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23,100 | Pope Francis TORCHES Trump: ‘A Person Who Thinks Only Of Building Walls’ Is ‘Not A Christian’ | Pope Francis was asked about Donald Trump, and the famously compassionate religious leader could only barely hold back his disgust.Currently, Francis is finishing up an historic visit to Mexico. Needless to say, the issue of Donald Trump inevitably came up. When a reporter asked the pope to weigh in on Trump s potential candidacy, he unloaded on the Republican front-runner. A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian. This is not in the gospel. As far as what you said about whether I would advise to vote or not to vote, I am not going to get involved in that. I say only that this man is not Christian if he said things like that. We must see if he said things in that way and in this I give the benefit of the doubt. Consider the benefit of the doubt put to rest. Trump has spent the last seven months campaigning heavily on the idea that he can block both Hispanics and Muslims from ever coming to the United States. His policies, such that they are, have been organized around attacking minority groups and advocating for the return of torture. At his essence, Trump s campaign is the exact opposite of Pope Francis message of tolerance and compassion.Trump holds the distinction of having both pissed off the pope and also the entire country of Mexico. He infamously criticized the Catholic leader by dismissing him as just a politician. Francis didn t seem to mind, and in fact turned the tables on the attempted dig. Thank God he said I was a politician, because Aristotle defined the human person as animal politicus. So at least I am a human person. As to whether I am a pawn well, maybe, I don t know. I ll leave that up to your judgment and that of the people. Trump is also deeply unpopular in Mexico following his repeated attacks against the Mexican people. He kicked off his presidential campaign by claiming the Mexican government was sending rapists across the border to sell drugs and attack American women. He s never walked back those ideas. He also claimed he would build a massive concrete wall across the entire southern border at a cost estimated to be in the billions and get Mexico to pay for it.The pope s criticisms of Trump come at a time when the candidate is desperately trying to prove that he is a very good Christian with humiliating results. Trump, who once told shock jock Howard Stern that having unprotected sex with as many women as he had was his personal Vietnam, hasn t fooled very many people with this false change of heart.It takes a whole lot to get the pope to spend time taking you down a peg. Trump, for all of his hate speech and vile ideas, falls into that rare category of absolutely deserving it.Featured image via Flickr/Flickr | 0 |
23,101 | Republican senator to block arms sales over Qatar crisis | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The chairman of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee said on Monday he would block arms sales to Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and other members of the Gulf Cooperation Council pending progress in resolving a simmering dispute with Qatar. “All countries in the region need to do more to combat terrorism, but recent disputes among the GCC countries only serve to hurt efforts to fight ISIS and counter Iran,” Republican Senator Bob Corker wrote in a letter to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. His action could increase pressure on members of the Gulf Cooperation Council to settle the crisis. The GCC groups Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain and Oman. Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates imposed a boycott on Qatar, their tiny but wealthy neighbor, on June 5, accusing it of supporting terrorism. They have sent it 13 demands including closing al Jazeera television, curbing relations with Iran, and paying reparations. Under U.S. law, major foreign U.S. arms sales are submitted for review to a small group of lawmakers, including the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, before they can go ahead. Trump considered Corker as a potential vice president and secretary of state, and he works closely with the White House. The administration would be unlikely to ignore his resistance to the arms sales, and U.S. officials said they considered his statement part of a broader effort to solve the Qatar crisis. A State Department official noted that Tillerson called on Sunday for the countries involved to sit down together and discuss ways forward. The official declined comment on arms sales beyond saying the department remains committed to working with lawmakers. It was not immediately clear what sales would be affected. Trump has announced billions of dollars in arms sales since taking office in January. He sees weapons sales as a way to create jobs in the United States. A Corker aide said his action would not affect sales that had already been reviewed by Congress or non-lethal assistance, including training. One sale already cleared by Congress was for up to $350 billion in precision-guided munitions and other offensive weapons to Saudi Arabia. In his letter, Corker said he was pleased with Trump’s recent trip to Saudi Arabia, which included a GCC summit. “Unfortunately, the GCC did not take advantage of the summit and instead chose to devolve into conflict,” Corker wrote. | 1 |
23,102 | Watch Jake Tapper Get Cornered By TMZ; ADMITS Media Largely To Blame For Trump (VIDEO) | With the election of Donald Trump, many people are pointing fingers in many different directions to try and figure out what exactly just happened. How the hell did the United States just elect a failed businessman turned reality television host and beauty pageant coordinator to Commander-in-Chief?Perhaps, in part, the media is very much to blame. They treated Trump s campaign as a joke for the better first half of it, likely not thinking he would get as far as he has. He was entertainment. People tuned into to see whatever crazy thing Trump said next. Unlike his competition, pretty much every rally was televised, he had endless interviews and free air time, and he was sensationalized beyond comprehension.No one was really calling out the awful things he was saying in the mainstream media that was left to those on Twitter on the liberal blogosphere. Ironically, the same liberal blogosphere that is being blamed for his win and dubbed fake news by those who don t like to admit its honest relevancy. They were some of the only ones to highlight how horrific Trump actually is.Cornering Jake Tapper of CNN at Los Angeles International Airport was none other than TMZ. They asked Tapper about the media s role in the election, and he responded: Well, that s an extremely loaded question. I think there were a lot of media mistakes this season in all sorts of directions. I think polling needs to be re-examined quite a bit. Adding: This is probably a subject for a three-hour dissertation, not an airport drive-by. Certainly there s a lot of people whose behavior and professionalism this election season should be re-examined, thinking about how to do better and how to be better. That s saying it lightly. The mainstream media didn t do its job. They propped Trump up on a pedestal but at the same time never took him seriously enough to properly criticize the horrifying things he consistently said. So yes, we do need to think about how to do better and how to be better.Watch the interview via TMZ here:Featured image via video screen capture | 0 |
23,103 | WIKILEAKS: Here’s Evidence Hillary And Obama Are Nothing But Puppets For This Man…Vote Trump! | Here s the evidence of just how much danger we re in:Globalist and one world demon George Soros is mentioned over 50 times in the Wikileaks emails. Doesn t that tell us so much about what the Democrats are up to? Who runs the US? Apparently George Soros.The liberal billionaire funder, who has been tied to a globalist elite pushing the Muslim migrant crisis and multiculturalism onto Western societies, comes up a lot in private discussions between top Hillary Clinton campaign officials.A search by American Lookout showed Soros has been mentioned at least 56 times throughout the 11 batches of emails put out by Wikileaks which show collusion between elites, the mainstream media and the Hillary campaign.Likewise, Soros was directly mentioned in multiple subject headlines on emails, often times requesting a meeting with top Clinton official, John Podesta.Take a look:There s even one email where the Clinton operatives speak of Hillary wanting to please Soros. Who the hell is in charge here? A Hungarian anti-semite?Don t forget that Obama is heavily connected to Soros too.So which will it be for America?Do we choose a puppet like Hillary or a man who refuses to be bought by the establishment?PLEASE CHOOSE FREEDOM! PLEASE CHOOSE TRUMP!Read more: GP | 0 |
23,104 | Orlando Police: Good Guys With Guns Might Have Killed Some Of The Victims | One of the NRA s biggest talking points might have just been debunked, by the Orlando police. It appears as though the brutal massacre in Orlando might gave actually been more deadly because of the involvement of police.The police allegedly screwed up on two different fronts early Sunday morning, when they took more than three hours to storm the club and some of the casualties may have been from the bullets fired by the first responders.(Orlando Police Chief, John Mina said) I will say that is all part of the investigation. But I will say when our SWAT officers, about eight or nine officers, opened fire, their backdrop was a concrete wall. And they were being fired upon, so that is all part of the investigation. We had a team of crisis negotiators that talked to the suspect, trying to get as much information as possible, what we could do to help resolve the situation He wasn t asking a whole lot, and we were doing most of the asking, Mina said.But Mateen soon began talking about explosives and bombs, leading Mina to decide about 5am to detonate an explosive on an exterior wall to prevent potentially greater loss of life.The explosives did not penetrate the wall completely, so an armored vehicle was used to punch a two-foot-by-three-foot hole in the wall about two feet from the ground. We knew there would be an imminent loss of life, Mina said.Source: Daily MailThe intent of this article is not to second guess the Orlando police, not at all. But, this does completely debunk the NRA s (and Republicans ) good guy with a gun theory. Inside a crowded nightclub, it s hard to know where bullets are coming from and it s easy to accidentally hurt people you didn t mean to. This is from trained professionals imagine a bunch of untrained civilians with handguns.Donald Trump and others say that if there were more guns that fateful morning, there would have been fewer casualties. If you had guns in that room, if you had even if you had a number of people having them strapped to their ankle or strapped to their waist where bullets could have flown in the other direction right at him, you wouldn t have had that tragedy, Trump said.Source: Huffington PostThere actually was a good guy with a gun there, there was an armed security guard, but he wan t able to prevent over 100 casualties. There s absolutely no chance that an entire club filled with armed patrons wouldn t have ended even worse than the tragic outcome we already had. The FBI knows this. In fact, a 2005 study found that people who run and call the police have a much better chance of survival than people who try to stand up to a shooter. This is a direct contradiction to a study done earlier by the very same person that is often quoted by the NRA. In other words, good guys with guns can be very dangerous in situations with bad guys with guns. The Orlando police admit it. It s time the NRA does too.Featured image of presumed good guy with a gun via Getty Images. | 0 |
23,105 | Planned Parenthood protests aimed at House Republicans' offices | (Reuters) - Planned Parenthood, the U.S. medical services provider that could lose federal funding under the Republican-controlled House of Representatives’ healthcare overhaul bill, said it would hold dozens of demonstrations outside the local offices of members of Congress across the country on Friday and Saturday. The protests will target some of the 217 Republican representatives who voted to pass legislation on Thursday that would repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, the healthcare law passed in 2010 under former President Barack Obama. “We’re standing together as women, people of color, immigrants, and as people of faith, and we’re fighting back to make sure that every single politician in America knows that we will not stand for ‘defunding’ Planned Parenthood,” Kelly Robinson, the national organizing director of the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, said in a statement. The bill still needs approval by the U.S. Senate. President Donald Trump, a Republican, praised the bill’s passage in the House but acknowledged that some of its provisions may change before it becomes law. A part of the Republicans’ proposed American Health Care Act would prevent Planned Parenthood from being reimbursed for any of its services, including cancer screening and pre-natal care, through the Medicaid program for the poor. About 60 percent of the patients who use Planned Parenthood’s 600 or so clinics are on Medicaid or other federal public health programs. Republican congressional offices from coast to coast were targeted on Friday, with protests planned at the offices of Representatives Rodney Frelinghuysen in Morristown, New Jersey, Kevin Yoderice in Shawnee Mission, Kansas, and Darrell Issa in Vista, California, among others. Many Republicans oppose any funding for Planned Parenthood, citing religious grounds, because its services include abortions, although it receives no federal funding or reimbursement for abortions, as stipulated by federal law. The Family Research Council, a Christian advocacy group, and other conservative policy groups praised the House bill as a tool to help limit access to abortions. Planned Parenthood says the bill would harm 2.5 million people who rely on it for basic health services. | 1 |
23,106 | Koch network launches effort to kill Republican border tax plan | INDIAN WELLS, Calif. (Reuters) - Billionaire industrialist Charles Koch is launching a campaign to sink a border tax under consideration by Republican leaders in Congress, a move that could complicate the lawmakers’ efforts to find a way to pay for President Donald Trump’s proposed wall on the U.S. border with Mexico. Americans for Prosperity, a conservative political advocacy group founded by Charles Koch and his brother David, plans to use its network of wealthy political donors and activists to kill the proposal, which aims to raise $1.2 trillion over 10 years on goods coming into the United States, according to officials from the group, which gathered this weekend for a conference. Republican House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan is pushing the tax as part of a broader overhaul of the U.S. tax code. The White House has given mixed signals on whether Trump supports the approach, but proponents say revenue collected from the border tax could finance Trump’s drive to build a wall along the southwestern U.S. border. Proponents also say it would discourage U.S. manufacturers from moving abroad. On Thursday, AFP sent a letter expressing its opposition to the border tax to a House panel in charge of writing tax legislation. AFP Chief Executive Officer Luke Hilgemann, in an interview, called the measure “a massive tax increase” on U.S. consumers, who would pay more for foreign goods. He urged Ryan to “go back to the drawing board.” AFP and its offshoot organizations have become a powerful force in U.S. politics, bolstering candidates and issues on federal and state levels. Besides defying Republican leaders on the border tax, the Koch-led organization on Sunday challenged Trump on a policy he implemented on Friday to stop the movement of people from countries with large Muslim populations from traveling to the United States. “The travel ban is the wrong approach and will likely be counterproductive,” said an official of the Koch network. Koch refused to endorse Trump during his presidential campaign, differing with the candidate over his positions on immigration and trade policy, and his practice of singling out companies for possible retribution if they move jobs abroad. Nevertheless, Hilgemann said AFP had a “developing relationship” with the Trump White House, which he said had reached out to his organization to discuss some policy matters. At the same time, former AFP officials have landed high-level jobs in the Trump administration, giving the group a conduit for airing its policy wishes. Looking toward the 2018 congressional and gubernatorial elections, AFP officials said they planned to boost the network’s spending on policy and political activities to between $300 million and $400 million, up from an estimated $250 million for the 2016 campaigns. Hilgemann also said AFP was laying plans to mobilize activists to help win Senate confirmation of Trump’s pick for the Supreme Court nominee. The White House said Trump was planning this week to announce his pick to replace the late Justice Antonin Scalia. | 1 |
23,107 | Donald Trump Tells Veterans That He’s Just As Brave As Them Because He’s Rich (VIDEO) | I am not a psychologist. I don t even play one on TV, but after more than a year of hearing non-stop Donald Trump verbal vomit, it s pretty clear that the man is incapable of not insulting people, even the people this country pretends to revere, like veterans. On Thursday, Trump, for not the first time, insulted a group of his military veteran supporters by saying that he s just as brave as them because he takes financial risks (he doesn t, but more on that in a bit).He started off right, for literally a fraction of a second:With five days to go until Election Day, we almost had a late-breaking campaign first: Donald Trump being self-deprecating. Speaking at a rally in North Carolina Thursday night, Trump acknowledged Medal of Honor recipients in attendance. Oh, they re so much more brave than me. I wouldn t have done what they did, Trump said. So far so good. I m brave in other ways, Trump continued. I m brave. Just different brave. Same same.Source: SlateWatch it here:Okay, Mr. Trump, since you brought up bravery, let s talk about it. You had five draft deferments, officially making you a draft dodger and if your campaign rhetoric is any indication, you re also a chicken hawk. Sending other people to die, so you can bravely amass your personal fortune is the opposite of bravery. It s cowardly and it s worse.As for being financially brave, hardly. He s brave with OPM, other people s money, which is not bravery at all.It s called OPM. I do it all the time in business. It s called other people s money. There s nothing like doing things with other people s money because it takes the risk you get a good chunk out of it and it takes the risk.Source: BloombergTrump has also filed bankruptcy numerous times, which means he s really irresponsible with other people s money. Why should we expect him to be any different as Commander-in-Chief. He will send other people s children to fight wars that could quite easily bankrupt us. To Trump, that would be just another day. To the rest of the country, it would be devastating.Despite all of this, despite the fact that Trump has insulted prisoners of war, veterans with PTSD, Gold Star families, and the very sacrifices of veterans, the military still supports him, although, by and large, the people in charge do not. Perhaps the military should be listening to its generals and admirals instead of a bloated draft dodger.Featured image via Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images | 0 |
23,108 | Republican ABSURDLY Claims Investigating Trump Would Be Like ‘McCarthyism’ | Republicans are literally using every excuse they can come up with to avoid investigating Donald Trump.After years of frivolously investigating Hillary Clinton and President Obama, Republicans are refusing to investigate Trump over his various ties to Russia, which includes Russia interfering in our election process on his behalf and Michael Flynn illegally negotiating with Russian officials about the sanctions put in place by President Obama and lying to Mike Pence about it.Republicans have claimed that investigating Trump would be a waste of time and money, conveniently ignoring the fact that they wasted millions and spent years investigating Benghazi, an investigation that surpassed the 9/11 and Watergate investigations as the longest in American history. And that effort turned up nothing.However, Republicans know that if they investigate Trump they will end up actually finding evidence that would warrant immediate impeachment, and they don t want to lose their rubber stamp in the White House and piss off conservative voters in the process.House Intelligence Chairman GOP Rep. Devin Nunes is even going so far as to claim that such an investigation would be a witch hunt similar to McCarthyism. This is almost like McCarthyism revisited, Nunes said at a Republican convention in California. We re going to go on a witch hunt against, against innocent Americans. You read that right. Nunes actually just claimed that Trump and his accomplices are totally innocent even though the evidence is stacking up.According to Nunes, the intelligence community has no evidence of Trump and his administration doing anything suspicious. At this point there s nothing there, Nunes continued. Once we begin to look at all the evidence, and if we find any American that had any contact with Russian agents or anybody affiliated with the Russian government, then we ll be glad to, at that point, you know, subpoena those people before the House and let the legislative branch do its oversight and then we would recommend it over to, you know, the appropriate people. Of course, that s complete bullshit. Not only did the intelligence community agree that Russia interfered with the election, Michael Flynn was forced to resign for being in contact with Russian officials prior to Trump taking office. Also, Trump and his team are trying really hard to kill any talk of an investigation, even desperately asking the FBI to shut it down.Trump s business has ties to Russian oligarchs who are close to Vladimir Putin. Trump s taxes would probably show his ties to Russia but he refuses to release them because they would incriminate him.Russia has literally been a scandal for Trump since before Election Day and it has only continued to get bigger since he took office last month.But Nunes is ignoring all of that, claiming that an investigation against Trump would be against the American people. He also subscribed to Trump s claim that the media is fake news. At this point, we can t go on a witch hunt against the American people, any American people who have not had any contact just because they appeared in a news story, Nunes concluded.Again, this is outrageously absurd. The only reason Republicans don t want to investigate Trump is because they don t want to investigate one of their own. If Trump were a Democrat, Republicans would have impeached him on day one. It is the duty of Congress to investigate Trump s Russia scandal. That s not McCarthyism because Joe McCarthy accused hundreds of people of being communists without any proof whatsoever. There is a lot of proof that Trump is in bed with the Russians. But Republicans are hypocrites and that s why they should all be thrown out of office in 2018 so that Democrats can take over Congress and impeach Trump and his entire administration.Featued image via Andrew Harrer Pool/Getty Images | 0 |
23,109 | JUSTICE DEPARTMENT: Firing Workers With Expired Papers Is Discrimination? Outrageous! [Video] | Our Justice Department is beyond out of control to give 6 months extra to those who ve let their permission to work in America expire! How in the world is being negligent rewarded? Do these people have a personal responsibility to renew papers themselves?The goal ultimately is to make it harder and harder for companies to fire anyone.Sounds good for workers right? Well, it s a double edged sword. If it s harder to fire it s much harder to hire. Companies fearing being stuck with poor performers will choose to not hire or to automate.And check this video out:This is the sort of thing employers have to concern themselves with these days. Good luck keeping all the rules straight. But you d better or you might find yourself subject to a government inquiry.The video is shot in a dimly lit office, where two actors discuss whether their fictional company should let go of some Salvadoran employees who have failed to provide updated paperwork on their immigration status.After a discussion about whether retaining the workers would violate the law, a woman says, I think this is an exception to that rule, and recommends that they contact the the Office of Special Counsel for Immigration Related Unfair Employment Practices before making any decisions. We want to follow the rules but we don t want to lose these workers or discriminate against them, she concludes. They are too valuable. | 0 |
23,110 | Turkey will take its own security measures after Russia defense deal: Erdogan | ANKARA (Reuters) - President Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday dismissed NATO allies concern over Turkey s deal to buy a missile defense system from Russia and said Ankara would continue to take the security measures it thought right. Turkey, whose relations with its allies have frayed in recent months, said it opted for the S-400 because Western companies had offered no financially effective alternative. But NATO officials have voiced disquiet over the purchase of missiles incompatible with alliance systems. They went crazy because we made the S-400 agreement. What were we supposed to do, wait for you? We are taking and will take all our measures on the security front, Erdogan said in a speech in Ankara. Western firms which had bid for the contract included U.S. firm Raytheon (RTN.N), which put in an offer with its Patriot missile defense system. Franco-Italian group Eurosam, owned by the multinational European missile maker MBDA and France s Thales TCFP.PA, came second in the tender. Turkey, with the second-largest army in the alliance, has enormous strategic importance for NATO, abutting as it does Syria, Iraq and Iran. But the relationship has become fractious. Erdogan has been infuriated by Washington s support for Kurdish YPG fighters in the battle against Islamic State in Syria. Turkey sees the YPG as an extension of the militant Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has waged a three-decade insurgency in Turkey s largely Kurdish southeast. The U.S. Pentagon said it had expressed concerns to Ankara about the Russian purchase. A NATO interoperable missile defense system remains the best option to defend Turkey from the full range of threats in its region, spokesman Johnny Michael said in a statement. France, however, said Turkey s decision was a sovereign choice which did not require comment from NATO allies. France s foreign minister is due to visit Turkey on Thursday. Germany has said it would restrict some arms sales to Turkey, reflecting the diplomatic strain over a security crackdown in Turkey following a failed military coup last year. Berlin had originally sought to freeze major arms sales, but scaled that back after Turkey said that would harm the joint fight against Islamic State. Berlin has criticized mass arrests that followed the failed coup and demanded the release of around a dozen German or Turkish-German citizens arrested in recent months. Turkey originally awarded a $3.4 billion contract for the defense system to China in 2013, but canceled that two years later, saying it would concentrate on developing a system domestically. Turkey later began talks with Russia, and in July Erdogan said the deal had been signed, although negotiations appear to have been drawn out over financing. Turkish media quoted Erdogan this week as saying he and Russian President Vladimir Putin were determined that the agreement should proceed. | 1 |
23,111 | Sports Bar Owner Bans NFL Games…Will Show Only ‘True American’ Sports: ‘I’d like to speak for rural America’ [Video] | The owner of the Ringling Bar, located south of White Sulphur Springs, is standing behind his Facebook post that criticizes NFL players who take a knee during the national anthem to protest police brutality. The post was made on the Ringling Bar s Facebook page Tuesday night and has since received hundreds of comments and shares. The post reads: The Ringling Bar will no longer show any NFL games. This will allow us to air the PBR, Rodeo and NASCAR events whose competitors are true Americans! Sorry for any inconvenience. Ringling Bar Co-owner Kurt Bekemans, who grew up in the Paradise Valley, published the post and said he doesn t care if the post turns some customers away. Seriously, I would not care if non-Americans didn t patronize the place, said Bekemans. I d like to speak for rural America: I bet you wouldn t see any farmers or ranchers in our whole country take a knee such as these guys do, I bet you couldn t find one. They appreciate what our great nation has given them and I think that s the least you could do to give thanks to our country is stand for the flag and the anthem. As of Wednesday morning, a majority of the comments were in support of the bar. We all love ya for this, I ll be by with as many people I can round up!! said one commenter.Another person was critical, writing: Ha Ha of course NASCAR is not protesting the treatment of minority s because they don t care about them!!! Read more: krtv | 0 |
23,112 | Supreme Court upholds Arizona legislative districts | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Supreme Court on Wednesday unanimously upheld the state legislative districts in Arizona drawn by an independent commission, rebuffing complaints that the electoral maps diminished the clout of Republican voters. The court, in its 8-0 ruling, said the commission that draws legislative boundaries did not violate the U.S. Constitution’s principle of “one person, one vote.” The case focused on state legislative districts drawn for the 2012 election based on 2010 census numbers. The challengers said the new districts favored Democrats over Republicans by packing Republican voters into certain districts in a way that would minimize their influence in neighboring districts while enhancing the sway of Democratic voters. In mapping out the state legislative districts, Arizona’s independent commission carries out a function that in most other states is handled by state legislators. Writing for the court, liberal Justice Stephen Breyer said the deviations in numbers between district populations was not significant enough to be legally troubling, particularly as the state’s redistricting commission was trying to comply with the federal Voting Rights Act, which protects minority voters. The challengers “have not shown that it is more probable than not that illegitimate considerations were the predominant motivation behind the plan’s deviations from mathematically equal district populations,” Breyer wrote. A federal court in Arizona upheld the districts in a 2014 ruling, saying the commission had made a “good faith attempt” to comply with the Voting Rights Act. The group of Republican voters who brought the case then appealed the matter to the U.S. Supreme Court. The case was the second in as many years concerning Arizona’s independent commission. In June 2015, the court rejected another challenge to the commission’s role in drawing congressional districts. In that decision, the court found that the ballot initiative that set up the commission did not violate the U.S. Constitution’s requirement that state legislatures set U.S. House of Representatives district boundaries. Wednesday’s ruling was the second by the court this month touching upon the issue of “one person, one vote.” On April 4, the justices also ruled unanimously in a Texas case to uphold the method all 50 states use in drawing legislative districts by counting every resident and not just eligible voters. In that case, the justices rejected a conservative challenge that could have diminished the influence of urban Hispanics. The case is Harris v. Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission, U.S. Supreme Court, No. 14-232. | 1 |
23,113 | WATCH: Trump’s Chief Of Staff John Kelly Just Admitted That He Doesn’t Think There Was Anything Wrong With Slavery | The Civil War was about slavery. In fact, slavery was the one issue that threatened to rip the union apart before the Constitution was even ratified. At the convention in Philadelphia, the Three-Fifths compromise was made due to the southern states wanting more representation in the House of Representatives due to wanting their slaves to count as part of the Constitution. So, the states that would go on to become the Confederate States of America actually forced the Founders to protect slavery in the original Constitution.These compromises would be done repeatedly, through different types of fugitive slave laws, and other compromises like the creation of the 36-30 line known today as the Mason-Dixon line. Slavery was allowed below that line, and was not allowed above it. That compromise was later threatened with the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which would allow the incoming state of Kansas to vote on whether or not to allow slavery, rather than having the state automatically enter as either a slave state or a free state. This resulted in Border Ruffians violently crossing the line into Kansas to make sure that Kansas allowed slavery. This conflict would come to be so bloody that it was known as Bleeding Kansas. Now, all of this led to one thing: There were states who wanted the United States to allow slavery, and those who knew it to be a brutal, immoral institution that needed to end. Hence, no matter what the white supremacist revisionist history and propaganda says, the Civil War was about slavery. However, Donald Trump s Chief of Staff, John Kelly, seems to need that little history lesson.In a Tuesday appearance with right-wing hack Laura Ingraham, Kelly had a few words regarding famed Confederate General Robert E. Lee, with regards to the recent controversies over statues honoring the Confederacy. He said of the pro-slavery general: I would tell you that Robert E. Lee was an honorable man. He was a man that gave up his country to fight for his state, which 150 years ago was more important than country. It was always loyalty to state first back in those days. Now it s different today. But the lack of an ability to compromise led to the Civil War, and men and women of good faith on both sides made their stand where their conscience had them make their stand. I can only come to the conclusion that this means that the so-called adult in the room in Trump s chaotic, incompetent, scandal-ridden White House is either too ignorant of history to know what kind of man he just used the word honorable to describe, or he is just A-OK with slavery, and equates white supremacy and owning human beings with the likes of those who would liberate those human beings who were so brutally held in bondage against their will for so many years that we, their descendants, still suffer injustices as a result, even today.Next time someone says the Trump Administration isn t full of white supremacists, show them this.Watch Kelly s dangerous remarks below:Enough about John Kelly being the adult in the room. He s out here praising Robert E. Lee and falsifying history. pic.twitter.com/22BXNOqSMt Jamil Smith (@JamilSmith) October 31, 2017Featured image via Drew Angerer/Getty Images | 0 |
