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Hey Michelle Guess what? For the first time in 8 years, the entire country can be proud of their President again Forbes recently released its rankings of The World s Most Powerful People, and the results don t look good for President Barack Obama.There are nearly 7.4 billion humans on planet Earth, but these 74 men and women make the world turn. Forbes annual ranking of the World s Most Powerful People identifies one person out of every 100 million whose actions mean the most.To compile the list, we considered hundreds of candidates from various walks of life all around the globe, and measured their power along four dimensions. First, we asked whether the candidate has power over lots of people.Next we assessed the financial resources controlled by each person. Are they relatively large compared to their peers? For heads of state we used GDP, while for CEOs, we looked at measures like their company s assets and revenues.Then we determined if the candidate is powerful in multiple spheres. There are only 74 slots on our list one for approximately every 100 million people on the planet so being powerful in just one area is often not enough.Lastly, we made sure that the candidates actively used their power. ForbesIn 2015, Obama came in as the third most powerful person, which wasn t great, considering he is supposed to be the leader of the free world. But it was nevertheless much better than 2016 s list, which has him placed at an embarrassing number 48.Last year, Forbes explained why the U.S. president wasn t number one, or even number two. There s no doubt that the United States remains the world s greatest economic, cultural, diplomatic, technological and military power, the publication wrote in 2015. But as Obama enters the final year of his presidency, it s clear his influence is shrinking, and it s a bigger struggle than ever to get things done. His influence and ability to get things done must have hit rock bottom for him to fall a whopping 45 spots in just one year.What s even more embarrassing than the fact that Obama didn t make the top 10, much less the top 25, or even the top 40, were some of the people who outranked him.For example, North Korean Dictator Kim Jong Un was five spots ahead of Obama.If a ridiculous, barbaric leader who imprisons, enslaves and executes political and religious dissenters and restricts the most basic of freedoms is ahead of the U.S. president, you know there is a real problem.Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed the number one spot, again, while a new face appeared at number two President-elect Donald Trump. Donald Trump is trading in Trump Tower for the White House. The New York native will become the first billionaire president of the United States, after upsetting Hillary Clinton in a surprising election victory, when he takes over the Oval Office in 2017, Forbes said about the incoming president.Meanwhile, the publication issued a brutal but honest assessment of the outgoing president whose policies and legacy were rejected in November when voters chose Trump over what would have been essentially a third-term Obama in Democrat Hillary Clinton. America s outgoing president faces a legacy in jeopardy as his successor has threatened to unravel signature achievements, including health care reform and the Iranian nuclear accord, Forbes wrote about Obama. President Obama is leaving the Oval Office on anything but a good note, and his legacy will reflect his dismal performance as the nation s leader. Conservative Tribune h/t Truthfeed | 0 |
VATICAN CITY/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders was invited to speak at an April 15 Vatican event by the Vatican, a senior papal official said on Friday, denying a report that Sanders had invited himself. “I deny that. It was not that way,” Monsignor Marcelo Sanchez Sorondo told Reuters in a telephone interview while he was traveling in New York. Sorondo, a close aide to Pope Francis, is chancellor of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, which is hosting the event. He said it was his idea to invite Sanders. A Bloomberg report quoted Margaret Archer, president of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, as saying that Sanders had broken with protocol by failing to contact her office first. “This is not true and she knows it. I invited him with her consensus,” said Sorondo, who is senior to Archer. An invitation to Sanders dated March 30, which was emailed to Reuters, was signed by Sorondo and also included Archer’s name. | 0 |
The mash-up of symbols couldn’t have been more stark: a Muslim immigrant extolling the virtues of American liberty while holding his pocket copy of the Constitution, and his wife, struggling to contain her emotions, standing silently by his side, wearing a soft-blue hijab.
The moment at the Democratic National Convention on Thursday night upstaged the debut speech by the first woman to be a major party’s nominee for president and confronted a vast television audience with a riveting and, for some, jarring blend of messages. Here were the parents of a fallen U.S. Army captain, still deep in mourning and palpably proud to be Americans; and here were Muslim immigrants from Pakistan, keenly aware of their uncomfortable place at the center of this year’s presidential campaign; and here was a pocket Constitution, in recent years a popular giveaway for conservative and evangelical groups; and here was a hijab, the Muslim head covering that has become a shorthand for the debate over Islam’s place in the Western world.
The overwhelming response to the appearance by Khizr and Ghazala Khan reflected the cultural and political divide that has dominated American discourse since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Many people took Khizr Khan’s lecture to Donald Trump about liberty and xenophobia as a statement about what patriotism and American identity really mean. Many others took the speech as a partisan blast but nonetheless a powerful plea from parents mourning the death of an American soldier.
Trump took it as a personal affront.
Throughout the weekend, the Republican nominee used Twitter and TV interviews to extend his criticism of the immigrant couple from Charlottesville. Trump accused the father of being a tool of Hillary Clinton’s campaign, and Trump said of the mother: “She probably — maybe she wasn’t allowed to have anything to say. . . . It looked like she had nothing to say.”
[Father of slain U.S. soldier: GOP must ‘repudiate’ Trump]
The Khans almost instantly joined the ranks of ordinary citizens who have become important emblems of what some voters really think of presidential candidates — people such as Joe the Plumber, the nickname of an Ohio man whose informal exchange with then-Sen. Barack Obama led Sen. John McCain’s 2008 campaign to argue that Obama favored a socialist-style redistribution of wealth.
Both conventions last month featured a parade of such everyday Americans — including, at the Democratic convention, the mothers of black men killed in police shootings; and at the Republican gathering, Patricia Smith, who blamed the death of her son, a State Department employee who was killed in Benghazi, Libya, on then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
The Khans quickly stepped into their new roles as Trump antagonists. Ghazala Khan explained, the day after the convention, that she demurred from public speaking because she gets too emotional when she sees pictures of her late son, Capt. Humayun Khan. In an opinion column published in The Washington Post on Sunday, the mother said that although she didn’t speak from the podium, “without saying a thing, all the world, all America, felt my pain. I am a Gold Star mother. Whoever saw me felt me in their heart.”
[Ghazala Khan: Trump criticized my silence. He knows nothing about true sacrifice.]
Throughout his life, Trump has taken pride in never backing down, always hitting back harder than he’s been hit and generally seeking publicity on the theory that all press is good press. But throughout this year’s rules-smashing campaign, Trump has reserved his most outrageous rhetorical blasts for prominent people.
When Trump rejected the heroism of McCain (R-Ariz.), who as a young Navy officer spent more than five harrowing years as a prisoner of the North Vietnamese, or when Trump characterized Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly’s aggressive questioning in a debate as “blood coming out of her wherever,” he took on people who were accustomed to the rough and tumble of the public fray.
This time, Trump targeted the parents of an Army captain who was killed by a suicide bomber in Iraq. Neither the father, a consultant on immigration law, nor his wife had been on the national political stage before. But the Khans didn’t shy from the battle. They spent Sunday elaborating on their view of Trump as, in Khizr Khan’s words on morning talk shows on NBC and CNN, “a black soul” who is leading a campaign “of hatred, of derision, of dividing us.”
Trump, for his part, said Saturday that Khan had “no right to stand in front of millions of people and claim I have never read the Constitution.” At the convention, Khan had reached into his jacket pocket to pull out his copy of it, which he says he usually keeps with him, and addressed Trump: “I will gladly lend you my copy. In this document, look for the words ‘liberty’ and ‘equal protection of law.’ ”
Khan said the Constitution he waved before the cameras Thursday night came out of the boxes of 99-cent pocket versions that he orders from the American Bar Association to hand out to fourth-year cadets graduating from the University of Virginia’s ROTC program.
Every year since their son’s death, the Khans have invited the cadets to their house for hot dogs and burgers, to honor their son, a graduate of the program, and to give the students their first exposure to a Muslim home, to see “how similar it is to their own,” Khan said. “They’d feel like this is our aunt or uncle’s home. And I have cards from them, understanding the gesture of giving them the Constitution, because they were getting ready to take an oath to that Constitution.”
Khan, who formerly worked as a technology manager at the Washington law firm then called Hogan & Hartson, called on Trump’s most prominent Republican supporters, such as House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (Wis.) and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.), to repudiate their presidential nominee. They did not.
Many other Republicans and Democrats alike did say Sunday that they were appalled by Trump’s harsh rhetoric about the parents of a fallen soldier, and Trump himself shifted gears slightly, tweeting that Capt. Khan, who was awarded the Bronze Star and Purple Heart after he was killed in 2004, “was a hero,” but adding that “I was viciously attacked by Mr. Khan at the Democratic Convention. Am I not allowed to respond?”
For Trump, returning fire on the Khans was by instinct and practice the right thing to do. Beginning in the 1970s, Trump adopted the media strategy of his mentor, the tough New York lawyer Roy Cohn: when attacked, counterattack with overwhelming force. Trump studied and perfected the art of winning headlines in New York City’s tabloid newspapers, trumpeting the twists of his love life and delivering devilish blasts against his business competitors and political opponents to become a mainstay on the gossip pages and the front pages.
“The point is that if you are a little different, or a little outrageous, or if you do things that are bold or controversial, the press is going to write about you,” Trump wrote in his 1987 book, “Trump: The Art of the Deal.”
In the campaign he has mounted since last summer, Trump has deployed his media strategy to enormous success, dispatching 16 opponents in the Republican primaries and winning an unprecedented flood of media attention.
Will any of this make a difference in the November election? It’s too soon to have any reliable polling data on the impact of the Trump-Khan confrontation, but throughout the primary campaign, reaction to Trump’s verbal volleys against people such as McCain, Kelly or then-candidate Carly Fiorina has been shaped largely by partisan loyalties.
Popular attitudes toward Trump’s harsh rhetoric about racial and religious minorities have consistently reflected pre-existing political affiliations. In a Washington Post-ABC News poll in July, 56 percent of Americans said Trump is biased against women and minorities, and 39 percent said he is not. Broken down by party preference, 86 percent of Democrats, 56 percent of independents and 26 percent of Republicans said Trump is biased.
If this incident does alter the electoral calculus, prompting a popular response more akin to the widespread condemnation last fall of Trump’s mocking imitation of New York Times reporter Serge Kovaleski’s disability, that might become evident among voters with close ties to the military. GOP candidate Mitt Romney won military or veteran voters — who tend to vote Republican in presidential elections — by a 20-point margin over Obama in 2012, according to an American National Election Studies survey. Any significant decline in that number would make it difficult for Trump to find a path to victory.
But Trump — who famously said in January that “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters” — remains confident that what would be fatal breaches of political etiquette in most elections will only cement his reputation as a fearless truth-teller.
The more outrageous the comments, the more some voters will conclude that Trump is the candidate who would break some china and get things done, said Mark Burnett, who produced “The Apprentice,” Trump’s popular TV reality show. “People want to hear the unvarnished, that same style that he showed on ‘The Apprentice,’ ” Burnett said in an interview earlier this year, “the ability to speak his mind clearly and not tone down his voice in a politically correct, TV way.”
Stephanie McCrummen and polling director Scott Clement contributed to this report. | 0 |
0 - items Only Geniuses & Schizophrenics Can Pass This 3 Question Quiz!
Many neuroscientists estimate that as much as 98% of all brain activity is unconscious. Just think about that for a second – 98%.
All that unconscious activity is influenced heavily by the world around its subconscious cues. To demonstrate that, we’re going to call on a super cool quiz. The premise is simple; only geniuses and schizophrenics can answer the following three questions. Which one are you? Continue to find out!
There are no hints! You either know it or you don’t!
The test you’ve just done relies on what researchers call the ‘contraposition method.’ This method tests the extent of a person’s awareness and brain processing power. It’s a super complicated method with tons of ‘moving parts,’ so to speak, but here’s what you need to know for the purpose of this article: There are objects which one can reasonably say are unrelated. Most people would assume, for example, that a race car and a hurricane have very little connection. A genius who thinks outside of the box, however, would deduce some sort of connection. A schizophrenic patient would also deduce a connection because of the way the illness makes people see non-existent connections in just about everything. In other words, if the quiz in this article left you scratching your head, you’re normal. If not, one of two things is true – you’re brilliant, or you have schizophrenia.
Don’t worry, I won’t leave you guessing. Here are some facts that will help you figure out which one you are: Geniuses will have taken their time to think before blurting a response. Did you get the answers right? What do you think – are you a schizophrenic or a genius? As far as the schizophrenia angle goes, this post is not a diagnostic tool. It can get you thinking about schizophrenia and, if you have concerns, you can see a psychiatrist for a proper evaluation.
Sources: | 1 |
BEIRUT (Reuters) - A U.S. missile strike on an airbase near the Syrian city of Homs on Friday killed five people and wounded seven more, the Homs governor told the Lebanese TV station al-Mayadeen, saying he did not expect the casualty toll to rise by much. Homs Governor Talal Barazi, in separate remarks to Reuters, said the targeted airbase had been providing air support for army operations against Islamic State east of Palmyra, and the attack served the interests of “armed terrorist groups”. “I believe - God willing - that the human casualties are not big, but there is material damage. We hope there are not many victims and martyrs,” he told Reuters. U.S. President Donald Trump said he ordered missile strikes against an airfield from which a deadly chemical weapons attack was launched this week, declaring he acted in America’s “national security interest” against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Barazi told al-Mayadeen there were civilian casualties at a village next to the base, but did not elaborate. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based organization that reports on the war, said four Syrian soldiers were killed, including a senior officer. It was citing its own sources. The Syrian army could not be reached for comment. Speaking at dawn, Barazi said rescue and fire-fighting operations had been going on for two hours at the base. He said the attack was a form of “support for the armed terrorist groups, and it is an attempt to weaken the capabilities of the Syrian Arab Army to combat terrorism”. Speaking to Syrian state TV, Barazi said: “The Syrian leadership and Syrian policy will not change. “This targeting was not the first and I don’t believe it will be the last,” he added. In separate comments to al-Mayadeen, he said: “The war against terrorism will continue.” U.S. officials said dozens of cruise missiles were fired against the base in response to the suspected gas attack in a rebel-held area that Washington has blamed on Assad’s forces. The Syrian government has strongly denied responsibility. The U.S. strikes “targeted military positions in Syria and in Homs specifically” in order to publicly “serve the goals of terrorism in Syria and the goals of Israel in the long run”, Barazi added in his interview with state TV. | 0 |
Daily Caller The revelation on Monday that former Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos has plead guilty to lying to the FBI about his contacts with Russian operatives thrust the little-known energy consultant into the national spotlight.Few details have been reported about the 30-year-old Papadopoulos, including how he ended up on the Trump campaign.Gateway Pundit reports that Papadopoulos was a volunteer whose repeated attempts to set up meetings between Trump s camp and Russians were outright rejected.The Washington Post reported back in August that Papadopoulos attempted to set up several meetings with Russia and all were rejected by Trump s camp.Watch Sarah Huckabee Sanders break down the difference between a Trump volunteer and Hillary and the DNC, who all of a sudden seems to have a renewed interest in Russian collusion again, after ignoring the bombshell revelation that Hillary and the DNC paid millions of dollars to create a phony Trump-Russia dossier. Sanders tells CBS News Major Garrett, The big difference here is you have a meeting that took place versus millions of dollars being sent to create fake information to actually influence the election. You compare those two, those are apples and oranges.What the Clinton campaign did, what the DNC did, was actually exchange money. They took a meeting. Those are far different. And one is pretty common practice in any campaign to take a meeting. The other one is actually paying money for false information. That s a big deal and a big difference. Sarah Sanders doing what she does best making a mockery of Obama's stenographers aka the imbeciles in the WH press corps.#MuellerMonday pic.twitter.com/yaEDNwHgcW HailToTheCovfefe (@MichelleRMed) October 30, 2017Sanders went on to say there is nothing in the indictment today changes nothing, and that The real collusion has everything to do with the Clinton campaign. Sarah Sanders: "The real collusion has everything to do with the Clinton campaign." pic.twitter.com/Og4ibRAeHC Axios (@axios) October 30, 2017Sanders best line of the day was when she told rabid, anti-Trump, nut-job Jim Acosta of CNN to finish your monologue. Love the bit where Sarah Sanders sez to @Acosta, "Oh, finish your monologue " on VOLUNTEER George Papadopoulos! https://t.co/3e4ggYXhfA Boston Bobblehead (@DBloom451) October 30, 2017The adviser, George Papadopoulos, offered to set up a meeting between us and the Russian leadership to discuss US-Russia ties under President Trump, telling them his Russian contacts welcomed the opportunity, according to internal campaign emails read to The Washington Post.The proposal sent a ripple of concern through campaign headquarters in Trump Tower. Campaign co-chairman Sam Clovis wrote that he thought NATO allies should be consulted before any plans were made. Another Trump adviser, retired Navy Rear Adm. Charles Kubic, cited legal concerns, including a possible violation of U.S. sanctions against Russia and of the Logan Act, which prohibits U.S. citizens from unauthorized negotiation with foreign governments.The NY Daily News even reported that Manafort put the kibosh on the Russia meetings as well. We need someone to communicate that DT is not doing these trips, Manafort told his business partner Rick Gates, an account his spokesman Jason Maloni confirmed to the Daily News Monday evening.The Gateway Pundit also reported that Papadopoulos was looking for a book deal just a few weeks ago.According to a screen shot of Papadopoulos s Facebook page tweeted by Guardian UK reporter Jon Swaine, the former aide sought book publisher recommendations three weeks ago. Interested in meeting with a prominent publisher. Recommendations welcome, wrote Papadopoulos.Meanwhile Hillary s camp paid MILLIONS of dollars for a Russian dossier, a fraudulent document that most likely prompted a FISA warrant and ultimately led to the unmasking of Trump and his associates. | 0 |
The last time Carly Fiorina was here, the former Hewlett-Packard chief executive sketched out her foreign policy blueprint. One thousand people heard her condemn the slow training of anti-Islamic State forces, the ambitions of China and the wonky “tooth to tail” ratio of military power to military bureaucracy.
It was sober. It was serious. It was basically ignored. Like much of this summer’s political news, Fiorina’s July speech was subsumed by Donald Trump; it inspired only a fraction of the news searches that Rolling Stone attracted last week when it quoted Trump seemingly making fun of her looks, according to Google Trends data.
The rise of Trump and of retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, two first-time candidates who prefer broad strokes to policy debates, has left the Republican establishment looking confused and helpless. Originally expecting a clash of ideas among a diverse, talented field, the establishment’s national security Brahmins paired up with candidates and got to work — only to be blown out of the conversation by Trump.
That has left some Republicans hoping that Wednesday’s debate will break the fever — and change the tenor of the race from flashy to substantive. Hugh Hewitt, the syndicated Orange County radio host who will co-moderate the event, has promised to grill candidates about geopolitics and world leaders. If that happens, the debate will become a crucial test for Trump and Carson — and for the staying power of their campaigns.
[Trump in Texas: We are a dumping ground for the rest of the world]
“If this isn’t the moment to finally get serious, when the hell will it be?” asked Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (S.C.), another Republican presidential contender. “Is the next time we get serious about foreign policy going to be when we get attacked? Everybody criticizes Barack Obama’s foreign policy, everybody knows he has no strategy in Iraq and Syria, but we need something specific to replace that. If we don’t hear that from the candidates, this week will have been a waste of time.”
Graham is an unwilling mascot for how foreign policy has fallen out of the primary debate. Just months ago, he was engaged in a near-daily debate with fellow GOP candidate Rand Paul, the libertarian-leaning senator from Kentucky, over issues including Iran and the Islamic State. “I’m running,” Graham said, “because the world is falling apart.”
On Wednesday afternoon, Graham will join former senator Rick Santorum (Pa.), another longtime Washington hawk, at the four-man second-tier debate. Santorum is at least invited to a policy-focused forum later this week in Greenville, S.C., hosted by Heritage Action for America; Graham, who lives near the venue, is not.
That will leave the task of vetting Carson and Trump on Wednesday to nine other candidates and the moderators. Neither front-runner has laid out a specific plan for attacking the Islamic State; Trump consistently has told audiences that he has a secret plan that he cannot share lest the enemy find out. Both candidates have been light on strategies for other crises.
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee and the 2008 Republican presidential nominee, lamented how little attention has been paid to foreign policy.
“There certainly hasn’t been very serious discussion of it, because of the nature of the campaign,” McCain said. “Just rhetoric.”
McCain added about Trump: “He’s not been asked tough questions. He’s said he wants to deport 11 million people. How do you do that? He hasn’t answered that question. He said in the Middle East he would go, and quote, ‘take their oil.’ I’d like to know how you do that. I think the American people deserve an explanation.”
Not all of them want one — at least not yet. Trump and Carson both bombed interviews with Hewitt — to no appreciable effect. In March, Carson appeared not to realize that the Baltic states were NATO members. Asked about the fumble, he explained that a president would have “access to a lot of experts in a lot of areas” and that he would not be stymied by gotcha questions. “You don’t want to devote all your attention to learning facts on a fact sheet,” he said. His standing has grown dramatically since then.
Trump, under more scrutiny, fared even worse. He’d previously told “Meet the Press” host Chuck Todd that his foreign policy advice came from watching Sunday talk shows and talking to national security hawks. Faced with Hewitt’s questions, Trump seemed to confuse Iran’s Quds forces for the decidedly non-Iranian Kurds, and he couldn’t describe the difference between Hezbollah and Hamas.
It was a disaster, compounded by Fiorina’s largely adroit answers to the same questions. Yet like every “disaster” of Trump’s summer, it did not halt his momentum; in poll after poll, he has held his position as front-runner of the Republican field since early July.
Hewitt, meanwhile, returned to his debate prep with some new thinking about how to really draw out the candidate.
“I don’t think those questions, quiz questions about knowledge, tell you anything about understanding,” Hewitt said. “Knowing names is dumb. That’s not necessary. I wish I had phrased my question to Trump as: ‘General Soleimani, who leads the Quds forces, is about to get $100 billion. What will the impact of that be?’ That’s what I wanted to ask, and it went off the rails.”
It’s true that Trump’s and Carson’s actual positions have been largely unexamined — and have remained room-shaking applause lines at his rallies. Trump offers audiences a vision of an America that’s always “winning,” that learned from the Iraq war (which he came out against 16 months after the invasion), that is ready to “take the oil” from conquered Islamic State territory.
“We’re going to have so many victories,” he told more than 10,000 people in Dallas on Monday, “at some point it’s going to be coming out of your ears!”
He offered no more detail Tuesday in Los Angeles when he delivered what was billed as a national security speech. “We’re going to make our military so big and so strong and so great — it’s going to be so powerful that no one is going to want to mess with us,” he said.
Carson has offered a lower-decibel version of the same idea, minus the oil seizures. At a rally last week in Anaheim, Calif., Carson said that some generals had told him that the Islamic State could be defeated easily if the military’s “hands aren’t tied.” In Anaheim, and at a later rally in a Houston suburb, Carson said he would oblige.
“I would use every resource, including financial resources, offensive and defense resources, covert and overt activities,” he said in Texas. “I would use everything possible not to contain them but to destroy them.”
For the people who study foreign policy and try to shape the national conversation, the simple answers from Carson and Trump are frustrating — yet totally understandable. The rise of the Islamic State has stoked panic among some conservative voters, but it has not defined their conversations. In the most recent Gallup poll, conducted in August, only 19 percent of voters listed a foreign policy issue as “the most important problem facing this country today.” Only 3 percent said, specifically, that the biggest problem was the Islamic State.
The GOP’s hawks have tried, with little success, to sober up the base. Former vice president Richard B. Cheney and his daughter Liz reemerged last week with a book, “Exceptional,” and an argument about how the party must rediscover its inner hawk. They sold 14,000 copies, according to Nielsen’s BookScan service.
Yet they were stymied by a problem bedeviling former Florida governor Jeb Bush’s White House bid: lingering ill will toward the administration of his brother, George W. Bush. Both Trump and Carson tell voters they are right to be skeptical of military adventures in the wake of the Iraq war. The debate about what a “serious” foreign policy may look like has been paused, and every other candidate wants to change that.
“We haven’t even begun the substance part of the campaign,” said Paul, who has fallen in most polls but will take part in the main debate. “It’s really been about celebrity and really sophomoric insults. I think the beginning of the decline of Trump is at hand, might have begun with Perry dropping out. The media and the voters may be starting to ask: ‘Oh, my goodness, we are promoting something bad for the country. Do we want someone this unserious in charge of our nuclear arsenal?”
Mike DeBonis in Washington contributed to this report. | 0 |
But he s pointing the finger at the wrong aspect of violence and death in the black community. If he would focus on the REAL problem of black on black crime he d get somewhere. How can anyone take Obama seriously when he skips over this HUGE issue? Once again, it s all about politics and division with this president. Pitiful! #NYC: #PeoplesMonday on the streets chanting #FTP! #BlackLivesMatter pic.twitter.com/KRRrRaHGHs Ash J (@AshAgony) October 20, 2015Meanwhile, in St. Louis, police escorted a gaggle of BLM protesters and some of the demonstrators tried to justify President Obama s faith in them by screaming Pigs in a blanket. Fry em like bacon at their protectors: | 1 |
Legal Expert Jonathan Turley listened as Joe Scarborough laid out a lengthy timeline to make a case of obstruction on President Trump. His response is awesome and very precise in its reasons for not recommending obstruction charges. Turley is a Democrat but is a very fair legal expert who rules according to the law how refreshing! While the left freaks out about nothing, the people like Turley who are REALLY qualified to judge this are saying it s a nothingburger. We don t even have evidence of wrongdoing but talk of impeachment is all over the place.Please sit back, relax and listen to the voice of reason Professor Jonathan Turley: There was ample reason to fire Sally Yates when, as acting Attorney General, she instructed the Department of Justice not to enforce President Trump s executive order on immigration. Obstruction of justice requires that you act to obstruct or interfere usually with a judicial or congressional proceeding, neither of which was pending at this time. You also tend to show it was done for a corrupt, or corruptly, to use the statutory term. This doesn t meet the usual definition of that. | 0 |
The outspoken liberal comedian posed for a photo shoot with controversial photographer Tyler Shields in which she was seen holding a bloodied mask of President Trump.Donald Trump was quick to condemn her on Twitter:TMZ later reported that 11-year old Barron Trump actually saw the image of his bloodied and decapitated father while watching TV.TMZ reports: Barron Trump was watching TV & saw @kathygriffin holding the severed head. He thought it was his dad. My heart is broken. Liz Wheeler (@Liz_Wheeler) May 31, 2017Melania Trump weighed in on the horrific image her 11-yr old son was subjected to with this statement: As a mother, a wife, and a human being, that photo is very disturbing. When you consider some of the atrocities happening in the world today, a photo opportunity like this is simply wrong and makes you wonder about the mental health of the person who did it. It s a question a lot of comedians are asking themselves lately: What should comedy look like during the Trump presidency? Now more than ever we must absolutely go for all the absurdities, Kathy Griffin told Vulture at the Equality Now Gala Tuesday night. For me, that s Trump and all things Trump. It s not about trying to be an equal-opportunity offender anymore because Hillary got such a beat down. It s his turn. So I m happy to deliver beat down to Donald Trump and also to Barron. You know a lot of comics are going to go hard for Donald, my edge is that I ll go direct for Barron. I m going to get in ahead of the game. So, of course, Griffin supported Rosie O Donnell when she tweeted a video asking if Barron Trump, 10-year-old son of Donald and Melania, was on the autism spectrum. After the beat down he gave her, she can say whatever she wants to say to that piece of shit, Griffin said before correcting herself. Oh, that s President Piece of Shit. Vulture | 0 |
Tune in to the Alternate Current Radio Network (ACR) for another LIVE broadcast of The Boiler Room tonight 6:00 PM PST | 8:00 PM CST | 9:00 PM EST for this special broadcast. Join us for uncensored, uninterruptible talk radio, custom-made for bar fly philosophers, misguided moralists, masochists, street corner evangelists, media-maniacs, savants, political animals and otherwise lovable rascals.Join ACR hosts Hesher and Spore along side Jay Dyer of Jays Analysis for the hundred and thirty fifth episode of BOILER ROOM. Turn it up, tune in and hang with the ACR Brain-Trust for this weeks boil downs and analysis and the usual gnashing of the teeth of the political animals in the social reject club.On this episode of Boiler Room the ACR Brain-Trust is running a round table discussion on school systems putting cameras in bathrooms in the US and the EU, Facebook as an extension of the federal intelligence apparatus, silicone valley insiders admit social media was designed to exploit inherent vulnerabilities in human beings to get them addicted to their applications, the selective silencing of dissenting voices in social media, the NY bike path terror attack from a non-conspiratorial VLOGer, the Texas church shooting near San Antonio and the first Transexual elected to political office.Direct Download Episode #135 Please like and share the program and visit our donate page to get involved! Reference Links, for your consideration and research: | 1 |
HONG KONG — For Asia, the bad news this week was not that Donald J. Trump detailed a plan to toughen American trade policy, especially toward China. It was that Hillary Clinton’s campaign accused Mr. Trump a few hours later of purloining her ideas, noting that she favored similar action on those issues. A strong dose of economic populism, with an occasional sprinkling of geopolitics, has suffused the trade plans of the leading American presidential candidates this year. Vying for votes, Mr. Trump and Mrs. Clinton are each promising to do more to preserve American jobs at a time of slowing global economic growth. And China — with its vast trade, rising international influence and authoritarian government — is a natural target. Presidential candidates vow every four years to do more to help American workers facing competition from abroad. After taking office, they have consistently pursued more conciliatory trade policies toward China, seeing a strategic benefit to warm relations with Beijing. But broad political distress this year over the loss of working class jobs to global competition, coupled with mounting concern about China’s increasingly assertive military posture, suggest that the next president could actually follow through on the pledges. If they do, the policies could pose a real predicament for China, and for other Asian countries that depend on its economy. Millions of jobs in China and across the region require the continued willingness of the United States to rely overwhelmingly on imports to supply American families with everything from the clothes they wear to the smartphones they carry. Rapid economic growth in China and the development of a strong consumer market had seemed to reduce the country’s need for huge exports to the American market. But China’s economy has recently slowed, hurting domestic players from small exporters to large steel makers. Weaker growth at home has made it all the more important for China to maintain a large trade surplus with the United States, selling more to consumers and businesses there than it buys. For years, China has exported four times as much to the United States as it imports, and it continues to do so. “If there are tougher trade policies from the United States,” said Shen Jianguang, an economist at Mizuho Securities Asia, “that will dampen Chinese exports. ” The candidates plan to take direct aim at the two countries’ trade gap. They want to label China as a currency manipulator that undervalues the renminbi to help its exporters win sales in overseas markets. They want to file more trade cases against China and impose more tariffs. They want to investigate how the Chinese government subsidizes businesses. They also want to rethink big trade deals. Mr. Trump wants to scrap the Partnership, a agreement between the United States and a group of countries, mostly in Asia. Mrs. Clinton’s campaign took a subtly different position, saying that she opposed the agreement in its current form. The Asian countries involved in the trade pact, notably Vietnam and Japan, made significant concessions to American negotiators because they felt threatened by China’s rise. Now, the presidential candidates are lumping them together with China, holding them responsible for killing American jobs. With few exceptions, Chinese officials have tried to steer clear of commenting on the American candidates. Even Chinese academics, the usual pipeline to Beijing’s thinking, have been wary of doing so, to avoid being accused of violating China’s policy of not interfering publicly in other countries’ politics. To the extent that Chinese experts say anything, it is to express hope that this year’s talk of getting tough on trade will not be a harbinger of policy shifts ahead. “There is no big difference from previous presidential campaigns, only more emphasis, due to the poor world trade performances” and weak global economic prospects, said He Weiwen, a of the . S. . U. Study Center at the China Association of International Trade in Beijing. The uncertainty for China, and much of Asia, is whether the candidates will sing the same trade tunes once in office. Mr. Trump’s confrontational approach would seem to indicate some . Mrs. Clinton seems less likely to change American policies, given that she supported President Obama’s free trade efforts during his first term of office, when she was secretary of state. Former Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, and Mr. Obama, at least initially, all tried to help China become more involved in the world economy. They hoped that more enmeshed trade and financial relationships would mean a more democratic China with closer diplomatic ties to the West. It seemed to work for a while. But in the last three years, China, under President Xi Jinping, has shifted toward more authoritarian rule. China has embarked on a military buildup, constructed artificial islands with runways in the South China Sea and challenged Japan’s control of a cluster of islands north of Taiwan. And a combination of strict censorship and comprehensive propaganda has fanned the already strong nationalism of the Chinese public. Those geopolitics have left American policy makers with two choices, neither of them appetizing. Further trade with China and additional investments there by Western multinationals could strengthen the Chinese economy and help Beijing afford even more ambitious territorial and military policies. Discouraging trade and investment could cause lower economic growth that might slow China’s military rise but also might feed sentiment and foster public demands for more assertive foreign policy. If the candidates’ ideas became policy, China would almost certainly retaliate in some fashion. American exports, while sharply smaller than those China sends in the other direction, are a potential focus. Beijing has proved especially adept in the past at targeting American exports from swing states in presidential elections and closely fought congressional districts, maximizing its leverage in the political process even if the economic effects were limited. The biggest immediate casualty of tougher trade policies could be the Obama administration’s effort to strengthen relations with countries like Japan, Singapore and Vietnam as a way to balance China’s growing muscle in East Asia. The economic centerpiece of the administration’s pivot to Asia has been the negotiation of the Partnership. That agreement calls for dismantling barriers to American trade with many of the countries that find themselves increasingly uneasy about China’s growing dominance. Mr. Trump denounced the pact again on Tuesday, saying that it would force American workers to compete with Vietnamese workers. Mrs. Clinton, after supporting the early negotiations as secretary of state, has come out against the pact since the fall, saying that the deal does not go far enough to address issues like currency manipulation. Yet canceling the trade pact could actually cause more problems, by pushing American allies in the region into China’s arms and preventing American companies from developing in emerging Asian markets. “If America kills the T. P. P. ,” said Kishore Mahbubani, the dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy in Singapore, “then China becomes the main center of economic gravity. ” | 0 |
The move would make it easier for the Trump administration to demolish the exchanges. | 1 |
BNI Store Oct 26 2016 When a Muslim in America runs for political office, the ONLY reason he is running is to spread Islam. Period. FLORIDA: Mass mailing sent to Temple Terrace homes in the Tampa area questions whether or not a Muslim candidate is fit for office and offers solid reasons why he probably is not. CAIR-Florida City Council candidate Wael Odeh has lived more than three decades in this town of 25,000 straddling the Hillsborough River. Odeh is also a Muslim, born in Palestinian territory, and some believes that’s enough to disqualify him from election to the City Council. An anonymous letter has been mailed to a number of addresses in Temple Terrace questioning whether City Hall is safe with a Muslim working there and whether Odeh has ties to terrorism. The typewritten, single-spaced, one-page letter is dated October 2016. Among a number of questions it poses: “Could Odeh’s election be a foot in the door of Sharia Law’s subtle influence in our community?” Sharia is the detailed system of religious law developed by Muslim scholars in the early centuries of Islam and still in force among fundamentalists. Among other questions raised in the letter are why Odeh has not revealed in campaign mailers where he was born. The letter also questions whether he forces his wife into a subservient role, as do some observers of sharia. In addition, the letter says that designated terrorist group CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations) endorses Odeh and claims the group has links to terrorism (It does) . In a statement to the Times, CAIR Florida’s government affairs director Laila Abdelaziz said, “This unfounded and slanderous attack on Mr. Odeh is concerning, and we hope Temple Terrace residents, community leaders and neighbors will reject its Islamophobic message.” Still, Temple Terrace City Council member Grant Rimbey said he worries the truth may not matter to a certain block of voters. “That is the sad reality,” Rimbey said. “I think there is racism in the city” and there are people “who want to keep Temple Terrace looking like it did in 1952 forever.” (What “race” is Islam?) Rimbey and Odeh estimate that 20 to 25 percent of Temple Terrace’s population is Muslim. (Now, that really IS disturbing – more Muslim block-busting) Six candidates have applied for two open seats on the council; the two candidates recording the most votes Nov. 8 will fill the positions. Odeh said he invites anyone with questions about Muslims to reach out to him — including the author of the anonymous letter. “If he wanted to learn more, he should have come to me directly.” (He learned everything he needed to know about Muslims on 9/11) | 1 |
As usual we will go parse through the disclosure and bring you some of the more notable ones.
