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Jay Dyer 21st Century WireThe popular 80s pastiche series Stranger Things begins with a familiar scene of E.T. nostalgia, centering around Dungeons & Dragons. The scene is particularly familiar to me, since I played D&D back in the day, but learned very quickly this nefarious practice was like kryptonite to all things female. Oddly enough, the series appears to reflect a new trend amongst Hollywood A-listers, where nerd culture has revived the ancient 80s practice of playing D&D. The Hollywood Reporter explains the trend and its connection to acting and role-playing: Vin Diesel plays it. So do Dwayne Johnson, Drew Barrymore, Stephen Colbert, Mike Myers and Jon Favreau, among other bold-face names. Some even built their careers by playing it The decades-old role-playing game in which participants roll multisided dice while pretending to be mystical creatures such as elves and dwarves finally is coming out of the closet (or, in this case, Mom s basement). There s a huge resurgence of nerd culture, especially with the tech boom, says Silicon Valley s Martin Starr, a longtime D&D enthusiast. If nerds were still poor and living at their mothers , nobody would be paying any attention to Dungeons & Dragons. But nerds rule the world, and D&D is making a big comeback and I m excited about it. While this certainly relates to a furtherance of one s improv skills, it also relates to the occult side of Hollywood, though I don t take the ridiculous evangelical view that D&D is inherently evil. Rather, the notion of role-playing is synonymous with the ancient view of acting as dramaturgy, or ritual invocation of the gods. Comparative religion scholar Dudley Young writes: The earliest gods were invoked by ritual act (dromenon = the thing done) such as a sacrificial dance, commemorating the fact that our life begins and ends when they call upon us. Subsequently the thing was said (legomenon) as well as done, and the dromenon was on its way to becoming the drama. Once speech within the temple precincts has been endowed with the power of word-magic, we have the invocation properly so called. (Dudley Young, Origins of the Sacred: The Ecstasies of Love and War, pg. 413)Set in the fictional small town of Hawkins, Indiana in 1983, we will see the accidental dramaturgical invocation where the D&D simulacrum appears to actually be related on a deeper level to the occult phenomena that begin to occur. The disappearance of young Will Byers sparks a series of events that take Hawkins down a black rabbit hole of every conspiracy theory ever, melded with the opening of the inter-dimensional gates from every John Carpenter film. Originally slated to be titled Montauk, the series echoes the dubious accounts of Project Montauk, where purportedly time and space were altered in government-sponsored PsyOps and time travel experiments with famed UFO researcher Jacques Vallee commenting the experiments were related to the Philadelphia Experiment. For more information and speculation on this topic, I interviewed Dr. Farrell on his views here.D & D invokes the entities in E.T.. The stories of Montauk appear to originate in a book series by Preston Nichols, who claims to have discovered repressed memories of the event. This laughable scenario immediately smacks of PsyOps, making the original connection to large-scale deception all the more appropriate. Even Vallee alleges the experiment is a hoax, suggesting an experiment in seeing what you can get people to believe, as opposed to some real space-time warping experiment. Vallee writes: I hypothesized that the experiments had to do with a radar countermeasures test. Indeed a Raytheon advertisement published thirteen years ago suggested that the corresponding technology was now out in the open (Raytheon, 1980). This hypothesis, however, failed to explain a few of the facts that highlighted the story. In particular it did not account for the observed disappearance of the destroyer from the harbor, for the mysterious devices brought on board under extreme security precautions, or for the alleged disappearance of two sailors from a nearby tavern. While it may be the case that the Navy altered space-time, does Vallee not consider the possibility this is all bullshit, as so many military whistleblowers and generals so often leak ? Rather, as is so often the case, all the evidence for these events relies on some retired Navy man with all the credentials of the Navy man from the Village People. This is also why the Montauk tale mixes aliens and other nonsense in with the notion of the Apollo Mission being staged disinformation. Vallee himself was a high up government operator with an interest in occultism and Rosicrucianism, and is represented in Spielberg s Close Encounters by the character of Claude Lacombe (played by Francois Truffaut).Through the dimensional gate: the Demogorgon saps energy and hatches incubus style demon-babies in Ridley Scott form. .Thus, all of this functions as the spirit behind Stranger Things, as well as myriad other influences, such as Star Wars, Alien, Goonies, H.P. Lovecraft, Evil Dead, X-Men, Stephen King, and John Carpenter. That said, I consider the series as accurately showing some aspects of the spiritual realm, couched in scientistic mysticism, where our initial suspicion of extra-terrestrial alien manipulation is revealed to be both terrestrial and demonic. The Demogorgon inhabits a realm that is the upside down, the negative or demonic dark side of our world, which matches up to the Kabbalistic notion of the Qilphoth or the Abyss of Da at at times, as Crowley claims: This doctrine is extremely difficult to explain; but it corresponds more or less to the gap in thought between the Real, which is ideal, and the Unreal, which is actual. In the Abyss all things exist, indeed, at least in posse, but are without any possible meaning; for they lack the substratum of spiritual Reality. They are appearances without Law. They are thus Insane Delusions Now the Abyss being thus the great storehouse of Phenomena, it is the source of all impressions. Spoiler alert, but the missing children are not only part of MK Ultra, but are being used in top-secret testing that includes LSD, sensory deprivation and the development of Men Who Stare at Goats (or Kids Who Stare at Kittens)-type mental powers. Interestingly, the abducted super-soldier kid named 11 and El is specifically told to kill a kitten which is rumored to be an aspect of trauma-based mind control. Basically, all the rumors of hardcore child abuse and mind control are rolled into the series with the character El, who is able to remote view the spiritual realm and spy on Soviets (as well as Demogorgons).Like the simulacrum in Spielberg films, the spirits communicate across the void through the Kabbalistic principle of esoteric symbology and linguistics, as I showed in my Close Encounters analysis.. Oblivious to the dangers of such programs, Mr. Man in Black Shadow Government from the Dept. of Energy persists in hunting down his escaped daughter El (hinting at sexual abuse), who finds her way into the Goonies gang of Mike, Will and Lucas (I m assuming you ve seen it). Most interesting is the biblical and occult notion of the opening of gates through such scientific experiments, which are in fact occult rituals involving child adduction and sacrifice under the guise of cancer research (MK Ultra). Could this be a hint at what the cancer complex is really involved in? Genetic and psychological experimentation with children for the greater good ? Certainly there have been numerous cases of missing children in the US, as well as small towns experimented on by the shadow government. It would seem that Stanger Things is obliquely referencing these themes, as well as the possibility of actual murders and abductions, as author William Ramsey argues here.Given blood and sacrifice bring the demon and open the gate, we can assume the references are to the goetia, where demons are invoked through sigils. . Two notions that occurred to me I have not seen tacked yet in the series is the strange reference to the loss of father and God, as we see no strong male figures. Hop the cop, like a horny rabbit, hops from girl to girl having lost his daughter, while Will s father is a deadbeat. In Mike and Nancy s household, the ineffectual, sterile father character of Mr. Wheeler remains ever clueless while arguing to Mrs. Wheeler the government is on our side, and would never lie.Set in the Cold War, the fear and panic of the ridiculous Russian Threat in the background of the series allows the shadow state to develop the explicitly-named Star Wars Defense Program, where lasers and space weapons are being made to destroy the Russkies. Amazingly accurate in this insight, this is a point JaysAnalysis has been highlighting the last few years with the hype of the Cold War deception allowing for the rise of the dark military industrial complex which seems to have a penchant for human sacrifice. Note that I have argued many times that Mk Ultra was not merely a mind control experiment, but was about the entire biosphere, under the Department of Energy.Cop Hop discovers the advanced weapons lab facility is involved in MK Ultra something I have discussed many times. . The sacrifice of the youth for the dark designs of the shadow government is the ultimate conspiracy in the series, but what is more remarkable than this is the explanation by the Man in Black Dr. Brenner (Matthew Modine) that the sacrifice of sons and daughters for the gorgodemon is for the good of America. In other words, we are given the impression our villain knows the real source of the dark power in Hawkins, the demonic, and that the sacrifice of humans and blood draws it nearer and nearer. Foolishly assuming this dark energy can be harnessed for U.S. supremacy, Dr. Brenner is behind both MK Ultra and the SDI program that requires the sacrifice of America s sons and daughters ! This spiritual dimension is the accurate and insightful aspect of the series, but the message is not all good.Dr. Brenner demands more demonic channeling from El. Note her similarity of appearance to the Princess in The Never Ending Story.. The flip side, as mentioned, is that El as an androgynous, yet dominantly feminine archetype, is a form of the incarnation of the goddess. We have seen this of late in pop fiction more times than I can count, in examples like Hanna, Hunger Games, Lucy, Ex Machina and Jupiter Ascending, where the gnostic perspective of exalting the opposing force to the male is assumed to bring a cosmically needed balance to the war hawk patriarchy. A perennial myth of liberal fantasies, the feminist archetype will in no way bring peace and balance, only more destruction as gender roles continue to be confused. Feminism is part of that very destruction, and the fact that El shouts out in the aether God, Dad and Gone, suggests her association with Dr. Brenner as her dad and Father God s lack of answer to her call, means the solution to the spiritual problems of man can be found in a Luciferian evolution of humans beyond the traps of gender and evil patriarchal deities. In occultist Edmund Spenser s Faerie Queen, we read:Downe in the bottome of the deepe Abysse Where Demogorgon in dull darknesse pent, Farre from the view of Gods and heauens blis, The hideous Chaos keepes, their dreadfull dwelling is. (Book IV, Canto ii, stanza 47)In the process of becoming cruciform, the sacred feminine pistis Sophia incarnate destroys the patriarchal non-God. . Indeed, El annihilates the cruciform Demogorgon as if it were a demiurge that has imprisoned the town spiritually. This is precisely the Luciferian view Jesus and/or God the Father are demiurges who have imprisoned humans in this dimension and sap their energy as vampires, requiring blood sacrifice. Of course, none of that is true, as the Logos is the salvation of the human race, reconciling them to God by becoming Incarnate and destroying Death. In the gnostic scheme the roles are reversed, where El becomes the Luciferian dark hero rescuing the town through her sacrifice to destroy the cruciform demon-god. And, as you probably guessed, that is why her name is El, recalling the old Canaanite term for the gods who warred against Jehovah in the Bible. In fact, the Demogorgon is generally traced back to the demiurge.The series also uses numerology frequently, such as 11 and 77 suggesting the demonology of Crowley and references to 9/11 as a ritual initiation. Interestingly, light is mentioned several times in the series as both a means of communication and symbol of enlightenment. As you can see in the above image, photosynthesis is placed behind El as she dissolves the Demogorgon, suggesting the dissolution of Traditional Religion by enlightenment, perfectly consonant with the message of Gnosticism and Luciferianism.The gateways have been opened through mass human sacrifice of America s sons and daughters the new man is a dark, half-androgynous goddess who will destroy the genocidal patriarchal religions and bring a new Amerikan aeon of the crowned and conquering girl-child, a Luciferian world order.READ MORE HOLLYWOOD NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire Hollywood FilesTo hear Jay s full podcasts, see more information and learn how you can become a subscriber to JaysAnalysis.Jay Dyer is the author of the forthcoming title, Esoteric Hollywood: Sex, Cults and Symbols in Film from Trine Day. Focusing on film, philosophy, geopolitics and all things esoteric,JaysAnalysis and his podcast, Esoteric Hollywood, investigates the deeper meanings between the headlines, exploring the hidden aspects of our sinister synthetic mass media matrix.
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WINSTON-SALEM, N.C./NEW YORK (Reuters) - North Carolina extended voting times in several precincts during Tuesday’s presidential election but Colorado rejected a bid to keep polls open longer after both states experienced problems with electronic voting systems. In North Carolina, advocates including the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People had urged the state to extend voting time in eight Durham County precincts until 9 p.m. EST, an hour and a half past normal closing time. Instead, the state board extended voting time by an hour in two precincts and less than that in the other six. In Colorado, the Democratic Party filed a petition in the Denver County District Court to extend voting for two additional hours after service failures in the state’s electronic voting system in some polling places. A judge denied the request and said polls would close at 7 p.m. CST as scheduled. Colorado and North Carolina are both crucial battlegrounds in the U.S. presidential election between Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton. The Colorado Secretary of State office had opposed the extension of voting hours. “This outage didn’t stop anyone from voting. We have had two weeks of voting and everyone got a ballot,” Lynn Bartels, a spokeswoman for the office, said on Twitter. She said anyone still in line when polls closed would have an opportunity to cast their ballot. The Reverend William Barber, president of the NAACP in North Carolina, told members of the State Board of Elections on a conference call Tuesday evening that their refusal to extend voting hours as long as requested by local elections officials was “deeply concerning.” The problem in North Carolina involved the electronic poll books used to check in voters in some precincts. At one precinct where voting was extended for 60 minutes, election officials reported there had been up to a two-hour period earlier in the day where no voting took place. “We’ve fought too much voter suppression in this state over and over again,” Barber said. Patrick Gannon, spokesman for the North Carolina State Board of Elections, said voting was extended in just a handful of the state’s 2,704 precincts. The election board is made up of three Republicans and two Democrats.
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21st Century Wire says This week, the historic international Iranian Nuclear Deal was punctuated by a two-way prisoner swap between Washington and Tehran, but it didn t end quite the way everyone expected. On the Iranian side, one of the U.S. citizens who was detained in Iran, Nosratollah Khosravi-Roodsari, has stayed in Iran, but on the U.S. side all 7 of the Iranians held in U.S. prisons DID NOT show up to their flight to Geneva for the prisoner exchange with at least 3 electing to stay in the U.S TEHRAN SIDE: In Iran, 5 U.S. prisoners were released, with 4 of them making their way to Germany via Switzerland.Will Robinson Daily MailNone of the Iranians freed in the prisoner swap have returned home and could still be in the United States, it has been reported.The seven former inmates, who were released as part of a deal with the Islamic republic, did not show up to get a flight to Geneva, Switzerland, where the exchange was set to take place on Sunday.Three of the Iranians have decided to stay in the United States, ABC reported, with some moving in with their families. However it is not known where the other four are.Three of the Americans who had been detained in Iran Washington Post journalist Jason Rezaian, former U.S. Marine Amir Hekmati and Christian pastor Saeed Abedini left Tehran at around 7am the same day, but weren t met by their counterparts in Switzerland Continue this story at the Mail OnlineREAD MORE IRAN NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire Iran Files
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SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea may be planning a new missile test, South Korea s spy agency told lawmakers on Thursday, after brisk activity was spotted at its research facilities, just days before U.S. President Donald Trump visits Seoul. Reclusive North Korea has carried out a series of nuclear and missile tests in defiance of U.N. Security Council resolutions, but has not launched any missiles since firing one over Japan on Sept. 15, the longest such lull this year. However a flurry of activity including the movement of vehicles has been detected at the North s missile research facilities in Pyongyang, where the most recent missile test was conducted, pointing to another possible launch, South Korea s Intelligence Service said in a briefing to lawmakers. It did not say how the activity was detected. North Korea has made no secret of its plans to perfect a nuclear-tipped missile capable of reaching the U.S. mainland. It regularly threatens to destroy the United States and its puppet , South Korea. There is a possibility of a new missile launch given the active movement of vehicles around the missile research institute in Pyongyang. The North will constantly push for further nuclear tests going forward, and the miniaturization and diversification of warheads, the intelligence agency said at the briefing. The North s nuclear testing site in the northwestern town of Punggye-ri could have been damaged by its sixth and largest nuclear test on Sept. 3, according to Kim Byung-kee, Yi Wan-young and Lee Tae-gyu, members of South Korea s parliamentary intelligence committee. The explosion triggered an aftershock within eight minutes and three additional shocks. Japanese broadcaster TV Asahi, citing unnamed sources, said on Tuesday a tunnel at the test site collapsed after that explosion, possibly killing more than 200 people. Reuters has not been able to verify the report which North Korea on Thursday denounced as false and defamatory. Pyongyang will likely detonate more devices as it tries to master the miniaturization of nuclear warheads to put atop missiles, the lawmakers said. The third tunnel at the Punggye-ri complex remained ready for another test at any time , while construction had resumed at a fourth tunnel, making it unable to be used for a considerable amount of time , they added. Trump is to visit five Asian nations in coming days for talks in which North Korea will be a major focus. The visit includes the North s lone major ally, China, and U.S. allies Japan and South Korea, which have watched with increasing worry as Trump and North Korea have exchanged bellicose rhetoric.