23,114 | Meet The Black Man Donald Trump Tried To Murder (VIDEO) | Donald Trump has often campaigned as the self-described law and order candidate in the 2016 presidential election. But one of the men Trump tried to persecute is speaking out against the reality TV star.As recently as last week, Trump argued that the Central Park Five should be behind bars. The men were five young black men who were railroaded by the criminal justice system and falsely accused of raping a white woman (known as the Central Park Jogger). Eventually, after they were imprisoned, another man was connected to the crime via DNA evidence and the Five were released. They received a court judgment and were rewarded monetary damages for their unjust incarceration.Trump took out a full-page ad during the trial, calling for the boys execution. Now, one of those men, Yusef Salaam, is speaking out about Trump and his incitement and what Salaam describes as calling basically for us to be murdered. Yusef Salaam said Donald Trump s infamous full-page ad calling for the deaths of the Central Park Five would in an earlier era been the impetus that sparked mob justice in a new ad against Trump. They had our names, our phone numbers and addresses in the papers so what would ve happened? Somebody from the darkest places of society would ve come to our homes, kicked in our doors, and drug us from our homes and hung us from the trees in Central Park. That would ve been the type of mob justice that they were seeking. Trump still refuses to accept that these men are innocent, part of a troubling pattern from the Republican nominee in a blas attitude towards black concerns and safety. Asked during the debates about police brutality against blacks and the protests of the Black Lives Matter movement, Trump has instead gone at length about stop and frisk and inner city crime. It is his go-to position and rhetoric when speaking about black people.Featured image via screen capture | 0 |
23,115 | WOW! FORMER NSA EXPERTS REPORT: Russians DID NOT Hack DNC Servers…It Was A LEAK…An INSIDE JOB By Someone With Access To DNC’s System | It is now a year since the Democratic National Committee s mail system was compromised a year since events in the spring and early summer of 2016 were identified as remote hacks and, in short order, attributed to Russians acting in behalf of Donald Trump. A great edifice has been erected during this time.President Trump, members of his family, and numerous people around him stand accused of various corruptions and extensive collusion with Russians. Half a dozen simultaneous investigations proceed into these matters. Last week news broke that Special Counsel Robert Mueller had convened a grand jury, which issued its first subpoenas on August 3. Allegations of treason are common; prominent political figures and many media cultivate a case for impeachment.The president s ability to conduct foreign policy, notably but not only with regard to Russia, is now crippled. Forced into a corner and having no choice, Trump just signed legislation imposing severe new sanctions on Russia and European companies working with it on pipeline projects vital to Russia s energy sector. Striking this close to the core of another nation s economy is customarily considered an act of war, we must not forget. In retaliation, Moscow has announced that the United States must cut its embassy staff by roughly two-thirds. All sides agree that relations between the United States and Russia are now as fragile as they were during some of the Cold War s worst moments. To suggest that military conflict between two nuclear powers inches ever closer can no longer be dismissed as hyperbole.All this was set in motion when the DNC s mail server was first violated in the spring of 2016 and by subsequent assertions that Russians were behind that hack and another such operation, also described as a Russian hack, on July 5. These are the foundation stones of the edifice just outlined. The evolution of public discourse in the year since is worthy of scholarly study: Possibilities became allegations, and these became probabilities. Then the probabilities turned into certainties, and these evolved into what are now taken to be established truths. By my reckoning, it required a few days to a few weeks to advance from each of these stages to the next. This was accomplished via the indefensibly corrupt manipulations of language repeated incessantly in our leading media.There was no hack of the Democratic National Committee s system on July 5 last year not by the Russians, not by anyone else.Hard science now demonstrates it was a leak a download executed locally with a memory key or a similarly portable data-storage device.In short, it was an inside job by someone with access to the DNC s system. This casts serious doubt on the initial hack, as alleged, that led to the very consequential publication of a large store of documents on WikiLeaks last summer.Forensic investigations of documents made public two weeks prior to the July 5 leak by the person or entity known as Guccifer 2.0 show that they were fraudulent: Before Guccifer posted them they were adulterated by cutting and pasting them into a blank template that had Russian as its default language. Guccifer took responsibility on June 15 for an intrusion the DNC reported on June 14 and professed to be a WikiLeaks source claims essential to the official narrative implicating Russia in what was soon cast as an extensive hacking operation. To put the point simply, forensic science now devastates this narrative.This article is based on an examination of the documents these forensic experts and intelligence analysts have produced, notably the key papers written over the past several weeks, as well as detailed interviews with many of those conducting investigations and now drawing conclusions from them. Before proceeding into this material, several points bear noting.Qualified experts working independently of one another began to examine the DNC case immediately after the July 2016 events. Prominent among these is a group comprising former intelligence officers, almost all of whom previously occupied senior positions. Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), founded in 2003, now has 30 members, including a few associates with backgrounds in national-security fields other than intelligence. The chief researchers active on the DNC case are four: William Binney, formerly the NSA s technical director for world geopolitical and military analysis and designer of many agency programs now in use; Kirk Wiebe, formerly a senior analyst at the NSA s SIGINT Automation Research Center; Edward Loomis, formerly technical director in the NSA s Office of Signal Processing; and Ray McGovern, an intelligence analyst for nearly three decades and formerly chief of the CIA s Soviet Foreign Policy Branch. Most of these men have decades of experience in matters concerning Russian intelligence and the related technologies. This article reflects numerous interviews with all of them conducted in person, via Skype, or by telephone.The customary VIPS format is an open letter, typically addressed to the president. The group has written three such letters on the DNC incident, all of which were first published by Robert Parry at www.consortiumnews.com. Here is the latest, dated July 24; it blueprints the forensic work this article explores in detail. They have all argued that the hack theory is wrong and that a locally executed leak is the far more likely explanation. In a letter to Barack Obama dated January 17, three days before he left office, the group explained that the NSA s known programs are fully capable of capturing all electronic transfers of data. We strongly suggest that you ask NSA for any evidence it may have indicating that the results of Russian hacking were given to WikiLeaks, the letter said. If NSA cannot produce such evidence and quickly this would probably mean it does not have any. Forensicator s first decisive findings, made public in the paper dated July 9, concerned the volume of the supposedly hacked material and what is called the transfer rate the time a remote hack would require. The metadata established several facts in this regard with granular precision: On the evening of July 5, 2016, 1,976 megabytes of data were downloaded from the DNC s server. The operation took 87 seconds. This yields a transfer rate of 22.7 megabytes per second.These statistics are matters of record and essential to disproving the hack theory. No Internet service provider, such as a hacker would have had to use in mid-2016, was capable of downloading data at this speed. Compounding this contradiction, Guccifer claimed to have run his hack from Romania, which, for numerous reasons technically called delivery overheads, would slow down the speed of a hack even further from maximum achievable speeds.In addition, there is the adulteration of the documents Guccifer 2.0 posted on June 15, when he made his first appearance. This came to light when researchers penetrated what Folden calls Guccifer s top layer of metadata and analyzed what was in the layers beneath. They found that the first five files Guccifer made public had each been run, via ordinary cut-and-paste, through a single template that effectively immersed them in what could plausibly be cast as Russian fingerprints. They were not: The Russian markings were artificially inserted prior to posting. It s clear, another forensics investigator self-identified as HET, wrote in a report on this question, that metadata was deliberately altered and documents were deliberately pasted into a Russianified [W]ord document with Russian language settings and style headings. VIPS has assembled a chronology that imposes a persuasive logic on the complex succession of events just reviewed. It is this:On June 12 last year, Julian Assange announced that WikiLeaks had and would publish documents pertinent to Hillary Clinton s presidential campaign.On June 14, CrowdStrike, a cyber-security firm hired by the DNC, announced, without providing evidence, that it had found malware on DNC servers and had evidence that Russians were responsible for planting it.On June 15, Guccifer 2.0 first appeared, took responsibility for the hack reported on June 14 and claimed to be a WikiLeaks source. It then posted the adulterated documents just described.On July 5, Guccifer again claimed he had remotely hacked DNC servers, and the operation was instantly described as another intrusion attributable to Russia. Virtually no media questioned this account.It does not require too much thought to read into this sequence. With his June 12 announcement, Assange effectively put the DNC on notice that it had a little time, probably not much, to act preemptively against the imminent publication of damaging documents. Did the DNC quickly conjure Guccifer from thin air to create a cyber-saboteur whose fingers point to Russia? There is no evidence of this one way or the other, but emphatically it is legitimate to pose the question in the context of the VIPS chronology. WikiLeaks began publishing on July 22. By that time, the case alleging Russian interference in the 2016 elections process was taking firm root. In short order Assange would be written down as a Russian agent. See Wikileaks founder Julian Assange s interview about the possibility of Seth Rich being the DNC leaker near bottom of the article. Behind the ICA lie other indefensible realities. The FBI has never examined the DNC s computer servers an omission that is beyond preposterous. It has instead relied on the reports produced by Crowdstrike, a firm that drips with conflicting interests well beyond the fact that it is in the DNC s employ. Dmitri Alperovitch, its co-founder and chief technology officer, is on the record as vigorously anti-Russian. He is a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, which suffers the same prejudice. Problems such as this are many. We continue to stand by our report, CrowdStrike said, upon seeing the VIPS blueprint of the investigation. CrowdStrike argues that by July 5 all malware had been removed from the DNC s computers. But the presence or absence of malware by that time is entirely immaterial, because the event of July 5 is proven to have been a leak and not a hack. Given that malware has nothing to do with leaks, CrowdStrike s logic appears to be circular.Click HERE for the entire THE NATION article. h/t Gateway Pundit Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has strongly hinted that the source for the DNC emails he released was Seth Rich. In this interview with Julian Assange, he seems to suggest on Dutch television program Nieuwsuur that Seth Rich was the source for the Wikileaks-exposed DNC emails and was murdered: | 0 |
23,116 | debate washingtons syria policy | society us supreme court justice clarence thomas
a female lawyer has accused us supreme court justice clarence thomas of sexually assaulting her in a report says
moira smith who works as a corporate lawyer with an alaska energy company said the judge made unwanted sexual advances on her during a dinner party when she was yearold the national law journal reported on thursday
she said thomas grabbed and squeezed her buttocks several times during the party in falls church virginia
justice thomas touched me inappropriately and without my consent smith said
he groped me while i was setting the table suggesting i should sit right next to him smith said
he was or inches down and he got a good handful and he kept squeezing me and pulling me close to him she stated according to the journal
in a statement to the national law journal thomas dismissed the allegation as preposterous saying that the incident never happened
smith currently vice president and general counsel at enstar natural gas co in alaska said she decided to speak out after hearing republican presidential nominee donald trumps lewd comments about women
a video was released earlier this month by the washington post in which trump can be heard making lewd comments about women and bragging about groping them
a number of women have since come forward claiming that the business mogul has sexually assaulted them
trump has called the allegations slander and libel and part of a concerted coordinated and vicious attack by democratic candidate hillary clinton and the news media to undercut his campaign moira smith said justice clarence thomas groped her at her boss dinner party when she was
that willingness by men in power to take advantage of vulnerable women relies on an unspoken pact that the women will not speak up about it smith now told the journal
why because they are vulnerable because they are starstruck because they dont want to be whiners because they worry about their career if they do speak out but silence no longer feels defensible it feels complicit she stated
as the mother of a young daughter and son i am coming forward to show that it is important to stand up for yourself and tell the truth smith said
thomas was nominated to the top court in by republican president george hw bush loading | 1 |
23,117 | news doing its part the nba is housing syrian refugees on whichever half of the court isnt being played on | email a little planning goes a long way when it comes to mind expansion
prior to the trip forget what birds are when youre tripping youll eventually learn about birds and itll blow your fuckin mind
surround yourself with lots of sharp knives and guns youll want to be able to fight off any terrifying creatures that might suddenly appear before you
set your alarm to go off every six seconds to remind you to breathe remember safety first it may seem dorky but setting a breath alarm can save your life
write the words good time on your forehead that way if youre feeling depressed at any point while tripping you can just look in the mirror and be reminded of the type of time that youre supposed to be having
politely ask any terminally ill loved ones to hold off on dying until after your trip they will understand that you want your experience to be mindopening not sad
for gods sake make sure you husk all of your corn before you dose if you want a pleasant trip youve gotta make sure you husk every last ear of corn youve got yes even the ones you have in your storehouse
keep a few trivial pursuit cards in your pocket when youre eventually stricken with a powerful and lasting sense that you know everything that everyone is going to say and therefore you know everything forever a tough science nature question can be your best route back to reality | 0 |
23,118 | comment on if hillary clinton is charged with obstruction of justice she could go to prison for years by kingdom ambassador | what is going on with wikileaks tweet wikileaks director and founder of the centre for investigative journalism gavin macfadyen has died at age the cause of death is yet unknown his fellows in arms have flocked online to post their farewells including wikileaks cofounder julian assange
we are extremely sad to announce the death of gavin macfadyen cijs founder director and its leading light the centre for investigative journalism team wrote on its twitter we are extremely sad to announce the death of gavin macfadyen the cijs founder director and its leading light http tcijorggavinmacfadyen
cij cijournalism pm oct
macfadyen was a pioneering investigative journalist and filmmaker who back in founded the centre for investigative journalism cij an organization that helped break several major stories and has trained a number of prominent journalists gavin macfadyen was mentor to assange and his closest friend in london to wikileaks sarah harrison joseph farrell and many others
wikileaks wikileaks am oct
he was a mentor and friend to famous whistleblower and cofounder of wikileaks julian assange as well as the director of the publication paying tribute to their head wikileaks published a post on the groups twitter account saying macfadyen now takes his fists and his fight to battle god gavin macfadyen beloved director of wikileaks now takes his fists and his fight to battle god sock it to him forever gavin ja pictwittercomzyzsqxxk
wikileaks wikileaks am oct
the post is signed ja indicating that the phrase belongs directly to julian assange with wikileaks claiming that despite the whistleblower being deprived of internet access in his suite in the ecuadorian embassy for a week now he has been able to contact them and is still in full command
the cij team also published an address from macfadyens wife and member of julian assanges defense fund susan benn who described her husband as a largerthanlife person with gratitude and respect
he was the model of what a journalist should be he spearheaded the creation of a journalistic landscape which has irrevocably lifted the bar for ethical and hardhitting reporting gavin worked tirelessly to hold power to account
his life and how he lived it were completely in sync with the principles that he held dear and practiced as a journalist and educator to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable benn wrote
recounting her husbands achievements she said he had produced and directed more than investigative documentaries covering diverse and multiple countries and problems she also noted that he had been banned from apartheid south africa and the soviet union for his investigative work and was also attacked by british neonazis
in his professional career macfadyen shed light on topics like child labor pollution the torture of political prisoners neonazis in britain uk industrial accidents contra murders in nicaragua the cia maritime piracy election fraud in south america south african mines as well as many others he worked on investigative television programs for pbss frontline granada televisions world in action the bbcs fine cut panorama the money programme and hours as well as channel s dispatches
the cause of macfadyens death has not yet been made public in the original post from his wife susan she wrote that he had died from a short illness but that line has now been removed did you know gavin macfadyen was arrested with bernie sanders was a body double for nick nolte was banned from south africa the ussr
wikileaks wikileaks
twitter has been full of tributes from his colleagues and likeminded people even the hacktivist organization anonymous has spoken out our deepest condolences gavin macfadyen well never forget your investigative journalism https twittercomwikileaksstat us
anonymous youranonnews rip gavin macfadyen you were larger than life truly one of a kind https twittercomgijnstatus
sheila coronel sheilacoronel gavin macfadyen purest and bravest human ive ever met the countless people that love you are with you now sending u our love and thanks pictwittercomyppsnjrwr
matt kennard kennardmatt we send our loving thoughts to gavin macfadyen and his family at this very difficult time pictwittercomhzkiilujaa
the whistler whistler_news gavin macfadyen always kind supportive of young journalists filmmakers can never forget your booming laugh thank you my friend kevin pina acrossmediums | 0 |
23,119 | Putin says U.S. gripped by fabricated spymania, praises Trump | MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday the United States was in the grip of a fabricated spymania whipped up by President Donald Trump s opponents but he thought battered U.S.-Russia relations would recover one day. Putin, who said he was on first name terms with Trump, also praised the U.S. president for what he said were his achievements. I m not the one to evaluate the president s work. That needs to be done by the voters, the American people, Putin told his annual news conference in Moscow, in answer to a question. (But) we are objectively seeing that there have been some major accomplishments, even in the short time he has been working. Look at how the markets have grown. This speaks to investors trust in the American economy. Trump took office in January, saying he was keen to mend ties which had fallen to a post-Cold War low. But since then, ties have soured further after U.S. intelligence officials said Russia meddled in the presidential election, something Moscow denies. Congress is also investigating alleged contacts between the Trump election campaign and Russian officials amid allegations that Moscow may have tried to exercise improper influence. Putin dismissed those allegations and the idea of a Russia connection as fabricated. He shrugged off accusations that Russia s ambassador to the United States had done something wrong by having contacts with Trump campaign figures saying it was international practice for diplomats to try to have contacts with all candidates in an election. What did someone see that was egregious about this? Why does it all have to take on some tint of spymania?, said Putin. This is all invented by people who oppose Trump to give his work an illegitimate character. The people who do this are dealing a blow to the state of (U.S.) domestic politics, he added, saying the accusations were disrespectful to U.S. voters. Moscow understood that Trump s scope for improving ties with Russia was limited by the scandal, said Putin, but remained keen to try to improve relations. Washington and Moscow had many common interests, he said, citing the Middle East, North Korea, international terrorism, environmental problems and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. You have to ask him (Trump) if he has such a desire (to improve ties) ... or whether it has disappeared. I hope that he has such a desire, said Putin. We will normalize our relations and will develop (them) and overcome common threats. However, Putin lashed out at U.S. policy on North Korea, warning a U.S. strike there would have catastrophic consequences. In one of the most dramatic moments of the news conference, Ksenia Sobchak, a TV personality who has said she plans to run against Putin in a presidential election in March, asked him about what she said was the lack of political competition. Putin, 65, has been in power, either as president or prime minister, since the end of 1999. In particular, Sobchak asked about the case of opposition leader Alexei Navalny who looks unlikely to be allowed to run in the election due to what Navalny says is a trumped up criminal case. Putin, who polls suggest will be comfortably re-elected, warned that candidates like Navalny would destabilize Russia and usher in chaos if elected. Do you want attempted coups d etat? We ve lived through all that. Do you really want to go back to all that? I am sure that the overwhelming majority of Russian citizens do not want this. Putin said the authorities were not afraid of genuine political competition and promised it would exist. Navalny, commenting on social media, said Putin s response showed that barring him from taking part in next year s presidential election was a political decision. It s like he s saying we re in power and we ve decided that it (Navalny running) is a bad idea, Navalny said. Putin disclosed he planned to run as an independent candidate and garner support from more than one party, in a sign the former KGB officer may be keen to strengthen his image as a father of the nation rather than as a party political figure. Putin named as priority issues nurturing a high-tech economy, improving infrastructure, healthcare, education and productivity and increasing people s real incomes. He coughed his way through the first part of the news conference at times, and misread a placard held up by a journalist which he incorrectly thought said Bye Bye Putin, an error he quipped was due to age affecting his eyesight. | 1 |
23,120 | Former NYC Mayor Bloomberg says eyeing 2016 run for president: FT | (Reuters) - Michael Bloomberg, the billionaire former mayor of New York City, said he is considering running for U.S. president in 2016, the Financial Times reported on Monday. The 73-year-old founder of the eponymous financial information group was critical of the quality of debate in the presidential contest and said he was “looking at all the options” when asked whether he was considering a run, the newspaper said. “I find the level of discourse and discussion distressingly banal and an outrage and an insult to the voters,” Bloomberg told the Financial Times in an interview, adding that the U.S. public deserved “a lot better.” Bloomberg has told aides to draw up plans for an independent campaign for the U.S. presidency, a source familiar with the situation told Reuters on Jan. 23, confirming a report in the New York Times. He would be willing to spend at least $1 billion of his own money on a campaign for the November 2016 election, according to the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the former mayor’s thinking. Bloomberg has given himself an early March deadline for entering the race, the source said, after commissioning a poll in December to see how he would fare against Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, the Republican and Democratic front-runners. No third-party candidate has ever won a U.S. presidential election. But Bloomberg, who has close Wall Street ties and liberal social views, sees an opening for his candidacy if Republicans nominate Trump or Texas Senator Ted Cruz and the Democrats nominate Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, the source said. A recent Reuters/Ipsos poll showed a third-party presidential run by Bloomberg would be a long shot but could help real estate mogul Donald Trump if he lands the Republican nomination. In a matchup between Trump and Clinton, adding Bloomberg’s name to the ballot would trim Clinton’s lead over Trump to six percentage points from 10, according to the poll conducted from Jan. 23 to Jan. 27. In a matchup pitting Trump versus Sanders, adding Bloomberg would erode Sanders’ lead over Trump to seven points from 12, the poll results showed. In all matchups, Bloomberg himself would land just 10 percent or less of the vote in November. The 73-year-old financial information industry billionaire, who earned a reputation as a social liberal with strong Wall Street ties during his time as New York City mayor, has considered a White House run for years. (Additional reporting by Dustin Volz and Steve Holland in Washington and Chris Kahn in New York; Reporting by Eric Walsh in Washington; Editing by Andrew Hay) SAP is the sponsor of this content. It was independently created by Reuters’ editorial staff and funded in part by SAP, which otherwise has no role in this coverage. | 1 |
23,121 | Dallas Police Chief Just Completely DESECRATED The ‘Good Guy With A Gun’ Myth (VIDEO) | Dallas Police Chief David Brown just completely desecrated the favorite myth of gun nuts everywhere, that a good guy with a gun will heroically save the day when a bad guy starts shooting. We ve all heard it from the NRA and its minions, the delusional fantasy that the only thing that can stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. Turns out, this is BS and Brown just explained why.Brown was taking questions on Monday following a press conference discussing the vicious attack that left five police officers dead on Thursday. He was asked about the open carry laws in Texas. We know that there was at least one gentleman who was a subject person of interest, during the demonstration he had an AR-15 around his around his shoulder, he was asked. What does this tell you about people using the new Texas law of open carry at a demonstration like this? After finding out that the person asking the question was indeed local, Brown explained the position law enforcement finds themselves in as a result of open carry laws put in place by lawmakers who are in the pocket of the NRA. In the process, he completely laid waste to the myth of a good guy with a gun saving the day. All right, so, it s a little different here in Texas in the way we view open carry, concealed carry. We ve had great dialogue with our state legislators about this. We ve expressed all of our concerns. We are trying as best as we can as a law enforcement community to make it work so the citizens can express their Second Amendment rights.But it s increasingly challenging when people have AR-15s slung over and shootings occur in a crowd and they begin running, and we don t know or we don t know if they re the shooter or not, or they begin, it s been the presumption that a good guy with a gun is the best way to resolve some of these things. Well, we don t know who the good guy is versus who the bad guy is if everybody starts shooting, and we ve expressed that concern as well. Brown concluded by saying that he hopes lawmakers will listen to input from law enforcement when in comes to gun laws. I have every belief and trust that our folks are listening at the state on this issue, particularly as it involves protests, said the chief.He also noted that time after time, congress offers thoughts and prayers when mass shootings take place, yet they do nothing to take any meaningful steps towards preventing tragedies like this from occurring. Brown s message to elected officials was crystal clear: Do your jobs. Watch Dallas Police Chief David Brown obliterate the good guy with a gun myth: Featured image via Stewart F. House/Getty Images | 0 |
23,122 | Options market signals little fear of election-tied volatility | NEW YORK (Reuters) - The November U.S. presidential election is being sold by the major parties as a defining moment for the next generation of Americans. But stock and options traders, often moved to action by political headlines, are responding with a big ‘meh.’ Options bets on volatility around the Nov. 8 election are running lower than could be expected given how stocks have performed in past election cycles, BNP Paribas said. Typically, stock market volatility picks up around presidential elections. Traders use options to guard against outsized market reaction to such events. The CBOE Volatility Index, the most widely followed gauge of near-term investor anxiety, had some big spikes this year, hitting a four-month high after the Brexit vote. But there is little to suggest that November is a big worry for stocks. Investors are focused on the quarterly earnings season starting next week. They might also be taking the view that both the Republican and Democratic prospective nominees would be more favorable for business than the current administration, analysts said. “It’s like the opposite of ‘Alien vs. Predator,’” said Mark Sebastian, chief investment officer at volatility arbitrage hedge fund Karman Line Capital in Chicago, referring to the 2004 American science fiction film which had the tagline ‘whoever wins, we lose.’ “Here, no matter who wins, Wall Street does better,” he said. Despite being called anti-business by some on Wall Street, the Obama administration has been in power over one of the best presidential cycles for stocks on record. Per BNP Paribas data, S&P 500 Index options forward implied volatility, which measures volatility expectations embedded in options, shows no dislocation over the remaining election campaign period. Had there been a big bump-up in this measure for November it would have been a sign that traders were loading up on protective contracts. “The market is not ascribing a large probability to a high volatility scenario over the election period,” said Stewart Warther, an equity derivatives strategist at BNP Paribas. Market-makers, or dealers which quote prices for options, are also not expressing a great deal of anxiety over stock gyrations. If stock volatility does not pick up in November, that would be a departure from the norm, according a BNP Paribas analysis of data going back to 1948. “The shape of the (volatility) curve definitely is upward sloping but it’s not like there is a huge hump out in November,” said Steve Sosnick, an equity risk manager at Timber Hill, the market-making unit of Interactive Brokers Group Inc. “We have seen some demand for options but I would say it’s hardly a frenzy.” | 1 |
23,123 | tim kaine stuffs handful of goldfish crackers in ballot scanner the onion americas finest news source | dont worry sheriff joe we have your back | 0 |
23,124 | Liberal groups stage rallies to back Obama's Supreme Court pick | DES MOINES, Iowa (Reuters) - Liberal groups allied with the White House staged rallies around the country on Monday to pressure Republican senators including the Judiciary Committee’s chairman not to block President Barack Obama’s Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland. At the same time, a conservative group, the Judicial Crisis Network, said it launched a $2 million, three-week television, radio and digital advertising campaign in Colorado, Indiana, Iowa, New Hampshire, North Dakota and West Virginia opposing Garland’s confirmation. The group is backing the stance of Senate Republicans including Majority Leader Mitch McConnell not to hold confirmation hearings or a vote on Garland’s nomination. In Iowa’s capital, demonstrators targeted Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, whose panel handles confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominees. More than 50 protesters gathered on the sidewalk outside a federal building where Grassley has an office, chanting “do your job” as a plane pulling a banner carrying the same message flew overhead. Liberal groups including MoveOn.org organized rallies targeting Republicans in their home states during the Senate’s two-week spring recess in states including Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas and Wisconsin. The rallies generally drew crowds in the dozens, organizers said. “I have called Grassley’s office every week for the last two or three weeks and it doesn’t seem like he’s getting the message, so I need to find another way to do this,” said Des Moines demonstrator Tracey Aubrecht, a 44-year-old homemaker from North Liberty, Iowa. State Senator Rob Hogg, one of the four Democrats running in a primary for a chance to challenge Grassley in the Nov. 8 election, attended the rally. The nomination requires confirmation by the Republican-led Senate. Republicans have said they want the next president to make the selection, hoping their party wins the presidential election. Garland, a centrist appellate judge and former prosecutor, was picked last week to replace Justice Antonin Scalia, who died Feb. 13. His appointment could tip the court leftward for the first time in decades. The White House said Vice President Joe Biden will deliver remarks on Garland’s nomination at Georgetown Law School on Thursday. It said Garland also will continue meeting senators individually, speaking with Democrats Charles Schumer of New York and Bob Casey of Pennsylvania on Tuesday and Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota on Wednesday. Both sides have promised intensive campaigns on the ground and over the airwaves that will eclipse other battles over Supreme Court nominees in recent decades. Garland remains relatively unknown among Americans. Roughly one out of every five people say they are “somewhat” or “very” familiar with him, a Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted from Thursday to Monday found. Among those who have heard of Garland, half expressed a favorable opinion, including 60 percent of Democrats and 43 percent of Republicans. | 1 |