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In a February 2012 email from Chelsea Clinton’s NYU alias, , to Podesta and Mills, Bill and Hillary’s frustrated daughter once again points out the “frustration and confusion” among Clinton Foundation clients in the aftermath of the previously noted scandals plaguing the Clinton consultancy, Teneo:
Over the past few days a few people from the Foundation have reached out to me frustrated or upset about (fill in the blank largely derived meetings Friday or Monday). I’ve responded to all w/ essentially the following (ie disintermediating myself, again, emphatically) below. I also called my Dad last night to tell him of my explicit non-involvement and pushing all back to you both and to him as I think that is indeed the right answer. Thanks
Sample: Please share any and all concerns, with examples, without pulling punches, with John and Cheryl as appropriate and also if you feel very strongly with my Dad directly. Transitions are always challenging and to get to the right answer its critical that voices are heard and understood, and in the most direct way – ie to them without intermediation. Particularly in an effort to move more toward a professionalism and efficiency at the Foundation and for my father – and they’re the decision-makers, my Dad most of all
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A February 2015 email from Neera Tanden lashes out at David Brock of the Bonner Group, profiled in this post: “ Money Laundering Scheme Exposed: 14 Pro-Clinton Super PACs & Non-Profits Implicated .” As a reminder, the Bonner Group, as we showed last month, may be a money laundering front involving various SuperPACs and non-profit institutions:
In the email Tanden says that:
“Brock/Bonner are a nightmare: Really, Suzie Buell isn’t giving to the superpac? I wonder how that got in this story “ Big donors holding off making pledges to pro-Hillary Clinton super PAC “,
and concludes by saying that “ Sometimes HRC/WJC have the worst judgement .”
In retrospect, she is right.
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Speaking of “donor advisor” Mary Pat Bonner , the following email from March 2009 hints at potential impropriety in shifting money from one democratic donor group to another, the Center for American Progress :
I have moved all the sussman money from unity ’09 to cap and am reviewing the others . I will assess it and keep you informed
Something else for the DOJ to look into after the elections, perhaps?
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And then there is this email from August 2015 in which German politician Michael Werz advises John Podesta that Turkish president Erdogan “is making substantial investments in U.S. to counter opposition (CHP, Kurds, Gulenists etc.) outreach to policymakers” and the US Government.
John, heard this second hand but more than once. Seems Erdogan faction is making substantial investments in U.S. to counter opposition (CHP, Kurds, Gulenists etc.) outreach to policymakers and USG. Am told that the Erdogan crew also tries to make inroads via donations to Democratic candidates, including yours. Two names that you should be aware of are *Mehmet Celebi* and *Ali Cinar*. Happy to elaborate on the phone, provided you are not shopping at the liquor store.
The email :
This should perhaps explain why the US has so far done absolutely nothing to halt Erdogan’s unprecedented crackdown on “coup plotters” which has seen as many as 100,000 workers lose their jobs, be arrested, or otherwise removed from Erdogan’s political opposition. Share: | 1 |
WashingtonsBlog
By Robert Parry, the investigative reporter who many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. Originally published at Parry’s Consortium News (republished with permission).
In the end, Hillary Clinton became the face of a corrupt, arrogant and out-of-touch Establishment, while Donald Trump emerged as an almost perfectly imperfect vessel for a populist fury that had bubbled beneath the surface of America.
There is clearly much to fear from a Trump presidency, especially coupled with continued Republican control of Congress. Trump and many Republicans have denied the reality of climate change; they favor more tax cuts for the rich; they want to deregulate Wall Street and other powerful industries – all policies that helped create the current mess that the United States and much of the world are now in. A sign supporting Donald Trump at a rally at Veterans Memorial Coliseum at the Arizona State Fairgrounds in Phoenix, Arizona. June 18, 2016 (Photo by Gage Skidmore)
Further, Trump’s personality is problematic to say the least. He lacks the knowledge and the temperament that one would like to see in a President – or even in a much less powerful public official. He appealed to racism, misogyny, white supremacy, bigotry toward immigrants and prejudice toward Muslims. He favors torture and wants a giant wall built across America’s southern border.
But American voters chose him in part because they felt they needed a blunt instrument to smash the Establishment that has ruled and mis-ruled America for at least the past several decades. It is an Establishment that not only has grabbed for itself almost all the new wealth that the country has produced but has casually sent the U.S. military into wars of choice, as if the lives of working-class soldiers are of little value.
On foreign policy, the Establishment had turned decision-making over to the neoconservatives and their liberal-interventionist sidekicks, a collection of haughty elitists who often subordinated American interests to those of Israel and Saudi Arabia, for political or financial advantage.
The war choices of the neocon/liberal-hawk coalition have been disastrous – from Iraq to Afghanistan to Libya to Syria to Ukraine – yet this collection of know-it-alls never experiences accountability. The same people, including the media’s armchair warriors and the think-tank “scholars,” bounce from one catastrophe to the next with no consequences for their fallacious “group thinks.” Most recently, they have ginned up a new costly and dangerous Cold War with Russia.
For all his faults, Trump was one of the few major public figures who dared challenge the “group thinks” on the current hot spots of Syria and Russia. In response, Clinton and many Democrats chose to engage in a crude McCarthyism with Clinton even baiting Trump as Vladimir Putin’s “puppet” during the final presidential debate.
It is somewhat remarkable that those tactics failed; that Trump talked about cooperation with Russia, rather than confrontation, and won. Trump’s victory could mean that rather than escalating the New Cold War with Russia, there is the possibility of a ratcheting down of tensions.
Repudiating the Neocons
Thus, Trump’s victory marks a repudiation of the neocon/liberal-hawk orthodoxy because the New Cold War was largely incubated in neocon/liberal-hawk think tanks, brought to life by likeminded officials in the U.S. State Department, and nourished by propaganda across the mainstream Western media. Donald Trump speaking with supporters at a campaign rally in Phoenix, Arizona. June 18, 2016. (Photo by Gage Skidmore)
It was the West, not Russia, that provoked the confrontation over Ukraine by helping to install a fiercely anti-Russian regime on Russia’s borders. I know the mainstream Western media framed the story as “Russian aggression” but that was always a gross distortion.
There were peaceful ways for settling the internal differences inside Ukraine without violating the democratic process, but U.S. neocons, such as Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, and wealthy neoliberals, such as financial speculator George Soros, pushed for a putsch that overthrew the elected President Viktor Yanukovych in February 2014.
Putin’s response, including his acceptance of Crimea’s overwhelming referendum to return to Russia and his support for ethnic Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine opposing the coup regime in Kiev, was a reaction to the West’s destabilizing and violent actions. Putin was not the instigator of the troubles.
Similarly, in Syria, the West’s “regime change” strategy, which dates back to neocon planning in the mid-1990s, involved collaboration with Al Qaeda and other Islamic jihadists to remove the secular government of Bashar al-Assad. Again, Official Washington and the mainstream media portrayed the conflict as all Assad’s fault, but that wasn’t the full picture.
From the start of the Syrian conflict in 2011, U.S. “allies,” including Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey and Israel, have been aiding the rebellion, with Turkey and the Gulf states funneling money and weapons to Al Qaeda’s Nusra Front and even to the Al Qaeda spinoff, Islamic State.
Though President Barack Obama dragged his heels on the direct intervention advocated by then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Obama eventually went in halfway, bending to political pressure by agreeing to train and arm so-called “moderates” who ended up fighting next to Al Qaeda’s Nusra Front and other jihadists in Ahrar al-Sham.
Trump has been inarticulate and imprecise in describing what policies he would follow in Syria, besides suggesting that he would cooperate with the Russians in destroying Islamic State. But Trump didn’t seem to understand the role of Al Qaeda in controlling east Aleppo and other Syrian territory.
Uncharted Territory
So, the American voters have plunged the United States and the world into uncharted territory behind a President-elect who lacks a depth of knowledge on a wide variety of issues. Who will guide a President Trump becomes the most pressing issue today. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton speaking with supporters at a campaign rally in Phoenix, Arizona. March 21, 2016. (Photo by Gage Skidmore)
Will he rely on traditional Republicans who have done so much to mess up the country and the world or will he find some fresh-thinking realists who will realign policy with core American interests and values.
For this dangerous and uncertain moment, the Democratic Party establishment deserves a large share of the blame. Despite signs that 2016 would be a year for an anti-Establishment candidate – possibly someone like Sen. Elizabeth Warren or Sen. Bernie Sanders – the Democratic leadership decided that it was “Hillary’s turn.”
Alternatives like Warren were discouraged from running so there could be a Clinton “coronation.” That left the 74-year-old socialist from Vermont as the only obstacle to Clinton’s nomination and it turned out that Sanders was a formidable challenger. But his candidacy was ultimately blocked by Democratic insiders, including the unelected “super-delegates” who gave Clinton an early and seemingly insurmountable lead.
With blinders firmly in place, the Democrats yoked themselves to Clinton’s gilded carriage and tried to pull it all the way to the White House. But they ignored the fact that many Americans came to see Clinton as the personification of all that is wrong about the insular and corrupt world of Official Washington. And that has given us President-elect Trump. | 1 |
House Speaker Paul Ryan promised to move forward on his plan to replace Obamacare after a meeting with House Republicans and White House officials, but he didn’t say whether he had the votes to pass the legislation. [“We have been promising the American people that we will repeal and replace this broken law and tomorrow we’re proceeding,” Ryan told reporters after the meeting on Capitol Hill. As reporters shouted questions about whether he had enough Republicans votes, Ryan walked away from the microphone. Senior White House aides Reince Priebus, Steve Bannon, Kellyanne Conway, and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney delivered an ultimatum from President Donald Trump: Vote for the House bill on Friday or Obamacare remains. Trump is ready to move on. | 0 |
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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid said on Tuesday that amendments were necessary to a Puerto Rico debt bill that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said would be voted on by next week. Reid, speaking to reporters, said changes were needed to the federal board overseeing the restructuring of Puerto Rico’s $70 billion debt under the bill, but he did not say whether Democrats would be successful in making any changes. The House of Representatives passed a Puerto Rico debt relief bill on June 9, following months of internal debate. Supporters hope the Senate passes that bill, without any amendment, before July 1, when Puerto Rico faces a deadline for making a $1.9 billion debt payment. The Caribbean island, which is a U.S. territory, is suffering a poverty rate of about 45 percent and has been hobbled by worsening debt problems. Some schools and medical facilities are closing and thousands of residents are relocating to the U.S. mainland, further shrinking Puerto Rico’s tax base. While Reid said he had “some serious concerns” with the current bill, which was negotiated by the Obama administration and lawmakers in the House, he did not say whether he expected any amendments to succeed in the Senate. A Senate debate over amendments could simply help put Democrats on record registering their concerns with the legislation. “At the very minimum, we need some amendments to make sure that people understand what is not in that bill,” Reid said. Democrats in both chambers have voiced concerns over some potential minimum-wage reductions for young workers that Republicans included in the House bill. They also have said the federal oversight board, to be appointed by Washington, might not have Puerto Rico’s best interests in mind. Supporters of the bill have argued it is the best measure that can pass the Republican-controlled Congress and that Puerto Rico could slip into chaos without action. | 0 |
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump posted a two-point lead over his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton, according to a Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll released on Tuesday, the first time he has been ahead since early May. Trump’s gains came as he accepted his party’s nomination to the Nov. 8 ballot at the four-day Republican National Convention in Cleveland last week, and as Clinton’s nomination in Philadelphia this week was marred by party divisions and the resignation of a top party official. MORE FROM REUTERS: Musk sees 'modest' capital raise for Tesla's next strategic turn Clinton makes history with Democratic nomination for president Breakingviews: Hillary Clinton’s one percent dilemma gets more awkward The July 22-26 poll found that 39 percent of likely voters supported Trump, 37 percent supported Clinton and 24 percent would vote for neither. The poll had a credibility interval of 4 percentage points, meaning that the two candidates should be considered about even in support. Clinton held a three-point lead on Friday, which was also within the credibility interval. Clinton has solidly led Trump in the poll throughout most of the 2016 presidential race. The only times that Trump has matched her level of support were when the Republican Party appeared to be roughly aligned with his campaign. In early May, Trump briefly pulled even with Clinton after his remaining rivals for the party nomination dropped out of the running. He held a 0.3 percentage point lead over Clinton on May 9, the last time he was nominally ahead. Trump fell back in the poll as he feuded with party bosses over comments he made about Hispanics, Muslims and immigrants, but he rebounded this month as his candidacy took the national spotlight at the Cleveland convention. The Democratic party is hoping for a similar boost during its convention this week in Philadelphia, but the confab had a rough start: the Wikileaks website released emails on Friday that enraged many voters who had supported Clinton’s rival for the nomination, Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, showing that party officials had looked for ways to undermine his candidacy. The chair of the Democratic National Committee, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, announced her resignation afterward. On Monday, some speakers at the Democratic convention were booed by Sanders supporters, and hundreds of protesters took to the streets to protest Clinton’s candidacy. Presidential candidates usually get a boost in popularity following their party conventions. In 2012, Republican nominee Mitt Romney jumped by 5 percentage points to pull about even with President Barack Obama after the Republican convention. After the Democrats held their convention, Obama then rose by a few percentage points and again pulled ahead. The Reuters/Ipsos poll was conducted online in English with about 962 likely voters. | 0 |
Nothing says embracing diversity like dividing interns by color and kicking the white interns to the back of the photo.It s pretty fitting that the race obsessed US Rep. from Texas, Sheila Jackson Lee would post such a telling photo on Twitter The Democratic Interns on Capitol Hill 2016 #DemInternSelfie pic.twitter.com/ZzUMl4hKoc Sheila Jackson Lee (@JacksonLeeTX18) July 20, 2016The photo of Dem interns was supposed to be in response to a Paul Ryan selfie that the Democrats, who can never see past the color of one s skin, posted to show how much more diverse they are.So diversity is kicking White interns to the back of the photo?H/T Weasel ZippersSomething about this picture is eerily similar to the picture taken of the crowd taken that exposed the segregation of women and men during London s new Muslim Mayor Sadiq Khan s speech on the benefits of Britain sticking with the EU. The Muslim women were noticeably segregated from the men as the photo showed them standing behind the men like second class citizens.The Left is all for diversity, as long as it s their kind of diversity | 1 |
A judge on Monday sentenced a Georgia man to life in prison without the possibility of parole after a jury found that he had intentionally left his toddler son in a hot sport utility vehicle to die. Jurors last month convicted the man, Justin Ross Harris, 35 when convicted, of malice murder and other charges in the June 2014 death of his son, Cooper. Prosecutors argued that Mr. Harris was unhappily married and intentionally killed his son because he wanted an escape from family life. Defense lawyers maintained that Mr. Harris was a loving father and that while he was responsible for the boy’s death, it was a tragic accident. Mr. Harris did not testify at trial and did not speak at his sentencing hearing. Superior Court Judge Mary Staley Clark of Cobb County Superior Court told Mr. Harris that she thought about statements he had made during conversations with the police and his wife the day his son died about wishing to be an advocate to help keep others from leaving a child in a hot vehicle. “Perhaps not the way you intended, you in fact have accomplished that goal,” she said as she gave him the maximum sentence. Prosecutors had decided not to seek the death penalty, and Charles P. Boring, an assistant district attorney and the lead prosecutor on the case, said the sentence Mr. Harris got was appropriate. “I don’t think you could have any other sentence that would be appropriate when somebody’s been convicted of intentionally taking the life of a child — not only doing that but doing it such a painful and deliberate way,” Mr. Boring told reporters. Mr. Harris’s lawyers did not present any evidence or make any arguments at sentencing. They also declined to comment after sentencing. Cooper died after sitting for about seven hours in the back seat of his father’s vehicle outside the suburban Atlanta office where Mr. Harris worked. Temperatures in the Atlanta area that day reached at least into the high 80s. Mr. Harris told police he forgot to drop his son off at day care that morning, instead driving straight to his job as a web developer for Home Depot, forgetting that Cooper was still in his car seat. Investigators found evidence that Mr. Harris was engaging in online flirtations and affairs with numerous women other than his wife, including a prostitute and an underage teenager. Judge Staley Clark decided after nearly three weeks of jury selection in April that pretrial publicity had made it too difficult to find a fair jury in Cobb County, where the boy died, and granted a defense request to relocate the trial. A jury in Glynn County, located on the Georgia coast about 60 miles south of Savannah, spent about a month listening to evidence in the case and deliberated for four days before finding Mr. Harris guilty of all eight counts against him. In addition to malice murder and felony murder charges, Mr. Harris was also found guilty of sending sexual text messages to a teenage girl and sending her nude photos. | 0 |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer plans to file a complaint early next week about former FBI Director James Comey’s disclosure of conversations with the president, a person close to the legal team said on Friday. Lawyer Marc Kasowitz will file the complaint with the Justice Department’s inspector general and will also make a “submission” to the Senate Judiciary and Senate Intelligence committees about Comey’s testimony, said the source, who declined to be identified because the matter was not public. Comey, in U.S. Senate intelligence committee testimony on Thursday, accused Trump of firing him to try to undermine the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s probe into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential campaign. Comey said Trump pressured him to drop an investigation of former national security adviser Michael Flynn and told Comey that he needed his loyalty, even though FBI directors are supposed to work independently from the White House. Kasowitz disputed those points and attacked Comey for leaking “privileged communications” to the media. Legal experts have questioned Kasowitz’s contention that Trump’s private encounters with Comey should be considered privileged communications. | 1 |
(By Deepak Ramola , Uplift Connect )
Rooted in the hearts of many Hindus is the belief that if you breathe your last in Kashi (Varanasi) you attain what is popularly known as ‘Kashi Labh’ or ‘the fruit of Kashi’—moksh or “release from the cycle of rebirth impelled by the law of karma”.
Kashi Labh Mukti Bhawan in Varanasi is one of the three guesthouses in the city where people check in to die. The other two are Mumukshu Bhawan and Ganga Labh Bhawan. Established in 1908, Mukti Bhawan is well-known within the city and outside.
Bhairav Nath Shukla has been the Manager of Mukti Bhawan for 44 years. He has seen the rich and the poor take refuge in the guesthouse in their final days as they await death and hope to find peace. Shukla hopes with and for them. He sits on the wooden bench in the courtyard, against the red brick wall and shares with me 12 recurring life lessons from the 12000 deaths he has witnessed in his experience as the manager of Mukti Bhawan: People check in to die. 1. Resolve all conflicts before you go
Shukla recounts the story of Shri Ram Sagar Mishr, a Sanskrit scholar of his times. Mishr was the eldest of six brothers and was closest to the youngest one. Years ago an ugly argument between the two brothers led to a wall to partition the house.
In his final days, Mishr walked to the guesthouse carrying his little paan case and asked to keep room no. 3 reserved for him. He was sure he will pass away on the 16th day from his arrival. On the 14th day he said, “ Ask my estranged brother of 40 years to come see me. This bitterness makes my heart heavy. I am anxious to resolve every conflict.”
A letter was sent out. On the 16th day when the youngest brother arrived, Mishr held his hand and asked to bring down the wall dividing the house. He asked his brother for forgiveness. Both brothers wept and mid sentence, Mishr stopped speaking. His face became calm. He was gone in a moment.
Shukla has seen this story replay in many forms over the years. “People carry so much baggage, unnecessarily, all through their life only wanting to drop it at the very end of their journey. The trick lies not in not having conflicts but in resolving them as soon as one can,” says Shukla. The trick lies not in not having conflicts but in resolving them as soon as one can. 2. Simplicity is the truth of life
“People stop eating indulgent food when they know they are going to go. The understanding that dawns on many people in their final days is that they should’ve lived a simple life. They regret that the most,” says Shukla.
A simple life, as he explains, can be attained by spending less. We spend more to accumulate more and thus create more need. To find contentment in less is the secret to having more. 3. Filter out people’s bad traits
Shukla maintains that every person has shades of good and bad. But instead of dismissing “bad” people outrightly, we must seek out their good qualities. Harbouring bitterness for certain people comes from concentrating on their negatives. If you focus on the good qualities though, you spend that time getting to know them better or, maybe even, loving them. To find contentment in less is the secret to having more. 4. Be willing to seek help from others
To know and do everything by yourself might feel empowering but it limits one from absorbing what others have learnt. Shukla believes we must help others, but more importantly, have the courage to seek help when we’re in need.
Every person in the world knows more than us in some respect. And their knowledge can help us, only if we’re open to it.
He recounts the incident of an old woman being admitted on a rainy day back in the 80s. The people who got her there left her without filling the inquiry form. A few hours later, the police came to trace the relatives of the old lady who, they said, were runaway Naxalites. Shukla pretended to know nothing. The police left. When the lady’s relatives returned next morning, Shukla asked the leader uninhibitedly, “When you can kill 5-8 people yourself why didn’t you simply shoot your Nani and cremate her yourself? Why did you make me lie and feel ashamed?” The grandson fell to his knees and pleaded for forgiveness saying no one amongst them is capable of helping his religious grandmother attain salvation. He respects that, and is the reason why he brought her to Mukti Bhawan. We must help others, but more importantly, have the courage to seek help when we’re in need. 5. Find beauty in simple things
Mukti Bhavan plays soulful bhajans and devotional songs three times a day. “Some people”, he says, “stop and admire a note or the sound of the instruments as if they have never heard it before, even if they have. They pause to appreciate it and find beauty in it.”
But that’s not true of everyone, he adds. People who are too critical or too proud, are the ones who find it hard to find joy in small things because their minds are preoccupied with “seemingly” more important things. 6. Acceptance is liberation
Most people shirk away from accepting what they are going through. This constant denial breeds in them emotions that are highly dangerous. Only once you accept your situation is when you become free to decide what to do about it. Without acceptance you are always in the grey space.
When you are not in denial of a problem you have the strength to find a solution.
Indifference, avoidance, and denial of a certain truth, Shukla believes, cause anxiety; they develop a fear of that thing in the person. Instead, accept the situation so you are free to think what you want to do about it and how. Acceptance will liberate you and empower you. Stop and admire a note or the sound of the instruments. 7. Accepting everyone as the same makes service easier
The secret to Shukla’s unfazed dedication and determination towards his demanding job can be understood via this life lesson. He admits that life would’ve been difficult if he treated people who admit themselves to Mukti Bhavan differently, based on their caste, creed, colour, and social or economic status. Categorisation leads to complication and one ends up serving no one well. “The day you treat everyone the same is the day you breathe light and worry less about who might feel offended or not. Make your job easier,” he says. 8. If/When you find your purpose, do something about it
To have awareness about one’s calling is great, but only if you do something about it.
A lot of people, Shukla says, know their purpose but don’t do anything about realising it, making it come to life. Simply sitting on it is worse than not having a calling in the first place. Having a perspective towards your purpose will help you measure the time and effort you need to dedicate to it, while you’re caught up in what you think you can’t let go or escape. Take action on what truly matters. Categorisation leads to complication and one ends up serving no one well. 9. Habits become values
Shukla recommends cultivating good habits to be able to house good values. And building good habits happens over time, with practice. “It’s like building a muscle; you have to keep at it everyday.”
Till one doesn’t consistently work towards being just or kind or truthful or honest or compassionate, every single time he is challenged, one cannot expect to have attained that quality. 10. Choose what you want to learn
In the vastness of the infinite amount of knowledge available to us it is easy to get lost and confused. “The key lesson here is to be mindful of choosing what you deeply feel will be of value to you,” he says. People might impose subjects and philosophies on you because it interests them and while you must acknowledge their suggestions, the wise thing to do is delve deeper into what rejoices your own heart and mind.
With a smile on his face Shukla says, “In the last days of their life a lot of people can’t speak, walk or communicate with others with as much ease as they could, earlier. So, they turn inwards. And start to remember the things that made their heart sing once, things that they cared to learn more about over the course of their life, which enriches their days now.” They start to remember the things that made their heart sing once. 11. You don’t break ties with people; you break ties with the thought they produce
You can seldom distance yourself from people you have truly loved or connected with in some way. However, in any relationship, along the way, certain mismatch of ideologies causes people to stop communicating. This never means you are no longer associated with that person. It simply means that you don’t associate with a dominant thought that person brings with him/her, and to avoid more conflict you move away. The divorce, Shukla affirms, is with the thought and never with the person. To understand that is to unburden yourself from being bitter and revengeful. 12. 10 percent of what you earn should be kept aside for dharma
Dharma, Shukla doesn’t define as something religious or spiritual. Instead, he says it is associated more with doing good for others and feeling responsible about that. A simple calculation according to him is to keep 10 percent of your income for goodwill.
Many people donate or do charitable acts towards the end of their life because death is hard on them. In their suffering, they begin to empathise with others’ suffering. He says those who have the companionship of loved ones, the blessings of unknown strangers, and an all-encompassing goodwill of people exit peacefully and gracefully. That is possible when you don’t cling on to everything you have, and leave some part of it for others.