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The military s budget is being massively expanded this year, and nobody is really sure why. The answer seems to be because we can. Republicans in the Senate have decided that the Pentagon should receive even more money than Trump s hawkish White House wanted, and is giving the military things it never requested and does not need. The 2018 National Defense Authorization Act approves a budget of $696 billion, an annual increase of $80 billion. Meanwhile, Republicans are out to gut aid programs for low-income Americans.So why aren t deficit hawks like Paul Ryan questioning where this money will come from? We re ballooning the deficit to kill people, and for what, exactly? The Pentagon does not need the money. For example, the budget has allowed for 94 new F-35 Lightning fighter jets. Via Bloomberg:The measure would authorize 94 F-35 jets made by Lockheed Martin Corp., 24 more than requested by the president and seven more than the House agreed to in its version of the bill.Oh, by the way, the budget is also illegal. Why is that? Well, a law passed in 2011 only allows $549 billion in base-related expenses. The United States has 800 military bases and hundreds of thousands of soldiers occupying nations around the globe. The budget as it stands recommends $640 billion:Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain (R-Ariz.) said during floor debate that his panel ignored the budget constraints set in law because responding to national security challenges requires more resources. The threats to our national security have not been more complex, severe, or daunting at any time in the past seven decades and our job is to ensure we have a military capable of meeting those threats, McCain said. For too long, we have locked ourselves into making strategic decisions based on budget realities. It is time to start making budget decisions based on strategic realities. That s right. Republicans think we should make budget decisions based on strategic realities, completely ignoring military-related deficits, in order to pay for jets (and other stuff) the military never asked for and does not need.Or, maybe, the massive lobbying arm of the defense industry has more to do with it. They ve already spent tens of millions in 2017 alone to buy politicians and influence, and there s no slowing down.these two things are unrelated pic.twitter.com/3PGzZzrLj9 Adam H. Johnson (@adamjohnsonNYC) September 19, 2017What else could that money pay for? Great question. Common Dreams has a great perspective on the true cost of needless military spending:Put another way, with a $700 billion military budget, the U.S. would be spending more than three times as much as China on its military, and 10 times as much as Russia. According to [the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute], the U.S. already accounts for more than a third of all military spending.Yes, in the entire world. The United States, with about 1/25 of the world s population, is responsible for over 1/3 of the military spending worldwide. Who are we preparing to fight, exactly?Or with $80 billion a year, you could make public colleges and universities in the U.S. tuition-free. In fact, Sanders s proposal was only estimated to cost the federal government $47 billion per year.If the additional military spending over the next 10 years instead went to pay off student debt, it could come close to wiping it out entirely.Yet those kind of ideas, or universal healthcare coverage, are dismissed out-of-hand by Republicans. Maybe that s because the everyday people who would benefit most don t pay as well as insurance and military lobbyists. Maybe that s because most politicians, but especially Republicans, are more invested in personal careers and success than they are in their country.Eight members of the Senate voted against the bill: Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Bob Corker (R-TN), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Mike Lee (R-UT), Rand Paul (R-KY), and Ron Wyden (D-OR).Featured image via Win McNamee/Getty Images
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From the Washington Examiner Roy Moore is the embattled Republican senatorial nominee in Alabama, but two other figures in the party have even more to lose in his race: Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon.First, the obvious. If Moore is beaten by Democrat Doug Jones a leaked National Republican Senatorial Committee poll has the socially conservative retired judge trailing Jones by 12 points, but this is at odds with public polling McConnell will be knocked down to leading a 51-49 Republican Senate.That may not seem like much in a Senate that has no meaningful filibuster for executive and judicial appointments, but where 52 votes are no more useful for advancing legislation that can t be snuck through the reconciliation process. It is nevertheless significant given that the Senate has already had trouble passing major legislation like Obamacare repeal and tax reform with the majority it currently has.It also would bring the Democrats one vote closer to recapturing the Senate majority, despite a very daunting electoral map for the upper chamber in 2018. Winning such a reliably red state would aid Democratic candidate recruitment across the board and embolden the party s ten senators from states President Trump carried who are up for re-election next year.Superficially speaking, McConnell comes out a loser if Moore is defeated. But not in the bigger picture. The Dec. 12 special Senate election in Alabama could also be viewed as a front in the proxy war between McConnell and Bannon.After leaving the White House, Bannon threatened to recruit primary challengers for most of the incumbent Republican senators who are seeking re-election in 2018. At a joint press conference with Trump in the Rose Garden, McConnell didn t mince words about how he felt about this gambit. Look, you know, the goal here is to win elections in November, McConnell said last month. Back in 2010 and 2012, we nominated several candidates Christine O Donnell, Sharron Angle, Todd Akin, Richard Mourdock. They re not in the Senate. And the reason for that was that they were not able to appeal to a broader electorate in the general election. My goal as the leader of the Republican Party in the Senate is to keep us in the majority, he added. The way you do that is not complicated. You have to have nominated people who can actually win, because winners make policy and losers go home. Bannon wants more Republican senators who will vote against McConnell. McConnell and his allies believe the Breitbart News chief s intervention in the primaries could lead to fewer Republican senators overall, so they have started punching back.In September s Alabama Republican primary, McConnell went all in on appointed incumbent Sen. Luther Strange and lost, despite the president s backing. Bannon made the argument that the candidate Trump endorsed wasn t the one who would be most supportive of the Trump agenda. For that, he insisted, you needed an anti-establishment candidate like Moore. Bannon, via Moore, won.Both men might have been better off with Rep. Mo Brooks, who was eliminated in the first round of voting. Brooks was big on the Trump agenda and did not have all the weird sexual baggage that could wind up dooming Moore. Bannon allies told the Washington Examiner that the former top Trump strategist might have preferred Brooks.Yet McConnell s political apparatus spent heavily against Moore to protect Strange, a sitting senator who struggled from the local perception he secured his seat through some kind of corrupt bargain with disgraced former Gov. Robert Bentley. And Bannon couldn t very well throw his weight behind a candidate who, despite being ideologically Trumpist, endorsed Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, over Trump in the 2016 primaries especially while still serving in the West Wing.Freed from the White House, Bannon backed Moore less because the Ten Commandments judge had any particular affinity for the issues that Trump ran on last year and more because Alabama s political conditions made him likely to beat Strange. Moore would owe McConnell and the establishment nothing, but Bannon would have chits to cash in and an improved reputation as a kingmaker inside the GOP.If Moore loses in a disastrous fashion (and remember it is courting disaster for this race to even be competitive; in 2014, Jeff Sessions had no Democratic challenger and won over 97 percent of the vote), it will prove McConnell s point about the futility of Bannon s enterprise before the Senate majority is ever really at risk.Breitbart American Majority founder Ned Ryun talked about Roy Moore and the Alabama Senate race with Breitbart News Executive Chairman Steve Bannon and SiriusXM host Raheem Kassam on Friday s Breitbart News Daily, broadcast live from the Restoration Weekend event.Bannon asked Ryun about celebrity lawyer Gloria Allred s involvement in the Roy Moore case, representing a woman who accuses Moore of assaulting her in 1977 when she was 16 years old.Ryan said Allred is basically a human vulture when you look back at some of the things she s been involved in.Watch lawyer Gloria Allred, as she skirts the issue of whether or not the high school yearbook being used to prove a relationship between Judge Roy Moore and one of his accusers is a forgery:Watch forgery expert make case that Gloria Allred s client is lying about Roy Moore s signature: Remember the incident with Arnold Schwarzenegger? Ryun asked. She brought all these women in front of him, said they re going to sue, they re going to file suit against Schwarzenegger. Guess what? After the election, absolutely nothing happened. I think a real turning point was that press conference when they pulled out the yearbook and the signature, he said of Allred s entry into the Moore controversy, referring to an interview with MSNBC s Katy Tur where Allred did not come off well.Ryun said this interview demonstrated that the best way to respond to sensational allegations is to just throw facts back at them. Ryun said there was no doubt in his mind that the allegations against Moore were part of an organized hit, as Bannon put it. I ve been in D.C. almost 20 years. And, again, I don t have hard proof, and I will say this clearly: I do not have hard proof, but I strongly suspect it s a very short list of people, all who are associated with Mitch McConnell whether it s Josh Holmes, whether it s Karl Rove, might even be Steven Law I don t know, but I strongly, strongly suspect somebody out of the McConnell camp planted the story. It was planted. This came with the blessing of Mitch McConnell at some point, that he was going to take a political shot at Roy Moore, he declared.
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Trump and his minions and cronies twist reality so badly it s amazing they can even see straight enough to write anything pretty much anywhere. Yesterday, and into today, Trump has been going on about being investigated and screaming about why Hillary Clinton and the Democrats aren t. Today, one of Hillary s campaign accounts, @TheBriefing2016, decided to troll Trump a little over this. Their last tweet is dated Nov. 7, 2016.And it s absolutely glorious. It pokes Trump over the fact that he s under investigation for obstruction of justice, and possibly for other crimes that may include collusion with Russia. This is what they did:??? pic.twitter.com/uGXCchcW08 The Briefing (@TheBriefing2016) June 15, 2017They know the answer is yes, he s still here, unfortunately. He still has a White House full of possible Russian agents (possibly including himself), he s still trying to claim that he s completely innocent and all the facts point that way, and he s still generally making a fool of himself over both his fake news nonsense and his smear campaign against his enemies. Two days ago, the Washington Post broke the story that Special Counsel Mueller is actively investigating Trump for obstruction of justice over his decision to fire James Comey just as the FBI s Russia investigation began escalating. Trump has called the Post fake news many times, and in his diatribe from yesterday and into today, he basically admitted that they re telling the truth about the investigation.Furthermore, one Democratic Congressman has drawn up an article of impeachment against Trump as well. The charge? Obstruction of justice.The funny thing is that the GOP keeps saying Trump had no intent of impeding the FBI s investigation when he s basically admitted otherwise. Paul Ryan also made sorry excuses about he didn t know when responding to Comey s testimony about his termination and his conversations with Trump during the time he served as FBI Director.We re pretty sure most of the rest of us would get convicted and thrown in jail if we said, Sorry, I didn t know, after breaking the law, because ignorance of the law generally isn t seen as a valid excuse. But Trump, because he s a Republican president and the Republicans are desperate right now, gets away with everything.Yes, he s still here. We re hoping that doesn t last too much longer.Featured image via Jason Kempin and Sean Gallup/Getty Images
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The following statements were posted to the verified Twitter accounts of U.S. President Donald Trump, @realDonaldTrump and @POTUS. The opinions expressed are his own. Reuters has not edited the statements or confirmed their accuracy. @realDonaldTrump : - If Senate Republicans don’t get rid of the Filibuster Rule and go to a 51% majority, few bills will be passed. 8 Dems control the Senate! [0633 EDT] - General John Kelly is doing a fantastic job as Chief of Staff. There is tremendous spirit and talent in the W.H. Don’t believe the Fake News. [0640 EDT] - Few, if any, Administrations have done more in just 7 months than the Trump A. Bills passed, regulations killed, border, military, ISIS, SC! [0644 EDT] - Nick Adams, “Retaking America” “Best things of this presidency aren’t reported about. Convinced this will be perhaps best presidency ever.” [0732 EDT] - Strange statement by Bob Corker considering that he is constantly asking me whether or not he should run again in ‘18. Tennessee not happy! [0825 EDT] - I have spoken w/ @GovAbbott of Texas and @LouisianaGov Edwards. Closely monitoring #HurricaneHarvey developments & here to assist as needed. [1146 EDT] - Received a #HurricaneHarvey briefing this morning from Acting @DHSgov Secretary Elaine Duke, @FEMA_Brock, @TomBossert45 and COS John Kelly. [1202 EDT] - I encourage everyone in the path of #HurricaneHarvey to heed the advice & orders of their local and state officials. [1518 EDT] - Just arrived at Camp David where I am closely watching the path and doings of Hurricane Harvey, as it strengthens to a Category 3. BE SAFE! [1703 EDT] - Just arrived at Camp David, where I am monitoring the path and doings of Hurricane Harvey (as it strengthens to a Class 3). 125 MPH winds! [1712 EDT] -- Source link: (bit.ly/2jBh4LU) (bit.ly/2jpEXYR)
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Get short URL 0 18 0 0 As many as 97 people are missing after a boat carrying more than 100 migrants sank off the Libyan shore, a spokesman of the Libyan coast guard told Sputnik.
TRIPOLI (Sputnik) – According to spokesman Ayoub Qassem, the vessel carrying 126 people sank on Wednesday 26 miles away from the lighthouse of Tajura and was spotted by a tanker which alerted the coastguard. As many as 29 people were rescued by the tanker. © AFP 2016/ ITALIAN NAVY 2016 Shows Record Number of Refugee Deaths in Mediterranean "The coast guard … is looking for the remaining missing persons, the number of whom is estimated at 97," Qassem said.
Europe is currently struggling to cope with a massive refugee influx, with hundreds of thousands of refugees and migrants fleeing conflict-torn countries in the Middle East and North Africa. According to the UN refugee agency, the Mediterranean Sea claimed over 3,600 lives last year. ...
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Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump announced Monday he was revoking press credentials for The Washington Post, upset with the major newspaper's coverage of his campaign.
The action from the Trump campaign is the latest in a string of moves Trump's campaign has made to ban reporters and news outlets that, in the mind of the billionaire businessman, have not treated him fairly.
According to another Facebook post, the final straw seems to have been a story that the Post originally headlined "Donald Trump suggests President Obama was involved with Orlando shooting." The current headline now reads, "Donald Trump seems to connect President Obama to Orlando shooting."
"We changed the headline shortly after it posted to more properly reflect what Trump said. We did so on our own; the Trump campaign never contacted us about it," Post Vice President for Communications Kristine Coratti Kelly told NPR.
In the story, the Post quoted a Fox News interview from Monday morning in which Trump said that Obama "either is not tough, not smart, or he's got something else in mind" in his refusal to mention the words "radical Islamic terrorism" following the mass shooting at an Orlando gay nightclub that killed 49 people early Sunday morning.
This headline, however, is not the first Post item that has gotten under Trump's skin. Reporter David Farenthold pressed Trump for details about donations he promised to make to veterans groups after a January fundraiser. And only after that reporting did Trump donate the $1 million he had promised and already said he had donated. Trump held a press conference to reveal that he had donated the money and called Farenthold a "nasty guy."
Trump has also alleged that Post owner Jeff Bezos was using the newspaper to protect Amazon, which he also owns, from higher taxes. He offered no evidence for that claim. In a statement explaining why he banned the Post, one of the most influential newspapers in the country, Trump's campaign repeated that accusation.
"We no longer feel compelled to work with a publication which has put its need for 'clicks' above journalistic integrity," the Republican's campaign said in a statement. "They have no journalistic integrity and write falsely about Mr. Trump. Mr. Trump does not mind a bad story, but it has to be honest."
In his own statement, Post Executive Editor Martin Baron said the newspaper was "proud of our coverage" and wouldn't relent in questioning Trump:
The Post is not the first news organization denied credentials to cover Trump's campaign events. The Huffington Post, Politico, BuzzFeed, the Daily Beast, the Des Moines Register, the New Hampshire Union Leader, Univision and others have also been blocked from covering events.
Trump has had a contentious relationship with the press ever since he announced his candidacy almost a year ago. But the acrimony with the Fourth Estate increased once it became clear he would be the Republican nominee.
In a press conference last month about those donations to veterans groups, Trump berated reporters after he detailed the source of the donations.
"I think the media is frankly, made up of people [who] in many cases — not in all cases — are not good people," Trump said, singling some reporters out by name and calling one ABC reporter a "sleaze."
And he said his approach to the press would stay the same if he were elected to the White House: "Yeah, it is going to be like this. You think I'm going to change? I'm not going to change."
"Donald Trump misunderstands — or, more likely, simply opposes — the role a free press plays in a democratic society," Thomas Burr, the National Press Club president, said after that contentious press conference. "Reporters are supposed to hold public figures accountable. Any American political candidate who attacks the press for doing its job is campaigning in the wrong country. In the United States, under our Constitution, a free press is a check on politicians of all parties. If we are to demand that other countries respect the tradition of a free press we must also practice that here at home."
