Bank legislation.
Beyond that, the conservatives demand that the speaker never punish them for voting against the caucus; let them amend legislation on the floor at will; never let bills come to the floor without the support of a majority of Republicans; and refuse to take up Senate-brokered compromises.
That would lead to shutdown and default in short order. But this did not seem to be a major concern over lunch. Labrador, mocking GOP leaders' claims that "we can't shut down the government," said he would prefer a leader who would be willing to fight — "even if we fail."
Paul Singer of USA Today observed that the conservatives' description of leadership is more like followership. "You're asking for a speaker," he said, who "follows your lead."
They did not dispute this notion. Rep. Justin Amash (Mich.) said that "we want a process-focused speaker," while Rep. John Fleming (La.) said the goal is to give "power to the individual members" so that the speaker no longer is "dictating the agenda."
Then why doesn't one of the conservative hard-liners run for the speakership himself?
Labrador's answer was revealing. "When you're leading the revolution, you also upset a lot of people," he said. "It's very difficult to make change as we have been trying to make and also build a coalition."
That's true. It's harder to build a coalition than to tear things apart. And this is why the next speaker — whoever it is — will be no match for emboldened conservatives hell-bent on destruction.
Read more from Dana Milbank’s archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook. | 0fake |
On The Streets Of Baltimore, Trying To Understand The Anger | On The Streets Of Baltimore, Trying To Understand The Anger
In the early morning, as the cold set in, Anaya Maze stood next to the charred remains of a CVS store.
Holding a sign, she was the only protester left in front of a line of police officers dressed in riot gear. She is petite. Still, she faced the police officers, looking at them intently.
A few steps away were the charred skeletons of two police vehicles, the victims of an unbridled anger that burned its way through the west side of Baltimore.
Maze said she understands the anger. For far too long, she said, police have been killing black men. She says Baltimore had this coming. All the violence, she says, might finally change things.
"I see no shame in being violent to be heard," she said. "Because if you can't do it peacefully then what other option do you have?"
Last night, after Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan had declared a state of emergency and ordered the National Guard into the city, rioters still roamed the streets; fires still burned and residents still stood on their stoops, on their sidewalks, trying to understand the anger that boiled over into riots.
Pierre Thomas, 37, was hanging out at the perimeter set up by police.
He said that yes, Baltimore has a history of inequality and yes the black community feels forgotten, but he didn't agree with setting properties on fire.
"Everybody is angry," he said. "But there is a right and a wrong way to do it. I understand why they're doing it but I don't support it. They're trashing their own place."
A few blocks down, Alex, who only wanted to be identified by his first name, was watching a small corner market burn down.
He pointed at the fire trucks that were trying to make their way through the street. He pointed at the police officers. He said those flames were the only way to get them to come into this part of Baltimore.
Nobody was calling for peace when Baltimore police officers were beating innocent black men, he said.
"Where was the peace when we were getting shot? Where's the peace when we were getting laid out? Where is the peace when we are in the back of ambulances? Where is the peace then? They don't want to call for peace then. But you know when people really want peace? When the white people have to get out of bed, when cops have to wear riot gear, when the cops start talking about, oh we got broken arms. Then they want peace," he said. "Peace? It's too late for peace."
The police helicopter hovered above and every once in a while, we heard the pops of tear gas. The flames from the fire got hotter, lapping over the roof of a second row house.
A woman a few steps away was in tears. She was roused from sleep by the smoke. Her house is two doors down from the burning market. She didn't know if it would survive, if the flames would turn all her possessions into ashes.
"They shouldn't be doing this, man. We live around here," she wailed. "That was terrible."
Suddenly, as a flame shot into the sky, she covered her face and darted off before I could get her name. | 0fake |
WOW! 1996 NYT’s Stunning Article SLAYS First Lady Hillary Clinton…Calls Her A “CONGENITAL LIAR”…”she is in the longtime habit of lying; and she has never been called to account for lying” | How did we ever get to the point where we would even consider electing a woman who is the most well-known liar in America? The media has been buzzing since what many consider an inappropriate private conversation that Donald J. Trump had with another man 11 years ago was released. Funny how the media is willing to gloss over a shameful career of a congenital liar simply because her last name is Clinton (wife of the former President Bill Clinton who was impeached for lying under oath to a Grand Jury) and because she comes equipped with the right genitatlia Americans of all political persuasions are coming to the sad realization that our First Lady a woman of undoubted talents who was a role model for many in her generation is a congenital liar.Drip by drip, like Whitewater torture, the case is being made that she is compelled to mislead, and to ensnare her subordinates and friends in a web of deceit.1. Remember the story she told about studying The Wall Street Journal to explain her 10,000 percent profit in 1979 commodity trading? We now know that was a lie told to turn aside accusations that as the Governor s wife she profited corruptly, her account being run by a lawyer for state poultry interests through a disreputable broker.She lied for good reason: To admit otherwise would be to confess taking, and paying taxes on, what some think amounted to a $100,000 bribe.2. The abuse of Presidential power known as Travelgate elicited another series of lies. She induced a White House lawyer to assert flatly to investigators that Mrs. Clinton did not order the firing of White House travel aides, who were then harassed by the F.B.I. and Justice Department to justify patronage replacement by Mrs. Clinton s cronies.Now we know, from a memo long concealed from investigators, that there would be hell to pay if the furious First Lady s desires were scorned. The career of the lawyer who transmitted Hillary s lie to authorities is now in jeopardy. Again, she lied with good reason: to avoid being identified as a vindictive political power player who used the F.B.I. to ruin the lives of people standing in the way of juicy patronage.3. In the aftermath of the apparent suicide of her former partner and closest confidant, White House Deputy Counsel Vincent Foster, she ordered the overturn of an agreement to allow the Justice Department to examine the files in the dead man s office. Her closest friends and aides, under oath, have been blatantly disremembering this likely obstruction of justice, and may have to pay for supporting Hillary s lie with jail terms.Again, the lying was not irrational. Investigators believe that damning records from the Rose Law Firm, wrongfully kept in Vincent Foster s White House office, were spirited out in the dead of night and hidden from the law for two years in Hillary s closet, in Web Hubbell s basement before his felony conviction, in the President s secretary s personal files before some were forced out last week.Why the White House concealment? For good reason: The records show Hillary Clinton was lying when she denied actively representing a criminal enterprise known as the Madison S.& L., and indicate she may have conspired with Web Hubbell s father-in-law to make a sham land deal that cost taxpayers $3 million.Why the belated release of some of the incriminating evidence? Not because it mysteriously turned up in offices previously searched. Certainly not because Hillary Clinton and her new hang-tough White House counsel want to respond fully to lawful subpoenas.One reason for the Friday-night dribble of evidence from the White House is the discovery by the F.B.I. of copies of some of those records elsewhere. When Clinton witnesses are asked about specific items in lost records which investigators have the White House finds its copy and releases it. By concealing the Madison billing records two days beyond the statute of limitations, Hillary evaded a civil suit by bamboozled bank regulators.Another reason for recent revelations is the imminent turning of former aides and partners of Hillary against her; they were willing to cover her lying when it advanced their careers, but are inclined to listen to their own lawyers when faced with perjury indictments.Therefore, ask not Why didn t she just come clean at the beginning? She had good reasons to lie; she is in the longtime habit of lying; and she has never been called to account for lying herself or in suborning lying in her aides and friends.No wonder the President is fearful of holding a prime-time press conference. Having been separately deposed by the independent counsel at least twice, the President and First Lady would be well advised to retain separate defense counsel. New York Times | 1real |
BREAKING: Wikileaks To Give Tech Companies Exclusive Access To CIA Hack Tools | 21st Century Wire says Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has revealed at a press conference earlier today that WikiLeaks will give tech companies which suffered billions of dollars of damage when hacked by the CIA exclusive access to its technical expertise.Assange said the leaked information came from an isolated computer on the network at CIA headquarters in Virginia. He described the loss of the information as a historic act of devastating incompetence. More on this report from RT RTWikiLeaks will give tech companies which suffered billions of dollars of damage when hacked by the CIA exclusive access to its technical expertise, founder Julian Assange revealed at a press conference.Speaking in a livestream Thursday, Assange said the leaked information originated from an isolated computer, separated from others in the network, at CIA headquarters in Virginia, describing the loss of the information as an historic act of devastating incompetence. READ MORE: WikiLeaks says just 1% of #Vault7 covert documents released so farRaising questions over whether the loss of the information was known to former US President Barack Obama or current president Donald Trump before being revealed by WikiLeaks, Assange also questioned if the loss had been shared with companies such as Apple and Google, which were made vulnerable by it. Potentially billions of dollars of damage has been done by the CIA to tech companies, Assange said, adding trust has been damaged by the revelations, in both the US government and US exports. He later added that some of the fixes to devices exposed as vulnerable by the leak would be quickly fixed but others, including smart TVs, would be more difficult and take longer to fix. WikiLeaks has a lot more information, Assange said, adding that we have decided to work with them, to give them some exclusive access to some of the technical details we have, so that fixes can be pushed out. Once this material is effectively disarmed we will publish additional details about what has been occurring, Assange added.Tech giants #Apple, #Samsung & #Microsoft express concern about #CIA hacking after #WikiLeaks dump https://t.co/nailD7mqGs#Vault7 #YearZero pic.twitter.com/aMauSmWXs1 RT (@RT_com) March 8, 2017Answering a question that he admitted came from himself, Assange said WikiLeaks fights for the rights of publishers, sources and media accuracy and that the cyber weapon details being published were used to investigate journalists. We want to secure communications technology because without communications technology journalists cannot hold the state to account, Assange said.CNN asked whether it was legal for the CIA to do this, per US law, provided the hacking techniques are used overseas. It is an unusual time in the United States to see an intelligence agency so heavily involved in domestic politics, Assange said, when asked if the CIA was experiencing turmoil within its ranks.When questioned about redactions, Assange said 78,000 pieces of information were withheld, consisting of IP addresses of both target and attack machines. The IPs will be investigated and identified before the redaction is removed Continue this story at RTREAD MORE WIKILEAKS AT: 21st Century Wire WIKILEAKS FilesSUPPORT OUR WORK BY SUBSCRIBING & BECOMING A MEMBER @21WIRE.TV | 1real |
Lisa Murkowski Camp Spends $240,000 on Steak Dinners for Special Interest Friends | Poll Released 36 Years Ago Today Had Reagan Down by 8… He Won in a Landslide
Most of the money spent on these expensive steak dinners was spent outside Alaska, in an effort to butter up her special-interest friends.
“The cavalier attitude Lisa Murkowski has used in spending contributors’ dollars reflects a Big Government mindset she has employed in spending taxpayers’ hard-earned dollars in Washington, D.C,” Joe Miller said.
She is a typical liberal fat cat who cares more about upholding a failing establishment than spending taxpayer dollars on the issues her constituents voted for her to address. She cares more about keeping her job so she can hang out with her special-interest friends than she does about actually doing her job.
If Alaskans really want a responsible government that is going to work for the people and not for the establishment, it’s time to let Murkowski go.
It’s not just good for Republicans, it’s good for the country, because since Murkowski succeeded her father in the Senate in 2002, the national debt has increased by over $13 trillion. Now she spends nearly a quarter million on eating out.
She is the most liberal Republican up for reelection and has voted with President Barack Obama over 72 percent of the time during the last Senate. With the possibility of Hillary Clinton taking office, do Americans really want Murkowski in that seat?
“The 36-year Murkowski dynasty has led Alaska and helped lead the nation down a dead-end road,” Miller stated. “If we want to change the course of our state and nation, we must change the people we send to Washington, D.C.” | 1real |
NRA Thugs Threaten Lawmakers With Bullets For Sponsoring Bill Limiting Purchase Of Ammo (IMAGE) | As President Obama rolls out executive orders to strengthen background checks to keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people, two New York lawmakers are being threatened by the NRA for introducing legislation to restrict the sale of ammunition.The bill would limit the amount of ammo a person can purchase over a 90-day stretch and would ban gun dealers from selling ammunition to people who are prohibited from buying guns.The NRA, of course, is not happy about the legislation sponsored by state Senator Roxanne Persaud and Assemblywoman Jo Anne Simon.But rather than simply protest, the thugs over at the National Rifle Association decided to pull a Sarah Palin and make targets of the pair of Democrats.In a Twitter post by NRA publication America s 1st Freedom, pictures of both lawmakers are taped to a board as if someone is preparing to use their images for target practice. To make it even more threatening, bullets are scattered next to the pictures in what appears to be an attempt to incite gun violence against them. Underneath the image, the NRA whines that the measure is a ridiculous anti-gun scheme. Here s a screenshot of the tweet.The image comes nearly five years to the day a congresswoman was forced to leave office after being attacked by a deranged shooter.As you ll recall, former Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was nearly assassinated by a gunman after Sarah Palin posted a map on Facebook with crosshair symbols denoting which lawmakers conservatives should target because of their support of gun control. The map, which still exists on Palin s Facebook page, served as a hit list and caused national outrage. Giffords survived despite being shot in the head, but the NRA seems to be hoping for a repeat.Persaud and Simon blasted the image as an attempt to intimidate and threaten them into bowing down to gun nuts. I think it is irresponsible in the times that we are living in to place a target around someone, Persaud told the Daily News. By placing someone s picture with bullets next to them, you are playing on the fears of people. The New York Daily News reports:Persaud said the picture has the potential to cause harm because you don t know if a psycho who is upset about the proposal will react to something like that.Simon slammed the tweet for inciting gun nuts, who have been sending threats to both lawmakers since they proposed the legislation last month. They are clearly trying to be intimidating and it is not working, she said.The Daily News also reports that NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio and Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams condemned the tweet as well.Once again, the NRA is acting like the terrorist organization it has become over the years. Even a veiled threat against lawmakers is outrageous and should not be tolerated in this country. If a gun nut does end up taking a shot at Persaud or Simon, the blame should be placed squarely on the NRA.Featured Image: Raw Story | 1real |
How Keeping Up Appearances Ruined a Former Dallas Banker - The New York Times | At age 67, Thomas C. Davis should be enjoying all the perks of a long and distinguished career at the pinnacle of Wall Street and the Texas business elite. These include golfing at the prestigious Dallas Country Club and Preston Trail Golf Club, where he was a member trips to Las Vegas and golf tournaments on the private jet he and fractional ownership of two professional sports teams, the Texas Rangers and the Dallas Stars. What he faces instead is the prospect of 20 years or more in federal prison and millions of dollars in fines. Last month, Mr. Davis pleaded guilty to 12 felonies for a brazen insider trading scheme in which he leaked a stream of confidential information about the Dean Foods while he served as the company’s chairman. When questioned by agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation in 2014 and lawyers from the Securities and Exchange Commission last year, he lied, compounding his securities fraud by committing perjury. And after the F. B. I. agents left, he took a prepaid cellular phone he had used to leak the information and threw it into a creek near his Dallas home, destroying evidence and obstructing justice. Mr. Davis’s crimes have received relatively little attention, in part because of the blaze of publicity that accompanied the flamboyant professional sports gambler William T. Walters, who was accused of being his and the Masters golf champion Phil Mickelson. (Mr. Mickelson wasn’t charged but netted nearly $1 million from the Dean Foods tips and agreed to forfeit the proceeds plus interest.) Mr. Walters pleaded not guilty last week to 10 felony counts. What led to Mr. Davis’s actions? His plea hearing, coupled with the S. E. C. and criminal complaints, and interviews with people who know him, offer some clues. For one thing, Mr. Davis was so desperate for money he even took from a charity. According to the S. E. C. Mr. Davis ran a charity that raised money for a Dallas shelter for battered women and children. The charity, tax records show, was Shelter Golf Inc. which held an annual golf tournament at Preston Trail to benefit Genesis Women’s Shelter Support. The event typically raised over $400, 000 and, after expenses, contributed about $300, 000 a year to Genesis. Mr. Davis was a and trustee of Shelter Golf the golf legend Lanny Wadkins was one of five other trustees. According to the S. E. C. in August 2011, Mr. Davis told his assistant to write him a check for $100, 000 on the charity’s account, which he then used to cover an overdraft in his personal checking account of $80, 000. “This $100, 000 check resulted in a significant shortfall in the amount available for donation to the battered women’s shelter,” the S. E. C. said in its complaint. “Davis first delayed the charity’s donation to the shelter and later wrote a check for a partial amount only after prompting by the shelter leader and promising another $100, 000 by the end of the shelter’s fiscal year. ” Mr. Davis eventually repaid the $100, 000 using money he had obtained as part of the insider trading scheme. Many of his former colleagues on Wall Street were stunned by the charges against the distinguished Mr. Davis, a Harvard Business School graduate and a Navy veteran, who, in contrast to Mr. Walters and Mr. Mickelson, both known gamblers, was seen as a pillar of the business establishment. In addition to his long tenure on the Dean Foods board, culminating in being named chairman in 2013, Mr. Davis served on at least nine other corporate boards, including Triton Energy, Suiza Foods, and the Colonial Bank (now owned by BBT Financial). He was chief executive of the Concorde Group and a founder of Bluffview Capital, both investment firms. Before that, he was a managing partner at Donaldson, Lufkin Jenrette, where he was head of banking and corporate finance for the southwestern United States and handled many mergers and acquisitions. He left after Credit Suisse acquired the firm in 2001. As someone actively involved throughout his career in confidential deals, Mr. Davis would have been acutely aware of insider trading law. “This was a shock,” said John C. Coffee Jr. a professor and expert on insider trading at Columbia Law School who has written about the failure to charge Mr. Mickelson. “He, of all people, should have known better. ” But the annals of insider trading are filled with people who knew better, from Ivan Boesky to Rajat Gupta. What’s perplexing is their motives. Like Mr. Davis, they were already rich and successful beyond most people’s dreams. At his plea hearing last month, Mr. Davis said he knew that his actions were “wrong and unlawful” but otherwise shed little light on why he turned to insider trading. But clearly, he needed money, despite his years of bonuses as a highly paid investment banker and his lucrative directors’ fees. According to the S. E. C. ’s complaint, by April 2010 Mr. Davis was in “desperate” financial straits. He owed the I. R. S. $78, 000. His brokerage account was heavily margined, and he had run up tens of thousands in credit card debt. He owed $550, 000 to one of his investment funds. Mr. Davis sought salvation in gambling and in Mr. Walters, whom he met decades earlier on a golf course. The two often played together, especially when they were both living in Southern California. The insider trading scheme began around June 2008, when Mr. Davis tipped Mr. Walters to Dean Foods’ coming earnings. It isn’t clear who came up with the idea, but Mr. Walters, an active investor, often expressed an interest in how Dean Foods was doing. There was no explicit agreement for Mr. Davis to share in any proceeds from Mr. Walters’s trading. Rather, as Mr. Davis put it at his plea hearing, “I expected that I would receive personal benefits in the form of business opportunities and a potential source of capital. ” As Professor Coffee put it, “This is a perfect example of a favor bank, which is exactly how Wall Street works. ” However vague the terms of their deal, they clearly knew that what they were doing was wrong. Mr. Walters gave Mr. Davis a prepaid cellular phone for use when conveying inside information and told him to use the code “Dallas Cowboys” when referring to Dean Foods, the government asserted. Mr. Davis finally came knocking in April 2010, when he met with Mr. Walters in Las Vegas and asked for money. Mr. Walters arranged a loan of $625, 000, which solved the immediate demands of the I. R. S. and his investment firm. But his spending continued. In just one month, March 2011, Mr. Davis ran up gambling losses of $200, 000 at one Las Vegas casino. He owed $178, 000 for the private jet. And he had to cover the $100, 000 he had taken from the charity. (The overdraft had occurred when the casino cashed in his “markers” after Mr. Davis failed to make good on the gambling losses.) This time Mr. Walters guaranteed a $400, 000 line of credit for Mr. Davis, who promptly drew down $350, 000 of it. And Mr. Davis repaid Mr. Walters’s $625, 000 loan, with interest. Mr. Davis ultimately received over $1 million in “loans” from Mr. Walters, most never repaid. As it turned out, that was a pittance compared to the $43 million in profit Mr. Walters reportedly reaped from Mr. Davis’s tips — a sum Mr. Davis learned of only in the course of the investigation. Despite Mr. Davis’s reputation as a skilled deal maker, that will surely rank as one of the worst insider trading deals in history, and it may help explain why Mr. Davis is now cooperating with the government against Mr. Walters. A lawyer for Mr. Davis, Thomas M. Melsheimer at Fish Richardson in Dallas, declined to comment. The government has shed little light on Mr. Davis’s motive, other than that he needed money. The S. E. C. said he did little to adjust his expensive lifestyle after leaving Credit Suisse in 2001. He experienced a sharp drop in his income, went through an expensive divorce soon after and suffered big investment reversals during the 2008 financial crisis. None of that is a crime. Mr. Davis is hardly alone in trying to maintain the illusion of wealth and prosperity even as his personal finances veered out of control. But after a lifetime of success, Mr. Davis was too proud and too embarrassed to admit any of this and turn to his wealthy friends and fellow golf club members, though many would have been willing to help, according to a person close to him. (This person and others insisted on anonymity because the situation involved a pending criminal matter.) “Some people would risk anything rather than suffer that kind of personal embarrassment,” Professor Coffee said. “And once you’ve decided you’re willing to risk anything, you can get into deep, deep trouble. ” | 0fake |
Brexit deal could be template for EU ties to Ukraine, Turkey, Germany's Gabriel says | BERLIN (Reuters) - An EU agreement with Britain on relations after Brexit could serve as a model for ties with other countries that want to be as close as possible to the bloc but are not yet ready to join, such as Ukraine and Turkey, Germany s foreign minister said. Britain secured the go-ahead from Brussels to start talks on its future relationship with the EU earlier this month, with London saying it aspires to a closer relationship as a former member than that of any other third country. In an interview with the Funke newspaper group published on Tuesday, German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel said such a deal could offer a solution to the puzzle of how the bloc of 27 can manage its ties with two other large non-members. I can t imagine Turkey or Ukraine becoming EU members in the next few years, he said. If we get a smart agreement with Britain regulating relations with Europe after Brexit, that could be a model for other countries - Ukraine and also Turkey. Turkey, a candidate for EU membership for decades, already has a customs union with the EU which allows the trade of most goods without tariffs. One possibility would be to offer Ankara a new, closer form of the customs union , Gabriel said, although he also said such a project would have to wait for changes in Turkey s political environment. Thousands of people, including German citizens, have been detained in Turkey as part of a government crackdown since a failed coup in 2016. An agreement between the EU and Ukraine on a deep and comprehensive free trade area formally came into force in September, aimed at allowing free trade of goods, services and capital, and visa-free travel for people for short stays. Ukraine s desire for closer ties with the EU was one of the driving forces behind a popular revolt that toppled a pro-Russian president in 2014, leading Moscow to seize Ukraine s Crimea peninsula and back pro-Russian separatists in a still-unresolved conflict in the east of the country. Gabriel s Social Democratic Party (SPD) is preparing for talks with Chancellor Angela Merkel s conservatives on governing together for another four years. | 0fake |
Gold and Monetary Populism: The Oligarchs’ Mortal Enemies – The Peoples’ Salvation | Financial Markets , Gold , Market Manipulation , Precious Metals , U.S. Economy Deep State , silver , silver eagles , war on cash admin
Desperation is setting in. The blatant attacks on gold are occurring almost exclusively during the Comex floor-trading hours now. Every night gold pushes higher as Asia’s appetite is seemingly voracious. The two most systemically dangerous banks right now, it was revealed according to the IMF, are JP Morgan and Citibank. I’m sure part of the smash is in response to that. All this action between gold and the dollar means is that the counter-force reaction to what the Fed is doing is going to be even more forceful. They already can’t control the dollar and the strong dollar is going to decimate Q4 revenues and earnings. Give it 6 months and I bet they start talking about the need to print more money. Gold will sniff that out well ahead of time.
Stewart Dougherty has provided another guest post for IRD. I think this is his best commentary yet.
The people hold in their hands the key that can unlock the door to financial independence and steadily increasing wealth, but they do not realize it. An obvious truth, being clear, is the hardest thing for people to see. They look right through it, as though it were not there, even though it is. Once they do see a truth, they never overlook it again. It becomes an invaluable fixture of their thinking.
Like the adult elephant taught from youth that the light chain around its leg cannot be broken, the people believe that the strangulating government currency chain around their necks is unbreakable. The fact is that if the grown elephant pressures the chain, it will snap, setting him free. The people, too, have the power to break the currency chain that chokes them and reclaim their financial freedom from the plunderers who have usurped it, if only they would study, understand and act.
The key to which we refer is private money, the most important forms of which are physical gold and silver. Cash is another, albeit greatly inferior form, in that currencies (not technically money) are controlled by their issuers. Global Deep State efforts to restrict or even eliminate the people’s ability to possess private money are now rampant, and running into resistance. Denied the ability to possess private money in the form and quantity they desire, the people will be deprived of financial freedom, and in the end, given that freedom is indivisible, any freedom at all.
Given the oligarchs’ clear, unmistakable intention to deprive the citizens of financial freedom, the people now have not just a financial, but a moral obligation to redenominate a portion of their liquid assets into private money. The people need to tell the Oligarchy in clear terms that they have gone too far, and will not be going any farther.
There are 7,000,000,000,000 people on this earth. There are fewer than 5,300,000,000 troy ounces of gold. If every person were allotted an equal share, each could possess 0.76 troy ounces of gold. In that gold can only be mined, and not printed by Deep State oligarchs, this sum is projected to remain consistent going forward, and may even shrink if mining cannot keep up with population growth.
The actual ownership of gold is vastly skewed. Fewer than one billion troy ounces of physical gold worldwide are thought to be potentially available to the market, in current circumstances. This is not gold actually offered at this time, but that could be offered to the market if the selling climate were opportune and owners decided to sell. The other 4,300,000,000 ounces are believed to be immobile, at least for now, and include government reserves, non-trading private reserves, and forms of jewelry that are highly unlikely to be sold unless people’s personal or financial circumstances significantly change. People do not sell their wedding rings or other jewelry having deep sentimental value unless there is a pressing reason to do so.
This means that there are perhaps 1,000,000,000 ounces of gold available to 7,000,000,000 people. Put another way, 1,000,000,000 ounces are available to what is estimated to be well more than $200,000,000,000,000.00 in net private wealth. Which translates into 0.143 available ounces per person; and total available gold amounting to only 0.65% of total global private wealth, at a price of $1,300 per ounce. If a low single-digit percentage of the people or the private wealth decided to mobilize into gold, where would the gold come from? The answer is: from radically higher prices, because that is the only place it can come from. We wonder, what is it about these numbers that the people cannot see? The conclusion is: the obvious, which is the hardest thing for them to see. Gold is so rare, and demand for it so potentially overwhelming that it is literally ridiculous it sells at today’s price. Yes, the “Great Oz” of price manipulation and corruption continues to hold sway for now, but Toto is sniffing him out and zeroing in. He is going to find the curtain and pull it back, and then all hell is going to break loose, because the current price of gold is a colossal fraud and lie. An historic price reset is inevitable.
At its core, gold’s price is not a Deep State oligarchy manipulation problem, even though we know for a fact that the oligarchs totally dominate and rig the precious metals market to manufacture fraudulent profits for themselves while advancing a corrupt, statist narrative to assist their government puppets.
Gold’s absurd price is, in fact, a marketing problem. The gold mining industry has been singularly incompetent when it comes to marketing its precious product. The gold industry has not produced one original marketing idea in 250 years, and gold’s current price proves it. Once people’s eyes are opened to gold’s unparalleled virtues as private, personal money, everything is going to change, most notably, its price, which is going to surge out of fundamental necessity.
Brexit and the Trump victory reflect a rising populist tide in the west. The people are saying that they want to take back their countries and their lives. We believe that the same type of popular anger and dissatisfaction that has produced the sharp and ongoing political reset in the west is likely to erupt next in the field of currency and money. The populist movement was fomented in the first place by people who had become disgusted by constant financial regression and the real prospect of and trajectory toward eventual impoverishment. Their sentiments have set the stage for a populist monetary revolution. A determined segment of the people, those who still have liquid assets, is going to figure out that now is an excellent time for them to take back their money. They are going to say it’s time to “drain the monetary swamp” of its Wall Street swindlers and central bank fakers, escape the financial tyranny of zero interest rates, and return to ancient money that is rare, possesses intrinsic value, is beautiful and is virtually certain to appreciate.
For the oligarchs, it is one thing if the people want to take back their countries; it is an entirely different, and totally unacceptable thing if they want to take back their money. The control of national currencies, money supplies and interest rates has been the Deep State oligarchs’ secret preserve and heavily protected “No Go” zone for decades. Their domination of this preserve has enabled them to mint phenomenal amounts of, guaranteed, risk-free profits; profits not measured in the millions or billions, but in the trillions of dollars. To the oligarchs, monetary populism means war. Which now rages, even though most people don’t yet know it.
To combat monetary populism, the oligarchs have launched a War on Private Savings. To put the monetary genie back in the bottle, they need to herd the people’s liquid funds into institutions they control. Now that they can clearly see the whites of the people’s eyes, as the populist sentiment spreads into finance, they have put their actions into overdrive. They need to defeat monetary populism before it becomes a “movement,” which it has every potential of doing.
The War on Private Savings is the largest conflict ever declared in the history of mankind. It is different from all other wars because: it is being fought against humanity, not a national or political enemy; it is global; it is being waged with trickeries, lies, schemes, propaganda, prohibitions and demonetizations, not military weapons; it is synchronized; it targets personal, after-tax savings, not a country’s natural resources, geography, government or political leaders; it has been declared by a non-elected Oligarchy; it is about contempt for freedom; and its ultimate objective is about one thing and one thing only: the conquest of other people’s money.
The War on Private Savings, while massive in itself, is actually part of a larger conflict, the War on Human Freedom. While human freedom has been under attack in various ways since the dawn of mankind, it has never faced such a concerted, coordinated, massively well-funded attack as the one now declared against it by the Deep State oligarchs. If the initiators of the War on Private Savings win, the real casualty will be human freedom, because there can be no human freedom if there is no financial liberty. The stakes of this war for the people are impossible to overstate.
India has been turned into a 1.3 billion person human laboratory for the advanced research, development and testing of the weapons to be used in the full-scale, global War on Private Savings. The weapons that prove successful in India will then be used on other people in other nations throughout the world. What happens in India is a global prologue of what is yet to come.
The term “War on Cash” is a deliberately misleading misnomer. It is merely one act in a much more sweeping drama. There is no war on cash; there is an attack on cash. The attack on cash is just one of the many battles within the much larger War on Private Savings. We can now observe a rapidly intensifying, synchronized, global effort to demonize, control and eliminate cash in Australia; Europe, especially the Nordic countries; the United States; India; and virtually everywhere in between. The War on Private Savings is strategic; cash controls are tactical. The oligarchs want you to focus on the tactic, not the full strategy. You don’t want to fall for that.