Feature Image: Jorge Royan | 1 |
SYDNEY (Reuters) - Australians have voted overwhelmingly for same-sex marriage, paving the way for legislation by the end of 2017 and sparking rainbow celebrations on Wednesday, with people wearing wedding dresses and sequined suits and declaring our love is real . Australia will become the 26th nation to formalize the unions if the legislation is passed by parliament, which is expected despite some vocal opposition within the government s conservative right wing. Thousands of people in a Sydney park broke into a loud cheer, hugged and cried as Australia s chief statistician revealed live over a big screen that 61.6 percent of voters surveyed favored marriage equality, with 38.4 percent against. Australian Olympic swimmer Ian Thorpe, who came out as gay three years ago, said the result was a huge relief. It means that the way you feel for another person, whoever that may be, is equal, Thorpe told reporters at the Sydney celebrations. The voluntary poll is non-binding but Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull immediately said he would fulfill a pledge to raise a bill in parliament with the aim of passing laws by Christmas. Turnbull played down concern of a split in his coalition government over the policy as the conservative faction presses for amendments to protect religious freedoms that discriminate against same-sex couples. It is unequivocal, it is overwhelming. They have spoken in their millions and they have voted overwhelmingly yes for marriage equality, Turnbull told reporters in Canberra after the survey results were announced. They voted yes for fairness, yes for commitment, yes for love. A marriage equality bill was introduced into parliament later on Wednesday. The result marks a watershed moment for gay rights in Australia, where it was illegal in some states to engage in homosexual activity until 1997. It s a g day. Way to go Australia, tweeted U.S. TV host Ellen DeGeneres, who is married to Australian actress Portia de Rossi in the United States. Almost 80 percent of eligible voters took part in the survey - a higher turnout than Britain s Brexit vote and Ireland s same-sex marriage referendum. Mark Barry, 59, wiped away tears as he took in the result with his partner of 35 years, Gerrard Boller. I know a celebrant who is going to be very happy about this, Barry told Reuters. Irish-born Qantas Airways Chief Executive Alan Joyce, one of the few openly gay business leaders in Australia, told the Sydney crowd, many of whom sheltered from the sun under rainbow umbrellas, that the result was an amazing outcome and urged Turnbull to move quickly on legislation. Turnbull has been under pressure amid a citizenship crisis that has cost him his deputy and the government s majority in parliament and political analysts said the resounding yes vote presented him with his first opportunity in months to exert decisive control. Nick Economou, a political scientist at Monash University, said Turnbull should feel emboldened by the result and this is the sort of thing he has been looking for to show some assertive leadership . The no campaign had sought to leverage powerful religious organizations in a survey campaign that was criticized by some in the yes camp as divisive and aggressive. Catholic Archbishop of Sydney Anthony Fisher said he was deeply disappointed that the likely result will be legislation to further deconstruct marriage and family in Australia . On the strength of the yes vote, conservatives dropped a plan for a competing bill that would have allowed private businesses to refuse services like wedding cakes for same-sex weddings by objecting on religious grounds. | 0 |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has the unenviable task of exploring U.S.-Russian cooperation following Washington’s latest sanctions on Russia and Moscow’s expulsion of U.S. diplomats. Tillerson and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov meet this weekend at a regional forum in Manila, their first face-to-face talks since President Donald Trump reluctantly signed into law sanctions that Russia said amounted to a full-scale trade war and ended hopes for better ties. The sanctions, which passed both houses of Congress by overwhelming majorities despite Trump’s objections, in part target the Russian energy sector, with new limits on U.S. investment in Russian companies. In retaliation, Moscow has ordered Washington to cut 755 of its 1,200 embassy and consulate staff in Russia and is seizing two U.S. diplomatic properties there. Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Tillerson held out hope for better ties. “There’s been no belligerence,” he said of his dealings with Lavrov. “I think he is as committed as I am to trying to find ways that can bring this relationship back.” Analysts and former U.S. officials were skeptical that much progress is likely any time soon on areas such as reducing the violence in Syria’s civil war or calming the conflict in eastern Ukraine, let alone reversing Russia’s annexation of Crimea. “The backdrop for that is obviously horrible given the Russian anger over the sanctions bill and the continued day-to-day revelations in the Russia probe,” said Carnegie Endowment analyst Andrew Weiss, referring to investigations into potential collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia during the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Russia has denied seeking to sway the U.S. election and Trump has denied any collusion. “The Russians are probably in no mood to even allow us to show progress because if they (did) they would be saying you can go ahead and sanction us without consequences,” said a former U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity. “There is an incentive for them to have a lousy meeting.” Tillerson and Lavrov are likely to discuss the “de-escalation zone” the nations agreed to establish in southwestern Syria. Russia and Iran are the main outside backers of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad while Washington supports some of the rebel groups seeking to topple him in a six-year civil war. A second former senior U.S. official said he thought the best the two might achieve would be to prevent further deterioration. “Do no harm is the other side of the coin,” said the former official who spoke on condition of anonymity, saying he would expect the two men to review those areas such as the arctic, space and arms control where U.S.-Russian cooperation continues. One of the few areas where Washington and Moscow could make progress is on nuclear and conventional arms control, something they have achieved throughout their long history of tensions. Tillerson and Lavrov agreed in principle in April to resume so-called strategic stability talks on disputes ranging from nuclear arms and missile defense to conventional military deployments in Europe. The last formal talks were held in 2012. Last month, the sides agreed to “exchange scheduling proposals in the near future” for that dialogue and for talks on extending New START, a 2010 accord that requires them to cut deployed strategic nuclear forces to 1,550 warheads and 700 delivery systems by Feb. 5 2018. It expires in 2021, but can be extended by five years if the U.S. and Russian presidents agree. | 1 |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said on Wednesday that he was “not going anywhere,” denying news reports that he was considering leaving his post. “I’m not going anywhere,” Tillerson told reporters at the State Department. Asked how long he would stay on, Tillerson turned and smiled, saying, “As long as the president lets me.” Asked about his relationship with President Donald Trump, Tillerson said simply, “Good.” The speculation over Tillerson’s remaining in Trump’s cabinet came after days of Trump publicly attacking Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Trump said Sessions had “taken a VERY weak position” on investigating his former opponent in the 2016 presidential election, Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, over her use of a private email server. On Monday, Trump called Sessions “beleaguered.” | 1 |
MOSCOW (Reuters) - President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday that a military strike against North Korea designed to destroy its nuclear and missile program might not succeed because Pyongyang could have hidden military facilities that nobody knows about. Russia is strongly opposed to the idea of such a strike, an idea U.S. President Donald Trump has floated, favoring a mixture of diplomacy and economic incentives instead. But Putin, speaking at an energy forum in Moscow, mused on the subject on Wednesday, making it clear he had serious doubts about the military efficacy of such a move, as well as other political and moral concerns. Can a global strike against North Korea be launched to disarm it? Yes. Will it achieve its aim? We don t know. Who knows what they have there and where. Nobody knows with 100 percent certainty as it s a closed country. Putin said Russia had more reason than most to be concerned by Pyongyang s missile program, saying that North Korea s nuclear testing range was located just 200 kilometers (124.27 miles) from the Russian border. The Russian leader also reiterated his call for diplomacy to be allowed to run its course and for all sides to dial down the bellicose rhetoric. He also said he thought Trump was listening to Russia s views on the crisis. More sanctions were the road to nowhere, Putin told the same forum, saying around 40,000 North Korean citizens were currently working in Russia. Such workers are known to regularly send back part of their wages to the North Korean authorities. | 1 |
BEIJING (Reuters) - China and the United States have created a “miracle” as companies from the world’s two largest economies signed deals worth some $253.4 billion over the past two days, China’s Commerce Minister Zhong Shan said at a briefing on Thursday. “This is truly a miracle,” said Zhong on the second day of U.S. President Donald Trump’s state visit to China. | 0 |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday said so-called “chain migration,” a term often used to refer to citizens or permanent residents sponsoring relatives or the clustering of certain immigrants in the same areas, cannot be included in any immigration legislation. “CHAIN MIGRATION cannot be allowed to be part of any legislation on Immigration!” Trump wrote on Twitter. The statement comes after Trump stunned many fellow Republicans this week by negotiating with top congressional Democratic leaders over the DACA program protecting the children of undocumented immigrants. | 1 |
FERGUSON PART II: Police are having a difficult time investigating because of the rocks being thrown at them. Baltimore and Ferguson are one in the same. They re organized by radical leftist groups, funded by radical leftist organizations andAt least two people were shot in separate incidents in Ferguson, Missouri, on late Tuesday and early Wednesday as hundreds of demonstrators gathered in support of protests in Baltimore.More gunshots. pic.twitter.com/qpqmVatFM5 Antonio French (@AntonioFrench) April 29, 2015 Police are having a difficult time investigating because of the rocks being thrown at them, said Jeff Small, a spokesman for the city of Ferguson. At this point police are not sure if the (shootings are) linked to the protest or not. St. Louis Alderman Antonio French posted video on his Twitter account. Multiple gunshots can be heard as people flee in panic. Via: CNN Happening now in #Ferguson pic.twitter.com/GXHUXyyY2L Antonio French (@AntonioFrench) April 29, 2015 | 1 |
Feds warn NYC officials about possible al Qaeda attack 11/04/2016
NEW YORK POST
New York City law enforcement authorities are on high alert after receiving a warning by the feds about a possible attack by al Qaeda on the eve of Election Day, sources said.
US intelligence officials alerted joint terrorism task forces of the threat, which also included Texas and Virginia — though specific sites targeted for Monday in the three states were not mentioned, a federal source told The Post.
Mayor Bill de Blasio said Friday he had learned of the threat several days ago during classified briefings.
“We are still very much assessing the credibility. It is not at all clear how credible this is,” de Blasio told WNYC’s Brian Lehrer on his weekly radio show. “We’re certainly in a vigilant position.”
Hizzoner said the NYPD is planning an “extraordinary” police presence for Tuesday, when Americans go to the polls.
“For the first time in memory there will be two presidential campaigns having their victory celebrations in New York City on Tuesday night,” he said, quickly correcting himself that only one candidate will be celebrating.
Donald Trump, the Republican nominee, will be at the New York Hilton Midtown on Sixth Avenue, while Hillary Clinton, his Democratic counterpart, will be at the Javits Convention Center across town on 11th Avenue.
Police also will be heavily deployed for the New York City Marathon on Sunday, de Blasio said.
Meanwhile, Gov. Andrew Cuomo declined to confirm the threat Friday but also noted the high state of alert for Election Day.
“We have more state police, more National Guard, more soldiers on duty than ever before,” he said. “So the bad news is New York is often a threat. The good news is we’ve been dealing with this now for over a decade and we have prepared for it.”
The NYPD and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey said they had been alerted to the possible attacks.
“We are aware of the information. We have been working with the FBI through the Joint Terrorism Task Force and our Counterterrorism and Intelligence Bureaus,” the NYPD said in a statement.
“We continue to encourage anyone with any information that could be relevant to the safety of our city to contact law enforcement,” the department said.
The Port Authority — which operates airports, tunnels and bridges in and around the Big Apple — said it too was prepared.
“We are continuing the high level of security we have had in place at all of our facilities for many months,” spokesman Steve Coleman told The Post.
The FBI did not comment specifically about the threat against the three states, but said counterterrorism and Homeland Security authorities “remain vigilant and well-postured” to handle attacks.
“The FBI, working with our federal, state and local counterparts, shares and assesses intelligence on a daily basis and will continue to work closely with law enforcement and intelligence community partners to identify and disrupt any potential threat to public safety,” an FBI official said.
Friday’s threat followed a report by NBC News that the US government believes hackers from Russia or other countries may try to unleash cyberattacks to wreak havoc ahead of Election Day.
An effort coordinated by the White House and the Department of Homeland Security — and including the CIA, the National Security Agency and other elements of the Department of Defense — is being conducted to avert attacks, NBC News reported. | 1 |
Donald Trump is attacking Obamacare instead of the greedy insurance companies who are jacking up the price of coverage, and he got a severe beat down for it.Trump has been talking about repealing Obamacare throughout his campaign and he continued to do so on Twitter Tuesday morning by blaming the program itself for the price increase of insurance premiums.People must remember that ObamaCare just doesn t work, and it is not affordable 116% increases (Arizona). Bill Clinton called it CRAZY Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 3, 2017He then took a statement made by Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton out of context and calling Obamacare lousy healthcare. The Democrat Governor.of Minnesota said The Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare) is no longer affordable! And, it is lousy healthcare. Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 3, 2017But Trump is ignoring the real culprit of these price increases. Because it s not the government raising the prices, it s the greedy insurance companies.The reason the cost of Obamacare is being hiked up is because insurance companies care more about profits than they do about people. Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota even pulled its most popular insurance plan from the marketplace in order to force people to buy the more expensive packages.But Trump would rather strip millions of Americans of their health insurance instead of blasting the insurance companies. And Americans slammed Trump on Twitter for it.He also called you crazy, @realDonaldTrump. And he didn t want to scrap O-care, unlike you: he wanted to reform it. https://t.co/rZsvaY3XR1 Evan O Connell (@evanoconnell) January 3, 2017@realDonaldTrump also Bill Clinton: Donald Trump doesn t know much Matt Haig (@matthaig1) January 3, 2017@realDonaldTrump Just resign so people suffering and struggling in America don t suffer and struggle more with you in charge. #EndTheFarce The Socialist Party (@OfficialSPGB) January 3, 2017@realDonaldTrump Republicans hate Obamacare so much they plan to keep parts of it for four years https://t.co/qYNQKcaelD Justin Hendrix (@justinhendrix) January 3, 2017@realDonaldTrump and most Americans want to keep large parts of it. https://t.co/c7EZymhdve Justin Hendrix (@justinhendrix) January 3, 2017@realDonaldTrump Yet it helped millions who never could get coverage before. I guess that couldn t fit into your tweet. Tony Posnanski (@tonyposnanski) January 3, 2017But how will you fix it @realDonaldTrump? Can t just leave millions without healthcare. Share your vision not just your opinion please Uncle Louie G (@UncleLouie) January 3, 2017@realDonaldTrump so what s your solution then? Leave 22 million people uninsured? Jesse B-H (@mrjessebh) January 3, 2017@realDonaldTrump Thanks to the ACA people with preexisting conditions can now receive healthcare. Jordan Uhl (@JordanUhl) January 3, 2017@realDonaldTrump Do you plan to replace ObamaCare with the if something happens it happens plan? pic.twitter.com/7jOaJFuGrw RIP My Mentions (@TimDuffy) January 3, 2017Seriously, it s the insurance companies we should all be enraged at. Not the program itself. The program has done a lot of good. The mistake was trusting the insurance companies. That s why we should just pass universal healthcare in this country so that we pay for our healthcare with our tax dollars instead of paying insurance companies every month for plans they ll only raise the cost of when they feel like it.Featured image via Drew Angerer/Getty Images | 0 |
(Reuters) - Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump wants to build a wall on the border with Mexico, boost spending on the military and slap trade tariffs on China. Here are those positions and others the real estate developer, who has never held elective office, has put forward to convince the American people that he should be the next U.S. chief executive: Trump has proposed collapsing the current seven income tax brackets to three with rates of 12 percent, 25 percent and 33 percent. The current top rate is 39.6 percent. He also would eliminate the estate tax, and slash the corporate rate to 15 percent from 35 percent. His plan would allow families to deduct childcare costs from income taxes and offer further support through an existing tax credit for lower-income people. He would also provide six weeks of paid maternity leave for new mothers through temporary unemployment insurance. He has proposed paying for it by cracking down on fraud in the unemployment insurance program and through other changes to the system. Trump has proposed increasing spending on the U.S. military and infrastructure but says he would reduce spending on other categories by 1 percent each year. However, the Social Security and Medicare programs for the elderly would be exempt from cuts. Some economists questioned whether Trump’s ideas for reducing spending would be enough to make up for major tax cuts, particularly since many Republicans believe Medicare and Social Security must be revamped to control government outlays. Trump launched his presidential campaign with his vow to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexican border and has said he would insist that the United States’ southern neighbor pay for it. He has promised to triple the number of immigration enforcement officers, hire more Border Patrol agents and boost penalties for overstaying visas. Trump has said he would prioritize the deportation of people in the United States illegally who have committed crimes and of those who have arrived recently or overstayed visas. He would require people seeking legal status to leave and reapply. Trump said that after his immigration goals are achieved, he would determine what to do about people still in the country illegally. Trump has proposed ideological screening, or “extreme vetting,” of people coming to the United States to determine whether they share American values. He has proposed a ban on immigration from countries where vetting would be difficult. Initially, he proposed a temporary ban on all Muslims from entering the United States. Critics, including some of Trump’s defeated rivals for the Republican presidential nomination, said the initial plan to ban all Muslims was discriminatory and likely unconstitutional. Others have since said his “extreme vetting” idea might not be feasible. Trump has promised a “dismantling” of the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial reform law enacted following the financial crisis, but has given few details. The Republican Party’s platform calls for reinstating Glass-Steagall, the 1930s-era law that forced the separation of investment banks from deposit-taking institutions. Trump’s former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, said in July that his campaign backed this change. Republican lawmakers have so far been unable to undo many of their most-despised pieces of the Dodd-Frank law, and many in their ranks oppose a return to Glass-Steagall. Trump has offered few details about his plans to combat Islamic State but has said he would “knock the hell out of” the militant group. He says he is keeping the details of strategy a secret so as not to disclose them to the enemy. Trump has said if he wins, he would give U.S. generals 30 days after he takes office on Jan. 20, 2017 to propose their own plans. Trump has said he opposes accepting refugees fleeing violence in Syria, and instead has said he would create “safe zones” there, which he says would be funded by Gulf states. President Barack Obama has said a safe zone in Syria would require a large U.S. military commitment, something unlikely to be popular with Americans weary of lengthy wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Trump has said he would have a “very, very good” relationship with Russia. He has said he believed Russian President Vladimir Putin was a better leader than Obama. Trump has said could work with Russia to combat Islamic State. He also said he would look into recognizing Crimea, seized from Ukraine in 2014, as Russian territory and lifting sanctions on Russia imposed by Western nations for what they called an illegal land grab. Trump has criticized the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, saying some U.S. allies have not met their defense commitments. In July, he said if Russia attacked a NATO member, he would consider whether the country has paid up before providing defense. NATO leaders say the sanctions against Russia are key to persuading it to change that country’s behavior in Ukraine, where it has backed ethnic Russian separatists, and that the alliance has long been focused on fighting international terrorism. Trump has made criticism of China’s trade practices a central campaign theme. He has vowed to formally label China a currency manipulator, impose tariffs on Chinese imports and bring unfair trade cases as punishment for what he believes are improper subsidies. Trump has called for a stronger U.S. military presence in the South China Sea. He has said he would pull the United States out of the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP. Though the trade agreement does not include China, Trump has said he is concerned it could try to enter it through the “back door.” TPP supporters, including Obama, have said China hoped to reach its own deal that would make it the leader in Asian trade. They have said the pact would enable the United States to take a leadership role in the region instead of China. | 0 |
SAN ANTONIO (Reuters) - The mayor and city manager of a south Texas town that bills itself as the “spinach capital of the world,” were arrested on Thursday on charges including strong-arming contractors into paying bribes in exchange for doing business, authorities said. A federal indictment claims five current and former city officials of Crystal City demanded payments from contractors so they could pay off personal gambling bills, bar tabs, car loans, and other expenses. A businessman was also charged for running an illegal gambling operation. The Federal Bureau of Investigation and Texas Rangers padlocked the City Hall for Crystal City, with a population of about 7,500 people as part of a probe into corruption where city officials are also accused of dipping into city coffers for their own personal gain, law enforcement officials said. None of those arrested, who include Mayor Ricardo Lopez, made statements after being taken into custody. If convicted, each faces up to 10 years in a federal prison, prosecutors said. City Manager William Jonas, according to the indictment, was elevated to that position from city attorney to reward him for procuring bribes, the indictment said. Businessman Ngoc Tri Nguyen, known as “Mister T,” is charged with paying bribes in exchange for opening an illegal gambling room, and getting city officials to use their muscle to shut down a competing business, it said. Crystal City is known for a quirky tourist attraction of a large statue of the spinach-eating cartoon character Popeye in front of City Hall which celebrates the area’s history as a spinach producer. It holds an annual spinach festival. “Public corruption is one of the most insidious crimes confronting our communities today,” FBI Special Agent in Charge Christopher Combs said in a statement. “It contributes to the cynicism we are seeing from members of the public who often feel as though all politicians are corrupt.” The arrests took place without incident and the FBI also seized documents at a San Antonio office in San Antonio, which is leased to Jonas, said FBI Special Agent Michelle Lee. Jonas, a San Antonio attorney, is a former prominent Texas Republican lobbyist who is also facing state charges of assault after police said he is suspected of pushing a woman who attempted to enter the City Hall using the wrong entrance. | 1 |
This biggest failure of the mainstream media was their inability to police themselves. From partisan dishonesty to outright lies they have destroyed their own credibility, and amazingly, now they want to be the internet s truth task force Neil Clark RT OpEdgeThe Oxford Dictionaries have named post-truth as the word of the year. Fake news and post-truth politics have been blamed for both the Brexit vote in the UK and the victory of Donald Trump in America.It seems the uneducated plebs are falling for fake news they read in new media and the lies of dreadful rabble-rousing populist politicians who are relying on people s emotions, instead of objective facts, to get votes. It s all terribly worrying and poses a dire threat to Western civilization as we know it.Well, forgive me for laughing out loud. For this establishment fake news / post-truth politics concern is the funniest thing I ve come across in politics since Lord Jenkins of Hillhead, the very grand Chancellor of the University of Oxford, repeatedly called distinguished Sheldonian guest Mikhail Gorbachev, Mr. Brezhnev. Why is it so hilarious? Because the people and the outlets warning of the dangers of fake news and post-truth politics have been the biggest peddlers of fake news and post-truth politics out there. It s like receiving lectures on the immorality of bootlegging from Al Capone or being told to sit up straight by the Hunchback of Notre Dame.Without a doubt the best, or rather the worst example of fake news in the last 25 years or so, was the neocon lie that Iraq had WMDs in 2002/3. That wasn t peddled by obscure bloggers and new media, but by mainstream Western politicians, from mainstream political parties, establishment-approved experts on the BBC/ITV/CNN, etc., and Op-ed columnists in serious and respectable media outlets.@georgegalloway @Independent Tony Blair is a lying warmongering post-truth politician, of course he hates Corbyn. pic.twitter.com/6ZD4FWudyI Antony Warren (@Lovejoy999) November 20, 2016There was absolutely no evidence that Saddam possessed WMDs. The story was complete and utter BS. Yet this fake news dominated the headlines for months in 2002/3 and led to an illegal invasion in which many people lost their lives. Unlike today s manufactured fake news hysteria the Iraq war was no joke. An entire country was destroyed.And guess what? Those who pushed the Iraq has WMDs line are now coming on television to express their concern over fake news !John Hilley notes The BBC even had Alastair Campbell (Tony Blair s spin doctor), in the studio defending the term post-truth as a way of exposing the dangers of fake news.' Campbell stated: It s acknowledging that politics, which has always been rough, has moved to a different phase where politicians who lie now appear to get rewarded for it. (BBC2 Jeremy Vine Show, 16/11/2016).What might Orwell have said about Campbell, master spinner and Blairite warmonger, sitting inside the BBC being rewarded for his thoughts on post-truth and fake news? Hilley asks.Once again, I m sure old George is spinning in his grave in Sutton Courtenay.Then there s that serial warmonger Bernard-Henri Levy. The Sunday Telegraph today told us in its headlines: Leading French philosopher: Marine Le Pen may win election as people have lost interest in whether politicians tell the truth. Oh, the irony!Because if the French people really have lost interest in whether politicians tell the truth, Henri-Levy and his fellow liberal interventionist regime changers have got a lot to do with it. Think back to the war against Libya, which the leading French philosopher lobbied hard for. To sell the war to the Western public, we were told that Muammar Gaddafi was about to commit a Srebrenica-style massacre in Benghazi. Media Lens noted the claims that were made at the time.But again it was a load of rollocks. Five years after Libya, like Iraq before it, had been destroyed by Western interventionists, a report of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the House of Commons declared: the proposition that Muammar Gaddafi would have ordered the massacre of civilians in Benghazi was not supported by the available evidence. It wasn t the only claim made about Libya by Western politicians that was not supported by the available evidence. In February 2011, UK Foreign Secretary William Hague insisted that he had seen information which suggested that Gaddafi was on his way to Venezuela. An unnamed diplomat said that this was credible information. But it wasn t. It was the same old fake news that we get every time the Western elites are trying to achieve regime change. In April 2011 we heard that the devilish Gaddafi (who had not, after all, fled to Caracas), was supplying his troops with Viagra to encourage mass rape. REVEALED: The Real Fake News List https://t.co/1CkOSe25LU pic.twitter.com/lqb9Uze1pi Ron Paul (@RonPaul) November 19, 2016 Gaddafi s security forces and other groups in the region are trying to divide the people by using violence against women and rape as tools of war, and the United States condemns this in the strongest possible terms, declared Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, whose supporters are now complaining about post-truth politics.Again, no evidence was put forward for the Viagra/mass rape claim and, surprise, surprise, none was ever found.A clear pattern can be discerned. To get public support for its illegal regime change wars, the Western establishment energetically promotes a number of fake news stories. These stories are usually reported unquestioningly in respectable outlets and are regularly cited by neocon/liberal interventionist commentators as a reason for taking action against the target state. Anonymous sources feature heavily in these stories, which like MI6 s Operation Mass Appeal are often planted by the security services.Meanwhile, people s emotions are shamelessly played upon by the something must be done brigade of liberal laptop bombardiers, the same crowd, note well, who accuse populist politicians of ignoring objective facts and playing on people s emotions.The fake news continues while the regime change operation is ongoing. After its over, we re all meant to forget about the false stories we were fed and focus on the next New Hitler who needs to be dealt with. In 2011, it was the despicable Gaddafi, now it s the despicable Assad and the despicable Putin who we re told: have to be stopped. Every time 'MSM' report US-UK government claims of a perceived 'responsibility to protect' Iraqis, Libyans and Syrians, it's fake news. Media Lens (@medialens) November 19, 2016The term post-truth politics implies there was a time when politics was truthful. I doubt if that ever was the case, but certainly in the last 25 years, thanks to the influence of neocons and liberal interventionists , the lies have been off the scale. Remember the Niger uranium forgeries? And Saddam s horrific People Shredder ?And before the Iraq war, we had the humanitarian NATO bombing of Yugoslavia, where again fake news dominated. US Defense Secretary William Cohen claimed about 100,000 military-aged Kosovan Albanians were missing they may have been murdered. As John Pilger reminded us, Kosovo, the site of a genocide that never was, is now a violent free market in drugs and prostitution. It wasn t the only lurid claim that was made to sell the war. But again the genocide and hundreds of thousands killed stories were false, as a UN court itself ruled in 2001.Fake news also featured heavily in the neocon campaign to get Iran sanctioned for an entirely unproven nuclear weapons program. It s dominated the coverage of recent events in Ukraine, with Russia s non-existent invasion of Ukraine routinely referred to as a fact. The conflict in Syria too has been marked by fake news, and theories being reported as if they re 100 percent proven. How many times have you read that Assad gassed his own people at Ghouta in 2013, even though we still don t know for sure who carried out the attack?If it s official enemies we re talking about fact-checking and citing sources isn t all that important for those who pounce on a mere typo if it s an anti-war writer who s making a claim.Now, the same people who have disseminated fake news for so long and who are still, even after Iraq and Libya, embedded in the West s political and media establishments, are lashing out because they no longer control the narrative as they used to. The public is getting their news from a much wider variety of sources and voting for populist, i.e., non-neocon/liberal interventionist-anointed candidates/parties at elections.Instead of admitting that it s their fake news and post-truth politics which has caused people to switch off from establishment media and to stop voting for status quo candidates, the endless war lobby has the effrontery to accuse others of the things they have been guilty of.Concern over fake news and post-truth politics from the West s endless war propagandists?It s hard to think of a better example of what psychologists call projection. Follow Neil Clark @NeilClark66READ MORE ABOUT MSM LIES AT: 21st Century Wire MSM Watch Files | 1 |
It s good to know there are a few Hollywood celebrities who haven t bought into Obama s false messiah B.S During an appearance before the U.K. s House of Lords on Tuesday, Hollywood actress and human rights advocate Angelina Jolie spoke out about how Islamic State group militants use sexual violence as a means to perpetuate terrorism and about how we need strong leadership (unlike that of President Barack Obama) to overcome this threat.Jolie s excoriating speech laid bare just how anemic and pitiful Obama s response to ISIS has been, and how ISIS is being allowed to build a society based on rape, violence, and of course Shariah law. They are dictating it as policy beyond what we have seen before, Jolie said. They are saying, We should do this, this is the right way to build a society, so we tell you to rape. Islamic militants are basically building a civilization not focused on growing food or educating children, but rather on kidnapping, enslaving and raping women, to perpetuate the endless cycle of terrorism, and Obama has allowed these barbaric radical Muslims to thrive. The most aggressive terrorist group in the world today knows what we know, knows that it is a very effective weapon and they are using it as a centrepoint of their terror and their way of destroying communities and families, and attacking and dehumanising, Jolie explained. For over 10 years, I had been visiting the field and meeting families and survivors of sexual violence who felt for so long that their voices simply didn t mater, they weren t heard, and they carried a great shame, Jolie continued.She added that we need a very, very strong response at this time to stop this horrific behavior. Of course, we have been calling on Obama to make that strong response for years, but he s far more interested in race baiting back home than dealing a death blow to radical Islam.Jolie does have some measure of expertise in the matters she s speaking of. As she told the Houses of Parliament, she has been campaigning for Middle Eastern victims of sexual abuse for over a decade (H/T The Gateway Pundit).Below is an excerpt of Jolie s address, this part dealing with some of her encounters with young rape victims.https://youtu.be/KBmHnzjgwSkIt seems like Jolie is someone whose words President Obama should heed. Will our president actually take the time though to listen, learn and adjust his failed strategy against what he once referred to as the JV team? Only time will tell but we wouldn t want to put any money on it. Via: Conservative Tribune | 1 |
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - A Mexican official widened a tax evasion complaint against U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday, the same day the new American leader signed a decree to speed up construction of a border wall between the two countries. The complaint was originally filed in October alleging the Trump Organization and Los Angeles real estate firm Irongate did not pay federal taxes, or have proper building permits for an ultimately failed luxury condominium project in the Mexican border city of Tijuana. The complaint was broadened on Wednesday to allege Trump violated Mexican law by, as a foreigner, seeking to buy property within 31 miles (50 km) of the U.S. border to develop the Trump Ocean Resort Baja project, the official Jaime Martinez, who filed the complaint as a private citizen, told reporters. The filing was also expanded to question whether Trump was issued a visa in relation with the project, in compliance with Mexican immigration laws, Martinez said. Mexico’s attorney general’s office said it was investigating the complaint but did not provide further detail. “The truth is that he did not pay taxes, the truth is he did not pay for construction or land use in Tijuana... and all of this constitutes a series of criminal acts,” said Martinez, head of the federally-run Commission for Dialogue with Indigenous People of Mexico. The press offices of the Trump Organization and the Trump administration did not immediately reply to emails seeking request for comment. Asked about the timing of the announcement, Martinez, a former member of Congress, said the complaint was widened in response to Trump’s “aggressive attitude” in signing an executive order to expedite construction of a wall along the 2,000 mile (3,220 km) U.S. southern border. The Tijuana condominium project folded in 2009 and its failure led investors who lost millions of dollars to file a lawsuit against Trump in a U.S. court. In a 2012 interview with the Los Angeles Times, Trump said Irongate was to blame for the project’s demise and while he licensed his name to it, he was not involved in its building. According to the expanded complaint seen on Wednesday, that lawsuit was settled in late 2013. | 1 |
You've probably seen this chart.
It uses analysis from VoteView to show how the House has grown more polarized over time. Democrats in the House have become more liberal; Republicans have become much more conservative.
You may also have seen this chart -- but if you haven't, you probably at least are familiar with the concept.
It shows the ranges of weekly approval ratings for President Obama over the course of his administration. In other words, each time 82 percent of Democrats approve of Obama, the 82 percent bar gets a little higher. For the most part, opinions of Obama haven't changed much among Democrats or Republicans; his overall approval rating is usually a function of how independents feel about him.
Obama isn't the first president to see such polarization in his approval ratings. The first president to do so was the guy before him, George W. Bush. Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton each had some polarization in their second terms, but it wasn't nearly as wide a gap.
Which leads us to a natural question: How does the polarization of Congress -- which is a measure of the behavior of members of Congress -- compare with the polarization of approval of the president, a measure of public opinion?
That's a question we can answer.
Over time, the gap between the political leaning of Republican and Democratic caucuses on Capitol Hill has widened steadily (though not continuously). This compares DW-NOMINATE scores from VoteView, which is a measure of how liberal or conservative each member of Congress is against a baseline. The figures below essentially measure the distance between the two lines in the first graph above.
Over that same period, opinions of the president have similarly widened -- again, with some fits and starts.
There are two lines here, one using the first Gallup approval rating of the new year and the other averaging the ratings over the year. You can see how attitudes shift; the gap plummets as a president becomes equally popular or unpopular with each party.
Anyway, this suggests that as Congress has gotten more polarized, so too have opinions of the presidents.
But there's a clearer way to look at this. Plotting the gap in how Democrats and Republicans look at the president on one axis and the gap between the two parties in Congress on the other, you can see clearly how both the former and latter have grown more extreme. (The higher and further to the right a dot, the greater the polarization.)
In other words, this polarization isn't only a function of Congress and gerrymandering. There's been a broader polarization that's taken place, reflected in how each party views the president.