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Terrorism has gripped Europe, America has two Socialist candidates running for President, people who want to kill us are freely flowing into our country, and college students are hyperventilating over chalk drawings with the name of one of the name of one of the most successful business men in America. As if today s college students didn t already face enough horrors, now the poor kids have to deal with the most gruesome microaggression of all: the T-word.Trump.Yes, hatemongers use the name of the Republican presidential front-runner on campus. Emory University students have even seen Trump chalked on sidewalks!The injured kids promptly did the only rational thing: marched on the Georgia school s administrative center, chanting Stop Hate, and You are not listening. Come speak to us, we are in pain. So are we, kids, so are we.The college leaped into action, offering emergency counseling sessions as President James Wagner vowed to track down the heartless graffiti-scrawler.Academia has come to this children who can t bear to share the same ZIP code with anyone who sees the world differently.Via:NYPJim Wagner, the president of the university in Atlanta, met with the protesters and later sent an email to the campus community, explaining, in part, During our conversation, they voiced their genuine concern and pain in the face of this perceived intimidation.Wagner added that the Freedom of Expression Committee is meeting to address whether the person or people responsible for the chalking were in compliance with Emory s policy. He said that they would debate technical issues, such as whether or not the chalkings were done on appropriate surfaces. However, he believes that the broader concern motivating the protests had to do more with the ideas the chalkings stood for than how they were done. Was it really just a message about a political preference, a candidate preference, or was it a harsher message? he asked. And I will tell you, those who met with me were genuine in their concerns that it was the latter. Ultimately, Wagner said he thinks that Emory s Respect for Open Expression Policy, which states that Emory is committed to an environment where the open expression of ideas and open, vigorous debate and speech are valued, promoted and encouraged, permits people to feel as though they have safety in speaking up and allows administrators to feel comfortable responding to incidents and concerns like this. However, College senior Alex Reibman believes that the proposed administrative response will prove to be counterproductive. I think the best step forward would be for administrators to engage in discussions with the students, he said. They could actually capitalize on this and allow for a better way of freedom of expression. He suggested that administrators consider the possibility of implementing free speech zones at Emory, which would allow people to voice their personal opinions and for others to counter those opinions. Hate speech, whether we like it or not, is a crucial part of free speech, he said.College freshman Amanda Obando disagreed with Reibman s view, saying that it dismissed the personal experiences of many who felt offended by the chalking. My reaction to the chalking was one of fear, she said. I told myself that it was a prank, and that the responsible individual was probably laughing in their room. I told myself that Emory would do something about it. Via: Emory Wheel
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SYDNEY/WELLINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump’s alleged disclosure of highly classified information to Russia’s foreign minister is unlikely to stop allies who share intelligence with Washington from cooperating, officials said on Tuesday. Some experts added, however, that the reports could undermine trust between partners. “If this really happened, it’s an unfortunate episode,” said Adam Thomson, a former British ambassador to NATO and now with the European Leadership Network think-tank in London. “But they’ll suck it up. Why? Because other countries need U.S. intelligence cooperation more than the other way round.” In a meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Russian ambassador Sergei Kislyak, Trump disclosed intelligence about a planned Islamic State operation, which was supplied by a U.S. ally, two officials with knowledge of the situation said. The name of the ally or intelligence-sharing operation was not disclosed. [nL2N1IH1O9] The White House declared the allegations, first reported by the Washington Post, incorrect and Trump said he had an “absolute right” to share facts to get Moscow to step up its fight against Islamic State. Interfax news agency quoted the Russian foreign ministry saying the reports were “fake”. [nR4N1I601L] Two of Washington’s allies in the intelligence sharing network known as “Five Eyes” - which groups the United States, Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand - played down the impact on their relationship with Washington. Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull told a radio station in Adelaide he would maintain “my normal circumspection and discretion” on classified matters, adding the alliance with the United States “is the bedrock of our national security”. Trump and Turnbull met last week aboard a decommissioned aircraft carrier in New York City after beginning their relations with a testy phone call in February. [nL1N1I701T] New Zealand Foreign Minister Gerry Brownlee noted the story had been denied. “The media reports have been rejected by senior U.S. officials who were in the meeting,” he said in an email via his spokeswoman. “If there is ever to be a resolution of the dreadful situation in Syria, it will require concerted efforts from both the U.S. and Russia.” A Japanese government official said it was simply not possible to stop cooperating with Washington on intelligence matters.”If the report is true and Mr. Trump is an untrustworthy person, it doesn’t necessarily mean that we don’t share information with the U.S. anymore,” said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity. While the president has the authority to disclose even the most highly classified information at will, in this case he did so without consulting the ally that provided it, which threatens to jeopardize a long-standing intelligence-sharing agreement, the two U.S. officials said. National security analysts said relations could be damaged. “Effectively, Trump’s actions have thrown the world’s most important intel sharing relationship into doubt at best, serious jeopardy at worst,” Stephanie Carvin, a former national security analyst for the Canadian government, said on Twitter, referring to the “Five Eyes” arrangement. James Curran, professor of foreign policy at the University of Sydney, said the intelligence relationships were too important and productive to be damaged by Trump’s alleged disclosures to the Russians. “No real practical impact, but I do think it will raise more eyebrows about this president’s style and his cavalier attitude to this type of thing, said Curran. Over the long term, however, such behavior “can potentially have very serious consequences for America’s intelligence relationships across the world”, Curran said. Rhys Ball, who formerly worked for New Zealand’s intelligence service and is now a Massey University security and defense analyst, said he thought it would be “business as usual” for the “Five Eyes” community. “Clearly someone has gulped at what was discussed or exchanged. But this might be the new norm when it comes to the United states and its attitude and foreign policy approach to the likes of the Russians,” Ball said. Even before Trump’s meeting with the Russians, Washington’s intelligence partners abroad have noted a barrage of reports around Trump, the Russians and spies. They include the investigations into his election campaign’s ties to Moscow, probes into Russian interference in the election, the president’s own expressions of disdain for the U.S. intelligence community and his claim that former President Barack Obama spied on him, citing a media report. “First the firing of the FBI chief and now this,” said one NATO diplomat referring to Trump’s decision to dismiss FBI Director James Comey. “How do we know the U.S. defense secretary won’t be fired next week or that intelligence finds its way into the wrong hands?” But Ball said intelligence co-operation was too important to be constrained. “Five Eyes is far too significant for anyone to wash their hands of it and Five Eyes has weathered a few storms over the years,” Ball said.
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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama will make his first visit as president to a U.S. mosque next week in a defense of religious freedom, the White House said, following a rise in anti-Muslim rhetoric in the United States. Obama will visit on Wednesday the Islamic Society of Baltimore mosque, where he will hold a roundtable with the community and deliver remarks, a White House official said on Saturday. At the mosque, the president will “reiterate the importance of staying true to our core values – welcoming our fellow Americans, speaking out against bigotry, rejecting indifference, and protecting our nation’s tradition of religious freedom,” the official said. He has visited mosques outside the United States on his trips abroad. Obama, a Democrat in his last year as president, has appealed to Americans to reject anti-Muslim comments by politicians, most notably Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump. Trump, who is leading the Republican field in opinion polls, called for a ban on Muslim visitors to the United States after a Muslim couple inspired by Islamist militants killed 14 people in a shooting in San Bernardino, California, in early December. According to a Gallup poll in December, Americans are now more likely to name terrorism as the top issue facing the United States than any other issue.
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MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia dismissed as false on Thursday a Reuters report that said a government think tank controlled by President Vladimir Putin had developed a plan to swing the 2016 U.S. presidential election in Donald Trump’s favor. Reuters reported on Wednesday that the Moscow-based Russian Institute for Strategic Studies (RISS) had provided the framework and rationale for what U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded was an intensive effort by Russia to interfere with the Nov. 8 election. The Reuters report cited three current and four former U.S. officials who had acquired two documents prepared by the institute. Russia has repeatedly denied interfering in the U.S. election. The Kremlin and RISS did not respond to requests for comment on the documents before Wednesday, but on Thursday the think tank issued a statement saying the report was false. “It seems, that in their conspiratorial consciousness the authors of this conceit did not weigh reality against their coveted fantasies, in order to once again draw attention to the theme ... of Russia’s ‘participation’ in the pre-election campaign in the United States,” said RISS Director Mikhail Fradkov. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said people should not pay attention to reports based on anonymous sources. “I don’t know anything about this, I can only say that seven anonymous sources are not worth one real one.” The documents obtained by the U.S. intelligence officials were central to the conclusion by the administration of Barack Obama that Russia mounted a “fake news” campaign and launched cyber attacks against Democratic Party groups and Hillary Clinton’s campaign, the current and former officials said. That campaign began after Putin asked the institute to draw up a plan for interfering with the U.S. presidential race, said one of the sources, a former senior U.S. intelligence official. U.S. President Donald Trump has said Russia’s activities had no impact on the outcome of the race. Ongoing congressional and FBI investigations into Russian interference have so far produced no public evidence that Trump associates colluded with the Russian effort to change the outcome of the election.
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Samsung killed the Galaxy Note 7 smartphones this week after the devices continued to burst into flames. But the tech behemoth has not extinguished scrutiny over its safety record. The South Korean manufacturer, which makes an array of consumer electronics, including kitchen appliances and television sets, is in the middle of juggling other safety problems. Those include a recall in Australia for more than 144, 000 Samsung washing machines that were prone to causing fires, and a potential recall of defective laundry units in the United States. Over the years, Samsung has faced other safety situations that have resulted in regulators taking action. The larger incidents include a 2003 recall of 184, 000 microwave ovens in the United States, and 210, 000 refrigerators in South Korea in 2009. There have been other smaller recalls, including one in 2009 of about 43, 000 microwave ovens in the United States because of a shock hazard and 20, 000 washing machines in 2007 because of a fire risk. Those episodes have been compounded by consumer frustration. People who have faced safety hazards with Samsung kitchen and home appliances said they frequently had to jump through hoops to get replacement products or refunds. To them, Samsung’s bungled handling of the Galaxy Note recall this week was not surprising. Ed O’Rourke, a resident of Boston, said that over the span of four years, Samsung replaced his malfunctioning induction range three times before the fourth one’s glass cooktop exploded in 2013. After that, Samsung declined to issue a refund until 2015, after his wife fought the company in court and won. The couple now uses an Electrolux range. The panoply of other Samsung product recalls shows that the Galaxy Note 7 fiasco was not an isolated case, though it was the company’s largest by far, with more than 2. 5 million devices. Combined with Samsung’s often bureaucratic process for rectifying these consumer issues, it raises questions about whether the company prioritized profit over customer safety. “I thought, why doesn’t this happen to Apple or G. E.? And is Samsung playing it a little too cute in pushing things to limits that other companies aren’t pushing in terms of ratio?” Mr. O’Rourke said. Product recalls are common among consumer electronics companies, so given the large portfolio of Samsung products and the size of the company, some problems to its lineup are to be expected. Apple, Samsung’s chief rival, has had a number of smaller recalls for products, including one for thousands of Beats speakers last year after receiving complaints of overheating, and a recall for some iPod Nanos in 2011 because of issues related to overheating. A Samsung spokeswoman pointed to an earlier statement about its washing machines in Australia, in which the company said thousands of refunds and replacements had been made and that customer safety was its top priority. Yet the scale and prominence of the Galaxy Note 7 problem renews the spotlight on Samsung’s safety record in other product areas, even as the company grapples with the smartphone recall. On Wednesday, Samsung revised its profit estimates to absorb $2 billion in losses. The company said it earned 5. 2 trillion won in the third quarter, 33. 3 percent less than the 7. 8 trillion won profit it had estimated last week. It said it had also cut its sales estimate for the quarter by 2 trillion won, to 47 trillion won. The revised profit for the third quarter showed a 29. 6 percent drop from the same quarter last year. Shares of Samsung fell 0. 65 percent on Wednesday after plunging 8 percent on Tuesday. “Samsung has not been communicative with consumers, regulators or the media as clearly as it should have during this recall, especially for a hazard as dangerous as this one where your phone can catch on fire, damage your property and harm your family,” said William Wallace, a policy analyst for Consumers Union, the advocacy arm of Consumer Reports. The smartphone recall is most likely unrelated to other Samsung product recalls that are now unfolding, like the one for the washing machines. That is because consumer electronics like TVs and kitchen appliances are made by a different Samsung division than the mobility group that is responsible for the smartphones. In Australia, Samsung is in the process of a recall it started three years ago for washing machines that were prone to catching fire as a result of an internal electrical defect. Samsung said that as of last month, it had resolved the problem in 81 percent of the affected washers. Yet many owners of the troubled Samsung washing machines contend their problems are far from resolved. For the recall in Australia, Samsung repaired the machines by fitting plastic bags over some connectors. A Facebook group with more than 4, 000 owners of the recalled machines crowdfunded money to hire forensic experts to analyze the fix. The forensic reports concluded that the plastic bag was ineffective because it did not prevent moisture penetration of the connectors. “It’s quite extraordinary that consumers who are scared for their lives had to get these scientific reports done,” said Tarn Allen, an owner of a recalled Samsung washing machine who is an administrator for the Facebook group. Ms. Allen, who lives in Sydney, Australia, said the South Korean manufacturer had refused to issue refunds to many members of the Facebook group until an Australian government agency issued a statement saying it was looking into the matter. Samsung may also be preparing to recall washing machines in the United States. Some models of the washers made between 2011 and this year are at risk of causing property damage or personal injury when the machines wash clothing and bulky items including bedding, according to the United States Consumer Product Safety Commission. “C. P. S. C. is advising consumers to only use the delicate cycle” with those items, the agency said late last month. “The lower spin speed in the delicate cycle lessens the risk of impact injuries or property damage due to the washing machine becoming dislodged. ” The affected units may experience abnormal vibrations, Samsung said in a statement. The commission and Samsung said they were working toward a fix.
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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. president Donald Trump spoke with Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan on Friday to discuss the dispute between Qatar and Gulf and Arab powers who severed diplomatic and travel links with Qatar. Trump and Erdogan discussed ways to resolve the dispute “while ensuring that all countries work together to stop terrorist funding and to combat extremist ideology”, the White House said in a statement. Turkey has backed Doha in its rift with four Arab states, which are boycotting the country over alleged support for terrorism, in what has become the worst Gulf Arab crisis in years. Doha denies the charges.
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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Russia mounted a campaign of “propaganda on steroids” seeking to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election, the top Democrat on the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee said on Thursday, listing several areas of concern about possible links to Republican Donald Trump’s campaign. In Moscow, Russian President Vladimir Putin again denied that Russia tried to influence the election, but in doing so he made reference to the wrong U.S. president in answering a question at an Arctic forum. “Once, Reagan, while discussing, I think, taxes, told the Americans: ‘Read my lips: ‘No!’” His reply recalled what George H.W. Bush told Americans during his 1988 presidential election campaign, “Read my lips: No new taxes.” Trump has dismissed suggestions of links with Moscow as Democratic Party sour grapes about his surprise November defeat of the party’s candidate, Hillary Clinton. U.S. intelligence agencies said Russia hacked emails of senior Democrats and orchestrated the release of embarrassing information to hurt Clinton’s campaign. “I will not prejudge the outcome of our investigation,” Senator Mark Warner told an intelligence committee hearing on the allegations. “We are seeking to determine if there is an actual fire, but so far there is a great, great deal of smoke.” Putin also said on Thursday that contacts Russian diplomats had made in the United States were merely part of routine work. At the hearing, lawmakers warned of the danger that Russia could interfere in elections in France and Germany this year and in future U.S. campaigns. Cyber security experts at the rare day-long public hearing detailed what they described as the dissemination of disinformation and cyber attacks on both Democratic political operatives and Republicans. Lawmakers and cyber experts mentioned stories that were being spread to discredit German Chancellor Angela Merkel. And they said Britain’s “Brexit” vote last year on leaving the European Union should be examined. Clinton Watts, a security consultant and former FBI agent, told Senator Marco Rubio, a Republican committee member, that he may have been a victim of Russian activity during his unsuccessful campaign for the 2016 Republican nomination against Trump. Rubio later said he would not comment. But he told the hearing that in July 2016, after he announced he would run for re-election to the Senate, former members of his presidential campaign team were targeted by an unsuccessful cyber attack from Russia. He said former campaign staffers were also targeted unsuccessfully from within Russia within the past 24 hours. “We’re all targets of a sophisticated and capable adversary,” said Senator Richard Burr, a Republican who heads the intelligence committee. Democrat Warner, who was a technology executive before entering politics, described a sweeping Russian campaign using trolls and botnets, or networks of hacked or infected devices, to spread large amounts of disinformation. The campaign of “fake news” was particularly targeted at traditionally Democratic-leaning states such as Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, where Trump defeated Clinton by narrow margins that were not predicted by opinion polls, he said. “This Russian ‘propaganda on steroids’ was designed to poison the national conversation in America,” Warner said. Citing concerns to be addressed in the committee’s probe, Warner listed the prediction by a Trump associate about the release of hacked emails weeks before they were released, a change in the Republican Party’s platform to water down language on Ukraine, and Trump’s campaign manager, Paul Manafort, and other Trump associates being forced to step down over ties to Russia. A separate investigation in the House of Representatives into the intelligence agencies’ allegations of a Russian role in the U.S. election has become mired in controversy over accusations that its Republican chairman, Trump ally Devin Nunes, is not impartial. Nunes and Representative Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House committee, met on Thursday to discuss their investigation. Schiff said the two had discussed obtaining documents before deciding which witnesses to call in. The New York Times reported on Thursday that two White House officials played a role in providing Nunes with documents the Republican committee chairman cited to show Trump and his associates were swept up in surveillance by U.S. intelligence. Trump said Nunes’ comments about the surveillance helped justify his insistence, made without evidence, that former President Barack Obama had wiretapped Trump Tower in New York, his campaign headquarters.