23,125 | Elizabeth Warren Delivers A MAJOR ‘F*ck You’ To Trump In Grad Speech (VIDEO) | Since the beginning of Donald Trump s terrible offensive and divisive campaign, Elizabeth Warren has been one of the only politicians with enough balls to stand up to the presumptive Republican nominee and call him out on his bullsh*t. She s proven that Trump basically crumbles whenever a strong woman goes up against him, and her most recent anti-Trump comments show just how capable she is in taking The Donald on.In a commencement address at Bridgewater State University, Warren hilariously mocked Trump once again, clearly following in President Obama s footsteps after he blasted Trump in a recent graduation speech at Rutgers University. After telling the graduating class to sing like no one is listening and dance like no one is watching, the Massachusetts senator gave them some more applicable advice be ready for anything, because you never know what life has in store for you. Poking fun at the orange-skinned business mogul, Warren said: Heck, on my day of graduation, I never imagined I would visit foreign countries. I never imagined I would be a commencement speaker. I never imagined I would get into a Twitter war with Donald Trump. But here I am, living the life! You can watch that hilarious moment in Warren s speech below:The crowd couldn t get enough and gave Warren a deafening applause for her efforts in being one of the few people tough enough to try and bring the disgraced candidate down. Warren also gave the graduating class some advice about dealing with naysayers who these days, say it in nastier and nastier ways. Pulling from some amazing pop culture references, Warren said: As one of the great philosophers of our time has said, Haters going to hate, hate, hate hate, hate. Knowing who you are helps you Shake It Off. (applause) Okay, I promised I wouldn t sing, and I definitely can t dance like Britney Spears. It was an amazing speech, and the fact that it came at Trump s expense made it so much better. After the commencement, Warren continued to insult Trump as she spoke to reporters. She said: I think that Donald Trump is a truly dangerous man and there is some risk that he could be president of the United States. I think it s time for all of us to pay careful attention to him and to the issues that he has raised and to start fighting back. Warren also continued to tease us with the idea of ticketing up with the chosen Democratic nominee. She wouldn t give a straight answer on whether or not she would run for vice president if offered the job, but said, I have a job I love and I wake up every morning eager to do that. It s uncertain if Warren will end up on the ticket, but she s definitely proven time and time again that she can handle Trump s nonsense with ease, and that makes her an even greater asset to the Democratic nominee.Featured image is a screenshot | 0 |
23,126 | Kremlin says allegations it hacked U.S. Democratic Party 'made-up horror stories' | MOSCOW (Reuters) - The Kremlin on Wednesday dismissed allegations Russia had hacked Democratic Party emails as “horror stories” dreamt up by U.S. politicians, saying it never interfered in other countries’ election campaigns. “Moscow is at pains to avoid any words that could be interpreted as direct or indirect interference in the election process,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told a conference call with reporters. “... We see that the Russian card is in the red corner on the writing table of all Washington politicians during the election campaign, and that very often they make it a trump card in their game.” Peskov was responding after U.S. President Barack Obama in an interview with NBC News said it was possible Russia would try to influence the U.S. presidential election after a leak of Democratic National Committee emails that experts have blamed on Russian hackers. “This reminds me of a company where they tell each other horror stories and then start being frightened of their own stories,” said Peskov. The Kremlin on Tuesday said unidentified individuals in the United States were trying to cynically exploit fear of Russia for electoral purposes. | 1 |
23,127 | BACKFIRE ALERT: WRONG PERSON HARASSED After Jennifer Lawrence Asks Followers to “Name and Shame” Charlottesville Marchers | Backfire alert! While the left tries to identify the marchers from the Charlottesville riot, it might be a good idea for them to read up on what happened to a professor and his wife: A professor and his wife had to go into hiding after the husband was misidentified as being one of the Charlottesville marchers. Can you imagine? That had to be horrifying!HERE S WHAT HAPPENED:When social justice warriors spray their holy rage across the internet, innocent people become collateral damage.Amateur detectives poring over footage of tiki-torch marchers in Charlottesville s Unite the Right march Aug. 11 wrongly identified an engineering professor at the University of Arkansas and scared him and his wife into hiding for the weekend, The New York Times reports.They sought to shame, harass and cause the firing of supposed white nationalists, and weren t going to let reasonable doubt slow their crusade:After a day of work at the Engineering Research Center at the University of Arkansas, Kyle Quinn had a pleasant Friday night in Bentonville with his wife and a colleague. They explored an art exhibition at the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art and dined at an upscale restaurant. A man at the rally had been photographed wearing an Arkansas Engineering shirt, and the amateur investigators found a photo of Mr. Quinn that looked somewhat similar. They were both bearded and had similar builds.By internet frenzy standards, that was proof enough.Quinn said he was hit with a wall of vulgar messages calling for his firing and identifying his home address an example of doxxing, the same practice carried out by alt-right sleuths when they purportedly identified a professor as an Antifa thug at the Battle for Berkeley.Commenting on an image identifying Quinn as a marcher posted on Instagram, user mozel_tov claimed that Quinn participated in a hate rally in public where their would be news media and social media. His very presence was a PUBLIC statement. READ MORE: THE COLLEGE FIXACTRESS CALLS FOR DOXXING OF MARCHERSLEFTY ACTRESS JENNIFER LAWRENCE WANTS TO NAME AND SHAME THE MARCHERS BUT THIS HAS ALREADY PROVEN TO BE A MOVE THAT HAS BACKFIRED ON THE LEFT: Actress Jennifer Lawrence asked her 16 million Facebook followers to help track down the white supremacists who marched in the Charlottesville rally Saturday. These are the faces of hate. Look closely and post anyone you find, the Oscar winner wrote on Facebook, along with photos of the marchers carrying torches and flags with swastikas. You can t hide with the internet you pathetic cowards! VIA: NYDN | 0 |
23,128 | disrespecting the american imperial presidency | slovenian president borut pahor said today in an unexpected visit to the iranian parliament i respect the work you do and i wish you all the best shares
according to mehr news agency slovenian president borut pahor who had traveled to iran yesterday paid an unexpected visit to parliament after meeting with speaker ali larijani
president pahor spoke to parliament for a few minutes saying it brings me great honor that i a president of slovenia am addressing you from this podium
he added i came to your beautiful country yesterday and have met with many of the kind people of iran with a goal in mind to attempt to establish the best political and economic relations possible between the islamic republic of iran and the republic of slovenia
he also expressed hope for the opening of a slovenian embassy in tehran saying ive had excellent meetings with the political leaders of iran and also with the esteemed leader and ive seen that there is great potential for good relations between our two countries
for years ive served slovenia as an mp and speaker parliament is the essential core of democracy in all countries and i greatly respect the work you do and wish you all the best
yesterday in a meeting with irans leader the slovenian president said he had held very good talks with senior iranian officials and expressed his countrys interest in deepening relations with iran in all fields
pahor added that iran and slovenia share plenty of common experience and enjoy great potential for cooperation
for his part ayatollah khamenei said that iran and slovenia enjoy great potentialities and capacities to bolster cooperation and expressed hope that the future would back up the tuesday talks | 0 |
23,129 | OBAMA STONEWALLING ON Why He Sent 13 Payments Of $99,999,999.99 To Iran…Where Was Congress? | Leave it to the one and only Andrew McCarthy to put together a fantastic case against Obama and his lying administration when it comes to the latest race on the Treasury. This time it was a raid on a Treasury slush fund to give $1.3 billion to Iran. The Iran Deal is a great example of just how corrupt and dysfunctional our government is. Please take the time to read this incredible overview of the inner workings of giving billions to Iran It s UNREAL!The structured transfers of $1.3 billion from a Treasury slush fund remain shrouded in mystery. Confidentiality ? Yes, that s the State Department s story on why the Obama administration is stonewalling the American people regarding the president s illegal and increasingly suspicious Iransom payoff. The administration refuses to divulge any further information about the $1.7 billion the president acknowledges paying the world s leading state sponsor of terrorism.Grilled on Wednesday about how Obama managed to pay the final $1.3 billion installment particularly given the president s claim that it is not possible to send Tehran a check or wire-transfer State Department spokesman Mark Toner decreed that the administration would continue withholding this information in order to protect confidentiality. Whose confidentiality? The mullahs ? That of the intermediaries the president used? Whose privacy takes precedence over our right to know how Obama funneled our money to our enemies?The closest thing to an answer we have to the latest round of questions comes courtesy of the perseverance of the investigative journalist Claudia Rosett. (You weren t expecting the Republican Congress to be minding the purse, were you?) Recall that we have been asking about the $1.3 billion payment since the first revelations about this sordid affair. After all, if, as Obama and his toadies maintain, the payment is totally on the up and up just a routine legal settlement involving Iran s own money then why won t they answer basic questions about it? Why are such matters as the administration s process in tapping a congressionally appropriated funding source for the settlement a settlement Congress did not approve and seems to be in the dark about paying for being treated as if they were state secrets so sensitive you d need have a Clinton.mail account (or be a Russian hacker of a Clinton.mail account) to see them?Generally speaking, the State, Treasury, and Justice Departments cannot issue press releases fast enough to salute themselves over legal settlements that supposedly benefit taxpayers by billions of dollars at least according to the same math that brought you all those Obamacare savings. How is it that, in what is purportedly a completely aboveboard legal case, we are not permitted to know how our own money was transferred to the jihadist plaintiff?With the administration taking the Fifth, it was left to Claudia to crawl through Leviathan s catacombs. In her New York Sun report on Monday, we learned that she hit pay dirt: stumbling upon a bizarre string of 13 identical money transfers of $99,999,999.99 each yes, all of them one cent less than $100 million paid out of an obscure Treasury Department stash known as the Judgment Fund. The transfers were made to whom, it is not said on January 19, just two days after the administration announced it had reached the $1.7 billion settlement with Iran. They aggregate to just 13 cents shy of $1.3 billion, the same amount the State Department claims Iran was owed in interest from the $400 million that our government had been holding since the shah deposited it in a failed arms deal just prior to the Khomeini revolution. So, stacked atop of the pallets of $400 million in foreign cash that Obama arranged to shuttle from Geneva to Tehran as ransom (or, as the administration prefers, leverage ) for the release of American hostages via an unmarked cargo plane belonging to Iran Air, a terrorist arm of the mullahs terrorist coordinator, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps we now have a second whopping money transfer that (a) violates federal criminal laws against providing things of value to Iran and (b) looks like it was conceived by Nicky Barnes.Read more: NRO | 0 |
23,130 | MEET CLASSY “F*ck the police, F*ck the NRA, F*ck the law” Professor Who Met With Obama After Speech | What a nice role model for young Americans who hope to someday grow up to be a Saul Alinsky radical just like Barack Hussein Obama, aka Barry Sotoero. Don t you think America is owed an explanation as to why this scumbag was able to meet with Obama following his speech a couple days ago in Omaha? A University of Nebraska-Omaha university professor who used a December 28 Facebook tirade to say F**k the law, F**k police, and F**k the NRA was allowed to meet President Obama after his January 13 speech in Omaha.The professor s name is Amanda Gailey. She is also the director of Nebraskans Against Gun Violence.Here is Gailey s Facebook rant in it s entirety:F**k the society that has allowed itself to become so saturated in guns that it s plausible a child might have one at a park. F**k the laws that allow toy makers to make toys that look like real guns and that allow gun makers to make guns that look like toys. F**k racists who think black children look like adults. F**k a legal and police system that allows grown white men to pose with sniper rifles on a university campus or in a grocery store and allows insurrectionists to train guns on government agents with no consequences but sounds the alarms when a black child is carrying a toy gun. F**k police officers who undertook a job that carries inherent risk but think any perceived threat to them whatsoever justifies instantaneous lethal force. F**k police officers who pull up as close as possible to an alleged threat so that they can execute the person as quickly as possible without assessing the situation first. F**k prosecutors who can indict a ham sandwich but can t indict a cop who executed a child. And f**k the NRA for greasing this machine every fucking day with the blood of American children.On January 14 weeks after the original post was put up Gailey put up another post in which she attempted to explain that her criticism of police was limited to bad-apple officers, not good ones. And she was specifically outraged by the fact that the no charges were filed against officers who shot 195 pound, 12-year-old Tamir Rice after a 911 dispatcher told officers a young man [was] playing with a weapon and pointing it at people outside of a local recreation center. Gailey wrote:I did write a Facebook post that expressed my outrage at the police shooting of a 12-year-old child and the failure to indict the bad-apple police officers involved. My criticism of the police was limited to those officers who engage in that kind of policing, which I believe is clear in my post. I did not malign the police in general, nor did I want to, because I respect the many good officers who serve our communities and have even helped me in the past. I know that most police officers are doing hard work in hard conditions, and they are in the front lines of a society saturated in guns, facing threats that police in our peer nations do not. They are key players in our struggle for safe and fair communities.This is Gailey s explanation for F**k the police as well as F**k the society, F**k the laws, and F**k the NRA, among other things. Via: Breitbart NewsHere is a screen shot of her Facebook rant: | 0 |
23,131 | Obama will not address Apple dispute in Texas remarks: official | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama will not address a dispute over encryption between the U.S. Justice Department and Apple Inc (AAPL.O) during a trip to Texas on Friday, Kristie Canegallo, his deputy chief of staff, told reporters on a conference call on Thursday. | 1 |
23,132 | Exclusive: Majority of Americans support transgender military service - poll | NEW YORK (Reuters) - A majority of Americans believe that transgender individuals should be allowed to serve in the military, according to an exclusive Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll released on Friday. The July 26-28 poll suggested that the country largely disagrees with President Donald Trump’s announcement this week that he will ban transgender personnel from the armed forces. When asked to weigh in on the debate, 58 percent of adults agreed with the statement, “Transgender people should be allowed to serve in the military.” Twenty-seven percent said they should not while the rest answered “don’t know.” Democrats mostly supported military service by transgender Americans while Republicans were more evenly split. Among Republicans, 32 percent said transgender Americans should be allowed to serve, while 49 percent said they should not. Another 19 percent of Republicans said they don’t know. The public was also divided over the impact of banning transgender service members. Some 32 percent said it would “hurt morale” in the military while 17 percent said it would “improve morale.” Another 33 percent felt it would “have no impact” and the rest said they don’t know. When asked about the impact on military capabilities, 14 percent said prohibiting transgender service members made the military “more capable” while 43 percent said “no impact,” 22 percent said “less capable” and the rest said they don’t know. The president’s announcement, made in posts on his Twitter account, surprised many senior military officers and appeared to pre-empt an ongoing Pentagon review into its inclusion of transgender service members. The United States’ top military officer, Marine Corps. General Joseph Dunford, said the military will not alter its current policies until it receives additional guidance from Trump’s secretary of defense. Roger Kaikko, 61, a Trump voter near Cleveland, Ohio, who took the poll, said he disagrees with the president. “Even the president shouldn’t be able to take rights away from some people just because he may not like them,” Kaikko said. “They’re people too. Unless they’re causing problems, they should serve just like anybody else.” The Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll was conducted online in English across the United States. It gathered responses from 1,249 adults including 533 Democrats and 434 Republicans. It has a credibility interval, a measure of accuracy, of 3 percentage points for the entire group and 5 percentage points for Democrats and Republicans. | 1 |
23,133 | A modest bump for Clinton in online wagering hours after debate | NEW YORK (Reuters) - Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s probability of winning the White House got a modest bump in online betting markets on Tuesday, a day after her debate with Republican Donald Trump. The price for a contract favoring Clinton on the popular PredictIt betting market was up 2 cents from Monday’s post-debate closing and implied a 68 percent probability that she would win the Nov. 8 election. Although during the debate Clinton was as high as 70 percent, her Monday night closing of 66 matched the highest closing number since her health took a stumble on Sept. 11. A pro-Trump contract on Tuesday indicated his probability for victory was 34 percent. Trading in both contracts remained brisk on the heels of the first of three debates. PredictIt contracts are priced from 0 to 100 cents, with the contract price equating to a probability a candidate will win the election. Initially, the price swings for both candidates were the largest since early August, though a substantial portion of Clinton’s gain and Trump’s fall had been retraced by early afternoon on Tuesday. The swing following the debate put the brakes on a big Trump price rally on PredictIt that coincided with a tightening in most public opinion polls. On PredictIt, the implied probability of him winning had risen to 38 percent heading into the debate from 28 percent at the end of August. Clinton’s prospects also showed comparable improvement on betting sites based in Ireland and the United Kingdom. UK-based Betfair called the debate for Clinton based on odds movements on its platform, where more than 3 million pounds were bet during the event. The implied probability of a Clinton win in November climbed to 69 percent on Betfair, the strongest it has been since her prospects took a hit over her pneumonia diagnosis this month. Trump’s probability fell to 30 percent from 37 percent. On Ireland’s PaddyPower, Clinton’s odds also had shortened, or improved, to 2-to-5 from 1-to-2 in the early moments of Monday’s debate. Trump’s odds, which initially lengthened following the debate, had shortened modestly to 2-to-1. | 1 |
23,134 | SEVEN BRUTAL REALITIES OF LIFE Crybaby Millennials Need To Learn…NOW! | THE SEVEN HARSH REALITIES THAT THE MILLENNIAL SNOWFLAKES NEED TO LEARN:1. Your Feelings Are Largely Irrelevant2. You Cannot Be Whatever You Want To Be3. Gender Studies Is A Waste Of Money4. If You Live In America, You re Already In The 1%5. You Don t Have A Right To It Just Because You Exist6. You DO Have The Right To Live As You Please But Not To Demand People Accept It7. The Only Safe Space Is Your HomeRead more: Zero Hedge | 0 |
23,135 | they knew the end of the clinton lies begins | our new country women and minorities hit hardest the rape culture the media wont cover october ann coulter every ethnic group except whites blocvotes for the democrats coincidentally the democrats have brought in another to million nonwhite immigrants in the last few decades it doesnt help that white voters cant agree on what constitutes an acceptable candidate in workingclass whites sat out the election rather than vote for the outoftouch rich guy they saw in mitt romney this year the outoftouch rich guys say theyll vote for hillary because trump is tacky and gross the sad irony is that the only people who will be better off in our new country are mostly white plutocrats the top percent the rest of us will be their servants the people who will be worse off are everybody else the working class the middle class who will soon be working class and most of all women minorities children the elderly the weakest and most vulnerable members of society look to mexico for your future or any third world country or to univisions jorge ramos the ruling class in mexico is composed of europeanlooking white descendants of spanish conquistadors who raped the native population giving them only their spanish names in return british settlers in america brought women with them explaining latino cultures acceptance of incest and child rape criminal justice researcher shana maier writes in a book about rape that the male is the head of the household and women are subordinate to men hispanics and latinos are more likely than other racialethnic groups to blame the victim the victim not the perpetrator is blamed for bringing dishonor to the family one american detective said that today police are being taught to keep an open mind about child rape because its a cultural thing when it comes to multiculturalism you cant say we love the empanadas but we dont want yearold men raping their nieces this isnt an a la carte menu we get all the attributes of the cultures were importing as described in excruciating detail in adios america the lefts plan to turn our country into a third world hellhole our media already have a totally open mind about incest and child rape and murder when its committed by immigrants thus for example where i would have chosen the headline illegal alien convicted of incest child rape the chattanooga tenn times free press went with the less catchy man guilty in case of human smuggling and where i would have used the headline illegal alien repeatedly raped yearold girl at job site the commercial dispatch in columbus mississippi went with the more subtle columbus resident charged with molestation immigrant women arrive in america thrilled to have escaped cultures where rape incest and spousal murder are acceptable only to discover that those crimes are perfectly acceptable in this country too provided the perpetrator is from the very culture they fled in brooklyn judge edward pincus sentenced a chinese immigrant to probation for a premeditated murder of his wife on the grounds that the murder flowed from traditional chinese values about adultery and loss of manhood the female head of the asianamerican legal defense and education fund margaret fung applauded the ruling somewhat amazingly newspapers are more likely to report black crime than immigrant crime anything to keep the third world immigration flowing in a yearold girl was gangraped by about a dozen illegal aliens who cheered and videoed the attack when the news first broke shaneequa jupiter who lived with her children in the apartment building where the gang rape occurred complained that neither the police nor apartment security had warned residents about the danger that could reflect poorly on illegal immigrants even if shaneequa had scoured the headlines she would have been on the lookout for austin men or two compare these headlines about the same brutal sexual attack two held in attack on child austin americanstatesman texas july two mexicans placed on immigration detainers as third man is arrested over fiveday gang rape hell of teenage runaway during which she smoked crack daily mail online uk july needless to say the new york times did not cover the mexican illegal alien gang rape at all by contrast the times and every major american news outlet extensively covered another gang rape of a girl about the same age at about the same time in about the same place the second case only was rape because of the girls young age she was but she was an enthusiastic participant sneaking out of her house at night to meet the men for sex those rapes just a few years earlier got a fullcourt press the defendants were africanamerican the victim was mexican that time there were articles in the huffington post gq slate salon and mother jones it even made the new york times despite no connection to a college fraternity or lacrosse team similarly within a few months of one another in two men were arrested in separate child rape cases in decatur alabama for assaults on yearold girls one suspect was africanamerican the other was a hispanic immigrant only one made the newspaper guess which one when excitable muslims raped american reporter lara logan in tahrir square another one of hillarys foreign policy successes journalists immediately set to work to find the shortest line from the muslim rapists to white american men conclusion the real problem was the female reporters american bosses and colleagues definitely not islam sampling of new york times commentary on logans rape why we need women in war zones i would never tell my bosses for fear that they might keep me at home the next time something major happened this attack also had nothing to do with islam reporting while female women reporters face another set of challenges we are often harassed in ways that male colleagues are not in my experience muslim countries were not the worst places for sexual harassment perhaps american men could do better but as american women may soon discover they never had it so good manifestly the purpose of our immigration policies is not to help americans or the immigrants who wanted to live in a place like america they are designed to funnel welfaredependent voters to the democrats and cheap labor to the rich the chinese immigrant who got probation for murdering his wife for example came to america based on his specialized skill of being a dishwasher our country will be zimbabwe but if all goes according to the democrats plan theyll get to be mugabe thats hillarys dream if she wins joe sobrans parody of the typical new york times headline about anything will come true women and minorities hit hardest | 1 |
23,136 | WATCH: Trump Doesn’t Want Us To Remember What He Said About Russia In 2014 | As time goes on, it becomes ever clearer that Trump is Russia s puppet. There s every possibility he owes them money, and he s repeatedly blasted our intelligence community for daring to say that Russia did, indeed, engage in a concerted campaign to influence our election in Trump s favor. But did he always feel this way? Was he always Russia s puppet?It seems not, and it s by his own words that we know this. As recently as 2014, he said, in a series of interviews, that Mitt Romney was right to say that Russia was our greatest geopolitical foe: [Mitt] said [Russia is] a hell of a problem, and everybody laughed at him, including certain media, by the way. They laughed. It turned out that he s absolutely right. You look at what Russia s doing with Iran, how they controlled the situation, and Syria, and virtually every other place. He also insinuated that Obama was Putin s puppet because he felt we being meek and cowardly in the face of such a threat. We should definitely be strong, we should definitely do sanctions, and we have to show some strength. I mean, Putin has eaten Obama s lunch, therefore our lunch, for a long period of time. Now he says he s open to lifting our sanctions on Russia if we can all just get along, which is never going to happen because Russia is ruled by an autocrat. If we lift the sanctions, Russia will pull Trump s puppet strings even more. He also seems to like to kiss Putin s ass, mouth, and dick he doesn t criticize Russia at all, and staunchly defends them against other criticisms and revelations.Here s his stance back in 2014:In other words, this is another position on which he s flip-flopped. He just says whatever his strongest manhandlers want him to say. Whether they re his supporters, or foreign powers hoping to use him for their own gain, he says whatever he thinks will win him the most points.Featured image by Spencer Platt via Getty Images | 0 |
23,137 | EX-CIA DIRECTOR Reveals What Triggered Obama to Spy on Trump…You Won’t Believe What it is! | The former CIA Director told a House committee that Obama started to spy on Trump after he cracked a joke about Russia releasing Hillary Clinton s lost emails:Russia, if you re listening Rush Limbaugh reported:The Obama administration had ZERO EVIDENCE that the Russians were tampering with the US election but started listening in on Donald Trump and his top advisers phone calls after Candidate Trump cracked a joke at a campaign press conference!Director of Central Intelligence Agency John Brennan takes questions from reporters during a press conference art CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, December 11, 2014. The head of the Central Intelligence Agency acknowledged Thursday some agency interrogators used abhorrent unauthorized techniques in questioning terrorism suspects after the 9/11 attacks. CIA director John Brennan said there was no way to determine whether the methods used produced useful intelligence, but he strongly denied the CIA misled the public.Rush Limbaugh reported:RUSH LIMBAUGH: Did you hear yesterday in all the double-talk that Brennan was using, he said that there was no evidence of any collusion, but there was a basis to start a CIA-FBI investigation. Now, what would the basis be if there s no evidence? There s no evidence, but there was a basis. No evidence! He s just the latest in a long line of officials in the intelligence community, in Congress, and the Obama administration who say there s no evidence of collusion.Trump-Russians? No evidence the Russians tampered with votes. But there was a basis to start an investigation. Do you know what it was? Do you know what it was? Trump s joke! When Trump said/put out a call, Hey, Russia, maybe you can find 30,000 emails by Hillary Clinton that nobody can t find That joke. I kid you not! That joke and the dossier that was totally made up, like Trump hire prostitutes to urinate on the bed that Obama slept it in Moscow. Those two things are the bases to start all of this. Trump telling a joke.I ve told you the left has no sense of humor, and they don t. And I ve seen it a thousand times! People on the left really believe that Trump was sending a message to the Russians to hack Hillary s server. We were way past that when this happened. Hillary had already done something with 60,000 of her emails. Thirty thousand she turned over to the State Department; 30,000 she deleted. She said they were irrelevant, but they were somewhere.Kim Dotcom was saying he had em or could get em. Everybody was wondering where they were. Trump, at a press conference, made a joke, a typical Trump joke, Hey, Russia! It s the kind of thing I would do, and I laughed myself silly. That is one of the bases for starting this whole cockamamie thing. By the way, in all these leaks of Trump phone calls, why aren t there any leaks of Trump phone calls and collusion with Russia? | 0 |
23,138 | Planned Parenthood Tells Carly Fiorina To Go F*ck Herself On The Way Out The Door (TWEETS) | If you have not heard, lying, baby parts -obsessed windbag Carly Fiorina has dropped out of the presidential race. This is, of course, completely unsurprising given her poll numbers, which have traditionally been firmly in the gutter ever since it became common knowledge that the felons who created her favorite propaganda videos had heavily and deceptively edited them.On Wednesday, Fiorina joined fellow (former) 2016 hopeful Chris Christie in dropping out of the race. While I suspend my candidacy today, I will continue to travel this country and fight for those Americans who refuse to settle for the way things are and a status quo that no longer works for them, Fiorina said as she pretended she has accomplished anything more than helping convince a right-wing terrorist to shoot up a Planned Parenthood facility in Colorado.As part of her outgoing message to girls and women across the country, Fiorina made it clear that females should not feel they have to vote a certain way or for a certain candidate because you re a woman (*cough*HillaryClinton*cough*).Planned Parenthood, the organization Fiorina has chosen to spend nearly every waking hour maligning, also had an outgoing message for the failed former Hewlett-Packer CEO. It wasn t Bye, Felicia, but it might as well have been. Farewell to @CarlyFiorina, the women s health organization said in a tweet. It turns out you can t flat-out lie to the American people about Planned Parenthood. Farewell to @CarlyFiorina. It turns out you can t flat-out lie to the American people about Planned Parenthood. pic.twitter.com/13TxefxnV2 Planned Parenthood (@PPact) February 10, 2016Fiorina may be gone, but the fight against anti-abortion extremists will surely continue a fight we absolutely must win. The best way to protect women is to vote in November. The next President will appoint as many as four Supreme Court justices. This, of course, has the power to swing the power heavily in favor of regressive, or progressive, policies. In other words, if we want women to continue to have dominion over their own bodies, we must vote BLUE in November.Featured image via screengrab (1,2) | 0 |