What it doesn't tell us is the cause. As complicated as these data are, this was the easier part of the analysis. | 1 |
(Reuters) - A tree trimming company has been handed the largest penalty imposed in a United States immigration case, totaling $95 million, after pleading guilty to employing illegal immigrants, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said. Immigration reform is a major political issue in the U.S., with President Donald Trump saying he will crack down on illegal immigrants and build a wall between the United States and Mexico in order to reduce illegal border crossings. Asplundh Tree Experts, Co., which trims trees and clears brush for power and gas lines across the country, hired employees who provided fake identification documents from 2010 to 2014, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Philadelphia said. The prosecutor said on Thursday that Asplundh’s management were “willfully blind”, while supervisors and general foremen hired illegal immigrants through word of mouth referrals. “This decentralized model tacitly perpetuated fraudulent hiring practices that, in turn, maximized productivity and profit,” it said. The company’s chairman and CEO Scott Asplundh said in a statement that it has taken steps to improve its hiring practices, including reviewing the identification of all employees. “We accept responsibility for the charges as outlined, and we apologize to our customers, associates and all other stakeholders for what has occurred,” he said. | 1 |
Corey Lewandowski was not prepared to be a joke.But that s what happened when he claimed that Mexico will pay for the wall Donald Trump wants to build along the southern border while speaking to a group of students at the University of Oxford in England.For some reason, the administrators of the distinguished university welcomed the Trump stooge while a protest against fascists raged outside on campus.At some point, a female student asked Lewandowski how he can defend Trump despite his bigotry and lies even after he claims to want unity but hires white nationalists to serve in his administration. How do you have so little self-respect that you can stand here and defend a candidate who s not only a bigot but a liar who doesn t have the courtesy to follow through, she asked.Lewandowski responded by being an asshole and then failed to answer the question by talking about how Mexico is going to pay for the wall. Well, the good news is I m seated doing that, so I don t have to stand, so I appreciate that. But here s what it comes down to: Mexico will pay for the wall, and it s very simple. At that point, all the students in attendance broke out in laughter because they know full well that Mexico isn t going to be paying for a single inch of Trump s wall.Here s the video via YouTube.In fact, it will be Americans who pay for it and Trump has admitted as much.During his Grievance-burg address in Gettysburg last month, Trump mentioned the wall while talking about his plan to end illegal immigration. The End Illegal Immigration act fully funds the construction of a wall on our southern border, Trump said. Don t worry about it. Remember I said that Mexico is paying for the wall. However, he then added this remark. With the full understanding that the country of Mexico will be reimbursing the United States for the full cost of such a wall, okay? Here s the video of that via YouTube. The remarks begin at the 32:00 mark.The cost of Trump s wall is estimated to be close to $25 billion which would come out of the pockets of American taxpayers because Donald Trump is a con man who has convinced his dumbass supporters that they are getting free stuff.So, Trump is now humiliating this country by sending his cronies out to other nations to demonstrate just how much of a laughingstock America has become because he won the election.Mission accomplished.Featured image via screenshot | 0 |
Hillary was seen passing up a bottle of water in the midst of another one of her coughing fits in front of her press cheerleaders on her new campaign plane yesterday. Passing up a bottle of water in the middle of a coughing fit would seem strange, but what was even more strange is that she passed up a bottle of water for a glass of water that was handed to her by someone on her staff from behind the curtain. Pretty much everything Hillary does is done from behind a curtain so the idea that Hillary is likely hiding a serious illness like say .Parkinson s Disease is not really all that far fetched.DOES HILLARY HAVE PARKINSON S DISEASE?As a neurological disorder, Parkinson s disease (PD) has been shown to affect motor skills in the limbs, inhibit muscle coordination, and sometimes contribute to dysphagia.1 Dysphagia is the medical term for difficulty swallowing. Thickened liquids are often used in the management of dysphagia to improve bolus control and to help prevent aspiration. A range of starches and gums has historically been used to thicken liquids. Although thickened liquids improve swallow safety, they appear to have a great potential for unintended physiological consequences.What the heck did Hillary just cough up into her glass during her speech in Cleveland?https://twitter.com/NolteNC/status/773264547813744648Meanwhile a very interesting addition was spotted in Hillary Clinton s motorcade yesterday. There s a probably a perfectly good explanation for an ambulance being added to her motorcade. Maybe it s in case Hillary falls off the stage. She has been stumbling quite a bit and has been seen grabbing on to railings, chairs, tables, or pretty much anything she can get her hands on that helps to keep her upright. But it s only her health and she is only running for President of the most powerful nation on earth so, what difference does that make right?Watch the great coverage of Hillary s pathetic rally in Cleveland yesterday by this young InfoWars reporter. The ambulance appears at the 6:40 mark:In case you missed it Watch Hillary spit something eeeeewww!back into her glass of of water and whatever else is mixed in with the water: | 0 |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump will host South Korean President Moon Jae-in at the White House on June 29-30 to advance economic cooperation and discuss ways of strengthening the two countries’ “ironclad” alliance, the White House said on Tuesday. “The leaders will also coordinate on North Korea-related issues, including countering the growing North Korean nuclear and missile threats,” it said in a statement. | 0 |
WEST BEND, Wis. (Reuters) - Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump said if elected he would force top administration officials to sign a pledge not to accept speaking fees from corporations with registered lobbyists or foreign countries for five years after leaving office. The pledge - a rare policy pronouncement from the New York real estate mogul - was part of his criticism of Democratic rival Hillary Clinton who, along with her husband, former president Bill Clinton, have accepted millions of dollars in speaking fees since he left office. | 0 |
The number of Muslim registered voters is up 324,000 since the last Presidential election. As our State Department continues to seed small and large communities across America, expect to see more and more of these results. Speaking of America, does anyone see an American flag anywhere in the room during Ilhan Omar s acceptance speech in her native language? Does the idea of Sharia Law still seem like a far-fetched idea in America? Political jobs held by two veteran Democratic politicians have been outsourced to two young immigrants, underscoring the growing impact of mass immigration on white-collar Americans. The two Democrats who have lost their jobs to immigrants are both experienced, established and liberal members of the state s version of the Democratic party: 22-term Rep. Phyllis Kahn and 10-term Rep. Joe Mullery, both from Minneapolis.They were beaten in state primaries on August 9 by two political newcomers: Somali-born, hijab-wearing Ilhan Omar and Thailand-born Hmong immigrant, Fue Lee. The primaries were arranged by the state s Democratic Farmer Labor Party.Ilhan Omar s website attributed her win to immigrant Somalis: More than 250 volunteers and 450 individual donors supported Ilhan s campaign. I am so proud that the majority of contributions to my campaign are from members of the Somali community who believe in my leadership, the site said. Somalis in other states supported her, including Washington state and Ohio.Kahn was actually beaten by two Somalis Omar and Mohamud Noor. She had only 1,726 votes to Omar s 2,404 votes. The second Somali candidate, Noor, edged Kahn with 1,738 votes. Compared to 2014, primary turnout rose by almost 40 percent in the 60B district, which includes most of the University of Minnesota. | 1 |
CNN host Erin Burnett started out her segment on the threat of a nuclear attack by North Korea by explaining to her (very small) audience the danger Hawaii could face if nuclear North Korea, (the same nation Obama left ignored for 8 years), decided to strike Hawaii: Guam of course, is not the only island within striking distance of North Korea. Another potential target within Kim Jong Un s range is Hawaii, which is where Sarah Sidner is live tonight. She s inside a bunker in Honolulu which houses the emergency center s state warning point. Of course, there was no mention in Burnett s dramatic warning to her viewers of how Obama ignored the the very real nuclear threat that North Korea posed to the United States, or that President Trump was left to deal with a serious issue that President Bill Clinton bragged about handling while he was in office.Sidner went on to explain the very real threat that North Korea posed to the island of Hawaii and how Hawaiian officials there have been preparing for (here s the magic number) at least seven months (which, not surprisingly is about exactly the time that President Trump was inaugurated).Sidner then went on to explain that if a nuclear attack did take place on the island that not everyone would be affected. She explained to viewers in Hawaii, that if a nuclear missile was about to strike, they should get out of their cars and move to the inside of a building or their home, or find a cave. Find a cave?Watch the exchange here: Missile launch from North Korea to Hawaii is 20 mins. To create fear, @CNN reports from an underground bunker. https://t.co/Ylr5jbnk8k A.D. WHITMAN (@AD_WHITMAN) August 9, 2017 | 1 |
Patrick Henningsen 21st Century WireToday America will choose its next president. What can you say that hasn t already been said in this, the most over-analyzed political contest in history?No matter which side of this salacious Vaudeville ticket you are on, everyone will agree this has been the most raucous and divisive contest in electoral history. No matter who wins today, half the nation will be in pain, not least of all the Founding Fathers who have been rolling in their graves for the last 18 months.More than ever, America is a nation divided. An increasing number of people are now completely immersed in hyper-active social media environments, and so it s very easy to get caught up in one s respective partisan echo chambers; our way is the best way, our side is right, the other side is bad for America, we are the true party of the people etc. Many individuals simply will not venture off of their assigned party or pseudo-ideological reservations, much less talk to anyone whose views seem to oppose theirs. In public, partisan Americans will only huddle with those who share the same team colors, and in private each flees to his or her prefabricated partisan media outlet or social networking group. This virtual political matrix is now systematically divided in this way. There is nothing in between: no middle ground, no real commons, and no respite from the onslaught of partisan media. Herein lies the fundamental problem in 2016 politics and why the fall-out from this election will be ongoing long after the results are announced tomorrow morning.To make matters even worse, this election season has featured two highly flawed candidates in Donald J Trump and Hillary Clinton. Many commentators contend that these are the two worst US presidential candidates ever. Essentially it boils down to Mickey Mouse vs Cruella de Vil.Let s quickly profile the two candidates:Since the 1990 s the Clintons have been synonymous with one word: scandal. The 90 s was a dodgy decade for the First Family: Bill, Monica, Whitewater, the Arkancide epidemic, and selling White House s Lincoln Bedroom for 50 grand a night. Take your pick. None of this has helped Hillary in terms of public trust, where she s polling even lower than Donald Trump. On top of all the old Clinton baggage, you have two huge new scandals originating from her tenure as Obama s Secretary of State including becoming the latest member of her family to lie under oath to Congress (way to go Bill), this time over Hillary s private email server cover-up, and multiple pay-to-play corruption allegations at the Clinton Foundation.As result, Hillary Clinton embodies the avatar of Cruella de Vil Her campaign breaks down like this: Fighting for Woman and Children If you support Hillary Clinton then you believe your candidate represents the ascendency of the female species, and especially all women who have been held back by the cruel customs of an American patriarchal society. You also recognize her brand: Clinton. She s the wife of the 42nd President of the United States, Bill Clinton, which leads you directly into the second half of the campaign pitch: She has the experience, having been around the White House for 8 years. Since the beginning of her first campaign in 2008, Clinton the woman was the main identifier and the primary reason why she should be president. Instead it was the first black President, so she had to wait 8 years. At the age of 69, she s past her prime, but she d still be the first woman president and therefore, we re told, an inspiration to women everywhere as the marketing slogan says. She is also the champion of all minorities, as well as the poor which are also traditional Democratic Party staples, although the poor point is hard to square, seeing that the Clinton s have amassed a net worth in the hundreds of millions in the short space of 15 years primarily by monetizing their time in public office through enormous speaking fees and scraping off expenses and lifestyle extras from their billion dollar Foundation slush fund (a whole other scandal). Regardless, her supporters see her as their champion, rallying around a familiar set of leftwing social issues: inequality/redistribution of wealth, pro-choice/abortion, amnesty for undocumented/illegal immigrants, and man-made global warming/climate change.The novelty of Trump is like no other before him. At first, it could be explained like this: for some strange reason, it s a tradition in America that a certain number of people each year will cast a write-in vote for Mickey Mouse on their ballot. This is regarded as the ultimate protest vote a vote for Mickey is a vote against the establishment. So it should be no surprise that when he arrived on the electoral scene in June 2015, his support base was already waiting for him Trump was their 70 year old, 6 foot 3 inch, 236 lbs Mickey Mouse Trump s campaign breaks down like this: Make America Great Again If you support Trump, then you believe this is the story of a true underdog, the consummate outsider taking on the political elites a man with absolutely no experience in political office (other than writing cheques for nearly all them), uncorrupted by corporate money (because he has his own) and shunned by the self-serving political and media establishment who have done nothing for the country s working class and rapidly disappearing middle class. While some of this is true, as a reality TV icon, a billionaire property magnate and career playboy, Trump is certainly no man of the people in the Horatio Alger sense. Despite all that, judging by most major polls, nearly half of the United States population is behind him. To them, he is their champion. He ll lower taxes and bring back the jobs from overseas, rebuild the military, and most importantly, he doesn t want any money from corporate lobbyists. When crowds chant, Drain the swamp! referring to Washington DC, he s the man they want to hire to do that job. Trump s response to them is simple: I only work for one special interest group, and that s you the American people. In this sense, Trump has run the most unconventional political campaign ever.Love him or loath him, that message resonates and for good reason. The door to the cess pit is now open and many are horrified at what they see. Through the incredible WikiLeaks Podesta Email trove, many Americans have been able to peek inside the rude, incestuous and outright nasty elite political scene that controls Washington DC. Clinton was hit pretty hard by the WikiLeaks revelations, as was the already shaky credibility of the Clinton Foundation. This exposed a lot of the corruption around her and the party. Also, ten days before the election FBI Director James Comey through a grenade into the Clinton juggernaut by announcing the FBI would reopen Hillary s email case because of data discovered through her chief aid Huma Abedin s estranged sex-pest husband Anthony Weiner. This put a timely dent into Clinton s lead. With the help of the US media though, she battled though it and emerged from that m l e.Although he faced much less in terms of real institutional corruption scandals, Trump did not fair as well in public relations terms as Clinton did. Part of the reason for this was that Trump and the establishment media are like chalk and cheese. He s too unconventional for the bland gatekeepers. One of the reasons media operatives hated Trump was because he could generate his own gravity, and this posed a direct challenge to state-oriented propaganda machines like CNN who are busy spoon-feeding their own artificial version of reality to the American people. So, after a brief primary honeymoon, the media (aside from FOX News) declared all-out war on Trump. With each passing week, he was hamstrung by an endless string of media traps, Twitter gaffes and internal campaign tedium. Dogged by the media and his opponents, Trump couldn t hold his tongue or stay off of Twitter, and so his retaliatory tirades turned into negative headlines. For intelligent pundits and moderate supporters, the constant gaffes and distractions made it almost impossible to consider Donald Trump as a serious candidate. To the casual observer, it would appear that The Donald was nothing but a stalking horse for Hillary.The same could be said for Democratic primary challenger Bernie Sanders (photo, left). Up until the moment he entered the contest in July 2015, party favorite Hillary Clinton was essentially running unopposed. It s almost as if Sanders was drafted into the race at the last minute in order to make it look like a real race, and then at an opportune moment he would pledge his allegiance to the party favorite. That s exactly how it played out. Early on Sanders chances were practically DOA because of the Democratic Party s pre-rigged Super Delegate system. Still, he fought on and pulled bigger crowds than Hillary. Then the real bomb dropped when it was revealed through the Democratic National Committee (DNC) email leaks how party chairwoman Debbie Wasserman-Shultz along with party elites, conspired to railroad the Bernie Sanders campaign. That s right, Bernie was shot down by his own party in order to make way for Hillary s coronation. Not very democratic of the Democrats. Wasserman-Shultz even resigned as a result. Sanders didn t seem to mind (in public anyway) and voluntarily capitulated, and Hillary enjoyed a steady climb afterwards. From this we can deduce that the Clinton-Sanders contest was likely a contrived affair from the onset, although one WikiLeaks email shows that Sanders may even have been blackmailed into bowing down to Clinton. It seems that the DNC and Clinton never expected Sanders to capture the imagination of the nation s youth like he did, which also speaks volumes about the acute lack of enthusiasm for Clinton s White House run even within her own party. Sanders was a rock star, Clinton was a pop star. That s a big difference in the eyes of millennials who place a lot of value on authenticity.Then came the debates. The first one broke all ratings records for a political debate with an estimated near 100 million total viewers. It was Gladiator meets Jerry Springer. Then the New York Times leaked some of Trump s tax returns and the media had a field day. Later in October, a barrage of bombshells would besiege the Trump campaign, one after another, ranging from allegations of groping on a first class flight in the 1980 s, to a porn star upset over Trump s manly advances each of them suddenly appearing in the media right before the election to complain about being sexually harassed by Trump. After the first debate, a rather lurid, leaked off the record audio conversation from Access Hollywood in 2005 appeared which nearly upended his campaign, immediately followed by a new string of women coming forward with more allegations sexual abuse. This devastated Trump in the polls, and became the 24 hour obsession for Democratic Party-linked networks like CNN and MSNBC. Amazingly, every one of the accusers has since disappeared from the scene. The damage was done though, and this became the basis for the Clinton campaign, her TV ads and her surrogates anti-Trump message. Just like with Hillary s Podesta emails, it was non-stop media chaos. The attacks and counter attacks were many too many to mention here.Somehow, he crawled out of that pit and rebounded in the polls.Trump was also being attacked in the media for proffering that the system is rigged . In all seriousness, does anyone not believe this? Still, critics have called this extremist rhetoric from Trump. From a media standpoint however, America s democracy is rigged and clearly in favor of the Democratic Party. WikiLeaks proved through the release of Clinton Campaign Chair John Podesta s emails starting with the corruption between DNC acting chair Donna Brazile who cheated the debate process by passing questions from the network CNN directly to Hillary Clinton. If that wasn t bad enough, it was later revealed how the DNC tried to provide CNN anchor Wolf Blizter with questions to ask Donald Trump, and how DNC staffers offered CNN s Jake Tapper questions to ask during another interview on the network. CNN s chief political correspondent Gloria Borger was also exposed as one of many so-called journalists in private contact with the Clinton campaign. The online journal Politico s editor Glenn Thrush was also caught stage-managing coverage with the Clinton campaign. As yet, none of these media operatives have been fired, or have resigned which says a lot about the corrupt culture of the mainstream media in the United States today. There were many other incidents covered by WikiLeaks, too many to list here. Total collusion between the so-called press and the Democratic Party. So, yes, the system is rigged. This is no longer debatable, and the fact that the public now understand this should haunt media operative long after this election. When They Go Low, We Go High While this election may have been bad for the American people, it s been great for one groups of insiders: elite advertising agencies and the TV networks who sell ad space to the campaigns. The Clinton campaign combined with the pro-Clinton Super PACs spent upwards of $200 million on TV ads the majority of which were negative ads characterizing her competitor as a racist xenophobic womanizing misogynist. By doing so, the Clinton campaign and the Democratic Party effectively made their pitch to voters as a referendum on political correctness. In other words, we can t allow this disgusting human being to win this election. The other big Clinton TV ad buy was, We can t let Donald Trump get his hands on the nuclear codes. This ad was based on the ridiculous premise that a US President could just walk into the Oval Office one day and start launching ICBM warheads around the world for no reason a completely bogus thesis if there ever was one, but apparently the campaign thought the public was stupid enough to believe this fictional scenario. As result of the all the negative campaigning, Clinton spent very little if any, substantial time speaking or debating the details of domestic issues and her chequered foreign policy record, particularly regarding the horrendous failures of Libya and Syria. Instead, on numerous occasions, especially during the debates, she would refer people to my website as if that s what people really wanted. Normally, people want to hear it from the candidates mouth, but the internet has offered a nice respite for politicians who prefer not to get tangled in discussing real issues in the flesh.It should be noted that from the beginning, the gender argument has been pervasive in all Clinton messaging, almost to the point of entitlement. It s about time for woman to become president. We re going to make history with the first woman in the White House. For many Americans, however, this message based purely on identity politics tends to push discussion of the candidate s credentials and policies to the background. It is also used to fend of any criticism or inquiry into policy specifics. Not surprisingly, Clinton has mostly steered away from specifics or making any promises unlike her predecessor Obama did when he promised everything imaginable for his first 100 Days in order to attract votes including closing the offshore eyesore, Guantanamo Bay Prison, and bringing the troops home from Iraq on his first day. None of this actually happened, which fuelled a lot of disenchantment and skepticism from younger voters this time around. Clinton s gender platform has also been augmented by a racial plank, and the campaign constantly reminds its supporters that blacks and other ethnic minorities should have common cause with women, inferring that their liberal cohorts have also been held back by the cruel customs of a white male-dominated, Anglo-Saxon patriarchal society. In 2016 Democrats have also reintroduced the topic of slavery as a major talking point, resulting in even more tension. Clinton s slogan is Stronger Together, but one could argue that it s possible the Democratic Party s obsession with promoting identity politics has done more to foster new political and social divisions (and subdivisions), rather than to unite all of society under a common national identity. This is a debate which should happen, but few dare to challenge the political left on that issue. Some food for thought: a recent Rasmussen Poll concluded that race relations in the US have deteriorated under President Obama, the highest dissatisfaction mark since he was elected eight years ago up 18 points since 2014. Why have race relations gone down hill? This poll result appeared for a reason, and it s probably not just because white America was upset they elected a black president in 2008, although this is what Democrats insist when you show them this particular poll. It could also be related to the caustic, relentless confrontational identity politics agenda being pushed by agents of change in the new radical left. Or maybe it simply reflects a fundamental failure of a political leadership which only panders to its own side of the aisle and shuns the other. America will remain divided unless both Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives can figure one how to overcome this flaw.Although Bill might be his wife s greatest asset, he is also her biggest Achilles heal. Hillary has built her entire political career on the back her two-term husband with the former First Lady slipping seamlessly into brand Clinton and a ready-made political legacy. After Hillary unleashed the misogynist card on Trump, Bill soon came under fire over his own sordid history of sexual deviance. After that, Bill was used sparingly in pubic. Instead, the Clinton camp relied heavily on the White House to do its campaigning for them. As a result, the First Lady, Michelle Obama and the President did many of the big campaign stops in Hillary s absence. Collectively, it seemed as if Hillary s VIP surrogates did more campaigning than she did herself. Multimillionaire celebrity surrogates lined up to stump for Hillary, including Katie Perry (image, above), Bruce Springsteen, Bon Jovi, Robert DeNiro, Jennifer Lopez, Madonna, Leonardo DiCaprio, Lady Gaga, Miley Cyrus, Jay Z, Beyonce and even LeBron James.Looking cool with the kids. So Clinton is being backed by the billionaire Hollywood entertainment wing of the Establishment.Even with all of that celebrity power though, Trump still attracted vastly bigger crowds on his own. But how? Why would a minimum of 15,000 at every stop turn out just for Trump?With more than a touch of irony, the one person who articulated this phenomenon better than anyone else was a radical left-wing icon, filmmaker Michael Moore. He recently filmed a one man show entitled TrumpLand where Moore s said this: I know a lot of people in Michigan that are planning to vote for Trump and they don t necessarily like him that much, and they don t necessarily agree with him. They re not racist or rednecks, they re actually pretty decent people, and so after talking to a number of them I wanted to write this:Donald Trump came to the Detroit Economic Club and stood there in front of Ford Motor executives and said, if you close these factories as you re planning to do in Detroit and build them in Mexico, I m going to put a 35% tariff on those cars when you send them back and nobody s going to buy them. It was an amazing thing to see. No politician, Republican or Democrat, had ever said anything like that to these executives, and it was music to the ears of people in Michigan and Ohio and Pennsylvania and Wisconsin the Brexit states. You live here in Ohio, you know what I m talking about. Whether Trump means it or not, is kind of irrelevant because he s saying the things to people who are hurting, and that s why every beaten-down, nameless, forgotten working stiff who used to be part of what was called the middle class loves Trump. He is the human molotov cocktail that they ve been waiting for. The human hand grande that they can legally throw into the system that stole their lives from them.And on November 8, Election Day, although they lost their jobs, although they ve been foreclosed on by the bank, and next came the divorce and now the wife and kids are gone, the car s been repoed, they haven t had a real vacation in years, they re stuck with the shitty Obamacare Bronze Plan where you can t even get a fucking percocet. They ve essentially lost everything they had, except one thing the one thing that doesn t cost them a cent, and is guaranteed to them by the American constitution: the right to vote. They might be penniless, they might be homeless, they might be fucked over and fucked up it doesn t matter, because it s equalized on that day a millionaire has the same number of votes as the person without a job: one. And there s more of the former middle class than there are in the millionaire class.So on November 8, the dispossessed will walk into the voting booth, be handed a ballot, close the curtain, and take that lever or felt pen or touchscreen and put a big fucking X in the box by the name of the man who has threatened to upend and overturn the very system that has ruined their lives: Donald J. Trump. They see that the elite who ruined their lives hate Trump. Corporate America hates Trump. Wall Street hates Trump. The career politicians hate Trump. The media hates Trump, after they loved him and created him, and now hate. Yes, on November 8, you Joe Blow, Steve Blow, Bob Blow, Billy Blow, all the Blows get to go and blow up the whole goddamn system because it s your right. Trump s election is going to be the biggest fuck ever recorded in human history and it will feel good. Reading that, you can t help but feel that Moore has some real anger issues. Nonetheless, he inadvertently delivered the best pro-Trump speech of the election.For many, including Michael Moore, Trump might not be the ideal vehicle for such a profound movement, and yet, he is that vehicle.Granted, half of the American population have been conditioned to hate Trump for various reasons. But many of them are missing the key point in the Trump story, just like they did in the Sanders story. Trump offered millions of voters something profound: the idea that even in today s insulated political fortress that is Washington DC, anything is still possible in American politics where an outsider can come in and shake up a stale and corrupt ruling class.This concept should not be underestimated. It s a fundamental tenet of the American culture. As flawed an individual as he might be at this moment in time, Donald Trump is the avatar who embodies this idea of opportunity and hope.In today s political reality show and infotainment media environment, timing is everything and America loves a comeback. Trump s late October surge in the polls certainly reflected that public sentiment and overall enthusiasm. Trump has flown more miles and visited more cities than any other presidential candidate in memory so he s not leaving much on the table in terms of energy. Will this translate into votes in key swing states? We ll see Sure, when it all started, Donald Trump was Mickey Mouse, but somewhere along the way, the novelty has transformed into a bona fide movement. The fact that Trump, a candidate with zero political experience, bested a total of 16 other GOP primary candidates all of whom were seasoned, career politicians revealed just how profoundly unpopular establishment party stalwarts are with the general electorate. No amount of TV advertising can gloss over this realty. What began as a protest vote for so many who no longer trust or feel any affinity with elite politicians, has since morphed into a powerful mandate for change.Trump s victory during the GOP primaries was also historic it signalled an outright rejection of the party establishment, of the constant banal Republican bickering over who is the most conservative, and the traditional construct of the polished politician. Trump smashed all of this. He has done exactly as Reagan did in the 1980 s he pole vaulted over a stiff, entrenched establishment and took his message directly to the people.On the Democratic Party slate, the exact same phenomenon unfolded, with candidate Bernie Sanders gathering tens of millions of anti-establishment and anti-war voters in the 12 months preceding the Democratic Party Convention. In modern media terms Sanders couldn t be any less appealing with his unkept hair, the dandruff flaking off of the shoulders of his dodgy suit coats, and a semi-hunchback look. His supporters couldn t care less. The legions of college aged students didn t seem to care about the looks or the lack of Clintonesque cleverly scripted sound bites. Sanders could rattle off facts and issues without a teleprompter, and he did it with genuine conviction something Clinton still struggles with. Regarding the wars, as Sanders rightly pointed out, unlike Hillary Clinton, he voted against the Iraq War in 2003. This also resonated with the grassroots base. Additionally, unlike his opponent, Sanders was not pandering to Wall Street and accepting large sums of money from elite financial interests.To his base, Sanders was the real deal and for the same reasons that Trump s base is still behind him. The political and media establishment have gone to great lengths to conceal this reality, but in doing so they are only delaying their eventual demise.This is a long tail trend which is not going to reverse itself, and it s not confined to the US either it s international. We saw this to some extent with the BREXIT vote this past summer which defied the political media establishment s version of consensus reality. Political stalwarts and generational glad-handers will try their hardest to ignore it, but it s a clear public mandate away from the carefully controlled establishment model of politics. Last year in Britain, millions of voters shunned the Labour Party establishment and mainstream media favorites, and instead threw massive support behind the current Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn. Like Sanders, Corbyn is not a media poster boy. Before this year, you d have been hard-pressed to spot the aging Corbyn clean-shaven, or wearing a suit, much less a tie. This political shift confounded all of the experts and has triggered a tectonic shift in the Labour Party itself, as acolytes and devotees of former Prime Minister Tony Blair have all but thrown their toys out of their prams over the Corbyn issue. Like with Sanders, the people gathered in droves behind a brazenly anti-establishment and antiwar leader who was cast aside by the party establishment and media operatives.In Italy, a similar populist movement is well under way with the Five Star Movement, originally launched in 2011 by Italian comedian and entertainer Beppe Grillo. Five Star are now in Parliament. The term Five Star symbolizes five key issues for the party: public water, sustainable transport, sustainable development, right to internet access, and environmentalism. Similarly, Spain has recently seen the world s first crowd-funded political party with Podemos (translated We Can ). This is the future.As far as the lesser of two evils is concerned, the corruption issue weighs heavier with Clinton. While Trump s scandals derive from his private and business life, Clinton s scandals are from her time in public office, and involve current and past Democratic political operatives and appointees and so they deserve more scrutiny and accountability as they were done on taxpayer time, and bound by supposed strict codes of conduct. In stead, the media has worked hard to equate various mini-scandals from Trump with the mega-scandals of the Clintons when clearly these are two different things. Sp far, Clinton seems to have been able to remain above the law which has done a lot to fuel resentment against her, the White House and a highly politicized Department of Justice..On paper, America has a stark choice. Donald Trump seems to be an anti-globalist, anti-TPP, free market oriented, populist nationalist. Hillary Clinton seems to represent equality for all, but more than that she represents the status quo, a continuation of Barack Obama and his failing Obamacare legacy, an establishment elitist globalist agenda with a radical leftist bent.But how much will either candidate s presidency actually resemble their campaigns?If Clinton wins you can expect a huge celebrity-studded Gala Ball in Washington DC, followed by 18 months of Congressional hearings, indictments, impeach hearings and general gridlock. Expect the usual cast of suspects in her Cabinet, surrounded by all the usual insiders. Expect Bill to be named Hillary s Economic Tsar. In the Democratic tradition, Hillary will raise taxes and increase spending. This is why Wall Street loves Clinton (and why she accepts their money), because like with Obama, Clinton s Washington will certainly sink further into debt and Wall Street profits from this debt. Also, expect the Clintons net worth to sky rocket. Still, with so many scandals already on the boiler, it will get ugly, and it will stay ugly. There will be gridlock well into 2020. Like Obama did with the issue of race, Clinton will certainly make gender the defining issue of her presidency, as well as continue hammering home the idea that America has a race problem. The culture wars will continue and America will become a cultural Marxist battleground. Hillary Clinton s America will be a sectarian America. So expect those Rasmussen numbers to continue on their present trajectory. Expect Trump supporters to call foul on vote rigging too.There will be some vote rigging, as there has been in many US elections. Just this past week, there have been multiple cases of voter fraud in the US (and these are only the cases where people have actually been caught). . With Hillary, sooner than later, you can also expect an escalation of rhetoric and ill-informed talk of No Fly Zones in Syria and military a confrontation with Russia, and possibly even Iran. Lots of wars and proxy wars. This is why the Neocons love Hillary.If Trumps wins, the mainstream media will be in a state of shock, followed by a state of panic, followed by a state of chaos. Sure, Trump may wish to unite America, but this is a near insurmountable task now after 8 years of Sharpton-Obama political agitation and other artificial divisions constructed through hundreds of progressive front organizations funded by social engineers like billionaire George Soros. If Trump wins, expect the likes of Soros and MoveOn.org to unleash wave after wave of flash mobs, who will protest, riot, smash and burn their way on to CNN s 24 hour news rotation. Expect Occupy 2.0, and #BlackLivesMatter to rage. You can also be certain that Clinton, the Democrats and their media operatives at CNN, MSNBC and others, will blame Vladimir Putin and the Russians for hacking the US election in favor of Trump. Although Trump may cut taxes, like Reagan he will likely balloon federal spending. It is also unlikely Trump will make any significant dent in the national debt which is currently hovering around $10 trillion. However, with Trump, there is a chance to de-escalate the aggressive posturing this current White House and Hillary Clinton have take against Russia. This would be an important benefit of a Trump presidency a chance for a positive relationship between the US and Russia.Regardless of which person wins, expect FBI director Jim Comey to resign after this election.Expect both candidates to prosecute their war on ISIS , their war on poverty , their war on drugs and their war on domestic extremism. The election result is only the beginning. The real battle will take place afterwards.Expect a heavily divided and half bitter nation.Expect serious political party alternatives to emerge, building on the mild successes of the Libertarian and Green parties.Tomorrow, history will be made by either the outsider Trump, or the insider Clinton.When you re talking about the outsiders though, whether it s Trump, Sanders, Corbyn or Grillo, no matter how pious or forthright, they will ultimately get caught in the gears of government, with all its trappings of nepotism and institutional corruption. The outsider eventually becomes the insider. Resisting that pressure is the age-old challenge to any reformer.If there s one lesson to be learned by this year s US presidential race, it s certainly an old lesson by now. Depending on what your view of communism is, Karl Marx is either a villain or a hero of social engineering, but he left us some interesting quotes. Marx did get one thing right when he said, Elections give the people the right every few years to choose which member of the ruling class will misrepresent them. It s still true today.Or as someone once said, No matter who you vote for the government always gets in. We ll see which government gets in tomorrow.READ MORE ELECTION NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire 2016 FilesSUPPORT 21WIRE SUBSCRIBE & BECOME A MEMBER @21WIRE.TV | 1 |
RIYADH (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of Islam, is to monitor interpretations of the Prophet Mohammad s teachings to prevent them being used to justify violence or terrorism, the Culture and Information Ministry has said. In a decree, King Salman ordered the establishment of an authority to scrutinize uses of the hadith - accounts of the sayings, actions or habits of the Prophet that are used by preachers and jurists to support teachings and edicts on all aspects of life. The ministry said late on Tuesday that the body s aim would be to eliminate fake and extremist texts and any texts that contradict the teachings of Islam and justify the committing of crimes, murders and terrorist acts . The body will be based in Medina and overseen by a council of senior Islamic scholars from around the world, according to the decree. The ministry offered no specific details of how it would work in practice. Islamist groups such as Islamic State and al Qaeda have used interpretations of hadiths - numbered in the thousands and pored over by scholars for centuries - to justify violence and to urge supporters to carry out attacks. Saudi Arabia s approach to religious doctrine is important because of its symbolic position as the birthplace of Islam, while its oil exports allow it to fund mosques abroad. Its ultra-conservative Wahhabi clergy have been close to the Al Saud dynasty since the mid-18th century, offering it Islamic legitimacy in return for control over mosques and universities. The traditional Wahhabi doctrine favors a strict version of Islamic law and a return to early Muslim practices, and views Shi ites as heretics. But senior clergy have denounced militant Islamist doctrines such as those of al Qaeda or Islamic State, while the government, which vets clerics in Saudi Arabia s 70,000 mosques, has sacked many for encouraging violence or sedition. Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir said last month that thousands of extremist clerics had been dismissed, although he gave no timeframe. The government has begun to promote an alternative narrative of Saudi identity that keeps Wahhabism as a central focus, but still allows secular themes such as nationalism and cultural heritage that predates Islam to shine through. The ministry said the body would serve Islam by creating a solid scientific reference to vet and verify the authenticity of hadiths , which are second in importance only to the Koran in Islam. It did not say what form the reference would take. The decree issued by the king, whose official title is Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques - Islam s most revered places in Mecca and Medina - said the body would be chaired by Sheikh Mohammed bin Hassan al-Sheikh, a member of the Council of Senior Scholars, which serves as Saudi Arabia s highest religious body. | 0 |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan is running again for the job in the next Congress, a spokeswoman said on Thursday after a media report quoted several unidentified House Republicans as saying they expected him to step down next week. “He is running,” Ryan spokeswoman AshLee Strong said. The Hill cited four House Republicans as saying that they expected Ryan to step aside as Speaker after next Tuesday’s general election. “Speculation is growing that Paul will not return,” the Hill quoted a “senior GOP lawmaker close to leadership” as saying. It quoted a member of the Freedom Caucus, a group of conservative Republicans, as saying that if Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton wins, Ryan will get “a good share of the blame” among House members who support Republican candidate Donald Trump. Ryan last month told fellow Republicans that he would not defend or campaign for Trump and would instead focus on re-electing Republicans to keep the majority in the House. This angered some Trump supporters in the House, who felt the Wisconsin congressman should stand by Trump. One of them, Representative Jim Bridenstine of Oklahoma, tweeted: “if Paul Ryan isn’t for Trump, then I’m not for Paul Ryan.” But Ryan, who as Speaker is the country’s highest-ranking Republican, has a great deal of support in the Republican caucus, and it is far from clear that his critics would be able to oust him if they tried. House Republicans, who currently number 246, plan to have closed-door leadership elections in mid-November. Ryan is expected to win their nomination for Speaker at that gathering, but the actual election to the Speaker’s post would not be held until the new Congress convenes in January. All members of the House, both Republican and Democrat, will vote in the Speaker election and Ryan will need 218 votes - a majority of the House’s 435 members - to win. This could be a challenge if Republicans lose a substantial number of seats in next week’s elections, and if some of those who remain decide to oppose Ryan. | 1 |
It really says something when Republican leaders tell Trump not to tweet during an important event.When Former FBI Director James Comey s hearing was hours away, Republicans were rightfully anxious.Sean Spicer may have told the world that Trump s tweets are official statements, but we all know it s a circus and Spicer s trying to be the ringmaster. The Republicans are finally beginning to realize that. Oh, I wish he d do something else. It s not going to change the testimony, said Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr, a Republican from North Carolina, who chaired the Comey hearing. (Source)It was no secret that Comey would speak unfavorably about Trump thanks to Comey s opening statement released on Wednesday.Naturally, this meant there was a high chance of Trump tweeting and saying how sad and wrong Comey is if Trump s track record is anything to go by.It s clear Trump needs someone to hold his hand through his time in office but whether he ll take the hand is up in the air. What I would do is go do my job, let them have their hearing and not give the impression that you re trying to influence it, said Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Oklahoma before the Comey hearing.Republican lawmakers are hoping that, if Trump can continue to lay low, the commotion of Trump s circus will die down a little. Then they will be able to focus on Trump s agenda again.To everyone s surprise, Trump didn t tweet during the hearing. Or at least, not the Trump we were all expecting. Instead, we got Trump Jr. throwing a tantrum on Twitter.I guess next time, Republicans should be specific on which Trump should not tweet during important events since they can t figure it out for themselves. Honestly it would be in everyone s best interest if Trump and his family didn t tweet at all.Featured image via Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg via Getty Images | 0 |
We’ve looked at the arguments for the presidential candidacies of Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.). Turning to former Texas governor Rick Perry, one might conclude he is the most underestimated candidate. Pundits who rank candidates tend to put him in the bottom tier of contenders. Like generals, however, pundits tend to fight the last campaign, and in the case of Perry that means affixing a dunce cap to his head and writing him off. He certainly has a tiny margin for error, but I tend to think voters care less about past mistakes and more about what they see before them. So what does Perry have to show them?