In addition to the attack on cash, other tactics currently being used in and planned for the War on Private Savings include: 1) Low and negative interest rates that are less than the rate of inflation and therefore rob savers; 2) Civil asset forfeitures; 3) The explosion of government regulations accompanied by confiscatory fines; 4) Across the board tax increases; 5) The creation of entirely new tax categories (e.g., Obamacare; carbon taxes) that pile onto but never streamline or reduce existing tax structures; 6) The intense manipulation of precious metals prices, resulting in artificially low prices that lessen savings; 7) Endemic corruption resulting in increased consumer costs and national debt that must be borne by the people (e.g., Medicare; Medicaid; Military (for example, the $6 Trillion in unaccounted-for Army spending, alone, all of which is now constitutes additional national debt); 8) Massive, structural government deficits that heap even more non-repayable debt upon the people; 8) Open borders, which spike the cost and deficits of government, which are similarly borne by the people and nationally impoverishing; 9) Deliberately engineered inflation that devalues national currencies and savings; 10) Outright demonetizations and forced conversions of currencies, with massive attendant costs, a new weapon that has been rolled out in India; to name just a few examples of the existing and emerging weapons being used against the people in the War on Private Savings.
To sum up the situation, we believe that: 1) Populism is spreading into the Forbidden Zone of currency and money; 2) To prevent Monetary Populism from becoming a “movement” that they cannot contain, the Deep State Oligarchs have declared a War on Private Savings, as part of a larger conflict, a War on Human Liberty; 3) Precious metals, particularly gold, are an extraordinarily powerful weapon in the hands of the people, and one that can defeat the Oligarchs’ oppressive, anti-humanitarian campaign, but only if the people take up the weapon en masse, and soon; 4) The Deep State oligarchs are fully aware of the threat posed to them by the weapon of private money wielded by the people, which is why they are attacking; 5) If, through simple messaging, the people’s eyes are opened to the unique capability of precious metals to restore to them the financial stability, freedom and dignity that are rightfully theirs, no less than their other constitutionally guaranteed rights, they will embrace this obvious solution in large numbers, ensuring their victory. In the process, monetary populism will be transformed from a sentiment into a powerful, invincible movement.
In our next article, we will discuss the simple ways by which the managements of publicly traded precious metals mining companies can ignite demand for and price escalation of their product, as is required by their fiduciary obligation to shareholders.
Stewart Dougherty November 22, 2106
Stewart Dougherty is the developer of a principles-based forecasting methodology named Inferential Analytics. The unique IA model assesses monetary, fiscal, financial, market, social, political, empirical and anecdotal factors to get a glimpse of tomorrow, today. He has 35 years’ worth of management, corporate strategy and business development achievement. He is a graduate of Tufts University (MA) and Harvard Business School (MBA). Share this: | 1real |
UNHINGED RADICAL LEFTISTS Try To Storm Trump’s Utah Rally Attacking Police And Secret Service With Rocks [Video] | This Utah protest was planned and organized by the far left. The effort to bring chaos and division is in hyper speed now but has been there since Obama took office. His friends on the left are orchestrating this effort to silence anyone who wants to take America back from these radicals. Every American should be furious at this no matter which candidate you support. Trump IS telling the truth about immigration and the Muslim refugee resettlement. He s doing what no other candidate has done HE S TELLING THE TRUTH! The globalists and radical leftists are all in on the effort to silence free speech. Nothing is more anti-American than what they are doing! This is a critical time like no other! Please don t back down and don t be afraid. STAND UP TO PUT AMERICA FIRST! The SWAT team had to be called out because the protesters started throwing rocks and were fighting with police:NEW VIDEO: anti trump protesters and police getting rough with each other in Salt Lake City. Sorry it's shaky pic.twitter.com/cgFwyF8zce Peter Doocy (@pdoocy) March 19, 2016 PROTESTERS TEAR DOWN SECURITY TENT:BREAKING: ugly scene as trump protesters tear down security tent. Officers forcefully pushed back pic.twitter.com/VLEebqVUZA Peter Doocy (@pdoocy) March 19, 2016 CNN REPORT ON PROTESTERS:"A line of police officers are standing in front of protesters" at the door of Trump rally. @Boris_Sanchez reports. https://t.co/Y9QyynO9NY CNN Tonight (@CNNTonight) March 19, 2016 THIS VIDEO IS JUST LOTS OF YELLING BUT I WANT YOU TO HEAR THE SHOUTS OF VIVA MEXICO | 1real |
Democratic Rep. Introduces Bill That Would Drug Test Rich Welfare Recipients | While Republicans continue to wage war on the poor demonizing them for daring to get government help and drug testing them (even though only 2 percent of welfare recipients are users) Democrats are turning the tables and waging war against the rich people receiving welfare (also known as tax deductions to the GOP).Representative Gwen Moore, a Democrat from Wisconsin, who is sick and tired, and sick and tired of being sick and tired, of the criminalization of poverty, has a solution to the stigma: drug test the rich people who receive tax deductions of $150,000 or more. Only individuals who make over $1 million could qualify for such a deduction meaning this bill will target exclusively the 1 percent.The bill, rightfully titled the Top 1% Accountability Act, would require these deduction seekers to submit a drug test proving they aren t using. If they choose not to comply, they can only use the standard deduction of $6,300.Moore, who has been a progressive voice against Republican stigmatization, said she was inspired by the poverty-shaming of House Speaker Paul Ryan, a notorious anti-welfare crusader: When he stood in front of a drug treatment center and rolled out his anti-poverty initiative, pushing this narrative that poor people are drug addicts, that was the last straw. Republicans have been successful in pushing this notion that poor people who receive welfare benefits are responsible for bankrupting the country. Less than one percent of the nation s budget goes to these benefits, but Republicans don t care. As long as they can blame the lazy minorities and get whites riled up, they re successful. Moore, however, is dropping some truth: The benefits we give to poor people are so limited compared to what we give to the top 1 percent. We spend $81 billion on everything everything that you could consider a poverty program We might really save some money by drug-testing folks on Wall Street, who might have a little cocaine before they get their deal done. Republicans haven t commented on Moore s bill, and for obvious reasons. The logic surrounding it contradicts their racist, classist agenda.Democrats are fed up, and they are fighting back. Poor people are fed up. Black and minority Americans are fed up. Republicans will have one hell of a wakeup call in November, and they will have to answer for their sins.Featured image via Alex Wong/Getty Images | 1real |
Trump Blames Overseas Mistakes On ‘Exhaustion’ – Clinton Voters Have A Brutal Reminder For Him | The good news: Trump slowly read through his prepared remarks in front of a room full of world leaders and didn t throw up on himself or start a war. The bad news: He accidentally slipped in something he deliberately tried not to. Now his aides are saying the president is just really tired.CNN s Jim Acosta noticed that Trump deviated from his prepared remarks to say the phrase Islamic terror. His advisors had urged him to stick with Islamist extremism because it denotes that the groups committing acts of terror are using the religion of Islam but do not represent it. This is a crucial point and one that Middle Eastern leaders, understandably, take very seriously.Trump's use of term "Islamic terror" during speech deviated from prepared remarks which read "Islamist." pic.twitter.com/ISIRVZkmNc Jim Acosta (@Acosta) May 21, 2017Despite his teams best efforts, Trump botched it, an oversight they confessed to reporters.It was likely an "oversight" I'm told. https://t.co/KwMmJ7WPEf Jim Acosta (@Acosta) May 21, 2017Asked for clarification, Trump s staff told Acosta that Trump made the mistake because he s exhausted. He s apparently bone-tired despite this being only his second full day overseas.In keeping with Trump s staff s tradition of treating him like a 4-year-old, the anonymous aide said of Trump: He s just an exhausted guy. He s tuckered out.News that Trump couldn t handle even two days overseas tickled Hillary Clinton supporters, who had long said that her record-setting amount of travel while working as Secretary of State under Obama made her uniquely qualified to become president.In 2012, her own staff spoke in awe when describing an insane 27,000 mile 19-day journey they were on as part of a diplomatic trip. Clinton, for her part, joked near the end of it that she could have handled more.One well-traveled Clinton staffer described the France-Afghanistan-Japan-Mongolia-Vietnam-Laos-Cambodia-Egypt-Israel itinerary as especially absurd, even for us. Despite the mind- and body-numbing time zone hopping, Clinton joked that she was ready for more. I appreciate being here, I am only sorry that I have to leave, she told reporters on her last stop Monday, in Israel. By comparison, Trump demanded his own trip be cut in half and promptly became exhausted on the second day. And you don t need to take his staff s word for it. Video taken at Trump s speech shows a slouching, frowning Trump. At times he seems barely awake.I mean seriously The sick irony is that Trump made much of his ugly presidential campaign about falsely smearing Hillary Clinton as sickly and low energy. Neither smear was accurate. But like many of Trump s attacks, one gets the sense that he was projecting his own insecurities onto his opponents.How would Hillary Clinton have handled her first overseas trip? We ll never know, but given her history, it s safe to say she wouldn t complain of needing a nap at the very start.Featured image via NBC News | 1real |
On Mass Media and its Perceived Prerogatives | DISPATCHES FROM DANIEL ESPINOSA working to defeat the Big Lie in all its forms
J ulian Assange has taken from the political elites their de facto right to conceal their actions from the public they claim to serve. But if we can learn anything from WikiLeaks is that a veil of secrecy many times concealS self-interest taken to a criminal degree.
Many journalists and researchers have shown us in the past that political and business elites prefer not to discuss policy with the rabble . Even as elections are many times represented as a rather weak (or limited) form of democracy, political elites demand to control them nonetheless. Quoting Hillary Clinton addressing the Israeli press in 2006:
“I do not think we should have pushed for an election in the Palestinian territories. I think that was a big mistake. And if we were going to push for an election, then we should have made sure that we did something to determine who was going to win”. (1)
Nothing out of the ordinary for the already notorious Democrat behind the infamous “we came, we saw, he died”, referring to Gaddafi’s murder, or “can´t we just drone this guy?”, referring to Assange. American propaganda is not only pervasive but utterly false and hypocritical, mostly based on manufactured fears.
For some politicians, democracy, or a fair trial, is not for everyone. This disdain for democratic values is deeply rooted in Western societies, as Noam Chomsky and Michael Parenti, to mention just two noted scholars, have extensively covered throughout their work, even figures as central to modern liberal journalism as Walter Lippmann regarded the masses as “ignorant and meddlesome outsiders”, meaning regular citizens should be “spectators”, not “participants”, whose only duty is to show up every couple of years to ratify decisions made elsewhere.
If information empowers, WikiLeaks should be recognized as a democratic tool, redistributing power in times when it is obscenely concentrated. This is extremely disturbing for the subservient corporate media, as we can easily observe in the reaction of many of its [putative] journalists:
“Bravo, Ecuador. This isn’t about silencing Assange and suppressing his operation. It’s about preventing the Ecuadorean embassy from doubling as headquarters for a Putin-Assange campaign to discredit Clinton” . (A Chicago Tribune editorial celebrating Ecuador’s President Correa cutting off Assange’s internet, 10/19/16). T he negative association of Putin with Trump has been helpful in condemning Assange, who by himself is often considered a positive influence in Western politics (especially when attacking the Republican Party). The fabrication of a plan between Russia and WikiLeaks to influence American elections is, of course, not only patently ludicrous given the advanced state of putrefaction of American democracy itself, hardly a damsel whose virtue is in peril, never as exemplary as propagandists would have us believe, but simply an excuse for pseudo journalists and the punditocracy to ignore the contents of the leaks and drive the public’s attention toward Putin and Russia, as in those golden days when many things could be associated with the “Red Scare”.
Thus, as they speculate about how deep Putin’s nose is inserted in US politics and all the similarities between him and past mythological demons threatening America, these characters look away from the reality of the decomposing political system they still cling to.
Their task has been made simpler by the obnoxious nature of Clinton’s adversary. With his racist and misogynistic rhetoric, Trump stands as the easy-to-hate billionaire/villain, and yet he isn’t pushing for a no-fly zone over Syria, an innocent sounding notion that could easily escalate into something truly catastrophic. B ut corporate media, being a tool of the corporate ruling class which also controls the military and all major banking and commercial entities in the nation and around the globe, rarely speak against military intervention, especially when framed as ‘humanitarian’, the latest p.r. label concocted by the spin doctors to disguise naked imperial aggression.
Going to war, expanding imperial domains and influence, promoting Wall Street interests, all that while selling the narrative of the ‘enemies of freedom’ is exactly what the American establishment demands of its presidents. As an extension of those interests, corporate media—as previously noted—also demands to be the sole apparatus in charge of shaping public opinion in the direction of which candidates to choose from, and what qualities such people should exhibit . Unsurprisingly, transmitting a truthful portrait of Hillary Clinton is off-limits, as it would seriously question her political legitimacy.
This explains ridiculous claims as that from CNN host Chris Cuomo in regard to Wikileaks, stating that, “…remember, it’s illegal to possess these stolen documents. It’s different for the media. So everything you learn about this, you’re learning from us”. WikiLeaks has in fact managed to redirect some attention to HRC’s longstanding dirty ways to do politics, with its known costs to third world ‘regimes’ and overall peace, as well as her predilection for Wall Street sponsors. Trump does not necessarily represent anything substantively different, but the illusion of choice is fundamental in our capitalist democracies. As former UK Ambassador turned human rights activist Craig Murray puts it: “You will not get a clear analysis of these issues from the mainstream media. That is because they are of course part of the money/power nexus in which Clinton is intimately connected, and they expect Clinton to win. I think their fear of Trump is exaggerated. He and Clinton are two plutocrat candidates in a system laughingly labelled democracy. They move in the same social and financial circles”. (2) That may explain the haste by some media to celebrate Rafael Correa for unplugging Assange’s internet connection recently, a mere gesture that “does not prevent the WikiLeaks organization from carrying out its journalistic activities”, as the Ecuadorian government emphasized.
This attitude towards Assange and WikiLeaks is shared by international media, with Ecuador’s press also expressing frustration and suggesting the inconvenience of standing against the American political establishment.
Examples of this subservient spirit abound in the media: “…unless the Ecuadorian government is voluntarily inserting itself in this global chessboard that has inflamed the conflict between US and Russia, and threatens [to] seriously distort US elections, letting Assange continue with his plan is going to sink Ecuadorian foreign policy… it’s –literally- a diplomatic suicide” . (3)
Standing against the de facto powers of the Western world is sure to provoke this kind of reaction, but the real distortion of US elections came before (way before) WikiLeaks, that’s exactly one of the many functions of corporate media: to misrepresent its profoundly worthless and highly compromised leaders for easier public consumption.
What Ecuador is doing is protecting a very important source of information that is reminding the world about the importance of political transparency, as it would (presumably) do with any journalist living inside its territory.
Notes: Kurson, Ken. 2006 Audio Emerges of Hillary Clinton Proposing Rigging Palestine Election. (Observer, 10/28/16) [http://observer.com/2016/10/2006-audio-emerges-of-hillary-clinton-proposing-rigging-palestine-election/] Murray, Craig. Boring or Annoying Things We Have to Know. (Craig Murray, 29/10/16) [https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2016/10/boring-annoying-things-know/] Jaramillo, Grace. ¿En qué estamos metidos? (El Comercio, Ecuador, 09/14/16) [http://www.elcomercio.com/opinion/opinion-gracejaramillo-julianassange-londres-diplomacia.html]
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Associate Editor Daniel Espinosa Winder (34) lives in Caraz, a small city in the Andes of Peru. He graduated in Communication Sciences in Lima and started researching mainstream media and more specifically, propaganda. His writings are a often a critique of the role of mass media in our society. Daniel also serves as Editorial Director for TGP’s Spanish Language edition. =SUBSCRIBE TODAY! NOTHING TO LOSE, EVERYTHING TO GAIN.= free • safe • invaluable If you appreciate our articles, do the right thing and let us know by subscribing. It’s free and it implies no obligation to you— ever. We just want to have a way to reach our most loyal readers on important occasions when their input is necessary. In return you get our email newsletter compiling the best of The Greanville Post several times a week. Print this post if you want. Share This: | 1real |
The growth of Syria's humanitarian crisis | LONDON (Reuters) - While 2017 saw the tide of the military conflict in Syria seemingly turn against Islamic State forces, the humanitarian crisis prompted by the conflict intensified in severity and in the breadth of the areas of the country it affects. For a graphic on Syria's population needs, click tmsnrt.rs/2AGP18C As a result of the conflict, more than 13 million Syrian civilians are classified as being in need - over 5.5 million of them in acute need - and are facing threats to their physical security, basic rights and living conditions. For a graphic on Syrian IPD camps, click tmsnrt.rs/2jqdybT These Reuters graphics chart a range of measures of the effects of Syria s crisis between 2016 and 2017, from internally displaced people to the severity of humanitarian needs. For a graphic on population exposed to hostilities, click tmsnrt.rs/2ApEsHA In addition, other graphics look at the 2017 data revealing the amount that the country s population that has exposed to hostilities and communities where vital services have become overburdened. For a graphic on overburdened communities in Syria, click tmsnrt.rs/2A21vHU The data reveals growth in both the areas of the country that have been affected by the conflict, and the intensity of the humanitarian situation in those areas, using data provided by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. | 0fake |
The Las Vegas and Weinstein Cover-ups: Boiler Room EP #132 | Tune in to the Alternate Current Radio Network (ACR) for another LIVE broadcast of The Boiler Room tonight 6:00 PM PST | 8:00 PM CST | 9:00 PM EST for this special broadcast. Join us for uncensored, uninterruptible talk radio, custom-made for bar fly philosophers, misguided moralists, masochists, street corner evangelists, media-maniacs, savants, political animals and otherwise lovable rascals.Join ACR hosts Hesher and Spore along side Jay Dyer of Jays Analysis, Shawn Helton (of 21st Century Wire) Andy Nowicki (The Nameless One) & Randy J (ACR & 21Wire Contributor) for the hundred and thirty second episode of BOILER ROOM. Turn it up, tune in and hang with the ACR Brain-Trust for this weeks boil downs and analysis and the usual gnashing of the teeth of the political animals in the social reject club.On this episode of Boiler Room the ACR Brain-Trust is further analyzing aspects of the Las Vegas Mandalay Bay mass shooting event with Shawn Helton joining to share his latest discovery with this exclusive 21Wire/ACR report. Shawn uncovers connections between the Phoenix charity foundation co-founded by Kymberley Suchomel, a survivor of the Las Vegas shooting, and the well known DHS related Geo Group. Kymberley Suchomel is reported to have died suddenly on October 9th, of apparent known health conditions. The reason why the Geo Group link is so significant, is that prior to modern America s largest mass shooting in Las Vegas, an apparent survivor of the incident was operating a foundation that was accepting financial support from a large-scale company formerly known as The Wackenhut Corporation, a subsidiary of G4S Secure Solutions, one of the world s largest security firms, and a Department of Homeland Security connected conglomerate tied to the suspicious Orlando shooting in the summer of 2016 an event, that was previously the country s largest mass shooting. Direct Download Episode #132 Please like and share the program and visit our donate page to get involved! Reference Links, for your consideration and research: | 1real |
WOW! TRUMP/CLINTON CAMPAIGNS GO AT IT In Post-Election Debate To End All Debates…Ouch! [Audio] | This is a clip of Kellyanne Conway and Jen Palmeieri getting into it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQbv1SAu9R4 The entire debate: | 1real |
Factbox: Trump on Twitter (Sept 26) - NFL ratings, Nikki Haley, Spain | 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 : - Ratings for NFL football are way down except before game starts, when people tune in to see whether or not our country will be disrespected![0628 EDT] - The booing at the NFL football game last night, when the entire Dallas team dropped to its knees, was loudest I have ever heard. Great anger [0635 EDT] - But while Dallas dropped to its knees as a team, they all stood up for our National Anthem. Big progress being made-we all love our country! [0647 EDT] - Luther Strange has been shooting up in the Alabama polls since my endorsement. Finish the job - vote today for “Big Luther.” [0655 EDT] - Great interview on @foxandfriends with the parents of Otto Warmbier: 1994 - 2017. Otto was tortured beyond belief by North Korea. [0714 EDT] - Thank you to Carmen Yulin Cruz, the Mayor of San Juan, for your kind words on FEMA etc.We are working hard. Much food and water there/on way [0813 EDT] - The NFL has all sorts of rules and regulations. The only way out for them is to set a rule that you can’t kneel during our National Anthem! [0906 EDT] - ALABAMA, get out and vote for Luther Strange - he has proven to me that he will never let you down! #MAGA [0931 EDT] - Honored to welcome Republican and Democrat members of the House Ways and Means Committee to the White House today! [1213 EDT] - Heading over to the @UN to meet with Ambassador @NikkiHaley and all of her great representatives! #USA [1213 EDT] - America’s hearts & prayers are with the people of #PuertoRico & the #USVI. We will get through this - and we will get through this TOGETHER! [1734 EDT] - I want to express our support and extend our prayers to all those affected by the vile terror attack in Spain last month. [1832 EDT] - It was an honor to welcome President @MarianoraJoy of Spain. Thank you for standing w/ us in our efforts to isolate the brutal #NoKo regime. [1843 EDT] - Thank you to our wonderful team @USUN and their families. Keep up the GREAT work! #USA [1946 EDT] - 70 years ago today, the National Security Council met for the first time. Great history of advising Presidents-then & now! Thanks NSC Staff! [2030 EDT] - Even Usain Bolt from Jamaica, one of the greatest runners and athletes of all time, showed RESPECT for our National Anthem! [2115 EDT] - Congratulations to Roy Moore on his Republican Primary win in Alabama. Luther Strange started way back & ran a good race. Roy, WIN in Dec! [2217 EDT] -- Source link: (bit.ly/2jBh4LU) (bit.ly/2jpEXYR) | 0fake |
Trump National Security Team Gets a Slow Start - The New York Times | WASHINGTON — The Obama administration has written 275 briefing papers for the incoming Trump administration: nearly 1, 000 pages of classified material on North Korea’s nuclear program, the military campaign against the Islamic State, tensions in the South China Sea, and every other kind of threat the new team could face in its first weeks in office. Nobody in the current administration knows whether anyone in the next has read any of it. Less than three days before President Obama turns the keys to the White House, and the nuclear codes, over to Donald J. Trump, Mr. Trump’s transition staff has barely engaged with the National Security Council below the most senior levels. His designated national security adviser, Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn, has met four times with his Obama counterpart, Susan E. Rice, most recently on Tuesday afternoon. But the chronic upheaval in Mr. Trump’s transition, a delay in appointing senior National Security Council staff members, and a dearth of people with security clearances have deprived the Trump team of weeks of prep work on some of the most complex national security issues facing the country. “We really wanted to make sure there was nothing a new team needed to know that we hadn’t told them,” Ms. Rice said in an interview. “It took them more time than we expected for them to be ready to engage with us. ” Now, she added, “we’re racing to make up lost time. ” Ms. Rice insisted that she was confident the Trump administration would have the information it needed by the time Mr. Trump was sworn in. The process has settled down in recent days with the arrival of Keith Kellogg, a retired Army general whom Mr. Trump named as chief of staff of the N. S. C. last month, and who is now running the transition. In a statement, Mr. Flynn said, “Members of our incoming team have held extensive meetings with their N. S. C. counterparts. ” He thanked Ms. Rice for her “cooperation and assistance. ” Last week, the two engaged in a public display of harmony, shaking hands at a “pass the baton” conference sponsored by the United States Institute of Peace. Still, officials from both the Obama and Trump teams acknowledged that the transition had been rocky, in no small part because Mr. Trump’s defeat of Hillary Clinton caught both the outgoing and incoming administrations so completely by surprise. Had Mrs. Clinton won, her staff planned to place a transition team in the N. S. C. within a couple of days. In Mr. Trump’s case, the first contact with the National Security Council did not come until Nov. 22, two weeks after Election Day. That delay was caused by the purge of the original transition team led by Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey. Among those swept out was Matthew Freedman, who had been chosen to run the N. S. C. transition but quickly came under scrutiny because of his foreign lobbying ties. Mr. Freedman’s replacement, Marshall Billingslea, a former Pentagon and State Department official, arrived in the West Wing with six people, only two of whom had security clearances. The Obama administration began meeting with that team after Thanksgiving, but its lack of clearances meant that Mr. Trump’s emissaries could not read the materials that the Obama people had prepared for them. The N. S. C. began creating unclassified versions of the papers. Then, in there was another when Mr. Billingslea was replaced by General Kellogg, who began meeting with his Obama counterparts this month. By some accounts, the situation is even more fluid in the State Department and the Pentagon, where the Trump team has devoted much of its attention to lining up cabinet secretaries and will now have to win Senate confirmation for dozens of other senior officials. Officials in the State Department’s transition office said that they had had only intermittent contact with Trump representatives, and that those people often changed. But the snags in the National Security Council transition may be more problematic, current and former officials said, because that is the organization that advises the president on the most urgent foreign policy issues, drawing together recommendations from the State Department, the Pentagon, the Central Intelligence Agency and other agencies. “This is the nerve center of the White House,” said David J. Rothkopf, the chief executive and editor of the FP Group, who has written a history of the N. S. C. “Running the World: The Inside Story of the National Security Council and the Architects of American Power. ” “If your brain isn’t functioning, your arms and legs aren’t going to function. ” Because none of the jobs on the National Security Council require Senate confirmation, it can in theory be staffed more quickly than other government agencies. Much of the organization’s policy staff is composed of career civil servants, who are lent by their agencies to the White House for a limited term of service. The Trump administration plans to keep on most of these people, as the Obama administration did. But that still leaves a cadre of senior directors, who run departments that develop policy on Asia, Western Europe, Russia, nonproliferation and other areas. While the Trump team has chosen several senior directors, an official said, it has not yet announced them. And the efforts have been complicated by outside distractions. On Monday, Monica Crowley, a Fox News commentator and writer whom Mr. Trump had named deputy national security adviser for strategic communications, announced that she would not take the post after CNN disclosed that she had plagiarized passages of her 2012 book, “What the (Bleep) Just Happened?” Later, Politico reported that she had done the same in her doctoral dissertation. Mr. Trump’s advisers initially defended Ms. Crowley, labeling the plagiarism charges “a politically motivated attack. ” But her position became untenable because part of her job would have involved writing speeches. HarperCollins, Ms. Crowley’s publisher, said it would withdraw the digital edition of her book until she revised the copied passages. “The Monica Crowley episode is a sign of failure on several levels,” Mr. Rothkopf said. “She wasn’t vetted enough, and they waited too long after the plagiarism scandal broke to act. ” Ms. Rice said that ensuring a smooth transition had been one of her major priorities for 2016, and that she had set a goal to “meet or exceed what the Bush administration did for us. ” N. S. C. officials began drafting briefing papers last summer. Some focused on nuts and bolts: How do you arrange meetings? How do you circulate information to the agencies? Others discussed the evolution of administration policies or contingency planning for crises. Most were three to five pages to make them easy to digest. A Trump official said that members of the team had read some of the memos and praised their quality. But there is an inherent tension in transitions, particularly between two administrations with starkly different political views. Officials in the Bush administration said they doubted that the incoming Obama people read all the briefing papers they prepared. “It’s difficult, because you campaigned on how these guys drove the car into the ditch,” said Peter D. Feaver, who served on the Bush N. S. C. “Now, here are memos from the guys who were driving the car, and they drove the car into a ditch. ” | 0fake |
How The FDA Manipulates The Media | By: Charles Seife, Scientific American | The FDA (U.S. Food and Drug Administration) has been arm-twisting journalists into relinquishing their reportorial independence, our investigation reveals. Other institutions are following suit. It was a faustian bargain—and it certainly made editors at National Public Radio squirm. The deal was this: NPR, along with a select group of media outlets, would get a briefing about an upcoming announcement by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration a day before anyone else. But in exchange for the scoop, NPR would have to abandon its reportorial independence. The FDA would dictate whom NPR’s reporter could and couldn’t interview. “My editors are uncomfortable with the condition that we cannot seek reaction,” NPR reporter Rob Stein wrote back to the government officials offering the deal. Stein asked for a little bit of leeway to do some independent reporting but was turned down flat. Take the deal or leave it. NPR took the deal. “I’ll be at the briefing,” Stein wrote. Later that day in April 2014, Stein—along with reporters from more than a dozen other top-tier media organizations, including CBS, NBC, CNN, the Washington Post , the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times —showed up at a federal building to get his reward. Every single journalist present had agreed not to ask any questions of sources not approved by the government until given the go-ahead. “I think embargoes that attempt to control sourcing are dangerous because they limit the role of the reporter whose job it is to do a full look at a subject,” says New York Times former public editor Margaret Sullivan. “It’s really inappropriate for a source to be telling a journalist whom he or she can and can’t talk to.” Ivan Oransky, distinguished writer in residence at New York University’s Journalism Institute and founder of the Embargo Watch weblog, agrees: “I think it’s deeply wrong.” This kind of deal offered by the FDA—known as a close-hold embargo—is an increasingly important tool used by scientific and government agencies to control the behavior of the science press. Or so it seems. It is impossible to tell for sure because it is happening almost entirely behind the scenes. We only know about the FDA deal because of a wayward sentence inserted by an editor at the New York Times . But for that breach of secrecy, nobody outside the small clique of government officials and trusted reporters would have known that the journalists covering the agency had given up their right to do independent reporting. Documents obtained by Scientific American through Freedom of Information Act requests now paint a disturbing picture of the tactics that are used to control the science press. For example, the FDA assures the public that it is committed to transparency, but the documents show that, privately, the agency denies many reporters access—including ones from major outlets such as Fox News—and even deceives them with half-truths to handicap them in their pursuit of a story. At the same time, the FDA cultivates a coterie of journalists whom it keeps in line with threats. And the agency has made it a practice to demand total control over whom reporters can and can’t talk to until after the news has broken, deaf to protests by journalistic associations and media ethicists and in violation of its own written policies. By using close-hold embargoes and other methods, the FDA, like other sources of scientific information, are gaining control of journalists who are supposed to keep an eye on those institutions. The watchdogs are being turned into lapdogs. “Journalists have ceded the power to the scientific establishment,” says Vincent Kiernan, a science journalist and dean at George Mason University. “I think it’s interesting and somewhat inexplicable, knowing journalists in general as being people who don’t like ceding power.” The press corps is primed for manipulation by a convention that goes back decades: the embargo. The embargo is a back-room deal between journalists and the people they cover—their sources. A source grants the journalist access on condition that he or she cannot publish before an agreed-on date and time. A surprisingly large proportion of science and health stories are the product of embargoes. Most of the major science journals offer reporters advance copies of upcoming articles—and the contact information of the authors—in return for agreeing not to run with the story until the embargo expires. These embargoes set the weekly rhythm of science coverage: On Monday afternoon, you may see a bunch of stories about the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA published almost simultaneously. Tuesday, it’s the Journal of the American Medical Association . On Wednesday, it’s Nature and the New England Journal of Medicine. Science stories appear on Thursday. Other institutions have also adopted the embargo system. Federal institutions, especially the ones science and health journalists report on, have as well. Embargoes are the reason that stories about the National Laboratories, the National Institutes of Health and other organizations often tend to break at the precisely same time. Embargoes were first embraced by science reporters in the 1920s, in part because they take the pressure off. After all, when everybody agrees to publish their stories simultaneously, a reporter can spend extra time researching and writing a story without fear of being scooped. “[Embargoes] were created at the behest of journalists,” says Kiernan, who has written a book, Embargoed Science , about scientific embargoes. “Scientists had to be convinced to go along.” But scientific institutions soon realized that embargoes could be used to manipulate the timing and, to a lesser extent, the nature of press coverage. The result is a system whereby scientific institutions increasingly control the press corps. “They’ve gotten the upper hand in this relationship, and journalists have never taken it back,” Kiernan says. The embargo system is such an established institution in science journalism that few reporters complain or even think about its darker implications, at least until they themselves feel slighted. This January the California Institute of Technology was sitting on a great story: researchers there had evidence of a new giant planet—Planet Nine—in the outer reaches of our solar system. The Caltech press office decided to give only a dozen reporters, including Scientific American ‘s Michael Lemonick, early access to the scientists and their study. When the news broke, the rest of the scientific journalism community was left scrambling. “Apart from the chosen 12, those working to news deadlines were denied the opportunity to speak to the researchers, obtain independent viewpoints or have time to properly digest the published research paper,” complained BBC reporter Pallab Ghosh about Caltech’s “inappropriate” favoritism in an open letter to the World Federation of Science Journalists. When asked about why Caltech chose to release the news only to a select group of reporters, Farnaz Khadem, Caltech’s head of communications, stated that she is committed to being “fair and transparent” about how and when Caltech shares news with