23,139 | Chuck Todd GRILLS Trump For Attacking Clinton: ‘Your First Divorce Was Ugly’ (VIDEO) | On NBC s Meet The Press, host Chuck Todd cornered Republican presidential front runner Donald Trump for his attacks on Hillary Clinton s marriage and the sexual indiscretions of her husband by pointing out something Trump doesn t want Americans to focus on his own romantic history.During the segment, Trump continued his attacks on the Democratic front runner by bringing up ex-president Bill Clinton s controversial sexual past in response to her admission that Trump had a penchant for sexism. Trump called the former president an abuser and brought up the fact that there were sexual allegations against him.Confronting Trump for his threatened attacks against Clinton, Todd told the business mogul that if he continued to go after Clinton in this way, his own marital disasters would come bubbling to the surface and be back to bite him in the *ss. Todd reminded him: Your first divorce was ugly All over the tabloids. Trump shrugged and stated that his own struggles from his love life mattered far less than Clinton s and weren t really up for discussion or ridicule. He said, You know what? I wasn t the President of the United States, and I wasn t dealing in the Oval Office, all right? Big difference. Trump then lied through his teeth and claimed that his first wife Ivana considers him great leaving out the part where he d actually cheated on her with Georgia beauty queen Marla Maples, who became his second wife. Trump also conveniently failed to mention that he has also been accused of violent sexual assault (by Ivana herself) and has a long history of misogyny.You can watch the footage below, courtesy of Mediaite:Although Trump said that Clinton s camp has been unresponsive to his attacks, Clinton responded to Trump this morning, stating that American voters didn t want to relitigate the past.Featured image is a screengrab | 0 |
23,140 | ANOTHER Trump Adviser Under Investigation For Russian Ties | It s no secret that Russia is very pro-Donald Trump, and Donald Trump is extremely pro-Russia. His policies align with Russia s Christmas list, and he hired for a campaign manager a man who benefited heavily from pro-Russian monies during the Ukrainian conflict. In fact, the ties between Paul Manafort and Russian oligarchs became so widely known that it caused his premature departure from the campaign, prompting many questions to be raised.The Trump campaign thought this would all be behind them in no time.But, as usual, they were wrong.On Friday, it was a announced that U.S. intelligence officials are investigating Carter Page, a foreign policy adviser to Trump, for alleged ties to Russia. Intelligence officials have reason to believe that Page has opened up secret and backroom communications with top Russian officials in an ongoing effort to have economic sanctions lifted.According to Yahoo News, which first broke the story:The activities of Trump adviser Carter Page, who has extensive business interests in Russia, have been discussed with senior members of Congress during recent briefings about suspected efforts by Moscow to influence the presidential election, the sources said. After one of those briefings, Senate minority leader Harry Reid wrote FBI Director James Comey, citing reports of meetings between a Trump adviser (a reference to Page) and high ranking sanctioned individuals in Moscow over the summer as evidence of significant and disturbing ties between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin that needed to be investigated by the bureau.The reports apparently had some members of Congress taken aback, due to the overwhelming and disturbing evidence that shows these ties. Congressional members, which includes California Democrat Dianne Feinstein, fear that such ties could lead to an unfair tampering with not only U.S.-Russian relations, but undercut foreign policy and even the November presidential election.Page is a former banker who worked for Merrill Lynch and is based in Moscow, giving him strong ties with rich and influential Russian officials. In fact, one of Page s business buddies is especially problematic for American diplomacy and international law:But U.S. officials have since received intelligence reports that during that same three-day trip, Page met with Igor Sechin, a longtime Putin associate and former Russian deputy prime minister who is now the executive chairman of Rosneft, Russian s leading oil company, a well-placed Western intelligence source tells Yahoo News. That meeting, if confirmed, is viewed as especially problematic by U.S. officials because the Treasury Department in August 2014 named Sechin to a list of Russian officials and businessmen sanctioned over Russia s illegitimate and unlawful actions in the Ukraine.So now that that the Trump campaign is once again under the microscope for shady Russian ties, they did what they know best: they lied. Page has been listed as a foreign policy adviser to Trump since March. In August, Hope Hicks, spokeswoman for the campaign, confirmed that Carter was an adviser. Now? Communications director Jason Miller told The Hill that Page is not an adviser and has made no contribution to the campaign. So which is it? The campaign and its spokeswoman have confirmed that Page is in fact an adviser, and now their communications director says he s not nor has he ever been.It s becoming clearer and clearer everyday that the Trump campaign is nothing more than a puppet of the Kremlin and Putin s rich, thuggish buddies. But no, let s continue to talk about Hillary Clinton s pneumonia, because that s way more important than a potentially stolen election by the same people supporting one of the candidates.Featured image via Mark Makaela/Getty Images | 0 |
23,141 | Racist Alabama Cops Brutalize Black Boy While He Is In Handcuffs (GRAPHIC IMAGES) | The number of cases of cops brutalizing and killing people of color seems to see no end. Now, we have another case that needs to be shared far and wide. An Alabama woman by the name of Angela Williams shared a graphic photo of her son, lying in a hospital bed with a beaten and fractured face, on Facebook. It needs to be shared far and wide, because this is unacceptable.It is unclear why Williams son was in police custody or what sort of altercation resulted in his arrest, but when you see the photo you will realize that these details matter not. Cops are not supposed to beat and brutalize those in their custody. In the post you are about to see, Ms. Williams expresses her hope that the cops had their body cameras on while they were beating her son, but I think we all know that there will be some kind of convenient malfunction to explain away the lack of existence of dash or body camera footage of what was clearly a brutal beating. Hell, it could even be described as attempted murder. Something tells me that this young man will never be the same. Without further ado, here is what Troy, Alabama s finest decided was appropriate treatment of Angela Williams son:No matter what the perceived crime of this young man might be, this is completely unacceptable. The cops who did this need to rot in jail for a long, long time but what you wanna bet they get a paid vacation while the force investigates itself, only to have the officers returned to duty posthaste?This, folks, is why we say BLACK LIVES MATTER. No way in hell would this have happened if Angela Williams son had been white. Please share far and wide, and stay tuned to Addicting Info for further updates.Featured image via David McNew/Stringer/Getty Images | 0 |
23,142 | Israel's Netanyahu pledges to work with Trump on peace efforts | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday he was committed to working with U.S. President Donald Trump to advance peace efforts with the Palestinians and with the broader Arab world. Netanyahu made the pledge in a speech to the largest U.S. pro-Israel lobbying group at a time when the Trump administration is seeking agreement with his right-wing government on limiting settlement construction on land the Palestinians want for a state, part of a U.S. bid to resume long-stalled peace negotiations. But Netanyahu, speaking via satellite link from Jerusalem, avoided any mention of the delicate discussions and stopped short of reiterating a commitment to a two-state solution to the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict. “Israel’s hand and my hand is extended to all of our neighbors in peace,” Netanyahu told the annual convention of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC. “Israel is committed to working with President Trump to advance peace with the Palestinians and with all our neighbors.” But he repeated his demand that the Palestinians recognize Israel as a Jewish state, something they have refused to do. Netanyahu heaped praise on Trump, who has set a more positive tone with Israel than his Democratic predecessor, Barack Obama, who often clashed with the Israeli leader. He thanked the new Republican president for a recent U.S. budget request that “leaves military aid to Israel fully funded.” He also expressed confidence in a U.S.-Israeli partnership for preventing Tehran from developing a nuclear weapon, following its 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, and for “confronting Iran’s aggression in the region.” Addressing AIPAC later on Monday, Nikki Haley, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, vowed that the Trump administration would watch Iran “like a hawk” to be sure it sticks to the nuclear deal. The accord, which Netanyahu opposed and Trump denounced during his campaign, gave Tehran sanctions relief in return for limits on its nuclear program. On the settlements issue, a round of U.S.-Israeli talks ended last Thursday without agreement. Gaps remain over how far the building restrictions could go, according to people close to the talks. Netanyahu’s coalition is grappling with divisions that have sparked speculation that he could seek early elections. Many Israelis had expected Trump, because of his pro-Israel campaign rhetoric, to give a green light for settlement expansion in the occupied West Bank. But Trump unexpectedly urged Netanyahu last month to “hold back on settlements for a little bit.” There is skepticism in the United States and Middle East over the chances for restarting Israeli-Palestinian diplomacy. Peace talks have been frozen since 2014. Most countries consider Israeli settlements, built on land captured in a 1967 war, to be illegal. Israel disagrees, citing historical and political links to the land, as well as security interests. Trump has expressed ambivalence about a two-state solution, the mainstay of U.S. policy for the past two decades, but he recently invited Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to visit. | 1 |
23,143 | Iran's Khamenei warns U.S. against 'wrong move' on nuclear deal | DUBAI (Reuters) - Iran will not be bullied by the United States and will react strongly to any wrong move by Washington on Tehran s nuclear deal, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Sunday. U.S. President Donald Trump said on Thursday that Iran was violating the spirit of the 2015 deal under which it got sanctions relief in return for curbing its nuclear program. State television quoted Khamenei as saying Iran was standing firm and any wrong move by the domineering regime regarding the (nuclear accord) will face the reaction of the Islamic Republic. Washington extended some sanctions relief for Iran on Thursday under the nuclear deal with world powers, but said it had yet to decide whether to maintain the agreement. Trump must make a decision by mid-October whether to certify that Iran is complying with the deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). If he does not, Congress has 60 days to decide whether to reimpose sanctions. Today, despite all the commitments and discussions in the negotiations, America s attitude toward these negotiations and their outcome is completely unjust and amounts to bullying, Khamenei said in a speech to Iranian police academy graduates. The Americans should know ...there will be no retreat by the Islamic Republic. The Foreign Ministry in Tehran condemned as continued Iranophobia Washington s move on Thursday to impose sanctions on 11 individuals and firms, including two based in Ukraine, state news agency IRNA reported. The U.S. Treasury accused the 11 of supporting Iran s ballistic missile program or its Revolutionary Guards, or engaging in cyber attacks against the U.S. financial system. U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said on Sunday he believed Iran was in technical compliance with the nuclear deal but had stepped up destabilizing activities in Yemen and Syria and continued to have an active ballistic missile program. None of that, I believe, is consistent with that preamble commitment that was made by everyone in the nuclear deal, he told CBS Face the Nation. Iran said last month it could abandon the nuclear agreement within hours if the United States imposed any new penalties, after Washington ordered unilateral sanctions over Tehran s ballistic missile tests. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, speaking on Sunday before leaving to attend a U.N General Assembly meeting in New York, said Washington should join the countries that continued to support the nuclear deal, which he compared to a dinner party. They can choose the right path and also enter the room where the food is served. We would not have a problem with that, IRNA quoted Rouhani as saying. The United States imposed unilateral sanctions, saying Tehran s ballistic missile tests violated a U.N. resolution that endorsed the nuclear deal and called on Tehran not to undertake activities related to ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons. Iran denies its missile development breaches the resolution, saying the missiles are not designed to carry nuclear weapons. | 1 |
23,144 | Hoping to extend maritime reach, China lavishes aid on Pakistan town | GWADAR, Pakistan (Reuters) - China is lavishing vast amounts of aid on a small Pakistani fishing town to win over locals and build a commercial deep-water port that the United States and India suspect may also one day serve the Chinese navy. Beijing has built a school, sent doctors and pledged about $500 million in grants for an airport, hospital, college and badly-needed water infrastructure for Gwadar, a dusty town whose harbor juts out into the Arabian Sea, overlooking some of the world s busiest oil and gas shipping lanes. The grants include $230 million for a new international airport, one of the largest such disbursements China has made abroad, according to researchers and Pakistani officials. The handouts for the Gwadar project is a departure from Beijing s usual approach in other countries. China has traditionally derided Western-style aid in favor of infrastructure projects for which it normally provides loans through Chinese state-owned commercial and development banks. The concentration of grants is quite striking, said Andrew Small, an author of a book on China-Pakistan relations and a Washington-based researcher at the German Marshall Fund think tank. China largely doesn t do aid or grants, and when it has done them, they have tended to be modest. Pakistan has welcomed the aid with open hands. However, Beijing s unusual largesse has also fueled suspicions in the United States and India that Gwadar is part of China s future geostrategic plans to challenge U.S. naval dominance. It all suggests that Gwadar, for a lot of people in China, is not just a commercial proposition over the longer term, Small said. The Chinese Foreign Ministry did not respond to a request for comment from Reuters. Beijing and Islamabad see Gwadar as the future jewel in the crown of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a flagship of Beijing s Belt and Road initiative to build a new Silk Road of land and maritime trade routes across more than 60 countries in Asia, Europe and Africa. The plan is to turn Gwadar into a trans-shipment hub and megaport to be built alongside special economic zones from which export-focused industries will ship goods worldwide. A web of energy pipelines, roads and rail links will connect Gwadar to China s western regions. Port trade is expected to grow from 1.2 million tonnes in 2018 to about 13 million tonnes by 2022, Pakistani officials say. At the harbor, three new cranes have been installed and dredging will next year deepen the port depth to 20 meters at five berths. But the challenges are stark. Gwadar has no access to drinking water, power blackouts are common and separatist insurgents threaten attacks against Chinese projects in Gwadar and the rest of Baluchistan, a mineral-rich province that is still Pakistan s poorest region. Security is tight, with Chinese and other foreign visitors driven around in convoys of soldiers and armed police. Beijing is also trying to overcome the distrust of outsiders evident in Baluchistan, where indigenous Baloch fear an influx of other ethnic groups and foreigners. Many residents say the pace of change is too slow. Local people are not completely satisfied, said Essar Nori, a lawmaker for Gwadar, adding that the separatists were tapping into that dissatisfaction. Pakistani officials are urging Gwadar residents to be patient, vowing to urgently build desalination plants and power stations. China s Gwadar project contrasts with similar efforts in Sri Lanka, where the village of Hambantota was transformed into a port complex - but was saddled with Chinese debt. Last week, Sri Lanka formally handed over operations to China on a 99-year lease in exchange for lighter debt repayments, a move that sparked street protests over what many Sri Lankans view as an erosion of sovereignty. The Hambantota port, like Gwadar, is part of a network of harbors Beijing is developing in Asia and Africa that have spooked India, which fears being encircled by China s growing naval power. But Pakistani officials say comparisons to Hambantota are unfair because the Gwadar project has much less debt. On top of the airport, Chinese handouts in Gwadar include $100 million to expand a hospital by 250 beds, $130 million towards upgrading water infrastructure, and $10 million for a technical and vocational college, according to Pakistani government documents and officials. We welcome this assistance as it s changing the quality of life of the people of Gwadar for the better, said Senator Mushahid Hussain Sayed, chairman of the parliamentary committee that oversees CPEC, including Gwadar. China and Pakistan jointly choose which projects will be developed under the CPEC mechanism, Sayed added. When China suggested a 7,000 meter runway for the new airport, Pakistan pushed for a 12,000 meter one that could accommodate planes as large as the Airbus 380 and be used for military purposes, according to Sajjad Baloch, a director of the Gwadar Development Authority. The scale of Chinese grants is extraordinary, according to Brad Parks, executive director of AidData, a research lab at the U.S.-based William and Mary university that collected data on Chinese aid across 140 countries from 2000-2014. Since 2014, Beijing has pledged over $800 million in grants and concessional loans for Gwadar, which has less than 100,000 people. In the 15 years before that, China gave about $2.4 billion in concessional loans and grants during this period across the whole of Pakistan, a nation of 207 million people. Gwadar is exceptional even by the standards of China s past activities in Pakistan itself, Parks said. There are early signs China s efforts to win hearts and minds are beginning to bear fruit in Gwadar. Baluchistan is backward and underdeveloped, but we are seeing development after China s arrival, said Salam Dashti, 45, a grocer whose two children attend the new Chinese-built primary school. But there are major pitfalls ahead. Tens of thousands of people living by the port will have to be relocated. For now, they live in cramped single-story concrete houses corroded by sea water on a narrow peninsula, where barefoot fishermen offload their catch on newly-paved roads strewn with rubbish. Many of the fishermen say they fear they ll lose their livelihoods once the port starts operating. Indigenous residents fear of becoming a minority is inevitable with Gwadar s population expected to jump more than 15-fold in coming decades. On the edge of town, mansions erected by land speculators are popping up alongside the sand dunes. Analysts say China is aware that previous efforts to develop Gwadar port failed partly due to the security threat posed by Baloch separatists, so Beijing is trying to counter the insurgents narrative that China wants to exploit Baluchistan. That weighs heavily on the minds of the Chinese, Parks added. It s almost certainly true that they are trying to safeguard their investments by getting more local buy-in. Chinese officials, meanwhile, are promoting the infrastructure development they are funding. Every day you can see new changes. It shows the sincerity of Chinese for development of Gwadar, Lijian Zhao, the deputy chief of mission at the Chinese embassy in Islamabad, tweeted last month. For its investment in Gwadar, China will receive 91 percent of revenues until the port is returned to Pakistan in four decades time. The operator, China Overseas Ports Holding Company, will also be exempt from major taxes for more than 20 years. Pakistan s maritime affairs minister, Hasil Bizenjo, said the arrival of the Chinese in the region contrasted with the experience of the past two centuries, when Russia and Britain, and later the United States and the Soviet Union, vied for control of the warm water ports of the Persian Gulf. The Chinese have come very smoothly, they have reached the warm waters, Bizenjo told Reuters. What they are investing is less than a peanut for access to warm waters. When a U.S. Pentagon report in June suggested Gwadar could become a military base for China, a concern that India has also expressed, Beijing dismissed the idea. Talk that China is building a military base in Pakistan is pure guesswork, said a Chinese Defence Ministry spokesman, Wu Qian. Bizenjo and other Pakistani officials say Beijing has not asked to use Gwadar for naval purposes. This port, they will use it mostly for their commercial interests, but it depends on the next 20 years where the world goes, Bizenjo said. (This story has been refiled to correct typos in spellings of names of Chinese officials in paragraphs 40, 46) | 1 |
23,145 | election uncertainty now influencing gold and silver prices | by bernie suarez its always important to keep a strong perspective on reality and the objective truth about what is happening even though we ourselves | 0 |
23,146 | I Got This! GOP Melts Down Over Iran Detaining Navy, Obama Brings ‘Em Home (VIDEO) | As President Obama delivered his final State of the Union address, America once again was given a textbook case of the contrast between the right s erratic, dangerous leadership and Obama s calm and effective posture.When news broke that members of the U.S. Navy had been detained by Iran, the right went into meltdown mode.Marco Rubio said it was part of a pattern of Iran testing a weak Obama administration. Ted Cruz said it was striking that Obama didn t throw out his address and instead speak about the situation. Ben Carson whined, While President Obama is complaining about global warming 10 of our American sailors are held in Iranian custody. John McCain thundered that Iran has already achieved a propaganda victory by announcing that they had arrested Americans on board American warships. Minutes before the State of the Union address was set to be delivered, Senator Cory Gardner (R-CO) told CNN that the President should consider delaying it until the seamen had been returned while Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR) described the situation as humiliating for Obama.The pundits were in action too, with MSNBC s Joe Scarborough tweeting, Hey Iran, you have exactly 300 days left to push a US president around. Enjoy it while you can. After that, there will be hell to pay. But as we ve seen so many times over this presidency, while the right was throwing feces and freaking out, President Obama was getting something done. The seamen were freed on Wednesday morning without shots being fired, without a lot of noise and fury and drama, without a lot of unnecessary saber rattling.Iran has released two United States Navy patrol boats and 10 crew members who were described as trespassing in Iranian waters near a major naval base, state news media reported on Wednesday.The Pentagon and the State Department said that one of the boats had experienced mechanical problems en route to Bahrain from Kuwait on a routine mission on Tuesday, and the Iranians appeared to have accepted that explanation.Secretary of Defense Ash Carter praised the successful resolution: I am pleased that ten U.S. Navy sailors have departed Iran and are now back in U.S. hands. I want to personally thank Secretary of State John Kerry for his diplomatic engagement with Iran to secure our sailors swift return. Around the world, the U.S. Navy routinely provides assistance to foreign sailors in distress, and we appreciate the timely way in which this situation was resolved. America was able to quickly and safely resolve the situation because unlike during the Bush administration, a diplomatic line of communication is now open between America and Iran. Instead of a wall of silence between the two countries, there is now a process in place to deescalate tension and an agreement now in operation to steer Iran away from becoming a nuclear state.Instead of freaking out and pounding his fist leading to Iran making the world more dangerous, President Obama has chosen the other path and it is a brand of leadership that has and will make the world safer.Featured image via Vox | 0 |
23,147 | Texas Governor Wants Christian Crosses On Cop Cars | In a brief sent to the state Attorney General s office on February 5, Texas Governor Greg Abbott insisted that putting Christian crosses on police vehicles is a Constitutional right.In his brief, Abbott wrote: Even under the U.S. Supreme Court s expansive interpretation of the Establishment Clause s limited and unambiguous text, the Court has never held that public officials are barred from acknowledging our religious heritage. To the contrary, the U.S. Supreme Court has long recognized the demographic and historical reality that Americans are a religious people whose institutions presuppose a Supreme Being. Of course that an absolute lie. The Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled against any government sponsorship or endorsement of religion.Abbott goes on to claim that Christian cross bumper stickers on police vehicles neither establish a religion nor threaten any person s ability to worship God, or decline to worship God, in his own way. I wonder if he would feel the same way about Islamic symbols on police vehicles? What about symbols used by the church of Satan? Do those belong on police vehicles?Like most Americans, I am tired of hearing the religious right whine about how their religion is under attack in the U.S., every time a judge tells them they cannot use public funds and resources to promote their personal religious beliefs.There is a big difference between the state oppressing Christians and the state banning Christians from promoting or endorsing their religion with taxpayer dollars and/or taxpayer property.If you want to put a Christian bumper sticker on your personal vehicle, no-one is standing in your way. If you want to put one on a publicly owned vehicle, that s an entirely different story.Why is this so difficult for right-wing Christians to comprehend?Much to the dismay of the Christian right, the government is not a vehicle for enforcing their hypocritical religious beliefs on the public.In light of the Christian right s constant attempts to use government to force their religious doctrine on others, it makes perfect sense that they would try to slap Biblical bumper stickers on police cars.When state legislatures pass laws banning oral and anal sex, denying rights to the LGBT community, attempting to ban non-Christians from practicing their religious beliefs, making atheist marriage illegal, even suggesting laws that would make not going to church a crime, it s already frighteningly clear that they want police to act as the armed enforcers of their religious doctrine.In spite of Governor Abbott s ill-informed brief on this subject, even the slightest semblance of police being used as the enforcers of Christianity is a clear violation of the Establishment Clause.Over and over and over again these right-wing nuts whine about how their religion is being oppressed in the United States.Let s get something straight. Religious oppression is when the government attempts to keep you from practicing your religion on your own time and using your own resources. Barring you from using the stuff other people paid for to promote your religion, is not oppressive.If the government were to force all Christians to wear a special ID badge designating their religion, that would be oppressive. Or if the government were to bar Christians from entering the country, simply because of their religion, that would be oppressive. Or if the government were to create a special database for Christians so that they could be easily identified and closely watched, that would be oppressive.Only the government does not do that to Christians.On the other hand, right-wing Christians in government, including Texas Governor, Greg Abbott, sincerely want to do those things to Muslims.Thankfully, the establishment clause was created to protect Christians from experiencing the kind of government oppression they would gladly inflict on others.It s also there to protect the rest of us from right-wing Christians who would use our government, our tax dollars, our public property and our public employees to force their skewed version of Christianity down everyone s throat with a police-issued revolver.Image from johndoeforty1 on Flckr, cc 2.0. *Some changes were made to this image | 0 |
23,148 | ‘Tehran’ Tom Cotton Throws Tantrum After White House Exposes Him As Clueless Obstructionist | The Republican senator who gained infamy last year by attempting to sabotage a historic nuclear deal with Iran is back at it again this time by trying to derail a crucial appropriations bill so America is forced to violate the agreement.Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton got the moniker Tehran Tom after he and many of his Republican colleagues in the senate sent a brazenly out of line letter directly to the Iranian capitol in an effort to convince the country to stop negotiating with President Obama. The plan not only backfired (the Iranians delighted in mocking the Republicans), but it led to a major backlash from across the country. Politics may be getting nasty, but it seems betraying your country to score a cheap shot against the president still crosses a major line.Unable to understand when he has lost, Cotton has since been working behind the scenes to undermine the agreement any way he can. This week, he and his loyal band of obstructionists introduced an amendment intentionally meant to rankle relations between the two countries. Cotton had tried to bar the purchase of heavy water produced in Iran. Heavy water is a component of making nuclear weapons and nuclear energy. Part of the deal with Iran involved the country handing over its stock of heavy water (to show they were serious about ending their nuclear program) but Cotton doesn t want America to take it. Why? Because then the deal would actually work.Needless to say, the White House was furious. At a press conference, Press Secretary Josh Earnest let Cotton have it: So it is clear what the intent of his amendment is. Senator Cotton is certainly no expert when it comes to heavy water. I m confident that he couldn t differentiate heavy water from sparkling water. His focus is on undermining the effective implementation of this agreement that prevents Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. Cotton is fast becoming a single-issue politician. The time and energy he pours into trying to hurt Iran-United States relation borders on pathological. Even many of his colleagues, some of whom signed his letter in 2015, have given up thinking they can stop this agreement. Not Tehran Tom. He keeps plugging away.On Twitter, Cotton did not take the news of his White House dress down well. He suggested that he, a sitting United States Senator, isn t aware the existence of sparkling water because he was in the military a claim many found dubious.As for you @PressSec , you re right, I don t know much about sparkling water. It isn t served in Army, unlike in your ritzy West Wing. Tom Cotton (@SenTomCotton) April 27, 2016Maybe Cotton can get some of his lobbyist friends to send him a few bottles.Featured image via Mark Wilson/Getty Images | 0 |
23,149 | ‘I WAS STUNNED’: John Kelly Defends Trump’s Phone Call to Green Beret Widow [Video] | White House Chief of Staff John Kelly says he was stunned to learn that Congresswoman Frederica Wilson listened in on the president s call to a fallen soldier s wife. He came into the White House press briefing and let the press have it too. He goes through the steps of what happens when someone in the military is killed. He says that the members of our military are the best 1% of our population. He said he was brokenhearted when he found out what a member of congress did. This is a heartfelt moment that is amazing:KELLY DOES A GREAT JOB OF CUTTING THROUGH THE BS FROM THE PRESS:The retired general who lost his own son in Afghanistan said the call to Sgt. La David T. Johnson s wife should have been sacred. It stuns me that a member of congress would have listened in on that conversation. Absolutely stuns me. I thought at least that was sacred, he said.The White House official found himself at the center of a charge that President Barack Obama didn t make calls to the families of fallen soldiers this week after President Trump claimed that Obama didn t call Kelly when his son Robert died.Kelly said Thursday at a White House news conference that it s true but he wasn t offended.In fact, Kelly says he counseled Trump not to call Gold Star families and to instead write letters.Read more: Daily Mail | 0 |
23,150 | WOW! US Marine And Navy Veteran Writes BLISTERING Open Letter To Khizr Khan: “Does it matter whether Mr. Trump has ‘sacrificed’? Has Ms. Clinton ‘sacrificed’ for this nation? How about Mr. Obama?” | Wow! This is a spectacular letter that should be read by every American voter. Veteran Chris Mark truly puts Mr. Khan s public ridicule of Donald Trump into perspective. Bravo Mr. Mark! PLEASE SHARE this everywhere!Dear Mr. Khan,I want to preface this letter by stating that I respect your son s sacrifice for this great nation. By all accounts, he is a true hero that sacrificed himself in service to our country. For that I am thankful.As a veteran, I watched your comments at the Democratic National Convention with a mixture of sadness, and anger. The United States has a military comprised of volunteers. Every single member has made the conscious choice to join the military and serve. There is not a single service member who has been forced into service. It is important for all service members (and apparently, their families) to understand that service to this great nation does not imbue one with special privileges or rights. I found your comments troubling when you said: Have you ever been to Arlington cemetery? Go look at the graves of brave patriots who died defending the United States of America. You will see all faiths, genders and ethnicities. You have sacrificed nothing and no one. Does it matter whether Mr. Trump has sacrificed nothing and no one? has Ms. Clinton ..sacrificed for this nation? How about Mr. Obama? Your comment stating that Mr. Trump has sacrifice no one is alarming. Are you intimating that YOU sacrificed? Sir, your son willingly sacrificed himself. As a father I cannot imagine the pain you must feel but his sacrifice is his own. He was not forced to serve.I am troubled that you would allow a party that has little more than contempt for the US Service Member to parade you into the DNC to denounce Donald Trump. Did you watch when protesters at the DNC booed and heckled Medal of Honor recipient Capt. Florent Groberg? Did you notice your party interrupting the moment of silence for slain police officers? Your own hypocrisy in not denouncing these acts and instead using the DNC as a platform to make a political point is disgraceful. The simple fact is that whether one served or sacrificed does not give greater power to their statements. One vote is as valuable as another. That sir, is why our Country is great. Your condemnation of one person for a statement while standing idly as your party disparages veterans and police officers is the height of hypocrisy.To conflate the need to prevent potential terrorists from entering our country with the belief that all Muslims should be banned is simply wrong and disingenuous. As a reminder, Mr. Trump said: Until we are able to determine and understand this problem and the dangerous threat it poses, our country cannot be the victims of horrendous attacks by people that believe only in Jihad, and have no sense of reason or respect for human life, The irony of your son s own death at the hands of these very people in Iraq should not be ignored. I have little doubt that your son would have recognized the need to protect our country from these very people. In fact, he held is own troops back so that he could check on a suspicious car. Your son understood sacrifice and how to protect his people his soldiers . his fellow Americans As you continue to make the media circuit and bask in the glow of affection cast upon you by a party that has little regard for your son s own sacrifice, and veterans in general, I would ask you to consider your comments and your position more closely.Respectfully,Chris MarkUS Marine and Navy Veteran.Via: Global Security, Privacy and Risk Management -Blog by Chris Mark | 0 |