1. People do like a comeback story. His rotten performance ushered in a “new” Perry, more humble and studious.
2. He is a grown up. In a field of freshman senators, a couple media figures (Ben Carson and Mike Huckabee) and a rising but less experienced star from the ranks of governors (Scott Walker of Wisconsin) Perry unarguably has the advantage of 14 years as governor, a background including the border crisis and other situations demanding crisis management and the experience of having run for president once before. In a New Hampshire round table, he reiterated the argument: “Americans are going to want someone who has been tested, someone who’s got results in their background and we’re not going to choose another young, untested United States senator. I don’t think that is where Americans are going to want to go.” Again he stressed, “Rhetoric is fine. Nobody loves a barn burning speech any more than I do, but if you don’t have the record to back that up — if you’re not road-tested — then I think there is always a concern.”
3. He is the only candidate with military experience. Oddly, he rarely mentioned this in the 2012 race. He is not making that mistake this time around. “I think it’s important to understand that, and having that very real life experience of knowing what these conflicts do in terms of treasure and blood,” he said in New Hampshire. “Somehow, we thought we could stop [the Islamic State] with some simple bombing missions but that was just not the case, and now we’re left with some really, less than desirable opportunities to stop ISIS. It’s going to require our personnel to be engaged on the ground and I would suggest having experience, having a track record of dealing with issues and having experienced people who you trust who also have track records dealing with issues [is an asset].”
4. He has battled the federal government. To the extent voters are angry with Washington politicians and federal meddling, they have a champion in Perry. He battled the feds on everything from Obamacare to Environmental Protection Agency regulations. In his recent clash with the president, he castigated the president for not securing the border, and then took it upon himself to deploy the state’s national guard troops. He’s remained an advocate of state control and state-led reform on education and health care.
5. He’s an excellent retail politician with lots of free time. That is a powerful combination in early primary states where voters expect to be engaged directly and repeatedly.
6. He’s feisty but not obnoxious. Republican voters are itching for a fight and Perry is pugnacious enough to give it to them. He’s been in the trenches fighting the administration, and will not be shy about taking on Hillary Clinton.
7. There is an opening in the field. Mitt Romney did not run. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is the victim of self-inflicted wounds. So if you want an experienced conservative governor who is not a Bush? That’s Perry’s spot. His biggest problem may be Walker, whom Perry will need to show is less prepared on foreign policy and less accomplished than he is. It’s a tall order, but with everyone gunning for Walker, Perry may be the beneficiary.
8. He can handle the media. He is forceful enough and generally knowledgeable enough to push back on a tough interviewer and, as we saw on a late night appearance, relaxed enough (and sufficiently plugged into popular culture) to come across well in informal settings. He’d be smart to use non-news media to reset his image.
9. He’s a law and order figure. In defending the border and Second Amendment rights and championing prison reform, he has struck an appropriate balance between individual rights and public safety. No one will accuse him of being anti-police or, on the other hand, of defending government excess.
10. He’s led a rags to a not-very-many-riches life. No one will say he started out life with privilege or wealth. He does not have Ivy League degrees, nor does he live an ostentatious life style (he currently lives in a”1,400-square foot, 2 bedroom, 2 bath condo, full of boxes, four dogs”). | 1 |
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Google 'Discovery of Peculiar Periodic Spectral Modulations in a Small Fraction of Solar-type Stars' to find the paper.
On October 10, 2016 a paper titled 'Discovery of peculiar periodic spectral modulations in a small fraction of solar type stars' was submitted by E.F. Borra and E. Trottier. The paper discusses signals from under 300 stars that directly point to extraterrestrial intelligence. Since the release of the paper it has been rarely discussed in the media although it's huge news. If you enjoy this video please like, share and subscribe to QUFOSR. Tags | 1 |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Senate Republicans pushing to overhaul Obamacare largely ignored key players in the debate over insuring the poor: the health insurers and hospitals charged with carrying out the law if it gets approved. Instead, conservative groups such as Heritage Action for America won the ears of Senate Republicans when it came to changing the Medicaid insurance program for the poor and disabled. The snub is fueling health industry opposition to the new plans for Medicaid, and threatens to further frustrate the months-long effort to dismantle Obamacare. The latest version of the Senate bill, released on Thursday, left the Medicaid overhaul largely unchanged from the radical makeover in the bill from the U.S. House of Representatives. A nonpartisan government agency has estimated an earlier version of the bill would trim nearly $800 billion in federal spending for Medicaid over 10 years. While insurers successfully influenced the legislation when it comes to individual insurance markets, the fact that they and hospital groups largely struck out on Medicaid is important because the new provisions shift more costs back to the states and hospitals. These groups, along with insurers, will be charged with enforcing the new law, so Republicans need their buy-in, health policy experts say. “A health policy means nothing if it can’t be implemented and doesn’t work,” said Andy Slavitt, former administrator under President Barack Obama of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which oversaw Obamacare. The Republican bill ends Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion and slashes traditional Medicaid funding, with cuts that deepen beginning in 2025. The U.S. House of Representatives passed its own version of the legislation in May. “A lot of conservatives, Heritage Action included, desperately wanted to hold the line to make sure the Medicaid portion wasn’t watered down in the Senate,” said Dan Holler, vice president of Heritage Action for America, a conservative advocacy group. “It was something we made known to folks up in the Senate.” When Democrats and the White House enacted Obamacare seven years ago, support from healthcare companies helped propel the legislation through Congress. The administration actively courted the health industry, lobbyists and former Obama administration officials said, viewing their support as critical to winning votes. While health insurer and hospital lobbyists said in recent weeks that they have been able to regularly meet with Republican lawmakers, they said their input on the bill’s Medicaid changes was largely ignored. A representative for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell was not immediately available for comment. In 2017, the top hospital, doctor and insurer trade groups reported spending a total of more than $13 million on lobbying the federal government through the first quarter of 2017, according to a congressional lobbying database. One hospital industry lobbyist said there has been no attempt by Republican leadership to have a serious discussion with industry lobbyists or leaders about how to change the bill to win their support. That has not been the case with the portion of the bill that addresses the individual insurance market. Insurers, including some of the biggest providers of Obamacare individual plans, Anthem Inc (ANTM.N) and Molina Healthcare (MOH.N), have been asking for changes to specific policies. For instance, the Senate bill repeals the penalty associated with the individual mandate, the requirement that all people purchase insurance or pay a government fee. In its place, insurers received one of their biggest demands: a provision in the bill that provides incentives for Americans to have continuous insurance coverage and allows insurers to charge them more if they let their policies lapse. If that back and forth between industry and lawmakers on the individual insurance side ends up winning new conservative votes, lawmakers may be ready to turn the next round of healthcare bill negotiations to Medicaid, said Elizabeth Carpenter, senior vice president at Avalere Health, a consultant group to hospitals and insurers “The rubber meets the road on the Medicaid provision,” Carpenter said. | 1 |
Sex workers reject ‘biased’ BBC prostitution documentary Sex workers reject ‘biased’ BBC prostitution documentary By 0 47
Sex workers say the BBC’s ‘Sex, Drugs & Murder: Life in the Red Light Zone’ documentary, which portrays the lives of women in the Holbeck area of Leeds, Britain’s first legal red light district, is “biased” and unrepresentative.
They argue the program buys into stereotypes and general ignorance, including the view that women are driven into prostitution by drug habits rather than economic pressures brought on by austerity.
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The show follows the daily lives of Sammi Jo, Stacey, Debi and Kayleigh, who sell sex to pay for their addictions. They work in an area also known as Red Light Zone, where women can sell sex between 7pm and 7am without being arrested.
Sammi Jo, who had to be taken from her parents as a child due to abuse, said she turned to drugs and drink “as a comfort.”
Mother-of-three Kayleigh recounted how despite her family’s attempts to help her get clean she would quickly relapse.
“I came off of it and within two days I robbed my brother’s PlayStation games to go sell for money, and that just led into a routine of, I’d have heroin, go work, and I’d have heroin to forget about working,” she told the program.
“It’s just a total vicious cycle.”
But sex workers union English Collective of Prostitutes (ECP) believes the show is “biased” and shows only the darker side of the industry.
“This BBC3 film is yet another biased piece on the sex industry,” a spokeswoman for the group told RT.
“Most street-based sex workers are not drug users yet the film chooses to focuses only on women on drugs. It ignores the truth that in many areas around the UK the majority of sex workers are on the streets because of benefit cuts and sanctions.
“If the press ignore that they are colluding with the government in hiding the devastating consequences of their austerity policies, 80 percent of which have targeted women.”
The group said the Red Light Zone provides Leeds sex workers with a safe environment to operate.
According to local police, prostitutes have been three times more likely to report violent incidents since decriminalization came into place in Holbeck. In the first year, between 2014 and 2015, 61 violent incidents were reported to the police. The previous year only 49 cases of assault were reported.
“Some women were glad to work in the Leeds ‘no arrest zone’ because it meant they weren’t being constantly harassed by the police,” the ECP spokeswoman added. Immigration raids
The ECP said it is the police themselves who are endangering the lives of sex workers.
“Since the immigration crackdown everyone is on edge and hiding from officials. Women feel that once again the police are prioritizing criminalization over protection and this is deterring them from reporting violence,” the group complained.
Last week the London Metropolitan Police raided six massage parlors in Soho and Chinatown, arresting 24 people – 17 of whom were seized on “suspicion of immigration offenses.”
The Met released a statement saying the operation was “aimed at bringing to justice those who seek to profit from the exploitation of vulnerable people.”
The ECP, however, claims the swoops are “part of a racist witch-hunt against migrant sex workers, which has got worse since Brexit, even though women have the right to be here under EU law.”
Via RT . This piece was reprinted by RINF Alternative News with permission or license. | 1 |
CAIRO (Reuters) - Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas will not meet U.S. Vice President Mike Pence during his visit to the region and there will be no communication between U.S. and Palestinian officials Foreign Minister Riyad Al-Maliki said on Saturday. Maliki comments were made before an Arab League meeting in Cairo to discuss President Donald Trump s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel s capital and after Abbas said Washington could no longer be a peace broker. We will seek a new mediator from our Arab brothers and the international community, a mediator who can help with reaching a two-state solution, Maliki told reporters in Cairo. | 0 |
A Fox News host found herself squarely outnumbered on Thursday when she claimed that the conservative network covers racism fairly.The hosts of The View discussed Megyn Kelly s interview with actor and comedian D.L. Hughley the night before.During the interview, Hughley sarcastically pointed out that Fox News does not cover racism fairly. The only place racism doesn t exist is Fox News and the police department, Hughley said. That s absolutely true. Megyn Kelly called Hughley s claim insulting to which he replied, And I m insulted by the things I hear on this network, so we re even. I could care less about insulting people that insult me on a daily basis. Well, Fox News host Jedediah Bila disagreed with Hughley and told her View co-hosts that Fox is fair when it comes to covering racism. I ve hosted a bunch of shows there, we talk about issues of race all the time, she claimed. I mean, I m on with Juan Williams all the time. These are serious issues that we delve into. So, it felt like he was labeling the whole network as not willing to accept that racism is something that exists in this country. To recap, it appears Bila is using the ole I m friends with a black person defense to somehow claim that Fox fairly covers racism.Shen went on to excuse other Fox hosts lack of coverage because she said they are exercising journalistic responsibility, which most objective people know is complete bullshit because Fox News doesn t give a damn about real journalism. When you have stories coming out where you have white on black crime, before we figure out what actually happened, a lot of people in media jump to conclusions or we surmise or we guess, Bila continued. And it shapes the narrative of how the public hears that. And it s really hard then when facts emerge to go back and say, Oh, wait a minute, maybe in this particular case, this wasn t about racism. A stunned Whoopi Goldberg was quick to slap back. What shapes the narrative oftentimes is a disregard for the fact that we do have a racial issue, we do have an issue between how police are sometimes and how people of color are sometimes, and that s the discussion we don t have, Goldberg said.And even conservative host Candace Cameron-Bure, who often appears on Fox News, agreed with Goldberg that Fox does not cover racism fairly. I watch Fox News, I m a Fox News supporter. But I agree with you. I don t feel like they are inclusive of all minority groups as much as they should be. Because conservatives aren t just white rich men or women. And Fox I don t feel always represents that point of view. I thought Megyn Kelly was great but I really appreciated everything that D.L. said as well. Here s the video via YouTube.Fox News has been especially unfair to Black Lives Matter in the wake of the Dallas shooting even though it is clear that the person who murdered those five police officers was not affiliated with the movement. Many Fox hosts have disregarded that fact and have continually demonized Black Lives Matter in a way that is inflaming racial tensions even further. Fox would not be doing that if they had even a shred of real journalistic responsibility.Featured image via screenshot | 0 |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - URS Federal Services Inc has been awarded an estimated $3.6 billion indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity U.S. defense contract for remotely piloted aircraft services, the Pentagon said on Thursday. Leidos, AASKI Technologies Inc and Textron unit AAI Corp will share in a $900 million firm-fixed-price contract for technical services and field support in support of Product Office Tactical Unmanned Aircraft Systems, the Pentagon said in a statement. Hologic Inc has been awarded a maximum $721 million firm-fixed-price, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract for radiology systems, accessories and training, the statement said. | 0 |
WASHINGTON — Investors in financial markets, and those predicting faster economic growth in 2017, would do well to remember the famous words that William McChesney Martin Jr. the former Federal Reserve chairman, uttered way back in 1955: The Fed’s job is to remove the punch bowl just as the party gets going. Donald J. Trump’s promises to cut taxes and regulation and to increase spending on infrastructure and defense have convinced many that a sugar high in the near term will goose the economy. But Fed officials say the economy is already expanding at something close to its maximum sustainable pace, meaning faster growth would drive inflation toward unwelcome levels. To avoid overheating, the Fed could respond by raising interest rates more quickly. The more Mr. Trump stimulates growth, the faster the Fed is likely to increase rates. “I guess I would argue that I think people have gotten a bit ahead of themselves about what a Trump presidency would mean,” said Lewis Alexander, chief United States economist at Nomura. “If we have a big stimulus, the logical thing for the Fed to do is to raise rates faster. There isn’t a whole heck of a lot of scope to just let the economy run under those circumstances. There’s a big question about whether fiscal stimulus under Trump just leads to higher interest rates. ” Underscoring that question, the Fed is expected to raise its benchmark rate on Wednesday for the first time since last December in light of new economic data. The rate sits in a range of 0. 25 percent to 0. 5 percent, a low level intended to stimulate economic growth by encouraging borrowing and . Analysts predict the Fed will shift the range upward by a quarter of a percentage point, modestly reducing those incentives. The rate increase is widely regarded as a foregone conclusion. The odds, derived from asset prices, topped 95 percent Monday, according to the CME Group. The looming question is how quickly the Fed will continue to raise rates in 2017. Economic forecasts always require large assumptions, but that is particularly true in the present case because Mr. Trump has provided relatively few details about his plans. Perhaps the most accurate thing that can be said about Mr. Trump’s victory is that it has increased the uncertainty of the economic outlook. “At this juncture, it is premature to reach firm conclusions about what will likely occur,” William C. Dudley, president of the New York Fed, said in a recent speech. During his campaign, Mr. Trump predicted 4 percent annual growth, and his actions since Election Day point to a goal of job creation. “Our No. 1 priority is going to be the economy, get back to 3 to 4 percent growth,” Steven Mnuchin, Mr. Trump’s pick to serve as Treasury secretary, said last month. Many economists regard such growth predictions as fanciful the economy has been mired in an extended period of slow growth and the reasons, including an aging population and a dearth of innovation, are unlikely to change quickly. Some think Mr. Trump is more likely to push the economy into recession than to catalyze a new boom. Even if Mr. Trump is right, however, the Fed does not want 4 percent growth. The central bank’s outlook has become increasingly gloomy. Officials estimated in September that annual growth of 1. 8 percent was the maximum sustainable pace, and they predicted growth would not exceed 2 percent in the next three years. They will update those forecasts Wednesday, but large shifts are unlikely. Fed officials also are increasingly convinced that steady job growth has substantially eliminated the backlog of people seeking work. The unemployment rate fell to 4. 6 percent in November, a level the Fed regards as healthy. For years, Fed officials urged Congress to increase fiscal spending. Now, Mr. Trump is promising to do just that — and the Fed has concluded that it is too late. Stanley Fischer, the Fed’s vice chairman, said last month the Fed might still benefit from fiscal stimulus because it could raise rates more quickly. That would increase the Fed’s ability to respond to future downturns by reducing interest rates. But such gains would come at real cost: A fiscal stimulus would increase the federal government’s debt burden, which already is at a high level by historical standards, reducing the room for a fiscal response to a future downturn. Janet L. Yellen, the Fed’s chairwoman, urged Congress last month to be mindful that the government is already on the hook for more spending as baby boomers age into retirement. “With the . D. P. ratio at around 77 percent, there’s not a lot of fiscal space, should a shock to the economy occur, an adverse shock, that did require fiscal stimulus,” she said. The tension between fiscal and monetary policy is likely to unfold in slow motion. Mr. Trump has promised to press for rapid changes in government policy, but Congress is not built for speed. A similar effort to cut taxes at the beginning of the George W. Bush administration, for example, was signed into law on June 7, 2001. The impact of new cuts, and any increase in infrastructure spending that Mr. Trump can persuade dubious Republicans to embrace, would be felt mostly in future years. Mark M. Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, predicted that tax cuts, regulatory rollbacks and spending would fuel faster growth in the first half of Mr. Trump’s term. But he said that the Fed’s rate increases, and restrictions on trade and immigration, would gradually begin to take a larger toll. By the end, Mr. Zandi predicted, the American economy would be “unnervingly close” to recession. “The Fed and markets in general will ultimately wash out any benefit,” Mr. Zandi said Monday. “The economy under President Trump ultimately will be diminished. ” Other economists are more optimistic, predicting that the stimulus will not be fully offset by Fed policy. Mr. Dudley appeared to endorse this view in his recent speech, suggesting that the rise in financial markets was “broadly appropriate. ” Some of Mr. Trump’s proposals also could increase the economy’s potential growth rate, for example by improving infrastructure or encouraging corporate investment. On the other hand, the Fed’s march toward higher rates may be amplified by the bond market. Rates are already rising, and investors concerned about inflation and larger federal deficits are likely to generate persistent upward pressure. Those effects are already visible. Stock prices have climbed since Mr. Trump’s surprising victory, increasing the wealth of shareholders. But borrowing costs also climbed. The average rate on a mortgage loan was 4. 13 percent last week, according to Freddie Mac, up from 3. 54 percent just before the election. | 0 |
The Oakland Raiders have been in the news quite a bit lately, and unfortunately, for NFL football fans, it has little to do with football, and everything to do with an anti-cop social justice movement, and a certain player s bad behavior. The Raiders team made the news when most of the members of the team kneeled for the national anthem. On October 1, 2017, running back Marshawn Lynch entered the Sports Authority stadium wearing an Everybody vs Trump t-shirt before the Oakland Raiders game against the Denver Broncos. Lynch then sat during the playing of the national anthem. While Lynch sat for the October 1st game, most of his teammates knelt.Raiders RB Marshawn Lynch wearing an "Everybody vs Trump" T-shirt: pic.twitter.com/7aiCUbjLUD Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) October 1, 2017According to Miko Grimes, wife of Tampa Bay Buccaneers cornerback Brent Grimes, the Oakland Raiders offensive line actually stood down and allowed Derek Carr to get hurt because he didn t agree with, nor did he join the team s anthem protests.Here is the play Miko Grimes was referring to when Oakland Raiders quarterback Dereck Carr was hit in the back while his offensive line allegedly stood by and watched, as a punishment for not joining the team in their Black Lives Matter-inspired protest of our flag:Derek Carr suffers back injury. #Raiders pic.twitter.com/kqDhq9cCmY Peter Joe (@RaiderPosts) October 1, 2017Miko Grimes made an appearance on The Breakfast Club where she emphatically claimed the star quarterback s views on the anthem protests led to his offensive line allowing him to get crushed. A lot of people don t know, but the reason Derek Carr got injured was because the Raiders offensive line allowed him to get injured, Miko explained as she launched into her story. Daily CallerWatch Grimes incredible allegation about how the Raiders allowed their quarterback to be injured as a sick payback because he was against his team s anti-cop social justice movement. Grimes was quick to point out that the Oakland Raiders has the only all-black offensive line in the NFL. She also mentioned that they had a fight in the locker room prior to the game and before the players went out to play the game that Carr was injured in, the players already had a plan in place to ensure that he would be left unprotected..@iHeartMiko shares little know allegation about Derek Carr's injury. #TheBreakfastClub pic.twitter.com/7XF54oh3U7 REVOLT TV (@RevoltTV) November 7, 2017On October 20, 2017, Oakland Raiders running back and national anthem kneeler, Marshawn Lynch, was ejected after he left the sidelines to physically attack a referee with whom he disagreed with. | 0 |
“You can hear a whoosh of air as the train approaches,” Deke Sharon said, breaking down the cacophony on a subway platform into its component parts. “There’s the high screech of the tires, and underneath it all there’s a low rumble. ” For good measure, he emulated each sound. Mr. Sharon may be as perky as you might imagine the “guru of a cappella” to be, but little can prepare you for his infectious good cheer. “This is me mellow!” he exclaimed with boundless enthusiasm — a mood even more striking considering he was waiting for a C train in the chaotically busy 42nd Street station. Looking fetchingly in a blazer and jeans, he showed no sign of the stress that comes with opening a rather unconventional Broadway show. As if travel to workshops, camps, master classes, concerts and recording studios, as well as overseeing the touring group Vocalosity, weren’t enough, Mr. Sharon has spent the past few months on the vocal arrangements for “In Transit. ” It’s the first a cappella musical on Broadway, created by a quartet of songwriters including Kristen a of songs for the animated film “Frozen. ” The short commute from his temporary Manhattan apartment to the Circle in the Square Theater, where “In Transit” is in previews, constituted field research for Mr. Sharon, as the show’s characters all cross paths on the subway. “I would come down here and listen,” said Mr. Sharon, a tall and lanky Bay Area resident. “But I also wanted to get a sense of the relationship between people, because a cappella is about the interconnectedness of voices and individuals. ” This last point is the crux of what Mr. Sharon, 48, calls his lifelong mission of creating harmony through harmony. To that end he leaves no outlet unturned. His jobs have included serving as executive producer, coach and arranger on the NBC reality show “The ” (which spawned the hugely successful vocal group Pentatonix) and writing the arrangements for both “Pitch Perfect” movies. In the second film, he also sang many of the backup harmonies for the villainous team Das Sound Machine and had a cameo as a German judge. Mr. Sharon has created a cappella arrangements for about 2, 000 songs and has written several books, including the new “The Heart of Vocal Harmony. ” So when time came to retool “In Transit” for a bigger stage after an Off Broadway run in 2010, Ms. and her immediately thought of him. “We were really into ‘The ’ and of course we knew Deke was in the House Jacks, which was the first big professional, a cappella group,” Ms. who sang in a vocal group at Williams College, said in a phone interview. Mr. Sharon was a of the House Jacks in 1991, with singers he had met on the college circuit. It was a bold move at a time when a cappella was not popular, aside from freak hits like Bobby McFerrin’s “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” and Boyz II Men’s “It’s So Hard to Say Goodbye to Yesterday. ” Yet in hindsight, Mr. Sharon had the background and dedication required to take a cappella to the next level. This, after all, is someone who says he could sing before he could talk and whose parents signed him for a church choir at the ripe age of 5. He later participated in musical theater but had an a cappella epiphany in his freshman year at San Francisco University High School, where he led the barbershop quartet in a production of “The Music Man. ” A few years later, Mr. Sharon enrolled at Tufts University just so he could join that school’s Beelzebubs, an a cappella group. The love wasn’t immediately returned: He got in only on his third audition. “They said I was overzealous,” Mr. Sharon recalled. “My was perfect, so when I pointed out a small mistake I’d made, they thought I was pretentious. ” (Benji in the “Pitch Perfect” movies is partly based on Mr. Sharon.) College was also when Kurk Richard Toohey Jr. officially became Deke Sharon. “It wasn’t meant as a stage name,” he explained. “Everybody called me Deke, and my mom had remarried, so I had all these different names in my childhood. I just wanted an identity of my own. ” The same year he helped found the House Jacks, Mr. Sharon also created the Contemporary A Cappella Society as part of his effort to cement the community and improve its outreach. But it’s where his temperament — earnestly upbeat, but with a humor and a subtly forceful undertone blocking any threat of saccharine — is most effective. “My knowledge of a cappella was limited, but Deke is very good at meeting people where they are and giving them what they need so they can get where he wants them,” recalled Birgitte who played the leader of Das Sound Machine in “Pitch Perfect 2” and stars in the Broadway revival of “Les Liaisons Dangereuses. ” Mr. Sharon’s interpersonal and technical skills were critical for a show like “In Transit,” which presented several challenges for the cast and crew — starting with the fact that the actors double up as the orchestra and almost never stop singing. “Sometimes they go offstage, change their costume, walk around the back of the house and come back in from another side, singing all the while,” Mr. Sharon said. “And they can’t miss a beat, go out of time or rhythm. The technical difficulty is the highest not only that I’ve ever worked on, but that I’ve ever known to be done a cappella. ” To sync with each other, the actors wear monitors so they can best hear all the vocal layers as well as the musical supervisor, Rick who voices his cues from backstage. Getting used to the earbuds was a steep learning curve. Margo Seibert, one of the stars, said it was like trying to sing while putting your head under water in a bathtub — a “ moment” for her. “The first week, their faces looked like they’d just eaten a bad lemon,” Ms. said of the cast, laughing. “But Deke was so confident and positive that everyone went, ‘O. K.!’ And that’s a gift to have in the room. ” A “huge a cappella nerd,” Justin Guarini, one of Ms. Seibert’s was in a vocal group in high school. Still, he appreciated Mr. Sharon’s input. “I’m learning from him, and it’s an awesome feeling,” he said. “He’s not a teacher so much as an educator. ” For the tireless Mr. Sharon, a Broadway show is just one more way to bring about a culture in which everybody sings and where diversity is not just lip service but a structural asset. “Most choral ensembles want a homogeneity of sound,” he said, “but I want a different configuration of sounds and notes and voices. The overall experience of seeing these very diverse people onstage together makes a statement that is so necessary in today’s society. ” Ms. added: “He truly believes that groups of people singing together creates goodness in the world. And at this moment in time, we really need that kind of harmony. ” | 0 |
A text message which was sent in January to U.S. Rep. Tim Murphy, a staunch pro-life Republican representing Pennsylvania s 18th District, is now being revealed. In the text, a woman with whom Murphy was in a relationship outside of his marriage, took him to task for an anti-abortion statement posted on Facebook from his office s public account, the Pittsburg Post-Gazette reports. And you have zero issue posting your pro-life stance all over the place when you had no issue asking me to abort our unborn child just last week when we thought that was one of the options, wrote Shannon Edwards, a forensic psychologist in Pittsburgh with whom the congressman admitted just last month to having an extramarital relationship. Mrs. Edwards is now going through a divorce following the affair.Murphy publicly admitted to the affair last month. Last year I became involved in an affair with a personal friend. This is nobody s fault but my own, and I offer no excuses. To the extent that there should be any blame in this matter, it falls solely upon me, he said in a statement at the time.The Gazette notes that a text, which the paper obtained, from Murphy s cell phone number that same day responded to say, I get what you say about my March for life messages. I ve never written them. Staff does them. I read them and winced, he continued. I told staff don t write any more. I will. So, he never believed the anti-choice messages he touted.The Gazette reports:The congressman has been lauded by the Family Research Council, for his stance on abortion, as well as for family values, generally. He also has been endorsed by LifePAC, which opposes abortion rights, and is a member of the House Pro-Life Caucus, an affiliation that is often cited by his office.In addition to Murphy s other problems, a six-page memo to the Pennsylvania Republican, presumably written by his chief of staff, Susan Mosychuk, described a hostile workplace in which Murphy repeatedly denigrated employees, threatened them and created a state of terror. Apparently, being a pro-life Republican means not respecting life while secretly opting to be pro-choice for them. Murphy has voted against funding for Planned Parenthood and voted against federal funding for research that utilizes human embryonic stem cells. He has consistently voted against pro-choice proposals.Image via screen capture. | 1 |
As it happens, Donald J. Trump is not the only person to announce plans to shut down a personal philanthropy, just the best known. This is the story of a man who made and kept that same promise. Nearly five years ago, Charles F. Feeney sat in a cushy armchair in an apartment on the east side of Manhattan, grandchildren’s artwork taped to the walls, and said that by the end of 2016, he was going to hand out the last of a great fortune that he had made. It was a race: Mr. Feeney was then 81, and Atlantic Philanthropies, a collection of private foundations he had started and funded, still had about $1. 5 billion left. Flinging money out the window or writing checks was not Mr. Feeney’s way. Last month, Mr. Feeney and Atlantic completed the sprint and made a final grant, $7 million to Cornell University, to support students doing community service work. He had officially emptied his pockets, meeting his aspiration of “giving while living. ” Altogether, he had contributed $8 billion to his philanthropies, which have supported higher education, public health, human rights and scientific research. “You’re always nervous handling so much money, but we seem to have worked it pretty well,” Mr. Feeney, now 85, said last week in a phone interview. His remaining personal net worth is slightly more than $2 million. That’s not quite broke, by any standard, but it is a modest amount for a man who controlled thousands of times as much wealth. He and his wife, Helga, now live in a rented apartment in San Francisco. “You can only wear one pair of pants at a time,” Mr. Feeney has said. Until he was 75, he traveled only in coach, and carried reading materials in a plastic bag. For many years, when in New York, he had lunch not at the city’s luxury restaurants, but in the homey confines of Tommy Makem’s Irish Pavilion on East 57th Street, where he ate the burgers. None of the major American philanthropists have given away a greater proportion of their wealth, and starting in 1982, Mr. Feeney did most of this in complete secrecy, leading Forbes magazine to call him the “James Bond of philanthropy. ” His name does not appear in gilded letters, chiseled marble or other forms of writing anywhere on the 1, 000 buildings across five continents that $2. 7 billion of his money paid for. For years, Atlantic’s support came with a requirement that the beneficiaries not publicize its involvement. Beyond Mr. Feeney’s reticence about blowing his own horn, “it was also a way to leverage more donations — some other individual might contribute to get the naming rights,” said Christopher G. Oechsli, the president and chief executive officer of Atlantic. During the early 1990s, Mr. Feeney met secretly with paramilitary forces in Belfast, Northern Ireland, urging them to drop armed guerrilla conflict and promising financial support if they embraced electoral politics. Atlantic grants paid to create a public health system in Vietnam, and to provide access to antiretroviral treatment for AIDS in southern Africa. The last rounds of grants, about $600 million, included support for Atlantic Fellows, described as young emerging leaders working in their countries for healthier, more equitable societies. Raised in Elizabeth, N. J. Mr. Feeney served as a radio operator in the Air Force and attended Cornell University on the G. I. Bill. In 1960, he and a partner set up a company that sold items like brandy and cigars to travelers in shops at airports. It became a booming success. Mr. Feeney has also been a shrewd investor in technology . In 1984, he secretly transferred all of his assets, including his 38. 75 percent ownership of the business, to Atlantic Philanthropies. He grew the Atlantic pot with early investments in companies like Facebook, Priceline, Alibaba and Legent. A business dispute in 1997 forced disclosure of Mr. Feeney’s funding for Atlantic. As for Mr. Trump, if he really does shut down his foundation — stung by inquiries about the use of foundation money to pay Mr. Trump’s personal liabilities, or purchase football helmet memorabilia, or oil paintings of himself — he is not likely to follow the Feeney model. The two men are mirror images. For years, Mr. Trump lobbied hard to get onto lists of the wealthy, like the Forbes 400 Mr. Feeney has tried to stay off them. The Atlantic endowment came entirely from Mr. Feeney’s money much of the money that went into the Trump foundation in recent years was from others. One of Atlantic’s projects was to propose reforms to the American health care system, which helped lay groundwork for the Affordable Care Act another was advocacy for the end of the death penalty for juveniles. Mr. Trump has been on the other side of both of those issues, vowing to “dismantle Obamacare on Day 1,” and calling, in 1989, for the restoration of the death penalty after five teenagers were arrested in the rape of a jogger in Central Park. (They were convicted but later cleared of the charges.) Just as Mr. Trump was opening Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue in the early 1980s, Mr. Feeney was a few blocks away in Makem’s pub, thinking about the first big checks he would write for charity, on the condition that his identity not be disclosed. “I don’t recall ever meeting Trump,” Mr. Feeney said last week. No wonder. The thought crossed my mind 20 years ago that Chuck Feeney is what Donald Trump would be, if he lived his entire existence backward. | 0 |
The Smithsonian s Museum of African-American History opened to much fanfare, and also, much hatred from white people who think that such a thing is an affront to white history and therefore, reverse discrimination. Since Trump was elected, hate crimes and incidents have skyrocketed, and now, some racist asshat (or more than one) has decided to take their hatred straight to that museum.By hanging a noose.Yes, seriously. Someone hung a noose up in the Museum of African-American History. And not just once, but twice over the last four days. The noose isn t an innocent symbol. It s a stark and painful reminder of the days when lynching was common practice, particularly against black people.Which is precisely the reason these people hang nooses like that. According to a spokesman for the Southern Poverty Law Center, it s been a long time since we saw hatred like this: We haven t seen such mainstream support for hate in decades, not since the Civil Rights era 50 years ago. We re witnessing a moment when there are tremendous challenges to the country that we built on pluralism and democracy. The civil rights accorded every American are firmly under threat. But people of color, women, the LGBTQ community, and every other marginalized group out there is apparently a direct threat to the straight, white, Christian American, and Trump s election has empowered them to act like they re just taking their country back from the scourge of political correctness they so decried during the campaign.The Smithsonian issued their own statement about this, and they cut whoever it is that s responsible for the nooses: The Smithsonian family stands together in condemning this act of hatred and intolerance, especially repugnant in a museum that affirms and celebrates the American values of inclusion and diversity, wrote the secretary of the Smithsonian Institution David Skorton in an Institution-wide email. We will not be intimated. Cowardly acts like these will not, for one moment, prevent us from the vital work we do. People who do this are trying to drag our country back to a time when they were comfortable because they could step on everybody different from them. We can t let that continue to happen.Featured image by Astrid Riecken via Getty Images | 0 |
Ben Shapiro Destroys John Oliver On Abortion And Trump By: Hank Berrien October 27, 2016
On Thursday, on his daily podcast, Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief Ben Shapiro decimated HBO host and supposed comedian John Oliver for his comments regarding Donald Trump's comments on abortion during the third presidential debate.