journalists. She then refused to talk about the Planet Nine incident or embargoes or press strategy, and she would not grant access to anyone at Caltech who might talk about such matters. As a consequence, it is hard to know for certain why Caltech decided to share the news with only a select group of reporters. But it is not hard to guess why journalists such as Ghosh were excluded. “It wasn’t that they were not good enough or not liked enough,” Kiernan speculates. “There was a real effort here to control things, making sure that the elite of the elite covered this story and covered it in a certain way, which would then shape the coverage of all other journalists. It’s very clearly a control effort.” Caltech is not the only institution that steers coverage by briefing a very small subset of reporters. (As I was writing this piece, I received a note from a U.S. Air Force press officer offering a sneak preview of video footage being offered to “a select number of digital publications.”) For years the FDA has been cultivating a small group of journalists who are entrusted with advance notice of certain events while others are left out in the cold. But it was not the game of favorites that ignited a minor firestorm in the journalism community in January 2011—it was the introduction of the close-hold embargo. Like a regular embargo, a close-hold embargo allows early access to information provided that attendees not publish before a set date and time. In this case, it was a sneak peek at rules about to be published regarding medical devices. But there was an additional condition: reporters were expressly forbidden from seeking outside comment. Journalists would have to give up any semblance of being able to do independent reporting on the matter before the embargo expired. Even reporters who had been dealing with the FDA for years were incredulous. When one asked the agency’s press office if it really was forbidding communications with outside sources, Karen Riley, an official at the FDA, erased all doubt. “It goes without saying that the embargo means YOU CANNOT call around and get comment ahead of the 1 P.M. embargo,” she said in an e-mail. “Actually it does need some saying, since this is a new version of a journalistic embargo,” wrote Oransky in his Embargo Watch blog. Without the ability to contact independent sources, he continued, “journalists become stenographers.” Kiernan echoes the sentiment: “[When] you can’t verify the information, you can’t get comment on the information. You have to just keep it among this group of people that I told you about, and you can’t use it elsewhere. In that situation, the journalist is allowing his or her reporting hands to be tied in a way that they’re not going to be anything, ultimately, other than a stenographer.” The Association of Health Care Journalists (AHCJ), of which I am a member, publicly objected to the close-hold embargo, noting that it “will be a serious obstacle to good journalism. Reporters who want to be competitive on a story will essentially have to agree to write only what the FDA wants to tell the world, without analysis or outside commentary.” Faced by this opposition, the agency quickly backtracked. After a meeting with AHCJ leaders, Meghan Scott, then the agency’s acting associate commissioner for external affairs, wrote: “Prior to your inquiry, the FDA did not have a formal news embargo policy in place.” The FDA was now establishing new ground rules that “will better serve the media and the public.” Initially published online in June 2011, the FDA’s new media policy officially killed the close-hold embargo: “A journalist may share embargoed material provided by the FDA with nonjournalists or third parties to obtain quotes or opinions prior to an embargo lift provided that the reporter secures agreement from the third party to uphold the embargo.” Due diligence would always be allowed, at least at the FDA. Health and science journalists breathed a sigh of relief. The AHCJ expressed gratitude that the FDA had changed its tune, and Oransky’s Embargo Watch congratulated the agency for backing down: “For doing the right thing, the FDA has earned a spot on the Embargo Watch Honor Roll. Kudos.” And the FDA had cleared up the misunderstanding and affirmed that it was committed to “a culture of openness in its interaction with the news media and the public.” In reality, there was no misunderstanding. The close-hold embargo had become part of the agency’s media strategy. It was here to stay—policy or no policy. It is hard to tell when a close-hold embargo is afoot because, by its very nature, it is a secret that neither the reporters who have been given special access nor the scientific institution that sets up the deal wants to be revealed. The public hears about it only when a journalist chooses to reveal the information. We have a few rare instances where journalists revealed that close-hold embargoes were being used by scientists and scientific institutions after 2011. In 2012 biologist Gilles-Eric Séralini and his colleagues published a dubious—later retracted and then republished—paper purportedly linking genetically modified foods to cancer in rats. They gave reporters early access under a close-hold embargo, quite likely to hamstring the reporters’ ability to explore gaping holes in the article, a situation science journalist Carl Zimmer described as “a rancid, corrupt way to report about science.” In 2014 the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (also called the CSB) released a report to journalists under a close-hold embargo. When challenged, the then managing director of the CSB, Daniel Horowitz, told Oransky’s Embargo Watch that the close-hold embargo was used “on the theory that this would provide a more orderly process.” He then stated that the board was going to “drop the policy in its entirety for future reports.” Privately, however, a CSB public affairs specialist noted in an e-mail, “Frankly, I wish we did have more stenographers out there. Government agencies trying to control the information flow is an old story, but the other side of the story is that government agencies that do good work often have a difficult time getting their story told in an era of journalistic skepticism and partisan bickering and bureaucratic infighting.” Also in 2014 the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) used a close-hold embargo when it announced to a dozen reporters that researchers had discovered subtle signals of gravitational waves from the early universe. “You could only talk to other scientists who had seen the papers already; we didn’t want them shared unduly,” says Christine Pulliam, the media relations manager for CfA. Unfortunately, the list of approved scientists provided by CfA listed only theoreticians, not experimentalists—and only an experimentalist was likely to see the flaw that doomed the study. (The team was seeing the signature of cosmic dust, not gravitational waves.) “I felt like a fool, in retrospect,” says Lemonick, who, as one of a dozen or so chosen journalists, covered the story for Time (at the time, he was not on the staff of Scientific American ). The FDA, too, quietly held close-hold embargoed briefings, even though its official media policy forbids it. Without a source willing to talk, it is impossible to tell for sure when or why FDA started violating its own rules. A document from January 2014, however, describes the FDA’s strategy for getting media coverage of the launch of a new public health ad campaign. It lays out a plan for the agency to host a “media briefing for select, top-tier reporters who will have a major influence on coverage and public opinion of the campaigns.… Media who attend the briefing will be instructed that there is a strict, close-hold embargo that does not allow for contact with those outside of the FDA for comment on the campaign.” Why? The document gives a glimpse: “Media coverage of the campaign is guaranteed; however, we want to ensure outlets provide quality coverage of the launch,” the document explains. “The media briefing will give us an opportunity to shape the news stories, conduct embargoed interviews with the major outlets ahead of the launch and give media outlets opportunities to prepare more in-depth coverage of the campaign launch.” Ten reporters—from the New York Times , the Washington Post, USA Today , the Associated Press, Reuters, ABC, NBC, CNN and NPR—were invited to have their stories shaped. The day after the briefing, on February 4, everybody—except for the New York Times —ran with stories about the ad campaign. Independent comment was notably missing. Only NPR, which went live hours after the others, and CNN, in an update to its story midday, managed to get any reaction from anyone outside of the FDA. CBS plunked down an out-of-context quotation from the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, probably in hopes that readers wouldn’t notice that it was two months old. Nobody else seems to have tried to get anyone who could critique the ad campaign. The result was a set of stories almost uniformly cleaving to the FDA’s party line, without a hint of a question about whether the ad campaign would be as ineffective as many other such campaigns. Not one of the media outlets said anything about the close-hold embargo. From the agency’s point of view, it was mission accomplished. The FDA had a much harder task two months later. The agency was about to make public controversial new rules about electronic cigarettes. It was nearly impossible to keep the story from leaking out ahead of time; days before the new rules were going to be published in April 2014, rumors were flying. Reporters around the country could smell the story and began to e-mail the FDA’s press office with questions about the e-cigarette rules. The agency flacks would have to use all the powers at their disposal to control the flow of information. “I’ve heard a number of rumors that the FDA will be releasing its proposed e-cigarette regulations on Monday,” Clara Ritger, then a reporter with the National Journal asked on Friday, April 18. “I wanted to see if I could confirm that? If that’s not accurate, do you have a timeline?” Stephanie Yao, then an FDA press officer, dodged the question: “The proposal is still in draft form and under review. As a matter of policy, the FDA does not share draft rules with outside groups while a rule is still under review.” The fencing match was on. “Thank you for following up with the statement,” Ritger responded. “While I know the proposal is still in draft form and under review, for my planning purposes I wanted to find out when the proposed regulations will be coming out?” “Have you subscribed to FDA press announcements?” Jenny Haliski, then another FDA press officer, wrote back on Monday. “The proposed rule itself will be published in the Federal Register.” “Thanks for sending! I signed up,” Ritger responded. “The only other question I had was when the proposed regulations would come out, off the record, for planning purposes?” Not even an offer of being off the record could get the agency to spill the beans. “The FDA can’t speculate on the timing of the proposed rule,” Haliski replied. But this was a carefully crafted half-truth. There was no need to speculate. Haliski and others in the press office knew quite well not just that the rule was going to be published on Thursday, April 24, but also that there was going to be a close-hold embargoed briefing on Wednesday. It’s just that Ritger and the National Journal weren’t invited. The invite list had been drafted days earlier, and, as usual, the briefing was limited to trusted journalists: the same outlets from the ad campaign briefing in February, with the addition of a few more, which included the Wall Street Journal , the Boston Globe , the Los Angeles Times , Bloomberg News, Politico and the Congressional Quarterly . At the very same moment that the agency was discussing the embargoed briefing with some of their chosen reporters, anyone outside that small circle, like Ritger, was being thrown off the trail. Not even Fox News was allowed in. Some within the FDA press office wondered why Fox was excluded, unlike the other major networks. “BTW, we noticed that Fox still wasn’t on the invite list,” Raquel Ortiz, then an FDA press officer, told Haliski. “I have no national Fox reporter who had contacted me on this topic,” Haliski responded. “All reporters invited to the briefing needed to have covered tobacco regulatory issues before.” Ortiz realized that this wasn’t an honest answer: “But they definitely cover FDA/CTP [Center for Tobacco Products] and tobacco stories—[a colleague has] seen them.” “We don’t have a good contact for Fox,” Haliski insisted, rather lamely. A contact would not have been hard to find had they bothered to look. And, as chance would have it, the contact found them. Early the next morning, with plenty of time before the briefing, Fox’s senior national correspondent—John Roberts, one-time heir apparent to Dan Rather—contacted Haliski asking for access. “I’m aware that the FDA will likely come out with its deeming rule regarding e-cigarettes in the next week or so. I’d like to have a story ready to go for the day (holding to any embargo),” he wrote. “Can we make that happen?” “Hi, John, Have you subscribed to FDA press announcements?” Access denied. “I was particularly troubled by it because I was the medical correspondent for CBS Evening News for a couple of years, and I had a very good relationship with the FDA and everybody there,” says Roberts, who found out he was excluded after the other correspondents’ stories came out. “I was told by these folks that Fox news wasn’t invited because of ‘past experiences with Fox.’” A little after noon on Wednesday, April 23, the briefing went on as scheduled. All the reporters present understood the terms, as announced: “As discussed, under this embargo you will not be able to reach out to third parties for comment on this announcement. We are providing you with a preview of the information with this understanding.” But by 2:30 P.M., the close-hold embargo was already fraying at the edges. FDA officials apparently got wind that a reporter was trying to talk to a member of Congress about the new rules. Even though it was not clear that this was a breach of the embargo—the interview was scheduled for after the embargo expired, and the reporter presumably did not share any crucial information ahead of time—it was bending the close-hold rules, and the FDA was livid. Within half an hour, FDA’s Jefferson had fired off an angry e-mail to the close-hold journalists. “It has been brought to our attention that there has already been a break in the embargo…. Third-party outreach of any kind was and is not permitted for this announcement. Everyone who participated agreed to this,” she wrote. “Moving forward, we will no longer consider embargoed briefings for news media if reporters are not willing to abide by the terms an embargo…. We take this matter very seriously, and as a consequence any individuals who violated the embargo will be excluded from future embargoed briefings with the agency.” Violate the rules, even in spirit, and you’ll be left out in the cold with the rest. The denials flew in. “This is very frustrating as someone who has consistently played by the rules and has covered CTP/FDA for years to be lumped in with a group of reporters that cannot respect your requests not to reach out to third parties,” insisted then AP reporter Michael Felberbaum. “I have of course always advocated that you work more closely with reporters like myself who clearly understand and cover this area consistently instead of reporters who are just assigned to handle on a whim.” But despite the scare about a breach, the secrecy held. When the embargo expired and the early news stories went online, the FDA had little to complain about; the embargo had worked once again to shape coverage. Felberbaum’s piece, for example, quoted Margaret Hamburg, then head of the FDA, and Mitch Zeller, the head of the agency’s CTP, but nobody else. Even after he updated his piece later in the day to get some outside comments, there was little hint of how controversial the new rules were. Members of the tobacco industry were generally unhappy with increased federal regulation of their business, while antitobacco advocates tended to argue that the new regulations were far too weak and took way too long to promulgate. And there was no mention, in Felberbaum’s article, at least, that the agency had tried to regulate e-cigarettes several years earlier but was slapped down with a stinging rebuke from the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. (When asked about his work for the AP, Felberbaum—who has since quit his job as a reporter to become an FDA press officer—said, “I’m not really sure whether I’m comfortable discussing that at this point.”) Some of the other outlets, like NPR, injected a little more nuance into their pieces, despite the restrictions, by doing additional reporting after the embargo expired. (In a statement, NPR said that agreeing to the FDA’s conditions was not a violation of ethics guidelines and “in no way influenced which other voices or ideas were included in the coverage.”) Still, even those pieces did not stray far from the key messages that the agency wanted to get across. Again the FDA found little to complain about. Except for one little thing. Of all the media outlets, the New York Times was the only one to mention the close-hold embargo: “FDA officials gave journalists an outline of the new rules on Wednesday but required that they not talk to industry or public health groups until after Thursday’s formal release of the document.” (“I felt like I wanted to be clear with readers,” Sabrina Tavernise, the author of the story, later told Sullivan, the New York Times ‘ public editor at the time. “Usually you would have reaction in a story like this, but in this case, there wasn’t going to be any.”) The FDA was not pleased that the omertà had been broken. “I have to say while I generally reserve my editorial comments, I was a little surprised by the tone of your article and the swipe you took at the embargo in the paper—when after combing through the coverage no one else felt the need to do so in quite that way,” the FDA’s Jefferson upbraided Tavernise in an e-mail. “To be clear, this is me taking stuff personally when I know I shouldn’t, but I thought we had a better working relationship than this…. I never expect totally positive coverage as our policies are controversial and complex, but at least more neutral and slightly less editorialized. Simply put, bummer. Off to deal with a pissed Fox News reporter.” Tavernise promptly apologized. “Geez, sorry about the embargo thing. Editors were asking why we didn’t get to see it so I was asked to put a line in to explain,” she wrote. (Tavernise declined to comment for this article; Celia Dugger, one of the New York Times editors who handled the piece, said via e-mail: “As to the decision to describe the conditions of the embargo in the story, Sabrina and I talked it over and agreed it was best to include them.”) The FDA was not pleased that the secret of the close-hold embargo was out, and the excluded press was confused and angry. “In this particular instance, it struck me as very strange,” says Fox’s Roberts. “It was a government agency picking and choosing who it was going to talk to on a matter of public policy, and then the fact that I had a longstanding relationship with the FDA that, with this new administration, didn’t seem to matter.” Oransky complained again on Embargo Watch about the FDA’s attempts to turn journalists “into stenographers.” Sullivan asked a few pointed questions of Jefferson, who, in Sullivan’s words, insisted that the FDA’s intent was “not to be manipulative but to give reporters early access to a complicated news development” and noted, in passing, that Tavernise had not objected to the terms of the close-hold embargo. But the damage was short-lived. Very little came of the complaints; Sullivan said that she would “like to see the Times push back—hard—against such restrictions in every instance and be prepared to walk away from the story if need be,” but there is no evidence of any substantial pushback by anyone. The two-tiered system of outsiders and insiders that undergirds the close-hold policy is also still enforced. Major press outlets such as Scientific American and Agence France-Presse have written to the FDA to complain about being excluded but have not received any satisfaction from the agency. Months after the e-cigarette affair and following a different FDA story about food labeling that insiders had early access to, Time magazine complained about its lack of access to a select-press-only phone call. “ Time was not included … (they weren’t even on my radar to be honest with you), but we handled all their queries” the day after the call, then FDA press officer Jennifer Corbett Dooren wrote. Absent any indications from the agency, it is anyone’s guess whether the close-hold embargo is still in use at the FDA and, if so, how frequently. Unfortunately, the FDA refused to answer any questions. Because I am suing the agency for access to documents about embargo practices at the FDA, the press office, in a statement that failed to answer any specific questions, said that news embargoes “allow reporters time to develop their articles on complex matters in an informed, accurate way” and that its use of embargoes conforms to relevant government guidelines and best practices. The press office referred all questions to the FDA’s Office of the Chief Counsel, which did not supply answers. Since the New York Times slip, no journalist covering the agency has openly mentioned being subject to such restrictions. Scientific American made a significant effort to contact many of the reporters believed to have agreed to an FDA close-hold embargo—including the AP’s Felberbaum, the Times ‘ Tavernise, NPR’s Stein, and other reporters from Reuters, USA Today and the LA Times . None could shed any light on the issue. Some explicitly refused to speak to Scientific American ; some failed to return queries; two had no recollection of having ever agreed to a close-hold embargo, including Tom Burton, a Pulitzer Prize–winning Wall Street Journal reporter and the only one willing to answer questions. “I didn’t remember it at all, and [even] after you told me, I didn’t remember,” he said. As far as he knows, Burton added, such embargoes are rare. No matter how rare it might be, there is documentary evidence of its happening multiple times, and each instance since 2011 is a violation of the FDA’s official media policy, which explicitly bans close-hold embargoes. This policy still stands, just as it did before the last close-hold embargo. The smart money says that the agency’s unofficial policy still stands, too—and the favoritism and close-hold embargoes continue. It is apparently too sweet an arrangement for the FDA simply to walk away. Despite the difficulty of measuring the use of close-hold embargoes, Oransky and Kiernan and other embargo observers agree that they—and other variations of the embargo used to tighten control over the press—appear to be on the rise. And they have been cropping up in other fields of journalism, such as business journalism as well. “More and more sources, including government sources but also corporate sources, are interested in controlling the message, and this is one of the ways they’re trying to do it,” says the New York Times ‘ Sullivan. “I think it should be resisted.” As much blame as government and other institutions bear for attempting to control the press through such means, the primary responsibility lies with the journalists themselves. Even a close-hold embargo wouldn’t constrain a reporter without the reporter’s consent; the reporter can simply wait until the embargo expires and speak to outside sources, albeit at the cost of filing the story a little bit later. Says Oransky: “We as journalists need to look inward a little bit and think about why all of us feel we absolutely have to publish something at embargo [expiration] when we don’t think we have the whole story?” Alas, Kiernan says, there isn’t any movement within the journalism community to change things: “I don’t know that journalists in general have taken a step back, [looking] from the 50,000-foot view to understand how their work is controlled and shaped by the embargo system. Submit your review | 1real |
Biden Gets a Job, and Obama Goes Kitesurfing - The New York Times | For anyone wondering how former President Barack Obama is adjusting to life under the Trump administration, know this: He seems to be doing just fine. Mr. Obama and his wife, Michelle Obama, took a vacation to the British Virgin Islands, where they have been hosted by Richard Branson, the chief executive of the Virgin Group. On Tuesday, Mr. Branson published a blog post, along with photos and video, showing Mr. Obama learning to kitesurf. Yes, he seems to be doing just fine. Mr. Branson wrote that Mr. Obama spent two days learning how to stay afloat and navigate kitesurfing. “Being the former president of America, there was lots of security around, but Barack was able to really relax and get into it,” Mr. Branson wrote. While Mr. Obama was enjoying the wind and the waves, his vice president, Joseph R. Biden Jr. announced details of his work. Mr. Biden will lead the University of Pennsylvania’s Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement, a new effort “focused principally on diplomacy, foreign policy and national security,” the university announced on Tuesday. Mr. Biden said in a statement: “The Penn Biden Center and I will be engaging with Penn’s wonderful students while partnering with its eminent faculty and global centers to convene world leaders, develop and advance smart policy, and impact the national debate about how America can continue to lead in the 21st Century. ” The center will be in Washington, but Mr. Biden will also have an office on the campus of the University of Pennsylvania, which is a short Amtrak ride away in Philadelphia. The campus is also a fairly short trip from Delaware, where Mr. Biden served as a senator for 36 years and where he maintains deep roots. He will also be working with the University of Delaware, his alma mater. The university announced on Tuesday that Mr. Biden would be the founding chairman of the Biden Institute, which it described as “a new research and policy center focused on developing public policy solutions on issues ranging from economic reform and environmental sustainability to civil rights, criminal justice, women’s rights and more. ” The former vice president and his wife, Jill Biden, intend to split time between a lakeside home in Greenville, Del. a Wilmington suburb, and a home in Washington. Dr. Biden plans to continue teaching English at a community college in Northern Virginia. The couple previously announced the creation of the Biden Foundation as a platform to advance priorities like military families, preventing violence against women and a “moonshot” to cure cancer. | 0fake |
null | Why would I want to listen to advice from someone like Steven Schmidt who advised a presidential candidate (McCain) who was not able to make it? How can he say Trumps priorites are off? He has out performed his opponent in the past month in regards to his campaigning for the WH hands down! The only reason so many people are quick to judge Trump and call him a failure is because so many criminals ( career politicians and their partners in crime) have so much to loose. I would imagine that some are even considering leaving the country to avoid prosecution once Trump is elected as POTUS. Afterthought.... This pitstop in DC for the opening dedication of this new Hotel can actually be seen as part of his campaigning as it shows people that he is able to accomplish what others have failed to do, under budget and ahead of schedule. You never hear about Hillary taking tons of time off the campaign trail or her lack of press conferences and interviews with the media or her lack of on the road campaign rallies. Trump takes a brief stop in DC and Schmidt claims the walls are falling in on Trunp... really??? | 1real |
Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, Mosul: Your Wednesday Briefing - The New York Times | Good morning. We’re trying something new for our readers in Asia and Australia: a morning briefing to your day. What do you like? What do you want to see here? Email us with your feedback at asiabriefing@nytimes. com. Here’s what you need to know: • The polls have closed in much of the United States. Donald J. Trump has won the crucial battleground states of Florida and Ohio along with more than 20 other states, leaving Hillary Clinton only a narrow path to the presidency. Check here for the latest numbers. Our reporters are providing election analysis, and we’re offering unlimited access to The Times through Thursday morning. _____ • Markets in Asia were trading lower — Japan’s stocks plunged — and the prospect of a Wall Street rose after Mr. Trump’s unexpectedly strong showing. For the first time in modern memory, both candidates are watching the results in Midtown Manhattan — though across town from one another. • The Philippines’ highest court ruled that Ferdinand E. Marcos, the former dictator ousted by his people after a brutal rule, can be reburied in a heroes cemetery, as planned by President Rodrigo Duterte. The Marcos family welcomed the ruling and so did supporters, above, but many Filipinos expressed hurt and anger. A senator said the court had “miserably failed the test of history and broken our hearts. ” • Hundreds of lawyers marched through Hong Kong’s central business district in a silent show of opposition to China’s assertion of power over the city’s judiciary. Some noted that local courts, which operate on common law, could still soften or even stymie the implementation of Beijing’s decision to block two politicians from taking office. _____ • South Korea’s president, Park is allowing her rivals in Parliament to pick a new prime minister in place of her own nominee, her latest attempt to defuse an scandal. Prosecutors also raided the offices of Samsung, South Korea’s largest conglomerate, to investigate possible links to the scandal. Corruption has become a pressing issue for the country amid slowing economic growth. _____ • Ferocious battles have turned parts of the Syrian city of Aleppo into a moonscape of shattered buildings. Our reporter made a recent bus tour of the western, part of the city, documenting scenes of stark destruction as well as the almost surreal contrast of seemingly normal life. _____ • India’s notes are now worthless. Prime Minister Narendra Modi devalued the and bills because they are frequently counterfeited or used for graft. • Iran signed its first major deal with a Western oil company since international sanctions were removed in the nuclear agreement. The preliminary $4. 8 billion deal with Total calls for the production of 1. 8 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day. • American environmental groups protesting the Dakota Access pipeline near the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation are targeting a new group: banks that have helped finance the project. • Adjoining apartments in Hong Kong sold for an Asian record of more than $13, 500 per square foot. • Here’s a snapshot of global markets, which have been shaken by the American election. • A British banker was found guilty of murdering two Indonesian women at his luxury Hong Kong apartment, a case that exposed the underbelly of the city’s financial sector. [The New York Times] • Singapore’s prime minister said only Malay candidates would be allowed to run in next year’s presidential race, to ensure there would be a president from the minority group for the first time in more than 46 years. [The Straits Times] • Hungary’s Parliament rejected a proposal to bar refugees being relocated from the rest of Europe. [The New York Times] • Iraqi troops advancing on Mosul discovered a mass grave containing about 100 bodies, many of them decapitated. [The Associated Press] • A manhunt is on for two inmates who made an escape from a London prison. [The New York Times] • Take a glimpse of Yarchen Gar, China, a wonder of the Tibetan highlands populated by Buddhist nuns. [The New York Times] • Two hundred mahouts and 11 elephants, powdered an auspicious white, paid respects to King Bhumibol, who died last month, at the Grand Palace in Bangkok. [Bangkok Post] • Prince Harry has had enough. The grandson of Queen Elizabeth II blasted British news coverage and social media trolls for the “outright sexism and racism” unleashed on his biracial American girlfriend, Meghan Markle, above. • Russia’s Kontinental Hockey League is trying to make ice hockey popular in China, where the sport’s traditional rowdiness seems not to have translated. • Iran, after years of isolation, global sanctions and bad press, is blossoming as a tourist destination for travelers from Europe, and even the United States, looking to explore the unknown. • Toblerone, the Swiss chocolate bar, has altered the shape of two of its products. The redesign, which shrinks weight to avoid raising the price, has outraged some fans. “It is one of the most extraordinary works of art to come to the market in the last 10 to 15 years. ” That comment by Sotheby’s chairman for Chinese art was reserved for an musket made for the Qianlong emperor, who presided over what became China’s last imperial dynasty. The gun is set to be auctioned today in London at an estimated price of roughly $1. 2 million to $1. 8 million. “We’ve never had an imperial firearm,” the Sotheby’s executive, Nicolas Chow, said. Handcrafted out of wood, with components made of gold, silver and copper, the gun is over five and a half feet long. An inscription reads, “Supreme Number One. ” Sales of Chinese art accounted for nearly a third of the global art auction market last year, according to a recent analysis. Mr. Chow said that many treasures were taken from the palace after the dynasty ended. Their return is viewed as a matter of national pride. The emperor’s fondness for the weapon can be seen in a poem attributed to him, but a jade seal he used during his abdication might be the emperor’s most valuable possession. Last month, an anonymous buyer paid nearly $12 million for the item. Patrick Boehler contributed reporting. _____ Photographs may appear out of order for some readers. Viewing this version of the briefing should help. Your Morning Briefing is published weekday mornings. What would you like to see here? Contact us at asiabriefing@nytimes. com. | 0fake |
Exclusive: Energy, not tech or finance, in CEO line-up for Trump's China visit | BEIJING (Reuters) - U.S. energy and commodities firms will make up a major part of a business delegation visiting Beijing at the same time as U.S. President Donald Trump goes to China in November, according to an initial list seen by Reuters. Prominent technology and financial companies are mostly absent from the list, reflecting the slow progress Washington has made in opening up China in those sectors. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, who will lead the 29 companies that have been approved to travel on the trade mission starting on Nov. 8, said they will be looking for immediate results and tangible agreements . But, speaking at the Paley International Council Summit in New York on Wednesday, he acknowledged that market access, intellectual property rights, and tariffs are more complex and will take a longer time to negotiate. Some major industrial companies - General Electric Co, Honeywell International Inc and Boeing Co - are among the companies on the current list. Whether executives from all the named companies end up attending could be subject to agreements or deals being negotiated in time for the visit, according to multiple sources whose companies are involved. One of the few tech companies going with Trump is Qualcomm, which earns about half of its global revenue in China and faces a series of tricky legal issues there, including a lawsuit with Apple and the Chinese government s review of its pending $38 billion merger with NXP Semiconductors. Qualcomm said its CEO, Steve Mollenkopf, planned to attend. An industry source told Reuters tech firms were reluctant to go, given China market access issues, the unpredictability of the Trump administration, and a Section 301 U.S. trade investigation alleging Chinese abuses of intellectual property. (These) issues are extremely sensitive for tech companies said another source in the U.S. business community. Very few want to stick their heads up and be perceived as complaining directly, and even fewer trust this White House to do anything helpful on their issues, he said. Particularly galling to foreign tech firms are a slate of new national security and cyber security regulations, which mandate companies store crucial data within China and pass security reviews they argue could put business secrets at risk. Trump, a real estate magnate who had never before held public office, has had a sometimes testy relationship with corporate America since taking office in January. He disbanded two high-profile business advisory councils in August after several chief executives quit in protest over his controversial remarks on racist violence in Charlottesville. U.S. industry sources say it has been years since a major business delegation has gone to China during a U.S. presidential visit. Calls for such a delegation during Trump s visit originated in the China-based U.S. business community, according to several sources, who saw a need to match growing efforts by Germany, France and Britain to promote their nation s firms in China. Trump, who has frequently cited the substantial U.S. trade deficit with China as a reason why Washington should take more protectionist measures, was an easy sell on incorporating a group of executives into the visit, according to the sources. Nonetheless, some trade analysts say China has done a good job of taming Trump s combative trade impulses. They worry the U.S. administration will be willing to paper over market access concerns during the visit in its focus on getting Beijing to take action against North Korea over its nuclear and missile programs. Beijing agreed in May to grant limited U.S. access in financial services in bilateral talks aimed at reducing China s trade surplus with the United States which reached $347 billion last year, but business groups complained it was too little, too late. William Zarit, the chairman of the American Chamber of Commerce in China, told Reuters he didn t expect Trump to push hard on market access issues on this trip. Unfortunately, I think the Chinese aren t going to start to respond until they feel some pain, Zarit said. We re all wondering what that is going to mean. Scott Kennedy, at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank in Washington, said Beijing has deflected commercial issues using a combination of leadership flattery, coaxing up to his (Trump s) family, token concessions, adjusting their level of help on North Korea sanctions, and threats of retaliation should the U.S. take any unilateral action . Agribusiness and energy firms dominate the delegation list. They include Archer Daniels Midland Co (ADM), one of the world s largest grain companies, and chemicals and agribusiness giant DowDuPont. Ten of the companies are involved in gas or other energy fields, including Cheniere Energy Inc, which operates the only U.S. liquefied natural gas (LNG) export terminal, three that are building new projects, and Freepoint Commodities, founded and run by David Messer, who led power utility Sempra s vaunted commodities division.[L2N1N109T] Their presence underscores the U.S. ambition to sell more of its excess gas abroad as its shale revolution contributes to a global LNG glut. Others on the list who confirmed plans to attend include GE, Houston-based LNG company Delfin Midstream, SolarReserve, Stine Seed Company, biotech firm Drylet, wastewater-processing firm Viroment and the U.S. Soybean Export Council. Bell Helicopter and crane-maker Terex Corp are also on the delegation list. Honeywell, DowDuPont and ADM did not respond immediately to a request for comment and Freepoint, Cheniere, Sempra Energy, and Texas LNG Brownsville LLC said they had no comment. Boeing told Reuters it does not yet have plans to send anyone but that may change. Alaska Gasline Development Corp said it had no information to release. The U.S. Commerce Department, which is leading the delegation, has not yet issued its own list. At least one of the companies on the list tried to distance itself from Trump. SolarReserve told Reuters in a statement that it had been selected to participate in the commerce department s delegation but stressed that we are not part of the business delegation travelling to China with President Trump. One U.S. official told Reuters on condition of anonymity that Trump will tout deals announced during the trip, but they would have likely happened regardless. The risk is that commercial deals distract from long-term political solutions to trade issues, the official said. Evan Medeiros, former President Barack Obama s top Asia adviser, made a similar point in Washington. Beijing would avoid seriously addressing the underlying systemic problems such as market access for high-tech goods and intellectual property protection during the visit, he predicted. The Chinese will be happy to buy a lot of American goods. That s what they know Trump wants big export numbers, he said, predicting that China would announce big business deals and allow the president to tout them during his visit. | 0fake |