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Not paying taxes and being in debt appears to be a Trump family tradition.Like her father, Ivanka Trump apparently has a problem paying her taxes and it turns out she owes thousands.Her business has taken a lot of major hits recently as retailers drop her products due to poor sales and boycotts. After Nordstrom s dropped her products, Donald Trump lashed out at them on Twitter and Kellyanne Conway resorted to peddling Ivanka s products on Fox News, which violated ethics rules and put Ivanka in an even worse position.Now the state of New York has slapped her jewelry store with a lien for failing to pay taxes.Ivanka Trump owns Trump Fine Jewelry, a store operated in Trump Tower in New York that sells items starting at $1,000 and as high as $20,000.And just like her father, Ivanka doesn t think she should have to pay her taxes either.In January, New York filed a lien against Ivanka s jewelry business for owing $5,000 in unpaid taxes, an amount that is still not paid off.One would think that a person as wealthy as Ivanka would just pay her taxes and move on but Ivanka seems to just want to move on without paying what she owes as if she is somehow entitled to not pay taxes just because her daddy is in the White House.But that s not how it works. If a person owes taxes they are obligated under the law to pay them.And this isn t the first time Ivanka has tried to escape paying her debts. Just last year, she was ordered to pay over $3 million to KGK Jewelry for failing to pay them for services rendered. Again, her father has a history of failing to pay contractors for doing jobs.One has to wonder how much debt Donald Trump owes to his own creditors. After all, Trump often does business with banks overseas because American banks refuse to give him loans since he is a credit risk. Only Trump s taxes would give us definitive knowledge of Trump s finances.But now we know that his daughter definitely does not pay her taxes. And she must have learned it from someone, and there s no one better at failing to pay taxes than Donald Trump.Featured image via Joe Scarnici/Getty Images
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There is no question that Whoopi Goldberg is a talented actress and has the ability to make people laugh, but the gift of comedy that Whoopi used to make herself so popular with her fans has mostly disappeared, and has been replaced with a hostility that is anything but funny. The most painfully ignorant co-host on the show however, is comedian Joy Behar. It s been hilarious watching her now admit that she actually misses George W. Bush. Behar has made some embarrassing attempts lately to bond with guests from former members of George W. Bush s cabinet who ve appeared as guests on The View . Bear is so completely enveloped with hate for President Trump, that she s actually convinced herself that the whole world hates Trump as much as she does. She s gone so far off the deep end, that she truly believes she can convince conservatives like Bush s former secretary of state Condoleezza Rice, who appeared on The View last month [Watch HERE] to join her in her never-ending obsession to bash and discredit President Trump. Things didn t work out how Behar planned however, when Condoleezza Rice who gave Behar and her co-hosts an education on how things actually work in government and not how they wished they worked.This time around, it was George. W. Bush s former secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld who appeared on The View and gave dingbat Joy Behar an education on how presidents are elected in the United States.WatchWhoopi Goldberg asked Rumsfeld if Trump s presidency was unique to which he replied that, It s different. Rumsfeld went on to explain how President Trump won in the primaries against some very qualified candidates, and went on to win against a seasoned, well-known Democrat Hillary Clinton. Behar pressed on, suggesting that Trump really is not a legitimate president because he lost by 3 million votes. Rumsfeld then proceeded to educate the loudmouth, emotional Joy Behar about how presidents are elected. Rumsfeld continued to educate the rest of the dingbats on The View who insisted on engaging in hypotheticals when it comes to the leftist tin-foil hat theory, that Trump worked with the Russians to affect the outcome of our elections.
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As part of an editorial calling for Republicans to stop Donald Trump from becoming their presidential nominee, the Boston Globe on Sunday imagined what covering a President Trump would be like on its front page.
The Globe took some editorial liberties with how Trump's plans would impact the US, including the potential for riots, markets crashing, and the military refusing to obey Trump's orders.
It is an exercise in taking a man at his word. And his vision of America promises to be as appalling in real life as it is in black and white on the page. It is a vision that demands an active and engaged opposition. It requires an opposition as focused on denying Trump the White House as the candidate is flippant and reckless about securing it.
The Globe's predicted results to Trump's policies don't seem too far off from reality: Deporting 11 million unauthorized immigrants would likely cause a lot of social unrest in the US, and Trump has explicitly called for violence at his rallies. Imposing taxes on foreign goods if Trump can't get the trade deals he wants would very likely hurt the economy. And former CIA Director Michael Hayden warned that the military really would ignore Trump's orders to go directly after the relatives of ISIS members and other terrorists.
The Globe looks at all of these possibilities with horror — enough to publish a satirical front page and call for Republicans to stop Trump at a brokered convention, regardless of the risks to the party.
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And Republicans wonder why they are not doing well among Hispanics.On Friday, Hillary Clinton announced US Senator from Virginia Tim Kaine as her vice-presidential running mate. Kaine, who speaks fluent Spanish, used his language skills during a rally with Clinton on Saturday.And Donald Trump supporter Scottie Nell Hughes had a problem with it. I appreciate him having multi-cultural and speaking Spanish, I think that s a great idea, she claimed before demonstrating Trump s nativism. And we can all bring out our languages. Melania can come out and speak her five different languages as well, but what Mr. Trump did, he spoke in a language that all Americans can understand. That is English! Of course, she couldn t resist insulting Hispanics and the Spanish language either. And that is one good thing that was great I thought. I didn t have to get a translator for anything that was going on at the RNC this week. And I m hoping I m not gonna have to start brushing up back on my Dora the Explorer to understand some of the speeches given this week. Here s the video via YouTube.Trump and Republicans already face serious backlash from Hispanic voters in November since the Republican nominee has been insulting them since the first day of his campaign. According to Gallup, Trump is viewed unfavorably by 77 percent of Hispanics.As Gallup noted:The major factor most likely contributing to Trump s image deficit among Hispanics is one of the first highly publicized controversies of his presidential campaign in June, when he called for building a giant wall along the Mexican border. He also characterized Mexicans coming into the U.S. as drug traffickers and rapists. Since then, Trump s strong and controversial stances against other immigrant groups may have reinforced the ill will among Hispanics, the majority of whom immigrated to this country within the last several generations.Just like the women vote, Trump could end up losing a larger percentage of the Hispanic vote tha MItt Romney did in 2012 and Hillary Clinton could win both groups by larger margins than President Obama did.And conservative hatred of Dora the Explorer is well documented.According to Alternet:Dora the Explorer is an adorable 8-year-old brown girl who travels the world on missions and teaches kids Spanish in each episode. The cartoon is almost universally loved, and when it emerged it felt revolutionary young girls of color could see themselves being strong and adventurious just as they were forming their perceptions of self. But when the state of Arizona began its racist crusade against Latinos under the guise of curbing immigration, some extreme right-wingers saw Dora as a good high-profile way to perpetuate their racism without actually targeting anyone real. In 2010, a fake mug shot of Dora looking beat up and holding the sign Illegal Border Crossing Resisting Arrest appeared on right-wing sites. Keep in mind, Dora is supposed to be eight! If there s any question about the vitriol the right harbors toward undocumented immigrants, look no further.In short, this is why Hispanics hate Republicans right now. Clearly, that Hispanic outreach the GOP promised after their crushing defeat in 2012 never happened.Featured image via screen capture
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Donald Trump has access to a wealth of information as President, but seems content relying on Breitbart and other slimy right-wing propaganda mills as the sole source of what he thinks are facts. Recently, The Donald dissolved into a complete mess after a Breitbart article began circulating among his staff that claimed Obama tapped Trump Tower s wires something the President, no matter whom it is, can not do. To clear up the confusion, CNN s Jake Tapper reached out to Trump administration officials, and it turns out that, yes, the situation is just as stupid as it seems. Donald Trump did get his news from Breitbart, not the wealth of government information to which he has access. WH officials with whom I spoke said POTUS got the info about wiretap from media Breitbart, Levin not from govt sources, Tapper tweeted Sunday.WH officials with whom I spoke said POTUS got the info about wiretap from media Breitbart, Levin not from govt sources. Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) March 5, 2017 Obviously FBI/DOJ wiretap of POTUS would be HUGE story. One illegally ordered by previous POTUS even bigger. BUT WH officials have no proof, he added.Obviously FBI/DOJ wiretap of POTUS would be HUGE story. One illegally ordered by previous POTUS even bigger. BUT WH officials have no proof Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) March 5, 2017Tapper says that most reporters are digging on this but everyone to whom they have spoken in the intelligence community, like the rest of us, has no idea what the f*ck Trump is talking about. Moreover we cannot pretend we haven t been here before, w/POTUS putting out wild accusations that are untethered to reality, Tapper adds, listing a few examples of many. Obama s birth certificate/ Vaccines/ Ted Cruz s father & Lee Harvey Oswald / crowd sizes/ Vince Foster / Murder rate / 3-5 illegal votes. 4/Moreover we cannot pretend we haven't been here before, w/POTUS putting out wild accusations that are untethered to reality. Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) March 5, 20175/Obama's birth certificate/ Vaccines/ Ted Cruz's father & Lee Harvey Oswald / crowd sizes/ Vince Foster / Murder rate / 3-5 illegal votes Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) March 5, 2017 In any case, will continue to report. WH call for Congress to find evidence of POTUS claim with no further comment is not proof, Tapper says, adding that he has requested an interview with President Obama to clear the matter up (which totally needs to happen and promises to be hilarious).Journalists are not alone in being baffled by Trump s ridiculous claim that the former President ordered a wiretap which, once again, he could not do. On Sunday, vocal Obama opponent Marco Rubio said he has no idea where Trump s claim comes from either. I m not sure what it is he is talking about, Rubio says. Perhaps the President has information that is not yet available to us or to the public. And if it s true, obviously we re going to find out very quickly. And if it isn t, then obviously he ll have to explain what he meant by it. Unfortunately, as Tapper notes, the information wasn t a closely-held government secret. It was the result of the ravings of a known far-Right conspiracy theorist who has admitted he doesn t even have the evidence to back his claims; he just wants to see Obama investigated.President Obama should do the interview. He s so past the point of caring what these idiots think that it should be hilarious.Featured image via Getty Images
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Bicycles are often taken for granted in the U.S., as even some of the poorest people in the nation often own bikes and use them regularly to commute to work. In countries like Africa, however, bikes...
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DENVER — The Army approved the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline on Tuesday, paving the way for an infrastructure project that has been surrounded by protest and controversy. Robert Speer, the acting secretary of the Army, announced the decision to Congress, saying he was ready to offer the pipeline’s owner a easement on a disputed patch of land. The move drew outrage from opponents, including the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, whose reservation in North Dakota sits less than a mile from the proposed pipeline route. And it drew cheers from supporters, who said the planning process for the completion of the $3. 7 billion project had already lasted too long. The chairman of the Standing Rock Sioux, Dave Archambault II, responded to the decision by vowing to fight it in court. “As native peoples, we have been knocked down again,” he said in statement. “But we will get back up, we will rise above the greed and corruption that has plagued our peoples since first contact. ” The pipeline is set to run under the Missouri River near the reservation. It is opposed by many members of the tribe. Construction of the route has become a global rallying point for environmental and tribal activism, drawing thousands of people to a sprawling protest camp and sometimes prompting clashes with authorities. They had objected to the pipeline’s path running so close to the source of the tribe’s drinking water, noting that any spill could poison water supplies for it and others downstream. Members of the tribe also said the pipeline would cross through sacred ancestral lands. The move comes two weeks after President Trump ordered an expedited review of the pipeline, part of his administration’s goal of supporting fossil fuel development and lowering barriers for major infrastructure initiatives. The project would carry 470, 000 barrels of oil a day. In the decision, Mr. Speer said he would halt the preparation of an environmental impact statement meant to assess the effects of the pipeline, adding that he had sufficient information to support approval. The move will allow for the completion of the last mile and a half of the project, connecting oil production areas in North Dakota to a crude oil terminal near Patoka, Ill. The pipeline is owned by Energy Transfer Partners. The decision prompted immediate outcry from people within the protest camp, which now numbers about 400 people, according to Manape LaMere, 38, a leader living by the route since October. “All of our hearts are broken,” said Linda Black Elk, part of the protest’s healer council, in an emotional video live from the camp. “I’m just going to ask you guys to keep us all in your prayers. Pray for the water. Pray for the people. Pray for the water protectors. Pray for the tribe. ” The decision left some feeling whiplashed. Two months ago, under the Obama administration and in the face of global protests, the Army said that it would explore alternative routes for the pipeline. In a statement on Tuesday, Gov. Doug Burgum of North Dakota, a Republican, applauded the Army’s decision. “This is a key step toward the completion of this important infrastructure project, which has faced months of politically driven delays and will allow for safe transport of North Dakota product to market. ”
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On Tuesday, the Pennsylvania State Police raided a Delaware County political field office for the Democratic Party in search of “templates utilized to construct fraudulent voter registration forms,” and “completed voter registration forms containing same or similar identifying information of individuals on multiple forms.”
A warrant was filed last week in County Court seeking the documents tied to voter fraud. Investigators said they were looking for the documents, financial information, and lists of employees at the Norwood office of FieldWorks LLC, a national organization that often does street work for Democrats.
Matt Dorf, a spokesman for FieldWorks’ national headquarters in Washington, released the following statement:
“FieldWorks is now working with county officials to provide them with information on our program and applications they are investigating. In keeping with our regular practice, we will work aggressively with authorities to seek the prosecution of anyone involved in wrongdoing.”
Founded in 2001, according to promotional material online, FieldWorks describes itself as “a nationally recognized grassroots organizing firm founded to help progressive organizations, advocacy groups, and members of the Democratic family take their public engagement and electoral strategies to the next level.”
In 2012, FieldWorks’ voter registration efforts in Ohio sparked some controversy when the organization’s employees filed thousands of new voter registration cards in the final week before the registration deadline and some of them were found to be fraudulent.
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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Making a final push toward the crucial Super Tuesday vote, Super PACs backing Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz bought $2.4 million in advertising supporting him in eight states, the groups told Reuters. The ads purchased by Keep The Promise and its various offshoots include radio, television and online and are the latest effort by supporters of Cruz, a U.S. senator of Texas, to dislodge Donald Trump from the front-runner position in Tuesday’s critical 11-state Republican nominating contests. Should Trump sweep the contests, it could make stopping his path to the Republican nomination impossible. The outside groups supporting the presidential candidates have already spent more than $5.5 million on advertising in Super Tuesday states, according to analysis by Reuters of the spending reports filed with Federal Election Commission as of Friday morning. Super PACs are permitted to raise unlimited amounts of money from individuals and corporations, but are prohibited from coordinating with the campaigns they are supporting. Most of the Super PACs have been used to fund expensive advertising budgets, while the campaigns themselves are responsible for staff and ground organization. Cruz’s backers are hopeful the ads will pull him ahead of Trump. Cruz is locked in a tight battle in his home state of Texas, where 155 delegates to be sent to the Republican National Convention are at stake, out of almost 600 delegates total in the states voting on Super Tuesday. “On Super Tuesday, voters can both send a message to Washington AND send a serious, proven conservative to the White House by voting for Cruz,” said Kellyanne Conway, president of Keep the Promise I, one of the groups backing Cruz. The groups spent $393,500 on radio ads in seven states. They also purchased more than $990,0000 in television ads that will run in Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, Arkansas and Oklahoma - the most crucial states for Cruz to narrow the margins with Trump. The groups also spent $1 million on digital ads in eight states, including Minnesota, where so far none of the outside groups have bought advertising. (Reporting by Ginger Gibson; Editing by Leslie Adler) This article was funded in part by SAP. It was independently created by the Reuters editorial staff. SAP had no editorial involvement in its creation or production.
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In the wake of the recent acquittal of the Bundy brothers and their co-conspirators, many people have voiced their upset at the injustice and possible race-driven decision. Though it’s...