23,151 | The CREEPY Way Pence’s Religion Demands He Treat Women Will Make You SICK (DETAILS) | Mike Pence is a devout Evangelical Christian. There s nothing wrong with that; after all, that s what the First Amendment is for. However, it seems that Trump s vice president takes his piety to a whole new, incredibly creepy level. First, there is the way he treats his wife.Reports of a dinner Pence had with state senators while he was still Governor of Indiana are most alarming. Apparently, during the dinner, it was revealed that Pence actually calls his wife mother. It seems that at first, people thought it was a cute joke or something, but then came to realize that he was completely serious. Pence reportedly yelled down the table at his wife repeatedly during the meal. From Rolling Stone:Gov. Pence shouted to his wife, Karen, his closest adviser, at the other end of the table. Mother, Mother, who prepared our meal this evening? The legislators looked at one another, speaking with their eyes: He just called his wife Mother. Maybe it was a joke, the legislator reasoned. But a few minutes later, Pence shouted again. Mother, Mother, whose china are we eating on? Mother Pence went on a long discourse about where the china was from. A little later, the legislators stumbled out, wondering what was weirder: Pence s inability to make conversation, or calling his wife Mother in the second decade of the 21st century.As if that weren t bad enough, it seems that there are even creepier rules with regards to how Pence treats women other than his wife. In fact, according to New York Magazine, Pence is not allowed to dine alone with any woman who is not his wife, Karen Pence. Supposedly, Karen Pence is her husband s gut check and prayer warrior, and is therefore rarely away from her husband. Unsurprisingly, though, we never hear her speak. Perhaps she is not allowed to. Hell, Pence won t even go to any sort of gathering where there is booze on the menu unless Karen is right there.So, if Pence is not allowed to be in a room with any woman who is not his wife, then how on earth does he do government business if the adviser happens to be a woman? Does his wife get to be in the Situation Room? Does she get top level clearances? Are they allowed to use religious liberty as the reason for such accommodations? Time will only tell. What we do know is that Mike Pence and his wife get creepier by the day, and that is very bad for America.The only consolation is that it sure as hell explains a lot but the more we learn about these creepy people, the scarier America s situation becomes.Featured image via Alex Wong/Getty Images | 0 |
23,152 | dr macdonald dr duke expose the vicious war on trump by the jewish establishment | views share
dr duke and dr slattery discuss the color revolution against trump the jewish war against him and america
today dr duke had dr patrick slattery as his guest for the hour they discussed the soros companyfueled demonstrations that are going on in cities across the united states that bear a resemblance to the color revolutions that were used by soros in several countries around the world to overturn the results of elections or overthrow governments that were not kosher enough
they talked about the medias continuing attack on trump he granted an interview to minutes leslie stahl who constantly interrupted him preventing him from answering the questions she posed to him trump importantly insisted that he will continue to bypass the media and communicate directly with his supporters via social media he also seemed to prioritize tightening the immigration law over immediately deporting all illegal aliens which doctors duke and slattery agreed was the proper strategy
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23,153 | U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION: Teachers Should Incorporate Islam In More Subjects | Does anyone in recent history remember the US Department of Education asking educators to place more emphasis on Christianity or Judaism in their curriculums? Yeah neither do we As parents across the country storm school board meetings over a perceived overemphasis on Islam in the curriculum, bureaucrats in Washington, D.C. are suggesting ways teachers can focus more on the religion.A recent blog posted to Home Room, The official blog of the U.S. Department of Education, points out that terrorist attacks in Paris and California sparked anti-Muslim incidents in schools and other places.Muslim students, and those perceived to be Muslim, could be bullied, and the government wants teachers to know how to create an anti-bias learning environment by focusing specifically on those students and their faith. This means incorporating the experiences, perspective and words of Muslim people into the curriculum through social studies and current events instruction, children s literature, in order to learn about different cultures, the blog reads. When you teach about world religions, be sure to include Islam. It s also important to be aware that some Muslim students may feel relieved and comfortable discussing these issues in class and others may feel nervous, scared or angry to be talking about a topic so close to home. The education experts authors Jinnie Spiegler, director of curriculum with the Anti-Defamation League, and Sarah Sisaye of the Education Department s Office of Safe and Healthy Students suggest that teachers pick controversial current events ripe with examples of bias and injustice to highlight anti-Muslim discrimination, and to discuss what actions (students) could take to make a difference. Teachers should also take it upon themselves to spread awareness about Muslim cultural traditions by encouraging events like Hijab days, when female students wear the Islamic religious scarf donned by their Muslim classmates. The education experts provided a link to a YouTube video of an event at Vernon Hills High School in December as an example.Meanwhile, in places like Tennessee, state officials are reviewing curriculum early amid a barrage of complaints about questionable lessons on Islam in middle school history courses. Parents have highlighted lessons that required students to read, write and recite the Islamic conversion prayer; and pointed out the disproportionate amount of time students spend studying Islam versus other religions.Parents have also questioned the accuracy of texts that suggest Christians and Muslims worship the same God and that Islam is a religion of peace, EAGnews reports. A lot of the things we hear about Muhammad and a lot of the warfare that was waged is very much sugar coated, Williamson County School Board member Susan Curlee said at a December town hall. My concern is, are we going to be asking students on a test to potentially compromise their faith for the sake of a grade? she questioned.Also in December, parents in Greenville, Virginia raised objections to a world geography lesson at Riverheads High School that tasked students with copying the Islamic conversion prayer in Arabic, by hand. The intent, according to the lesson, is to give you an idea of the artistic complexity of calligraphy, The Shilling Show reports.The lesson doesn t appear to explain what the shahada or Islamic statement of faith is exactly There is no god but Allah, and Muhammad is the messenger of Allah but it does discuss the inspiring beauty of the Koran.And it s those types of lessons that are sparking a backlash from parents across the country, from lawsuits in Maryland to proposed legislation in Tennessee, centered on what many view as Muslim indoctrination through curriculum.A bias toward Islam is one of the reasons Tyler County Board of Education President Bonnie Henthorn decided to homeschool her children, rather than allow them continue in public schools, the Charleston Gazette-Mail reports.And while the Education Department blog stresses the importance of creating classrooms that are free from discrimination and harassment based on protected traits including religion, it offers no suggestions for teachers struggling to explain to parents why government approved texts and associated lessons focus more on Islam than other religions. Via: EAG News | 0 |
23,154 | Paul Ryan Just Gave The Most CRINGEWORTHY Response To Trump’s Illegal Voters Lie (VIDEO) | President-elect Donald Trump has been a sore subject for Speaker of the House Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI). Not only did Ryan speak out against Trump multiple times during his presidential campaign (but stopped short of pulling his endorsement), but Ryan is getting exceedingly worse at defending the President-elect as time goes on.Last night, Ryan gave an extremely awkward, cringeworthy interview on CBS 60 Minutes. Every time Scott Pelley tried to grill Ryan on Trump, the Speaker of the House pretty much crumbled under the pressure.The most hilarious part of the interview was when Pelley asked Ryan about Trump s recent claim that millions of people voted illegally, therefore costing him the popular vote. Pelley asked: Trump tweeted in the last week or so that he had actually won the popular vote if you deduct the millions that voted illegally. Do you believe that? You can practically see Ryan s skin crawling. Ryan was noticeably uncomfortable with the question, and went into survival mode by playing dumb. REAL dumb. Blinking uncomfortably, Ryan said, I don t know, I m not really focused on these things. Pelley cornered Ryan and pressed him, Wait a minute, wait a minute. You have an opinion on whether millions of Americans voted illegally. And Ryan got even dumber, right before our eyes. He said: I have no way of backing that up. I have no knowledge of such things. Ryan eventually gave up and without ever really answering the question, he said: It doesn t matter to me. He won the election. You can watch the humiliating interview below:It s no secret that Ryan and Trump have had a rocky relationship. Unfortunately, these super-awkward interviews are about to become more frequent, as Trump and Ryan try to get along and make some sort of peace before Trump begins his term.Featured image via Scott Olson/Getty Images | 0 |
23,155 | Democrats force postponement of committee's vote on SEC nominees | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Senate Banking Committee on Thursday had to postpone its vote to confirm the two nominees to join the Securities and Exchange Commission, after four Democrats created a wall of opposition over the nominees’ views of corporate political spending. The resistance posed by Charles Schumer of New York, Robert Menendez of New Jersey, Jeff Merkley of Oregon and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, led to procedural confusion and the Republican Committee Chairman, Richard Shelby of Alabama, decided to delay the vote. The SEC, the country’s top securities regulator, has faced mounting pressure to require corporations to disclose political donations since the Supreme Court struck down strict limits on campaign finance in its 2010 Citizens United decision. During a confirmation hearing on the nominees last month, Schumer had demanded the two nominees, Republican Hester Peirce and Democrat Lisa Fairfax, state in writing that they support requiring corporations to make their political donations public. At Thursday’s vote, he said the answers he received were “gobbledy gook” that did not express firm positions, and he would oppose the nominations. “Right now, the SEC is our best hope to undo some of the damage from Citizens United and stop the torrential downpour of dark money into our elections,” Schumer said after the hearing. “The SEC needs commissioners who believe in and support campaign spending transparency, and unfortunately these nominees have yet to answer that call.” Budget legislation passed by the Republican-majority Congress at the end of 2015 blocked the SEC from creating a rule on political spending. At March’s confirmation hearing Peirce, a senior fellow at George Mason University, said the SEC is charged with carrying out laws and she would not undermine the budget legislation if confirmed. Peirce and Fairfax, a law professor at George Washington University, were nominated by President Barack Obama in October. At the hearings the most powerful Democrat on the committee, Sherrod Brown of Ohio, pressed to confirm the nominees quickly and send their names to the full Senate to approve. “These people have been asked to take on important jobs. It is incumbent upon us to act on them promptly today and then on the floor,” Brown said. Thursday’s vote was “en banc,” which meant the committee was set to approve a single list of nominations that included the two. Voting was also postponed, then, for the other nominees on the list. | 1 |
23,156 | WHERE WAS MEDIA OUTRAGE After This WOMAN DELIBERATELY Plowed Car Into Las Vegas Crowd…Killing One, Injuring 35 Others? [VIDEO] | The media has been giving wall-to-wall coverage of the horrific and violent act that took place in Charlottesville, VA. By now, every American has seen the face and name of the 20-year old man, James Alex Fields, Jr., who was allegedly part of a group of white supremacists, that smashed into a large crowd of protesters on the street.JUST IN: Booking photo of James Alex Fields, Jr. @NBC29 pic.twitter.com/9nxtsvqNmt Henry Graff (@HenryGraff) August 13, 2017As a result of the horrific accident, one woman was killed and several others were injured. Of course, the media is blaming Donald Trump for the horrific accident that he clearly had nothing to do with. As a side note, does anyone remember the media blaming former President Barack Obama when the city of Ferguson, MO was burned to the ground by Black Lives Matter rioters? Yeah, either do we.But what about the black woman who INTENTIONALLY drove her car into a crowded street on the strip in Las Vegas with her 3-year old toddler in the back seat? Does anyone even remember this happening?In December 2015, Las Vegas police say a 24 year old woman, with her 3 year old toddler in the back seat, intentionally drove her vehicle into a crowded Las Vegas strip with the intention of running people over. Here s the story MSNBC published that was written by the Associated Press. The AP doesn t waste any time attempting to gain sympathy for the driver, and in only the third paragraph of the story, the AP want to make it perfectly clear that the reader knows she may not be guilt of intentional homicide. They re quick to quote the murderer s defense lawyer who told them, Just because she s charged, doesn t mean she s guilty From the AP article:A woman accused of intentionally plowing a car carrying her child through crowds of pedestrians on a Las Vegas Strip sidewalk is distraught and overwhelmed, her defense attorney said after she briefly appeared in court for the first time.Lakeisha Nicole Holloway, 24, pursed her lips and blinked as she was led in shackles into a courtroom. She was not asked to enter a plea but nodded to acknowledge that she would remain in jail through the holidays while both sides investigate Sunday s crash that killed an Arizona woman and injured dozens of others. This is sad and tragedy for everybody involved, defense lawyer Joseph Abood said after the hearing, adding, Just because she s charged, doesn t mean she s guilty. A woman with her 3-year-old daughter in the car smashed into crowds of visitors on the Las Vegas Strip, then drove to a hotel and told a valet to call 911 after killing a woman from Arizona and injuring at least 35 others, including at least five Canadians, police said.People jumped on the car and banged on its windows, but Lakeisha N. Holloway, 24, would not stop driving on the sidewalk, Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo told reporters. Video appeared to show the crash in front of the Paris and Planet Hollywood casino-hotels was intentional, he said.The 1996 Oldsmobile sedan was fully on the sidewalk twice Sunday night, including once when it traveled for 200 feet, police said. The child in the car was not hurt.The 24-year-old told police told she was homeless and tired, and denied using drugs or alcohol. Holloway also told police she had been unable to rest or sleep because security officers kept running her and her daughter and her car off casino properties.Here s a look at how MSNBC s parent company NBC covered the horrific Charlottesville incident yesterday. By the third paragraph in the part of the article that describes the accident, MSNBC interviews a witness from the other side of the protest (not the alleged perpetrator s defense lawyer, like in the story above) who clearly states there is no question about the motive or of the driver s guilt: It was very clearly intentional. NBC: Described as a group of anti-racist protesters by a witness who took video of the crash, the group of marchers was packed close together at the end of a street near the intersection of Fourth and Water streets in downtown Charlottesville when the car struck.Brennan Gilmore, a 37-year-old who works for a start up, shot the footage and said he heard tires squealing before he saw a car build up speed and ram the crowd. It hit a number of people before plowing into the bumper of another car. It was very clearly intentional, Gilmore told NBC News. From the far end of the street it accelerated, slowed down right before the crowd and then slammed on the gas through the crowd sending bodies flying. And then it reversed back into the street dragging bodies and clothes. And then boom the TRUMP tie-in (which was not really a tie-in at all):Fields mother, Samantha Bloom, told The Associated Press on Saturday night that she knew her son was attending a rally in Virginia but didn t know it was a white nationalist rally. I thought it had something to do with Trump. Trump s not a white supremacist, Bloom told the AP. (The last sentence that includes Fields mother s statement about Trump NOT being a white supremacist [bold], was omitted from many mainstream media sources, as it didn t fit their narrative.)In February 2017, Holloway was found mentally competent to stand trial after nearly a year committed at Lakes Crossing maximum security psychiatric facility. Holloway then pleaded not guilty in the case. Nearly 3 years later, her case has still not been tried. Lakeisha Holloway faces 71 felony counts in connection to the Dec. 20, 2015 incident that left a woman dead and injured 34 others. Her trial is scheduled to begin on Feb. 5, 2018.If you want to learn more about this case, you ll have to look for updates in local Las Vegas news sources. You won t likely find it being covered by the mainstream media. | 0 |
23,157 | Iran provided capability for missile attacks from Yemen: U.S. Air Force | DUBAI (Reuters) - Iran has provided the capability for ballistic missile attacks launched from Yemen, a senior U.S. Air Force official said on Friday. Jeffrey Harrigian, commander for southwest Asia at the U.S. Air Forces Central Command, also told reporters while on a visit to Dubai that it was important to find diplomatic solutions to tensions surrounding Lebanon instead of going to war. What we have seen, clearly from the results of the ballistic missile attacks, that there have been Iranian markings on those missiles, that s been demonstrated, Harrigian said. To me that connects the dots to Iran in terms of who s providing those missiles and that capability. Saudi Arabia, part of a coalition carrying out bombings of the Iran-allied armed Houthi movement in Yemen, has frequently intercepted missiles fired from its neighbor. Early this month, Saudi air defense forces intercepted a ballistic missile fired from Yemen over the capital Riyadh, state news agencies reported. The missile was brought down near King Khaled Airport on the northern outskirts of the city and did not cause casualties, the reports said. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia has accused Lebanon and its Shi ite Hezbollah movement of declaring war on it. Riyadh has advised Saudi citizens not to travel to Lebanon, or if already there to leave as soon as possible. With respect to Lebanon, I think the goal will be to try to find diplomatic solutions, Harrigian said. I don t want to speak to specifically how the kingdom of Saudi Arabia will deal with that, but I would like to think we will be able to find a solution to that problem that would allow diplomatic efforts to achieve success versus going to war. | 1 |
23,158 | Obama to consider 'proportional' response to Russia hacking | ABOARD AIR FORCE ONE (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama will consider a variety of responses to Russia’s hacking of political party organizations and it is possible that any action may not be announced publicly, the White House said on Tuesday. “There are a range of responses that are available to the president and he will consider a response that is proportional,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters on Air Force One. “It is certainly possible that the president can choose response options that we never announce,” he said. | 1 |
23,159 | EPA says website undergoing makeover to match Trump, Pruitt views | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The website of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, EPA.gov, is getting a makeover to reflect the views of President Donald Trump and EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, the agency said on Friday. “As EPA renews its commitment to human health and clean air, land and water, our website needs to reflect the views of the leadership of the agency,” it said in a statement. Trump, a climate change doubter, campaigned on a pledge to boost the U.S. oil and gas drilling and coal mining industries by slashing regulation. He also promised to pull Washington out of a global pact to fight climate change. The first page to be updated is one that reflects Trump’s executive order on energy independence, which calls for a review of the Clean Power Plan put into place by his predecessor, President Barack Obama, the statement said. “Language associated with the Clean Power Plan, written by the last administration, is out of date,” it said. “Similarly, content related to climate and regulation is also being reviewed.” The Clean Power Plan aimed to sharply reduce carbon dioxide emissions from electrical power generation over 25 years, focusing on reductions from coal-burning power plants and increasing the use of renewable energy and energy conservation. “We want to eliminate confusion by removing outdated language first and making room to discuss how we’re protecting the environment and human health by partnering with states and working within the law,” J.P. Freire, associate administrator for public affairs at the agency, said in the statement. The website changes will comply with agency ethics and legal guidance, including proper archiving, so a snapshot of the Obama administration’s website would remain available from the main page, the statement said. In January, EPA sources told Reuters that administration officials had asked the agency to take down the climate change page on its website, and that EPA staff had pushed back in an effort to convince the administration to preserve it. [L1N1FF00N] The page includes links to scientific research, emissions data from industrial plants and a multi-agency report that describes trends related to the causes and effects of climate change. Pruitt led 14 lawsuits against the agency when he was Oklahoma’s attorney general. Last month he said he was not convinced that carbon dioxide from human activity is the main driver of climate change, a position widely embraced by scientists. (This version of the story has been refiled to change Snapshot, not screenshot, in ninth paragraph) | 1 |
23,160 | White Supremacist GOPer’s Democratic Opponent Receives So Many Death Threats That She Quits | Until recently, Iowa Democrat Kim Weaver was running a promising campaign against noted white supremacist, GOP Rep. Steve King.Weaver raised $100,000 in four days following King s racist claim that we can t restore our civilization with somebody else s babies just one of his many, many bigoted outpourings.This, of course, made him very popular with the alt-Right (the modern term for Nazis).The 15 Words:[C]ulture and demographics are our destiny. We can't restore our civilization with somebody else's babies. Richard ? Spencer (@RichardBSpencer) March 12, 2017Steve King -> 2024 (finish the job)? ? ?????? https://t.co/7nZsetoYvY David Duke (@DrDavidDuke) March 12, 2017Since he gained popularity with the worst our society has to offer, it s unsurprising what happened next.Weaver received so many death threats from King s Nazi followers that she feels she can not continue to run against him:(function(d, s, id) { var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; if (d.getElementById(id)) return; js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = "//connect.facebook.net/en_US/sdk.js#xfbml=1&version=v2.3"; fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);}(document, 'script', 'facebook-jssdk'));Over the last several weeks, I have been evaluating personal circumstances along with the political climate regarding Posted by Kim Weaver on Saturday, June 3, 2017 One consideration has been raised again by recent events at my home. Beginning during my 2016 campaign, I have received very alarming acts of intimidation, including death threats, Weaver explains on Facebook. While some may say enduring threats are just a part of running for office, my personal safety has increasingly become a concern. King, almost following a script that seems to be read every single time the Right threatens someone into submission, claimed that the death threats likely didn t happen but a fabrication. I wanted #KimWeaver IN the race-not out. Democrats drove her out of the race-not R's. Death threats likely didn't happen but a fabrication. Steve King (@SteveKingIA) June 4, 2017This is how fascism works: those who resist are threatened into submission or worse.Featured image via screeengrab | 0 |
23,161 | People Are Queuing Up To Get This Trump Tattoo And Donald Is NOT Going To Like It (IMAGES) | A Florida man recently had a tattoo of Donald Trump inked onto his leg, and the current GOP frontrunner really isn t going to like it. It s a naked portrait featuring the trust fund tycoon s reportedly tiny manhood.Tattoo artist Spooks Joya, who created the tattoo, spoke to VICE about how the artwork came about, saying in an email: I actually saw the original picture by Illma Gore and thought it was awesome I researched what the piece stood for and couldn t resist not doing it, so I offered to do it for free on anyone who wanted. It started out as a joke but I was surprised people seriously wanted to get it done. Men and women. It was nuts!! It seems men and women were literally queueing up to pay the ultimate insult to Donald Trump and it really is a monstrosity. The tattoo is up on the thigh of a man who remains anonymous, but we do have pictures of the tattoo being completed.This might be the appropriate moment to ask: who on earth would do this to themselves? And WHY?!For those unaware of the background, Trump has been smarting for a quarter of a century over a slight made against him by journalist Graydon Carter. The Vanity Fair writer wrote a negative piece on Trump, in which he called him a short-fingered vulgarian . Last October, Carter published a piece in Vanity Fair entitled: Why Donald Trump Will Always Be a Short-Fingered Vulgarian - in which he detailed Trump s thin-skinned response to the criticism, and his refusal to let the matter go. He writes:Like so many bullies, Trump has skin of gossamer. He thinks nothing of saying the most hurtful thing about someone else, but when he hears a whisper that runs counter to his own vainglorious self-image, he coils like a caged ferret. Just to drive him a little bit crazy, I took to referring to him as a short-fingered vulgarian in the pages of Spy magazine. That was more than a quarter of a century ago. To this day, I receive the occasional envelope from Trump. There is always a photo of him generally a tear sheet from a magazine. On all of them he has circled his hand in gold Sharpie in a valiant effort to highlight the length of his fingers.And so it was, that Trump decided that a Primary debate to decide the Republican nominee for President of the United States, was the appropriate place to brag about the size of his penis. After Marco Rubio referenced the sight in a March debate, Trump told the crowd: Look at those hands. Are they small hands? holding his (admittedly stubby) fingers out towards the audience and the cameras. He referred to my hands, if they re small, something else must be small. I guarantee you there s no problem. I guarantee. It seems for one person in particular, the comedy pay-off was worth it.Featured Image via Flickr Creative Commons | 0 |
23,162 | Delaware is first U.S. state to enact abortion rights law under Trump | (Reuters) - Delaware’s governor has signed into law a bill ensuring abortion remains legal in the state, the first such move in the United States since President Donald Trump was elected on a pledge to overturn a landmark ruling that legalized abortion nationally. A spokesman for Democratic Governor John Carney Jr. said on Friday he supported the rights and protections afforded under Roe v. Wade, a 1973 Supreme Court decision protecting a woman’s right to abortion. “For that reason, he signed the bill into law,” said the spokesman, Jonathan Starkey, noting that the law takes effect immediately. Trump, a Republican whose election was backed by anti-abortion groups, has promised to appoint justices to the nation’s top court who would overturn Roe v. Wade and let states decide whether to legalize abortion. States have responded by seeking to write Roe V. Wade into their own laws, with Delaware the first to do so successfully. Abortion rights advocates on Friday cheered the Delaware law, which codifies at the state level provisions of Roe v. Wade. “We applaud Governor Carney for sending a strong message that state policymakers will protect women’s access to critical reproductive health services in the face of threats at the federal level,” said Amanda Allen, senior state legislative counsel at the Center for Reproductive Rights. Elizabeth Nash, an analyst at the Guttmacher Institute, which tracks abortion policy, said the law makes a statement that women are valued citizens in Delaware. “It says to women that you are important, you have the ability to decide when to have a child and the state supports you in making the decision that is best for you and your family,” Nash said. Abortion opponents had lobbied against the legislation. “This abortion law is a tragedy for Delaware,” Delaware Right to Life spokeswoman Moira Sheridan said in an email message. “(Carney) ignored the voices of Delawareans who rallied in opposition to this legislation, which now makes us the First State for Unrestricted Abortion.” Carney’s signature of the law on Thursday came just days after the state House voted 22 to 16 on Tuesday to pass the bill, which was approved by the state Senate 11-7 on May 9. Both chambers are controlled by Democrats. A bill to support abortion rights was approved by the Illinois legislature in May but the state’s Republican governor, Bruce Rauner, has vowed to veto it. In January, New York’s Assembly adopted legislation similar to Delaware’s, but it has stalled in the Senate. | 1 |
23,163 | Republican Cornyn predicts party will unify around Trump | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The No. 2 Republican in the U.S. Senate said on Thursday he believes the party will unite behind presumptive nominee Donald Trump. “I think you will see people unifying behind the nominee ... people don’t want four more years of this administration under Hillary Clinton,” Senator John Cornyn told reporters after a meeting with Trump. | 1 |
23,164 | Obama urges Congress to give plan to close Guantanamo a fair hearing | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama on Tuesday urged Congress to give his plan to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, a “fair hearing” and said he did not want to pass the issue on to the person who succeeds him in the White House. | 1 |
23,165 | New Info Reveals The TRUE Lengths Trump Went To In Order To Stop FBI’s Russia Probe | It s well known by now that Trump unsuccessfully pressured Comey to end the FBI s investigation into Michael Flynn and Russia. Many might think that his attempts to pressure authorities to end that investigation ended with Comey, or maybe Attorney General Jeff Sessions. They didn t. A new report from the Washington Post details how Trump went after his newly confirmed Director of National Intelligence, Daniel Coats, on this same subject. [Trump] then started complaining about the FBI investigation and Comey s handling of it, said officials familiar with the account Coats gave to associates. Two days earlier, Comey had confirmed in a congressional hearing that the bureau was probing whether Trump s campaign coordinated with Russia during the 2016 race The interaction with Coats indicates that Trump aimed to enlist top officials to have Comey curtail the bureau s probe. After that, Trump spoke to Coats again and asked him to publicly deny the existence of any evidence of collusion between his campaign and Russia. He made a similar request of Mike Rogers, the director of the National Intelligence Agency. Both of them refused to do what Trump wanted them to do.Trump is likely upset that he can t control every part of the executive branch like he no doubt thought he would. Nominating and confirming people who have a modicum of integrity, as well as knowledge of how the intelligence community and White House should behave with respect to each other, has only served to push Trump into a very uncomfortable corner.While Trump and his allies continue to deny that anything ever happened, up to and including lying through their teeth, we have to ask one question: If Trump knows he s innocent, why try to interfere in the investigations this way? Why behave like there s a cover-up? Once again, none of this is the behavior of an innocent man. It s the behavior of someone with something to hide.Featured image via Olivier Douliery-Pool/Getty Images | 0 |
23,166 | Kenya's parliament takes three-week break at opposition's request | NAIROBI (Reuters) - Deadlock over the allocation of leadership posts has forced Kenya s parliament into an unscheduled three-week recess, lawmakers said on Wednesday, indicating a protracted political crisis could reverberate beyond the October election. Political stalemate has gripped Kenya, East Africa s most advanced economy and an ally of the West against militant Islam, since the Supreme Court annulled the results of the Aug. 8 presidential elections on procedural grounds and ordered a re-run. The repeat election was held on Oct. 26 but opposition leader Raila Odinga boycotted the vote, saying it would be unfair. Incumbent President Uhuru Kenyatta won a second, five-year term with 98 percent of the vote. Lawmakers said on Wednesday that Odinga s opposition coalition wanted more time to negotiate on the distribution of parliamentary leadership posts to its constituent parties. The National Super Alliance (NASA) coalition has written to the speakers of the national assembly and senate asking to have until the end of November to fill leadership positions in the house, including minority chiefs, whips and committee heads. The NASA parliamentary group has asked the speaker to give them until end of the month to put their house in order, Adan Duale, majority leader in the national assembly, told Reuters via text message, adding parliament would adjourn until Nov. 29. Parliament runs its business through the Parliamentary Service Commission (PSC) and various committees, which set its calendar and the legislative agenda, approve expenditure and vet key appointments in the executive and the judiciary. Ayub Savula, an opposition legislator, told Reuters the delays were due to disagreements between NASA s four main parties - Odinga s ODM, ANC, Ford Kenya and Wiper - on how to share the available positions. Whereas ODM has a majority 70 MPs in the NASA team, the rest of the political parties under NASA feel it is better if the leadership is divided equally, Savula said. The delay has angered some, including lawmakers from the ruling Jubilee party. We have a fixed term of five years, said Moses Kuria, a Jubilee member of parliament. It (the delay) is not a good thing for this country and it is a raw deal for the taxpayers. | 1 |