EU's Tusk says 'good deal' or 'no deal' on Brexit up to London | BRUSSELS (Reuters) - European Council President Donald Tusk said on Tuesday that it was up to Britain to determine if there was to be a good deal or no deal in Brexit talks. We have managed to build and maintain unity among the 27, but ahead of us is still the toughest stress test. If we fail it, the negotiations will end in our defeat. We must keep our unity regardless of the direction of the talks. The EU will be able to rise to every scenario as long as we are not divided, Tusk, who chairs summits of EU leaders, told the European Parliament. It is in fact up to London how this will end, with a good deal, no deal or no Brexit but in each of these scenarios we will protect our common interests only by being together, he said. | 0fake |
Trump May Give the Pentagon More Authority to Conduct Raids - The New York Times | WASHINGTON — The White House is considering giving the Pentagon more independent authority to conduct counterterrorism raids as part of an effort to accelerate the fight against the Islamic State and other militant organizations, administration officials said on Thursday. Such a step would allow military commanders to move more swiftly against terrorism suspects, streamlining a process that often dragged on under the Obama administration, frustrating Pentagon officials. The White House press secretary, Sean Spicer, called the proposal “a philosophy more than a change in policy. ” He said that “the protocol is not changing in terms of what has to be signed off,” but added that Mr. Trump believed “these are the experts in the field. ” Critics say that giving the military more authority could lead to more problematic outcomes like the Special Operations raid in January in Yemen, which left a member of the Navy’s SEAL Team 6 dead, as well as about two dozen civilians. It could also leave the Pentagon to take the blame when things go wrong. But one Defense Department official pointed to comments by President Trump about the Yemen raid as a sign that military commanders would be held responsible for botched operations whether the president signed off on them or not. Mr. Trump and Defense Department officials have maintained that the January raid — the first such operation approved by the new president — was successful, saying that valuable intelligence was collected. Military officials have been advocating an increase in raids in Yemen in particular. On Thursday, the United States resumed its air attacks on targets in Yemen, conducting strikes against several suspected Qaeda sites across the part of the country. The coordinated series of attacks occurred in three Yemeni provinces — Abyan, Shabwa and Baydha — that have been linked to terrorist activity, according to the Pentagon. The strikes were conducted against targets that had been developed before the January raid, a senior official said. On Monday, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis presented the White House, under Mr. Trump’s directive, with a series of options for accelerating the fight against the Islamic State. Pentagon officials say that while much of the proposal would continue what the United States was doing under President Barack Obama, Mr. Mattis and senior military commanders want to target not just the Islamic State, but also Al Qaeda and other extremist organizations in the Middle East. The proposal on counterterrorism raids, first reported by the Daily Beast, is the latest step in Mr. Trump’s increased reliance on military commanders to run American national security policy. Mr. Trump has become increasingly reliant on Mr. Mattis, a retired Marine general, upon whom he consistently lavishes praise. He has also appointed Lt. Gen. H. R. McMaster as his national security adviser, to replace a retired general, Michael T. Flynn. His Homeland Security secretary is yet another retired general, John F. Kelly. “We’re at a point now in our nation where general officers have an outsize role in the direction of the country,” said Andrew Exum, a retired Army Ranger and a Defense Department official in the Obama administration. Still, Mr. Trump has already shown himself willing to blame the generals when things go wrong. On Tuesday, he told Fox News that the Jan. 29 Yemen mission that led to the death of the Navy SEAL team member, Senior Chief Petty Officer William Owens, known as Ryan, “was a mission that was started before I got here. ” He added that “my generals are the most respected that we’ve had in many decades, I believe, and they lost Ryan. ” Jon B. Alterman, the director of the Middle East Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said that the administration faced a delicate calculation over how much authority to cede to the generals. “One extreme,” he said, is “giving in the White House veto power over generals in the field. ” That should be avoided, he said. “At the same time,” he added, “if you’re going to target and kill someone, there needs to be some kind of process to ensure that it serves a strategic purpose. We shouldn’t be comfortable with the other extreme, essentially handing out death sentences without much deliberation. ” Capt. Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman, said that the strikes on Thursday in Yemen, which numbered more than 20, were “conducted in partnership with the government of Yemen and were coordinated” with President Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi. Captain Davis said the attacks had targeted Qaeda militants, equipment and infrastructure. After the January raid, Mr. Hadi’s government had withdrawn permission for the United States to conduct Special Operations ground missions, a decision prompted by anger at the civilian casualties incurred in the raid. Computers and cellphones seized during that raid offered clues about attacks that Al Qaeda might be planning, including insights into new types of hidden explosives that the group is making and new training tactics, American officials said. But it is still unclear how much the information advances the military’s knowledge of the plans of Al Qaeda’s branch in Yemen, and some intelligence and congressional officials have questioned how significant the information analyzed so far really is. “There are obvious contradictions about the relative value of intelligence,” said Senator Kamala D. Harris, a California Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, who added in an interview this week that she would be seeking more explanations from intelligence officials. According to a Yemeni military official, the airstrikes on Thursday in the Abyan mountains began around 3:30 a. m. local time. The local news media reported that at least three people suspected of being Qaeda members were killed in Shabwa Province. Residents near the scene in the Saeid region said an airstrike had destroyed a house used by Qaeda operatives. The death of Chief Owens came after a chain of miscues and misjudgments that plunged the elite forces into a ferocious firefight with Qaeda militants in a mountainous village in central Yemen. Three other Americans were wounded, and a $75 million aircraft was deliberately destroyed. A month later, the mission remains under intense scrutiny, with questions unabated over the casualties, how Mr. Trump and his aides approved the raid over a dinner meeting at the White House five days into his presidency, and the value of the information collected from the raid. “It is reasonable for the White House to determine which decisions they need to be part of and which ones they are comfortable deferring to the Pentagon,” said Derek Chollet, an assistant secretary of defense in the Obama administration. “But a president has to think very carefully about this, because he may choose to delegate authority, but he cannot absolve himself of responsibility. ” | 0fake |
TRUMP ADVISOR Has Warning For Syria That Has Saved Lives [Video] | Deputy Assistant to the President Sebastian Gorka warned Syrian President Bashar Assad after evidence arose earlier this week that the Assad regime could be planning another chemical weapons attack on its people. Gorka says, if you do this again, there will be significant damage done to your forces and to your interests. We are there to destroy Isis. CHEMICAL WEAPONS DEVELOPMENT? SYRIA S ASSAD COULD BE PLANNING ANOTHER ATTACK: Pentagon spokesman Captain Jeff Davis said the United States had recently seen activity at Shayrat airfield, the same base targeted by a U.S. cruise missile strike on April 6. This involved specific aircraft in a specific hangar, both of which we know to be associated with chemical weapons use, Davis said.Davis said the activity occurred during the past day or two. He did not say how the United States collected its intelligence.The White House said on Monday it appeared the Syrian government was preparing for another chemical weapons attack and warned Assad that he and his military would pay a heavy price if it went ahead.REMEMBER WHEN WE HAD A COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF WHO DECIDED HE WOULDN T HONOR HIS THREAT TO SYRIA:THE RED LINE READ MORE: REUTERS | 1real |
STEVE JOBS’ WIDOW ANNOUNCES SUPPORT FOR “Revolutionary” HILLARY On Same Day Hillary’s Busted For Faking This… | You d think she d know a thing or two about email servers and at a minimum, question Hillary s integrity Apple founder Steve Jobs widow Laurene has told of her admiration for Democratic White House front-runner Hillary Clinton.Ms Jobs, 51, called former First Lady Hillary a revolutionary woman, and added that it s not just because she s a woman but the type of woman she is .Speaking to Time 100, Ms Jobs said: Hillary Clinton is not familiar. She is revolutionary. Not radical, but revolutionary: The distinction is crucial. She is one of America s greatest modern creations. Her decades in our public life must not blind us to the fact that she represents new realities and possibilities. Indeed, those same decades have conferred upon her what newness usually lacks: judgment, and even wisdom. Oops wrong picture! It matters, of course, that Hillary is a woman. But what matters more is what kind of woman she is. Mrs Clinton announced her intention to seek the Democratic nomination on Sunday and set upon the campaign trail with a trip to meet ordinary voters in Iowa.But she was blasted for her staged visit on Tuesday morning to a coffee shop in LeClaire, Iowa.Austin Bird, one of the men pictured sitting at the table with Mrs Clinton, claimed the whole event was orchestrated from beginning to end .Bird told Daily Mail Online that campaign staffer Troy Price called and asked him and two other young people to meet him Tuesday morning at a restaurant in Davenport, a nearby city. Price then drove them to the coffee house to meet Clinton after vetting them for about a half-hour.The three got the lion s share of Mrs. Clinton s time and participated in what breathless news reports described as a roundtable the first of many in her brief Iowa campaign swing. Bird himself is a frequent participant in Iowa Democratic Party events. He interned with President Obama s 2012 presidential re-election campaign, and was tapped to chauffeur Vice President Joe Biden in October 2014 when he visited Davenport. What happened is, we were just asked to be there by Troy, Bird said Wednesday in a phone interview. We were asked to come to a meeting with Troy, the three of us, at the Village Inn. The other two, he confirmed, were University of Iowa College Democrats president Carter Bell and Planned Parenthood of the Heartland employee Sara Sedlacek. It was supposed to be a strategy meeting, Bird recalled, to get our thoughts about issues. But then all of a sudden he says, Hey, we have Secretary Clinton coming in, would you like to go meet her? And then we got in a car Troy s car and we went up to the coffee house, and we sat at a table and then Hillary just came up and talked with us. Bird said we all were called. I mean, Troy asked us all to do to go to a meeting with him. And we didn t really know what it was about. I mean, he did. He knew. Via: UK Daily Mail | 1real |
Trump Ordered Syria Attack, then Ate Dinner with Chinese President - Breitbart | President Donald Trump ordered Tomahawk missile strikes against a Syrian airfield on Thursday evening — then sat down to dinner with visiting Chinese President Xi Jinping at . [CNN, citing a White House source, reports: Trump met with his national security team before his dinner with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Thursday, where he made the decision to pull the trigger on the biggest military action of his presidency, an administration official says. He sat through dinner with the President Xi as action was under way. Trump was briefed after dinner by Secretary of Defense James “Mad Dog” Mattis, according to the report. The message would not have been lost on the Chinese president, whose visit was expected to include difficult discussions about the threat of North Korean ballistic missiles, as well as about China’s ambitious naval expansion on artificial islands in international waters. “He does what he says … He’s sending a message to the Chinese,” former General Jack Keane told Sean Hannity on Fox News. “He’s telling the Chinese that, listen, the North Koreans are trying to weaponize intercontinental ballistic missiles and the rhetoric is they will use them against my country and my people. Don’t push me into a corner where I have to use a military option to deal with them. That would be horrific. That would mean war on the Korean peninsula,” Keane said. “I think he’ll get the Chinese attention for sure, as a result of that. It’s not rhetoric. We’ve had rhetoric for eight years, with passivity, and no action. ” Joel B. Pollak is Senior at Breitbart News. He was named one of the “most influential” people in news media in 2016. His new book, How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak. | 0fake |
German parties in coalition talks agree on no new debt | BERLIN (Reuters) - Politicians from four German parties seeking to form a first-of-its-kind coalition government agreed on Tuesday not to increase the country s debt load in order to fund sought-after tax cuts, subsidies and investments. Chancellor Angela Merkel s Christian Democrats (CDU), their Christian Social Union (CSU) allies, the liberal Free Democrats and the Greens held a second round of talks after an election last month that saw the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) enter parliament for the first time. The four parties are under pressure to find common ground on contentious issues such as the future of the euro zone and immigration policy, as well as fiscal policy. A paper seen by Reuters that outlines their initial agreement on state spending showed the potential coalition partners want to cut taxes for families with children as well as lower- and middle-income people. They also want to abolish the solidarity tax , introduced after reunification to support poorer states in eastern Germany, which is due to expire in 2019. The Greens, who before the talks said they opposed sticking to a balanced budget at any cost, appear to have conceded in exchange for a common pledge for subsidies to home owners who make their domiciles more energy efficient. Merkel s CDU and their Bavarian CSU allies lost support in the election to the anti-immigrant AfD, as the party stole many conservative voters angry at her 2015 decision to welcome more than one million migrants into Germany. Weakened after the Sept. 24 vote, Merkel is now seeking to form a four-way coalition untested at the national level that will secure her a fourth term as chancellor. We are very satisfied with the (talks) this evening, CDU General Secretary Peter Tauber told reporters after the talks. It was a very good evening. His positive assessment of the second round of exploratory talks was shared by counterparts from the CSU, FDP and Greens. A report by Merkel s CDU last week found that Germany s next government would have less fiscal room than expected. It also determined that the next government would have only 30 billion euros ($35.29 billion) free for new projects over the next four years if there is no new debt taken on - as has been the case since 2014. The four parties demands amount to over 100 billion euros in additional spending. The initial fiscal blueprint agreed on Tuesday did not say how the parties will fund their projects. It said they would explore fiscal flexibility measures at later rounds of talks. | 0fake |
DEMOCRAT UNDERBELLY EXPOSED: Out-Of-Control Violence Erupts…Anti-Trump Rioters Deliver On Threat To Turn Up Heat, Shut Down Free Speech [VIDEO] | Donald Trump on Wednesday slammed what he described as thugs and criminals who clashed with police outside an Albuquerque campaign event, just hours after police in riot gear and mounted patrol units faced off against the violent crowd.The protesters in New Mexico were thugs who were flying the Mexican flag. The rally inside was big and beautiful, but outside, criminals! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 25, 2016Watch here:The clashes erupted overnight, after Trump and some 4,000 of his supporters left the Albuquerque Convention Center. Approximately 100 demonstrators remained in downtown.Smoke grenades were used in an effort to disperse the crowd, while protesters threw rocks, plastic bottles, burning T-shirts and other items at officers. Albuquerque police said on Twitter late Tuesday that several officers were being treated for injuries as a result of being hit by rocks. At least one person was arrested.Inside the Trump rally, demonstrators shouted, held up banners and resisted removal by security officers. The banners included the messages Trump is Fascist and We ve heard enough. Trump s supporters responded with chants of Build that wall! At one point, a female protester was physically dragged from the stands by security. Other protesters scuffled with security as they resisted removal from the convention center. The altercations left a glass door at the entrance of the convention center smashed. During the rally, protesters outside overran barricades and clashed with police in riot gear. They also burned T-shirts and other items labeled with Trump s catchphrase, Make America Great Again. Trump supporters at the rally said they appreciated his stance on boosting border security and stemming the flow of people crossing the border illegally, but some said they were frightened by the violent protests outside. Albuquerque attorney Doug Antoon said rocks were flying through the convention center windows as he was leaving Tuesday night. Glass was breaking and landing near his feet. This was not a protest, this was a riot. These are hate groups, he said of the demonstrators. Via: FOX NewsWho are these domestic terrorist hell bent on shutting down free speech, and who is organizing these violent riots? What exactly is their end goal?An article published by Breitbart News in 2010 provides us with some pretty good clues:The radical Progressive wing of the Democrat party, through people like Lisa Fithian, has been in direct coordination with the very Anarchy protesters who trashed St. Paul, Minnesota, in 2008 during the Republican National Convention. They would have done much more damage had they not been thwarted by a former radical-turned FBI informant.How do we know this? Because they wrote about it. Why don t you know about it? Because the media in this country never bothered to look into whom the people were who organized the marches which repeatedly led to violence and arrests.If any of the mainstream press had been the slightest bit curious (and why would they be? It was just politically organized rioting on the streets of our country), they could have performed some cursory Google searches that return ample circumstantial evidence of direct coordinating efforts between the clean, presentable, mainstream face of the Progressive-Democrat movement, and the dark underbelly of the Anarchy movement in this country. *How does this relationship work? It s simple(ish). Let s start with the clean face of the Progressive-Democrats: the Congressional Progressive Caucus. This entity was founded and organized by self-described Socialist U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders, and by an organization called the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA).The DSA was founded and supported by many of the same people active in the 1960s radical movement, known widely as Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and their domestic terrorist wing, the Weather Underground Organization (WUO).Key members of the Democratic Socialists of America are principal organizers of two current groups called Progressives for Obama and the reconstituted Movement for a Democratic Society (MDS).Progressives for Obama is where the straight face of Progressive unions, non-profits, and educational institutions organized their efforts to elect then Senator Obama to the presidency.The reconstituted MDS is the tip of the nose of America s ugly radical Progressive face. The MDS made it its mission to restart the SDS. They succeeded, and one of the first tasks of the reconstituted SDS was to begin forging a relationship with Anarchists and to participate in what they call Direct Action protests. They succeeded, and the synthesis of the Progressive Democrat movement with the Anarchists manifests itself in the self-described Socialist Anarchy movement called the Direct Action Tendency (DAT). The DAT, along with Lisa Fithian s United For Justice and Peace, represents the very ugly face of the Progressive-Democrat movement, where they coordinate with street thugs, Che/Castro worshiping Socialists, and islamists.**What is a Direct Action? A direct action typically (but not exclusively) consists of staging a protest with the predetermined goal of causing a direct confrontation with the police.While covering the Democrat convention in Denver, and subsequently the Republican convention in Minneapolis/St. Paul, it became clear that there was a distinct and organized pattern at work.Organizers would stage a rally and/or a concert. These events were planned and permitted through the local municipalities. The goal was almost always the same. Eventually the organizers would breach the boundaries of the permit, and force a confrontation with the authorities. This frequently resulted in extensive damage to property, as well as added expense in resources devoted to dealing with the Anarchists.What s the point? It s three-fold. 1) These events present successful organizing opportunities to collect names and contact info of participants, thus growing the movement. 2) These events radicalize the members, making them more devoted to the cause. 3) Propaganda is produced that depicts the evil police being brutal to otherwise seemingly peaceful protesters.What s their goal? To end Capitalism, with which they equate racism, sexism, exploitation, terrorism, and murder.These Direct Action Tendency and United For Justice linked events, (like the RNC Welcoming Committee) represent a modern day Progressive-Anarchy Tea Party. One main difference of course between the Conservative/Libertarian Tea Parties, and the Progressive-Anarchy Tea Parties is the premeditated tactic of breaking the law and getting arrested. Conservatives and Libertarians don t tend to do that. Progressive-Anarchists have mastered it as a form of political art.This all begs the question, if a group of Conservative/Libertarian Tea Partiers engaged in an attack on an urban infrastructure with the premeditated goal of shutting down a Democrat political event, would they face charges for federal civil rights violations? Perhaps that would depend on whether or not America is a land where people are guaranteed the right to political expression and peaceable assembly. | 1real |
Official: Withheld Clinton emails contain 'operational' intel, put lives at risk | EXCLUSIVE: Highly classified Hillary Clinton emails that the intelligence community and State Department recently deemed too damaging to national security to release contain “operational intelligence” – and their presence on the unsecure, personal email system jeopardized “sources, methods and lives,” a U.S. government official who has reviewed the documents told Fox News.
The official, who was not authorized to speak on the record and was limited in discussing the contents because of their highly classified nature, was referring to the 22 “TOP SECRET” emails that the State Department announced Friday it could not release in any form, even with entire sections redacted.
The announcement fueled criticism of Clinton’s handling of highly sensitive information while secretary of state, even as the Clinton campaign continued to downplay the matter as the product of an interagency dispute over classification. But the U.S. government official’s description provides confirmation that the emails contained closely held government secrets. “Operational intelligence” can be real-time information about intelligence collection, sources and the movement of assets.
The official emphasized that the “TOP SECRET” documents were sent over an extended period of time -- from shortly after the server's 2009 installation until early 2013 when Clinton stepped down as secretary of state.
Separately, Rep. Mike Pompeo, R-Kan., who sits on the House intelligence committee, said the former secretary of state, senator, and Yale-trained lawyer had to know what she was dealing with.
"There is no way that someone, a senior government official who has been handling classified information for a good chunk of their adult life, could not have known that this information ought to be classified, whether it was marked or not,” he said. "Anyone with the capacity to read and an understanding of American national security, an 8th grade reading level or above, would understand that the release of this information or the potential breach of a non-secure system presented risk to American national security."
Pompeo also suggested the military and intelligence communities have had to change operations, because the Clinton server could have been compromised by a third party.
“Anytime our national security team determines that there's a potential breach, that is information that might potentially have fallen into the hands of the Iranians, or the Russians, or the Chinese, or just hackers, that they begin to operate in a manner that assumes that information has in fact gotten out,” Pompeo said.
On ABC's “This Week” on Sunday, one day before the Iowa caucuses, Clinton claimed ignorance on the sensitivity of the materials and stressed that they weren’t marked.
"There is no classified marked information on those emails sent or received by me," she said, adding that “Republicans are going to continue to use it [to] beat up on me.”
Clinton was pressed in the same ABC interview on her signed 2009 non-disclosure agreement which acknowledged that markings are irrelevant, undercutting her central explanation. The agreement states "classified information is marked or unmarked … including oral communications."
Clinton pointed to her aides, saying: "When you receive information, of course, there has to be some markings, some indication that someone down the chain had thought that this was classified and that was not the case.”
But according to national security legal experts, security clearance holders are required to speak up when classified information is not in secure channels.
"Everybody who has a security clearance has an individual obligation to protect the information," said national security attorney Edward MacMahon Jr., who represented former CIA officer Jeffrey Sterling in the high-profile leak investigation regarding a New York Times reporter. "Just because somebody sends it to you … you can't just turn a blind eye and pretend it never happened and pretend it's unclassified information."
These rules, known as the Code of Federal Regulations, apply to U.S. government employees with security clearances and state there is an obligation to report any possible breach by both the sender and the receiver of the information. The rules state: "Any person who has knowledge that classified information has been or may have been lost, possibly compromised or disclosed to an unauthorized person shall immediately report the circumstances to an official designated for this purpose."
The Clinton campaign is now calling for the 22 “TOP SECRET” emails to be released, but this is not entirely the State Department's call since the intelligence came from other agencies, which have final say on classification and handling.
"The State Department has no authority to release those emails and I do think that Secretary Clinton most assuredly knows that," Pompeo said.
Meanwhile, the release of other emails has revealed more about the high-level exchange of classified information on personal accounts. Among the latest batch of emails released by the State Department is an exchange between Clinton and then-Sen. John Kerry, now secretary of state. Sections are fully redacted, citing classified information – and both Kerry and Clinton were using unsecured, personal accounts.
Further, a 2009 email released to Judicial Watch after a federal lawsuit -- and first reported by Fox News -- suggests the State Department 's senior manager Patrick Kennedy was trying to make it easier for Clinton to check her personal email at work, writing to Clinton aide Cheryl Mills a "stand-alone separate network PC is ... [one] great idea."
"The emails show that the top administrator at the State Department, Patrick Kennedy, who is still there overseeing the response to all the inquiries about Hillary Clinton, was in on Hillary Clinton's separate email network and system from the get-go," Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said.
Kennedy is expected to testify this month before the Republican-led Benghazi Select Committee.
Catherine Herridge is an award-winning Chief Intelligence correspondent for FOX News Channel (FNC) based in Washington, D.C. She covers intelligence, the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security. Herridge joined FNC in 1996 as a London-based correspondent.
Pamela K. Browne is Senior Executive Producer at the FOX News Channel (FNC) and is Director of Long-Form Series and Specials. Her journalism has been recognized with several awards. Browne first joined FOX in 1997 to launch the news magazine “Fox Files” and later, “War Stories.” | 0fake |
Ben Carson Mistakenly Makes The Case NOT To Vote For Trump While On The Daily Show (VIDEO) | After dropping out of the Republican presidential race, Dr. Ben Carson made the quick shift to endorse Donald Trump. He insists that Trump is the best person for the job, besides himself of course, because he s an outsider who will supposedly get us away from the status quo. However, upon his recent visit to The Daily Show, Carson just made a perfect case against voting for Trump.Daily Show host Trevor Noah wasted absolutely no time in getting to the pressing question of why Carson chose to endorse Trump, saying the neurosurgeon must think he can only be president for four years, so it can t be that bad. Carson s response was actually a far worse reason that Noah s joke, he said: What I actually said is that would be the worst-case scenario. Which left the audience not knowing whether to laugh or cry, and the sound that emanated from the crowd indicated it was probably a hybrid of the two.Yet, after discussing the supposed two different versions of Trump that exist, Carson said something that could make people stop and think twice before casting their ballot for Trump, because it s clear that Carson s vision of and for America is very different from that of the Republican front-runner s. He said: We are the child of every other nation, so we should have the welfare of every other nation at heart and conduct ourselves in a very different way. And if we can learn from them and we can conduct ourselves in a way that demonstrates compassion towards others, I believe that it can be a dawning of a new world. To which Noah responded as we all likely would with, I hope Donald Trump is watching this show, because that is certainly a message of inclusiveness that needs to be heard, and a far step away from the divisive, xenophobic rhetoric that Trump has been touting daily.It looks as though Carson may want to rethink who he s throwing his support behind.Watch the whole segment here:Featured image via video screen capture | 1real |
Kushner met with special counsel Mueller in Russia probe: CNN | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, met with Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team earlier this month as part of its Russia probe, CNN reported on Wednesday, citing two people familiar with the meeting. Former White House national security adviser Michael Flynn was the prime topic of the conversation between Kushner and Mueller’s team, CNN said, citing one of the sources. Flynn, who resigned in February after misleading Vice President Mike Pence about his conversations with a Russian diplomat, is under investigation by Mueller’s team, which is looking into possible collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign in last year’s presidential election. The nature of the questioning was principally to make sure Kushner did not have information that exonerated Flynn, CNN said, citing one source. Kushner spoke with Mueller’s team for less than 90 minutes, CNN said. “Mr. Kushner has voluntarily cooperated with all relevant inquiries and will continue to do so,” Abbe Lowell, Kushner’s lawyer, told Reuters. Lawyers for Flynn have halted communications with Trump’s legal team, a potentially critical step in Mueller’s probe, sources familiar with the investigation said on Friday. Flynn’s lawyer, Robert Kelner, called John Dowd, Trump’s private lawyer, last week to say the matter had reached a point where the two could no longer could discuss it, two people familiar with the call told Reuters. It was not clear whether Kelner made the call because he had negotiated a plea agreement with Mueller for Flynn to cooperate in the probe, or because Flynn had decided to engage with Mueller, said two other sources. The probe has dogged the White House since January, when U.S. intelligence agencies concluded that Russia interfered in the election to try to help Trump defeat Democrat Hillary Clinton by hacking and releasing embarrassing emails and disseminating propaganda via social media to discredit her. Russia has denied interfering in the U.S. election and Trump has said there was no collusion. | 0fake |
NATIONAL BORDER PATROL UNION Gives First Time Ever Endorsement: “You Can Judge a Man By His Opponents” | Our most pressing issue is border control and terrorism. If you ve been paying attention to the border issues, you know we have basically had open borders during the Obama presidency. We ve become a global magnet for ANYONE to come across our border. Who knows how many terrorists and violent gang members have crossed our border. The bottom line is that the American taxpayer should NEVER have to pay for the people coming across and should not be put at risk. This is a safety issue and a financial issue! We need big changes and we need them fast. The Republican party and the Republicans in charge now have done NOTHING to fix this problem. Does this tell you anything? We need to clean house and elect people who will put AMERICA FIRST! The NBPC has had a longstanding practice of not endorsing presidential candidates in the primaries. Via the National Border Patrol website:The National Border Patrol Council is the official organization representing our nation s Border Patrol Agents. We represent 16,500 agents who selflessly serve this country in an environment where our own political leaders try to keep us from doing our jobs.The NBPC has had a longstanding practice of not endorsing presidential candidates in the primaries. We will not, however, shy away from voicing our opinions as it pertains to border security and the men and women of the United States Border Patrol. As such, we are breaking with our past practice and giving our first-ever endorsement in a presidential primary. We think it is that important: if we do not secure our borders, American communities will continue to suffer at the hands of gangs, cartels and violent criminals preying on the innocent. The lives and security of the American people are at stake, and the National Border Patrol Council will not sit on the sidelines.As an organization we expect our elected officials to aggressively pursue the interests of the country. America has already tried a young, articulate freshman senator who never created a job as an attorney and under whose watch criminal cartels have been given the freest border reign ever known.Unlike his opponents, Donald Trump is not a career politician, he is an outsider who has created thousands of jobs, pledged to bring about aggressive pro-American change, and who is completely independent of special interests. We don t need a person who has the perfect Washington-approved tone, and certainly NOT another establishment politician in the W.H. Indeed, the fact that people are more upset about Mr. Trump s tone than about the destruction wrought by open borders tells us everything we need to know about the corruption in Washington.We need a person in the White House who doesn t fear the media, who doesn t embrace political correctness, who doesn t need the money, who is familiar with success, who won t bow to foreign dictators, who is pro-military and values law enforcement, and who is angry for America and NOT subservient to the interests of other nations. Donald Trump is such a man.Mr. Trump is as bold and outspoken as other world leaders who put their country s interests ahead of all else. Americans deserve to benefit for once instead of always paying and apologizing. Our current political establishment has bled this country dry, sees their power evaporating, and isn t listening to voters who do all the heavy lifting. Trump is opposed by the established powers specifically because they know he is the only candidate who actually threatens the established powers that have betrayed this country.You can judge a man by his opponents: all the people responsible for the problems plaguing America today are opposing Mr. Trump. It is those without political power the workers, the law enforcement officers, the everyday families and community members who are supporting Mr. Trump.Via: Gateway Pundit | 1real |
The Dollar Is On Its Way Out – Gold Backed Currency Next? | Rory Hall | “It’s no secret the dollar is on its way out” as China is accumulating MASSIVE amounts of gold …for one very specific reason. How will a competing gold-backed currency impact the value of the dollar?