Shapiro began, "HBO’s John Oliver belongs to a class of British people who think that they are smarter than everyone else by dint of their accent. They think that because they share an accent with Rex Harrison from My Fair Lady this makes them geniuses."
He continued:
So John Oliver does a political show on American politics; he doesn’t know much about American politics; he doesn’t know much about politics generally; but he’s been feted by the media because he’s a comedian who’s wildly to the left. So just like President Obama is going to be interviewed by Samantha Bee, who is legitimately the least funny person in human history, (she and Trevor Noah actually have a cage match next week to determine who’s the least funny person in human history. Both of them I believe, beat Stalin for that title a while back, so now were going to unify the championships), so Obama’s going to be on with Samantha Bee, where presumably they will jabber about how much they love each other and why abortion’s wonderful.
John Oliver was ripping on Donald Trump the other day at some awards ceremony, and because he’s British, that means we’re supposed to pay attention to him, even though we fought a revolution so we wouldn’t have to pay attention to the Brits. Here’s John Oliver talking about abortion:
The screen then showed Oliver pontificating:
In terms of the communication about reproductive rights and the conversation that is so important; we really did potentially hit an idea in the modern era during that third debate because his discussions of late-term abortions showed no real understanding of how abortions work, no clear understanding of the basic biology of women’s bodies, and a very poor sense of grammar as well. So I guess we got, in a sense, what we were asking for. If you ask Donald Trump to draw a Fallopian tube, I cannot imagine what you would get back other than a child’s drawing of a cobra.
Shapiro fired back:
Okay. I would hesitate to ask John Oliver to draw a Fallopian tube or to describe any of the biology here, because he obviously doesn’t know. Now look, I criticized Trump for being ignorant about how he described abortion because he wasn’t graphic enough. But let me, for those who missed it, explain what exactly happens in a late-term abortion, which is what he was talking about, okay? What happens in a late-term abortion, what happens in a late-term abortion, is something completely awful; this is according to americanpregnancy.org., okay? Not a right-wing pro-life website: americanpregnancy.org: "The fetus is rotated; forceps are used to grasp and pull the legs, shoulders and arms through the birth canal. A small incision is made at the base of the skull to allow a suction catheter inside. The catheter removes the cerebral material,” that would be the brains, “until the skull collapses. The fetus is then completely removed.”
Shapiro continued to explain the barbaric procedure:
Okay, that’s one procedure that’s used; that’s “dilation and extraction.” In late-term abortions it usually one of these two; “dilation and evacuation” or “dilation and extraction.” “Dilation and evacuation”: The baby may be given a lethal injection to kill it; sometimes they don’t use such injections; then the doctor uses a curette or a forceps to carve up the child’s body in the womb, and remove it piece by piece.
Then he proceeded to carve up Oliver:
So I guess that Donald Trump could have been more graphic; I don’t know that John Oliver would have enjoyed that, but he could have been more graphic, I suppose. But this is what they do, laugh it up, “Oh, he can’t draw a Fallopian tube."
Okay, John: draw an abortion. Really. Draw it; let’s see it. I want to see you get down there with a piece of paper and I want you to draw me what you think an abortion looks like. It’s not waving a magic wand, and it’s not getting rid of a cluster of cells that mean nothing. I want you to sit there and draw what it looks like when a baby is cut into pieces and removed from the womb. I would like to see that. "Okay, John: draw an abortion. Really. Draw it; let’s see it. I want to see you get down there with a piece of paper and I want you to draw me what you think an abortion looks like." Ben Shapiro
Shapiro concluded:
But of course he’ll never do that, other than, "It might look like a cobra; it might look like a cobra; maybe it’ll look like a princess, waving her fairy magic wand and a unicorn emerges from the vagina.” The fact that he thinks his accent covers for his basic ignorance of biology and his euphemistic willingness to ignore what amounts to child-killing is absolutely ridiculous and despicable.
Video below: | 0 |
Donald Trump is an embarrassment to the GOP and, more importantly, to the nation. He is also the most outrageously dangerous major party presidential candidate that America has seen in recent memory perhaps ever. Well, many people on both the left and the right know this, and have jumped on the #NeverTrump train. Now, there is a very interesting development: a group of women who have been lifelong Republicans doing all they can to elect presumptive nominee Hillary Clinton.The group is calling itself Republican Women for Hillary, and spent their 4th of July evening holding the first meeting of their fledgling organization at Washington s St. Regis Hotel. These women are definitely not your typical Hillary supporters. One of them admittedly spent copious amounts of time campaigning against abortion rights, and another is a Southern Baptist who is basically against everything Hillary Clinton and Democrats in general stand for. However, their mission is to make sure Donald Trump never gets anywhere near the Oval Office even if it means doing all they can to elect Hillary Clinton.U.S. Chamber of Commerce employee and staunch Republican Jennifer Lim, who helped found the group, explains the logic: It s really important that Republican leaders, especially Republican women leaders, stand up right now and say we re not OK with Trump representing our party. This is not a position I ever wanted to find myself in. But it s important that when things like this happen that people speak up. It is important to note that this group is in no way affiliated with the Clinton campaign, but they do intend to do their own campaigning and activist activities, including urging people to vote for Clinton, while also helping conservatives facing political backlash for condemning Donald Trump and his destructive, dangerous campaign.Here is the tweet from the group s twitter, endorsing Clinton:We're with her! #GOPwithHer #ImWithHer https://t.co/FhKIaa6BX5 RWFH (@GOPWomenWithHer) June 7, 2016Meghan Milloy, who is a member of Republican Woman for Hillary but also works for a conservative think tank called American Action Forum, seems conflicted and it is clear the decision was not easy to join this group. However, her resolve is solid. She says: It has been tough for me to come to this point where I can vote for a candidate who has been very against what I ve been working for for most of my professional career. That being said, I can t vote for someone like Donald Trump because he s overtly racist and misogynist. Jennifer Lim goes on to clarify the group s position: Are you a Republican who thinks @realDonaldTrump should not become president?Tell us why: https://t.co/OvwepPNXoC Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) May 6, 2016Featured image via David McNew/Getty Images | 0 |
Judge Orders Release Of 15,000 Clinton Emails Hidden From Public First, Tom’s travel date hasn’t been set – will be Tuesday or Wednesday we think. He is coordinating with Don Restrepo to see if they can go together [Redacted due to information “kept secret in the interest of national defense or foreign policy”] So that’s where we are. We’ll have more to report tomorrow. *** From Sullivan, Jacob J [email protected] To : H Sent : Sun Oct 25 [11:49:45] 2009 Subject : Re: Honduras Sounds good. There will be those who take a hard line on the elections, but perhaps some fence-sitting countries could be persuaded on conditional recognition. I’ll flag it for Tom and Craig. From : H Sent : Mon Oct 26 07:27:12 2009 Subject : Fw: Honduras All of this did not print last night, It stopped after Fourth! [Redacted due to information “kept secret in the interest of national defense or foreign policy;” “foreign relations or foreign activities of the US, including confidential sources”] From : Huma Abedin [[email protected]] Sent : Monday, October 26, 2009 8:06:12 AM To : humaabedin [Redacted] Subject : Fw: Honduras
The emails also include an exchange between Abedin, Clinton personal assistant Lauren Jiloty, and Iris Anaya, the assistant to sugar magnate and Clinton Foundation donor Alfonso Fanjul concerning a request for special access to Clinton. On October 13, 2009, Anaya emailed Abedin seeking to arrange a meeting between Fanjul, the CEO of Florida Crystals, and Clinton. Jiloty responded the next day, asking that Anaya talk with Clinton scheduler Lona Valmoro about “setting up a meeting.” Fanjul donated more than $100,000 to the Clinton Foundation and was a Bill Clinton co-chairman in Florida.
In an October 26, 2009, email exchange, power attorney and Hillary Clinton financial supporter, Charlie Ann Syprett, contacted Doug Band, apparently seeking help in getting around U.S. Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC) restrictions on U.S. citizens’ ability to travel to Cuba. Syprett ostensibly wanted a waiver from the restrictions to enable people from her organization, SYC Charitable Foundation, to travel to Cuba, noting “we are not asking for something out of the ordinary.”
The emails also show that Valmoro sent Clinton’s government schedule to the unsecure email addresses of numerous members of the Clinton Foundation staff on October 16, 2009, again on October 18, 2009, and on October 25, 2009. The emails also include discussions of personnel matters and appointments on Clinton’s unsecure account, which may run afoul of federal privacy law.
This is the thirteenth set of records produced for Judicial Watch by the State Department from the non-state.gov email accounts of Huma Abedin. The documents were produced under a court order in a May 5, 2015, Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the State Department requiring the agency to produce “all emails of official State Department business received or sent by former Deputy Chief of Staff Huma Abedin from January 1, 2009 through February 1, 2013, using a ‘non-state’.gov email address” ( Judicial Watch, Inc. v. U.S. Department of State (No. 1:15-cv-00684)). Previous records releases documented special Clinton State Department consideration for Clinton Foundation supporters (see here , here , and here .)
“We’ve once again uncovered classified information in Hillary Clinton’s and Huma Abedin’s emails,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “It is frankly remarkable that the FBI and Justice Department are only now investigating Abedin’s connection to Clinton’s mishandling of classified information.” | 1 |
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The Iraqi government accused Kurdish authorities on Sunday of bringing fighters from Turkey s separatist Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) to the disputed oil-rich city of Kirkuk, and said it considered the move a declaration of war. Vahal Ali, a media assistant to Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) President Masoud Barzani, denied the accusation. This is false, there are no PKK in Kirkuk, only Peshmerga, he told Reuters, referring to KRG military forces. In a statement published after a meeting chaired by Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi in Baghdad, and attended by top military and security commanders, the government said it would seek to impose its authority over Kirkuk and other disputed areas. Iraq s Kurdish leadership rejected on Sunday a demand by the Iraqi government to cancel the outcome of an independence referendum as a precondition for talks to resolve the dispute. Barzani and other Kurdish leaders, who met to discuss the crisis in the town of Dokan, renewed their offer to resolve peacefully the crisis with Baghdad. They rejected what they described as military threats from Iraqi forces against Kurdish Peshmerga fighters, and pledged to defend Kurdish-held territory in the event of an attack. The KRG and the Shi ite-led central government in Baghdad have been at loggerheads since the Sept. 25 referendum and its loud call for Kurdish independence. Tensions between the two parties have flared around the multi-ethnic oil city of Kirkuk, which Peshmerga forces took in 2014 when Iraqi security forces collapsed in the face of an Islamic State onslaught. The Peshmerga deployment prevented Kirkuk s oilfields from falling into jihadist hands. | 1 |
BEDMINSTER, NJ (Reuters) - President Donald Trump said on Friday he was being sarcastic when he thanked Russian President Vladimir Putin for saving the United States money by ordering cuts in U.S. diplomatic staff in Russia. Asked whether he was being sarcastic, Trump told reporters: “In order to reduce our payroll, absolutely. I think you know that,” Trump said without explicitly criticizing the move. Breaking nearly two weeks of silence on Putin’s July 30 order cutting U.S. embassy and consulate staff by nearly two thirds, Trump said on Thursday: “I’m very thankful that he let go of a large number of people because now we have a smaller payroll,” adding “there’s no real reason for them to go back.” Trump’s remarks rekindled criticism of his kid-glove handling of Putin, especially as he has not shied away from being highly critical of members of his own party, including Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. Putin, reacting to new sanctions imposed by the U.S. Congress and reluctantly signed into law by Trump, ordered Washington to cut its diplomatic and technical staff by 755 people by Sept. 1. Many of those affected likely will be local Russian staffers. It was also a reaction to former President Barack Obama expelling 35 Russian diplomats from the United States last December over the intelligence agency reports. “I was just speaking to the Secretary (of State Rex Tillerson) and we’re talking about coming up with an answer ... by September 1st we’ll have a response,” Trump said. Congressional committees and a special counsel are investigating the conclusions of U.S. intelligence agencies that Russia interfered in the 2016 election campaign by hacking and other methods to help Trump, a Republican. They are also looking into possible collusion between the campaign and Russian officials. Moscow has repeatedly denied meddling in the election and Trump denies any campaign collusion. During his campaign and since becoming president, Trump has consistently called for better ties with Russia, declined to criticize Putin and refused to unequivocally embrace the conclusions of the intelligence agencies. Trump’s remarks were immediately denounced by current and former U.S. officials who have served both Republican and Democratic administrations. The remarks also raised some eyebrows in Europe. “I would have to say in my experience (it is) one of the most bizarre things I have ever heard from any government official, not just the U.S.,” Ojars Kalnins, Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee at the Latvian parliament, told Reuters earlier on Friday. “Thanking another foreign leader for firing people from their embassy is unprecedented. It’s bizarre.” | 1 |
Tim Graham, executive editor of NewsBusters, spoke with Breitbart News Daily SiriusXM host Raheem Kassam on Thursday regarding the media’s reaction to the shooting at a Republican baseball practice that critically injured Rep. Steve Scalise. He also talked about the backlash of Megyn Kelly’s interview with Alex Jones. [Graham commented on MSNBC anchor Andrea Mitchell’s reporting on the shooting by saying, “In 2011, when Congresswoman Gabriel Giffords was shot, they jumped on the idea that this was the Tea Party. In Denver, they jumped on the notion that the shooter was the Tea Party. In both cases, they didn’t have anything. Here, in this case, it’s quite clear. ” Graham continued, “That’s not to say Bernie Sanders is in any way responsible for this. It just means they have liked to, in the past, associate conservative politics with violence or a climate of hate. ” Breitbart News Daily airs on SiriusXM Patriot 125 weekdays from 6:00 a. m. to 9:00 a. m. Eastern. LISTEN: | 0 |
ABOARD AIR FORCE ONE (Reuters) - The White House said on Thursday that President Barack Obama had been briefed about a masked man who took hostages at a cinema in western Germany and was later killed by police. White House spokesman Eric Schultz told reporters that U.S. officials were in contact with their German counterparts about the situation, but had no further details. | 1 |
BleachBit Mocks Crooked Hillary With Brutal New Product Offering Called ‘Cloth Or Something’ The new product is a set of microfiber cloths featuring an image of Hillary Clinton holding the BleachBit logo with a quote from Clinton in response to being asked if she wiped her private email server: “Like with a cloth or something?” BleachBit, the company responsible for the file deletion software utilised by Hillary Clinton’s team to delete her emails, recently released a new product called ‘Cloth or Something.’
EDITOR’S NOTE: BleachBit, the company that makes the scorched earth software for people who really, really, REALLY need to delete emails about “grandkids and yoga classes” have expanded their product line. Need a hammer to destroy your BlackBerry? They can sell you one. Need to wipe your server clean…like with a CLOTH or something? You can now buy that, too, and just in time for the 2016 Presidential Election. If I had a liberal friend, I would celebrate Trump’s victory by sending them one. If only I had a liberal friend. Or not.
The new product is a set of microfiber cloths featuring an image of Hillary Clinton holding the BleachBit logo with a quote from Clinton in response to being asked if she wiped her private email server: “Like with a cloth or something?” ‘Like With A Cloth or Something? – Hillary Clinton Jokes About Wiping Server:
Funny thing here, Crooked Hillary always brags about “how much smarter” she is than Donald Trump, right? So WHY, I ask you, does she now want us to believe that “wiping a server clean” happens by using a cloth? Soooo, either she is a LOT dumber than Donald Trump – or – she’s a liar. Pick one! Hillary Clinton Smashed Blackberry Phones With Hammers:
Hmmm, let me see. The FBI asks me to “ preserve emails and devices “, so naturally the first thing I do is delete the emails and THEN smash the devices to smithereens with a hammer. Because that’s how honest people, with nothing to hide, act when contacted by the FBI in an investigation, right?
The product description reads , “August 2015 Hillary Clinton was asked, ‘Did you wipe your email server?’ and she evasively replied, ‘Like with a cloth or something?’ A year later we found out that ‘cloth’ was BleachBit, a software application that deletes information ‘so even God can’t read it,’ as Congressman Trey Gowdy announced August 2016.” The page goes on to list many uses for the cloths while poking fun at Clinton’s actions during the investigation: After you have smashed your BlackBerry , don’t forget to wipe the fingerprints from your email server with this non-abrasive, soft microfiber Cloth or Something. Thin, foldable size makes it easy to stash the Cloth or Something in burn bags. 6″ x 6″ size quickly wipes even the biggest email servers with thousands of emails. Buy an extra cloth for your VIP (VERY VIP) client. Optionally autographed on the back by Andrew, creator of BleachBit. Printed in the USA! Guaranteed not to prove intent, or you will get a full refund paid when you are released from prison. First-class shipping and handling is a flat rate of $2 per order. Yes, this cloth is real , and you can really buy it.
Finally the page says , “Don’t wait for a subpoena: Order Now!” | 1 |
Well this is a shocker! The usual leftist slant on The View was put aside for some support for President Trump. Who knew these political hacks could be reasonable and kind to Trump! Whoopi Goldberg took the lead when she gave the three basketball players who were detained by China a tongue lashing Yes, what were they thinking? She surprised everyone when she brought up how they embarrassed the president. No kidding! Whoopi Goldberg and her co-hosts on ABC s The View expressed their astonishment Thursday at the fact that three UCLA freshmen basketball players were accused of shoplifting while on a team trip to China.The players were arrested by Chinese police and only released this week after President Donald Trump asked Chinese President Xi Jinping to intercede. Goldberg said the players embarrassed Trump and the country, but credited the president for helping the players return to the U.S. You embarrassed your families, you embarrassed the country, and you embarrassed the president, Goldberg said. Now I m not a big fan of the president, but the fact that he had to call and get your asses out of there is not anything to be proud of or think is cool. If this isn t the stupidest thing a young person has done, particularly if you re over six-feet tall, and black she continued. | 0 |
KAMPALA (Reuters) - Ugandan police raided the office of a local newspaper, detaining staff and confiscating equipment on allegations it had published an inaccurate story, the paper s lawyer and police said on Wednesday. The day before the Tuesday evening raid, Red Pepper, Uganda s leading tabloid, published a story alleging that Rwanda believed President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda was plotting to oust President Paul Kagame. The article cited unnamed sources. The government said there were no tensions between Uganda and Rwanda. Police spokesman Emirian Kayima said eight managers and editors at the newspaper s Kampala head office were detained after police searched the paper s Kampala office and confiscated computers and mobile phones. Kayima said the eight staff were being held at a detention facility in eastern Uganda and would appear in court when investigations were complete. He said the story contained serious statements and insinuations...that have grave implications on national and regional security and stability. The paper s lawyer Maxma Mutabingwa said uniformed police told Red Pepper staff during the search that they wanted material and information on a story published on Monday . He said some managers homes were also searched but gave no details. Red Pepper was not published on Wednesday and staff had not been allowed to access the offices since the raid, Mutabingwa said. Human rights groups say harassment of independent media by security personnel has been escalating in the East African country where Museveni, 73, has ruled for 31 years. Local media including Red Pepper have reported this month on tensions between Uganda and neighboring Rwanda over a range of economic and security disputes. There s no tension between Uganda and Rwanda...we have no problem at all (with Rwanda), Uganda s foreign affairs ministry spokeswoman, Margaret Kafeero, told Reuters. She said Uganda had not received any official complaint from Rwanda regarding any allegations of a plot against Kagame and that the reports in Ugandan media were rumors . Relations between the two countries are often complicated by a shared history which has by turns been a source of mutual suspicion and amity. Kagame, the Rwandan leader, grew up as a refugee in Uganda and also occupied a top position in the Ugandan army after serving in the guerrilla movement that helped Museveni take power in 1986. The Rwandan leader launched his own rebellion from Uganda that ushered him into power and halted a genocide in Rwanda in which an estimated 800,000 people were killed. | 1 |
On Friday’s broadcast of “PBS NewsHour,” New York Times columnist David Brooks argued that especially with Israel and Russia Donald Trump is “siding with a foreign leader against the US president. ” Brooks said, “What’s sort of remarkable is that, especially in the Israel and the Russia cases, you’ve got a US citizen, Donald Trump, siding with a foreign leader against the US president. There is a reason why have tried to remain mute during their transitional periods, relatively, because you just don’t want to be for somebody — some other country against your own government, and especially when you’re about to take the helm of that government. And there will be a lot of permanent people who are just going to be stuck there, who’s — who are now in a war between the and the guy they’re currently serving. ” Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett | 0 |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A Republican senator leading the charge on updating little-known investment rules designed to protect national security said that he will soon introduce a bill aimed at reining in potentially dangerous deals done by China. Senator John Cornyn, a member of the Republican leadership who is on the Senate Intelligence Committee, told the Council on Foreign Relations on Thursday that he was concerned by China’s attempts to ensure that its military catches up to the U.S. Defense Department in terms of technology. “China is using every tool at its disposal to close the technology gap between the United States and that country, and in the process, to eliminate our military’s technological advantage,” he said in his speech. Cornyn’s office provided Reuters with a copy of the address on Monday. To combat this, Cornyn plans to introduce a bill in Congress that would update the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, or CFIUS, an interagency panel led by the Treasury Department that reviews proposed transactions to ensure they do not pose a challenge to national security. The law firm Covington and Burling LLP, which follows CFIUS, said in a note after the speech that it believed that Cornyn’s proposed legislation “may ultimately become law.” “Senator Cornyn is among the most influential members of the Senate, and there appears to be an emerging bipartisan consensus that CFIUS should be strengthened,” the firm said in an analysis on Friday. Cornyn said the legislation would be called the Foreign Investment Risk Review Modernization Act, and would ensure that CFIUS focuses its investigations on countries which pose the biggest threat to the United States. It would also give CFIUS the authority to look at a broader range of deals, including joint ventures based outside the United States and smaller, minority-position investments which would give the investing companies access to sensitive information, Cornyn said. Cornyn’s office did not respond to a query on Monday regarding when the bill would be introduced. CFIUS already has a reputation for being tough on high-tech deals, and has been known in particular to block transactions that involve sophisticated semiconductors. The bill will not expand the committee, which will disappoint those who had pushed for the Agriculture Department to become a member of the panel. | 0 |
If anything should tell the militia terrorists occupying the Malheur Wildlife Refuge in Oregon that it is time for them to give this ridiculous occupation up, it should be the fact that a committee that Ammon Bundy himself helped create is telling them to leave.On Friday night, the Harney County Committee of Safety, which Ammon Bundy helped form, held a townhall event in which the occupiers were told to leave. A letter from the committee told them, essentially: you made your point, now it s time for you to go home. First, spokesperson Melodi Holt seemed to try to butter the clowns up when she began speaking, telling the militia people that they did a good job by: shining a light on the Hammond case here in Harney County.Your actions have created a national focus on the Hammonds and other issues here and across the West that have created mutual distrust, anger and unrest between the people of the land and the federal government, Molt read. We thank you for stirring us to action. However, that was the end of the good things Holt and the committee had to say about the Bundy militia. She went on to slam the occupiers tactics, saying that the committee and its supporters: were very upset that you chose to take the aggressive action of occupying the refuge and did it without our knowledge or any local approval, and in a fashion that has created huge distrust and loss of credibility of and for us as a group and as residents within the community. We approved of most of your message but disapprove of your unilateral methods of occupation. We ask that you organize your people, explain that your point has been made and leave in a peaceful and honorable fashion. No comment has come from the militia occupiers, and they declined to show up to the event that was essentially held to blast what they are doing.Mr. Bundy & Co., when your own people think you are doing the wrong thing, it really is time to hang it up. Go home. The local communities and residents, along with the federal government, have been more than lenient and patient with you. The committee is right. The point has been made. Leave.Watch video of Holt s remarks below:Featured image via video screen capture from Raw Story | 0 |
In their rush to make radical Muslims terrorists feel as though they are welcome in Belgium, coupled with their naive belief that if they coddle them enough, they will assimilate, the authorities have clearly forgotten about the victims of a horrific terror attack that took place in Brussels only months ago. When european nations start coddling terrorists and terror recruiters who are attracting Muslims from their homeland to commit horrific acts of violence against innocent people, the entire nation is screwed Erin McLaughlin of CNN told the story of a young man, a teen who became caught up in the ISIS recruiting web after a vacation in Belgium. Eight months after that trip to vacation in Belgium, Salia said her son became radicalized. He sent her a Facebook message to let her know he was in Syria.Then came a chilling phone call. the Syrian guide said, Congratulation, congratulation. Your son died as a martyr, and then he hung up.It was horrible. when I heard about his death, I felt like I died myself. she says her son was the happiest of her four children. She didn t know the most dangerous jihadist recruitment network in Brussels approached her son.It was the most dangerous of webs. Some were convicted and given lengthy prison sentences but, remarkably, were free on bail.It is veteran jihadists and recruiters. Some would go on to carry out the terrorist attacks in Paris and Brussels. Authorities prosecuted for man 60 recruiters and foreign fighters. One of them was Sala. His recruiters were declared guilty as you see here, the judge allowed them to walk free pending their appeal. CNN tracked down one of the recruiters to his home address that is neighborhood of a convicted recruiter.Her son said he pleaded, he wanted to come home. The recruiter said, no . We re here to ask him why.We ring the doorbell. His mother answers. She screams at us to leave her alone. As we walk away, the recruiter appears and confronts us. His words are not welcoming. He refuses to talk to us on camera.Families living in the complex don t even know they are living amongst them. It must be the EU PC.Belgian authorities tell CNN they have NOT notified residents that a convicted jihadist recruiter is living in their midst.We saw a teenage boy entering the same apartment building. the president of Brussels tribunal says in Belgium it is not unusual for a criminal to go free while they re waiting for appeal. If they re not considered a flight risk. How s it that a convicted member of a terrorist organization sentenced to seven years in prison is allowed to walk free after his trial? They re free, the official said, because they behaved during the trial.His mother said it s like her son died twice seeing his recruiters running loose on the streets.For entire story: Independent Sentinel | 1 |
“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win!” Mahatma Gandhi, India’s legendary activist. It is now time for a NEW New World Order! A patriotic and conservative world order because we had enough of what we already experienced for years!