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21st Century Wire says Since 2011 the United States government, led by President Barack Obama, has adopted an open policy of supporting an armed opposition in Syria. While certain officials have only recently admitted to arming and funding these militants, evidence shows that the support has been pouring in through both covert means and official channels from the onset of the conflict. We now know that those commonly referred to in the western media as rebels in Syria are comprised mainly of religious extremists and designated terrorists. Despite this revelation, the US, UK, France, along with Saudi Arabia, Qatar and others have continued to back them, and even go so far as to color them with political legitimacy all in a grand effort to try and achieve regime change in Syria. It s not the first time either that Washington has pursued this same policy of destablization in order to overthrow a foreign government.President Donald Trump has an opportunity to reverse this backwards US policy. Will he capitalize on the opportunity to start anew, or will the US revert back to its old deep state default position? The passage of Hawaii Congresswomen Tulsi Gabbard s recently proposed piece of legislation entitled, Stop Arming Terrorists Act, would be positive move in that direction. Will President Trump champion her bill?The following is an open letter from writer Steven Sahiounie to the US Government To the Government of the United States of America:I am asking my American government to stop supporting terrorists in Syria. The US government, and media, keep calling them moderate rebels , but they are not. They were never moderate, and many are not rebels. By definition, a rebel is rebelling against their own government. However, many of the US backed rebels are not Syrian, and have no family ties to Syria, and have never been a citizen of Syria. For example, how could a Chinese citizen fight in a rebellion against the American government? By what right does a Chinese citizen have to kill and maim in order to change the US government? It is wrong and makes no sense.I would never advocate, or support any armed attack, or rebellion against the American government. There are laws against murdering, raping, kidnapping and maiming people in USA. The same such laws exist in Syria. How could a democracy and a world leader like USA advocate murdering, raping, kidnapping and maiming innocent Syrian people?From the out-set of violence and crimes in Syria in 2011, the US backed rebels used sectarian slogans, and carries out sectarian attacks and massacres. Syria is a secular form of government, as is USA. Why would American leaders support the targeting of minorities in Syria, when the President of America is himself a minority? Why would the US government support the destruction on churches and mosques? American s value religious freedom, and equality of minorities; yet the US backed Free Syrian Army destroyed churches, targeted Christians, attacked Christian villages, as well as targeting Muslim minority sects with similar acts: such as Kessab, Ballouta, Mahardeh, and Maaloula among many others.The US government sent weapons, missiles, special training, equipment, food, medical supplies, communications, and satellite imagery to the Free Syrian Army from 2011 to 2016. Yet, the current exodus of evacuees from East Aleppo has not received even one loaf of bread from USA. While the US backed FSA had many warehouses full of food and medicines they have left behind as they retreated deeper into East Aleppo. Finally, the rebels who agreed to vacate recently have burned all the medical supplies and food storages, which were the gifts of the American taxpayers, so as to prevent the distribution of those supplies to the starving masses who have fled East Aleppo now.American citizens are currently very concerned about Syrian refugees coming to USA who may have had ties to terrorism. The US backed rebels are exactly the type of people the American citizens should be afraid of as possible new neighbors, living in their midst as settled refugees. They are the type of people who would chop off the head of their neighbor because his religion is not exactly the same as theirs. They are the type of people who are willing to take money from a foreign government for the purpose of destroying their own community. They are the type of people who do not value religious freedom, or minority rights. What would happen when the US backed rebels , who may be settled in USA, decide to rebel against the American government? Will the US President and Congress call them freedom fighters ? Or, perhaps America s enemies will fund and support their armed attacks on the US government and civilians?We should all be united in our plea: please stop supporting terrorism in Syria, and around the world.Steven Sahiounie***21WIRE Special Contributor Steven Sahiounie is an American citizen born in Fresno, California. He has been living permanently in Latakia, Syria, which was his father s original hometown. Steven is a freelance journalist and University student studying English Literature. READ MORE SYRIA NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire Syria FilesSUPPORT 21WIRE SUBSCRIBE & BECOME A MEMBER @21WIRE.TV
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On Monday, it seemed that Donald Trump has given up on his recent effort to act presidential and went back to his normal, fear-mongering, bigotry-fueled program at a rally in Rhode Island. Sensing that far too much time had gone by without an anti-Muslim rant, the Republican frontrunner urged his fans to lock their doors to stay safe from Syrian refugees that were resettled in the state.Suggesting that these refugees were affiliated with ISIS, Trump warned: Now here s one I don t like. Syrian refugees are now being resettled in Rhode Island. The crowd ate it up and booed the news Trump had just shared as he read off a piece of paper. He continued: We don t know who these people are. We don t know where they re from. We don t know where they re from. They have no documentation. We all have hearts and we can build safe zones in Syria and we ll get the Gulf states to put up the money. We re not putting up the money, but I ll get that done. But you know what? We can t let this happen. But you have a lot of them resettling in Rhode Island. Just enjoy your lock your doors, folks. It seemed like the crowd didn t really know what to do with this information. Some people laughed, others yelled. Trump shouted: No, it s a big problem! We don t know anything about them. We don t know where they come from, who they are. There s no documentation. We have our incompetent government people letting em in by the thousands, and who knows, who knows, maybe it s ISIS. Referencing the terrorist attack that happened in San Bernardino, California last December, where it is believed that the two Muslim suspects were inspired by ISIS, Trump added: You see what happens with two people that became radicalized in California where they shot and killed all their coworkers, OK? Not with me, folks. It s not happening with me. You can watch Trump s rant below: Trump is correct that Syrian refugees have been resettled in Rhode Island, but that s the only truth to this horrific rant. Many of these refugees have spent years getting all of their documents together and have endured in-depth interviews and near-flawless background checks before being allowed to enter America.This is just another line on the ever-growing list of disgusting anti-Muslim things Trump has said after he proposed that all Muslims should be banned from entering the United States. Fully aware of the consequences of such hateful rhetoric, President Barack Obama recently called Trump s attitude toward Muslims dangerous. Featured image via Spencer Platt/Getty Images
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DUBLIN (Reuters) - Ireland s foreign minister will raise Dublin s concerns over the impact a trade dispute between the United States and Canada s Bombardier could have on Northern Ireland s peace process when he meets Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross this week. The U.S. government last week slapped a preliminary 220 percent tariff on the planemaker s CSeries jets, which are partly made in Northern Ireland, potentially risking 4,200 jobs in the British province. Bombardier is Northern Ireland s largest manufacturing employer and its political leaders have warned Washington that the security of the economy in Britain s poorest region plays a crucial role in efforts to maintain peace. Three decades of bloodshed between Catholic Irish nationalists, who want the province to unite with Ireland, and Protestant unionists, who want to remain part of the United Kingdom, left 3,600 dead before peace was reached 20 years ago. Washington played a key role in helping to strike the 1998 Good Friday peace agreement, and the Irish foreign minister s intervention will add to pressure from Belfast and London, where Prime Minister Theresa May s minority government relies on the support of Northern Ireland s largest unionist party to govern. I will be outlining to him (Ross) the Irish government s concern as to the potentially serious implications of a negative ruling for the Bombardier workforce in Belfast and for wider economic stability in Northern Ireland which is an essential support to the peace process, Simon Coveney said in a statement ahead of his two-day trip to Washington.
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Rufus Farmer, 33, was tired of all the ways he saw black men being mistreated by the nation’s law enforcement system — from the police officer who once berated him for crossing the street to the mandatory prison sentences that sent so many of his peers away. So when former President Bill Clinton appeared on April 7 in Philadelphia at a rally for his wife, Hillary, Mr. Farmer protested, carrying a sign denouncing Mr. Clinton’s 1994 crime bill, which set lengthy prison sentences and flooded the streets with police officers. A fiery exchange broke out between the activists and the former president as Mr. Clinton forcefully defended the legislation. But it was not just Mr. Clinton who criticized the young protesters. Afterward, some older did, too. “I think it is crazy to protest the crime bill,” said Caryl Brock, 53, a social worker from the Bronx, who scolded the protesters on social media. “Should it be amended? Maybe. But a lot of people really wanted it. I really wanted it. ” Young and energized this election cycle are aggressively challenging longstanding ideas and policies, especially those carried out during the Clinton administration in areas like crime and welfare. But the activism is also laying bare a striking generation gap between younger and older whose experience, views of the former president and notions of how they should push for change diverge dramatically. The parents and grandparents of today’s young black protesters largely waged the battle for civil rights in courtrooms and churches. They carefully chose people who were viewed as upstanding citizens, like Rosa Parks, to be the face of their movement, and dressed in their Sunday best as they sought to gain broader acceptance. Mr. Clinton endeared himself to these generations by campaigning in black churches and appointing more blacks to the cabinet than any previous president had. But many of today’s activists — whose political consciousness has been shaped by the killings of black people by the police — do not believe that acting respectfully will protect them from being harassed or shot. They aspire not to become a part of the political system, but to upend it. “You do have older generations of church folk who believe that marching and singing is the best way to bring about change,” Mr. Farmer said. “We’ll march, too, but we’ll do what we need to do to communicate our message, if it happens to be yelling, or blocking an intersection. And we don’t care if people — particularly white people — believe it is respectable. ” The gulf between young black people and their elders surfaced repeatedly in more than two dozen interviews conducted in the days after Mr. Clinton’s clash with the protesters. To young activists like Mr. Farmer, Mr. Clinton’s legacy on crime is paternalistic and damaging. But many older black voters who raised families during the crack epidemic — an era many young people do not remember — remain steadfastly loyal to the Clintons. Ms. Brock said she had been a social worker in charge of the removal of children from dangerous homes in the South Bronx and Spanish Harlem in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when crack tore a path of destruction through those neighborhoods. “I saw it all,” Ms. Brock said. “Moms would give birth and leave the hospital to get a hit. My car got broken into every week. People were scared to walk down to the bodega, afraid they’d be followed and robbed. ” She said she was relieved when the crime bill passed. In addition to providing more money for prisons and the police, the law banned assault weapons and offered funding for drug courts and rehabilitation. “Because of the crime bill,” she said, “anybody that wanted rehabilitation, we could process them and get them a detox bed in a hospital. ” Ms. Brock’s comments underscore a sometimes overlooked reality in today’s of the crime bill: The legislation was broadly embraced by nonwhite voters, more enthusiastically even than by white voters. About 58 percent of nonwhites supported it in 1994, according to a Gallup poll, compared with 49 percent of white voters. Mr. Clinton has seemed rattled at times as he tries to defend the measure to younger in an era in which concerns about mistreatment by the police and mass incarceration have eclipsed the fear of crime in many black communities. And among these younger voters, the Clintons lack the deep admiration that they enjoy from previous generations of . In the Democratic primary contests so far, 92 percent of black voters 65 and older cast ballots for Mrs. Clinton, compared with 45 percent of black voters under age 25, according to exit polls conducted by Edison Research. Some and older found themselves siding with Mr. Clinton after his confrontation with the protesters in Philadelphia, which was widely broadcast on television and social media. During the exchange, Mr. Clinton said that the legislation targeted gang leaders “who got children hopped up on crack and sent them out the street to murder other children. ” He then lectured the activists, who support the Black Lives Matter movement: “You are defending the people who kill the lives you say matter. ” Roz Rodgers, 55, a community engagement worker from East St. Louis, Ill. said she understood what Mr. Clinton was trying to get across. “All black lives should always matter — that is what Bill Clinton was saying,” Ms. Rodgers said. “It bothered me, the reaction he got. ” About the activists, she said: “This younger generation is more vocal. They are not accepting the rules, regulations and expectations that exist. ” Today’s angry demonstrations over policies make it easy to forget how the former president was hailed two decades ago for taking a stand against gun violence in black communities. An emotional, unscripted speech Mr. Clinton gave in 1993 about the toll of violence on black youth has been called one the best of his presidency. He delivered it from the pulpit of the church in Memphis where the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. preached his last sermon. “The other day on the front page of The Washington Post was a story about an child planning her funeral,” Mr. Clinton told the congregation that day, 10 months before he signed the crime bill. “The freedom to die before you’re a teenager is not what Martin Luther King lived and died for. ” Black churchgoers gave him sustained applause and named him an honorary member of their congregation. A columnist in The Washington Post said the speech “embodied what has always been the promise of Clintonism. ” “Only Clinton could say it, and only now,” read a column in The St. Louis . Willie W. Herenton, the first mayor of Memphis, was in the church that day. “It’s easy for people to lose the connection of where we were in 1994 and where we are today,” Mr. Herenton said. The national murder rate hit a high in the early 1990s, disproportionately affecting neighborhoods in major cities. Today, violent crime is down and mistreatment by the police and excessive incarceration have taken center stage in the minds of many younger voters. In 2013, nearly of black men 18 to 34 reported being treated unfairly by the police in the previous 30 days, according to a Gallup survey. That has stirred anger among some young black people, which has crystallized in resentment of the Clintons in this election cycle. Charli Cleland, 24, a student at Brooklyn Law School, said he planned to vote for Senator Bernie Sanders, even though his family has always admired the Clintons. “Growing up, there was always this idea that Bill Clinton was a man for people of color,” he said. “Then this political year comes around, and there is so much being exposed as to what they have said in the past and what kind of bills they have approved in the past. I’m realizing that it’s actually against everything that I initially thought about the Clintons. ” When he watched the exchange in Philadelphia, Mr. Cleland said he viewed Mr. Clinton and his remarks as “paternalistic” and “implicitly racist. ” The interviews with the younger voters reveal a pattern: Not only are they distrustful of the Clintons, but they also appear disillusioned with politics and institutions in a way their parents are not. And they are less interested in gaining approval, especially from white people. “We do not believe that freedom for black Americans will come through politicians,” said Erica Mines, an activist in Philadelphia who demonstrated at Mr. Clinton’s speech alongside Mr. Farmer. “We can no longer rely on the ballot box for our freedom. ” Older generations fought for civil rights “to be accepted into mainstream society,” she said. “But younger folks are saying, ‘I’m not going to fit into that box anymore, or allow society to tell me what I need to be. ’” Mr. Farmer said his mother, who put her faith in the ballot box, the church pulpit and the Clintons, initially found it hard to understand his brand of activism. “She just thinks in a way that is popular of a generation. Go in peace. March. Sing a hymn or two. Don’t do any fighting. Don’t do too much yelling,” said Mr. Farmer, a former Marine. Mr. Farmer and Ms. Mines joined a group called the Philly Coalition for REAL Justice, which believes that only disruptive, direct action can bring about change. On Thursday, members of the group blocked an intersection to push for a $15 minimum wage and other measures. Both he and Ms. Mines were arrested. Mr. Farmer says his mother’s views are changing as she watches his experience. “I was locked up for about 27 hours,” he said. “She was at the precinct when I came out. She gave the police an earful. ” And, in perhaps a more surprising shift, after hearing what Mr. Clinton said in Philadelphia, his mother has decided not to vote for Mrs. Clinton for president, Mr. Farmer said. “She was a Clinton fan,” he said. “She would have voted Clinton automatically. ”
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A move that would surely cause now deceased Christian Chick-Fil-A founder, S. Truett Cathy to roll over in his grave In 2012, the fast-food restaurant Chick-fil-A came under intense criticism from homosexual groups and their supporters after CEO Dan Cathy said he was guilty as charged for supporting traditional marriage. Christians overwhelmingly gave their support, filling restaurants with new customers who turned out, not only for the food, but to make a statement. That may all be about to change. Chick-fil-A is now listed as a sponsor for Level Ground, a faith-based LGBT film festival, reports Christian News Network a discovery that has sparked an online petition demanding the company clarify its corporate stance regarding previously stated Christian values on marriage and stewardship. According to Level Ground s website, the group creates safe space for dialogue about faith, gender, and sexuality through the arts. The group s film festival started as a student-run event in 2013. It has since expanded and hosted programming in six cities across the U.S., billing itself as the world s first film festival connecting lesbian, gay and transgender sexuality with faith and evangelical Christianity. Baptist Press reported participants in Level Ground s most recent film festival, held Oct. 8-10 in Nashville, Tennessee, included former contemporary Christian artist Jennifer Knapp, who came out as a lesbian in 2005, and Karen Swallow Prior, a Liberty University English professor and research fellow for the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention. Gracepointe Church, an evangelical church in Franklin, Tennessee, that came out in January in support of same-sex marriage was also a sponsor. Pryor tweeted her appreciation to Chick-fil-A for its support in Nashville: While the restaurant has had an outpost in New York University s food court with limited access and menu items for more than a decade, the new restaurant will be the first of two slated for the Big Apple. The chain plans to open another location near Rockefeller Center at 46th Street and 6th Avenue. The nation s eighth biggest chain by sales, Chick-fil-A grew its sales 14.4 percent last year and its unit count 6.3 percent domestically, according to market research firm Technomic. This makes it the largest chicken chain in the country, beating out Yum Brands KFC unit. In private hands since its founding in the early 1960s, Chick-fil-A has expanded more quietly that publicly traded competitors like KFC or Bojangles . Via: wnd
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54 Views November 21, 2016 GOLD , KWN King World News
As we kick off the fourth week of trading in November, this is the real reason why the public is broke and the middle class is being destroyed.