Rory Hall from The Daily Coin joined Silver Doctors for an exclusive interview. . Hall believes price manipulators are losing control of the gold and silver markets.
When it comes to investing in precious metals, Hall says “stay away from paper…If you don’t hold it you don’t own it.”
Hall also discusses how China is accumulating massive amounts of gold. What do they plan to do with the shiny metal? Hall predicts China will issue a gold-backed currency or bond .
How will a competing gold-backed currency impact the value of the dollar? “It’s no secret the dollar is on its way out,” he says.
The economy is not on the road to recovery, Hall says. The Fed, European Central Bank, and Bank of Japan are holding together a failed system by papering over the cracks in the system without fixing the fundamental problems. Hall believes the Powers that Be cannot hold the system together much longer.
Stay tuned to hear Hall’s opinion on how to prepare for the coming collapse! | 1real |
Iraq's Kurdistan region delays elections | BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Elections for Iraq s Kurdistan region s presidency and parliament set for Nov. 1 will be delayed because political parties failed to present candidates, the head of the electoral commission Hendrean Mohammed told Reuters on Monday. Parties have been unable to focus on the elections because of turmoil that followed a referendum on Sept. 25 on Kurdish independence, a Kurdish MP said on condition of anonymity. Authorities in Baghdad as well as neighbors Iran and Turkey opposed the referendum that saw a clear independence majority. Last week, Iraqi forces captured the oil city of Kirkuk and other territory claimed by the Kurds in retaliation for the referendum, dealing a severe blow to Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) President Masoud Barzani. The Kurdish electoral commission s Mohammed, speaking by phone from the KRG capital Erbil, in northern Iraq, said it is up to the Kurdistan region s parliament to fix a new date for the elections. The deadline to present candidates expired last week and was extended until Monday. The current KRG presidency, held by Barzani since 2005, and parliament, elected in 2013, are expected to continue until new votes are held, he said. The loss of Kirkuk prompted calls from Gorran, the main opposition party to Barzani, for his resignation. Gorran, or the Change Movement, supports the right of Iraq s Kurds for self-determination but it opposed holding the referendum on Sept. 25, saying the timing was ill-chosen. | 0fake |
Israeli police resume interview of Netanyahu in corruption probe | JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli police officers on Sunday questioned Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the sixth time in a corruption probe, a police spokeswoman said. Investigators arrived by car in late afternoon to Netanyahu s official residence in Jerusalem where past interrogations have taken place, and disappeared behind security gates. Police said Netanyahu was questioned for several hours at his residence in an ongoing fraud investigation under the oversight of the state attorney, the country s chief prosecutor, and with the authorisation of the attorney-general. No charges have been brought against Netanyahu, who has been in power since 2009 and has denied wrongdoing. He is a suspect in two cases, one involving the receipt of gifts from businessmen and the other related to alleged conversations he held with an Israeli newspaper publisher about limiting competition in the news sector in exchange for more positive coverage. Police said earlier this month that a top Netanyahu confidant had been questioned as part of a different investigation into a $2 billion submarine deal with Germany. | 0fake |
US Secret Service Struggles To Find Recruits Who Haven’t Used Adderall | Via TrueActivist SPONSORED LINKS
The US Secret Service, under pressure due to unprecedented demand and recent controversies, has been carrying out its most ambitious recruiting campaign in over a decade, looking to find over 1,000 qualified agents and other personnel within the next year. The agency has had no problem finding interested people as around 27,000 have responded to the agency’s various calls for applications since 2015. However, the major problem the agency is facing is the high number of recruits who have abused prescription drugs, mostly Adderall and other amphetamines they took while in college. As a result, only 300 of those 27,000 have received an offer for employment from the agency, complicating the Secret Service’s recruitment goals.
All candidates looking for positions with the Secret Service are put through an extensive vetting process, including a series of personal interviews and a polygraph test. Previously, it was normally the polygraph test that doomed the largest percentage of would-be agents, but now it appears that amphetamine/Adderall use has taken its place. Any use of any drug in an illegal way is grounds for immediate expulsion from the hiring process. Susan Goggin, the Chief Recruiting Officer of the US Secret Service said: “It is definitely a struggle with this generation. Adderall is a huge, huge issue.” Indeed, Adderall’s use among college students is becoming increasingly common. The latest federal data shows that Adderall’s recreational use has increased by nearly 67% in the last ten years and is now being prescribed at a rate 30 times higher than it was two decades ago.
Another part of the problem appears to be that many candidates are unaware that their past use of Adderall and other prescription drugs is something that could have negative consequences for them, largely becase the stigma behind its use is not as clear cut as it is for other illicit substances, like marijuana and cocaine. Many college students also do not view their use of Adderall as dangerous or even wrong as they are taking it for the “right reasons” – to be more productive in class and manage a high workload. However, in the eyes of the federal government, Adderall and other amphetamines are classified as Schedule II drugs and the reasons for its use are irrelevant.
Interestingly, this is not the first time that a federal agency has run into this type of problem. In 2014, FBI Director James Comey admitted that hiring hackers was becoming more difficult as many hackers had previously used marijuana recreationally, a concern also echoed by the Justice Department. This same issue also evenutally led US Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter to announce this September that the Pentagon would be open to hiring individuals that had experimented with marijuana in the past. Will the Secret Service soon be forced to change its policy on Adderall as its use continues to skyrocket? Or is it more of a sign that the War on Drugs is laughably out-dated? | 1real |
WATCH: NAVY VET Declines Award At New Orleans Saints Game Because Of Disrespectful Players Who Continue To Kneel During Anthem | One courageous Navy vet has had enough of the disrespectful NFL players who kneel during the national anthem. Although it would be a great honor for the vet to receive an award, he put standing up for and defending our flag before being recognized for his service. Good for him A disabled Navy veteran said he declined to accept an award at a New Orleans Saints game due to the controversy over players protesting during the national anthem.The Saints organization was going to honor retired Cmdr. John Wells, the executive director of Military Veterans Advocacy, with the Peoples Health Champion award during last week s game in New Orleans, according to The Advocate.On Wednesday he told the organization he was unable to accept the award at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome because of the anthem protests. Saints players have been seen kneeling before the anthem and some continue to do so during the national anthem. Although I am touched and honored to be selected for such an award, the ongoing controversy with NFL players disrespect for the national flag forces me to decline to participate in the presentation, Wells said. I am unable, in good conscience, to enter an NFL stadium while this discourtesy prevails. Since this award is tainted with the dishonorable actions of the NFL and its players, I cannot accept it. Wells served in the Navy from 1972 to 1994 and afterward became an attorney concentrating in military and veterans law, according to the New Orleans Times-Picayune. He was set to receive the award given by Medicare to senior citizens who have made significant accomplishments.The Saints said in a statement Thursday that they were disappointed by Wells decision. FOX News | 1real |
Why You Will Marry the Wrong Person - The New York Times | IT’S one of the things we are most afraid might happen to us. We go to great lengths to avoid it. And yet we do it all the same: We marry the wrong person. Partly, it’s because we have a bewildering array of problems that emerge when we try to get close to others. We seem normal only to those who don’t know us very well. In a wiser, more society than our own, a standard question on any early dinner date would be: “And how are you crazy?” Perhaps we have a latent tendency to get furious when someone disagrees with us or can relax only when we are working perhaps we’re tricky about intimacy after sex or clam up in response to humiliation. Nobody’s perfect. The problem is that before marriage, we rarely delve into our complexities. Whenever casual relationships threaten to reveal our flaws, we blame our partners and call it a day. As for our friends, they don’t care enough to do the hard work of enlightening us. One of the privileges of being on our own is therefore the sincere impression that we are really quite easy to live with. Our partners are no more . Naturally, we make a stab at trying to understand them. We visit their families. We look at their photos, we meet their college friends. All this contributes to a sense that we’ve done our homework. We haven’t. Marriage ends up as a hopeful, generous, infinitely kind gamble taken by two people who don’t know yet who they are or who the other might be, binding themselves to a future they cannot conceive of and have carefully avoided investigating. For most of recorded history, people married for logical sorts of reasons: because her parcel of land adjoined yours, his family had a flourishing business, her father was the magistrate in town, there was a castle to keep up, or both sets of parents subscribed to the same interpretation of a holy text. And from such reasonable marriages, there flowed loneliness, infidelity, abuse, hardness of heart and screams heard through the nursery doors. The marriage of reason was not, in hindsight, reasonable at all it was often expedient, snobbish and exploitative. That is why what has replaced it — the marriage of feeling — has largely been spared the need to account for itself. What matters in the marriage of feeling is that two people are drawn to each other by an overwhelming instinct and know in their hearts that it is right. Indeed, the more imprudent a marriage appears (perhaps it’s been only six months since they met one of them has no job or both are barely out of their teens) the safer it can feel. Recklessness is taken as a counterweight to all the errors of reason, that catalyst of misery, that accountant’s demand. The prestige of instinct is the traumatized reaction against too many centuries of unreasonable reason. But though we believe ourselves to be seeking happiness in marriage, it isn’t that simple. What we really seek is familiarity — which may well complicate any plans we might have had for happiness. We are looking to recreate, within our adult relationships, the feelings we knew so well in childhood. The love most of us will have tasted early on was often confused with other, more destructive dynamics: feelings of wanting to help an adult who was out of control, of being deprived of a parent’s warmth or scared of his anger, of not feeling secure enough to communicate our wishes. How logical, then, that we should as find ourselves rejecting certain candidates for marriage not because they are wrong but because they are too right — too balanced, mature, understanding and reliable — given that in our hearts, such rightness feels foreign. We marry the wrong people because we don’t associate being loved with feeling happy. We make mistakes, too, because we are so lonely. No one can be in an optimal frame of mind to choose a partner when remaining single feels unbearable. We have to be wholly at peace with the prospect of many years of solitude in order to be appropriately picky otherwise, we risk loving no longer being single rather more than we love the partner who spared us that fate. Finally, we marry to make a nice feeling permanent. We imagine that marriage will help us to bottle the joy we felt when the thought of proposing first came to us: Perhaps we were in Venice, on the lagoon, in a motorboat, with the evening sun throwing glitter across the sea, chatting about aspects of our souls no one ever seemed to have grasped before, with the prospect of dinner in a risotto place a little later. We married to make such sensations permanent but failed to see that there was no solid connection between these feelings and the institution of marriage. Indeed, marriage tends decisively to move us onto another, very different and more administrative plane, which perhaps unfolds in a suburban house, with a long commute and maddening children who kill the passion from which they emerged. The only ingredient in common is the partner. And that might have been the wrong ingredient to bottle. The good news is that it doesn’t matter if we find we have married the wrong person. We mustn’t abandon him or her, only the founding Romantic idea upon which the Western understanding of marriage has been based the last 250 years: that a perfect being exists who can meet all our needs and satisfy our every yearning. We need to swap the Romantic view for a tragic (and at points comedic) awareness that every human will frustrate, anger, annoy, madden and disappoint us — and we will (without any malice) do the same to them. There can be no end to our sense of emptiness and incompleteness. But none of this is unusual or grounds for divorce. Choosing whom to commit ourselves to is merely a case of identifying which particular variety of suffering we would most like to sacrifice ourselves for. This philosophy of pessimism offers a solution to a lot of distress and agitation around marriage. It might sound odd, but pessimism relieves the excessive imaginative pressure that our romantic culture places upon marriage. The failure of one particular partner to save us from our grief and melancholy is not an argument against that person and no sign that a union deserves to fail or be upgraded. The person who is best suited to us is not the person who shares our every taste (he or she doesn’t exist) but the person who can negotiate differences in taste intelligently — the person who is good at disagreement. Rather than some notional idea of perfect complementarity, it is the capacity to tolerate differences with generosity that is the true marker of the “not overly wrong” person. Compatibility is an achievement of love it must not be its precondition. Romanticism has been unhelpful to us it is a harsh philosophy. It has made a lot of what we go through in marriage seem exceptional and appalling. We end up lonely and convinced that our union, with its imperfections, is not “normal. ” We should learn to accommodate ourselves to “wrongness,” striving always to adopt a more forgiving, humorous and kindly perspective on its multiple examples in ourselves and in our partners. | 0fake |
Civil liberties groups sue U.S., seek details on travel ban | BOSTON (Reuters) - Civil liberties groups on Wednesday said they were filing a series of lawsuits against the U.S. government seeking details on how federal agencies enforced President Donald Trump’s ban on travelers from seven Muslim-majority countries. The lawsuits were filed by local chapters of the American Civil Liberties Union against U.S. Customs and Border Protection and the Department of Homeland Security and cover their operations in 14 cities stretching from Portland, Maine, to San Diego. The suits are an attempt to enforce requests filed under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) just days after Trump signed his first executive order limiting travel. That Jan. 27 order, intended to fulfill a campaign promise to take a tough stance on immigration, first temporarily barred travelers from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. The order, which also temporarily barred refugees, led to a weekend of chaos at U.S. airports with travelers barred from entering the country upon landing while thousands of people turned out to protest the measures. A federal judge ordered a halt to enforcement of that ban and Trump followed up in March with a less-sweeping order that did not limit travelers from Iraq, but which has also been challenged in courts. Opponents said the orders violated the U.S. constitution’s prohibitions on religious discrimination, citing Trump’s campaign promises to impose a “Muslim ban.” The Trump administration said the restrictions are legal and are necessary to protect U.S. national security. The suits, filed in federal courts, seek disclosure of how many people have been detained or subjected to additional screening since the first executive order as well as the guidance that was provided to DHS staff about how to enforce the order. “Customs and Border Protection has a long, rich history of ignoring its obligations under the Freedom of Information Act and so these lawsuits are an effort to enforce its obligations,” said Zachary Heiden, legal director at the ACLU of Maine, in a phone interview. He noted that the ACLU filed its FOIA requests for information on Feb. 2. Officials at CBP and DHS did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the suits. In addition to Portland and San Diego, the suits cover CBP operations in Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Detroit, Houston, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Tucson, Miami and Tampa. One suit filed in Florida covers the two cities in that state. | 0fake |
Family DNA Searches Seen as Crime-Solving Tool, and Intrusion on Rights - The New York Times | The leads have dried up in the killing of a young woman in Queens during a jog last summer. Tips about potential suspects have gone nowhere. A reward has failed to bear fruit, even as it has swelled to over $280, 000. And the samples of a stranger’s DNA found on the hands, throat and cellphone of the jogger, Karina Vetrano, 30, did not match those in national offender databases. But the authorities say that the recovered DNA could hold the key to solving the case if state officials authorize what is called familial searching, which allows investigators to search criminal databases to identify likely relatives of the offender. The technique, which has been used more than a dozen times in the United States over the last 10 years, represents a frontier in the evolving world of forensic science. While some methods, like microscopic hair testing and matching, have been challenged in recent years, DNA testing remains a staple of forensic investigation, used to both identify suspects and exonerate the wrongfully convicted. Familial searching allows investigators to search offender databases with wider parameters to identify people who are likely to be close relatives of the person who may have committed a crime. Law enforcement officials say a hit in the database is less a piece of evidence than it is a lead, and such matches have helped solve some heinous crimes in states where the practice has been authorized. But the method raises some complicated ethical issues that have trailed the expansion of DNA technology since its introduction. And as the collection of DNA grows in the private sector, so do the concerns about its potential misuse, particularly in the hands of government institutions. Problems at some laboratories, including the New York City medical examiner’s office, have highlighted how DNA evidence is not immune from human error. A 2013 review of more than 800 rape cases processed by the medical examiner’s office found that DNA evidence was mishandled in dozens of cases. In the case of Ms. Vetrano, who the police say was sexually assaulted and strangled, lack of progress led Richard A. Brown, the Queens district attorney, to push for familial searching. “The Police Department reached a point where they exhausted all their leads. And they came to us and said in essence, ‘What else can we possibly do? ’” Mr. Brown said in an interview. Mr. Brown and two of his deputies, Eric Rosenbaum and Robert J. Masters, said that Ms. Vetrano’s case presented an ideal situation for using familial searching, in part because of what they say is the high likelihood that the DNA is from the perpetrator. “It is a stranger rape case,” Mr. Masters said. “In the annals of law enforcement, there are few fact patterns that are more frightening. ” The New York State Commission on Forensic Science, a panel appointed by the governor to develop standards for forensic laboratories, and its DNA subcommittee will hold a meeting next month on whether to authorize the technique. Familial DNA searching was pioneered in Britain, helping in 2002 in what was believed to be the first conviction using the technique. In 2008, California became the first state in the country to authorize the testing, and Colorado followed a year later. It has now been used in at least eight other states. California has solved seven cases using familial searching, a spokeswoman for the state’s Justice Department said. One was the Grim Sleeper case in Los Angeles. A serial killer preyed on vulnerable women and eluded identification for decades until investigators matched crime scene DNA to the killer’s son, whose DNA was in an offender database. “You’ve got a serial murderer or rapist in your community — you sit on your hands and wait for him to get in your database or do you try something?” said Mitchell R. Morrissey, an early proponent of the testing and a former district attorney in Denver. In New York, efforts to authorize such testing through the Legislature went nowhere several years ago. A compromise that allowed the authorities to use partial DNA matches automatically generated in the course of routine investigations has proved ineffective. But Ms. Vetrano’s case — along with the public pleas of her father, Philip, and his work with the Police Department and elected officials — has the push for familial searching. Critics of the technique say that regardless of its potential for success, it expands the use of DNA databases beyond their original intent. They fault it for allowing for searches of people who happen to be related to someone who has committed a crime, and say that given the composition of the offender databases, familial searching disproportionately affects blacks and Hispanics. “You’re creating a database of suspects largely defined by their race and class,” said Stephen Mercer, the chief attorney of the forensics division of the public defender’s office in Maryland, which outlawed the technique in 2008 in the face of these concerns. “That is just so fundamentally against our core values. ” The District of Columbia has also prohibited these searches. Leads provided by familial DNA have resulted in errors. A filmmaker in New Orleans was told that he was a suspect in a murder in Idaho based on a DNA sample given by his father years earlier as part of a genealogy project. Ancestry. com, which had purchased the database from a nonprofit that had collected the DNA, was required by a court order to identify the man to the police. The man was cleared after his DNA — which he gave under a court order — was tested. Since then, Ancestry. com has made the database private and has not received any other requests from law enforcement officials for health or genetic information about an Ancestry member, a spokesman for the company said. The spokesman, Brandon Borrman, said the company would comply with such a request only if legally required. Proponents of the technique said the filmmaker’s case could have been handled differently DNA samples of potential suspects can be retrieved surreptitiously, from a discarded soda can, for example. But in some cases, that hasn’t been a ready option. Investigators chasing the BTK serial killer in Wichita, Kan. compelled a hospital to turn over a sample of the suspect’s daughter’s DNA she had recently undergone a Pap test. That sample allowed the police to acquire an arrest warrant for the man, Dennis Rader. Mr. Rader later was sentenced to more than 170 years in prison after pleading guilty to 10 counts of murder. The legal implications of familial testing, namely whether it is limited by the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition of unreasonable searches or the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause, have not been tested in the courts, Erin E. Murphy, a law professor at New York University, said. She said the logic that law enforcement officials rely on to support familial testing should, by extension, support the testing of other government databases, which include repositories of DNA from members of the military, forensic personnel and crime victims. But such testing would most likely face wider opposition. “Familial searching is just an around these debates,” said Professor Murphy, the author of “Inside the Cell: The Dark Side of Forensic DNA. ” “You shouldn’t have fewer civil rights because you’re related to someone who broke the law. ” A spokesman for Mr. Brown, the Queens district attorney, said it would be premature to answer questions about whether the office would seek to search other databases. If the DNA subcommittee and the New York State forensic commission vote to approve familial searching after the meeting on Feb. 10, a period for public comment will follow. The Legal Aid Society and the New York Civil Liberties Union have both filed memos with the commission that question the method’s constitutionality as well as the commission’s authority to weigh in on the matter. Many law enforcement officials around the state said that any in civil liberties were minor compared with the potential to solve some particularly difficult cases. “Invasion of privacy is basically what law enforcement does. We do it legally. We do it with warrants, court orders,” William J. Fitzpatrick, the Onondaga County district attorney and a proponent of the technique, said. Mr. Fitzpatrick, who is a member of the state forensic commission, compared the method to a tip from an informant. “You’re telling me that if I have a scientific piece of evidence that shows me a perpetrator’s son is in prison — what’s a better lead?” In New York City, the police commissioner, James P. O’Neill, and the district attorneys from Brooklyn, the Bronx, Manhattan and Staten Island, support authorizing the method. Mr. Vetrano acknowledges that the testing may not lead to his daughter’s killer, but he said he would continue to advocate its use. “This would have been left as a dead issue unless I started making waves,” he said. “I’m the squeaky wheel and I will never ever stop. ” | 0fake |
Virginia Trump Supporter Patrols Polling Place With Gun And Cops Say They Are Okay With That | A Trump supporter in Loudoun County, Virginia, spent his Friday patrolling a polling place while armed with a gun. Go figure, the cops are perfectly okay with that.Erika Cotti says she came across him while she was trying to vote at the county registrar s office. I had my 9-year-old son with me. I felt intimidated, Cotti said. And I had to explain to my 9-year-old why a man with a 357 magnum is standing outside the polling station. The man then tried to get her to take a sample of the Republican ballot, but she refused it. He s like, Who are you going to vote for, crooked Hillary? And I was like, that s really none of your business, Cotti said.According to Loudoun County registrar Judy Brown, there was indeed a man strutting around with a gun strapped to his hip who was handing out GOP propaganda in front of her office. However, police said that since Virginia is an open carry state, it is perfectly legal for him to do so. There is a gentleman standing outside the office with a holstered gun, Brown said. According to law enforcement, because Virginia is open carry, he s allowed to have it. Brown said that even though the man was obviously packing heat, he was being nice to people and didn t violate the 40-foot no-canvassing zone in front of the entrance to the building. They said that there s nothing they could do, that he was well within his rights to be carrying his weapon, Brown said.Brown decided to get in touch with the state Republican Party. Their answer was to get the guy to pull his Trump shirt over the gun on his side so that it wasn t clearly visible. Out of sight, out of mind, right? Hopefully nobody else will be concerned about him, Brown said.Loudoun County Republican Committee Chairman Will Estrada said that the man has military and law enforcement experience, as well as a concealed carry permit. We don t want to startle anyone, Estrada said he told him. He felt really bad, he pulled his T-shirt over it, and I think everything was fine after that. Estrada also said that he does not support the idea of banning volunteers from carrying firearms. It s a free country, Estrada said. I m a NRA life member myself. So long as no laws are being broken, I m not going to tell someone they can t. But I ve told all of our volunteers that we re here for our candidates, we don t want us to become the story. Cotti, who has been involved in political activism, said she gets that Virginia is an open-carry state but still doesn t think it should be acceptable to have random people blocking the entrances to polling places with guns. We re an open carry state, I get that. But he s wearing a huge Trump t-shirt, he has a huge gun, and he was obstructing my exit on public property, Cotti said. That s insane to me. Featured image via Twitter | 1real |
Lawyer Says Ex-Aide and Christie Spoke of Bridge Plot Beforehand - The New York Times | NEWARK — Bridget Anne Kelly discussed the George Washington Bridge lane closings with her boss, Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, before they happened in September 2013, her lawyer asserted in federal court here on Tuesday. She also discussed them with him the week they were happening. The lawyer, Michael Critchley, did not elaborate on his cryptic claims, which he made while questioning a prosecution witness. Testimony in the trial has shown that in the months after the lane closings, several of Mr. Christie’s top advisers had told him that Ms. Kelly, his former deputy chief of staff, had emails about the closings. Those people included his chief of staff, chief counsel, press secretary, chief political adviser and an aide he had tapped to lead the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which runs the bridge. Yet Mr. Christie, a Republican, convened a staff meeting in December 2013 and angrily demanded to know if anyone had knowledge or emails about the closings. An hour later, he held a news conference where he said he was certain that none of his staff members had any knowledge of or had been involved in the scheme. When emails with Ms. Kelly’s name appeared as a result of a legislative subpoena a month later, Mr. Christie held another news conference and declared that she had lied to him. It was, Mr. Critchley said in court on Tuesday, a “sham. ” According to testimony in federal court here, where Ms. Kelly and another former Christie aide, Bill Baroni, are on trial for authorizing the lane closings and then covering them up, the governor’s office was not much concerned about finding the truth about the shutdown in the months after they took place. Instead, the governor and his aides, keenly aware of Mr. Christie’s presidential ambitions and how a scandal could damage them, were more worried about keeping any evidence implicating his office hidden. a former top Christie aide, Mr. Critchley offered tantalizing clues as to what Ms. Kelly may say on the stand about what Mr. Christie knew about the closings, which prosecutors say were meant to punish the mayor of Fort Lee, N. J. for refusing to endorse the governor’s . Mr. Critchley asked the witness, Deborah Gramiccioni, who in 2013 was the governor’s deputy chief of staff for policy, if she recalled a lunch that she, Ms. Kelly and Mr. Christie had in August that year, on the day Ms. Kelly sent her email: “Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee. ” No one — not prosecutors, nor David Wildstein, the Port Authority executive who received the email and ordered the lanes closed and is now the prosecution’s star witness — has ever explained why Ms. Kelly would have sent the email that day when the mayor had said months earlier that he would not endorse Mr. Christie. Ms. Gramiccioni did not recall what was discussed that day. Ms. Kelly, who has never publicly given her account, is expected to testify this month. Her lawyers have argued that virtually the entire governor’s office knew about the closings and that she has been made a scapegoat. Mr. Wildstein, who has pleaded guilty to his role in the lane closings, has already testified that he told the governor about them as they were happening. Ms. Gramiccioni testified she first heard that Ms. Kelly was looped into emails about the lane closings in December 2013, from Mr. Baroni, Mr. Christie’s top staff appointee at the Port Authority, and that the governor had asked Ms. Gramiccioni to succeed Mr. Baroni. Ms. Gramiccioni said she shared the information with Charles McKenna, the governor’s chief counsel, who told her he had heard “something about that. ” But under she said Mr. McKenna did not mention that he had heard the same thing nearly two months earlier from Mr. Christie’s press secretary, Michael Drewniak, and had asked Ms. Kelly about it at the time. Ms. Gramiccioni said that she then told Mr. Christie’s chief of staff, Kevin O’Dowd, about what Mr. Baroni had said about the emails involving Ms. Kelly, and that Mr. O’Dowd said he would talk to Mr. Baroni about it. Mr. Critchley pressed her: Did Mr. O’Dowd tell her that he had discussed the same subject with Mr. Christie and Mr. Drewniak a week earlier? Did he tell her he had already had a talk with Ms. Kelly earlier that day, asking her to comb through her emails? “He did not,” Ms. Gramiccioni said. Ms. Gramiccioni spoke to Mr. O’Dowd again the next day, Dec. 13, after Mr. Christie’s news conference, to report that she had seen Ms. Kelly in her office and that she seemed upset. Mr. Critchley asked whether Mr. O’Dowd had told her that the governor’s political strategist, Michael DuHaime, had also told him about Ms. Kelly’s emails, and whether Mr. O’Dowd had told her Ms. Kelly had given him emails related to the lane closings. “He did not,” Ms. Gramiccioni said. Ms. Gramiccioni said she told Mr. Christie on Dec. 12 what Mr. Baroni had told her about emails including Ms. Kelly about the lane closings. Mr. Critchley asked if the governor had informed her that Mr. DuHaime had told him the same thing the previous day. “I did not know that, nor did anyone tell me that,” she said. On Dec. 13, Mr. Christie held his staff meeting, speaking in what Ms. Gramiccioni called a “thunderous” voice, telling his senior staff members that he would hold a news conference, and that “if we had any emails or any information about the lane closure, that we had one hour to get that information or those emails to Kevin or Charlie,” she testified, referring to Mr. O’Dowd and Mr. McKenna. “Did you know he was lying? All that sound and fury was just made up?” Mr. Critchley asked, prompting an objection from the prosecution. “Did he say, ‘the confessionals are open’?” Mr. Critchley asked. “Language like that,” Ms. Gramiccioni said. “Did you see the governor walk into one of those confessionals?” Mr. Critchley asked. The prosecution objected again. “Did you ever ask them, ‘Did anyone ever go talk to Bridget Kelly and ask her what she knows about the lane closures? ’” Mr. Critchley asked. Ms. Gramiccioni said she had not. And how long would it take for Mr. O’Dowd to walk from his office to Ms. Kelly’s, he asked her. “A couple of seconds,” Ms. Gramiccioni replied. | 0fake |
Explosion in St. Petersburg, Russia, Kills 11 as Vladimir Putin Visits - The New York Times | ST. PETERSBURG, Russia — It was 2:40 p. m. on Monday, a lull before the evening rush hour in Russia’s city, St. Petersburg, where the subway normally carries two million people a day. The train had just entered a tunnel between stations, on its way out of a sprawling downtown hub, when the bomb exploded. The homemade device, filled with shrapnel, tore through the third car. It killed 11 people wounded more than 40, including children and spread bloody mayhem as the train limped into the Technology Institute station with smoke filling the air. Videos circulating on social media showed long red streaks across the white floor as the injured were dragged from the car. With the doors damaged, some people smashed windows to get out. “What a nightmare!” somebody yelled amid piercing screams. With the attack, Russia once again appeared to have found itself a target of terrorism, shattering a respite in its main urban centers. Law enforcement agencies initially said they were seeking two people suspected of planting explosive devices, according to Russian news reports, but later indicated that the attack might have been carried out by a suicide bomber from a militant Islamic group. There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but speculation turned toward militants from southern Russia, who fled the law enforcement policy in Chechnya and elsewhere in the Caucasus, joined the Islamic State by the thousands and have repeatedly threatened attacks. President Vladimir V. Putin sent the Russian military to Syria in September 2015 in order, he said then, to battle militants on their own turf before they could strike in Russia. In a nod to that possibility — a potential political setback — Mr. Putin, who was in St. Petersburg for the day, emphasized that terrorists were the likely culprits, although he said investigators were exploring various possibilities. He laid flowers at the site of the explosion and went to the local security headquarters to be briefed on the investigation. The last major terrorist attack in a Russian city was in Volgograd in 2013. “If somebody announces that it is related to the Russian invasion in Syria, it would be a sensitive scenario for Putin, because the Syria campaign would lose support inside Russia,” said Kirill Rogov, a political analyst, while adding that it was too early to connect the attack to Mr. Putin’s Syria policy with any certainty. The dead and wounded had barely been evacuated before the factions in Russia’s heated political sphere began blaming one another. Nationalists and others on the right pointed the finger at the opposition, saying such attacks emerged from the same womb as the street protests on March 26, in which tens of thousands of people marched against government corruption. Opposition figures responded that the security forces, feeling vulnerable, were perfectly capable of provoking a crisis in order to expand their powers of search and seizure. There were also unconfirmed reports that a suicide bomber from Uzbekistan or a neighboring country might have been responsible, unnerving St. Petersburg’s Central Asians. “This will be a stain on us, as though we are criminals,” said Rafael Artikov, a Uzbek, standing in front of a makeshift memorial. “The goal was to frighten us and split us into separate groups,” he added, lamenting that “people look at me as though I am suspicious. ” There was some relief that the attack had not been worse. A larger bomb was found at a nearby station, Vosstaniya Square, but was disarmed, a spokesman for the National Committee, Andrei Przhezdomsky, said on television. That bomb had been disguised as a fire extinguisher. Security was increased in the Moscow Metro system and at major transportation facilities across Russia. The health minister, Veronika Skvortsova, announced live on television that 10 people had died — seven in the subway system, one en route to a hospital and two while they were being admitted to an emergency room — and that 39 had been injured. Some of the wounded were children, she said. Mr. Przhezdomsky appeared on television later with an update that 11 people were dead and 45 wounded. Mikhail Syrovatsky, 20, wrote on VKontakte, a Russian social media network, that he had been ascending the escalator at the Technology Institute station when the blast occurred, followed by urgent calls to evacuate the station and the arrival of ambulances and a helicopter. “Left metro just in time,” he wrote. Mr. Syrovatsky added later, “I was standing on the escalator when some kind of noise started coming from below, then I heard the noise of the coming train. ” People began to scream, he said, and an announcement ordered passengers to evacuate. “Very soon, you could detect the smell of burning, but I didn’t see any smoke,” he said. “I didn’t see what was going on the platform itself. I think everyone thought this was a fire. ” A St. Petersburg transit worker, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he was forbidden to comment to the news media, said the bomb exploded just after the train left the Sennaya Square station but was not powerful enough to derail it. The train limped to a stop at the Technology Institute station with smoke billowing, as passengers broke glass windows to escape and rescue workers smashed open the doors. At the Dzhanelidze Hospital, a large Soviet block of concrete, arriving relatives were whisked into a special room away from the news media. Valery Parfenov, the chief doctor, said at a news conference that many of the victims were dazed. He said six patients were in serious condition and four in very serious condition, including some with skull injuries that would require complex surgery. He held up a ball bearing to show the metal bits extracted from victims. The subway system was shut down for about five hours, and the city declared surface transportation free. Still, as offices let out, the streets clogged with traffic, and sidewalks were jammed with people making the long trek home from work on foot. “I appeal to you, citizens of St. Petersburg and guests of our city, to be alert, attentive and cautious, and to behave in a responsible manner in light of events,” Georgi S. Poltavchenko, the governor of St. Petersburg, said in a statement. He declared a mourning period starting on Tuesday. In a televised statement less than an hour after the explosion, Mr. Putin said he had spoken with the leaders of the special services, including the Federal Security Service, and with law enforcement officials, who he said would “do everything to find out the causes of what had happened. ” Speaking from the Konstantin Palace in the Strelna district of St. Petersburg, about 10 miles west of the blast, he added, “The government, both on the city and federal levels, will do everything to support families of the victims and injured. ” Mr. Putin was in St. Petersburg for a meeting with the president of Belarus — Alexander G. Lukashenko, a traditional ally who has recently feuded with the Kremlin — and to give a speech to the People’s Front, a political group Mr. Putin started. At a joint appearance with Mr. Lukashenko to say they had resolved their differences, he did not mention the attack again. According to a White House statement, President Trump spoke with Mr. Putin on Monday and condemned the “attack” in Russia. Over the years, most terrorist attacks against domestic targets in Russia have been the work of Islamic insurgents. The Islamic State claimed responsibility for a bomb that brought down a Russian airliner in Egypt in October 2015, killing all 224 people on board. Many victims were from St. Petersburg. In December 2013, weeks before the start of the Winter Olympics in Sochi, twin bombings at a train station and on a bus in the southern city of Volgograd killed more than 30 people. And in January 2011, a suicide attack at Domodedovo International Airport near Moscow killed more than three dozen people. The last fatal attack on a subway system in Russia occurred in March 2010, when explosions at two stations in central Moscow killed at least 33 people. Investigators blamed two suicide bombers from the Dagestan region for those attacks, and the leader of the Islamic insurgency in Chechnya, who has since been killed, claimed responsibility. The subway system in Moscow was also struck twice in 2004. In February of that year, a bomb detonated inside a train car as it left the Avtozavodskaya station in southeastern Moscow, killing at least 39 people. That August, a suicide bomber detonated explosives at a station in northern Moscow, killing nine. Mr. Putin, in deploying the Russian military to Syria, said the move was meant to take the fight to Islamic radicals. Once deployed, however, the Russians concentrated more on shoring up the government of President Bashar than on attacking the Islamic State. The Russian militants in Syria have periodically threatened reprisals in Russia. In a video posted on YouTube last July, a masked man driving across a desert landscape growled, “Listen, Putin, we will come to Russia and kill you at your homes. ” | 0fake |
VA Backlog Means Thousands Of Veterans Owed Money In NC | ‹ › Arnaldo Rodgers is a trained and educated Psychologist. He has worked as a community organizer and activist. VA Backlog Means Thousands Of Veterans Owed Money In NC By Arnaldo Rodgers on November 2, 2016 VA
By Faith Abubey
Roughly 7,400 veterans who use the Kernersville, Charlotte and Salisbury Veterans Affairs health care and medical centers are waiting on travel reimbursements, some of which were supposed to have been processed back in July.