One of the most confounding aspects of Donald Trump’s election as 45th President of the United States is that in the space of a year – indeed less than a year – a man with zero political experience has destroyed two of the most entrenched political dynasties: Bush and Clinton.
Just pause on this for a moment, and place it in the context of someone who in response to his appearance on the political stage as a candidate for the Republican nomination was met with ridicule and scorn. Consequently, a mainstream media and liberal commentators for whom politics is an exclusive club, the preserve of a select group of blessed people who belong to the club as if by divine right, have just been delivered one almighty slap-down The sense of entitlement that emanated from the Clinton campaign during this election was astonishing to behold. Hillary Clinton emitted the demeanour of a woman approaching a coronation rather than an election, disdaining not only on Donald Trump but also his supporters, whom she infamously described as “deplorables”. This was her undoing.
One of the most salient consequences of the 2008 global economic crash, which ushered in the worst crisis within capitalism since the 1930s, has been the collapse of the political center ground and with it the dominance of the liberal order.
In this respect, it is just as Karl Marx opined in his Communist Manifesto:
“All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses his real conditions of life‌”
The analogy that best describes this process is a battlefield after the smoke has cleared to reveal the ideological right on one side and its left wing counterpart on the other, ready to go to war over the right to shape the future. And as Brexit in the UK and now Trump’s electoral victory in the US leaves no doubt, this is a struggle currently being won by the right.
This is not to suggest the struggle is completely over however. On the contrary, the political, social, economic and constitutional crisis ushered in by Brexit proves that there remains some distance to travel before the matter is settled in Britain, while Trump’s election will inevitably give rise to strong opposition in the streets, perhaps even sparking a much needed revival of the left across the US, which based on the success of the Sanders campaign is far from dead.
Focusing in on Donald Trump and based on statements he made in the course of his campaign, it is interesting to observe that among the many places where you will find the most grievously disappointed people in response to his victory, are NATO headquarters in Brussels and Daesh (also known as ISIL/ISIS) and Nusra headquarters in Syria. It is evidence of the hitherto insurmountable contradiction that has lain at the heart of Washington’s geopolitical priorities and strategy these past few years. Trump, in contrast, laid it out very simply when he said, “Russia is killing ISIS. Assad is killing ISIS. I think it would be a good idea to get along with Russia.”
This being said, the acid test is what he does rather than what he has said, which is why it remains far too soon to be complacent in welcoming a new dawn in Washington’s relations with Russia or the rest of the world. Trump also said some harsh things about China and Iran during his election campaign, which taken in conjunction with the fact that as president he immediately becomes the CEO of an empire that is no longer sustainable, requires us to exercise caution rather than celebration at this stage.
Source6
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After a two-day botched rollout of his grand vice-presidential reveal, Donald Trump barely shared a stage with Mike Pence on Saturday morning.
On Saturday morning, in the Hilton hotel in midtown Manhattan, The Rolling Stones’ “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” reverberated in the hall, symbolically announcing the new union of Donald Trump and his veep pick, Indiana Governor Mike Pence.
After a whirlwind 48 hours in which the news of Pence’s pick leaked, and Trump reportedly waffled on the choice so much that he was making midnight calls on Thursday night to try to find an escape hatch, the two men—opposites in most qualitative respects—briefly shared the limelight behind a podium emblazoned only with Trump’s name.
As the Indiana governor looked on from the side of the stage, the presumptive Republican nominee devoted much of his address to bashing “Crooked Hillary” Clinton and weighing in on recent global conflicts, including the attempted military coup in Turkey on Friday.
"Great people, amazing people,” Trump said of the Turks, switching back and forth from prepared remarks to his usual riffing. “We wish them well. A lot of anguish last night but hopefully it'll all work out.”
A day after the Trump campaign scrapped the initial scheduled rollout for his vice presidential pick—which was ultimately unceremoniously announced on Twitter—they quickly pulled together an event at the same location where Ronald Reagan announced his 1980 presidential bid, with all the pomp and circumstance of a man meeting a mail-order spouse.
“Indiana Governor Mike Pence was my first choice,” Trump said despite the fact that he reportedly struggled to choose between an establishment-pleasing pick (pushed by campaign chairman Paul Manafort) and two men with whom he’s had better rapport: Newt Gingrich and New Jersey Governor Chris Christie.
Much of Saturday’s speech, a rollout that was accompanied by a website redesign to include Pence’s face and a new logo—replacing a suggestive image that was mocked on social media on Friday—sounded like any other Trump address.
“Hillary Clinton is the embodiment of corruption,” Trump said before suggesting that “she got away with murder” for not being charged after an investigation into her use of a private email server. He dropped typically braggadocious lines like “I was the one that predicted it,” in reference to Brexit, before seemingly remembering that Pence was supposed to be the man of the hour.
“Back to Mike Pence,” he’d interject before beginning to discuss his success in the Republican primary again (“I dominated with evangelicals”). Trump conceded that one of the reasons Pence was selected was for “party unity” before adding “he looks really good.”
When he finally called Pence to the stage, the two men shared a brief handshake before Trump waltzed off and gave the governor the floor—choosing not to stand beside him for a visual representation of the Republican ticket.
“I’m a Christian, a conservative and a Republican in that order,” Pence said to applause in the room. The Indiana governor’s address and policy positions—which include much more conservative opinions on LGBT rights and abortion—were intended to assuage on-the-fence Republicans who can’t fathom a former reality television star being the standard-bearer of their party.
He told the crowd that Trump had called him with the decision on Wednesday night, which runs counter to the narrative Trump himself presented to the media in various interviews on Thursday, during which time he proclaimed he hadn’t made his “final, final decision.”
The tenuous relationship of the two men has developed over the past two months since Pence made a less-than-enthusiastic endorsement of Senator Ted Cruz ahead of the Indiana primary (today, Trump said that endorsement was essentially one for him).
Their policy differences have played out on Trump’s favorite form of social media, with the Indiana governor tweeting his support of the Trans Pacific Partnership in 2014, something that the real estate mogul is adamantly against.
In December 2015, Pence tweeted: “Calls to ban Muslims from entering the U.S. are offensive and unconstitutional,” in response to an initial proposal from Trump that the United States place a temporary ban on Muslims coming to the country after the attack in San Bernardino.
But on Friday during his first interview as Trump’s vice presidential pick, Pence told Sean Hannity that he is “very supportive of Donald Trump's call to temporarily suspend immigration from countries where terrorist influence and impact represents a threat to the United States," a more recent iteration of the proposed ban.
Before the two men appear together once again at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland next week, the governor is returning to Zionsville, Indiana on Saturday for what is billed as a “Welcome Home Rally” according to the Trump campaign. | 0 |
21st Century Wire says One thing is certain about the War on Syria: the propaganda war being waged by the west and all of its agencies, from government to corporate media, to charities and third sector NGOs is much larger and more pernicious than anything seen in modern history. The effort is extremely well-financed (to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars at least), and well-coordinated too well in fact for many journalists to follow, many of whom have been seduced by multimillion dollar documentary productions of Netflix and endlessly cycled staged video clips and still images on networks like CNN and the BBC, and in newspapers like the New York Times, the Washington Post, The Times and The Guardian too. Why so much effort, and why the desperation by the west? What s at stake? The credibility of the Obama government, the Erdogan government, the Cameron/May governments, the Hollande government, NATO, the UN, western relations with Saudi Arabia, as well as a gas pipeline for Qatar into Europe, hundreds of billions in defense and reconstruction contracts, Soros s billions invested in various projects , the Golan Heights, Eurasian dominance and checkmate of Russia, and the supremacy of Smart Power as a geopolitical weapon of choice for the Atlanticist bloc leaning forward into the 21st century to mention only a few items.For the nation of Syria, the stakes are even higher the survival of their country.So as we can see, there is a lot at stake for west and their business partners, and it should go without saying that they will do almost anything to take the many spoils of this latest war Rick Sterling Consortium NewsManipulation of public perception has risen to a new level with the emergence of powerful social media. Multibillion-dollar corporate giants, such as Facebook, Twitter and Google, influence public perceptions, often via payments for boosting Facebook posts, paid promotion of Tweets, and biased results from search engines.Marketing and advertising companies use social media to promote their clients, but so do U.S. foreign policy managers who hire or enlist these companies to influence public perceptions to support U.S. foreign policy goals.The results of similar media manipulation can be seen in the widespread misunderstanding of the conflict in Syria, amid the demonization of the Syrian government and leadership and the skillful use of social media by anti-government activists. Influenced by both mainstream and this alternative media, most people in the West do not know that Bashar al-Assad remains popular with many Syrians. Nor do they realize that Assad won an election two years ago. For example, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton described making sure that Twitter was primed for street protests in Iran following the 2009 election, ready to spread and manage news of protests following the election and the killing of a young woman, which was blamed on the Iranian government although the circumstances of her death were murky. [Hard Choices hardback, p 423]There were three contestants in the Syrian presidential election of June 2014. Turnout was 73 percent of the registered voters, with 88 percent voting for Assad. In Beirut, the streets were clogged with tens of thousands of Syrian refugees marching through the city to vote at the Syrian Embassy. Hundreds of Syrian citizens living in the U.S. and other Western countries flew to Syria to vote because Syrian Embassies in Washington and other Western capitals were shut down.While Secretary of State John Kerry was condemning the Syrian election as a farce before it had even happened, a marketing company known as The Syria Campaign waged a campaign to block knowledge of the Syrian election. Along with demonizing President Assad, the company launched a campaign which led to Facebook censoring information about the Syrian election. CHEMICAL ATTACK! : A heart-rending propaganda image designed to justify a no-fly zone, a major U.S. military operation inside Syria against the Syrian military.Incubating PropagandaThe Syria Campaign was created by a larger company named Purpose, which according to its website incubated . The Syria Campaign. The company s website says, Purpose creates new movements, brands and organizations from the ground up to address complex global challenges. We apply this experience as movement creators to our work with progressive companies, nonprofits and philanthropies, helping them to put purpose and participation at the heart of what they do. The White Helmets are marketed in the West as civilian volunteers doing rescue work. On Sept. 22, it was announced that the Right Livelihood Award , the so-called Alternative Nobel Prize, is being given to the U.S./U.K.-created White Helmets for their outstanding bravery, compassion and humanitarian engagement in rescuing civilians from the destruction of the Syrian civil war. The major achievement of The Syria Campaign has been the branding and promotion of the White Helmets, also known as Syria Civil Defense, which began with a British military contractor, James LeMesurier, giving some rescue training to Syrians in Turkey with funding provided by the U.S. and U.K. The group stole this name from the REAL Syria Civil Defense as documented in this recent report from Aleppo.SEE ALSO: WHO ARE SYRIA S WHITE HELMETSBut the White Helmets are largely a propaganda tool promoting Western intervention against Syria. Unlike a legitimate rescue organization such as the Red Cross or Red Crescent, the White Helmets only work in areas controlled by the armed opposition. As shown in this video, the White Helmets pick up the bodies of individuals executed by the terrorists; they claim to be unarmed but are not; and they falsely claim to be neutral.Many of the videos from Al Qaeda/terrorist-dominated areas of Syria have the White Helmets logo because the White Helmets work in alliance with these extremist groups as primarily a media marketing tool to raise public support for continuing the support to the armed opposition as well as the demonization of the Syrian government. The Rights Livelihood press release said the White Helmets remain outspoken in calling for an end to hostilities in the country. But that is false, too. The White Helmets actively call for U.S./NATO military intervention through a No Fly Zone, which would begin with attacks upon and destruction of government anti-aircraft positions and aircraft.A Major Act of WarTaking over the skies above another country is an act of war that would require a major U.S. military operation, according to senior American generals.General Martin E. DempseyThe New York Times reported that in 2012 General Martin E. Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the White House that imposing a no-fly zone in Syria would require up to 70,000 American servicemen to destroy Syria s antiaircraft system and then impose round-the-clock control over Syrian airspace.General Carter Ham, former commander of the U.S. Africa Command who oversaw the aerial attacks on Libya in 2011, said on CBS News that I worry sometimes that, when people say impose a no-fly zone, there is this almost antiseptic view that this is an easily accomplished military task. It s extraordinarily difficult. It first entails we should make no bones about it. It first entails killing a lot of people and destroying the Syrian air defenses and those people who are manning those systems. And then it entails destroying the Syrian air force, preferably on the ground, in the air if necessary. This is a violent combat action that results in lots of casualties and increased risk to our own personnel. In other words, an appeal for a no-fly zone is not a call for a non-violent solution. It is seeking a bloody act of war by the United States against Syria, a nation that poses no threat to America. It also would almost surely be carried out in violation of international law since a United Nations Security Council resolution would face vetoes from Russia and probably China.Also, the White Helmets have never criticized or called for the end of funding to extremist organizations including Nusra Front, Al Qaeda s Syrian affiliate. On the contrary, White Helmets are generally embedded with this organization which is defined as terrorist by even the U.S., which is likely why the head of the White Helmets, Raed Saleh, was denied entry to the U.S.The foreign and marketing company origins of the White Helmets were exposed over 1 years ago and since then, writer Vanessa Beeley has revealed the organization in more depth in articles such as Who Are the White Helmets? and War by Way of Deception. Despite these expos s, understanding of the White Helmets is limited, with many liberal and progressive people uncritically accepting the propaganda and misinformation about Syria. Much of the progressive media has effectively blocked or censored critical examinations amid a flood of propaganda about barrel bombs dropped by the brutal dictator and his regime. In the last week, Netflix started showing a 40-minute documentary movie about the White Helmets that amounts to a promotional video. A substantial portion of it takes place in Turkey where we see trainees in hotel rooms making impassioned phone calls to inquire about their families in Syria. The family values theme is evident throughout, a good marketing angle. The political message of the video is also clear: after a bombing attack, It s the Russians . they say they are fighting ISIS but they are targeting civilians. The movie includes video previously promoted by the White Helmets such as the Miracle Baby rescue, an incident that may or may not have been staged. The video includes self-promoting proclamations such as You are real heroes. While no doubt there are some real rescues in the midst of war, many of the videos purporting to show the heroes at work have an unrealistic and contrived look to them as revealed here.Tricking Progressives Alternative media in the West has echoed mainstream media regarding the Syria conflict. The result is that many progressive individuals and groups are confused or worse. For example, the activist group CodePink recently issued a media release promoting the Netflix White Helmets propaganda video.The White Helmets video is produced by Grain Media and Violet Films/Ultra-Violet Consulting, which advertises itself as a marketing corporation specializing in social media management, grant writing, crowd building and campaign implementation. The only question is who paid them to produce this video There is growing resistance to this manipulation and deception. In response to a petition to give the Nobel Peace Prize to the White Helmets, there is a counter petition at Change.org. Following the Right Livelihood Awards announcement, there will soon be a petition demanding retraction of the award to the White Helmets.The story of the White Helmets is principally a feel good hoax to manipulate public perception about the conflict in Syria and continue the drive for regime change. That s why big money was paid to Purpose to incubate The Syria Campaign to brand and promote the White Helmets using Facebook, Twitter, etc. That s why more big money was paid to create a self-promotional documentary. The judges at Rights Livelihood were probably influenced by the documentary since critical examination of facts around Syria is so rare. It s a sad commentary on the media. As veteran war correspondent Stephen Kinzer recently wrote, Coverage of the Syrian war will be remembered as one of the most shameful episodes in the history of the American press. Rick Sterling is an investigative journalist and member of Syria Solidarity MovementREAD MORE SYRIA NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire Syria FilesSUPPORT 21WIRE and its work by Subscribing and becoming a Member @ 21WIRE.TV | 1 |
Except for the walls part, this is a really timeless address to Americans on Thanksgiving from a great leader: My fellow Americans, let us keep this Thanksgiving Day sacred thanking God for the bounty and goodness of our nation. As a measure of our gratitude, let us rededicate ourselves to the preservation of the land of the free and the home of the brave. | 1 |
For weeks, Facebook has been questioned about its role in spreading fake news. Now the company has mounted its most concerted effort to combat the problem. Facebook said on Thursday that it had begun a series of experiments to limit misinformation on its site. The tests include making it easier for its 1. 8 billion members to report fake news, and creating partnerships with outside organizations to help it indicate when articles are false. The company is also changing some advertising practices to stop purveyors of fake news from profiting from it. Facebook, the social network, is in a tricky position with these tests. It has long regarded itself as a neutral place where people can freely post, read and view content, and it has said it does not want to be an arbiter of truth. But as its reach and influence have grown, it has had to confront questions about its moral obligations and ethical standards regarding what appears on the network. Its experiments on curtailing fake news show that Facebook recognizes it has a deepening responsibility for what is on its site. But Facebook also must tread cautiously in making changes, because it is wary of exposing itself to claims of censorship. “We really value giving people a voice, but we also believe we need to take responsibility for the spread of fake news on our platform,” said Adam Mosseri, a Facebook vice president who is in charge of its news feed, the company’s method of distributing information to its global audience. He said the changes — which, if successful, may be available to a wide audience — resulted from many months of internal discussion about how to handle false news articles shared on the network. What impact Facebook’s moves will have on fake news is unclear. The issue is not confined to the social network, with a vast ecosystem of false news creators who thrive on online advertising and who can use other social media and search engines to propagate their work. Google, Twitter and message boards like 4chan and Reddit have all been criticized for being part of that chain. Still, Facebook has taken the most heat over fake news. The company has been under that spotlight since Nov. 8, when Donald J. Trump was elected the 45th president. Mr. Trump’s unexpected victory almost immediately led people to focus on whether Facebook had influenced the electorate, especially with the rise of hyperpartisan sites on the network and many examples of misinformation, such as a false article that claimed Pope Francis had endorsed Mr. Trump for president that was shared nearly a million times across the site. Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief executive, has said he did not believe that the social network had influenced the election result, calling it “a pretty crazy idea. ” Yet the intense scrutiny of the company on the issue has caused internal divisions and has pushed Mr. Zuckerberg to say he was trying to find ways to reduce the problem. In an interview, Mr. Mosseri said Facebook did not think its news feed had directly caused people to vote for a particular candidate, given that “the magnitude of fake news across Facebook is one fraction of a percent of the content across the network. ” Facebook has changed the way its news feed works before. In August, the company announced changes to marginalize what it considered “clickbait,” the sensational headlines that rarely live up to their promise. This year, Facebook also gave priority to content shared by friends and family, a move that shook some publishers that rely on the social network for much of their traffic. The company is also constantly its algorithms to serve what its users most want to see, an effort to keep its audience returning regularly. This time, Facebook is making it easier to flag content that may be fake. Users can report a post they dislike in their feed, but when Facebook asks for a reason, the site presents them with a list of limited and vague options, including the cryptic “I don’t think it should be on Facebook. ” In Facebook’s new experiment, users will have a choice to flag the post as fake news and have the option to message the friend who originally shared the piece to tell him or her the article is false. If an article receives enough flags as fake, it can be directed to a coalition of groups that will it. The groups include Snopes, PolitiFact, The Associated Press, FactCheck. org and ABC News. They will check the article and can mark it as a “disputed” piece, a designation that will be seen on Facebook. Partner organizations will not be paid, the companies said. Some characterized the as an extension of their journalistic efforts. “We actually regard this as a big part of our core mission,” James Goldston, the president of ABC News, said in an interview. “If that core mission isn’t helping people regard the real from the fake news, I don’t know what our mission is. ” Disputed articles will ultimately appear lower in the news feed. If users still decide to share such an article, they will receive a reminding them that the accuracy of the piece is in question. Facebook said it was casting a wide net to add more partners to its coalition and may move outside of the United States with the initiative if early experiments go well. The company is also part of the First Draft Coalition, an effort with other technology and media companies including Twitter, Google, The New York Times and CNN, to combat the spread of fake news online. In another change in how the news feed works, articles that many users read but do not share will be ranked lower on people’s feeds. Mr. Mosseri said a low ratio of sharing an article after it has been read could be perceived as a negative signal, one that might reflect that the article was misleading or of poor quality. “Facebook was inevitably going to have to curate the platform much more carefully, and this seems like a reasonably transparent method of intervention,” said Emily Bell, director at the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia University. “But the fake cat is already out of the imaginary bag,” Ms. Bell added. “If they didn’t try and do something about it, next time around it could have far worse consequences. ” Facebook also plans to impede the economics of spreading fake articles across the network. Fake news purveyors generally make money when people click on the false articles and are directed to websites, the majority of which are filled with dozens of ads. Facebook will review those links and check for things like whether the page is mostly filled with advertising content — a dead giveaway for spam sites — or to see whether a link masquerades as a different site, like a fake version of The New York Times. Such sites would not be eligible to display Facebook advertising on their pages. Articles disputed by the coalition will also not be eligible to be inserted into Facebook ads, a tactic viral spammers have used to spread fake news quickly and gain more clicks on their websites. Facebook said that in these early experiments it would deal with only fake news content it does not plan to flag opinion posts or other content that could not be easily classified. The changes will not affect satirical sites like The Onion, which often jabs at political subjects through humor. Facebook must take something else into consideration: its profit. Any action taken to reduce popular content, even if it is fake news, could hurt the company’s priority of keeping its users engaged on the platform. People spend an average of more than 50 minutes a day on Facebook, and the company wants that number to grow. Executives at Facebook stressed the overriding factor right now is not just engagement. “I think of Facebook as a technology company, but I recognize we have a greater responsibility than just building technology that information flows through,” Mr. Zuckerberg wrote in a post on Thursday. “We have a responsibility to make sure Facebook has the greatest positive impact on the world. ” | 0 |
On a rainy night in Queens, Armani Graves leapt into the swirling ropes and started to move her feet. Soon the ropes — and her orange knee socks — were a blur as she jumped faster and faster in a cavernous gymnasium echoing with her teammates’ encouragement. “Knees up!” “Push!” Armani, 13, and her teammates were practicing competitive double dutch, the schoolyard game that was adopted and perfected by black girls in urban American communities after World War II. In recent decades, double dutch has evolved into a competitive sport, complete with rules, score sheets and tournaments. But it has also fallen out of favor in the neighborhoods where it was born and once flourished. “I’m one of the only kids who does double dutch in my school,” said Armani, a member of Stan’s Pepper Steppers, a club, who lives in the East New York neighborhood of Brooklyn. But even as double dutch has declined in popularity in New York City and across the United States, its appeal has surged beyond the country’s borders, with the number of teams from abroad soaring and many of them beating American teams at a sport that was invented here. Perhaps nothing illustrates double dutch’s international spread as much as the Double Dutch Holiday Classic, an annual tournament at the Apollo Theater in Harlem that bills itself as the Super Bowl of double dutch and will have its 25th anniversary on Sunday. In addition to teams from Queens, Brooklyn, Connecticut and South Carolina, there will be competitors from France and Japan. “The Double Dutch Classic is a perfect example of what’s happened,” said Kyra Gaunt, a professor of sociology and anthropology at Baruch College and author of “The Games Black Girls Play: Learning the Ropes From to . ” “For the last 15 years, almost every freestyle competition has been won by groups that are outside the United States. ” As Stan’s Pepper Steppers were practicing Wednesday night in a community center in Queens, five teams from Japan were aboard a flight to New York. On Thursday, a Japanese team called Big Up, still rehearsed in Central Park for this weekend’s tournament, the Midtown skyline looming behind them. While the Queens team is known for its swiftness — members hold various speed records — Japan’s competitors are renowned for their choreographed, style. Two of the five members of the coed team Big Up, including Koichiro Sugawa, were trained as dancers. Mr. Sugawa, 21, first tried double dutch when he began college. “I simply thought it was cool,” he said. The organizer of the Japanese trip, Jun Haratake, was a competitor in high school and then at his university in Tokyo, where the double dutch club had 100 members. Now 36, Mr. Haratake is the director and of the Japan Double Dutch Association, a nonprofit organization. From 2004 to 2008, Mr. Haratake studied English in New York and worked as a physical education teacher in a Japanese school. He recalls taking the subway to the Brownsville section of Brooklyn and joining teenage girls in jam sessions — akin to a golfer traveling to St. Andrews in Scotland. Double dutch, he said, is still ascendant in Japan. “It’s continuing to grow in popularity,” he said. In New York City, its transformation into a competitive sport started in the 1970s, when a former police sergeant in Harlem, David A. Walker, decided that girls needed a way to channel their athletic skill. He founded the National Double Dutch League, a nonprofit group that sponsors the annual tournament at the Apollo. He also developed rules and worked with the city’s schools to incorporate double dutch into gym classes and intramural programs. “In the 1970s, there were not a lot of programs for girls,” said Lauren Walker, Mr. Walker’s daughter, who assumed leadership of the league after his death in 2008. “Boys had baseball, basketball and football. My father saw some girls jumping double dutch in a schoolyard one day and said, ‘Hey, let’s turn an urban activity into an actual sport. ’” In 2009, the city’s Department of Education made double dutch a varsity sport in nearly a dozen high schools, mostly in predominantly black neighborhoods like and Harlem. The idea was to increase the number of students, girls in particular, who participate in competitive sports. Yet despite the imprimatur of school officials, and clubs like Stan’s Pepper Steppers, double dutch veterans and observers of black youth say the activity has slowly lost its appeal as a spontaneous form of play. They blame the lure of social media and video games. “Back in the day, there were no computers,” Ms. Walker said. “Kids are just not as physically active anymore. ” Dr. Gaunt, who is an ethnomusicologist and social media researcher, agreed. “Most girls spend most of their time on Instagram or Tumblr, or with games online, rather than outside,” she said. “That’s true across all demographic groups. But double dutch is a street sport. It’s so common now to meet girls who have never . That wasn’t the case 20 years ago. ” But in countries from Latin America to Asia, the sport has been embraced as part of a love affair with culture. (The impresario Malcolm McLaren put it on the map as far back as 1983 with his hit song “Double Dutch. ”) Since the 1980s, double dutch organizations and competitions have emerged across the globe. In the last decade in Europe, championship tournaments have been held in Denmark, Hungary, the Netherlands and Sweden. In Japan, it has spread though clubs in high schools and colleges. Mr. Haratake said that at least half of the members of his university’s double dutch club were studying physical education, adding that they would most likely spread the sport as future teachers. But double dutch still casts a spell on some teenagers in New York — mostly girls, but the occasional boy, too. Young competitors say it combines art and athleticism and also improves their performance in other sports. Armani Graves, for example, plays flag football and runs track. “I’m one of the fastest runners in my school because of double dutch,” she said. During practice, Javon Langston, 14, a member of the Pepper Steppers, had just pulled off a series of tricks inside the swirling ropes, including an aerial, a and a flip, and he did not get tangled. “I like the freestyle the most because it shows your creativity,” he said modestly. His mother, Reneé Langston, nodded her approval. “It keeps him positive and active and off the streets,” she said. “It has definitely made him a better young adult. ” Dr. Gaunt lamented that there weren’t more funds available to allow the city’s double dutch champions to travel to international competitions. “The girls here who jump don’t get to go to Morocco and France and Germany,” she said. “A lot of the teams in Far Rockaway and Brooklyn don’t have that kind of money. So the descendants of the culture from which double dutch emerged do not have the same resources to compete. ” | 0 |
How many outspoken never-Trumper s is Donald willing to consider for roles in his administration?Vice President-elect Mike Pence met with former Secretary of State Condoleezza Condi Rice in the Washington, D.C., transition office on Wednesday to discuss bringing her on board the new administration.Great catching up today in the DC transition office with my good friend @CondoleezzaRice. pic.twitter.com/Qd4K8BeVo2 Mike Pence (@mike_pence) November 30, 2016According to a producer with NBC, when asked how the meeting went, Rice said, Terrific. Thank you. The same producer, Vaughn Hillyard, noted that when he asked Rice about the secretary of state post, she smiled at him:Condoleezza Rice on her meeting with Pence & the SoS post: "Terrific. Thank you." pic.twitter.com/F77IApEtaN Vaughn Hillyard (@VaughnHillyard) November 30, 2016Rice went to work as a professor at Stanford University, where she currently teaches, after President George W. Bush left the White House in 2009. She has been considered for vice president but expressed that she was not interested.She is deemed a moderate on many issues, including immigration, and has maintained relatively hawkish views on foreign policy. | 0 |
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny called on his supporters on Wednesday to hold street protests this weekend across Russia, in defiance of an official ban, to demand that Navalny be allowed to run in next year s presidential election. Navalny, a vocal critic of President Vladimir Putin, was jailed for 20 days on Monday for repeatedly violating laws governing the organization of public meetings and rallies. His arrest, the third this year, means that he will miss a campaign rally planned in Putin s hometown of St Petersburg on Oct. 7 - the Russian leader s birthday. Appealing to his supporters via his Facebook page, Navalny called on them to attend protests in both St Petersburg and Moscow on Saturday, adding that 80 of his support groups were meanwhile organizing protests across Russia. Our task is to make Oct. 7 the day when every decent person will pronounce aloud or to himself at least these two demands: political competition and Navalny s admission to the polls, he said in the appeal, which he said he had dictated from jail. The authorities have banned the planned weekend rallies in Moscow and St Petersburg, and the Kremlin warned on Tuesday that those calling for the protests would be prosecuted. Putin said earlier on Wednesday that he had not yet decided whether he would run for re-election in March 2018, something he is widely expected to do. Opinion polls show that if both Putin and Navalny were running, the incumbent would win by a wide margin. | 1 |
It s no secret that Speaker of the House Paul Ryan is spineless that s a reputation he s earned for himself throughout his entire career. But thanks to an audio clip from October 2016 that has just resurfaced, everyone is now being reminded how unreliable and weak Ryan truly is when it comes to holding to his beliefs.Coming at a time when Ryan is receiving tons of negative criticism due to his celebration that the CBO report on the American Health Care Act is going to cost millions of Americans to lose their health insurance, this looks pretty bad for the House Speaker. The footage from October 2016 was posted by none other than Breitbart, and it shows Ryan distancing himself from Trump after the corrupt businessman s misogynistic comments on the infamous Access Hollywood footage. Ryan can be heard saying: I am not going to defend Donald Trump, not now, not in the future. I m not going to be campaigning with him for the next 30 days. I m doing what I think is best for you, the members, not what s best for me. I m going to focus my time on campaigning for House Republicans. Ryan then trashed Trump, suggesting that he was an awful nominee that pretty much had no chance. He stated the only way the GOP might survive would be to preserve a House majority: It s amazing how easily she could be beaten. We need a check on Hillary Clinton, if Donald Trump and Mike Pence don t win the presidency. You can listen to Ryan trash Trump below:In response to the leaked audio, Ryan spokesman Brendan Buck said: The world is well aware of this history. And obviously a lot has happened since then. Yes, a lot HAS happened since then but Ryan is still spineless as ever and is now kissing Trump s ass. The GOP should be ashamed of him.Featured image via Win McNamee / Getty Images | 0 |