23,167 | WIKILEAKS JULIAN ASSANGE Says He Has NEW Emails That Should Indict Hillary…And Why He’s A Trump Fan [Video] | Julian Assange tells what he ll do next and what motivates him. He also believes Trump will be great for freedom of the press in America | 0 |
23,168 | North Korea insists U.S. student Warmbier wasn't tortured | SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea said on Thursday that American student Otto Warmbier had suffered no torture during his 17-month detention, a day after an Ohio coroner said he died from lack of oxygen and blood to the brain caused by an unknown injury. Sentenced to 15 years of hard labor for trying to take from his hotel an item bearing a propaganda slogan, the University of Virginia student was held by North Korea from January 2016 until his release on June 15. Warmbier died days after arriving in the United States and his parents said that their son had been tortured while in North Korea. North Korea had provided medical care to Warmbier despite his hostile acts against the country, and claims of torture are groundless slander aimed at opposing the North, North Korea s foreign ministry spokesman was quoted as saying by the state-run KCNA news agency. | 1 |
23,169 | Trump Seriously Just Said Waterboarding Is Okay Because It’s Not ‘REAL Torture’ (VIDEO) | On the campaign trail, Donald Trump said he wanted to bring back waterboarding. Now, as president, he is doubling down and says that waterboarding is a-okay because it isn t really even torture anyway.During an interview on Thursday, Trump told Fox News Sean Hannity that waterboarding doesn t qualify as real torture (it does) and claimed that it is an effective interrogation tool to get valuable information (it s not). I mean, torture is real torture, OK? Waterboarding is I m sure it s not pleasant, but waterboarding was just short of torture, Trump said. When you know, all of a sudden, they made it torture. I spoke with people the other day who are in this world that were talking about it. Absolutely, it works. Absolutely, he added.Trump told ABC News earlier this week that he is all about bringing back banned torture techniques, such as waterboarding, and said that he will be relying on the advice of his national security team. But he made it clear that he has no doubt in his mango tinted mind that torture works. However, Secretary of Defense James Mattis has long since denounced the practice of waterboarding. As far as I m concerned, we have to fight fire with fire. Now, with that being said I m going with General Mattis. I m going with my secretary because I think Pompeo s gonna be phenomenal. I m gonna go with what they say, Trump said. But I have spoken as recently as 24 hours ago with people at the highest level of intelligence. And I asked them the question, Does it work? Does torture work? And the answer was, Yes, absolutely, he added. I will rely on General Mattis. And I m gonna rely on those two people and others. And if they don t wanna do it, it s 100 percent okay with me. Do I think it works? Absolutely. Once again, Trump is using alternative facts. Not only does waterboarding most definitely constitute torture, but it also isn t effective when it comes to getting information. According to a report published by US Senate Select Committee published in 2014, which analyzed the CIA s detention and interrogation program, torture does not work.The report clearly states that the use of the CIA s enhanced interrogation techniques was not an effective means of obtaining accurate information or gaining detainee cooperation. The report also points out that people who are tortured often make up false information just to bring an end to their suffering. They will tell you whatever you want to hear to get you to stop hurting them (even if it isn t true) because they are desperate.You can watch Trump declare that waterboarding is not real torture, here:Featured image via video screen capture | 0 |
23,170 | British PM expected to offer to fill post-Brexit EU budget hole: FT | (Reuters) - The British government has told German Chancellor Angela Merkel to expect Prime Minister Theresa May this week to offer to fill a post-Brexit European Union budget hole of at least 20 billion euros, the Financial Times reported on Tuesday. The prime minister s EU adviser Oliver Robbins assured his European counterparts that May s Friday speech in Florence would include the offer, the FT reported, citing officials briefed on the discussions. | 1 |
23,171 | BREAKING: DISGUSTING AUDIO IS RELEASED Of Harvey Weinstein BEGGING Model To Watch Him Take Shower: “Don’t Embarrass Me In The Hotel… I Come Here All The Time” | The disgraced anti-Trump Hollywood producer, billionaire, and mega-Democrat donor Harvey Weinstein is going to have one hell of a time refuting this disgusting bombshell audio that was recorded by one of his victims, model Ambra Battilana Gutierrez.The audio starts with Harvey Weinstein pleading with model Ambra Battilana Gutierrez in the hallway of the hotel where Weinstein apparently has a room, to come and watch him take a shower.Gutierrez is in the hallway of the hotel where Weinstein has a room. Weinstein can be heard begging and coercing her to come into his room. Weinstein s comments are in red: What do we have to do here? Nothing, I m going to take a shower. You sit there and have a drink. Water.I don t drink.Then have a glass of water.Can I stay on the bar?No. You must come here now. No.Please?No, I don t want to.I m not doing anything with you. Now you re embarrassing me. I m sorry. I cannot.No, come in here.Well, yesterday was kind of aggressive for me. I need to know a person can t be touched.I know. I won t do a thing. Please, I swear, I won t. Just sit with me. Don t embarrass me in the hotel. I m here all the time.I know, but I don t want to.Please, sit there. Please! One minute. I ask you. Please. Go to the bathroom.Please, I don t want to do something I don t want to.Go to the bathroom. Hey, come here! Listen to me!I want to go downstairs.I m not going to do anything. You ll never see me again after this. Okay? That s it. If you embarrass me in this hotel I m not embarrassing you. It s just that, I don t. I don t feel comfortable. It s not nice.Honey, don t have a fight with me here in the hallway! Please, I m not gonna do anything. I swear on my children. Please come in. Please. On everything. I m the vainest guy!I m feeling very uncomfortable right now.Please come in now. And one minute. And if you wanna leave when the guy brings up my jacket, you can go.Why yesterday you touched my breasts?Oh, please! I m sorry. Just come on. I m used to that.You re used to that?Yes, come in.No, but I m not used to that.I won t do it again. Come on. Sit. Sit here for a minute, please. If you do this now. You will embarrass me. Never call me again. Okay? I promise you. I won t do anything. I will never do another thing to you again. The guys coming to bring my jacket. You can leave.I won t do it again. Please. Please! 5 minutes. Don t ruin your friendship with me for 5 minutes. I know, but it s kinda like it s too much for me.Please, you re making a big scene here.I know, but I wanna leave.Okay. Leave. Goodbye.Listen here:Weinstein, in conversation with Gutierrez, admits to groping her. Here s the audio: https://t.co/zSQbK5NV0c pic.twitter.com/vmrrSUp43w The New Yorker (@NewYorker) October 10, 2017In March, 2015, Ambra Battilana Gutierrez told officers of the N.Y.P.D that Weinstein had sexually assaulted her: https://t.co/zSQbK5NV0c pic.twitter.com/LlYWPzatof The New Yorker (@NewYorker) October 10, 2017Sorvino says that she felt afraid and intimated, and that Weinstein s conduct had significant impact on her work: https://t.co/zSQbK5NV0c pic.twitter.com/R84y78kEDG The New Yorker (@NewYorker) October 10, 2017 | 0 |
23,172 | Trump says he had a 'very good talk' with Obama on Wednesday | PALM BEACH, Fla. (Reuters) - U.S. President-elect Donald Trump said he had a good conversation with President Barack Obama on Wednesday, after earlier tweeting that the transition was not going smoothly. “He called me. We had a very, very good talk ... generally about things. ... was a very, very nice call, and I actually thought we covered a lot of territory,” Trump told reporters at his Mar-a-Lago resort. “Our staffs are getting along very well and I’m getting along very well” with him, Trump said. Earlier on Wednesday, Trump tweeted: “Doing my best to disregard the many inflammatory President O statements and roadblocks. Thought it was going to be a smooth transition - NOT!” | 1 |
23,173 | Byrne: health bill prospects hurt as many Republicans left out of talks | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Representative Bradley Byrne said on Thursday the White House’s attention to conservative House Freedom Caucus members could hurt the healthcare bill’s prospects and warned that it faces diminishing odds if a vote is not held this week. “The vast majority of us in the Republican conference have been left out of these discussions,” Bradley said. “And we have no idea what’s going on. I think that that is a problem for our leadership and I think it’s a growing problem for the chances of this bill.” | 1 |
23,174 | Obama Just Delivered His Most Scathing Rebuke Of Trumpcare Yet, And It’s Awesome (SCREENSHOTS) | President Obama typically refrains from outright blasting the f*ck out of Donald Trump, but he made an exception on Thursday as Republicans prepare to strip healthcare from millions of our most vulnerable Americans.On Facebook, Obama urged Republicans to reject Trumpcare and all it has to offer (which isn t much). I recognize that repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act has become a core tenet of the Republican Party, Obama said. Still, I hope that our Senators, many of whom I know well, step back and measure what s really at stake, and consider that the rationale for action, on health care or any other issue, must be something more than simply undoing something that Democrats did. The Senate bill, unveiled today, is not a health care bill. It s a massive transfer of wealth from middle-class and poor families to the richest people in America, he continued. It hands enormous tax cuts to the rich and to the drug and insurance industries, paid for by cutting health care for everybody else. Simply put, if there s a chance you might get sick, get old, or start a family this bill will do you harm. And small tweaks over the course of the next couple weeks, under the guise of making these bills easier to stomach, cannot change the fundamental meanness at the core of this legislation. That s the key word meanness. Trumpcare is designed not to help Americans, but to provide massive tax cuts for the richest Americans while leaving the rest of us to suffer. This debate has always been about something bigger than politics, Obama added. It s about the character of our country who we are, and who we aspire to be. And that s always worth fighting for. Read the post below:(function(d, s, id) { var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; if (d.getElementById(id)) return; js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = "//connect.facebook.net/en_US/sdk.js#xfbml=1&version=v2.3"; fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);}(document, 'script', 'facebook-jssdk'));Our politics are divided. They have been for a long time. And while I know that division makes it difficult to listen Posted by Barack Obama on Thursday, June 22, 2017Featured image via Getty Images/screengrab | 0 |
23,175 | Top U.S. Senate Democrat wants probe into details surrounding Flynn resignation | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Senate Democratic leader Charles Schumer called on Tuesday for an independent probe of what he called potential criminal violations surrounding the resignation of national security adviser Michael Flynn. Speaking to reporters in the U.S. Capitol, Schumer said law enforcement officers should question officials from President Donald Trump’s campaign, transition team and administration staff, including Trump himself, about events leading up to Flynn’s departure on Monday. He said Flynn, and potentially other Trump officials, could have violated federal prohibitions against citizens negotiating with foreign governments or receiving gifts and other benefits without authorization. “What I am calling for is an independent investigation with executive authority to pursue potential criminal actions,” Schumer said. “There are potential violations of law here by General Flynn and potentially others.” Flynn quit after only three weeks in the job, following disclosures that he discussed U.S. sanctions on Russia with Moscow’s ambassador to the United States before Trump took office and later misled Vice President Mike Pence about the conversations. Schumer appeared unlikely to win support for such a probe from his Senate Republican colleagues, who expect the scandal to be investigated by the Senate Intelligence Committee. “The Intelligence Committee is already looking at Russian involvement in our election ... it’s highly likely they’d want to take a look at this episode. They have the jurisdiction to do it,” Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell told reporters separately. Schumer welcomed any involvement by the Senate committee but said the panel lacked the prosecutorial powers needed to hold potential wrongdoers fully accountable. He also said that U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions should recuse himself from any probe of Flynn’s resignation because of his political ties to Trump. Schumer said career Justice Department investigators or an independent counsel could look into whether other Trump team members had contact with Russia and why the White House did not seek Flynn’s resignation sooner. “Any attempt to lie or mislead must be countered by the full force of the law,” Schumer added. “His resignation raises more questions than it answers. And the American people deserve to know the truth.” | 1 |
23,176 | Study Shows Conservative Voters Are Literally Twice As Shallow As Liberal Voters (DETAILS) | A study was just released that said that conservative politicians are better looking than their liberal counterparts, and the reason for it shows that liberals are better at picking leaders.The study, published in the Journal of Public Economics, and performed by researchers at the University of Helsinki, examined politicians and academics from Europe and the United States. The fact that left-leaning scholars are perceived as better-looking is no cause for alarm, Prof (Jan-Erik) L nnqvist said. What is worrying, however, is the high degree of importance attached to looks in political elections. He added: The results of my study are in concordance with other studies that show that the effect of attractive looks is twice as large for politicians on the right compared to their counterparts on the left. While it did not find that conservative academics were better looking, conservative politicians won the overall beauty contest and believe it or not, that s likely how we got Donald Trump.Hear me out. No, while Trump is expert at leering at and sexually harassing beauty contestants, there s no sash in his future. So, what does Trump s election have to do with conservatives being more attractive people? Conservative voters, it seems, are shallow people. They are less capable of getting past the superficial and understanding nuanced campaign issues. Now are you getting the connection to Trump?Or, as Dr. L nnqvist suggested: One possible reason for the greater influence of looks on right-wing constituents could be that they are less informed. Previous research has also shown that conservative voters have a more concrete, perhaps less sophisticated way of thinking. That is probably why the nation is in much better hands with Democratic presidents. It also might show why Democrats have a harder time winning. Our views are much more complex, as is our taste in candidates. Republicans campaign on bumper sticker slogans and Democrats campaign on issues. It s much easier to rally people around bumper sticker slogans than around complicated ideas.Featured image via Win McNamee/Getty Images. | 0 |
23,177 | Key U.S. Senate committee leaders say Russia sanctions must remain | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The top Republican and Democrat on the U.S. Senate Banking Committee both said on Wednesday that sanctions imposed on Russia over its involvement in Ukraine must not be lifted without drastic changes by Russia. Senator Mike Crapo, the panel’s Republican chairman, said reducing sanctions could encourage Moscow to continue aggressive actions, three years after it annexed Ukraine’s Crimea region. Senator Sherrod Brown, the ranking Democrat, said the panel should look at increasing sanctions. “Russia remains a hostile, recalcitrant power, deploying its military, cyber-enabled information espionage activities and economic tactics to harm the United States and drive a wedge between it and its allies,” Crapo said. President Donald Trump’s fellow Republicans and Democrats in congress have both expressed concern that Trump might reduce sanctions on Russia imposed under his predecessor, Democratic former President Barack Obama, because of Trump’s expressed desire to improve relations with Moscow. Trump has said he intends, at least for now, to maintain U.S. sanctions. Trump’s first national security adviser, Michael Flynn, was forced from that position last month after revelations that he had discussed U.S. sanctions on Russia with Moscow’s ambassador to the United States before Trump took office. Brown noted a report by U.S. intelligence agencies concluding that Russia sought to interfere in the 2016 U.S. election on Trump’s behalf. He said the committee should focus on how it can strengthen its response to Russia. Russia denies any attempt to influence the U.S. election result. “We should strengthen, not weaken, Russian sanctions, and the president must work with Congress on a Russia policy that is clear-eyed about our adversaries and their behavior,” Brown said in his opening statement at the hearing. Brown also said a surge in violence in Ukraine since Trump was elected president in November is a test by Moscow of the U.S. resolve to support the Kiev government and the Ukrainian people. | 1 |
23,178 | WATCH HER SKI! AMERICAN TAXPAYERS ON THE HOOK FOR ASPEN TRIP BY FIRST LADY | WOULDN T YOU LIKE TO KNOW THE GRAND TOTAL AND NOT JUST THE TRANSPORTATION EXPENSES ALONE?First Lady s round-trip flight to Aspen, Colorado, with her daughters cost taxpayers $7,712 an hour(Washington, DC) Judicial Watch announced today that it has obtained records from the U.S. Department of the Air Force revealing that Michelle Obama s weekend trip to Aspen, Colorado, in February cost American taxpayers $57,068.80 in travel expenses alone for the 7.4-hour round-trip flight. While President Obama flew to California to play golf, speak at a cyber-security summit, and headline a fundraiser for the Democratic National Committee, the First Lady and her daughters spent Valentine s Day weekend skiing in Aspen, returning to the White House on February 16.Judicial Watch obtained the Air Force records in response to a February 18, 2015, Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request seeking the following:According to the newly released records, the transportation costs for the four-day trip to Aspen were based on a flight cost of $7,712 an hour for the First Lady, her daughters, and support personnel in the Gulfstream aircraft. Not included were the attendant costs for U.S. Secret Service personnel, accommodations, meals, rental cars, lift tickets for skiing at Buttermilk, and related expenses. The $57,068.80 tab Mrs. Obama her daughters ran up in travel expenses alone for their weekend trip is more than 14 times what the average American of four spends for an entire week-long vacation.The ski trip was apparently intended to be low-key, and it may have stayed under the radar had it not been for the Obama s motorcade having been forced to stop for a two-car collision ahead of them, which closed the road for 40 minutes. Though the Obamas had been allowed to sneak through while they waited on tow trucks, according to Aspen Police Chief Brian Olsen, the presence of the First Lady was noticed. The Obama family reportedly stayed at the home of Jim and Paula Crown, a Chicago couple who have been major campaign contributors to President Obama throughout his political career.Barack and Michelle Obama and other members of their family have traveled more during his presidency than any other first couple, including extensive and costly trips to Spain, Africa, South America, and China, accompanied by staff and often by friends.Including the Aspen trip, government records indicate that the beyond-first-class travel of the Obamas and Vice President Joe Biden have cost the American people well over $56 million.Read more: Judicial Watch | 0 |
23,179 | Obama’s Press Secretary Just Smacked Down A HUGE Sean Spicer Lie, And It’s Glorious (TWEETS) | In his efforts to weasel out of answering questions about Donald Trump s lie that President Obama tapped Trump Tower s wires, Sean Spicer uttered four little words that he now regrets. No, that s above my pay grade, Spicer told a reporter when asked for evidence that Trump was telling the truth.Jay Carney, President Barack Obama s press secretary, very quickly shut down Spicer s claim that he does not have access to that information via Twitter. Actually, his pay grade is the highest possible at WH same as for chief of staff, national security and other senior personnel, Carney tweeted:Actually, his "pay grade" is the highest possible at WH same as for chief of staff, national security and other senior personnel. https://t.co/V3BENwFHjI Jay Carney (@JayCarney) March 7, 2017Yes, this means that Sean Spicer lied to you.On Saturday, Trump dropped a bigger lie about Obama than the whole Kenya thing (and that was a whopper). Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my wires tapped in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism! our alleged President said as part of an extended rant that was clearly intended to distract from the very real scandals related to him, his campaign, his staff, and a little shirtless Russian guy he calls Vladdy Poot Poot (we assume on that last bit). A cardinal rule of the Obama administration was that no White House official ever interfered with any independent investigation led by the Department of Justice, Obama responded via spokesman Kevin Lewis. As part of that practice, neither President Obama nor any White House official ever ordered surveillance on any U.S. citizen. Any suggestion otherwise is simply false. So far Trump has not been able to provide a shred of evidence and even some of Obama s most vocal opponents have failed to defend The Donald. Nevertheless Trump has demanded that the Republican Congress distract themselves from any of those pesky Russia investigations by looking into whether or not Obama did the stupid and illegal thing he falsely said he did. They agreed, because they legitimately do not care what laws he breaks.Watch Spicer lie again below:Featured image via screengrab | 0 |
23,180 | CBS HIT JOB On New Tax Bill Backfires When Accountant Meets With Middle Class Taxpayers…Winning! [Video] | For weeks and weeks we ve heard the propaganda and DNC talking points about how President Trump was going to trick Americans with the tax cuts. Well, CBS News just lost one of their false narratives today.Despite their earnest efforts, they were forced to broadcast financial results from three families they used as representative examples of the Trump tax plan.The weeks-long media spin ran into the wall of reality: We asked an accountant to crunch the numbers for three working families to see how much they could be saving. Tony Dokoupil reports. It s safe to say that all three families were surprised at their savings. They were like so many other Americans who bought into the gloom and doom narrative with tax reform.HERE S ANOTHER EXAMPLE OF HOW BRAINWASHED PEOPLE ARE AGAINST TRUMP S TAX PLAN:Liberal college students don t care much for Donald Trump s new tax plan unless of course they re told that Bernie Sanders came up with it They can t help it They ve been taught Trump=bad Bernie=good so they know nothing else Maybe this will teach them to think for themselves Ya think?President Donald Trump s proposal for comprehensive tax reform was almost immediately dismissed as heartless and impractical by his political opponents.But what would some of those opponents think if they were told the same plan was being proposed by someone they adore Senator Bernie Sanders?To find out, we headed to George Washington University to ask students their opinions on Trump s new tax plan. WIthout much explanation, the students immediately made clear their distaste for the plan. It s not the most efficient, nor beneficial to the general populus, said one student when asked her opinion of Trump s plan. It s better for the upper class than anyone else, added another.After watching student after student express their disapproval of the plan, we then asked those same students what they thought of Senator Bernie Sanders new tax plan.Immediately, they expressed excitement and support after hearing the details of the plan.The only problem for them? There was no tax plan for Senator Sanders. The plan they loved was actually President Trump s.Read more: Campus Reform | 0 |
23,181 | no title | united states marine field mcconnell plum city online abeldangernet october
abel danger ad claims that serco relayed zulu timing signals to mentors of the federal bridge certification authority in support of live webcast of torture killings in the mumbai attacks of november and bc pig farm raves
ad claims that serco used an a protégé company base one technologies to blackmail hillary clinton into outsourcing the operation of the us patent and trademark office to users of the federal bridge and equipping selected users with patented webcast servers for zulu betting on the times of victims deaths
ad claims that in serco operatives at the national visa center began equipping hillary clinton and michelle obama a former sidley austin intellectual property ip lawyer and a protégée of terrorist bernardine dohrn with a longrange visa service for the bc pig farm and mumbai snufffilm crews
united states marine field mcconnell global operations director of abel danger has offered to serve as a fivestar general in a future trump administration so he can first recognize and then destroy sercos zulu bridge to clinton patents and obama snufffilm crews
mumbai terror attack watch nsg successful in mission against mumbai attackers
media coverage of starnet raid august
hillary clinton vs james comey email scandal supercut
copy of serco group plc list of subsidiaries and shareholders note british and saudi governments axa hsbc teachers and gold man sachs
defense ammunition center outsourced to serco
serco would you like to know more
digital fires instructor serco camp pendleton ca uses information derived from all military disciplines eg aviation ground combat command and control combat service support intelligence and opposing forces to determine changes in enemy capabilities vulnerabilities and probable courses of action
the mumbai bombay attacks were a series of attacks that took place in november when members of lashkaretaiba an islamic militant organisation based in pakistan carried out a series of coordinated shooting and bombing attacks lasting four days across mumbai the attacks which drew widespread global condemnation began on wednesday november and lasted until saturday november killing people and wounding at least
eight of the attacks occurred in south mumbai at chhatrapati shivaji terminus the oberoi trident the taj mahal palace tower leopold cafe cama hospital the nariman house jewish community centre the metro cinema and in a lane behind the times of india building and st xaviers college there was also an explosion at mazagaon in mumbais port area and in a taxi at vile parle by the early morning of november all sites except for the taj hotel had been secured by mumbai police and security forces on november indias national security guards nsg conducted operation black tornado to flush out the remaining attackers it culminated in the death of the last remaining attackers at the taj hotel and ending the attacks ajmal kasab disclosed that the attackers were members of lashkaretaiba among others the government of india said that the attackers came from pakistan and their controllers were in pakistan on january pakistan confirmed the sole surviving perpetrator of the attacks was a pakistani citizen on april the foremost ringleader of the attacks zakiur rehman lakhvi was granted bail against surety bonds of us in pakistan
the case of the vanishing visa files
december pm pst
by chuck goudie
december chicago potentially important evidence has disappeared in a terrorism case involving two chicago men their visa records vanished from chicagos indian consulate it comes one week after the abc iteam raised questions about how david coleman headley and tahawwur rana obtained their foreign visas in the first place
the case of the vanishing visa records has churned up diplomats from mumbai to michigan avenue indias foreign secretary nirupama rao told reporters overseas wednesday that she wants answers from chicagos indian consulate about the records and visa documents that have disappeared records that might show how two accused chicago terrorists obtained permission to scout targets in india
top officials of chicagos india consulate wouldnt talk to the iteam on camera last week when asked how terror suspects david coleman headley and tahawwur rana obtained fiveyear unlimited passage visas to india
and the consul general did not return calls wednesday regarding the paperwork they used to process headley and ranas visas which indian foreign secretary nirupama rao announced wednesday have disappeared
wednesday evening the chicago consul general emailed a statement to the iteam that conflicted with government statements made in india the brief statement read we have not reported loss of any papers regarding issuance of visa to david coleman headley and tahawwur rana hussain relevant information concerning the issuance of visa to these persons is available with the government of india
indias counterpart to the fbi is looking into the visa application process as part of its probe into the mumbai massacre
the two chicago suspects are accused of having roles in the assault rana was denied bond by a chicago district judge tuesday despite family members and friends offering million in cash and property rana has not been directly charged with the mumbai attack that left dead but was linked to the assault in government court filings
headley a pakistanborn chicagoan is a convicted heroin dealer whose birth name was daood giliani he changed his name to ease travel to india according to federal prosecutors in chicago and to avoid the required previsa background check by indian authorities
since the time headley and rani were processed indias chicago consulate office began contracting out visa requests to a private company called travisa outsourcing that on its website claims we have revolutionized the way people get their visas
and the new visa processing was subject of a news conference last year
the advantages of outsourcing is the travisa company which is handling the outsourcing has set up a call center said ashok kumar attri consul general
foreign secretary rao said she is impressed with the cooperation the us has given to indian investigators headley and rana are not due back in court until january
was bernardine dohrn the mentor of michelle obama at sidley austin
april
bernardine dohrn was at sidley austin a law firm in chicago from from to dohrn was employed by the law firm sidley austin although her criminal record has prevented her from being admitted to either the new york or illinois bar httpenwikipediaorgwikibernardine_dohrn
michelle obama graduated from harvard law school in but she likely also was a summer associate in and likely barack obama was assigned to her in when he was a summer associate from harvard law school httpenwikipediaorgwikibarack_obama
he entered harvard law school in more links and excerpts
httpsoldatlanticlighthousewordpresscomnorthwesternlawprofbernardinedohrnweatherunderground
steve sailer on michelle obama
httpwwwvdarecomsailer_michelle_obamahtm
michelles princeton thesis
httpblogvdarecomarchivesmichelleobamathesisfounddownloadithere
james fulford quotes politico
michelle obamas senior year thesis at princeton university obtained exclusively from the campaign by politico shows a document written by a young woman grappling with a society in which a black princeton alumnus might only be allowed to remain on the periphery read the full thesis here part part part part michelle obama thesis was on racial divide jeffrey ressner politicocom
sidley austin likely recognized this in michelle even if she didnt show them her princeton thesis who better at sidley austin to be mentor to the author of this princeton thesis than bernardine dohrn who had been number on the fbi most wanted list
barack obama was assigned to michelle obama in summer this may have reflected how few blacks there were at sidley austin especially from harvard law school or the equivalent dohrn got her jd from university of chicago law school since she is a prof at northwestern despite her background we might infer she was very smart and understanding so she was the perfect person to be the mentor for michelle obama at sidley austin
the above is speculation hypotheses or opinion all statements should be restated as questions all other disclaimers apply
webcasting is the distribution of media files through the internet the earliest webcast equivalent of an online concert and one of the earliest examples of webcasting itself was by apple computer s webcasting group in partnership with the entrepreneurs michael dorf and andrew rasiej together with david b pakman from apple they launched the macintosh new york music festival from july this event audio webcast concerts from more than clubs in new york city apple later webcast a concert by metallica on june live from slims in san francisco
in benford e standley produced one of the first audiovideo webcasts in history on october uk rock band caduseus broadcast their onehour concert from pm to am ut at celtica in machynlleth wales uk the first live streamed audio and simultaneous live streamed video multicast around the globe to more than twenty direct mirrors in more than twenty countries
serco processes millionth patent application for us patent and trademark office date mar serco inc a leading provider of professional technology and management services to the federal government announced today that their pregrant publication pgpubs classification services team recently processed their millionth patent application for the us patent trademark office uspto each application was also processed within the contractually required day window
breaking hillaryclintons email server company got almost million in govt loans after wiping emails
october
by charles c johnson comments
give it up already its over k j gillenwater was the primary researcher behind this story
hillary clintons email server company got almost million in government loans starting immediately after they were secretly asked to wipe hillary clintons name from her emails