UPDATE: As of November 1st, the Salisbury VA offices now say they have begun processing travel vouchers for October. The vouchers will be processed in sequential date order.
The backlog is affecting veterans like Lee, who is reluctant to use his full name because he fears there might be backlash against him for speaking out about the delays.
“I don’t know what kind of adverse action might be taken against me,” the Air Force veteran said. “[The VA employees] have a good job. They’re not rushing. They don’t really care.”
Read the Full Article at www.wfmynews2.com >>>> Related Posts: No Related Posts The views expressed herein are the views of the author exclusively and not necessarily the views of VNN, VNN authors, affiliates, advertisers, sponsors, partners, technicians or the Veterans Today Network and its assigns. Notices Posted by Arnaldo Rodgers on November 2, 2016, With 0 Reads, Filed under Veterans Affairs . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 . You can leave a response or trackback to this entry FaceBook Comments
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Catalonia showdown could unleash new euro crisis: EU lawmaker | BERLIN (Reuters) - Catalonia s moves to seek independence from Spain could unleash a new euro crisis, Manfred Weber, head of the conservative bloc in the European Parliament, said in an interview published on Saturday. Weber told the German newspaper Bild the issue could lead to European wildfire , adding: A new euro crisis also cannot be excluded if the Catalonian regional government continues to escalate the conflict. Weber called for urgent negotiations between the two sides. Catalonia s head of foreign affairs said on Friday the region s parliament would meet on Monday to debate independence, in defiance of a ruling by the country s Constitutional Court. | 0fake |
California Today: Hollywood History vs. ‘Souvenir Junk’ - The New York Times | Good morning. (Want to get California Today by email? Sign up.) Let’s turn it over to Adam Nagourney, our Los Angeles bureau chief, for today’s introduction. For many tourists, Los Angeles is Hollywood. And Hollywood is Hollywood Boulevard, with the Walk of Fame, the celebrity stars in the sidewalk, the Egyptian Theater, and of course, the corner of Hollywood and Vine. But truth be told, for all its history and kitsch, Hollywood Boulevard is also a place of street performers dressed up as hustling passing tourists, impassable sidewalks, street vendors and the occasional crime that draws of attention, to the consternation of civic boosters. Despite all that, Alison Martino, who has popular a Facebook page celebrating old Hollywood, was horrified last week when she came across a photograph that showed souvenir vendor stands had overtaken one of the most venerable attractions on Hollywood Boulevard: the courtyard at the TCL Chinese Theater, where movie stars celebrate their fame by leaving handprints in cement. Ms. Martino posted the photograph with an indignant message to her page, which has over 260, 000 followers. “If you’re looking for the handprints and signatures of Jean Harlow or Lana Turner, they’re covered up with all these carts full of souvenir junk,” she wrote. “How incredibly disrespectful. If Lucy and Ethel were to try and steal John Wayne’s footprints today, they couldn’t even find it!” The reaction was not all negative. Escott O. Norton, the head of the Los Angeles Historical Theatre Foundation, said in his own Facebook post that he did not “see it as the disaster that some are making of it. ” He added, “The owners of the Chinese are very careful with the historic Forecourt and I have met with them specifically about it. ” Nonetheless, it drew a flood of attention. “I’ve never seen, in six years that I’ve run this page, this kind of emotional reaction as I’ve seen to the junk carts on this sacred ground,” Ms. Martino said. “It’s a cemetery. ” By Monday, the vendors had disappeared, presumably asked to move by the Chinese theater. The owners did not respond to a request for comment. It was impossible to determine if this was just a temporary clearance or a permanent new policy. Next up? The street performers. “It’s a freak show,” Ms. Martino said. “Now that we’ve had a victory in the Forecourt, let’s clean up the Hollywood Walk of Fame. ” See reporting in The New York Times on the Nov. 8 ballot initiatives: Proposition 51 (a new school bond) | Proposition 56 (cigarette tax) | Proposition 60 (condoms in adult film) | Propositions 62 and 66 (death penalty questions) | Propositions 65 and 67 (on banning plastic bags). And dig into analyses of all 17 statewide measures by the Legislative Analyst’s Office, CALmatters, KQED and Ballotpedia. • The chief executive of Backpage, a website known for sexually oriented ads, was arrested on a California warrant and charged with pimping. [The New York Times] • California’s recycling crisis is sending billions of cans and bottles into landfills. [Bloomberg News] • Theranos, the embattled company based in Palo Alto, said that it would lay off around 40 percent of its work force. [The New York Times] • Why a Palestinian history class at U. C. Berkeley was canceled, then reinstated. [Newsweek] • Vince Staples, a Long Beach rapper, said a woman who posted a widely shared video slamming one of his songs had the right to say whatever she wanted. [The New York Times] • Many fans expected at the Desert Trip festival see it as a last chance to commune with titans of rock. [The New York Times] • The storied concert site Irvine Meadows is saying its final goodbyes before getting demolished for apartments. [O. C. Weekly] • The photographer Randi Malkin Steinberger captured the incongruously cheerful fumigation tents that cover buildings being treated for termites in Los Angeles. [The New York Times] Sharon Gray, a plant scientist at U. C. Davis, was killed Tuesday during protest violence outside Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia. She was 30. Ms. Gray, a postdoctoral student, was traveling through an area of the country that has been engulfed by antigovernment demonstrations when a mob threw stones at the vehicle she was riding in, striking her in the head, officials said. Details of the attack remained unclear, said Savithramma the chairman of the U. C. Davis plant biology department. “Sharon was such a bright human being,” Ms. Gray’s family said in a statement provided by her husband, RJ Cody Markelz. “We have been so lucky to have shared part of our lives with her. ” Ethiopia has been wracked by protests since late 2015 with hundreds of thousands of people flooding the streets to demand fair land distribution and political change. The government’s response has been ruthless, human rights groups say, leaving hundreds of people dead. In recent days, crowds have attacked several vehicles in the wake of a stampede last weekend that killed more than 50 people, Reuters reported. Ms. Gray was traveling with Siobhan Brady, an associate professor in U. C. Davis’s plant biology department, who was unhurt and en route back to the United States, university officials said. The State Department was arranging for Ms. Gray’s body to be flown out as well, Professor said. Ms. Gray was trying to understand how climate change was affecting plant life, and traveled to Ethiopia to attend a meeting about her research. Ms. Gray grew up in the Chicago area. She earned her undergraduate and doctoral degrees from the University of Illinois and in 2013 joined the plant biology department in Davis. In 2014, she was married to Mr. Markelz, also a postdoctoral researcher at U. C. Davis, at a lodge surrounded by pine trees in Oglesby, Ill. “She was destined for a great future,” Professor said. “We knew she was going to be some kind of star in plant biology. ” He added that Ms. Gray was also endlessly upbeat. “Everybody liked her,” he said. Ms. Gray’s family set up a GoFundMe in her honor aimed at mentoring young women in science. California Today goes live at 6 a. m. Pacific time weekdays. Tell us what you want to see: CAtoday@nytimes. com. The California Today columnist, Mike McPhate, is a Californian — born outside Sacramento and raised in San Juan Capistrano. He lives in Davis. Follow him on Twitter. California Today is edited by Julie Bloom, who grew up in Los Angeles and attended U. C. Berkeley. | 0fake |
Farmers: Trump 'terrible for agriculture' | During the campaign, Trump had threatened to impose a large tariff to keep the jobs in the United States. | 0fake |
White Students Accused Of Dragging Black Classmate By A Rope Around Her Neck (VIDEO) | The parents of a 6th grade student at Live Oak Classical School, located in Waco, Texas, are outraged over school officials failure to take action against a group of alleged white student bullies.The 12-year-old victim, who is referred to in media reports as KP, says that a group of three white boys have repeatedly injured and accosted her at the school, where she is one of only a handful of Black students.According to Vibe the boys have approached KP in the hallway, shoving her and kicking her. Her parents sent an email to the school in November, asking officials to address the situation.School officials responded by saying that they spoke with the boys and had determined that the kicking incident was meant as a joke. In April, students of the school were taken on a field trip to a nearby ranch. According to the girl, she was standing next to a rope swing when the same group of white boys grabbed the rope, wrapped it around her neck and then threw her violently to the ground.Images of the girl s neck show rope burns that are consistent with her story.This time school officials claim that KP s injuries were the result of an accident, not intentional racist bullying.If that s not enough, they are now insinuating that the 12-year-old and her family are trying to milk the school for money.After school officials refused to address the behavior of the student bullies, KP s parents contacted an attorney. The attorney then contacted the school. School officials provided the media with a copy of an email stating that the family would be willing to settle for $2.7 million.After repeated attempts to get the school to deal with the students responsible for their daughter s injuries, the girl s parents decided to hit them where it hurts. Good for them.As Vibe reports here, KP s parents decided to send their daughter to the expensive private school in Waco, Texas, so she could receive a better education, in what they assumed would be a wholesome learning environment. According to its website, the school claims to have a Christian worldview. Live Oak Classical School has a student body that is 87 percent white and just two percent Black. It s located in Waco, Texas, an area of the country that has a long and ugly history of racism.The willingness of school officials to downplay and dismiss allegations of racist bullying speaks for itself. A Black student had a rope wrapped around her throat. Something like that doesn t accidentally happen in a place like Waco, Texas.Here s more on the story from KWES.KWES NewsWest 9 / Midland, Odessa, Big Spring, TX: newswest9.com |Featured image via video screen capture KWES | 1real |
German Greens make stand on car emissions in coalition talks | BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany s Greens said on Wednesday that any coalition government they join would have to agree to make carmakers introduce mechanical changes to engine and exhaust systems to cut toxic emissions. Transport is among the policy areas being thrashed out in talks taking place between Chancellor Angela Merkel s conservatives, the pro-business Free Democrats (FDP) and the Greens, who are aiming to form a coalition by Christmas. The parties are discussing all policy areas before launching detailed negotiations. While the atmosphere has improved in recent days, there have been few actual deals, with immigration and climate change among the biggest sticking points. The Greens demand on carmakers would go further than software fixes so far agreed between politicians and German car bosses to help repair the industry s badly damaged reputation. The future of Germany s mighty car industry, the country s biggest exporter and provider of some 800,000 jobs, is a tricky area as it tries to recover from the diesel emissions testing scandal which broke at Volkswagen (VOWG_p.DE) two years ago. Despite public concern and planned diesel bans in countries including France and Britain in coming decades, German lawmakers have not yet dared ask the same of its carmakers, such as BMW, VW, Daimler and Porsche who have invested heavily in diesel. In August, politicians and car bosses agreed to overhaul engine software on 5.3 million diesel cars to cut pollution and avoid bans on polluting vehicles but they stopped short of committing to more expensive hardware modifications. That may have to change if the Greens share power. We won t meet our targets of getting cleaner air in city centers with software upgrades alone, Cem Ozdemir, a leader of the Greens, said as he headed into the talks. There must also be hardware solutions. Ozdemir said the auto industry was going through the biggest transformation process in its history and the car had to be reinvented to make it emission-free and more automated. Public transport must also be expanded, he added. The conservative bloc, comprising Chancellor Angela Merkel s Christian Democrats (CDU) and Bavaria s Christian Social Union (CSU), oppose any demand to ban the combustion engine from 2030. | 0fake |
Trump Goes Full Birther — On Ted Cruz | Donald Trump has revived the birther conspiracy theory, but this time he has targeted a fellow Republican: Ted Cruz.Cruz has begun creeping up in some state polls, particularly in evangelical-heavy Iowa, so as he has done in the past Trump went on the attack.Donald Trump said in an interview that rival Ted Cruz s Canadian birthplace was a very precarious issue that could make the Texas senator vulnerable if he became the Republican presidential nominee. Republicans are going to have to ask themselves the question: Do we want a candidate who could be tied up in court for two years? That d be a big problem, Trump said when asked about the topic. It d be a very precarious one for Republicans because he d be running and the courts may take a long time to make decision. You don t want to be running and have that kind of thing over your head. Trump added, I d hate to see something like that get in his way. But a lot of people are talking about it and I know that even some states are looking at it very strongly, the fact that he was born in Canada and he has had a double passport. Trump is easily the most visible proponent of the birther conspiracy theory. Before the 2012 election, Trump made numerous national television appearances demanding that President Obama release his birth certificate. Trump even claimed that he had enlisted right-wing Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio to send a cold case posse to Hawaii to investigate Obama s past.The reality TV star even made a bizarre video requesting Obama s college records in order for the Hawaiian-born president to prove his citizenship.Senator Cruz s mother was a U.S. citizen when she gave birth to him in Calgary, Canada, which easily fulfills the requirement for someone to be a natural-born citizen of the United States. While Cruz s ideas may be repellent to the majority of citizens, he is easily eligible to be President of the United States.After years of trying to de-legitimize President Obama through two terms, it is odd to see the tactic turned against the right s own candidates. Like so much of their rhetoric, it resembles Frankenstein building his monster then watching it turn on him instead of his enemies.Featured image via Flickr | 1real |
The Next 10 Years Will Be Ugly for Your 401(k) | Re: Largest Public Pensions Face $8.4 Trillion Hole « Reply #47 on: October 18, 2016, 11:27:27 AM » Fell at about the same time morality started falling, takes a strong bond to stand down the attacks of the devil and his dark forces. Marriage is a commitment, high on God's list, one of the goals of the powers that wanna be is to break up families destroy marriage, wipe out true love, all in the name of control.They turned this once great nation into a ME first society, totally opposite of God,s commands.We are all seeing and feeling the results. Logged Rev21:4And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.Who am I | 1real |
Saturn’s Baffling Hexagon — The Raging Storm Four Times the Size of Earth has Changed Its Colors | NASA’s Cassini spacecraft discovered a static hexagonal storm four times the size of Earth crowning Saturn’s north pole, including a clearly defined eyewall. Based on its size and movements, scientists have concluded that it’s a vast cloud pattern generated by a gigantic, perpetual hurricane spinning at the center of the planet’s north pole. Scientists estimate that this storm has been raging for decades – maybe even centuries.
Each side on the northern polar hexagon is approximately 13,800 km long, and the whole structure rotates once every 10 hours and 39 minutes -a day on Saturn. In just four years, Saturn’s hexagon has changed its color from blue to gold when Saturn’s north pole gears up for next year’s summer solstice.Saturn’s hexagon is a six-sided structure that spans roughly 32,000 km (20,000 miles) in diameter, and extends about 100 km (60 miles) down into the planet’s dense atmosphere. Because Saturn does not have land masses or oceans on its surface to complicate weather the way Earth does, its conditions should give scientists a more elementary model to study the physics of circulation patterns and atmosphere, said Kevin Baines, an atmospheric scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., who has studied the hexagon with Cassini’s visual and infrared mapping spectrometer. The last visible-light images of the entire hexagon were captured by NASA’s Voyager spacecraft nearly 30 years ago, the last time spring began on Saturn. After the sunlight faded, darkness shrouded the north pole for 15 years. Much to the delight and bafflement of Cassini scientists, the location and shape of the hexagon in the latest images match up with what they saw in the Voyager pictures.
“The longevity of the hexagon makes this something special, given that weather on Earth lasts on the order of weeks,” said Kunio Sayanagi, a Cassini imaging team associate at the California Institute of Technology. “It’s a mystery on par with the strange weather conditions that give rise to the long-lived Great Red Spot of Jupiter.”
The hexagon was originally discovered in images taken by the Voyager spacecraft in the early 1980s. It encircles Saturn at about 77 degrees north latitude and has been estimated to have a diameter wider than two Earths. The jet stream is believed to whip along the hexagon at around 100 meters per second (220 miles per hour).
Early hexagon images from Voyager and ground-based telescopes suffered from poor viewing perspectives. Cassini, which has been orbiting Saturn since 2004, has a better angle for viewing the north pole. But the long darkness of Saturnian winter hid the hexagon from Cassini’s visible-light cameras for years. Infrared instruments, however, were able to obtain images by using heat patterns. Those images showed the hexagon is nearly stationary and extends deep into the atmosphere. They also discovered a hotspot and cyclone in the same region.
As observed by NASA’s Voyager and Cassini spacecraft, each point of the hexagon appears to rotate at its center at nearly the same rate that Saturn rotates on its axis. Along the rim of the hexagon, a jet stream of air is blasting eastward at speeds of 321 km/h (200 mph).
While we’re pretty confident that we know what Saturn’s hexagon is, the big mystery is how it got there in the first place. Once you have a giant whirlpool of air, it’s relatively easy to keep it spinning – but the force you need to get it wound up in the first place is a whole lot more difficult to explain.
It’s fascinating that the Cassini spacecraft could have observed two completely different colors in the hexagon between November 2012 and September 2016:
The best hypothesis is that this is what it looks like when Saturn changes seasons. With a year that lasts 29 Earth years, Saturn changes seasons only once every seven years, and the increased sunlight over the past three years could explain the golden haze.
“The color change is thought to be an effect of Saturn’s seasons. In particular, the change from a bluish colour to a more golden hue may be due to the increased production of photochemical hazes in the atmosphere as the north pole approaches summer solstice in May 2017.”
“Inside the hexagon, there are fewer large haze particles and a concentration of small haze particles, while outside the hexagon, the opposite is true,” Kunio Sayanagi, a Cassini imaging team associate at Hampton University, explained back in 2013. “The hexagonal jet stream is acting like a barrier, which results in something like Earth’s Antarctic ozone hole.”
But since Saturn reached its equinox in August 2009 – the point where the Sun is directly over Saturn’s equator – it’s been gradually exposed to more and more sunlight, which means that for the past three years, aerosols have been produced inside of the hexagon and around the north pole, making the polar atmosphere appear hazy and golden when photographed last month.
“Other effects, including changes in atmospheric circulation, could also be playing a role,” NASA explained this week. “Scientists think seasonally shifting patterns of solar heating probably influence the winds in the polar regions.”
NASA scientists have an investigation underway to figure out what’s actually going.
The Daily Galaxy via NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute/Hampton University
Source: The Daily Galaxy
| 1real |
Trump Claims He Has Done More Against ISIS Than Obama, The Scorecard Says He Is Lying | After a terrorist attack in London, Donald Trump used the occasion to brag about himself and smear President Obama.The United States has been fighting ISIS since 2014. Most of that fighting has been done under the leadership of President Obama.But nine months into his own presidency, Trump is now declaring that he has done more against ISIS than President Obama.We have made more progress in the last nine months against ISIS than the Obama Administration has made in 8 years.Must be proactive & nasty! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 15, 2017But, as usual, Trump is completely full of shit.Under Obama s strategy and leadership, the United States military killed over half of the commanders ISIS had and various military strikes wiped out well over 26,000 ISIS fighters (some reports say over 50,000), all while reducing ISIS territory from a wide swath of the Middle East stretching from Syria through Iraq to just a few remaining city strongholds.In addition, ISIS lost most of their valuable resources and recruitment dramatically declined.And in December 2016, United States officials announced that 75 percent of all ISIS fighters have been killed.By contrast, ISIS cheered when Trump took office and have been using him as a recruitment tool. Trump is also responsible for killing more civilians in nine months than President Obama did in just over two years, which is just helping ISIS radicalize more fighters to their cause.Basically, Trump is waging a desperate destructive campaign to kill the remaining ISIS fighters and leaders so he can boast that he is doing more against ISIS. But his campaign is full of unnecessary collateral damage that is only helping ISIS recruit.In military parlance, Trump s campaign is merely a mop-up operation, which is what takes place after the military has already gone in and wiped out most of the enemy forces.President Obama s strategy and leadership resulted in ISIS being crippled. Trump is only getting the crumbs that Obama did not have time to finish off. And he can t even get that right because killing civilians is the best recruitment tool that terrorist organizations like ISIS and al-Qaeda (another terrorist group President Obama crippled) use to remain relevant.So Trump can brag all he wants. It doesn t change the fact that President Obama was a better commander-in-chief.Featured Image: Jack Gruber-Pool/Getty Images | 1real |
Conway touts Trump's 'drain the swamp' message, admits 'we are behind' | "We are behind. She has some advantages," Kellyanne Conway said on NBC's "Meet the Press," adding that those advantages include that Clinton "has a former president, happens to be her husband, campaigning for her; the current president and first lady, vice president -- all much more popular than she can hope to be. And she's seen as the incumbent."
"He delivers his own speeches. This is his candidacy. He's the guy who's running for the White House, and he has the privilege to say what he wants," Conway told CNN's Jake Tapper on "State of the Union" Sunday.
"This lifetime ban on lobbying -- if you've worked in the White House, you can't lobby for foreign nations. That's sort of the big, ethical shower we're all going to need to take post-Hillary Clinton State Department," she said, touting portions of Trump's speech.
Trump also proposed a series of reforms that include term limits of six years for House and Senate members. That would've meant Trump running mate Mike Pence would've been term-limited out of office halfway through his 12-year tenure representing Indiana. "He was definitely living in the swamp," Conway said of Pence, who led fiscal conservative fights like opposing the bank bailout pushed by his own party's President George W. Bush. "Mike Pence would agree with Donald Trump on that: When you're there for too long, you need that fresh blood and new perspective," Conway said. "I wish there were more members like Mike Pence. If there were, we wouldn't need to have the conversation." Conway also attacked Clinton over her family foundation's acceptance of foreign contributions -- but Tapper pointed out that those details are public because the Clinton Foundation has published lists of its donors, while Trump hasn't released his tax returns. Tapper said: "We have no idea what his ties are and where there might be moneyed interests and conflicts of interest because he won't disclose his tax returns." Conway responded: "Here's what we do know: We know that -- as he said yesterday in Gettysburg, Jake -- he used to be an insider. He's somebody who breathed rarefied air right up there with the Clintons and others, given his position, his power and his wealth and his great success as a businessman. And yet, that gives him the credibility and legitimacy to go and fight the system from the outside in. He knows how corrosive and corrupt it is." | 0fake |
Progressives Find ‘White Trash’ More Threatening Than Nuclear War | By Paul Craig Roberts on November 9, 2016 If only Trump could exile the lot of them. They are anti-American to the core.
by Paul Craig Roberts
The American electorate’s preference for Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders has established two facts. One is that the majority of the American people do not believe the media presstitutes. The other is that only the “progressives” and “liberals” who inhabit the Atlantic Northeast and Pacific West coasts believe the presstitutes.
Trump’s election to the presidency has confirmed these holier-than-thou souls in their strongly held belief that America is a white trash racist country. They have told us this all day long today.
From these people and from the presstitutes we hear that white supremacy elected Trump. This is their propaganda, the intention of which is to discredit a Trump administration before it is inaugurated. Funny how white supremacy elected black Obama twice previously.
Truthout has lost it completely. John Knefel declares “The David Dukes of the World Prevail.”
Kelly Hayes declares “White Supremacy Elected Donald Trump.”
William Rivers Pitt declares “We have elected a fascist that Mussolini would have recognized on sight.”
Hillary carried only a handful of states, the states that comprise the One Percent’s stomping grounds. Yet Amy Goodman of Democracy Now sees meaning in political writer John Nichols claim that as Hillary carried New York and California, she won the popular vote and should be in the White House.
I remember a few days ago George Soros saying that Trump would win the popular vote, but that the electoral vote would go to Hillary, thus ridding the oligarchs of Trump.