James Turk: “ It is good to see gold and silver starting the week in a positive way with their prices stabilizing, Eric. When you look at the recent dip in prices, it’s been a rough couple of weeks. But then again, when you see distortions like backwardation in the market, it is a good time to buy… Sponsored
Gold and silver went into a steep backwardation after Trump’s victory, with the spot price above the price for December delivery. In fact, even though December delivery begins in just over a week, spot gold and silver are still backwardated. So the demand for physical metal remains strong.
I have been expecting to see strength in the precious metals as we work toward the end of the year. It’s always impossible to predict when the short-term trend will turn, but it is time for a short-term trend reversal. This week often sees them.
With the US celebrating Thanksgiving on Thursday, there are only three days of trading. So look for short covering and buying by bargain hunters to take the precious metals higher this week. In fact, with today’s action, I expect that both gold and silver are now beginning the long road back to higher prices. As they do so, gold and silver will simply be resuming this year’s uptrend.
After a couple of weeks like we just had, it is easy to lose sight that gold and silver are up 14% and 20% respectively year-to-date. Owning physical gold and physical silver allows everyone over the long-term to keep their head above water, which is not easy to do as the dollar and other currencies continue to lose purchasing power.
Part of the problem, Eric, is that it is hard to see how badly currencies are doing. It is a natural tendency to focus on the short-term, so it is easy to lose sight of the long-term. To illustrate this point, I was reading the latest report of ShadowStats.com , and this chart literally jumped off the page when I saw it. It is very revealing.
This chart shows average weekly wages in the US, adjusted for inflation in two ways. First, it shows what has happened to average weekly wages in the US after adjusting the loss of dollar purchasing power by using the Consumer Price Index as prepared and reported by the federal government, which is the red line.
It shows that even by the government’s own measure, wages are below where they were in the 1960s and 1970s. People’s standards of living are not improving.
Williams Exposes How The Middle Class Is Being Systematically Destroyed The blue line is calculated by ShadowStats, using the CPU formula used by the federal government in 1990. It shows what is really happening to wages and the purchasing power of the dollar.
The big difference in these two lines results from the changes the federal government made to the CPI formula. The cumulative effect of these changes have made US dollar inflation look much smaller than it really is.
When looking at a chart like this, it is little wonder why Trump won. This chart also makes clear why it is foolhardy to rely on government statistics. It also shows why owning gold is important.
In 1990, the average price of crude oil was $24.50, and the average gold price was $384. So one ounce of gold could buy 15.6 barrels of crude oil. Over the past year, crude oil has averaged $41.80 per barrel, while the average price of gold was $1,240, which is equivalent to 29.7 barrels of crude oil. This is just one example of why gold is good money. It is money that protects your hard earned purchasing power.
Are You Prepared For The Unwinding Of The Biggest Bubble In History?
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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump said on Tuesday his public feud with Senator Bob Corker would not harm his push for a tax-code overhaul, hours after he aimed a new insult at the influential fellow Republican by mocking his physical stature. In remarks that raised new uncertainties about the barely 2-week-old tax plan, Trump also told reporters that adjustments to it were coming within weeks. He did not give details. White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said later: “We don’t have any adjustments to make to the framework at this time.” Asked if his spat with Corker would affect the tax effort, Trump said: “I don’t think so, no.” The president has engaged in a risky Twitter dispute over the past few days with Corker, a Tennessee lawmaker who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and is a leading “deficit hawk” committed to reining in the federal deficit. Corker has said he will oppose any package of tax changes that adds to the deficit. His position matters because Republicans control the Senate by a narrow 52-to-48 margin as they push to notch their first major legislative achievement during a year in which they have controlled the White House and both chambers of Congress. If Democrats, who have criticized Trump’s tax plan as a giveaway to business and the rich, unite against a tax bill as they did in opposing efforts to repeal the Obamacare healthcare law, Republicans can afford to lose only two of their own senators to get the tax changes passed. In his latest tweet on the senator on Tuesday morning, Trump dubbed Corker, reported by U.S. media to be 5 foot 7 inches (1.70 m) tall, “Liddle’ Bob Corker.” He said Corker had been made to “sound a fool” by the New York Times, “and that’s what I’m dealing with.” Corker tweeted over the weekend that the Trump White House was an “adult daycare center” and said in an interview with the Times that Trump risked setting the country on a “path to World War Three.” Corker, who is not seeking re-election next year, has not responded on Twitter to Trump’s latest comments. In his remarks in the Oval Office, Trump focused on tax reform, saying it was politically positive and desired by Americans. “People want to see tax cuts, they want to see major reductions in their taxes, and they want to see tax reform, and that’s what we’re doing,” he said. “And we’ll be adjusting a little bit over the next few weeks to make it even stronger. But I will tell you that it’s become very, very popular.” Asked to clarify Trump’s comments about making the plan stronger, a White House official said the administration had always planned to work with Congress to make the proposal one that people could get behind. “The word ‘stronger’ could imply larger tax cuts, more base broadeners or a number of other things,” said Kyle Pomerleau, federal projects director at the nonpartisan Tax Foundation think tank. “It’s hard to tell what direction that’s going in.” Two congressional tax-writing committees are preparing to unveil legislation that Republicans hope to enact before January. But first, congressional Republicans are aiming to adopt a fiscal year 2018 budget resolution that would allow them to pass tax legislation in the Senate by a simple majority through a parliamentary procedure known as reconciliation. Without reconciliation, Senate Republicans would need to work with Democrats to garner the typical 60 votes required to pass legislation. “If there is no reconciliation, then there is no tax bill,” the Wall Street investment banking firm Keefe Bruyette & Woods advised clients on Tuesday. The House of Representatives passed a budget resolution last week and the Senate is expected to vote on its own version next week. Resolving the differences between the two budget measures could take weeks unless the House decides to pass the Senate’s version quickly. House Budget Committee Chairman Diane Black told Reuters on Tuesday that she preferred a conference committee to work out the differences, so House Republicans could fight to keep proposed budget cuts to government programs such as food stamps and the Medicaid health insurance program for the poor and disabled. “Getting our spending under control is a part and a piece of getting the country back on track,” Black said in an interview.
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Because there s nothing more compassionate than convincing young boys and girls that the gender that God assigned to them at birth means absolutely nothing. In fact, with a few government funded surgeries, they can try out any sex they think they might identify with You will want to contact the School Board if you live in Fairfax County, VA and let them know how you feel about using your tax dollars for the radical indoctrination of your children.One of the nation s largest public school systems is preparing to include gender identity to its classroom curriculum, including lessons on sexual fluidity and spectrum the idea that there s no such thing as 100 percent boys or 100 percent girls.Fairfax County Public Schools released a report recommending changes to their family life curriculum for grades 7 through 12. The changes, which critics call radical gender ideology, will be formally introduced next week. The larger picture is this is really an attack on nature itself the created order, said Peter Sprigg of the Family Research Council. Human beings are created male and female. But the current transgender ideology goes way beyond that. They re telling us you can be both genders, you can be no gender, you can be a gender that you make up for yourself. And we re supposed to affirm all of it. The plan calls for teaching seventh graders about transgenderism and tenth graders about the concept that sexuality is a broader spectrum but it sure smells like unadulterated sex indoctrination.Get a load of what the kids are going to be learning in middle school: Students will be provided definitions for sexual orientation terms heterosexuality, homosexuality and bisexuality; and the gender identity term transgender, the district s recommendations state. Emphasis will be placed on recognizing that everyone is experiencing changes and the role of respectful, inclusive language in promoting an environment free of bias and discrimination. Eighth graders will be taught that individual identity occurs over a lifetime and includes the component of sexual orientation and gender identity. Individual identity will also be described as having four parts biological gender, gender identity (includes transgender), gender role, and sexual orientation (includes heterosexual, bisexual, and homosexual). The district will also introduce young teenagers to the concept that sexuality is a broader spectrum. By tenth grade, they will be taught that one s sexuality develops throughout a lifetime. Emphasis will be placed on an understanding that there is a broader, boundless, and fluid spectrum of sexuality that is developed throughout a lifetime, the document states. Sexual orientation and gender identity terms will be discussed with focus on appreciation for individual differences. As you might imagine parents are freaking out. Parents need to protect their kids from this assault, said Andrea Lafferty, president of Traditional Values Coalition. Who could imagine that we are in this place today but we are. Last week, the school board voted to include gender identity in the district s nondiscrimination policy a decision that was strongly opposed by parents.Lafferty, who led the opposition to the nondiscrimination policy, warned that the district is moving towards the deconstruction of gender. At the end of this is the deconstruction of gender absolutely, she told me. The majority of people pushing (this) are not saying that but that clearly is the motivation. School Board spokesman John Torre told the Washington Times the proposed curriculum changes have nothing to do with last week s vote to allow boys who identity as girls to use the bathrooms and locker rooms of their choice.He would have us believe it was purely coincidental.To make matters worse, Lafferty contends parents will not be able to opt their children out of the classes because the lessons will be a part of the mandatory health curriculum.However, Torre told me that parents will indeed be able to opt out of those classes including the sexual orientation and gender identity lessons. They are not being forthright with the information, Lafferty said. They are not telling people the truth. They are bullying parents. They are intimidating and they are threatening. I must confess that I m a bit old school on sex education. I believe that God created male and female. My reading of the Bible does not indicate there were dozens of other options.However, I m always open to learning new things so I asked the school district to provide me with the textbooks and scientific data they will be using to instruct the children that there are dozens and dozens of possible genders.Here s the reply I received from Torre: Lessons have not been developed for the proposed lesson objectives, he stated. Because of the need to develop lessons, the proposed objectives would not be implemented until fall 2016. In other words they don t have a clue.And the Family Research Council s Sprigg said there s a pretty good reason why they can t produce a textbook about fluidity. It s an ideological concept, he told me. It s not a scientific one. He warned that Fairfax County s planned curriculum could be harmful to students. It s only going to create more confusion in the minds of young people who don t need any further confusion about sexual identity, he said.The board will introduce the changes on May 21. Lafferty said she hopes parents will turn out in force to voice their objections.Via: FOX News
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(Reuters) - Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz snared his first endorsement from a Senate colleague on Thursday when Senator Mike Lee of Utah backed him for the party’s nomination. “Ted doesn’t believe you have to settle, Ted doesn’t believe you should settle,” Lee said at a Florida news conference ahead of Thursday’s Republican debate in Miami. Cruz, who represents Texas, is known for antagonizing senators from his party. In 2013, he spent more than 20 hours speaking on the Senate floor to protest the Affordable Care Act. Lee was among a handful of senators who helped Cruz during the protest. (Reporting by Amanda Becker in Washington; Editing by Eric Beech) This article was funded in part by SAP. It was independently created by the Reuters editorial staff. SAP had no editorial involvement in its creation or production.
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When you think of who might be the perfect person to talk about who is black and who isn t, Darrell Issa probably isn t the first to come to mind. He s likely not the second or third or even 1,453rd either. However, the Congressman from California thought it wise to weigh in on Ben Carson s comments regarding President Obama.On an earlier Politico podcast, Carson had said that Obama was raised white and can t relate to black Americans: He s an African American. He was, you know, raised white I mean, like most Americans, I was proud that we broke the color barrier when he was elected, but he didn t grow up like I grew up Many of his formative years were spent in Indonesia. So, for him to, you know, claim that, you know, he identifies with the experience of black Americans, I think, is a bit of a stretch. So, when CNN s Chris Cuomo brought up these remarks to Issa and asked if this was the sort of rhetoric the GOP should get behind, the Congressman had the audacity to say that Carson is a wonderful human being and he was technically correct in what he said. Issa did insinuate that this is the sort of thing better said by a private citizen and not if you re seriously considering running for the highest office in the land, also saying that Carson isn t ready to be president. However, the fact that Issa would have the gall to agree with Carson s sentiment is absolutely appalling, yet somehow not at all surprising. Video/Featured image via Raw Story YouTube
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How very moderate and tolerant of Sadiq Khan, to make one of his first acts as London s new Mayor to threaten the United States. Perhaps someone will explain to London s new Muslim Mayor that after 8 long years of being kicked around, America s about to elect a new leader who won t be entertaining threats or opinions of local Mayor s in foreign countries. A poll in April found that two-thirds of British Muslims would not tell the government if a friend or family member became involved with extremists.The new Muslim mayor of London has issued a warning to Donald Trump: Moderate your stance on Muslims, or they will launch more attacks against America.Trump recently praised Sadiq Khan for winning London s mayoral race, and said he would be willing to create an exception in his policy restricting Muslim entry into the United States in order to allow Khan to visit. But in a statement Tuesday, Khan dismissed Trump s invitation, and also denounced his views on Islam as ignorant, suggesting Trump s policies would increase the terrorist threat in both the U.S. and U.K. Donald Trump s ignorant view of Islam could make both of our countries less safe it risks alienating mainstream Muslims around the world and plays into the hands of extremists, he said. Donald Trump and those around him think that Western liberal values are incompatible with mainstream Islam London has proved him wrong. For entire story: Daily Caller
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We can t imagine congressmen thinking we d better not pass this bill. Some woman might take her top off. House protesters gone wild: woman takes her top off in the gallery of the House protesting tax vote. Anna Palmer (@apalmerdc) December 19, 2017Reporter Jonathan Allen chimed in that she still had her bra on LOL!Woman protesting tax cut bill takes her top off (still wearing bra) Jonathan Allen (@jonallendc) December 19, 2017This reminds us of the topless women who showed up at Trump s polling place on the morning of the election:Does this tactic ever work? We think not!Fox News reports:The House on Tuesday approved a massive tax overhaul that would usher in steep rate cuts for American companies, double the deduction millions of families claim on their annual returns and make a host of other changes as part of the biggest rewrite of the tax code since the Reagan administration.The bill passed on a 227-203 vote.Here's the moment Speaker Paul Ryan banged a gavel to signify that the House approved the tax reform bill https://t.co/E82gFFdTvV pic.twitter.com/SMxAuwJDfz CNN (@CNN) December 19, 2017The $1.5 trillion bill, presuming it clears the Senate as expected, would hand President Trump his first major legislative victory just days before year s end and the congressional recess.WATCH: House passes GOP tax bill by 227-203 vote. Senate expected to vote this evening. pic.twitter.com/ymdgA664WW NBC News (@NBCNews) December 19, 2017A woman shouts you re lying then Republicans shout throw her ass out WATCH: House passes GOP tax bill by 227-203 vote. Senate expected to vote this evening. pic.twitter.com/ymdgA664WW NBC News (@NBCNews) December 19, 2017
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NEW YORK (Reuters) - Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has canceled a campaign trip to California because of her diagnosis of pneumonia, a campaign official said on Sunday. Clinton was scheduled to leave for California on Monday morning for a two-day swing that included fundraisers and a speech on the economy. No other details about her travel were available.
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On Election Day the enthusiasm of receiving an I Voted sticker never came for many Massachusetts voters. The oval sticker that never came for many voters bears an American flag.
Woburn resident Elisabeth Sweeny, who was rejected, stated that she did not get one. Sweeny also said that she was a little bit excited because it is entertaining to post the sticker on social media. She also declared that to wear it shows people that it is important to vote and that she was also extremely disappointed that she did not receive one.
Daniel Stiffler who answered the phones at the city clerk’s office said that due to budget cuts the local government of Woburn decided not to give voters the stickers. Stiffler also stated that because the state government does not supply the stickers for the cities and towns when the local budget is cut.
Elections Division spokesman, Brian McNiff, said it is the responsibility of the individual city and town to stock up on the stickers for election day. However, it is not an obligation to pass out an emblematic tag to any voter who passes through the door.
Written by John A. Federico
Edited by Cathy Milne
Source:
Boston.com: Some people are upset they didn’t get an ‘I Voted’ sticker
Featured Image Courtesy of Thomas Hawk’s Flickr Page – Creative Commons License election
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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Kristie Kenney, a former U.S. ambassador to Thailand, the Philippines and Ecuador, was named on Friday as the State Department’s new counselor, succeeding Tom Shannon, who has been confirmed as under secretary of state for political affairs. Kenney’s appointment makes her one of the most senior women foreign service officers in the United States, Secretary of State John Kerry said in a statement naming her to the position. Shannon’s nomination had been delayed mainly by Senator Ted Cruz’s opposition to the Iran nuclear deal reached last July by six major world powers, including the United States, and Iran.
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November 9, 2016
Calls for unity behind a Donald Trump administration are irresponsible, dangerous, and must be rejected.
In her concession speech this morning, Hillary Clinton told a stunned nation the following: “Last night, I congratulated Donald Trump and offered to work with him on behalf of our country… I hope that he will be a successful president for all Americans.”