platte river networks prn got a loan from the small business administration in august and another loan in september
public government data available as usaspendinggov
the first halfmillion dollar loan arrived not one month after prn employee paul combetta was caught accidentally revealing his company was deleting evidence at hillarys request in july
the second loan came about one year later
you wont hear this stuff from the lying mainstream media keep the gotnews mission alive donate at gotnewscomdonate or send tips to editorgotnewscom if youd like to join our research team contacteditorgotnewscom
after getting the first loan prn moved to a large office space after previously working out of the owners condo the head of the small business administration is maria contrerassweet a mexican immigrant who was appointed to the office by barack obama two months before hillarys prn got the first loan
wikileaks leaks have proven hillarys corrupt paytoplay scheme gotnews has shined a light on how hillary gets favors from hispanic and democratic government bureaucrats before
did hillary clinton pay her email server company platte river networks prn with almost million in favorable government loans given out by a political friendly in order to alter her illegal emails and get her name off them
it sure looks like it
a freedom of information act foia request has been lodged for more information
stay tuned for more
k j gillenwater was the primary researcher behind this story
police conclude search of starnet
cbc news posted aug am et last updated aug am et
police have wrapped up several days of searching the offices of starnet communications in vancouver they entered the company offices and homes of some directors on friday
police were looking for evidence of illegal gambling distributing child pornography and money laundering since the raid starnet officials say police just dont understand their business
the search warrant details months of police investigation it traces a network of companies registered in american and caribbean jurisdictions
the warrant also identifies vancouver as the centre of starnets operations even though this is a grey under canadian law
police note that starnets revenues grew dramatically in the past two years from betting and sex shows and from lucrative licensing agreements for its gaming software the investigations and pornography from company sites were grounds for fridays raid and seizure of company materials
rcmp constable peter thiessen says investigators left starnet offices yesterday morning he says they spent the better part of three days going through the business and as a result of that search the investigation is continuing but no charges have been laid starnets many investors were spooked by the raid share prices dropped almost percent on friday however the company insists the raid had minimal effect on its operation stocks rose slightly yesterday after a day of very heavy trading
in written statements company ceo mark dohlen said the wall street journal calls starnet the leader in internet gaming and entertainment he says companies like his those on the cutting edge are often misunderstood yesterday starnet announced it will sell off the sex side of its business it plans to focus more resources on gaming
the police investigation is expected to last for several more months
super serco bulldozes ahead
by daily mail reporter updated gmt september
serco has come a long way since the s when it ran the fourminute warning system to alert the nation to a ballistic missile attack
today its bn order book is bigger than many countries defence budgets it is bidding for a further bn worth of contracts and sees bn of opportunities
profit growth is less ballistic the firsthalf pretax surplus rose to m net profits just to m stripping out goodwill the rise was with dividends up to p
serco runs the docklands light railway five uk prisons airport radar and forest bulldozers in florida
serco farewell to npl after years of innovation january serco said goodbye to the national physical laboratory npl at the end of december after years of extraordinary innovation and science that has seen the establishment build a worldleading reputation and deliver billions of pounds of benefit for the uk economy during that period under serco s management and leadership npl has delivered an extraordinary variety and breadth of accomplishments for the uks economy and industry some of the key achievements during that time have been it has been estimated that work carried out by the centre of carbon measurement at npl will save eight million tonnes of carbon emissions reductions of uk footprint and over half a billion pounds in economic benefit over the next decade npls caesium fountain atomic clock is accurate to second in million years and npl is playing a key role in introducing rigour to high frequency trading for serco s front running banks in the city through npl zulu time
uk cabinet office emergency planning college serco types of exercise workshop exercises these are structured discussion events where participants can explore issues in a less pressurised environment they are an ideal way of developing solutions procedures and plans rather than the focus being on decision making table top exercises these involve a realistic scenario and will follow a time line either in realtime or with time jumps to concentrate on the more important areas the participants would be expected to be familiar with the plans and procedures that are being used although the exercise tempo and complexity can be adjusted to suit the current state of training and readiness simulation and media play can be used to support the exercise tabletop exercises help develop teamwork and allow participants to gain a better understanding of their roles and that of other agencies and organisations commandcontrol post exercises these are designed primarily to exercise the senior leadership and support staff in collective planning and decision making within a strategic grouping ideally such exercises would be run from the real command and control locations and using their communications and information systems feeling lucky punk this could include a mix of locations and varying levels of technical simulation support the gold standard system is flexible to allow the tempo and intensity to be adjusted to ensure maximum training benefit or to fully test and evaluate the most important aspects of a plan such exercises also test information flow communications equipment procedures decision making and coordination live exercises these can range from testing individual components of a system or organisation through to a fullscale rehearsal they are particularly useful where there are regulatory requirements or with highrisk situations they are more complex and costly to organise and deliver but can be integrated with command post exercises as part of a wider exercising package
christopher rajendran hyman cbe born july in durban south africa was chief executive of serco group plc from to october on graduation he worked for arthur andersen in he won an month exchange with ernst young in london who employed him after four months head hunted in by serco hyman became european finance director and in was made group finance director in hyman became chief executive hyman resigned from his role of chief executive of serco on october following allegations that serco had overcharged government customers he was making a presentation to serco shareholder including british and saudi governments on the th floor of the world trade center north tower at the time of the september attacks in
july developments in pki occurred in the early s at the british intelligence agency gchq where james ellis clifford cocks and others made important discoveries related to encryption algorithms and key distribution however as developments at gchq are highly classified the results of this work were kept secret and not publicly acknowledged until the mids
the public disclosure of both secure key exchange and asymmetric key algorithms in by diffie hellman rivest shamir and adleman changed secure communications entirely with the further development of highspeed digital electronic communications the internet and its predecessors a need became evident for ways in which users could securely communicate with each other and as a further consequence of that for ways in which users could be sure with whom they were actually interacting
assorted cryptographic protocols were invented and analyzed within which the new cryptographic primitives could be effectively used with the invention of the world wide web and its rapid spread the need for authentication and secure communication became still more acute commercial reasons alone eg ecommerce online access to proprietary databases from web browsers were sufficient taher elgamal and others at netscape developed the ssl protocol https in web urls it included key establishment server authentication prior to v oneway only and so on a pki structure was thus created for web userssites wishing secure communications
vendors and entrepreneurs saw the possibility of a large market started companies or new projects at existing companies and began to agitate for legal recognition and protection from liability an american bar association technology project published an extensive analysis of some of the foreseeable legal aspects of pki operations see aba digital signature guidelines and shortly thereafter several us states utah being the first in and other jurisdictions throughout the world began to enact laws and adopt regulations consumer groups raised questions about privacy access and liability considerations which were more taken into consideration in some jurisdictions than in others
the enacted laws and regulations differed there were technical and operational problems in converting pki schemes into successful commercial operation and progress has been much slower than pioneers had imagined it would be
by the first few years of the st century the underlying cryptographic engineering was clearly not easy to deploy correctly operating procedures manual or automatic were not easy to correctly design nor even if so designed to execute perfectly which the engineering required the standards that existed were insufficient
pki vendors have found a market but it is not quite the market envisioned in the mids and it has grown both more slowly and in somewhat different ways than were anticipated pkis have not solved some of the problems they were expected to and several major vendors have gone out of business or been acquired by others pki has had the most success in government implementations the largest pki implementation to date is the defense information systems agency disa pki infrastructure for the common access cards program
base one technologies corporate strategy we are a government certified womenowned business
we practice diversity recruitment and staffing for it positions base one was founded in by a women engineer who had made a career in technology research for many years base one has been very successful in focusing on diversity recruiting and staffing for it projects it has been our experience that the greater the diversity mix the more creative the solution as in any field the more diverse the viewpoint the more thorough your analysis our engineers can think out of the box
because of our affiliations we have access to pools of resources among more diverse groups individuals we work with a large pool of minority professionals who specialize in it skills we are able to have access to these resources through our status as a dmwbd firm and our affiliations these affiliations assist us in working with resources among more diverse groups individuals we are also partnered with firms that are a certified as minority firms disabled veteran firms native american firms vietnam veteran firms women owned firms
our hub zone location keeps us close to the professional organizations of great diversity we are active in recruiting from and networking with these community organizations of local it professionals this has given us access to a large pool of diversity talent
base ones staff of engineers are a diverse group of professionals this diverse network of engineers helps us to branch out to other engineers and creates an even larger network of resources for us to work with
the greater the diversity the more complete thorough the analysis the broader the spectrum of points of view the broader the scope of the analysis we feel that a diverse team gives us a greater advantage in creating cutting edge solutions to that end we will continue to nurture these relationships to further extend our talent pool
the greater the diversity mix the more creative the solution
the more diverse the viewpoint the more thorough the analysis
the more diverse our team the more our engineers can think out of the box
this is why base one technologies concentrates on diversity recruitment in the belief that a diverse team gives us a greater advantage in creating cutting edge solutions
information security planning is the process whereby an organization seeks to protect its operations and assets from data theft or computer hackers that seek to obtain unauthorized information or sabotage business operations
key clients benefiting from our information security expertise pentagon renovation program faa citigroup mci
base one technologies
expertly researches designs and develops information security policies that protect your data and manage your firms information technology risk at levels acceptable to your business
performs architectural assessments and conducts both internal and external penetration testing the results of these efforts culminate in an extensive risk analysis and vulnerabilities report
develops implements and supports information security counter measures such as honeypots and evidence logging and incident documentation processes and solutions
base one technologies ltd is a domestic business corporation located in new york ny and was formed on feb this file was obtained from the secretary of state and has a file number of
sercos office of partner relations opr helps facilitate our aggressive small business utilization and growth strategies through the opr serco mentors four local small businesses under formal mentor protégé agreements three sponsored by dhs base one technologies tsymmetry inc and heitech services inc and the fourth sponsored by gsa dkw communications inc serco and heitech services were awarded the dhs mentor protégé team award for exceeding our mentoring goals httpwwwdticmilwhsdirectivescorrespdfppdf
opened in as the successor to the transitional immigrant visa processing center in rosslyn va the nvc centralizes all immigrant visa preprocessing and appointment scheduling for overseas posts the nvc collects paperwork and fees before forwarding a case ready for adjudication to the responsible post
the center also handles immigrant and fiancé visa petitions and while it does not adjudicate visa applications it provides technical assistance and support to visaadjudicating consular officials overseas
only two foreign service officers the director and deputy director work at the center along with just five civil service employees they work with almost contract employees doing preprocessing of visas making the center one of the largest employers in the portsmouth area
the contractor serco inc has worked with the nvc since its inception and with the department for almost years
the nvc houses more than million immigrant visa files receives almost two million pieces of mail per year and received more than half a million petitions from the us citizenship and immigration service uscis in its file rooms highdensity shelves are stacked floortoceiling with files each a collection of someones hopes and dreams and each requiring proper handling
the nvc also preprocesses the chief of mission com application required for the filing of a petition for a special immigrant visa siv such visas for foreign nationals who have performed services for the us government in iraq and afghanistan require com concurrence before the applicant can file a petition with uscis the nvc collects the requisite documents from such applicants and when complete forwards the package to the us embassies in baghdad or kabul for com approval
yours sincerely
field mcconnell united states naval academy forensic economist year airline and year military pilot hours of safety tel
david hawkins tel forensic economist former leader of oilwell blowout teams now sponsors grand juries in csi crime and safety investigation | 0 |
23,182 | Trump's EPA pick vote delayed in boycott by Senate Democrats | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican U.S. senators on Wednesday delayed a committee vote on President Donald Trump’s pick to head the Environmental Protection Agency after the panel’s Democrats boycotted the meeting, saying that nominee Scott Pruitt doubts the science of climate change. The boycott in the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee delayed the transition to a new administrator for the agency. Senator Ben Cardin, a Democrat, said he could not support Pruitt, a Republican and the attorney general of Oklahoma, for a public health position because he “denies the sum of empirical science and the urgency to act on climate change.” At a committee confirmation hearing last month Pruitt, who has sued the agency he intends to run more than a dozen times on behalf of the oil-drilling state Oklahoma, expressed doubt about climate change science. But Pruitt said he would be would be obliged for now to uphold the agency’s 2009 “endangerment finding” that carbon dioxide emissions harm public health. The finding is the agency’s basis for regulations on those emissions. Senator Tom Carper, the panel’s top Democrat, said Pruitt had provided “woefully inadequate” answers to written questions and had not named one agency regulation that he supported. “If Mr. Pruitt is serious about leading this important agency, he should be more than willing to provide straightforward answers to our fundamental questions,” Carper said. Republicans decried the move by the Democrats. “This is simply a senatorial temper tantrum,” said Senator Dan Sullivan of Alaska, another oil state. Trump, like Republican Senator Jim Inhofe on the panel, has called climate change a hoax. Trump has promised to make changes at the agency including doing away with previous President Barack Obama’s Clean Power Plan that cracks down on emissions from coal-fired electricity generators. The plan was suspended by the Supreme Court last year. John Konkus, a spokesman for Pruitt’s confirmation team, said Democrats and the EPA under Obama had “put politics and rhetoric ahead of their core work and ahead of the welfare of the American public.” In 2013, Republican senators on the panel boycotted then- Obama’s second term pick for the agency, Gina McCarthy, saying they were “completely unsatisfied” by her answers to more than 1,000 written questions they had asked her. She was eventually confirmed. | 1 |
23,183 | House Speaker Ryan sees long battle over tax reform | LONDON (Reuters) - The United States’ first tax overhaul in decades may not pass Congress until well into 2017, House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan said on Wednesday, in a sign the timetable for the legislation has been pushed back. Revamping the U.S. tax code has become a new legislative test for President Donald Trump after a Republican push to repeal former President Barack Obama’s signature healthcare law failed last month in a humiliating defeat for the party. Some Republicans in Congress had hoped to pass the tax overhaul before August, but party divisions over the legislation and difficulties in replacing Obamacare have slowed the process. “This will be done in 2017, that is our time line, we would like to get it done as soon as possible,” Ryan told reporters during a visit to London that was part of a multi-nation trip aimed at strengthening U.S. economic and security ties with NATO allies. Ryan added: “As soon as possible for us is by the end of summer but we’re going to take our time to get it right. We can clearly get this done by the end of summer but if it needs to go a little longer, we’ll do that.” Trump made tax reform a core campaign promise, saying he would simplify the tax code and cut tax rates in ways that could significantly increase government debt. To tackle the biggest overhaul of the U.S. tax code since the Reagan era, House Republicans need to avoid the political fault lines that sank their healthcare bill, partly by having conservatives on board. Ryan has been pushing a plan that includes a border adjustment tax, or BAT, that would levy a 20 percent tax on imported goods. The provision has been attacked by some conservatives and Democrats who argue it would hurt consumers and some U.S. companies reliant on foreign goods. The Senate has been awaiting action by the House before considering tax legislation. Given the Republican divisions, the White House has said it would submit its own tax proposal to Congress but it was unclear when that might arrive. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said this week that tax reform may not get done before an August deadline. The Trump administration might also include a $1 trillion infrastructure investment plan in whatever tax bill it submits to Congress. | 1 |
23,184 | Trump to make working visit to UK in early 2018: report | LONDON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump will make a working visit to Britain in early 2018, with a full state visit to follow later at an unspecified date, the London Evening Standard newspaper reported on Wednesday. Prime Minister Theresa May s office declined to comment on the visit, and said its position on the state visit had not changed. The offer had been extended, accepted by Trump, and no dates had been arranged. May invited Trump for a state visit during her trip to Washington to see him in January, shortly after he was inaugurated as president. The plan has proved controversial in Britain, with mass protests expected to greet the U.S. leader. | 1 |
23,185 | Britain's May replaces defense minister in growing harassment scandal | LONDON (Reuters) - British Prime Minister Theresa May was forced to appoint a new defense minister on Thursday after her ally Michael Fallon quit in a sexual harassment scandal that has prompted calls for an end to the locker room culture in parliament. Just hours after Fallon resigned over past behavior he said had fallen below the high standards we require of the armed forces , May appointed Gavin Williamson, 41, a rising star in her ruling Conservative Party. Weakened after losing her parliamentary majority in a June election that many Conservatives blame on her, May had to move swiftly. The growing harassment scandal threatens to undermine her further if other allegations against Conservatives, including against her deputy Damian Green, force more resignations. Williamson has risen quickly up the ranks of the Conservatives and May selected him last year as the party s chief whip in parliament - a role in which he is tasked with maintaining voting discipline on legislation. As chief whip, Williamson was renowned for his toughness and for introducing lawmakers to his pet tarantula Cronus, named after the god of time who swallowed each of his children according to Greek mythology. But he has no former experience of the armed forces, according to his online profile, and some Conservative lawmakers openly questioned the appointment. Sarah Wollaston writing on Twitter: There are times when offered a job that it would be better to advise that another would be more experienced and suited to the role. Williamson said nothing as he arrived at the Ministry of Defense on Thursday, taking on the role at a difficult time for May, who since June s election is dependent on the support of a small Northern Irish party for a majority in parliament. Fallon s resignation after he apologized for repeatedly touching a female radio presenter s knee in 2002, was yet another blow. Described by Conservative sources as a political Rottweiler , Fallon was a trusted minister able to robustly face down criticism of the government. Britain s parliament is the latest institution to become embroiled in a sex scandal after abuse allegations against Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein prompted thousands of women and men to share stories about improper behavior. Ruth Davidson, leader of the Conservatives in Scotland, said it was time to break with a culture in politics where powerful people use positions of power to demand things from others . The dam has broken on this now, and these male-dominated professions where the boys-own locker room culture has prevailed and it s all been a bit of a laugh, have got to stop, she told the BBC. Allegations of sexual abuse have ranged from a charge of rape by an activist in the opposition Labour Party by a senior party member, to unconfirmed details of serial sex pests on a list reportedly drafted by aides and researchers in parliament. May has ordered investigations into a report that one of her ministers asked a female secretary to buy sex toys and an allegation that her deputy, Green, made an inappropriate sexual advance on a young woman - something he denies. | 1 |
23,186 | BREAKING UPDATE…Last Holdout: “I DECLARE WAR AGAINST The United States Government…Liberty Or Death”…Clive Bundy Arrested On Way to Malheur Wildlife Refuge…Reverend Franklin Graham Arrives On Scene…OREGON STANDOFF LIVE FEED…Slow Motion Video Of Lavoy Finicum Shooting Death By FBI | Negotiations to surrender currently live-streaming from the scene on YouTube (below)Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy arrested on way to Malheur wildlife refuge, will appear in court at 1.30pm PTRemaining militia members had tentatively agreed to walk off refuge at 8am PT after night of frantic negotiationsFranklin Graham, son of evangelist Billy Graham, arrived at the standoff site in Burns, Ore., around 8 a.m. PT., at about the time when one of the occupiers, Sean Anderson, said the group planned to turn themselves in at a nearby FBI checkpoint.Graham, who is based in North Carolina, said on his Facebook page that he had been speaking with the four holdouts by phone everyday at the request of the protesters and the FBI. Last night I was on the phone with them for several hours, was able to have prayer with them, and they have said they would come out today, he said in the Wednesday night post. I am on my way there and hope to be there by 7:00 AM their time. Please keep them, law enforcement officials, and all involved in your prayers, that everyone will be safe. In the final moments leading up to the planned surrender, discussions between the holdouts and Nevada lawmaker Michele Fiore, a sympathizer who flew to Oregon, were being livestreamed in an online broadcast.LIVE FEED:SLOW MOTION VIDEO Of protester and patriot, Lavoy Finicum shooting death by FBI:Oregon Protester s Interview Voicing Concerns The Day Before He Was Killed WATCH VIDEO HERE18:22 Cliven Bundy charged with assault, conspiracySome breaking news from outside of the refuge: The Associated Press is reporting that Cliven Bundy has been charged with assault and conspiracy for his 2014 standoff with the federal government at his Nevada ranch.The 69-year-old rancher has for years refused to pay grazing fees to the government to have his cattle use public lands. The dispute reached a head when federal officials attempted to seize his cattle and armed anti-government protesters came to his aid.He still owes the government more than $1m.Cliven Bundy was arrested late Wednesday night in Portland. Earlier in the evening, he told the Guardian he was on his way to Oregon to support the occupiers. He is currently in jail in Portland.13:17 David Fry is telling the more than 25,000 listeners on the live YouTube stream that he fears going to prison. They need to address my grievances. They need to promise me absolute protection, Fry said. Even if I go to prison, they should promise me absolute protection. He also said he worried he would be attacked by other prisoners.Gavin Seim, the live-streamer, told him not to be afraid: Don t be intimidated by a jail or prison cell. He said the people in jail are like him others who have been abused by the government .Fry continued: I can t come out guys. I can t do it. 12:50 David Fry said on the live-stream that Jeff Banta, one of the four holdouts, is now leaving the occupation and surrendering.Fry, however, is now shouting demands at the FBI: Unless my grievances are heard, I will not come out! Gavin Seim, the live-streamer, tried to keep him calm: Go and walk out there like the others We ve got the world watching. They haven t even promised anything, really. I didn t agree to any of this, really. I m kind of worried that they are just going to ignore us, Fry said.Seim responded: It s in God s hands. 12:41 Occupiers walking outSean Anderson has just said that FBI officials have told them to exit the refuge one at a time. Michele Fiore is no longer on the live-feed. You coming out, Sean? Gavin Seim asked Coming out! Sean shouted on the video. They re walking toward us. It looks like they ve got guns pointed at us, David Fry said, adding that Jeff Banta is next to him. They are basically patting her down and I think they are going to apprehend her there, Fry said of Sandy Anderson. Now, Sean is standing there holding the American flag in his hand. 12:16 Latest summaryNevada assemblywoman Michele Fiore and Franklin Graham, a high-profile reverend, are on their way to the Malheur national wildlife refuge headquarters in rural Harney County with FBI officials. The plan is to escort the occupation holdouts out.The four holdouts are: Sandy Anderson, 48, Sean Anderson, 47, Jeff Banta, 46, and David Fry, 27.The four were indicted by a federal grand jury last week on conspiracy charges and could face six years in prison.Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy was arrested in Portland last night and will appear in court at 1.30pm today.From evening of February 10:00:09: Occupiers say they will meet FBI at checkpoint at 8amThe tone of the occupiers is becoming more conciliatory.Sean Anderson tells Seim that the FBI has offered to meet them at a checkpoint at 8am (PST) on Thursday.He says the four of them have agreed to leave their weapons in their vehicles before approaching the checkpoint.Both Andersons say they want the media to be present at the checkpoint. The world s going to be watching, says Seim. They re not just going to haul you away into the darkness. 04:20The feed of the live phone call is at turns disturbing and downright surreal. There was just a moment of sheer panic when Sean Anderson announced he was going to light an outdoor heater. I am going to light a propane heater cos we are standing out here freezing cold, he said. Don t do that, don t do that, replied Congresswoman Fiore.There appeared to be a frantic attempt to communicate with the FBI that the occupiers were on the cusp of lighting their heater, so they didn t misunderstand what was happening.Amid discussions about whether there were flammable materials in the area, and attempts to implore Anderson not to light the heater, he replied: I am going to go ahead and light this so my wife can be warm. If they shoot them that s on their fucking ass. He lit the heater. Lights are seen from the Narrows roadblock near Burns, Oregon, as FBI agents surrounded the remaining four occupiers at the Malheur national wildlife refuge. Photograph: Thomas Boyd/AP23:02 More vehicles are approaching the refuge, the occupiers are saying.They broke through our barricades, they object.22:59 Fiore: I m not asking you to give up Fiore who appears to be acting as a curious mixture of negotiator and cheerleader tells the occupiers that they are engaged in a battle to take America back.She is being driven to the refuge now, in a journey expected to take around four hours.Fiore says her cellphone signal might drop as they drive through mountains, but says the FBI will not act while the signal is down (we don t have confirmation of that alleged agreement from the FBI). In order to stay alive, I have to submit and be a slave, Sean Anderson shouts. He compares himself to Braveheart. I m not asking you to give up, Fiore tells him.22:50 Associated Press has further background information on two of the occupiers, husband and wife Sean and Sandy Anderson:The husband and wife moved from the town of Janesville, Wisconsin, within the last several years to Riggins, Idaho, where Sean, 47, opened a store for hunting, tactical and survival gear. Sandy, 48, worked at a gas station.Idaho County, where they live, and Harney County, 290 miles away where the refuge is located, are similar in many ways. Both have large portions of land managed by federal agencies and populations chafing at restrictions put on that land.Idaho county sheriff Doug Giddings said the Andersons are good residents, though he didn t know as much about Sean as he did about Sandy. She s a good person, she s just upset with the government, he told Oregon Public Broadcasting.Sean Anderson is facing misdemeanor charges in Wisconsin for resisting an officer, possession of drug paraphernalia and possession of THC, the intoxicating chemical in marijuana.He also has pleaded guilty to a series of misdemeanors in recent years: domestic abuse in December 2010, disorderly conduct in 2008, criminal trespass in a dwelling in 2002, and disorderly conduct in 1999.A friend of the couple, Lindsey Dipo, told the Lewiston Tribune newspaper that the couple recorded their will on Dipo s cellphone before departing for Oregon.22:46 The occupiers and Fiore on the other end of the phone line break off frequently to pray.Sandy Anderson is angered because she says the FBI negotiators interrupted one prayer session.Fiore says this is good it shows the FBI is listening to the broadcast and they know what is happening.22:43 If they won t give us one more day we re just going to stay here and fucking die, Sean Anderson says. 22:39 Cliven Bundy on his way to the refugeCliven Bundy has confirmed in a phone interview with the Guardian just now that he is on his way to the refuge. I hope I save some lives, for one thing, he said.The elder Bundy said he decided to go to Harney County after he saw the FBI was closing in on the occupiers:I guess if they wanted to murder somebody tonight, that d be a good way to do it.I don t know whether I ll be a negotiator or maybe a demander. I think we oughta take this country back and I think it s time the feds get out of there.Bundy said he has not heard from law enforcement:I m not really talking to the FBI. As far as I m concerned, they have no jurisdiction or authority there.Bundy declined to say if anyone else was with him or how long it would take him to get there.22:35 Sean Anderson says he wants assurances that the four occupiers won t face prosecution. They can drop charges, they do it all the time for people who are way worse than we are, he told Fiore.The occupiers are also telling the assemblywoman that Franklin Graham, a reverend from the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, is in discussions with them. The occupiers said the FBI may consider letting them walk out at 7am Thursday morning with Graham.But Sean Anderson said he wasn t confident they would get out alive: How can we trust what they are saying? 22:32Sean Anderson, one of the occupiers, has just announced what he calls their concession that the four of them will leave the refuge in daylight on Thursday if they are allowed to be accompanied by Congresswoman Fiore and Christian evangelist Franklin Graham.He says the FBI must now offer its own concession in return.22:30According to a Facebook page associated with the militia, Cliven Bundy father of Ammon Bundy and himself involved in an earlier standoff with officials is on his way to the site of the siege.However, the FBI has reportedly told the four occupiers that nobody will be able to enter the property.22:26 Helicopters heard over the refugePaul Lewis Paul Lewis The live broadcast just captured the moment the occupiers heard helicopters above the refuge. The black hawks are here and they re going to kill us, said one voice, which appeared to be David Fry, the most agitated of the occupiers.He added moments later: If they fire first, my weapon is in reach and I m going to take them with me. Gavin Seim, the rightwing activist who is running the Youtube broadcast, led a group prayer for those inside, and assured them that leader Ammon Bundy, who in prison, has been taken out of solitary confinement.Assemblywoman Michele Fiore who is also on the line, acting as a mediator is also encouraging the remaining occupiers to remain calm. I need you to stay alive. The only way we re going to be able to write your story and write your book is if you stay alive. The occupiers appear to have a separate line to the FBI, and are relaying that they ve been told no one will be allowed on to the refuge until they leave. They want us to leave. They said the time for concessions has passed, Sandy Anderson said.The details are sketchy, and the audio in parts inaudible, but it appears that one proposal is for a local figure, possibly a reverend, to join the occupiers and lead them off the site.David Fry, the 27-year-old occupier from Ohio, has become increasingly agitated on the live stream, shouting at Fiore and his fellow protesters.Fry made headlines when he posted video of himself using government computers to create a website for the occupation.According to a recent profile of Fry by Oregon Public Broadcasting (OPB), his antics led many in the militia to grow frustrated with him, with some wanting him to leave.Fry had previously communicated with militia spokesman LaVoy Finicum online, and Finicum had reportedly encouraged the young occupier to stay.Fry s family told the radio station that he has frequently had problems with authorities. He s had his problems, some of which he s brought on himself, his grandfather, William Fry, told OPB. He gets pulled over for busted taillights, and instead of just rolling down his window and handing over his insurance, he screams at the officer, What the [expletive] do you want? And right there, a regular thing turns into him in handcuffs. Fry also often writes about conspiracy theories online.Via: The GuardianThe occupation at Malheur started on 2 January in response to the conviction of two local ranchers on arson charges. Our explainer has more on the background to the 40-day standoff:One protester has been shot dead and eight others were arrested on Tuesday after a confrontation between police and an armed group that has taken over a federal wildlife reserve in Oregon.What were the circumstances of the shooting? The FBI said shots were fired after officers stopped a car carrying Ammon Bundy, the leader of the protests, and five others near the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. Activists said rancher Robert LaVoy Finicum was killed, and one person wounded. Finicum, 55, had been one of the main spokesmen for the occupation, appearing at daily news conferences, posting regular dispatches on his YouTube page and organising some of the most high-profile actions protesting against the federal government s regulation of public lands. Bundy and four other senior members were taken into custody following the confrontation along Highway 395 near the reserve in north-east Oregon at 4.25pm local time, the FBI said. Two others were arrested later, including Peter Santilli, a journalist who livestreamed events at the refuge.Is the standoff over? No. FBI agents have set up a perimeter around the wildlife refuge, where an unknown number of people are still holding out. One of the remaining occupiers, Jason Patrick, told Reuters by phone that they would stay until the redress of grievances . He said: I ve heard peaceful resolution for weeks now and now there s a cowboy who is my friend who is dead so prepare for the peaceful resolution. How long has the occupation been going on, and why are they there? The takeover at Malheur started on 2 January after a peaceful protest in nearby Burns, Oregon, over the conviction of two local ranchers on arson charges. Dwight Hammond, 73, and his son Steven Hammond, 46, said they lit fires on federal land in 2001 and 2006 to reduce the growth of invasive plants and protect their property from wildfires. The two were convicted three years ago. But in October a federal judge ruled their terms were too short and ordered them back to prison for about four years each. Among the demands by the group is for the Hammonds to be released. But the militia have more deep-seated grievances over land under federal government control. | 0 |