Earth Justice promises to hold Trump accountable. Trump who promises to end the threat of nuclear war with Russia and China, thereby doing more to save animal and human life than the entirety of the Democratic Party and environmental organizations, is going to be held accountable by an organization that allegedly is beyond politics and is dedicated to preserving animals from destruction.
The ACLU, of which I am a member, has also put “on notice” the president-elect who has said he will save us from nuclear war. Faced with this idiocy from the ACLU, I will not renew my membership.
Feminists tell us that we are “grieving, scared, and in shock,” and that “it is critical that we stand together and support each other.”
Jeremy Ben-Ami of the J Street Jewish Community tells us that it is “an incredibly sad and difficult day. For tens of millions of Americans who share a core belief in tolerance, decency and social justice, the election results are a severe shock. In this challenging moment, we turn to one another for comfort and community. During this election, J Street made unequivocally clear our conviction that Donald Trump is not fit to be president of the United States.”
Van Jones, a CNN commentator, said that Trump’s election is a nightmare, “a deeply painful moment,” a “whitelash” against minorities. While he bemoaned the pain inflicted upon poor little presstitute Van Jones, he didn’t mind insulting the American electorate and the President-elect of the United States. After all, Van Jones sees that as his racist prerogative. Architects of Endless “Regime Change” wars
And so, the holier-than-thou crowd prefers Hillary, despite her unambigious position that she would maximize conflict with Russia and China, provoke direct military conflict between the US and Russia by imposing a no-fly zone in Syria, attack Iran and other of Israel’s targets, further enrich her Wall Street handlers by privatizing Social Security, and prevent any dissent from the lowly people class of her high-handed ways. If William Rivers Pitt sees Trump as a Mussolini fascist, Trump is too mild for Pitt. He prefers Hillary, a Hitler to the third power.
The progressives have totally discredited themselves just as the presstitutes have done. Their need for a bogyman to nourish their hysteria indicates serious psychological disturbance.
They actually prefer the risk of Armageddon to peace among nuclear powers. As their 501(c)3s live off corporate contributions, they prefer globalist corporate profits to jobs for ordinary Americans.
These are the people who think of themselves as our instructors and our betters.
If only Trump could exile the lot of them. They are anti-American to the core. Related Posts: | 1real |
FORMER NPR CEO DITCHES AND SWITCHES: How A Liberal Learned to Love the ‘Right’ [Video] | The former NPR CEO Ken Stern ditches and switches after getting out of the Liberal Bubble He recently spoke with Tucker Carlson about his escape from the liberal bubble . We give him huge credit for ditching the left to come over to the RIGHT side:STERN RECENTLY SPOKE WITH BREITBART S ALEX MARLOW:Stern described himself as a lifelong Democrat who spent time in Democratic politics, ran NPR, and lived in a 93 percent Democratic ward in a 100 percent Democratic household. Concern for the increasing political polarization of the country led him on a journey into red-state America to take a clear look at the other side of the political divide.He said his a-ha! moment was the latest version of a pledge recited annually by children at a block party in his D.C. neighborhood: All are welcome here on Hobart Street, man or woman, gay or straight, white or black everyone but Republicans. It was a joke, but it wasn t a joke, he said. It really signified, I think, how people are starting to feel about side. For me it said, you know what, something s got to change, at least for me. I live in a Democratic bubble. I need to get out there and meet the other half of America and see if they are deplorables, or if they are Americans like me. That s really what this year is about. Stern said NPR is different from other media organizations because its staff lives across the entire country, rather than being concentrated in a few media and political hubs. The New York Times, based in New York, 90 percent of their staff will be in New York. NPR is actually a membership organization with stations across the country. So it is actually unusual in the sense that it does have representation across the country, he explained. I think the challenge, and I sort of challenged this week in the New York Post, is that even though they are geographically distributed, they like most mainstream journalist organizations draw from a pool of largely liberal people, he continued. When that happens you risk groupthink, you risk thinking about what stories are important that really don t represent the rest of the country as a whole. Stern contended that bubbling has become a bipartisan phenomenon, because we are so politically vulcanized Democrats hang out with Democrats, Republicans hang out with Republicans it is easy to engage in the most vicious stick-figure cartoonish depiction of the other side. The Washington Post did a poll last year, I think, where they asked Democrats, give me one word to describe Republicans, and they did the same for Republicans. The words that came out from both sides were ridiculous. I mean, if you re a Republican you re a bigot, if you re a Democrat you re a traitor. I forget the exact words, but all of the words that came out were really cartoons of the other side, he recalled. I think when Hillary Clinton said that she thought half the people that supported Trump were from the basket of deplorables, and then apologized for it, I think it does reflect how many people think about conservatives, he said. Truthfully, I think it goes both ways. That s a shame because we don t know the other side. Stern s journey to the flip side of politics took him pig hunting in Texas and going to small Assembly of God churches to meet people with different viewpoints. It meant hanging out in Pikeville, Kentucky, sort of a declining coal mining community. It meant going to Youngstown, Ohio. It meant tons of things, he said. The subtitle of the book is How I Left the Liberal Bubble and Learned to Love the Right. It didn t mean that I agreed with everyone I met, but it meant I met hundreds of people who I admired, and were doing great things in their community, and who in no way reflected the cartoon figure of what Middle America looks like. Stern said he took issues he was positive he was right about including climate change, poverty programs, and guns and challenged himself by talking with people like gun-control skeptic John Lott. Jr. I went hunting. I went to gun shows. I talked to experts. I did my own research. And I really came away with a very different perspective, because I tried to look at it from other people s points of view. When you do that, you re going to change, he said.He recalled pig hunting in George as an especially memorable experience for someone from an urban gun-control political environment, as he was tutored in gun safety by an eight-year-old, and found himself hunting with a diverse group that bore little resemblance to coastal caricatures of rural white men. I m an agnostic Jew from Washington, DC. I don t have a lot of experiences with evangelicals, so what I knew was from Footloose and from Jerry Falwell, who had been dead for ten years by the time I did this, Stern said of his foray into church life, culminating in a visit to the Urbana Conference with some 15,000 evangelical youths. I thought they would be like you see in the movies. But these kids were there, they were talking about refugees how to help them, not how to turn them away. They were talking about diversity on campus. They were talking about how to dedicate their lives to feeding the poor and housing the homeless. It was a really admirable group of people I saw. It taught me that, look, there are 50 million evangelicals, which means there are 50 million stories. You just can t bucket everyone in simple ways, he said.Stern said that media people tend to cluster in groups and reinforce their own stereotypes, their own confirmation bias, their own groupthink. That s a challenge that s really hard to acknowledge, but hard to deal with. And that s, I think, a fundamental challenge for the CNNs and others of the world, he said. But I think in the age of Trump they ve also found, if we can be direct about it, conflict is good for business. President Trump it s actually sort of a self-reinforcing circle challenges the failing New York Times and the New York Times responds, and it s great for business for both of them. And that s a problem. | 1real |
5 minute video: Clinton Foundation 10% to charity scam + OBVIOUS election fraud + lying US military into illegal empire wars = White Hat insider lawful revolution for justice? | Bill Still’s 5-minute report :
No colleague I know of, nor I, have objectively verifiable factual information on a possible “white hat” recapture of lawful government. That said, what is easy to document and prove: When Americans are told an election is defined by touching a computer screen without a countable receipt that can be verified, they are being told a criminal lie to allow election fraud . This is self-evident, but Princeton , Stanford , and the President of the American Statistical Association are among the leaders pointing to the obvious (and here , here , here , here , here , here , here , here , here , here , here , here , here , here , here , here , here , here ). Again, no professional would/can argue an election is legitimate when there is nothing for anyone to count. President Kennedy , Martin King , Robert Kennedy (and here ), and dozens of others were assassinated by the .01% “Deep State.” The evidence is overwhelming in each case. The US is a literal rogue state empire led by neocolonial looting liars. The history is uncontested and taught to anyone taking comprehensive courses. If anyone has any refutations of this professional academic factual claim for any of this easy-to-read and documented content , please provide it. US ongoing lie-started and Orwellian-illegal Wars of Aggression require all US military and government to refuse all war orders because there are no lawful orders for obviously unlawful wars. Officers are required to arrest those who issue obviously unlawful orders. And again, those of us working for this area of justice are aware of zero attempts to refute this with, “War law states (a, b, c), so the wars are legal because (d, e, f).” All we receive is easy-to-reveal bullshit . And, duh, corporate media are criminally complicit through constant lies of omission and commission to “cover” all these crimes. Historic tragic-comic empire is only possible through such straight-face lying, making our Emperor’s New Clothes analogy perfectly chosen. The top three benefits each of monetary reform and public banking total ~$1,000,000 for the average American household, and would be received nearly instantly. Please read that twice. Now look to verify for yourself . More on the $2 billion Clinton Foundation giving just 10% of their money to charity. The categories of crime include: Wars of Aggression (the worst crime a nation can commit). Likely treason for lying to US military, ordering unlawful attack and invasions of foreign lands, and causing thousands of US military deaths. Crimes Against Humanity for ongoing intentional policy of poverty that’s killed over 400 million human beings just since 1995 (~75% children; more deaths than from all wars in Earth’s recorded history).
US military, law enforcement, and all with Oaths to support and defend the US Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic, face an endgame choice: Demand arrests , with those with lawful authority to enact it. An arrest is the lawful action to stop apparent crimes , with the most serious crimes documented here meaning the most serious need for arrests. Watch the US escalate its rogue state crimes that annually kill millions, harm billions, and loot trillions.
In just 90 seconds , former US Marine Ken O’Keefe powerfully states how you may choose to voice “very obvious solutions”: arrest the criminal leaders (video starts at 20:51, then finishes this episode of Cross Talk ): Solutions worth literal tens of trillions to ‘We the People’:
Again: The top three benefits each of monetary reform and public banking total ~$1,000,000 for the average American household, and would be received nearly instantly. Please read that twice. Now look to verify for yourself . We can quantify the end of the lie-started and illegal Wars of Aggression quickly into the trillions, and that said, it’s worth a lot more than what we quantify. Truth : a world in which education is expressed in its full potential to only and always begin with good-faith effort for objective, comprehensive, and verifiable data.
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Note: I make all factual assertions as a National Board Certified Teacher of US Government, Economics, and History, with all economics factual claims receiving zero refutation since I began writing in 2008 among Advanced Placement Macroeconomics teachers on our discussion board , public audiences of these articles , and international conferences (and here ). I invite readers to empower their civic voices with the strongest comprehensive facts most important to building a brighter future. I challenge professionals, academics, and citizens to add their voices for the benefit of all Earth’s inhabitants.
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Carl Herman is a National Board Certified Teacher of US Government, Economics, and History; also credentialed in Mathematics. He worked with both US political parties over 18 years and two UN Summits with the citizen’s lobby, RESULTS , for US domestic and foreign policy to end poverty. He can be reached at
Note: Examiner.com has blocked public access to my articles on their site (and from other whistleblowers), so some links in my previous work are blocked. If you’d like to search for those articles other sites may have republished, use words from the article title within the blocked link. Or, go to http://archive.org/web/ , p aste the expired link into the box, click “Browse history,” then click onto the screenshots of that page for each time it was screen-shot and uploaded to webarchive. I’ll update as “hobby time” allows; including my earliest work from 2009 to 2011 (blocked author pages: here , here ).
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If Mr.Trump is elected president, he must purge the federal government of the militarists who have usurped the federal republic in the “soft coup d’etat” that was perpetrated by them on September 11, 2001. He must be aggressive, firm, and not deterred by any rancor that may rise from legal challenges, the corporate media, civil rights groups and foreign State lobbyists who have a vested interest in the neoconservative polity. He must do what Recep Erdogan did in Turkey but on a larger scale, with the panache that only the “Donald” can pull off, American style. He must charge them all with endangering the national and economic security of the United States.
He must open a federal investigation of the coverup of the 9/11 commission perpetrated by the Clinton and Bush (Bush 41 and Bush 43) regimes and restore the U.S.Department of Justice’s reputation as the standard bearer for equal justice under the rule of law. No person is exempt, not a member of the U.S. Congress former or incumbent, member of the United States Military active or retired, Wall Street financier, corporate CEO including the national media or lobbyists for a foreign State. The pursuit of these persons will be ongoing, thorough, and not be restricted by any statute of limitations.
All the illegal wars in foreign lands made in the name of the American people will be reconciled by trial and recompense made to the victims from the assets confiscated by all the accused and their conspirators who are found guilty.
Trump must claim the title of American Paladin, a council member of the new global trust that lays the foundation for peace and well being in the 21st century. Donate | 1real |
LIST OF 24 REPUBLICANS Who Voted “YES” To KEEP Obama’s Taxpayer-Funded Sex-Change Surgeries In Place For Transgenders In Military | If you re not okay with taxpayers paying for exorbitant medical costs, including transgender surgeries for military members, you ll want to remember these names in 2018 A majority in the House voted down a proposal to restrict funding for transgender members of the military, standing by social policy changes enacted by the Pentagon under former President Barack Obama.Rep. Vicky Hartzler, R-Mo., succeeded in forcing a vote, arguing that Obama s transgender decision is costly in dollars and short on common sense. The attempted rollback failed on a 209-214 vote, however, as 24 Republicans joined a unanimous Democratic caucus in opposing the proposal. The Obama transgender policy, which was implemented without input from members of Congress, is ill-conceived and contrary to our goals of increasing troop readiness and investing defense dollars into addressing budget shortfalls of the past, Hartzler said in June. By recruiting and allowing transgender individuals to serve in our military we are subjecting taxpayers to high medical costs including up to $130,000 per transition surgery, lifetime hormone treatments, and additional surgeries to address the high percentage of individuals who experience complications. Her amendment would have barred the Defense Department from provid[ing] medical treatment (other than mental health treatment) related to gender transition to members of the military. Proponents of transgender military service argued that her proposal would reduce military readiness by discouraging transgender Americans from serving. It would have a negative impact on morale, a negative impact on retention and move us away from the merit-based system which we now have, where we have one set of rules applied to everybody, Rep. Jared Polis, D-Colo., who co-chairs the LGBT Equality Caucus, said Wednesday.Hartzler maintained that her amendment would increase readiness, however. The deployability of individuals going through the sex transition process is highly problematic, requiring 210 to 238 work days where a soldier is non-deployable after surgery, she said. This recovery time equates to 1.4 million manpower days where transgender personnel cannot deploy and fight our nation s wars, therefore relying on an already stressed force to pick up the burden. It makes no sense to purposely recruit individuals who cannot serve. Washington ExaminerHere s the list of 24 Republicans who voted to keep Obama s transgender policy for our military in place that was implemented without input from members of Congress:Justin Amash (Michigan)Jack Bergman (Michigan)Mike Coffman (Colorado)Barbara Comstock (Virginia)Paul Cook (California)Ryan Costello (Pennsylvania)Carlos Curbelo (Florida)Jeff Denham (California)Charlie Dent (Pennsylvania)John Faso (New York)Brian Fitzpatrick (Pennsylvania)Darrell Issa (California)John Katko (New York)Steve Knight (California)Leonard Lance (New Jersey)Frank LoBiondo (New Jersey)Tom MacArthur (New Jersey)Brian Mast (Florida)Tom Reed (New York)Dave Reichert (Washington)Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (Florida)Bill Shuster (Pennsylvania)Elise Stefanik (New York)Claudia Tenney (New York)h/t Truth Division | 1real |
Premier League Stars Score the Goals. He Scores Everything Else. - The New York Times | RICHMOND, England — Charles Porter and his staff of eight work from his office in a converted riding school on the grounds of Aske Hall, an old manor house set in the gentle, rolling hills of North Yorkshire. His Australian Labradoodles, Bertie and Cybil, spend their days lounging on a leather sofa by a roaring fire. It is an unassuming setting for an unassuming company. Porter does not advertise or seek to publicize his work he had never previously granted an interview. His website is modern and sleek but studiously enigmatic. “There are no pictures of people we work with,” he said. “We live and die by our discretion. ” To hundreds of players in English soccer over the last 20 years, though, Porter is an integral part of life. “He has helped me out with all sorts of things,” said Kevin Kilbane, formerly of Everton and Ireland’s national team. Danny Mills, a longtime client and former England international, described Porter as a “consummate networker, a great person to have around to take the stress away. ” To Porter’s clients — actors and musicians as well as athletes — he is almost indispensable. He will not say it, but he is the ultimate purveyor of the Premier League lifestyle. It is Porter whom you call to get your hands on the latest cellphone, or when the time comes to upgrade your car. It is Porter who can make sure your Christmas shopping is completed, or your vacation is booked. It is Porter who knows the people to hire if you want Santa to visit your children, and it is Porter, to at least one player, whose help you seek when you want to propose. “One client rang me and said: ‘Charles, I want to get engaged, and I want you to sort everything out,’” he said. “I said, ‘Have you at least found a partner?’ He said he had someone in mind, but that he needed everything else arranged: a ring, a venue, to fly in by helicopter. “We’d never done anything like that before, but we pulled it off. We sent them to a Scottish castle. She said yes, and they’re still married. There was only one thing we couldn’t quite do: He said he wanted snow. I had to tell him that there are some people I can’t have conversations with. ” It takes Porter a little time to come up with a satisfactory, concise definition of what it is, exactly, that he does. “It is,” he said, mulling it over, “quite difficult to pin down. It can be a bit of a challenge when people ask. ” He can say easily enough what he is not. “We are not a concierge service,” he said. “We are not the people you call to get a table at the Ivy, or at the Chiltern Firehouse. ” He is not, as one of his clients found out, the man to call when you want a pack of cigarettes delivered to a bar by taxi at 3:30 in the morning. Porter initially settled on calling himself a “ ” but a little later, a more poetic turn of phrase occurred to him. “We are the people who fill the holes,” he said. “We are the people who make life a little smoother. ” That his name is still so little known outside the rarefied circles in which he works goes some way to explaining his success in doing that. He would doubtless be able to write a compelling, salacious memoir, but breaking the omertà of his trade would be anathema to him. He religiously eschews . That sort of tact, to the rich and famous, holds tremendous appeal. Porter started out some 20 years ago, after his work with the phone network Cellnet brought him into contact with Middlesbrough, the Premier League club the company sponsored. “I remember going to the training ground,” he said. “There were two guys hanging around in the car park. ” They were known, to the players, as something not far off from Baloney Bob and Fairground Frank. “One did cars, the other watches and jewelry,” Porter said. “I thought I could do it better than that. ” His initial sphere of expertise was, thanks to his background, cellphones. “It was one of the first things the players wanted,” he said. “But the clubs did not have people helping them set those things up. In the early days, there was one Senegalese player who had a SIM card. He was spending about £7, 000 a week phoning home. ” Porter used his contacts not just to give players access to contract phones but to help them with the paperwork, customer care, technical support and security. There was, for a while, a fad for personalized phone numbers, incorporating birthdays or jersey numbers. “Then they started asking for other things,” he said. He sourced cars, worked with private banks to set up accounts, and, later, added insurance, holidays and luxury shopping to his repertoire. As his portfolio expanded, so did his client base. “I started out with 12 Premier League players,” Porter said. “Now we have about 3, 500 people from sport, entertainment, everything. Most of them work in teams or casts, and they talk to each other. It is all word of mouth. ” Porter looks after the families of many of them, too. “One of the things I learned working inside a club was that you have to take care of the unit,” he said. “If a player is happy but his wife does not have a car or a phone, then that does not help. ” As the Premier League has become more international, of course, the clubs have picked up much of that burden. One of Porter’s first clients was Juninho, the Brazilian playmaker who signed with Middlesbrough in 1995. He was installed in two cramped rooms at the Stockton Hotel, along with his entire family. Now, most teams have dedicated player care departments, employing as many as a dozen people to ensure their charges’ lives run as easily as possible. They help them find properties to buy or, increasingly, rent enroll their children in schools make sure their bills are paid and, in some cases, find churches or mosques where they can worship. “The clubs have done all they can to take Bob and Frank out of the equation,” Porter said. They maintain lists of trusted suppliers, from luxury brands to financial advisers the department store Harvey Nichols is among the retailers that install shops at training grounds so players do not have to browse with the masses. Porter, though, has not seen his work dry up. If anything, the opposite is true. He is now invited by clubs to educate young players about phone security his clients are, increasingly, the teams themselves, rather than individuals. “I will quite often get calls at night explaining that they are with a player in a restaurant,” he said. “They will say they are signing tomorrow and they need a phone for them as soon as the deal is done. ” The phone invariably comes first Porter and his team remain available for everything else, should they be required. They arrange about 20 cars a month, ordinarily upgrades. A small clutch of clients demands the latest phone on the day of release, regardless of how many they already have. At least one player, a peer said, had as many as seven at one point. They are sent out wrapped in scented tissue paper. “That is what we do: that personal service,” Porter said. Much of the work, though, is sorting out bank accounts, credit ratings, car insurance, technical problems. “I realized a long time ago that these people are not going to ring a call center, give their names and spend 40 minutes on hold to sort out their data allowance,” Porter said. That is where he and his team come in: to take care of life’s little annoyances, to fill the holes, to make the journey as smooth as possible. | 0fake |
UNHINGED MIKA Called President Trump “Not Well, Ignorant, Stupid, Mentally Ill and a Narcissist in ONE MINUTE! [VIDEO] | Hour one of the MSNBC morning show began typically enough with Mika and Joe. The assembled gang could barely contain their glee at the prospect of damning testimony from James Comey. That all set the stage for a typical Mika Brzezinski tirade that was honestly one of the most disgusting assaults on President Trump yet. It s unhinged hate!https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZoUCHs22Aw I think Trump is such a narcissist, it s possible he is mentally ill in a way and this is on the table, I said it months ago and now everyone is starting to say it like it s new, and it s ok to say. He s not well, she said. At the very least, he s not well. And he s so narcissistic he does not believe the rules apply to him, and that s where the ignorance label may apply because this is a man who says he can grab women anywhere because he s famous. Then something very curious happened.Scarborough looked off camera and can be heard saying, What s that? Wow, Then Willie Geist showed him something and the two started laughing. Then a clearly not listening Scarborough, banged the table. Stop right there, he laughed I need an eject button. He posted it? Scarborough appeared to ask someone else?Brzezinski finally realized that nobody was listening to her and demanded an explanation. Nothing I have said is crazy, she said. We ll talk about it in the break, said Scarborough barely able to get it out through his own laugher.The show soon went to break. When it returned Scarborough joked about keeping it in the guard rails. Brzezinski appeared to offer an explanation of her actions. I am keeping it in the guard rails. Everything I ve said you all have thought and you know and you ve said in your own way. You re going to talk to me about a filter? she snapped at Scarborough. Yes, he said. | 1real |
Trump Is Too Incompetent To Handle Disaster On An Island, But Obama Handled One Just Fine | Trump has spent an awful lot of time whining about Puerto Rico being an island with a devastated infrastructure, claiming that s the reason our relief effort has been so slow and disorganized: The response and recovery effort probably has never been seen for something like this. This is an island surrounded by water. Big water. Ocean water. He also said: This is a thing called the Atlantic Ocean. This is tough stuff. Gee, these complaints are reminiscent of when he said nobody knew healthcare could be so complicated. With this administration, It s really difficult, we re doing all we can, is code for, I don t really care about this at all unless I can find a way to make myself look good here. But are we really having problems because Puerto Rico is an island, making it different than Florida and Texas, which were also devastated by hurricanes? Current evidence suggests otherwise: Supplies are just sitting in shipping containers there because there are too few truck drives, and too many blocked roads. One has to wonder why we don t have more personnel there helping the Puerto Rican government to clear the roads so that supply lines can reopen and we can help get those supplies to where they re most needed. One person even said that the personnel who are there just seem to be modeling their uniforms. That suggests we have a lot of people who don t know what they re supposed to be doing on the ground there. That would be a failure on our part, not Puerto Rico s.But then there s how Obama handled natural disasters on islands. In 2010, Haiti, which is practically next door to Puerto Rico in the Caribbean (not the Atlantic Ocean), suffered an absolutely devastating earthquake. Despite the fact that we had no warning for that quake (we had plenty of warning for Maria), President Obama mobilized our military as if it were going to war, according to the Washington Post. Within two days, we had 8,000 troops on their way to the disaster-stricken country.In less than two weeks, we had 22,000 troops on the ground; 300 military helicopters dropping supplies, and 33 Navy ships aiding the relief effort. Eight days after Maria swept over Puerto Rico, we only had 4,400 troops working relief there, along with 1,000 members of the Coast Guard. Only 50 choppers were working to deliver supplies.The morning after Haiti s quake, Obama told the military that they were going to respond in Port-au-Prince robustly and immediately, and that gave the whole government clarity of purpose. Rajiv Shah, who led USAID when the earthquake struck, said: We were able to move more quickly in a foreign country, and with no warning because it was an earthquake, than a better-equipped agency was able to do in a domestic territory. The Posse Comitatus Act places limits on what the military can do in a state or territory, and by contrast, Haiti is a foreign country. Our military response would be considerably different just because of that. But there were over 17,000 troops from 23 states on the ground in Florida after Irma. And the administration keeps saying that Puerto Rico isn t asking for very much, despite residents running out of food, drinkable water and other supplies, and San Juan s mayor breaking down over the Trump administration saying the response has been good.There are complicating factors, it s true. But this is a level of apathy and ineptitude we can t have from the White House when responding to disasters, particularly those where people are dying. Obama showed that being an island is a lot less of a factor in relief efforts than this administration is claiming.Featured image via Chip Somodevilla and Mark Wilson/Getty Images | 1real |
The Best and the Worst From the Rio Games - The New York Times | RIO DE JANEIRO — As if this city did not have enough problems to overcome, rain and high winds swept through here shortly before the closing ceremony, sending branches and balcony fixtures plummeting onto sidewalks and automobile hoods. In what by now is standard fashion at these Olympics, the Brazilians soldiered on and found a way, even on backup generator power at the Maracanã stadium. It was a Games: full of challenges and contrasts, abrupt shifts in mood and momentum. It was no doubt quite a mess backstage and yet quite a spectacle at the front of the house. But now it is time for the traditional wrap parties and an extra layer of relief, and definitely time to hand out our traditional Olympic prizes (before something else falls from the sky). Best Performance on Land Bolt. Bolt. It’s always about Usain Bolt, and, yes, he went three for three again in the gold medal department, holding off the fading threats (Justin Gatlin) and the rising stars (Andre De Grasse) without looking as if he were quite giving it his full attention. That, of course, is part of his charm. What will track — or the second week of the Olympics — do without him? But this year’s farewell run lacked both the element of surprise and the element of . Bolt’s times in major championships have been increasing for years now. For the novelty factor and the wow factor, there was no surpassing the American Simone Biles. Even if she was a world champion, she was an Olympic rookie, and her explosive and exuberant brand of gymnastics leapt off any screen in any culture. For all those who tuned in or actually made it to their seats in Rio, her performances redefined human limits, just as Bolt’s sprinting did in 2008 and 2009. Worst Performance on Land There was no shortage of candidates — including the American goalkeeper Hope Solo — but only one genuine contender. Ryan Lochte should definitely have stayed in the pool. Best Performance in Water Phelps. Phelps. It’s always about Michael Phelps, and, yes, he won five more gold medals, this time at age 31. But three of those came in relays, and in one of those, Phelps was given a big lead heading into his anchor leg. As remarkable as Phelps remains, the United States’ swimming success was the result of a genuine team effort, and not just because of Katie Ledecky’s freestyle dominance. The Americans also got individual gold medals from five other swimmers, including members of the new wave (Ryan Murphy) and the old guard (Anthony Ervin). After giving few hints of such success at last year’s world championships, the Americans stormed back to win 33 swimming medals in Rio, more than three times what any other nation could muster. Worst Performance in Water It took another collective performance to secure this prize, and it deserves to be shared by all those still unidentified individuals who contributed to turning the water in the Olympic diving pool from transparent blue to opaque green. Hydrogen peroxide? Inactive chlorine? Whatever the latest excuse, this was not the body of water that the world was worried about Rio keeping clean. Best Performance on Water Blair Tuke and Peter Burling, soon to resume preparing with New Zealand for the America’s Cup, were utterly dominant in the 49er class. Danuta Kozak of Hungary won three more gold medals in women’s kayak, bringing her career total to five. The women’s eight from the United States rowed to yet another gold of their own. But there was no better sea story in Rio than Santiago Lange of Argentina. The oldest sailor in the Olympic fleet at age 54, Lange learned he had lung cancer last year and had part of one lung surgically removed. But he still made it to the starting line for South America’s first Olympics. He and his sailing partner, Cecilia Carranza Saroli, were not the favorites in the new mixed multihull Nacra 17 event. Yet they managed to win the gold medal by just one point, and when it was over, Lange’s sons, who competed in the 49er class in Rio, swam out to celebrate with him. Worst Performance on Water Conditions, to be polite, were not always ideal on the Olympic rowing course in Rio’s scenic Rodrigo de Freitas lagoon, where winds whipped up choppy conditions and forced some delays. But the lagoon was comparatively calm when Vladislav Yakovlev of Kazakhstan managed just 10 strokes before capsizing in his single scull. Based on water quality studies of the lagoon before the Olympics, this was definitely not the place to get wet. So what did Yakovlev do? The next day, he capsized again. Best Performance in Midair The Bahamian sprinter Shaunae Miller’s desperate, lunge across the line to beat the American Allyson Felix in the women’s 400 meters is clearly on the shortlist. But to be fair, Miller barely left the ground. We’re going with the athlete who soared the highest in the Olympic Stadium: Thiago Braz da Silva of Brazil. Coming into the Games, his personal best in the pole vault had been 5. 93 meters, or about 19 feet six inches. But when he and the host nation needed it most, he cleared 6. 03 meters to set an Olympic record and upset the holder, Renaud Lavillenie of France. It was a gold medal few saw coming, and it was Brazil’s only medal in track and field at its Games. Worst Performance in Midair Nadezhda Bazhina of Russia is no tourist athlete. She is a former European champion in the springboard. But she made a splash for another reason in Rio: mistiming her takeoff during the preliminaries and leaving the board at a suboptimal angle. The result was a back flop that was seen, heard and streamed round the world. Final score for a dive that was not really a dive: zero points. Best Performance It is tempting to lean toward the television program É Campeão, and its assemblage of past Olympic greats, including Mark Spitz, Carl Lewis and Nadia Comaneci, all of whom appeared nightly on the Brazilian channel SporTV. They worked with translation, although no translation was required when they finally signed off at around 2 a. m. on Monday morning with a farewell conga line in which we discovered that the former American gymnast Bart Conner is a whole lot shorter than the former Cuban high jumper Javier Sotomayor. But for true cool on live television, we’re going with Bolt, who after winning yet another footrace was asked for the umpteenth time in his career about his favorite Bob Marley song. The Jamaican responded by singing “One Love” for Brazilian TV. Worst Performance It is tempting to say it could have happened to anyone. There is a lot of churn and froth in an Olympic pool, and when the men’s 200 individual medley race began, Elliotte Friedman called it the way he saw it. Unfortunately, Friedman, a Canadian broadcaster working for CBC, saw it wrong, mistaking Ryan Lochte in Lane 5 for Michael Phelps in Lane 4. “Finally, he’s going to do it,” Friedman declared with understandable emphasis. “Ryan Lochte is going to beat Michael Phelps in this event in the Games. ” Instead it was Phelps who was well out in front. Lochte finished fifth. And although by the end of the Olympics nobody was confusing Phelps for Lochte in or out of the water, Friedman, to his credit, got the call just right. “I’m sorry everyone,” he wrote on Twitter. “I blew it. No excuses. ” Best Performance, Medal in Hand The story, in normal circumstances, would have been all about the American team’s becoming the first to win a second gold medal in women’s water polo. But the story became considerably more poignant when its coach, Adam Krikorian, received a phone call two days before the Games informing him that his brother, Blake, had died in a surfing accident. After returning to the States for a few days, Krikorian came back to Rio. His players prevailed, and after they received their medals, each player — one by one — approached the coach and placed her medal around his neck. Worst Performance, Medal in Hand The dark side of Braz’s gold medal in the pole vault was that the Brazilian crowd, sparse though it was, booed the Lavillenie during the competition as he — quite rightly — tried to clear the same heights and win. The reaction was rough yet forgivable in the heat of the Olympic moment and in light of Brazil’s lack of a track and field culture. But the crowd crossed the line the next night in Olympic Stadium as it booed Lavillenie again as he received his silver medal. True, Lavillenie had not helped his cause by comparing his lot during the competition to that of Jesse Owens in 1936 in Berlin — a comparison he quickly retracted. But this was not Brazil vs. Argentina or Flamengo vs. Fluminense. This felt like the host nation ganging up on a single foreign visitor, one who did not deserve to have tears streaming down his face on the podium. Best Performance Per Capita The Caribbean still rules. Tiny Grenada, with slightly more than 100, 000 inhabitants, topped the standings on medalspercapita. com (yes, every Olympic digital niche is filling up fast). But Grenada only won one medal, a silver by the sprinter Kirani James, the defending Olympic champion in the 400. This year, James was thoroughly overshadowed (outside Grenada) by the South African Wayde van Niekerk’s gold medal and world record in Lane 8. For planetary impact per capita, it remains best to go with Jamaica, which might have won only one medal for every 247, 000 of its inhabitants but still has the world’s fastest man (Bolt) and fastest woman (the newcomer Elaine Thompson). Worst Performance Per Capita Only two medals and no golds for India, well on its way to supplanting China as the world’s most populous nation. Time to retire the trophy? Certainly not, but perhaps time to get cricket into the Olympics (everything else seems to be included). | 0fake |