“We owe him an open mind and the chance to lead,” she added.
Many of Clinton’s most fervent supporters were rightly taken aback. After all, these words came from someone who only days earlier was denouncing Trump as a violent misogynist , a racist and Islamophobe, and a would-be dictator unfit to lead, too emotionally unstable to trusted with the country’s nuclear codes. Liberals who had seen in Clinton a last line of defense against the aggressive right were now witnessing her rebrand him as somehow worthy of the presidency.
That Clinton would overlook Trump’s history of sexual assault may be no surprise, given her role in covering-up her own husband’s behavior. That she would overlook his blatant appeals to white nationalism and Islamophobia is similarly unsurprising given her own rhetoric about Black “superpredators” and hawkish interventionism in the Middle East.
But still, this was a campaign consciously designed around stoking the fear that Trump was unlike any other candidate, an abnormally pernicious threat to women, people of color, and even democracy itself. The strategy failed spectacularly, and Clinton’s about-face was predictable if no less spectacular.
Meanwhile, Trump was suddenly sounding presidential, insisting in his victory speech that “Now it’s time to bind the wounds of division… to come together as one united people.” Even his exuberant supporters, who had only an hour before been chanting “Lock her up!” must have been shocked to hear him insist that Clinton is owed “a major debt of gratitude for her service to our country.”
For those who have long dismissed the two-party system as a farce, this shared rhetoric by the two candidates wouldn’t be surprising. In a phrase that has become the fodder for memes, superimposed over images of the smiling Clintons and Trumps or Michelle Obama hugging George W. Bush , the Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci once argued that “The historical unity of the ruling classes is realized in the state.”
But despite this unity among elites, Trump has mobilized and encouraged a ferociously white supremacist movement , and this base won’t go away quietly.
When Clinton wishes him a “successful” presidency, what does this mean? Successfully building a wall along the southern border? Successfully rolling back what little protections exist for people of color, queer and trans people, and women? No, we wish no success for Trump.
As Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, author of From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation , put it this morning: “No, we don’t owe this monster an open mind… Trump deserves revulsion and relentless protest. After a year of calling this man a fascist and a unique evil, they tell us to unite and give him a chance… No one is interested in unifying with this garbage; we have to confront this racism and sexism in the streets and organize like we never have before.”
Clinton is no ally of the left: her record of support for mass incarceration, neoliberalism, and brutal wars and coups abroad makes this perfectly clear. We don’t owe Trump “an open mind and a chance to lead.” We owe him nothing but our ferocious opposition in the streets, and that starts today.
George Ciccariello-Maher is an organizer, radical political theorist, and professor at Drexel University. Follow him on Twitter @ciccmaher .
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CHICAGO (Reuters) - Former U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert, convicted last year of a financial crime, asked on Friday for a delay in his sentencing due to poor health. Hastert pleaded guilty in October to a federal charge of “structuring” - evading bank reporting rules by withdrawing large amounts of cash in smaller increments - in a hush-money case stemming from allegations of sexual misconduct. The 74-year-old, once one of the country’s most powerful politicians, was hospitalized in November and was treated for a spinal infection requiring surgery, a severe blood infection and a stroke, his lawyers said in a motion filed on Friday. The lawyers have not been able to meet with Hastert to prepare for the scheduled Feb. 29 sentencing due to his health problems, the motion said. The lawyers requested a March 7 status hearing before U.S. District Judge Thomas Durkin. Hastert faces up to five years in prison but prosecutors have recommended a sentence of six months or less, in exchange for his guilty plea. Hastert admitted to paying $1.7 million in cash to an individual he had known for decades to buy that person’s silence and compensate for past misconduct toward that individual. Prosecutors did not spell out the misconduct, but unnamed law enforcement officials have told media that it was sexual and involved someone Hastert knew when he was a high school teacher and coach in his hometown of Yorkville, Illinois, in the 1960s and 1970s.
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VALLETTA (Reuters) - The son of Malta s best-known investigative journalist said on Tuesday his mother had been killed by a car bomb because of her work exposing political corruption, as hundreds of people demonstrated to demand justice after her death. Daphne Caruana Galizia, who wrote about graft across Malta s political divides on her blog, died when explosives ripped through her car minutes after she left her home in the north of the island on Monday afternoon. Maltese authorities were waiting for the arrival of Dutch forensic experts and American FBI agents to help the investigations. My mother was assassinated because she stood between the rule of law and those who sought to violate it, like many strong journalists, Matthew Caruana Galizia said on Facebook. She was also targeted because she was the only person doing so, he added. He described rushing to the scene, only to find the burning car and her remains. Maltese Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, who was accused of wrong-doing by Caruana Galizia earlier this year and had been suing her over some of her allegations, denounced her killing and pledged to track down those responsible. But a small group booed Muscat on Tuesday evening when he left his office, and the opposition is calling for him to resign. The prime minister and his government have been responsible for diminishing the rule of law in Malta, opposition leader Adrian Delia told Reuters. They have created an environment where people are afraid to speak out. On Tuesday afternoon, several hundred people demonstrated in front of the law courts demanding justice for Caruana Galizia s killers. The state did not defend Daphne, shouted Andrew Borg Cardona, addressing the crowd. He said those who accused her of going over the top with her investigations are all guilty . One woman carried a votive lamp with the murdered journalist s picture in it and another carried a sign that read Looks like we can t have freedom of speech but we want justice . Recently, Caruana Galizia had been following up leads from information in the so-called Panama Papers, a large collection of documents from an offshore law firm in the Central American nation that were leaked in 2015. She was tracing alleged links between Maltese officials and offshore banks and companies used as tax havens. Half an hour before the explosion, Caruana Galizia wrote on her blog: There are crooks everywhere you look now. The situation is desperate. The European Commission told journalists it was horrified by the murder in the bloc s smallest state and called for justice. Spokesman Margaritis Schinas was asked if the Commission would open a procedure to check if Malta was meeting the EU s standards for the rule of law, a process now being applied to Poland over judicial reforms there. He replied: We never speculate on these questions. These are very serious subjects ... This is an outrageous act that happened, and what matters now is that justice will be brought. This is what we need to see. The killing near the village of Bidnija stunned the Mediterranean island. Authorities said it was the first murder of a journalist there. I saw a small explosion coming from the car and I panicked. A few seconds later, around three to four seconds, there was another, larger explosion, said resident Frans Sant, who was driving in the other direction. The car continued coming down the hill, skidding at high speed, full of fire. The car missed me by around 10 feet. I tried to help, but the fire was too much and the car ended up in the field, he told Reuters Television.
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President Trump just pulled the rug out from under the press yet another time He just tweeted he won t be going to The White House Correspondents Dinner this year:OBAMA ON TRUMP:
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Photo by Cannabis Culture | CC BY 2.0 O n a recent segment of Democracy Now, Tess Borden made an impassioned plea for the U.S. – both federal and state governments — to end the criminal prosecution of those possessing or using illegal drugs.
Quoting from a new report from the ACLU and Human Rights Watch (HRW), “ Every 25 Seconds: The Human Toll of Criminalizing Drug Use in the United States ,” Borden observed, “Every 25 seconds someone is arrested for possessing drugs for their own use, amounting to 1.25 million arrests per year.” She reminded her audience, “These numbers tell a tale of ruined lives, destroyed families, and communities suffering under a suffocating police presence.”
The study is an impressive piece of rigorous research and analysis as well as a statement of moral conviction: it’s a political call to decriminalize all personal drug use. It paints a devastating portrait of not simply the nation’s failed anti-drug policy, but reveals it to be a mean-spirited, moralistic – and racist — program of social repression.
Among the study’s key findings are:
• Yes, every 25 seconds someone in the U.S. is arrested for the simple act of possessing drugs for their personal use.
• Sadly, more than 1.25 million people are arrested each year for drug possession – this is more than for any other crime.
• More than one of every nine arrests by state law enforcement is for drug possession — four times more people are arrested for possessing drugs as for selling them.
• There are at least 137,000 men and women imprisoned for drug possession — 48,000 in state pens and 89,000 in local jails (most in pretrial detention).
• This population consists predominantly of inner-city dwellers – African-American and Hispanic and largely youthful offenders.
• In 42 states, possession of small amounts of most illicit drugs other than marijuana is either always or sometimes a felony offense; only eight states and the District of Columbia make possession of small amounts a misdemeanor.
• State rates of arrest for drug possession range from 700 per 100,000 people in Maryland to 77 per 100,000 in Vermont.
A bust every 25 seconds adds up. As the study reminds readers, “tens of thousands [of people] are convicted, cycle through jails and prisons, and spend extended periods on probation and parole, often burdened with crippling debt from court-imposed fines and fees.”
The study makes clear that the war-on-drugs is a punitive, vindictive form of policing, criminal justice and imprisonment. It’s easy to be tough on those involved in mostly a victimless crime, drug use. Cops pick the easiest target, notably inner-city minority youth (i.e., “Stop and Frisk”) and, increasingly, rural white youth; prosecutors show off how tough they are by “throwing the book” at some hapless soul; and judges get easily re-elected for being tough on drug criminals, especially people of color and repeat offenders.
The study makes clear that the war-on-drugs is a failure in terms of public policy and the toll it takes on those suffocated by the drug war effort. Unfortunately, the study suffers from not pushing its inherent argument one critical step further – acknowledging that the police-court-jail system that manages the drug war is a racket, the domestic corollary to the military-industrial complex that Pres. Dwight Eisenhower identified a half-century ago.
***
A lmost a century ago, the U.S. adopted the 18 th Amendment establishing abstinence as the law of the land. Prohibition was inforce for 13 years and was a failure, flaunted by many and leading to wide-scale corruption of law enforcement and politicians. It was formally terminated with the adoption of the 21 st Amendment in 1933 as the Depression mounted. Now, nearly a century after Prohibition was proven a failure, we may be witnessing the end to the criminalization of personal drug use.
In the wake of the failure of Prohibition, the U.S. Congress enacted the Marijuana Tax Act in 1937, effectively criminalized marijuana use. Three decades later, in 1971, Pres. Richard Nixon formally launched the “war on drugs,” transforming a relatively obscure local – and very private – issue into a national concern. He dramatically increased the size and presence of federal drug control agencies; he promoted mandatory sentencing and no-knock warrants; he also placed marijuana in Schedule One, the most restrictive category of drugs; and he called for a national commission to study the drug problem and recommend appropriate policies.
In 1972, Nixon’s drug-policy commission — the National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse, the Shafer Commission — unanimously recommended decriminalizing the possession and distribution of marijuana for personal use. Nixon furiously rejected its recommendations. And the war-on-drugs has barreled on for the last four decades.
As the Watergate scandal undermined Nixon’s presidency, New York Governor, Nelson Rockefeller launched his presidential campaign in 1973 with a call to toughen the state’s drug laws. He upped the war against drugs, calling for mandatory prison sentences of 15 years to life for drug dealers and addicts — even those caught with small amounts of marijuana, cocaine or heroin. In the wake of Nixon’s resignation, Rockefeller became Vice President and his signature effort was to implement his war on drugs as a national campaign.
The punitive anti-drug policy was further strengthened by Pres. Ronald Reagan, leading to a massive increase in incarceration rates. The Drug Policy Alliance (DPA) estimates that in 1980, “50,000 people were incarcerated for violating nonviolent drug law but by 1997 the number increased to over 400,000 people.” In 1981, Nancy Reagan proclaimed a new era in the anti-drug wars, championing “ Just Say No .”
The DPA also notes that during the mid- to late-1980s, the nation experienced a near-hysterical rage over the alleged threat of illegal drugs. It points out that public opinion polls in 1985 found only about 2-6 percent of Americans saw drug abuse as the nation’s “number one problem”; however, by September 1989 two-thirds of those polled (64%) considered drugs as the nation’s leading problem. It adds, “Within less than a year [1990], however, the figure plummeted to less than 10 percent, as the media lost interest.”
A quarter-century later, the drug scene has changed. During the ‘50s-‘70s, hipsters and hippies, white and black, smoking the evil weed. In the ‘80s, a “crack cocaine scare” gripped the nation following the adoption of the infamous Anti-Drug Abuse Act (1986); the Act made penalties 100 times harsher for crack than for powder cocaine convictions and 85 percent of those jailed for crack cocaine offenses were black, despite the fact that the majority of users were white.
Americans love to get high. In 2013, the “legal” drug of choice was alcohol, where nearly three-fifths (58%) were drinkers and nearly a quarter (24%) binge drinkers. The use of tobacco products (e.g., cigarettes, cigars) among whites is still over one-quarter (28%). An estimated 25 million Americans were using illicit drugs, about 9.4 percent of the population aged 12 or older; this is up to from the 2002-09 rate of 7.9 percent. The drugs used were marijuana/hashish, cocaine (including crack), heroin, hallucinogens, inhalants and prescription-type psychotherapeutics.
Marijuana was Americans favorite means of getting high, accounting for four-fifths (81%) of illicit drug users, about 20 million users per month. Among full-time college students, whites have the highest rate of illegal drug use at 25 percent.
Methamphetamine (“meth”) was once the drug of choice among white males (e.g., outlaw motorcycle gangs and blue-collar guys) and remains so, but is losing its appeal. In the ‘90s at the height of its popularity, the Open Society estimates there were only one million meth users. Today, its use has spread to white women and Hispanics. Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health reported that between 2002-2005 and 2008-2011 there was a 75 percent jump in heroin usage among “Hispanics and non-Hispanic whites.”
T he new drugs of choice among Americans are psychotherapeutic drugs and heroine. A 2010 report from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health found that, during 2009, 2.4 million individuals used psycho drugs, including pain relievers, tranquilizers, stimulants and sedatives used for nonmedical purposes. According to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, “Adolescent girls and women older than 35 years have significantly greater rates of abuse and dependence on psychotherapeutic drugs than men.”
More troubling, as reported by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), overdoses (i.e., “drug poisoning”) are “the number one cause of injury-related death in the United States, with 43,982 deaths occurring in 2013.” It found, based on data from 28 states, that the “death rate for heroin overdose doubled from 2010 through 2012.” Drilling down, it found there were 8,257 heroine deaths, most involving men aged 25–44 years.
***
No one knows how much money has been spent to fight the failed war-on-drugs. According to a DPA estimate , “Over the past four decades, federal and state governments have poured over $1 trillion into drug war spending and relied on taxpayers to foot the bill.” It adds: “Money funneled into drug enforcement has meant less funding for more serious crime and has left essential education, health, social service and public safety programs struggling to operate on meager funding.”
The Drug War Facts website provides a detailed breakdown on annual federal spending on the war-on-drugs for 2013-’17. It estimates for Fiscal Year 2016, the federal government will spend $30.6 billion. A third source, the Drug War Clock , estimates that federal spending is about 60 percent of that spent by states (i.e., $49 billion); total spending for the false war-on-drugs at about $75 billion.
The expenditures associated with the war-on-drugs are, like the military-industrial complex, a vast slush fund with costs covering a very wide assortment of federal, state and local – both government and private — services and fees. Among these expenditures are:
• Costs of policing, from the border guards to the cop-on-the-block;
• Costs of prosecutors, courts and defense attorneys;
• Costs for prisons, jails and probation.
These areas of expenditures do not itemize the directs costs for employment, facilities and upkeep (e.g., food, medical) let alone the profits garnered by private corporations to operate the vast infrastructure required to wage the war-on-drugs.
Nor do these expenditures included the $1 trillion that Americans spent on illegal substances between 2000 and 2010. In a 2012 study for the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, Rand estimated the market for four illicit drugs — cocaine (including crack), heroin, marijuana and methamphetamine (meth) – at $100 billion for only one year, 2010. It noted, “This figure has been stable over the decade, but there have been important shifts in the drugs being purchased.”
With a $100 billion in illegal drug money sloshing through the economy each year, one can only wonder how much of it goes to corruption pay-offs, to law enforcement officials who look the other way. As experienced during Prohibition, the enormous cash generated by the illegal drug trade leads to endemic corruption.
Finally, as the ACLU and HRW study painfully makes clear, many, many peoples’ lives are destroyed for the possession on illegal drugs. Unfortunately, it doesn’t mention the way questionable law-enforcement officials, like the notorious Brooklyn NYPD detective Louis Scarcella and former DA Charles Hynes, exploited drug busts to further their careers. (New York has paid more than $100 million to wrongfully convicted victims of their arrests and prosecutions.)