23,187 | Mark Zuckerberg’s PERFECT Facebook Comment To Grandmother Proves He’s A Badass Feminist | There are seldom people in life that you can honestly say are solidly good people, but Mark Zuckerberg is one of those few that could fall into that category. Not because of his creation of Facebook, which in and of itself is extraordinary, but because of what he says and does. His actions, throughout his career, have spoken louder than words.From his $100 million donation to Newark, New Jersey schools, to giving $25 million in the fight against Ebola, to most recently saying this in a Facebook post to his new daughter:Now, in yet another Facebook post, Zuckerberg offered his New Years resolution which included reading two books a month, creating a Jarvis from Iron Man artificial butler for his own personal use, and exploring the future advancement of technology.// < ![CDATA[ // < ![CDATA[ // < ![CDATA[ (function(d, s, id) { var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; if (d.getElementById(id)) return; js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = "//connect.facebook.net/en_US/sdk.js#xfbml=1&version=v2.3"; fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);}(document, 'script', 'facebook-jssdk')); // ]]>Every year, I take on a personal challenge to learn new things and grow outside my work at Facebook. My challenges in Posted by Mark Zuckerberg on Sunday, January 3, 2016Your basic range of typical resolutions to that of utter genius, but great resolutions nonetheless.It was in a comment, though, to his post that Zuckerberg showed how fiercely feminist he is. When a grandmother commented on his post and said: I keep telling my grand daughters to Date the nerd in school, he may turn out to be a Mark Zuckerberg! Thanks for FB, I ve reconnected with family and many old friends and classmates. via FacebookHowever, this is how Zuckerberg replied to the comment: Even better would be to encourage them to *be* the nerd in their school so they can be the next successful inventor! via FacebookDamn right! Don t tell your daughters or teach your daughters to date the nerds, tell them to BE the life-changing geniuses!And while what this woman was saying was all done with a good heart, and good intentions, Zuckerberg s quick shift in thought process, and ability to point out that women are just as capable as men, is pretty damn awesome.Well done, Mark! Way to stand up for women everywhere!Featured image: Wikimedia Commons | 0 |
23,188 | Corsica's nationalists dream bigger after election win | AJACCIO, France (Reuters) - Corsican nationalists said on Monday it was time for talks with Paris on greater autonomy for the French Mediterranean island, after they won nearly two thirds of seats in local elections. Support for their cause in Sunday s vote was boosted by dissatisfaction with France s mainstream parties, a trend that has fueled secessionist ambitions in other parts of Europe. Nationalist leader Gilles Simeoni hailed the start of a new era after the two-party Pe a Corsica (For Corsica) alliance that he heads took over 56 percent of Sunday s vote and 41 of 63 seats. Unlike in Catalonia, nationalists in Corsica have downplayed any ambitions for secession, saying the island - where Napoleon was born in 1769 - lacked the Spanish region s demographic and economic clout. But Simeoni said he was seeking a greater say for local authorities on fiscal issues, official status for the Corsican language, and limiting the right to buy property in some areas to people who had lived on the island for at least five years. This is a time many of us thought we would never witness, he told applauding supporters after the win, referring to the fact that nationalists only started to make headway in Corsican elections two years ago. Our dream is becoming reality. Calling for discussions to find a political solution, Simeoni told Reuters: It s the start of a new era, the ball is in the government s court. The nationalist vote also benefited from the island s most active clandestine group, the National Front for the Liberation of Corsica (FLNC), having laid down its weapons in 2014 after a near four-decade long rebellion. Turnout for the run-off election, in which the top parties from an initial Dec. 3 ballot participated, was barely above 50 percent. But in a sign that the government may be heeding the call for dialogue, Prime Minister Edouard Philippe on Sunday called Simeoni to congratulate him on his win and told him he was willing to see him soon in Paris, Philippe s office said. Corsica has a population of just 320,000 people and a tiny 8.6 billion euro ($10.13 billion) economy. ($1 = 0.8488 euros) | 1 |
23,189 | China must cooperate with other nations on climate change: Xi | BEIJING (Reuters) - China, the world s second-largest economy, must cooperate with other nations to tackle climate change and ensure the survival of mankind, President Xi Jinping said on Wednesday at the opening ceremony of a key Communist Party congress. China overtook the United States as the world s biggest emitter of greenhouse gases in 2007. | 1 |
23,190 | In Thanksgiving message, Trump hails military gains and 'big, beautiful, fat tax cuts' | PALM BEACH, FLORIDA (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump gave a bullish Thanksgiving address to troops overseas on Thursday, hailing progress in Afghanistan and against ISIS, and telling them they were fighting for “something real,” including a stock market at record highs and his promised “big, beautiful fat tax cuts.” Speaking in a live video teleconference from Palm Beach, Florida, with military personnel serving in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere, Trump told them they were “very, very special people.” He called troops in Afghanistan “brave, incredible fighters” who had “turned it around” in the past three to four months. “We opened it up; we said go ahead, we’re going to fight to win,” he said. “We’re not fighting any more to just walk around, we are fighting to win.” Trump said the Marines were inflicting “defeat after defeat” on Islamic State, and again credited his change of approach compared to that of the Obama administration. “They weren’t letting you win before; they were letting you break even. ... They weren’t letting you win,” he said. Trump told the troops they could look forward at home to the benefits of “big, beautiful fat tax cuts,” a stock market at record highs, jobs and economic growth. “We’re doing well at home, the economy is doing great,” Trump said. “You’re fighting for something real, you’re fighting for something good.” Trump took one of his trademark swipes at the news media as he spoke from a lavishly decorated room at his Mar-a-Lago resort, telling the military personnel he was addressing that journalists were in the room, and adding: “Better me than you; believe me fellas, better me than you.” Later, Trump and his wife, Melania, handed out sandwiches and shook hands at a Coast Guard station in nearby Riviera Beach and told personnel his administration was building up wealth so it could protect the country through military acquisitions. Talking about his plans for boosting military spending, he said contractors saved the best equipment for U.S. troops. “When we sell to other countries - you never know about an ally - an ally can turn,” he said. Trump said he had told the troops overseas the country was “doing great,” thanks to his cuts in “regulation and all the waste and all the abuse.” “I told them ... you folks are fighting so hard and working so hard, and it’s nice that you’re working for something that’s really starting to work.” While optimism about a major tax overhaul has helped push the U.S. stock market up for most of this year, Trump is still seeking his first major legislative win after almost a year in office. According to a majority of economists in a recent Reuters poll, U.S. Republicans are not expected to push the tax cuts through Congress this year. Economists are also skeptical that the legislation would provide a significant boost to the economy. | 1 |
23,191 | White House welcomes U.S. court ruling on carbon emissions plan | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House said on Thursday that it was pleased that a U.S. appellate court had denied a bid by 27 states to block the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan while litigation challenging the regulation continues. “We are confident that the plan will reduce carbon pollution and deliver better air quality, improved public health, and jobs across the country,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest said in a statement. The Clean Power Plan is the centerpiece of the Obama administration’s strategy to combat climate change. The rule aims to lower carbon emissions from the country’s power plants to 32 percent below 2005 levels by 2030. | 1 |
23,192 | Japan's PM says North Korea still developing missiles despite launch pause | TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Tuesday said an almost two-month pause in North Korean missile tests was no indication that it had halted its weapons development, insisting it was too early for any talks with the regime. I believe that it continues to develop its weapons, Abe told a news conference in Manila after a series of meetings with other Asian leaders at a gathering of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) and East Asia Forum. There is no point for talks for the sake of talks, he said. Abe s insistence that tough sanctions, including restrictions on oil sales, are necessary to soften up the North Korean regime over the coming winter could put him at loggerheads with other countries such as South Korea that might agree to open talks if approached by the North. After firing missiles at a pace of about two or three a month since April, North Korean missile launches paused in September, after it fired a rocket that passed over Japan s northern Hokkaido island. Abe said he would work closely with other countries in the region including China and Russia to persuade North Korea to halt missile development and give up its nuclear weapon ambitions. Abe, in a meeting Chinese President Xi Jinping at an Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Vietnam on Saturday, hailed a fresh start to the relationship between Asia s two biggest economies and military powers, including cooperation on North Korea. Abe on Tuesday said that he wanted to deepen cultural and economic ties with China. The Japanese leader, who also called for an Indo-Pacific region that is open and free to all returns to Japan on Wednesday. | 1 |
23,193 | SWEDEN HOUSES 600+ MUSLIM REFUGEES In Luxury Ski Resort…Refugees Complain: “It was terrible, just wind and snow, and the roads were slippery” | Nothing but the best for soldiers of the caliphate invading the Social-Democratic led country of Sweden More than 600 asylum seekers are set to move into the world s most northerly ski resort as Sweden struggles to find enough temporary accommodation for record numbers of new arrivals.Riksgr nsen, which sits 200 kilometres above the Arctic Circle close to Sweden s border with Norway, is set to welcome the refugees following a deal between the resort s owner and the Swedish Migration Agency, Migrationsverket. As everyone knows, there is a refugee crisis in the world. Now asylum seekers are arriving in Sweden and Migrationsverket has a major urgent need to find temporary housing to accommodate all those who need help. We at Lapland Resorts AB are very pleased to be able to help, Sven Kuldkepp, CEO of Lapland Resorts, told Swedish newspaper Norrbottenskuriren via email on Wednesday. Why leave it empty and cold when it can be quite full and warm, he added in a separate comment.Kuldepp explained that the refugees would be allowed to stay in Riksgr nsen until February 2016, when the main tourist ski season would get under way.He said that the plan would not affect our ordinary activities but added that he hoped that his resort would also be able to create jobs for some of the asylum seekers.The move comes amid a push from Sweden s Social Democrat-led government to encourage municipalities across Sweden to take in more refugees.At the moment, the vast majority of asylum seekers end up in either Stockholm, Gothenburg or Malm .But Northern Sweden is becoming a more common base for asylum seekers. On Friday a group of 19 Eritreans landed in Lule and were taken to stersund as part of the first phase of a programme to relocate tens of thousands of refugees within the EU.However some campaigners have raised concerns about people raised in Africa or the Middle East adapting to the dark and freezing conditions in the region.In January, a group of refugees taken to a housing centre near stersund initially refused to get off a bus after claiming that they had been told by officials that they would be living close to Stockholm and instead finding themselves driven 15 hours north. We were coming to an area in the middle of the forest we know nothing about, just snow and wind and nothing else, Esam Taha, 36, from Syria, told The Local this week, reflecting on the chaos. It was terrible, just wind and snow, and the roads were slippery. The moment we got out of the bus we slipped and fell down, he explained.But the asylum seeker says he now expects to settle in the area and argues that other refugees might not find it too tricky to adapt to the frozen north.More refugees have sought asylum in Sweden so far in 2015 than in any other year in the Nordic nation s history, new figures released by the country s Migration Agency revealed on Monday.86,223 people have launched cases, surpassing a previous record set in 1992 when 84,016 people sought asylum following fighting in the Balkans.Via: The Local se | 0 |
23,194 | Lifetime Texas Republican Leaves The GOP In Epic Resignation Letter | Republicans continue to jump the sinking ship that chose Donald Trump to be their captain.Chris Ladd has been a Republican for 30 years now. He is so hardcore that he s even a friend of former Texas Governor Rick Perry and thought the world of Ronald Reagan.But now that the party has chosen Donald Trump as their 2016 nominee, Ladd wants nothing more to do with the GOP any longer, and he tore Republicans a new one in a letter he wrote announcing his resignation from the York Township Republican Committeemen s Organization and it is an epic read. At the national level, the delusions necessary to sustain our Cold War coalition were becoming dangerous long before Donald Trump arrived, Ladd pointed out. From tax policy to climate change, we have found ourselves less at odds with philosophical rivals than with the fundamentals of math, science and objective reality. And then Donald Trump came along and made the party even worse. From his fairy-tale wall to his schoolyard bullying and his flirtation with violent racists, Donald Trump offers America a singular narrative a tale of cowards. Fearful people, convinced of our inadequacy, trembling before a world alight with imaginary threats, crave a demagogue. Neither party has ever elevated to this level a more toxic figure, one that calls forth the darkest elements of our national character.With three decades invested in the Republican Party, there is a powerful temptation to shrug and soldier on. Despite the bold rhetoric, we all know Trump will lose. Why throw away a great personal investment over one bad nominee? Trump is not merely a poor candidate, but an indictment of our character. Preserving a party is not a morally defensible goal if that party has lost its legitimacy. Ladd goes on to reminisce about Reagan s positive message and then sharply rebukes Republicans for abandoning their morality to pledge their allegiance to a fascist who has none. Fast-forward to our present leadership and the nature of our dilemma is clear. I watched Paul Ryan speak at Donald Trump s convention the way a young child watches his father march off to prison. Thousands of Republican figures that loathe Donald Trump, understand the danger he represents, and privately hope he loses, are publicly declaring their support for him. In Illinois our local and state GOP organizations, faced with a choice, have decided on complicity.Our leaders compromise preserves their personal capital at our collective cost. Their refusal to dissent robs all Republicans of moral cover. Evasion and cowardice has prevailed over conscience. We are now, and shall indefinitely remain, the Party of Donald Trump.I will not contribute my name, my work, or my character to an utterly indefensible cause. No sensible adult demands moral purity from a political party, but conscience is meaningless without constraints. A party willing to lend its collective capital to Donald Trump has entered a compromise beyond any credible threshold of legitimacy. There is no redemption in being one of the good Nazis. I hereby resign my position as a York Township Republican committeeman. My thirty-year tenure as a Republican is over. Ladd is absolutely right. The Republican Party has shattered any claim they had of being the morally superior party precisely because they are supporting a man who does not share their values. Furthermore, they are supporting a man who uses fear as a political tool and has a pessimistic view of America.This is not a sign of good news for the Republican Party or Donald Trump. Trump has seriously created a rift in the party between moderate Republicans and conservatives that could cost the GOP dearly on Election Day. The Republican Party needs more than just their base to win a general election and that means they need moderate voters like Ladd in order to have a chance at winning.If more people like Ladd continue to leave the Republican Party because of Donald Trump, the GOP is finished.Featured Image: Drew Angerer/Getty Images | 0 |
23,195 | VOTE TO KEEP CONFEDERATE FLAG Flying At The Citadel Passes But Sets Up Looming Battle From Dems | Here we go again the Democrats are trying to erase history at the Citadel. Jim Clyburn is determined to take this fight all the way so the flag will be removed. Don t we have much bigger fish to fry? I would think so In the early hours of Thursday morning, the U.S. House Armed Services Committee voted to keep the Confederate flag flying at The Citadel.The rejection of a Democratic effort to force the military institution to take down the banner atop Summerall Chapel potentially paves the way for a bitter, extended fight on the issue, which is being championed by U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn, D-S.C.U.S. Rep. Adam Smith, a Washington State Democrat and ranking member of the committee, offered an amendment to the fiscal 2017 National Defense Authorization Act to bar Reserve Officers Training Corps funds to any military university that displays the Confederate flag.The only university that falls into that category is The Citadel. The Board of Visitors voted to remove the flag last summer, after revelations that the deadly shooting of nine black parishioners at Mother Emanuel AME Church was motivated by race an incident which, in turn, prompted the removal of the Confederate flag from the Statehouse grounds.But the Board of Visitors says it can t actually take the Citadel s Confederate flag down unless the S.C. state legislature makes changes to the so-called Heritage Act that currently stands in the way. Smith acknowledged that his amendment was designed to force state lawmakers to act. The flag still flies, South Carolina has no pressure to change it whatsoever and probably won t, said Smith, and that embarrassment continues to fly over The Citadel, where there are presumably African American people at attending, and I think we need something to force South Carolina to do the right thing. The Armed Services Committee chairman, U.S. Rep. Mac Thornberry, R-Texas, registered his opposition to Smith s amendment by essentially moving to amend the amendment. He opted for adding language to Smith s original provision to exempt any university which has already voted to take down the flag from having ROTC funds withheld, thereby nullifying the amendment s entire purpose. Bottom line is, I don t think it s fair to punish those folks who are trying to do the right thing, but the folks in the state legislature that is preventing them from doing that now, Thornberry said.U.S. Rep. Joe Wilson, the only South Carolinian serving on the Armed Services Committee, proceeded to read a letter he had received earlier that day from The Citadel s president, Lt. Gen. John Rosa, in opposition to Smith s amendment. The Citadel provides itself on the core values of duty, honor and respect, and moving the (flag) to another location is consistent with those values, Rosa wrote in his letter to Wilson, a Republican. But the values also require the college to follow the law. The committee members ultimately voted on Thornberry s alternative language cancelling out Smith s original intent, with all Democrats opposed and all Republican in favor except for one outlier, U.S. Rep. Martha McSally of Arizona, who sided with the minority party.This conversation will likely continue once the NDAA bill comes before the full House.Read more: Post and Courier | 0 |
23,196 | Trump-Loving Santa Removed From Mall After Trash-Talking Hillary Clinton To Kids (VIDEO) | Mall Santas have one job: be jolly. Unfortunately, that was too much for one Trump-loving douchebag in a red suit to handle.WWLP reports that a mall Santa was removed from the building after he was caught bashing Hillary Clinton when he was supposed to be listening to what kids wanted for Christmas. The unnamed fake-bearded Deplorable was working at the Seminole Towne Center in Sanford, Florida when he told a little girl she was on his nice list which would be sweet if it wasn t a lead-in to an attack on the winner of the popular vote. Do you know who is on my naughty list? the creepy Santa asked the little girl. Hillary Clinton. In fact, according to Santa, the former Secretary of State s name is the only one on the naughty list. Then he laughed like he just did something clever rather than prove to a child that Santa is a terrible person.The girl s mother called management and Santa was quickly dragged away to the North Pole (or HR mediation, whichever you prefer) so he would not be a further terrible influence on children. He was replaced with another of Santa s helpers hopefully one who knows that it s not St. Nick s job to talk politics with children.A spokesman for the Noerr Programs, the company in charge of staffing mall Santas, said in a statement that the Santa will not be fired from his job, but that he was given additional training. He is allowed to work with children at another location, but will not be returning to the Seminole Towne Center. It is unclear to how many other children Santa spread his poisonous message of hate, but no amount of training can keep him from being a terrible person.Watch a report on the incident below:Featured image via Defend Christmas | 0 |
23,197 | reasons you should stop using facebook | why is obama threatening russia with world war right before the election michael on television we are being set up for higher interest rates a major recession and a giant stock market crash november th
since donald trumps victory on election night we have seen the worst bond crash in years global bond investors have seen trillions of dollars of wealth wiped out since november th and analysts are warning of another tough week ahead the general consensus in the investing community is that a trump administration will mean much higher inflation and as a result investors are already starting to demand higher interest rates unfortunately for all of us history has shown that higher interest rates always cause an economic slowdown and this makes perfect sense because economic activity naturally slows down when it becomes more expensive to borrow money the obama administration had already set up the next president for a major recession anyway but now this bond crash threatens to bring it on sooner rather than later
for those that are not familiar with the bond market when yields go up bond prices go down and when bond prices go down that is bad news for economic growth
so we generally dont want yields to go up
unfortunately yields have been absolutely soaring over the past couple of weeks and the yield on year treasury notes has now jumped one full percentage point since july
the year treasury yield jumped to in late trading on friday the highest since december up basis point since the election and up one full percentage point since july
the year yield is at a critical juncture in terms of reality the first thing that might happen is a rate increase by the fed in december after a year of flipflopping a slew of postelection pronouncements by fed heads including yellens relatively soon have pushed the odds of a rate hike to
as i noted the other day so many things in our financial system are tied to yields on us treasury notes just look at what is happening to mortgages as wolf richter has noted the average rate on year mortgages is shooting into the stratosphere
the carnage in bonds has consequences the average interest rate of the a conforming year fixed mortgage as of friday was quoted at for top credit scores thats up about percentage point from just before the election according to mortgage news daily it put the month on a short list of worst months in more than a decade
if mortgage rates continue to shoot higher there will be another housing crash
rates on auto loans credit cards and student loans will also be affected throughout our economic system it will become much more costly to borrow money and that will inevitably slow the overall economy down
why bond investors are so on edge these days is because of statements such as this one from steve bannon
in a nascent administration that seems at best random in its beliefs bannon can seem to be not just a focused voice but almost a messianic one
like andrew jacksons populism were going to build an entirely new political movement he says its everything related to jobs the conservatives are going to go crazy im the guy pushing a trilliondollar infrastructure plan with negative interest rates throughout the world its the greatest opportunity to rebuild everything ship yards iron works get them all jacked up were just going to throw it up against the wall and see if it sticks it will be as exciting as the s greater than the reagan revolution conservatives plus populists in an economic nationalist movement
steve bannon is going to be one of the most influential voices in the new trump administration and he is absolutely determined to get this trillion dollar infrastructure plan through congress
and that is going to mean a lot more borrowing and a lot more spending for a government that is already on pace to add trillion dollars to the national debt this fiscal year
sadly all of this comes at a time when the us economy is already starting to show significant signs of slowing down it is being projected that we will see a sixth straight decline in yearoveryear earnings for the sp and industrial production has now contracted for months in a row
the truth is that the economy has been barely treading water for quite some time now and it isnt going to take much to push us over the edge the following comes from lance roberts
with an economy running at below consumers already heavily indebted wage growth weak for the bulk of americans there is not a lot of wiggle room for policy mistakes
combine weak economics with higher interest rates which negatively impacts consumption and a stronger dollar which weighs on exports and you have a real potential of a recession occurring sooner rather than later
yes the stock market soared immediately following trumps election but it wasnt because economic conditions actually improved
if you look at history a stock market crash almost always follows a major bond crash so if bond prices keep declining rapidly that is going to be a very ominous sign for stock traders
and history has also shown us that no bull market can survive a major recession if the economy suffers a major downturn early in the trump administration it is inevitable that stock prices will follow
the waning days of the obama administration have set us up perfectly for higher interest rates a major recession and a giant stock market crash
of course any problems that occur after january th will be blamed on trump but the truth is that obama will be far more responsible for what happens than trump will be
right now so many people have been lulled into a sense of complacency because donald trump won the election
that is an enormous mistake
a shaking has already begun in the financial world and this shaking could easily become an avalanche
now is not a time to party rather it is time to batten down the hatches and to prepare for very rough seas ahead
all of the things that so many experts warned were coming may have been delayed slightly but without a doubt they are still on the way
so get prepared while you still can because time is running out | 1 |
23,198 | MAINE GOVERNOR: Prove I’m Racist You ‘Socialist C*cksucker!’ | Maine Governor Paul LePage calls out a liberal liar in a BIG way! Listen to this!After a series of questionable comments put him back in the spotlight, Paul LePage unloaded on a state lawmaker when the Maine governor sent him a threatening and profane voicemail that he challenged him with taking public.The Maine governor is known for having abombastic style, and he recently drew attention again for offering questionable comments about race while speaking about drug crime. According to Portland Press Herald, Democratic Rep. Drew Gattine was one of several legislators who called out LePage s remarks as racist, though Gattine denied doing so later on.Read more: Live Leak | 0 |
23,199 | No, Hillary Clinton And Donald Trump Are Not ‘Equally’ Hated – She Is Much More Loved | The media is reporting that Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are two of the most hated presidential candidates in U.S. election history. You have Fox News saying Clinton s bad numbers will destroy her, and you have MSNBC saying Trump s negative numbers will destroy him.Whereas the fact remains that, yes, they are both viewed unfavorably by America as a whole, there is way more than meets the eye.For starters, it should be plainly said that no, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are not equally hated by the American people.In fact, in 47 different categories representing a multitude of diverse Americans, Clinton is much more loved than the current Republican nominee.According to Gallup Polling:Basically anyone who isn t a white, Christian male overwhelmingly supports Clinton over Trump, and all of these demographics have a majority positive rating for the Democratic frontrunner.The only people who have a more positive view of Trump over Clinton are: highly religious, Protestant/other Christian, Mormon, male, non-Hispanic white, married men, white males, white-non college graduate, married, men over 50 and those who have some college experience. The only Christian group that backs Clinton are Catholics.According Gallup s analysis:At the risk of overgeneralization, we can say that the typical American who really likes Clinton and doesn t like Trump is a black, Hispanic or Asian female living outside the bounds of a traditional marriage and who is unreligious. The typical American who really likes Trump and doesn t like Clinton is a white male who is traditionally married, religious, and a Protestant or Mormon.In today s America, a candidate will need a diverse electorate in order to win, and Trump does not have a broad coalition to make that possible, but the media will continue to talk about Clinton s unfavorable rating to discredit her candidacy.So yes, Trump and Clinton are two most hated candidates in election history, but based on what information? Well, considering the majority of this country is mad up of either whites, Christians or men, it would seem that Clinton is equal to Trump when standard mainstream media polls are conducted.Featured image via Spencer Platt/Getty Images | 0 |
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