BERLIN (Reuters) - A German court on Wednesday ordered the release of an army officer suspected of planning to carry out an attack on politicians and incriminate asylum seekers, saying there was not enough evidence to keep him in detention. The officer, named only as Franco A., was arrested in April in a case that shocked Germans and stirred a debate about the depth of right-wing radicalism in the country s military. Prosecutors suspected that Franco A., along with two accomplices, wanted to implicate refugees in their planned attack by posing under a false identity as an asylum seeker. Former president Joachim Gauck and Justice Minister Heiko Maas were on a list of possible targets prepared by the suspects, who wanted to make their attack look like the work of Islamist militants, prosecutors had said. However, the Federal Court of Justice ruled on Wednesday that there was not enough evidence that Franco A. was preparing an attack to keep him in detention, even if there were some grounds for suspicion. Investigators must now make clear whether they have enough evidence to bring the officer to trial. A suspected accomplice was freed in July pending trial, while the other suspect was released for lack of evidence. The case had put pressure on Chancellor Angela Merkel s government, with her close ally, Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen, facing criticism for failing to deal with right-wing extremism in the army and also because she implied that most soldiers were right-wing radicals. Franco A., who served with an army battalion stationed in France, had used a fake identity to register as a Syrian refugee and moved into a shelter for migrants in Bavaria even though he speaks no Arabic. The soldier had previously been detained in late January by Austrian authorities on suspicion of having hidden an illegal gun in a bathroom at Vienna s main airport. | 0 |
VALLETTA (Reuters) - The bomb used to kill Maltese anti-corruption blogger Daphne Caruana Galizia was probably triggered by a call from a boat off Malta, an investigator said on Tuesday, laying out initial evidence against three suspects. Caruana Galizia died in the powerful blast as she was driving near her home in the village of Bidnija on Oct. 16 a killing that appalled Europe and raised questions about the rule of law on the tiny Mediterranean island. Brothers Alfred and George Degiorgio, and Vince Muscat were arrested earlier this month in connection with the murder. The three men, who were known to police, have denied any wrongdoing. Police started laying out their evidence against the trio to a Malta court which will decide whether to order a trial. One of the chief investigators, Keith Arnaud, described how a team from the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation, brought in by the Malta government to help solve the crime, had focused on a phone number which received a text message at the time of the explosion in Bidnija. Police say the number was not attached to a mobile phone but to a circuit board used in remote-control devices. The appliance was switched on at 2 a.m. local time in Bidnija on the day of the explosion and went off the grid at the time of the blast. Part of the circuit board was later found in the wreckage of the car. Cell phone data suggested the device was triggered by a call from off the coast. CCTV video showed a boat owned by the Degiorgio brothers putting to sea at around 8 a.m. on the day of the killing. It was later seen still at sea at 2.50 p.m. and was idling at the time of the explosion before returning to harbor. The three suspects had never been the target of any of Caruana Galizia s often fierce blogs, leading to questions over their possible motive. The blogger s family say the people who ordered the killing remain at large. Arnaud revealed that police had already been tapping the phone of George Degiorgio at the time of the murder and had heard him asking two separate people to top up the credit of a mobile phone number on the morning of the blast. He did not go into further details, but local media have reported that the same number might have triggered the bomb. Arnaud was the first person called to testify in the pre-trial hearing, which has been delayed twice over the past week after the initial two magistrates assigned to the case recused themselves. A third magistrate, Claire Stafrace Zammit, rejected calls by the defense for her also to abstain from the case because Caruana Galizia had once praised her husband. She dismissed the request as frivolous. The hearing will resume on Wednesday. | 1 |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Brent Scowcroft, who was national security adviser to two Republican U.S. presidents, on Wednesday endorsed Democrat Hillary Clinton for president over Donald Trump, in a snub of the Republican Party’s likely nominee by a prominent member of its security wing. “The presidency requires the judgment and the knowledge to make tough calls under pressure,” the Republican elder statesman said in a statement. “I believe Hillary Clinton has the wisdom and experience to lead our country at this critical time.” Scowcroft, 91, served as national security adviser under Presidents Gerald Ford and George H. W. Bush. Ford was president from 1974 to 1977 and Bush from 1989 to 1993. He joined a number of well-known Republicans defecting due to the prospect of a Trump presidency, including Richard Armitage, deputy secretary of state under President George W. Bush. Armitage gave Clinton, 68, who was secretary of state under Democratic President Barack Obama, his backing last week. Trump “doesn’t appear to be a Republican, he doesn’t appear to want to learn about issues. So, I’m going to vote for Mrs. Clinton,” Armitage told Politico at the time. The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Scowcroft’s endorsement of Clinton. Trump, 70, who has never held elected office, often boasts on the campaign trail his relative newness to politics, appealing to voters disillusioned by the current political climate. Despite that facet of his appeal - which helped Trump beat 16 rivals in the campaign’s primary phase to become his party’s presumptive nominee - establishment Republicans worry that his inexperience and brash style will alienate foreign allies and other international partners. Among his proposals, Trump has criticized NATO, a cornerstone of U.S. security policy, and said he would consider letting Japan and South Korea develop their own nuclear weapons instead of relying on the United States for protection against North Korea and China. “Secretary Clinton shares my belief that America must remain the world’s indispensable leader,” Scowcroft said. “She understands that our leadership and engagement beyond our borders makes the world, and therefore the United States, more secure and prosperous.” Trump has said he would strengthen national security, but has offered few details about his plans, other than his proposals to build a wall at the U.S.-Mexican border and for a temporary ban on Muslims entering the United States. Many national security experts have expressed alarm over the proposed ban and have warned that Trump’s fiery rhetoric on the campaign trail is fueling extremism. | 1 |
NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. liberal groups, divided in their support of Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, have urged a united, active opposition to Donald Trump, the Republican front-runner. In an open letter released on Tuesday, a group of liberal organizations called for a “non-violent movement” to thwart Trump’s candidacy for November’s general election, calling the New York billionaire a “hate-peddling bigot who openly incites violence.” “This is a five-alarm fire for our democracy,” said the letter, which was signed by the leaders of the liberal advocacy group MoveOn.org, a supporter of Sanders, and the Service Employees International Union, a major labor union that is backing Clinton. Representatives of 20 other groups signed the letter, which was published online as Americans in five states voted in the latest round of primary contests to pick party nominees for the Nov. 8 election. Trump has alarmed many in America, not just liberals, with his campaign rhetoric, from calling Mexican immigrants rapists and drug dealers to his proposal to ban Muslims temporarily from entering the United States. Protests have become a recurring, noisy feature at Trump’s rallies and in recent days, tensions have risen sharply as a few of Trump’s mostly white supporters have punched or bloodied protesters, many of whom are black or Latino, in scuffles in or outside campaign venues. The open letter urged Americans to use tactics familiar from the civil-rights movement to oppose Trump, including large public marches and prayer vigils. It told Americans to ask “every media outlet, corporation, and office-holder” whether they will condemn what the letter described as Trump’s “racism, misogyny and xenophobia.” The letter also called for efforts to increase voter turn-out in November, hoping to beat Trump if he becomes the Republican nominee. Some Republican politicians, including the party’s presidential nominee in 2012, Mitt Romney, have also called for efforts to prevent Trump winning the party’s nomination in July, including tactical voting. A Trump spokeswoman did not respond to a request for comment. Trump has said in media interviews he does not condone violence, but at rallies he has sometimes encouraged people to use force on protesters, drawing condemnation from both Democratic and Republican politicians. Many protesters have told journalists they are supporters of Sanders, a U.S. senator from Vermont, and Clinton, a former secretary of state. Trump, who canceled a rally in Chicago last week after hundreds of protesters got inside the venue, has said it is unfair that his events are disrupted more than those of any other candidate. | 1 |
So much outrage by so many corrupt people it s hard to keep track. One thing we know for sure no matter where you are in the world, you know you can always count on American citizens to seek justice against anyone who would harm an animal. Ripping innocent human babies limbs off and harvesting their parts for profit not so much As usual, there is none more culpable of the recent event in Zimbabwe, which incidentally is and has been quite permitted by the local authorities as long as everyone s palms are appropriately greased, than the US government, which years ago was fully aware that Americans were killing lions in Hwange National Park, but that its concern was not with the dead animals no matter how hard the administration tries to feign empathy for the beheaded lion here and now but with Americans getting caught in the act.al.com Zimbabwe intends to seek the extradition of an American dentist who killed a lion that was lured out of a national park and shot with a bow and a gun, and the process has already begun, a Cabinet minister said Friday. Unfortunately it was too late to apprehend the foreign poacher as he had already absconded to his country of origin, Oppah Muchinguri, Zimbabwe s environment, water and climate minister, told a news conference. We are appealing to the responsible authorities for his extradition to Zimbabwe so that he be made accountable. On Tuesday, American hunter Walter James Palmer issued a statement saying he relied on his guides to ensure the hunt was legal. Two Zimbabweans a professional hunter and a farm owner have been arrested in the lion killing that garnered worldwide condemnation. There has been an outcry, Muchinguri said. Almost 500,000 people are calling for his extradition and we need this support. We want him tried in Zimbabwe because he violated our laws. I have already consulted with the authorities within the police force who are responsible for arresting the criminal. We have certain processes we have to follow. Police should take the first step to approach the prosecutor general who will approach the Americans. The processes have already started. The Cabinet minister said both Palmer and professional hunter Theo Bronkhorst violated the Parks and Wildlife Act, which controls the use of bow and arrow hunting. He said Palmer, who reportedly paid $50,000 to hunt the lion, also violated the act through financing an illegal hunt. The landowner violated the act because he allowed a hunt to be conducted without a quota and necessary permit, Muchinguri said.Muchinguri accused Palmer of a well-orchestrated agenda which would tarnish the image of Zimbabwe and further strain the relationship between Zimbabwe and the USA. Palmer is believed to have shot the lion with a bow on July 1 outside Hwange National Park, after it was lured onto private land with a carcass of an animal laid out on a car. Some 40 hours later, the wounded cat was tracked down and Palmer allegedly killed it with a gun.Palmer, 55, is a dentist in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington. In a note to his patients, he wrote: I understand and respect that not everyone shares the same views on hunting, adding that he would resume his dental practice as soon as possible. Zimbabwe Hunters On US Elephant Ivory Ban: As professional hunter Cliff Walker sets out before dawn in Zimbabwe s Zambezi River valley to find a lion for his U.S. client, he has elephants on his mind.Walker, 37, says a U.S. ban on ivory imports from Zimbabwe and Tanzania in February may cost him tens of thousands of dollars. While Gavin Shire, spokesman for the U.S. Department of Fish and Wildlife Services, said last month that the ban was temporary, Walker thinks it will dissuade clients from coming to the southern African nation. I had six quotas for elephant trophy hunts for American clients, Walker said in an interview last month in the Matetsi Lot 1 in northwestern Zimbabwe near Victoria Falls. I spent a lot of money to get those quotas. Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority Director-General Edison Chidziya traveled to Washington last year to lobby against the ban, which government officials say will cost the southern African nation vital foreign exchange. Before the ban, Zimbabwe was expecting to earn about $60 million from trophy hunting this year, up from $45 million last year. Via: BloombergImages from the luxuryhunts.com websiteZero Hedge Released by Wikileaks: QUIET DIPLOMACY SUSPENDS ELEPHANT HUNTING IN NATIONAL PARKS FOR NOW a Confidential memo sent on October 23, 2008 by the current US ambassador to Zimbabwe, James D. Mcgee, to the CIA.In it we read that, as usual, there is none more culpable of the recent event in Zimbabwe, which incidentally is and has been quite permitted by the local authorities as long as everyone s palms are appropriately greased, than the US government, which years ago was fully aware that Americans were killing lions in Hwange National Park, but that its concern was not with the dead animals no matter how hard the administration tries to feign empathy for the beheaded lion here and now but with Americans getting caught in the act. As has just happened.But first, here is some background on how legal local poaching, whether it is for lions or elephants is. From the formerly classified memo:Meeting with poloff and conoff on October 10, Bown said that it was unclear how legal these hunting operations were, since it appeared the hunters had permits issued by Parks to kill the animals, despite the provision in the National Parks Act that prohibits commercial hunting. The photographic safari operators indicated Parks had given several local and South African hunting companies concessions to kill elephants in Hwange if they met specific criteria: (1) total ivory weight less than 30 pounds, (2) young/adolescent males, (3) isolated areas (i.e. away from watering holes and main roads), and (4) controlled by Parks staff. Parks has never publicly stated these criteria or explained the operation. Frustrated photographic safari operators weighed and photographed many of the tusks at the Park s ivory store in Hwange and found that many were over 30 pounds each. In one case, an operator claimed an American hunter killed an elephant with tusks weighing over 120 pounds. Photos also show some elephants were killed very near main roads and close to watering holes. In at least one reported case, a vehicle drove around the animal before the hunter killed it at close range. In emails to Mtsambiwa and Nhema, safari operators decried the unethical hunting both in terms of the detrimental ecological impact and the negative impact it would have on their own businesses. the safari operators also reported that some of the hunting guides had been issued hundreds of hunting permits for elephants in Hwange and other national parks in mid-to-late August. Normally, hunting permits are offered in an auction to all professional hunting guides. In contrast, Bown said these recent permits were issued through a non-transparent process to professional hunters of ill-repute, including some South African operators.So both the Zimbabwe ambassador and the CIA knew Zimbabwe was permitting and flaunting its own regulations when it comes to poaching if the fee is good enough. And, since American citizens were involved, the fee most certainly was:Despite Mtsambiwa s assurances at our August meeting that Parks was only planning a management/training exercise for Parks staff, in early September poloff received an email from an American citizen in California, asking about an advertisement for an elephant hunt in Zimbabwe to hunt five elephants over ten days for USD 6,000 as part of a culling exercise. The meat from the animals would go to local villagers and hunters were expected to help with on-site butchering of the animals. This price is significantly less than most elephant hunting packages. Normally, elephant hunting excursions in Zimbabwe cost about USD 1,000 per day, plus a fee for each animal killed. The hunting operation was to be led by Zimbabwean Headman Sibanda and was arranged by Thomas Powers Internationale, based in Colorado. Where was the disgust then? Oh yes, elephants are not cute animals about which Broadway musicals are written.However, there is a problem, because reading on we find that not only did the government know about everything that was going on involving US poachers, quite legal and paying very well, involving the hunting of elephants, but also, drumroll, lions.Bown, Save Valley Conservancy Director Clive Stockil and other conservationists opined in conversations with us that hunting permits were issued by Parks under intense pressure from its politicized board and ZANU-PF. Bown believed this frantic last grab at hunting revenue was one more aspect of ZANU-PF insiders efforts to strip assets and fill their pockets before losing power to the MDC. She said that the same small group of hunters involved in this operation had been consistently involved in unethical and marginally legal hunting. Bown had no evidence that they were involved specifically with sanctioned individuals within the Mugabe regime, but believed such connections were likely. According to Bown, the Zimbabwean professional hunters involved include Guy Whitall, Tim Schultz of African Dream Safaris, Headman Sibanda and Wayne Grant of Nyala Safaris, Evans Makanza, Alan Shearing, Buzz Charlton and James Macullam of Charlton Macullum Safaris, A.J. Van Heerden of Shashe Safaris, Barry Van Heerden of Big Game Safaris, and Lawrence Boha. (COMMENT: Numerous conservationists have suggested the Van Heerden brothers are involved in suspicious hunting and land deals with the Director of the Central Intelligence Organization, Happyton Bonyongwe, although none have provided proof of the relationship. END COMMENT.)Additionally, one safari operator accused an American, by name, of killing a lion illegally and then smuggling its hide out through South Africa. Given the rampant smuggling of other animal products across Zimbabwe s southern border (reftel), this is not unlikely. As reported in reftel, American hunting dollars are vital to Zimbabwe s conservation efforts, but there are also serious risks that Americans could be implicated in smuggling and poaching operations.And there you have it: while blaming Walter Palmer is easy, the truth is that at its core, the death of Cecil, as well as countless other lions, elephants, rhinos and other animals, is solely as a result of the Zimbabwe government s corruption. A corruption, which the US government knew all about, and which also knew that US hunters were killing not only elephants but lions.The government s only real concern: the serious risks that Americans could be implicated in smuggling and poaching operations. And now that an American has been implicated in poaching, what does the government do? It generously offers to help the Zimbabwe government investigate the killing of Cecil. Even though both Zimbabwe and the US government have tacitly approval of just this kind of behavior for years. Until something went wrong. | 0 |
Since the moment word got out about the firing of FBI Director James Comey, Democrats and their allies in the leftist media have been falling all over themselves to spew their hatred towards Trump and his unfair firing of James Comey. Even though for months, Democrats and the leftist media have been outraged at Comey for the reopening of the FBI investigation into Hillary s e-mails just prior to the election, all is forgiven now. It s time for the media and the Democrats to come together, regroup and focus on the real target President Trump.But now, FBI Director James Comey has made a statement about the firing, and it s not exactly what the media was hoping for. Comey took the high road when he sent a letter on Wednesday to agents and friends regarding President Trump s firing of him the day before. I have long believed that a President can fire an FBI director for any reason, or for no reason at all, he wrote, according to CNN. I m not going to spend time on the decision or the way it was executed, Comey added. I hope you won t either. It is done, and I will be fine, although I will miss you and the mission deeply. -The HillWatch MSNBC s Morning Joe hacks Mika Brzezinski and fake conservative Joe Scarborough attempt to trash Trump s reasoning for firing Comey. Deputy White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders had the perfect response: If Hillary Clinton had won, she would have immediately fired James Comey :Watch Senator Chuck Schumer defend FBI Director James Comey after crying about his mishandling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation him for months: | 0 |
I know you ll miss me. Did he really say that?President Barack Obama has returned to his favorite summer vacation spot of choice, the Massachusetts island of Martha s Vineyard, a day earlier than originally planned.It will likely be the family s last pit-stop at their luxurious rented seven-bedroom, nine-bathroom retreat since it went on the market in July for a cool $22.5million.And it seems the president was eager to savor every moment as he decided at the last minute to fly on Friday afternoon, rather than Saturday as originally planned.Obama beamed and laughed as he boarded Air Force One with Michelle still wearing his work suit.When they disembarked, he emerged looking relaxed without a jacket or tie to greet the crowds.Obama has visited the island every year of his presidency, except during the 2012 re-election campaign.As he wrapped up his duties in the White House on Friday and anticipated his getaway he seemed jovial and excited. I know you ll miss me, he joked to reporters after signing a bill preserving wilderness land in Idaho.With no official appearances on the schedule, Obama, Michelle and their youngest daughter Sasha will spend the time away from Washington dabbling in their usual vacation activities: leisurely rounds of golf, beach outings, hikes and bike rides, and dinner at some of the island s top restaurants.The property in Chilmark, on the western part of the island, includes a dual basketball and tennis court.A cluster of top aides will also enjoy a 17-day stay on the island, known as a summer hangout for the wealthy, to update the president as developments warrant.Via: UK Daily Mail | 0 |
If you re not scared to death of the prospect of Donald Trump as President of the United States, then you re either not paying attention, or you agree with him. And if you agree with him, then you agree with fascism and stand against freedom.Watching Trump speak is terrifyingly reminiscent of a fascist regime that tried to take over Europe in the 1930s and 40s. A regime that, much like Trump, was against the freedom of people to worship whatever they wish to follow, silence those who were in dissent, and control all aspects of the media.If you re a Republican and supporting Trump and claim you re a lover of freedom and the Constitution you re a liar. You clearly only want freedom for yourself and to oppress those who aren t just like you, and Trump s disdain for the freedom of speech, religion and press are palpable.Putting together a compilation of some of Trump s most horrifying moments from his rallies is the Facebook page Americans Against the Republican Party. Even down to the most recent attack on the press from a Trump security agent who choke slammed a photojournalist who wanted to record what was going on.As the page states: He incites, encourages, and rewards violence against protesters.He has stated he would expand libel laws, tearing down the framework of the First Amendment. In fact, he s declared a war on the First Amendment. Donald Trump doesn t believe in the freedom of religion, freedom of speech, or the freedom of the press. It really doesn t get more clear than this, Trump is clearly in support of Fascism and we need to make sure he doesn t ever get anywhere near the White House. // < ![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')); // ]]>Donald Trump s War On The 1st AmendmentWATCH AND SHARE THIS! Today, a reporter was slammed to the ground by his throat by Trump s security forces. He regularly attacks the press with hateful and violent rhetoric. He jokes, Nah, I wouldn t kill them an answer to a question that should not have to be asked. He s stated his opinion in the past that Putin s execution of journalists in Russia shows strength. He incites, encourages, and rewards violence against protesters.He has stated he would expand libel laws, tearing down the framework of the First Amendment. In fact, he s declared a war on the First Amendment. Donald Trump doesn t believe in the freedom of religion, freedom of speech, or the freedom of the press. We re never going to stop making fun of Donald Trump, but make no mistake the threat he presents to our nation and our democracy is all too serious. Trump, and his supporters, are fascists. When caught accidentally retweeting Mussolini, he DEFENDED Mussolini. He s the Republican frontrunner, and all predictions say he ll be the nominee. He s their leader. Trump is everything the GOP stands for, even those that won t admit it. Ignoring him isn t going to stop him. The only thing that will is letting it be known that this kind of behavior and attitude is not going to be tolerated in our nation. The undercurrent of racism and fear he has tapped into is strong, and our voices and votes MUST be stronger. There is no other option. Are you with us?LIKE Americans Against The Republican Party for more!Posted by Americans Against The Republican Party on Monday, February 29, 2016Featured image: flickr | 0 |
By Jameson Parker Election 2016 , Politics November 10, 2016 Obama Just Did Something To Spite Trump On The President-Elect’s Very First Visit To The White House
Nobody is more disgusted and disappointed in the election results than President Barack Obama, whose legacy of progress is poised to be undone overnight by a belligerent con man. And apparently the first meeting between current and future presidents was off to a rocky start – culminating with Obama abruptly breaking with tradition and not giving Trump the satisfaction of a publicity win on this sad day.
According to reporters at the White House , Obama cancelled a planned “photo op” with Trump shortly after meeting him, depriving the president-elect of the chance to appear alongside the current president and gain an air of legitimacy.
The Obamas canceled a photo-op of the current and future first couples outside the south entrance of the White House. In his first visit to the White House after the 2008 election, Mr. Obama and first lady Michelle Obama posed for the cameras alongside President George W. Bush and first lady Laura Bush. The decision not to participate in this tradition illustrates how bitter the campaign was, particularly for Mrs. Obama who delivered some of the most emotional arguments against electing Mr. Trump.
It may also suggest that Obama’s first meeting with Trump went about as badly as expected. The president had hoped to press Trump on the importance of governing the country with a semblance of dignity, as well as making the case that spending his first day in office signing a bunch of executive orders to erase Obama’s legacy out of spite would be a horrific start to his time in office. It appears that Trump was not in the a mood to listen.
Mr. Earnest said Mr. Obama would go through with Mr. Trump the policies he has implemented that he hopes his successor won’t undo. But Mr. Trump is expected to attempt to unravel much of Mr. Obama’s legacy, with plans to reverse his policies on health care, climate change, immigration and government regulations, and to dramatically shift his foreign-policy approach.
The fact that Obama would break this tradition – a symbolic gesture of the peaceful transition of power – implies he is keenly aware that the man about to take over is a walking, talking disaster. A pathological liar and narcissist who has surrounded himself with a team of goons that he can count on to tell him what he wants to here and claw their way up his coattails at every chance. No photo op is going to change this tragedy from unfolding.
Featured image via Alex Wong/Getty Images Share this Article! | 1 |
Donald Trump has already been giving hints that he might back out of debating Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton over claims that the political system is rigged against him even though we all know it s really because he s terrified of her. While most of us think Trump s attempts to blame outside forces for his incompetence are pathetic, some of his most prominent minions are coming to his rescue to further spread his conspiracy theories.Roger Stone, one of Trump s closest confidantes, spoke to Breitbart bigot Milo Yiannopoulos recently and warned that there would be a bloodbath if Trump didn t win the election. After several recent polls have suggested that Clinton is pulling ahead of Trump, Stone was more than happy to declare voter fraud. Stone said: I think we have widespread voter fraud, but the first thing that Trump needs to do is begin talking about it constantly. If there s voter fraud, this election will be illegitimate, the election of the winner will be illegitimate, we will have a constitutional crisis, widespread civil disobedience, and the government will no longer be the government. Of course, Yiannopoulos was right on board with this theory and the men had some horrific advice for Trump continue to be as offensive as possible and push those buttons so that he can gain enough rabid support from racists and bigots to make up for any supposed rigging that might happen. Stone also suggested that Trump should vow to shut the government down if Clinton was elected in November. As if this interview couldn t get any crazier, delusional Stone issued this warning: If you can t have an honest election, nothing else counts. I think he s gotta put them on notice that their inauguration will be a rhetorical, and when I mean civil disobedience, not violence, but it will be a bloodbath We will not stand for it. Trump s allies are just like him they love to encourage violence and are incapable of acting like adults when things don t go their way. The amount of stupidity going on in this interview is unfathomable. You can listen to it below:Previously, Roger Stone had encouraged Trump supporters to go stalk and visit anti-Trump delegates in their hotel rooms if they tried to take the GOP nomination away from Trump.Featured image via Alex Wong / Getty Images | 0 |
NEWARK, N.J. (Reuters) - New Jersey Governor Chris Christie’s office turned a regional transportation agency into a “goodie bag” from which to dole out favors and funds to Democrats who might endorse the Republican during his 2013 re-election campaign, according to prosecutors’ star witness in the so-called Bridgegate trial on Friday. David Wildstein, a former executive at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey who pleaded guilty and is testifying for the prosecution, described how requests from state officials went first to a top Christie aide for approval - for everything from patronage jobs at the agency to tours of the World Trade Center site, which the Port Authority owns. The aide, Christie’s then-deputy chief of staff Bridget Anne Kelly, and William Baroni, the former deputy executive director of the Port Authority, are on trial for wire fraud and civil rights deprivation. Kelly and Baroni are accused of arranging in September 2013 to close traffic lanes leading to the George Washington Bridge in order to cause gridlock in Fort Lee, New Jersey, as retribution after the municipality’s Democratic mayor did not endorse Christie’s successful re-election bid. The scandal helped torpedo Christie’s bid for the Republican presidential nomination. At the start of the trial, federal prosecutors claimed for the first time that Christie knew his two close associates were involved in the shutdown. Christie has denied any knowledge of the plot. Wildstein said the “goodie bag” scheme allowed Christie’s office to take credit for items given by the Port Authority, a bi-state agency run jointly with New York. “That was the system that was established. All use of Port Authority resources had to be approved by the governor’s office,” Wildstein, 55, testified. “The governor’s office was always to be the deliverer of good news.” In one case, Wildstein had the 100 flags flown over the World Trade Center site on the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks shipped to the governor’s office after the ceremony to be distributed to local officials as it saw fit. The office considered whether officials were willing to endorse Christie when deciding how to hand out the flags, surplus equipment, and even local grant money, he said. Baroni, whom Wildstein described as “one of the closest friends I’ve ever had,” hired Wildstein to be the “bad cop” in pushing Christie’s agenda at the authority, Wildstein said. “If it was good for Christie then it was good for us,” Wildstein said. Wildstein’s testimony continues on Monday. | 0 |
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Boston-based entrepreneur and inventor of Email V.A. Shiva Ayyadurai announced his candidacy for the US Senate seat currently occupied by Elizabeth Warren.Today, ShivaRatri, when Light overcame Darkness, we launched my campaign for US SENATE against @SenWarren. Defend the American Dream! Dr. Shiva Ayyadurai (@va_shiva) February 25, 2017Ayyadurai is a graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and is best known for his claim to have invented email.V.A. Shiva Ayyadurai, an Indian-American, will take on the only fake Indian in the US Senate, Elizabeth Warren.Shiva announced his candidacy last night at a private event hosted by Mike Cernovich and Jeff Giesea in suburban Maryland.Folks, THIS is the guy who is going to beat @SenWarren. He is the REAL Indian. @va_shiva. @Cernovich #BullMoose pic.twitter.com/6z5BdWpkPY Lynni Megginson (@LynniMegginson) February 25, 2017Elizabeth Warren lied to jump over other candidates and land a position at Harvard. Elizabeth Warren was listed as the Harvard Law s first woman of color in 1997 law review piece on diversity and affirmative action!Elizabeth Warren pushed back hard on questions about a Harvard Crimson piece in 1996 that described her as Native American, saying she had no idea the school where she taught law was billing her that way and saying it never came up during her hiring a year earlier, which others have backed up.But a 1997 Fordham Law Review piece described her as Harvard Law School s first woman of color, based, according to the notes at the bottom of the story, on a telephone interview with Michael Chmura, News Director, Harvard Law (Aug. 6, 1996). Warren was listed as a woman of color in the 1993 Harvard student journal. GPTime to take fight right into the belly of the beast in MA, the epi-center of Fake News, Fake History & Fake Science! @nntaleb @Cernovich Dr. Shiva Ayyadurai (@va_shiva) February 25, 2017Honored to be with REAL patriots #BullMoose who are uniting as one force to bring Truth and Freedom, exposing the Fake News! @Cernovich Dr. Shiva Ayyadurai (@va_shiva) February 25, 2017He s the inventor of email and polymath, holds four degrees from MIT, is a world-renowned systems scientist, inventor and entrepreneur.His love of medicine and complex systems began in India when he became intrigued with medicine at the age of five as he observed his grandmother, a farmer and healer in the small village of Muhavur in South India, apply Siddha, India s oldest system of traditional medicine, to heal and support local villagers. These early experiences inspired him to pursue the study of modern systems science, information technology and eastern and traditional systems of medicine to develop an integrative framework linking eastern and western systems of medicine.In 1978, as a precocious 14-year-old, after completing a special program in computer science at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Science at NYU, Ayyadurai was recruited by the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (UMDNJ) as a Research Fellow, where he developed the first electronic emulation of the entire interoffice mail system (Inbox, Outbox, Folders, Address Book, Memo, etc.), which he named EMAIL, to invent the world s first email system, resulting in him being awarded the first United States Copyright for Email, Computer Program for Electronic Mail System, at a time when Copyright was the only protection for software inventions.Ayyadurai went on to receive four degrees from MIT, including a bachelors in electrical engineering and computer science, and a dual master s degree in mechanical engineering and visual studies from the MIT Media Laboratory. | 1 |
BERLIN (Reuters) - Time is ticking on Brexit negotiations between Britain and the European Union and there is real urgency to make progress, a German government spokesman said on Monday. More progress is required as time is ticking, Steffen Seibert told a regular news conference. It is understandable that the (EU) chief negotiator (Michel) Barnier stresses how urgent it is for Britain to act promptly, to make proposals. | 1 |
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