Buffalo Bills Coach Gives Donald Trump The Weirdest Rally Introduction Ever (VIDEO) | Buffalo Bills coach Rex Ryan has one job, to introduce Donald Trump at his rally in Buffalo, New York. But Ryan s rambling, creepy intro left the audience not knowing whether to laugh or cry.I fairness, Ryan did attempt to set dial expectations down to zero with the opening sentence of his speech, in which he warns: Obviously, we all know I m not a politician, I m not a public speaker. I m just a football coach. The crowd yells, screams and applauds in typical Trump-style frenzy He s just like us! Yeah! But then Ryan moves into the words longest, most meandering personal anecdote all to deliver a joke which raised little more than a trickle of laughter from the crowd. He went all the way back to the 80s, describing different players and a particular play. Ryan takes literally minutes to explain that his then team (the Generals) supplied the ball to a fullback instead of star running back, Herschel Walker, at the goal line.Trump owned the Generals at the time and called Ryan with a warning. The conversation went like this, Ryan said, working up to his pay-off The next time you give the ball to Maurice Carthon instead of Herschel Walker, you re fired! That is a true story. Because no one s tired of The Apprentice jokes yet, right?The grand conclusion to Ryan s speech was meant to be his reasons for endorsing Donald Trump. So hold onto your hats, here it is. He ll say what s on his mind, he said. You ll see people that want to say the same thing, but the big difference is they don t have the courage to say it. Donald Trump certainly has the courage to say it, That feels more like the entry-level requirement to apply for any job in the world the ability to speak. How will he attempt to sell Trump next? With the fact that he s potty-trained?Whelk the Trump rally was boring 11,000 folks to tears in Buffalo, Bernie Sanders was holding a 30,000-strong, energizing rally in Prospect Park over in Brooklyn. It was Hollywood actor Danny DeVito which delivered the introduction for Sanders, and it was somewhat different. I doesn t take a genius to see where the momentum is heading as the race for President heats up.Featured Image via Screengrab | 1real |
SCARAMUCCI ON WH LEAKS: “If you’re going to keep leaking, I’m going to fire everybody.” [VIDEO] | It s about time! The White House has been leaking like a sieve. New White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci flatly said Sunday that he as going to fire all future leakers on his watch: We re as strong as our weakest leak A smug John Dickerson asked Scaramucci why President Donald Trump had tweeted a day earlier about his ability to grant pardons. Scaramucci said the leaks of that conversation and other leaks were unprofessional, injurious to the government, and possibly felonious. He s done absolutely nothing wrong. There s no need for him to pardon anybody, Scaramucci said. But he just doesn t like the fact that he has a two-minute conversation in the Oval Office or in his study, and then people are running out and leaking that. What happens to leakers on your watch? Dickerson asked. They re going to get fired, Scaramucci said.Scaramucci said he would hold a staff meeting on Monday and make it clear that anyone who wants to stay on will not leak private conversations to the press. We re as strong as our weakest leak, he said. So if you guys want to keep leaking, why don t you guys all get together and make a decision as a team that you re going to stop leaking. But if you re going to keep leaking, I m going to fire everybody. | 1real |
LEFTIST PROF WHO WANTS “Earth Constitution” Will Speak At Vatican Rollout Of Papal Document On Phony ‘Global Warming’ | Why would the Vatican invite an aggressive leftist speaker to the rollout of the Pope s Papal document on phony global climate change? As a Catholic, the news about the Pope s support of these horrible leftists and their radical agenda is heartbreaking. Pray for our nation One of the speakers slated for the Vatican rollout of the long-awaited Papal document on climate change once said the earth is overpopulated by at least 6 billion people.The teaching document, called an encyclical, is scheduled for release on June 18 at Vatican City. Perhaps with the exception of the 1968 encyclical on contraception, no Vatican document has been greeted with such anticipation.The political left is hoping for a document that ties belief in global warming to a religious obligation. Climate skeptics have already started criticizing the document.The choice of Professor John Schnellnhuber, founding director of the Postdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, as one of three presenters may be giving the left added hope and giving giving skeptics severe heartburn. He has been described as one of the more aggressive scientists on the question of man-made global warming.In a talk given to what s described as the failed 2009 Copenhagen climate conference, reported in the New York Times, Schnellnhuber, who has advised German President Angela Merkel and is a visiting professor at Oxford, said of global warming: In a very cynical way, it s a triumph for science because at last we have stabilized something - namely the estimates for the carrying capacity of the planet, namely below 1 billion people. Schnellnhuber is also author of what s called the two-degree target that says governments must not allow the temperature to rise more than 2 degrees higher than at the start of the industrial revolution. Any higher, the theory holds, and much life on earth would either perish or be gravely harmed.To deal with climate issues, he has also called for an Earth Constitution that would transcend the UN Charter along with the creation of a Global Council elected by all the people on Earth and a Planetary Court..a transnational legal body open to appeals from everybody, especially with respect to violations of the Earth Constitution. Via: Breitbart News | 1real |
BOMBSHELL: Political Assassination Of Mike Flynn Reportedly Led By High-Level Obama Advisor Worried Hidden Details Of Iran Deal Will Be Exposed | Much of the political world was shocked by the sudden resignation of National Security Adviser Mike Flynn from the administration of President Donald Trump, ostensibly the result of his having been exposed for having lied to Vice President Mike Pence about the content of a phone call Flynn had with a Russian ambassador before the inauguration, exposed by leaks from anonymous sources in the executive branch.According to a piece by Eli Lake of Bloomberg, however, that explanation for Flynn s unexpected departure only three weeks into the new administration has been viewed rather skeptically by some.Instead of simple miscommunications and alleged lies to cover such a mistake up, it is being surmised in some circles that Flynn just fell victim to a political assassination effort launched by holdovers and loyalists of the administration of former President Barack Obama. There does appear to be a well-orchestrated effort to attack Flynn and others in the administration, explained California GOP Rep. Devin Nunes, chair of the House Permanent Select Intelligence Committee. From the leaking of phone calls between the president and foreign leaders to what appears to be high-level FISA Court information, to the leaking of American citizens being denied security clearances, it looks like a pattern. Yesterday, CBS published a timeline that discredits Trump s former national security advisor General Mike Flynn. Hmmm did Ben Rhodes have anything to do with CBS News publishing this?Indeed, such was the message garnered by The Washington Free Beacon through interviews with multiple anonymous sources both inside and out of the White House in regard to former Obama administration officials and loyalists working quietly from within to sabotage and handicap Trump s agenda.It was believed that the effort to take down Flynn was led by former Obama adviser Ben Rhodes, largely due to Flynn s open opposition to the Iran nuclear deal and plans to expose the hidden details, a deal that Rhodes was instrumental in arranging and securing in 2015.The steady drip of leaks over the past weeks and months regarding Flynn s alleged ties to Russia are believed to have emanated from a veritable task force set up in the shadows of the administration, in the White House and assorted executive branch agencies, by Rhodes and others.One veteran of the national security advisory team told The Free Beacon it was undeniable that there had been a campaign to discredit Flynn that began even before the inauguration, one that seemed similar to the campaign to sell the Iran deal which probably features the same cast of characters. The biggest problem is the American public s trust in the administration around the White House, sources told The Free Beacon. The larger issue that should trouble the American people is the far-reaching power of unknown, un-elected apparatchiks in the intelligence community deciding for themselves both who serves in government and what is an acceptable policy they will allow the elected representatives of the people to pursue, the National Security Council official said. Put aside the issue of Flynn himself. That nameless, faceless bureaucrats were able to take out a president s national security adviser based on a campaign of innuendo without evidence should worry every American, he added.Flynn has been a target of the left ever since he was forced out of the Obama administration and began to criticize the former president s policies. It was well-known among insiders that exposing the Iran deal was at the top of Flynn s agenda in the new administration. The Obama administration knew that Flynn was going to release the secret documents around the Iran deal, which would blow up their myth that it was a good deal that rolled back Iran, a congressional aide with intimate knowledge of the fight over the Iran nuclear deal told The Free Beacon. So in December, the Obama NSC started going to work with their favorite reporters, selectively leaking damaging and incomplete information about Flynn. After Trump was inaugurated some of those people stayed in and some began working from the outside, and they cooperated to keep undermining Trump, the aide added, referencing the series of leaks from within the White House targeting Flynn and others. Last night s resignation was their first major win, but unless the Trump people get serious about cleaning house, it won t be the last. Conservative Tribune | 1real |
The Changing Face of Mainstream Media? | 21st Century Wire says One of the biggest trends running through this election season has been the migration of elements formerly on the fringe of politics into the center, or mainstream.Only a few short months ago, Breitbart News, fowas formerly classed as an element of the far right-wing of the media spectrum, and vanguard of the Alt Right . It is now occupying the front row of the West Wing alongside press stalwarts like the CNN, Wall Street Journal, Reuters and TIME Magazine.The following is a photo taken from the preparation hours before President Donald Trump s news conference which was held in the East Room of the White House in Washington DC yesterday.Times are indeed changing Haha Breitbart front row ! pic.twitter.com/ibgaDo1itn RockPrincess (@Rockprincess818) February 15, 2017SEE ALSO: From the Fringe to the Center: #FakeNews in the Context of Left-Right DialecticsREAD MORE MSM NEWS AT: 21st Century MSM Watch Files | 1real |
Got Wedding Jitters? Take a Hike (or Grab Your Blankie) - The New York Times | For her wedding, Hannah Spinrad welcomed 250 guests to Greensboro, N. C. her hometown, on Memorial Day weekend last year. The guests stayed at the Grandover Resort and enjoyed a stream of activities, from a golf tournament to snacking in the hospitality suite. The bride was always there to ensure that details were executed flawlessly and that guests were mingling and happy. For a few hours on that Saturday, however, Mrs. Spinrad, 30, who now lives in Atlanta with her husband, Kyle Spinrad, took a break from playing the perfect host to go on a run with her father. Escaping her guests to exercise may have seemed odd since she was already inundated with activities and wanted to be there for everyone. But this was her tradition with her dad, something she always did when she was home, and it was a chance for them to connect and relax. In retrospect, it was one of the best decisions she made. Before the run, she felt stressed, worrying about how everything was going. Afterward, she had a clear head and a new perspective. “Much of that weekend was a blur to me, but I actually remember that run,” she said. “It was a sense of normalcy, a chance to say, ‘Everyone is here, everyone is happy, and we’re O. K.’ It was my relaxing moment. ” She didn’t get upset even when she had to move the ceremony inside because of rain. Most brides and grooms feel jittery, said Allison a psychotherapist based in Mass. who specializes in counseling . Couples have the logistical stress of pulling off a wedding and dealing with all of the people and perspectives involved. They are also going through an emotional transformation. “You are making this profound identity change, and you are doing it in public, and you don’t know how you are going to react,” Ms. said. “It’s overwhelming, and that’s O. K. It should be. ” Instead of being caught off guard by that tension, some brides and grooms are taking creative steps to calm themselves on the big weekend, some not all that far removed from having their teddy bears accompany them down the aisle. Some, like Mrs. Spinrad, are reserving time to exercise. Ben Oberman, 32, a doctor in Durham, N. C. was particularly nervous about his wedding because some relatives disapproved of his fiancée, now his wife, Jacquelyn Scott Oberman. “I knew part of my family wasn’t going to be there,” he said. “I thought, was I alienating my family? Was everything going to be fine?” Dr. Oberman and his best man took off on a hike in a petrified forest near the wedding site in Sonoma County, Calif. He shared his fears, rehearsed his vows and took in the natural beauty around him. By the end of the trail, he was ready to get married. “It was a soothing environment, and I was with someone I could trust and who would be there for me no matter what,” he said. Rachael Babington, a Manhattan yoga instructor, has received so many requests from women who wanted to attend a class before their weddings that she started the company Brides Love Yoga. In the busy summer, she has two clients a day. She arrives at sites with a yoga mat and shows brides poses that help to open their hearts and focus their minds. Mrs. Spinrad said it could be strange to do something restorative on your wedding day. “It’s already a experience that is already supposed to be all about you, so you don’t necessarily think you need to take time for yourself,” she said. “But that means you have to do things to keep your perspective even more, because everything else seems like the biggest deal. ” Before leaving for her rehearsal diner at the Atlantic Golf Club in Bridgehampton, N. Y. last September, Claudia Davidson, 28, who works for UberEats in Washington, packed her clutch. Alongside her wallet and lip balm she put in a piece of her childhood blanket, which her late grandmother made. “It’s sort of something I take with me when I feel like I need backup,” she said. “I knew I was going to be overwhelmed being in the center of attention, so it was nice to have a little sentimental keepsake in my purse just in case. ” She turned to it during her rehearsal dinner, but felt confident enough to forgo it on her wedding day. Ms. said: “I’ll call that a transitional object. Bringing along something that brings you comfort, why not? You are feeling vulnerable. ” Laurie Mehlman, 31, of Marietta, Ga. let her mother slip a red ribbon, an item that Jewish tradition says wards off evil, into her shoe before her wedding ceremony. “I had just started getting nervous, and having that little connection calmed me down,” she said. Her husband, Ross Mehlman, 30, had his own batch of nerves. “I think it was the and everyone looking at you and you have to make a speech and everyone wants to talk to you that night,” he said. He dealt with his another way: He and his groomsmen watched his college team play football on television. “It quickly morphed from me sitting in a temple in a conference room waiting for my wedding to me and my best friends sitting around chilling out,” he said. Some people ask mental health professionals to help them with their anxiety. Hillary Evans, a hypnotherapist in Charleston, S. C. has brides come to her many reasons: They want to lose weight and can’t, they are fighting with relatives or friends, they are obsessing over details or they are terrified of giving their speeches. She uses traditional hypnosis to give them new perspectives. She teaches them how to visualize their success and slow down moments so they don’t get out of control and can be savored. Ellyn Gamberg, a psychotherapist in New York, encourages clients to see weddings as rehearsals for real life. “How you navigate what you do in preparing for the wedding and the actual wedding day will be the exact same issues, the same concerns, the same fears, the same dynamics with people and within your self that you will have to struggle with for the rest of your life,” she said. “So I say, ‘Get them right during the process so you get them right for life. ’” She spends months, even years, helping clients figure out the roots of their anxieties. But sometimes even that is not enough. Every year she attends many ceremonies, just to be there for clients in case they panic. “People bring things to weddings, their baby blanket, their pet, their lucky charm,” Dr. Gamberg said. “And some people bring their therapist. It makes them feel better. ” | 0fake |
WATCH VIDEO MEDIA WILL NEVER SHOW THEIR VIEWERS: Massive Line Of People Who Lost Everything Wait To See President Trump Speak In Corpus Christie | What a shame.NY Daily News went on to criticize President Trump for treating his visit like a campaign stop and for praising the excellent job Governor Abbott has done thus far. They also criticized him for acknowledging his FEMA Director William (Brock) Long, suggesting he s a man who s really become very famous on television in the last couple of days. Trump continued, We appreciate it very much, you have been just outstanding, Trump told Long.President Trump traveled to Corpus Christie, TX to reassure the victims of Hurricane Harvey that the federal, state and local governments are doing all that they can to restore their homes and their lives, following the most devastating storm in Texas history.Here s part of what he had to say to the large crowd:As @POTUS @realDonaldTrump has said the SPIRIT of TEXAS is absolutely incredible. #POTUS & @FLOTUS LOVE YOU ALL! #TexasStrong pic.twitter.com/yiVhROtrDL Dan Scavino Jr. (@Scavino45) August 29, 2017Massive crowds outside Trump briefing in Corpus Christi on #Harvey relief efforts https://t.co/xeCq4sYNvs pic.twitter.com/LHH4EQQhE7 FOX 4 NEWS (@FOX4) August 29, 2017 | 1real |
null | ... and this is how .gov smash expectations ... >>> Failed weapons systems cost Pentagon $58 billion over two decades >>> https://www.rt.com/usa/364230-pentagon-failed-acquisitions-costs/ | 1real |
Trump and Vietnam's president underscore free and open access to South China Sea | (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump and Vietnamese President Tran Dai Quang underscored the importance of free and open access to South China Sea, in a joint statement issued on Sunday. The two leaders called for the full and effective implementation of the declaration on the conduct of parties in the South China Sea, and for all claimants to clarify their maritime claims. Trump and Vietnam s Quang said parties should halt escalatory action and militarisation of disputed features. | 0fake |
API Reports A Build, DOE A Draw | API Reports A Build, DOE A Draw by IWB · October 26, 2016 Tweet
You cannot make this up…one could almost think an election was nigh…
The “”markets”” were selling off and the VIX had just crossed into important bear territory when – surprise! – the DOE completely reversed the API report (which reported a larger than expected BUILD) and reported a DRAW.
Now, I am prone to thinking that nearly all “”markets”” are in full shenanigan mode right now, I confess to that, but that comes from having a lot of context and possibly too much information.
I knew that a major 400,000 barrel per day pipeline taking oil away from Cushing had broken a few days ago, so I wasn’t surprised to hear of a build.
Pipeline remains closed following oil spill in Oklahoma
Updated: 3:50 PM CDT Oct 25, 2016
(AP) — A Seaway Crude Pipeline Co. pipeline that spilled oil at a storage hub in Oklahoma remained closed Tuesday, according to a spokesman for Houston-based Enterprise Products Partners, a 50 percent owner of Seaway.
“As of right now we don’t have an estimate of when it will be back up,” as officials are trying to determine the cause of the spill that happened shortly before midnight Sunday in Cushing, spokesman Rick Rainey said.
CUSHING, Oklahoma – While crews in Cushing continue to clean up oil after a pipeline break early Monday morning, the spill is stoking fears about what may be to come for the nation’s oil hub.
The Seaway Pipeline is one of the largest in the nation, running 500 miles from Cushing to refineries in Freeport, Texas. Because it’s two pipelines, the owning company Enterprise could shut down one and keep oil flowing, but only 450,000 barrels per day.
The section of pipe that burst can carry 50,000 barrels of oil or roughly 2.75 million gallons.
So right on top of the reported build and right on top of a major break in one of the largest oil pipelines carrying crude AWAY from Cushing, what’s a “”market”” manipulating government lackey to do?
Why report a surprise DRAW, thereby spiking oil, and indeed the entire US equity “”markets” because, such as.
This all feels about as believable as anything else this (s)election cycle.
Chris | 1real |
The Existential Question Of Whom To Trust | 21st Century Wire says Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980 s and has been a featured guest on Patrick Henningsen LIVE at 1100KFNX. In this report, Robert asks due to mainstream media experts who ve fallen to careerism , whom can we trust to deliver us the information to describe the world and its conflicts. (Image Former Secretary of State, Colin Powell addressing the United Nations on Feb. 5. 2003)Robert Parry Consortium NewsThe looming threat of World War III, a potential extermination event for the human species, is made more likely because the world s public can t count on supposedly objective experts to ascertain and evaluate facts. Instead, careerism is the order of the day among journalists, intelligence analysts and international monitors meaning that almost no one who might normally be relied on to tell the truth can be trustedThe dangerous reality is that this careerism, which often is expressed by a smug certainty about whatever the prevailing groupthink is, pervades not just the political world, where lies seem to be the common currency, but also the worlds of journalism, intelligence and international oversight, including United Nations agencies that are often granted greater credibility because they are perceived as less beholden to specific governments but in reality have become deeply corrupted, too.In other words, many professionals who are counted on for digging out the facts and speaking truth to power have sold themselves to those same powerful interests in order to keep high-paying jobs and to not get tossed out onto the street. Many of these self-aggrandizing professionals caught up in the many accouterments of success don t even seem to recognize how far they ve drifted from principled professionalism.A good example was Saturday night s spectacle of national journalists preening in their tuxedos and gowns at the White House Correspondents Dinner, sporting First Amendment pins as if they were some brave victims of persecution. They seemed oblivious to how removed they are from Middle America and how unlikely any of them would risk their careers by challenging one of the Establishment s favored groupthinks. Instead, these national journalists take easy shots at President Trump s buffoonish behavior and his serial falsehoods and count themselves as endangered heroes for the effort.FOILS FOR TRUMPIronically, though, these pompous journalists gave Trump what was arguably his best moment in his first 100 days by serving as foils for the President as he traveled to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, on Saturday and basked in the adulation of blue-collar Americans who view the mainstream media as just one more appendage of a corrupt ruling elite.Breaking with tradition by snubbing the annual press gala, Trump delighted the Harrisburg crowd by saying: A large group of Hollywood celebrities and Washington media are consoling each other in a hotel ballroom and adding: I could not possibly be more thrilled than to be more than 100 miles away from [the] Washington swamp with much, much better people. The crowd booed references to the elites and cheered Trump s choice to be with the common folk.Trump s rejection of the dinner and his frequent criticism of the mainstream media brought a defensive response from Jeff Mason, president of the White House Correspondents Association, who complained: We are not fake news. We are not failing news organizations. And we are not the enemy of the American people. That brought the black-tie-and-gown gathering to its feet in a standing ovation.Perhaps the assembled media elite had forgotten that it was the mainstream U.S. media particularly The Washington Post and The New York Times that popularized the phrase fake news and directed it blunderbuss-style not only at the few Web sites that intentionally invent stories to increase their clicks but at independent-minded journalism outlets that have dared question the elite s groupthinks on issues of war, peace and globalization.THE BLACK LISTProfessional journalistic skepticism toward official claims by the U.S. government what you should expect from reporters became conflated with fake news. The Post even gave front-page attention to an anonymous group called PropOrNot that published a black list of 200 Internet sites, including Consortiumnews.com and other independent-minded journalism sites, to be shunned.But the mainstream media stars didn t like it when Trump began throwing the fake news slur back at them. Thus, the First Amendment lapel pins and the standing ovation for Jeff Mason s repudiation of the fake news label.Yet, as the glitzy White House Correspondents Dinner demonstrated, mainstream journalists get the goodies of prestige and money while the real truth-tellers are almost always outspent, outgunned and cast out of the mainstream. Indeed, this dwindling band of honest people who are both knowledgeable and in position to expose unpleasant truths is often under mainstream attack, sometimes for unrelated personal failings and other times just for rubbing the powers-that-be the wrong way.Perhaps, the clearest case study of this up-is-down rewards-and-punishments reality was the Iraq War s WMD rationale. Nearly across the board, the American political/media system from U.S. intelligence analysts to the deliberative body of the U.S. Senate to the major U.S. news organizations failed to ascertain the truth and indeed actively helped disseminate the falsehoods about Iraq hiding WMDs and even suggested nuclear weapons development. (Arguably, the most trusted U.S. government official at the time, Secretary of State Colin Powell, played a key role in selling the false allegations as truth. )Not only did the supposed American gold standard for assessing information the U.S. political, media and intelligence structure fail miserably in the face of fraudulent claims often from self-interested Iraqi opposition figures and their neoconservative American backers, but there was minimal accountability afterwards for the professionals who failed to protect the public from lies and deceptions.PROFITING FROM FAILUREIndeed, many of the main culprits remain respected members of the journalistic establishment. For instance, The New York Times Pentagon correspondent Michael R. Gordon, who was the lead writer on the infamous aluminum tubes for nuclear centrifuges story which got the ball rolling for the Bush administration s rollout of its invade-Iraq advertising campaign in September 2002, still covers national security for the Times and still serves as a conveyor belt for U.S. government propaganda.The Washington Post s editorial page editor Fred Hiatt, who repeatedly informed the Post s readers that Iraq s secret possession of WMD was a flat-fact, is still the Post s editorial page editor, one of the most influential positions in American journalism.Hiatt s editorial page led a years-long assault on the character of former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson for the offense of debunking one of President George W. Bush s claims about Iraq seeking yellowcake uranium from Niger. Wilson had alerted the CIA to the bogus claim before the invasion of Iraq and went public with the news afterwards, but the Post treated Wilson as the real culprit, dismissing him as a blowhard and trivializing the Bush administration s destruction of his wife s CIA career by outing her (Valerie Plame) in order to discredit Wilson s Niger investigation.At the end of the Post s savaging of Wilson s reputation and in the wake of the newspaper s accessory role in destroying Plame s career, Wilson and Plame decamped from Washington to New Mexico. Meanwhile, Hiatt never suffered a whit and remains a respected Washington media figure to this day.CAREERIST LESSONThe lesson that any careerist would draw from the Iraq case is that there is almost no downside risk in running with the pack on a national security issue. Even if you re horrifically wrong even if you contribute to the deaths of some 4,500 U.S. soldiers and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis your paycheck is almost surely safe.The same holds true if you work for an international agency that is responsible for monitoring issues like chemical weapons. Again, the Iraq example offers a good case study. In April 2002, as President Bush was clearing away the few obstacles to his Iraq invasion plans, Jose Mauricio Bustani, the head of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons [OPCW], sought to persuade Iraq to join the Chemical Weapons Convention so inspectors could verify Iraq s claims that it had destroyed its stockpiles.The Bush administration called that idea an ill-considered initiative after all, it could have stripped away the preferred propaganda rationale for the invasion if the OPCW verified that Iraq had destroyed its chemical weapons. So, Bush s Undersecretary of State for Arms Control John Bolton, a neocon advocate for the invasion of Iraq, pushed to have Bustani deposed. The Bush administration threatened to withhold dues to the OPCW if Bustani, a Brazilian diplomat, remained.It now appears obvious that Bush and Bolton viewed Bustani s real offense as interfering with their invasion scheme, but Bustani was ultimately taken down over accusations of mismanagement, although he was only a year into a new five-year term after having been reelected unanimously. The OPCW member states chose to sacrifice Bustani to save the organization from the loss of U.S. funds, but in so doing they compromised its integrity, making it just another agency that would bend to big-power pressure. By dismissing me, Bustani said, an international precedent will have been established whereby any duly elected head of any international organization would at any point during his or her tenure remain vulnerable to the whims of one or a few major contributors. He added that if the United States succeeded in removing him, genuine multilateralism would succumb to unilateralism in a multilateral disguise Continue this report at Consortium News READ MORE US NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire US FilesSUPPORT OUR WORK BY SUBSCRIBING & BECOMING A MEMBER @21WIRE.TV | 1real |
Ashley Judd Knows From Experience That Donald Trump Is A Perverted Creep And He’s ‘Revolting’ | Donald Trump is a misogynist creep and Ashley Judd had no problem telling the world what she has personally witnessed.The actress talked to Jezebel writer Ellie Shechet on Thursday morning on the red carpet of the Creative Coalition Gala and Judd gave an unprompted story about the Republican nominee, whom she has know for over a decade. And let s just say that Judd s story about Trump takes him to a whole new level of creepy perv. I ve known Donald for 15, 17 years? she began. I m friends with someone who married into the family. Anyway, I would bump into him at the U.S. Open, for example, and I think I can say the amount of time he has spent looking at my chest rather than my face is proportional to his insanity and functionality. And then she demonstrated exactly what Trump does. If I may, this is what it s like to talk to Donald Trump. Judd stopped and stared pointedly at my chest. He s a chest gazer, a breast gazer, let s be more specific and, referring to the person who at that time was married into the family, he just sexualized her. Doesn t she look great? Doesn t she look ? He s just revolting. And it s not like Trump hasn t publicly displayed his creepiness.On multiple occasions, Trump has fantasized about his own daughter. During a 2006 appearance on The View, Trump said this about Ivanka Trump when asked if she would ever pose for Playboy: It would be really disappointing not really but it would depend on what s inside the magazine. I don t think Ivanka would do that, although she does have a very nice figure. I ve said if Ivanka weren t my daughter, perhaps I d be dating her. And that was just in 2006. Here s what he told Rolling Stone for an article in 2015.At 69, he can still carry on like the teen who was yanked out of prep school and delivered to Col. Dobias, the take-no-shit instructor at the military academy. After I met Ivanka and praised her to her father, he said, Yeah, she s really something, and what a beauty, that one. If I weren t happily married and, ya know, her father . . . So yeah, Donald Trump treats all women, even his own daughter, as sexual objects. He s disgusting. And he s the person the Republican Party chose as their leader. If that s how they thought they could reach out to women voters they were sorely mistaken.Featured Image: Wikimedia | 1real |
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