Its time to embrace the ACLU and HRW’s call to end the criminal prosecution of those who possess or use an “illegal” substance. Like alcohol, its needs to integrated into the market economy and, like alcohol, effectively regulated in terms of quality and age-of-use. Sadly, like the military-industrial complex, to many corporations, unions and people with influence have too much invested in the war-on-drugs to see it end. NOTE: ALL IMAGE CAPTIONS, PULL QUOTES AND COMMENTARY BY THE EDITORS, NOT THE AUTHORS PLEASE COMMENT AND DEBATE DIRECTLY ON OUR FACEBOOK GROUP INSTALLATION ABOUT THE AUTHOR David Rosen is the author of Sex, Sin & Subversion: The Transformation of 1950s New York’s Forbidden into America’s New Normal (Skyhorse, 2015). He can be reached at [email protected] ; check out www.DavidRosenWrites.com . Note to Commenters Due to severe hacking attacks in the recent past that brought our site down for up to 11 days with considerable loss of circulation, we exercise extreme caution in the comments we publish, as the comment box has been one of the main arteries to inject malicious code. Because of that comments may not appear immediately, but rest assured that if you are a legitimate commenter your opinion will be published within 24 hours. If your comment fails to appear, and you wish to reach us directly, send us a mail at: [email protected]
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ISIS barbarians used an industrial dough kneader to kill 250 children, and roasted adults in a bakery oven, according to a shocking new report.
In an interview with the humanitarian organization Roads of Success, Syrian mom Alice Assaf went into chilling detail about the atrocities the jihadists committed about two years ago in the town of Douma, explaining that some of the youngsters were even decapitated in front of their parents, according to the Express.
“We heard that the militants grabbed six strong men working at the bakery and burned them inside the oven. We knew them,” Assaf told Dr. Yvette Isaac, who works for the advocacy group, according to the UK Mirror.
“After that, they caught some 250 kids and kneaded them like dough in the bakery dough machine,” Assaf said, according to media reports. “They were put in the dough mixer, they were kneaded. The oldest one of them was four-years-old.”
ISIS transported hundreds of girls to the city of Douma, which has been at the center of the Syrian civil war, to be slaughtered. ISIS has been systematically killing non-Muslims, and the majority of its victims at the time were Christian.
Assaf said her own son, George, was killed by the radical militants after he refused to switch to a Muslim name.
“My son said to me, ‘No, mother, I don’t want to die with an identity not my own. I prefer to die with the name George,'” Assaf said, according to the Christian Post.
Assaf added, “I asked my son then to hide, but he refused and said, ‘I don’t want to hide myself. You are the one who taught me to follow what Christ said’ — ‘whoever denies me before man, I will also deny before my father who is in Heaven.'”
Dr. Isaac reported the savage slayings to a member of the UK Parliament, Fiona Bruce, who recently recounted the horrifying testimony to her colleagues in open chambers.
“She showed us recent film footage of herself talking with mothers–more than one– who had seen their own children crucified,” Bruce said.
“She told us of a mother with a two-month-old baby. When [ISIS] knocked at the front door of her house and ordered the entire family out, she pleaded with them to let her collect her child from another room,” Bruce said.
“She told us of a mother with a two-month-old baby,” Bruce continued. When [ISIS] knocked at the front door of her house and ordered the entire family out, she pleaded with them to let her collect her child from another room. They told her, ‘No. Go. It is ours now.’”
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A north Texas transgender high school wrestler, transitioning from female to male, won a girls’ regional championship when the female opponent forfeited the match over the weekend. [Euless Trinity High School junior Mack Beggs, 17, triumphed in the girls’ Class 6A Region 2 championship against Coppell high schooler Madeline Rocha, who declined to participate in the wrestling match on Saturday. The forfeit was expected. The Dallas Morning News reported Coppell attorney Jim Baudhuin filed a lawsuit earlier in February against the University Interscholastic League (UIL) the governing body over Texas high school athletics, music, and academic events. He urged the league to suspend Beggs over steroid use, which is prohibited by UIL rules and the Texas Education Code. Beggs takes testosterone while transitioning from female to male. Baudhuin’s complaint asserted that allowing Beggs to wrestle competitively while using testosterone exposed the other athletes to the “imminent threat of bodily harm. ” Baudhuin is also a wrestling parent, but his daughter does not compete in the same weight class as Beggs. He contended the lawsuit had nothing to do with Beggs being a transgender male but over Coppell coaches concerned that wrestling Beggs would be unsafe for their wrestler. The transgender student’s grandmother and guardian, Nancy Beggs, called the forfeited match “about bias, hatred, and ignorance,” according to the Dallas paper. Chapter 38 of the Texas Education Code forbids steroid and human growth hormone usage in athletics for enhancement purposes, considering it a criminal offense punishable by prison time however, it does permit the use of anabolic steroids for “medical use only” when a doctor prescribes treatment for the individual. Similarly, the UIL allows a “licensed practitioner with prescriptive authority” to administer a steroid for a person. Even though Beggs identifies as male, the wrestler must compete against girls because of a UIL rule that requires to compete by the gender listed on their birth certificates. In early 2016, Texas public school district superintendents voted in favor of an amendment requiring state officials to use a ’s birth certificate to determine gender identification, Breitbart Texas reported. That rule went into effect on August 1, although former Texas Education Commissioner Michael Williams previously approved the amendment as part of an 11 rule packet in November 2015. It codified what the league already advised superintendents do in handling such situations — use birth certificates when gender questions arise. The UIL Wrestling Manual prohibits boys and girls from grappling with each other in Texas. Coupled with the birth certificate rule, it disqualified Beggs from sparring against boys. Nancy Beggs, told the Morning News that her grandchild wants to compete against boys but is willing to follow UIL rules. She said they sent the teen’s medical records to the league before the and current wrestling seasons. The UIL approved the Euless to compete. While Beggs and Rocha did not wrestle Saturday, both advanced to the state championships. The night before, Beggs competed against Grand Prairie high school female wrestler Kailyn Clay in a semifinal match, which Beggs won by a pin. Wrestling Texas lists Beggs as undefeated ( ) this year. The UIL maintains a “ ” policy that allows equal opportunity no matter disability, race, color, gender, religion, or national origin, as reported by Breitbart Texas. There are some exceptions to that general policy. The University of Texas at Austin created the UIL in 1910 to assist public school athletic and debate teachers. The league evolved into the largest organization of its kind in the world. Follow Merrill Hope, a member of the original Breitbart Texas team, on Twitter.
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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday agreed to hear an appeal by State Farm contesting a jury finding that the insurance company defrauded the federal government when assessing damage caused by Hurricane Katrina in 2005 along the Gulf of Mexico coast. The court will review a 2015 ruling by the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upholding the verdict in a suit brought under the federal False Claims Act, which lets people sue over allegations that the government has been defrauded. The court will consider a lawsuit brought by sisters Cori and Kerri Rigsby, former claims adjusters who worked with State Farm after the hurricane. People win a portion of the damages if such a False Claims Act suit is successful. The jury found that the U.S. government had been defrauded of $250,000 over a house that had sustained Katrina-related damage in Biloxi, Mississippi. The Rigsbys said the damage was caused by wind, which would be covered by the owners’ policy with State Farm. But State Farm concluded that the damage was flood-related, which was covered by the federal government’s flood insurance program. The court said State Farm would have to pay $758,000 in damages. The Rigsbys were awarded $227,000 under the False Claims Act. State Farm argued in part that the lawsuit should have been thrown out because the Rigsbys’ former lawyer, Dickie Scruggs, had distributed information about the lawsuit to members of the media. False Claims Act lawsuits are required to be filed under seal and remain private for 60 days. In 2008, Scruggs was convicted of conspiring to bribe a judge in a different case. He was sentenced to five years in prison. The court will hear oral arguments and issue a ruling in the case during its next term, which begins in October and ends in June 2017.
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Single woman genuinely loves getting shitfaced alone 01-11-16 A WOMAN who went to a dinner party with three annoying couples would definitely rather be getting hammered at home, she has confirmed. Nikki Hollis was invited to dinner by friends concerned she might be lonely and sad due to being single, when she would rather have been at home with some wine and not having to put up with their tedious married bullshit. Hollis, 32, said: “I only went along to humour them, as I know it makes them feel good to patronise me a bit about being single, especially as they are all clearly seething with resentment towards their partners. “But it was a wasted night really, as for me there is no greater pleasure than spending the night in, getting pissed and not having to talk about middle class wank. “Sometimes I drink a bottle of Prosecco from one of those massive Sports Direct mugs using a straw, just because there’s no one around to get funny about me not using a ‘proper’ glass. “Then I’ll watch seven episodes of Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares in a row before nearly setting the house on fire making toast. “Would I swap it for being tutted at and asked if I’m coming to bed soon? No fucking chance.”
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Billy Joel made a fool of Donald Trump this weekend with a shoutout tribute to the orange man in front of a capacity crowd at Madison Square Garden in New York City. Trump made a fool of himself shortly thereafter by showing he has no clue what sarcasm is and thanking Joel for the kind gesture:Thank you @BillyJoel many friends just told me you gave a very kind shoutout at MSG. Appreciate it- love your music! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 28, 2016The very kind shoutout went something like this:Billy Joel dedicated The Entertainer to Donald Trump because he's kept him entertained these past couple of months Emma (@Emma_S12) May 28, 2016That s right the tribute to Trump was The Entertainer, which if Trump actually liked Joel s music he would know was a shot at his farce of a candidacy. The iconic song includes the lyrics:I am the entertainer And I know just where I stand Another serenader And another long-haired band Today I am your champion I may have won your hearts But I know the game, you ll forget my name And I won t be here in another year If I don t stay on the chartsI am the entertainer And I ve had to pay my price The things I did not know at first I learned by doin twice Ah, but still they come to haunt me Still they want their say So I ve learned to dance with a hand in my pants I let em rub my neck and I write em a check And they go their merry wayI am the entertainer Been all around the world I ve played all kinds of palaces And laid all kinds of girls I can t remember faces I don t remember names Ah, but what the hell You know it s just as well Cause after a while and a thousand miles It all becomes the sameIt s a song about the trials and tribulations of being in the business of entertaining people, you twit. Billy Joel just thanked you for keeping him entertained, not for inspiring him or making him believe you were good for anything else. The song is a testament to the futility of your existence because unlike Billy Joel, you have zero talent and nothing worthwhile to offer anyone.This wasn t the first time Joel has made the joke, either. Remember when Trump thought it was hilarious that New York State Of Mind was dedicated to Ted Cruz? He failed to recognize that Billy had also dedicated a song to him in Denver. Which song? The Entertainer, of course:This is also not the first time @billyjoel has made this joke https://t.co/52fPgijHDH pic.twitter.com/F7eZoaEWO8 Oliver Darcy (@oliverdarcy) May 28, 2016It s good to know a man just a few million votes from access to our nuclear arsenal has a hard time understanding basic humor. It should make critical foreign policy negotiations a hoot.Featured image by Mike Coppola/Getty Images
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Gilad Atzmon
It occurred to me in recent years that the act of being progressive is not a political position but rather a mental state.
The incapacity of the entire American progressive and left establishment to foresee Trump’s landslide victory suggests that we are dealing with people who are institutionally detached
Just three days ahead of the presidential elections, the Huffington Post pathetically criticised star pollster Nate Silver of “Unskewing Polls in Trump’s direction,” for suggesting that a Trump victory was realistic. Ryan Grim wrote: “HuffPost Pollster is giving Clinton a 98 percent chance of winning, and The New York Times’ model at The Upshot puts her chances at 85 percent.”
“There is one outlier, however, that is causing waves of panic among Democrats around the country and injecting Trump backers with the hope that their guy might pull this thing off after all. Nate Silver’s 538 model gives Donald Trump a heart-stopping 35% chance of winning as of this weekend.”
The Huffington Post went as far as accusing Silver of “making a mockery of the very forecasting industry that he popularized.”
In perspectives, Nate Silver and his 538 were obviously spot on. The Huffington Post and The New York Times were totally off the mark. Is it a coincidence?
How is it possible that the Democratic Party, the mainstream media and Wall Street have managed to totally miss the level of anger that unites the American masses. These questions go far beyond polling strategy or the science of statistics. We are dealing with a state of being aloof on the verge of total detachment.
Left and progressive thinking is shaped like a dream. It tells us what the world ought to be. Progressives often seem to forget what the world really is and what its people are really like. Hillary Clinton and her campaign, just like the New York Times and The Huffington Post, were in a state of denial. Boasting in righteous hubris, they failed to read the map.
But this shouldn’t take us by a complete surprise. Detachment wasn’t invented by Clinton and her team. Detachment and alienation are ingrained in progressive thought. To be a progressive is to believe that some of the ‘other’ people are simply a bunch of unaware ‘reactionaries.’ Progressive thought is the secular manifestation of ‘chosenness.’ It is inherently Jewish, a fact that explains why Hillary Clinton’s top five donors were Jewish billionaires .
Since being progressive is a form of supremacy. I would go as far as suggesting that progressives’ antagonism towards ‘white supremacy,’ is at large, a form of projection. The progressive attributes to ‘whiteness’ his own exceptionalist inclinations.
Americans vs. Identitarians
On election day, we learned that the Democratic Party was hanging on a thread, hoping to be saved by Florida’s ‘Hispanic vote.’ Clinton’s political future depended upon the hope that Trump had managed to upset enough Latinos. This peculiar development in which a national party is dependent on group politics shouldn’t take us by surprise anymore.
The 2016 American presidential election divided America into two camps: The Americans on one side and the Identitarians on the other. The Americans are those who see themselves primarily as American patriots. They are driven by rootedness and heritage. For them, the promise to make ‘America great again’ confirms that Utopia is nostalgia and that the progressive reality is nothing short of dystopia. The Identitarians, on the other hand, are those who subscribe to progressive sectarian politics. They see themselves primarily as LGBTQ, Latino, Black, Jews, Women, and so on. Their bond with the American national or patriotic ethos is secondary and often non-existent. The future of the Democratic Party, in its current form, depends upon the hope that American subscriptions to sectarian ideologies will gradually increase and, as a result, will eventually strengthen the context of identity or group politics. The progressive agenda banks on the divestiture of the national and patriotic ethos. Needless to mention that half of America voted for Clinton. Hence, this political agenda is far from being farfetched or delusional.
But the Identitarian agenda backfired. It was only a question of time before the so-called ‘whites’ or ‘rednecks’ grasped that their backs have been pressed to the wall. They also started to act and think as an identitarian political sector. Hillary Clinton calling Trump’s voters a “basket of deplorables” was a clear sign for white poor Americans that Hillary wasn’t exactly their ally. However, Hillary was far from being alone. Almost every Jewish writer within the American press didn’t miss the opportunity to attribute the “White Supremacist” label to Trump’s voters. For Cheryl Greenberg, Trump’s popularity was “the final gasping of white supremacy.” For T alking Points Memo’s Josh Marshall , Trump’s closing ad was packed with “anti-Semitic dog whistles, anti-Semitic tropes, and anti-Semitic vocabulary.” For Marshall and Goldberg, half of the American people were dogs obeying their master’s whistle.
It shouldn’t take us by surprise that half of the American people would eventually react. They became weary of Jewish progressives like Marshall and Goldberg seeing them as dogs and white supremacists. The time was ripe for a revolution.
So is the revolution here? I’m not holding my breath. The people who crowned Trump are certainly exhausted. They are ready for a change. Can Trump introduce such a change? No one knows. He is certainly going to keep us entertained.
Gilad Atzmon is an Israeli jazz musician, author and political activist. His new book, “The Wandering Who,” may be ordered from amazon.com or amazon.co.uk .
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It is a section of Panama’s newly expanded canal that has troubled veteran canal workers. To safely guide the new generation of massive ships through the two sets of locks, tugboat captains and ship pilots rely on an approach wall to properly align the vessels before escorting them into the first narrow chamber. The wall is an antidote to the currents and winds that push and pull ships into awkward angles, making tugboats wrestle the elements before achieving the proper position. Each entrance has this structure — except one. And it was at this opening on the afternoon of July 21 that the Chinese container ship Xin Fei Zhou struck a lock wall, tearing small holes in its hull — canal officials call it a dent — and forcing it out of service. The new canal was not even a month old. Another container ship had experienced tense moments three weeks earlier as crew members responded to “countless” instructions from a canal employee who was attempting to guide it into the same set of locks. Ultimately, that transit was successful. But the Xin Fei Zhou’s mishap was not the canal’s only setback. Other vessels have sheared or badly damaged up to 100 buffering fenders that are supposed to protect the lock walls and ship hulls should they come into contact, according to interviews with canal workers. Several days before the expanded sea lane opened — nearly two years late and with more than $3. 4 billion in disputed costs — an examination by The New York Times raised questions about its viability, citing concerns over safety, design, changes in the world’s shipping patterns and demand. Canal workers had expressed concern about whether the plastic fenders on the lock walls would be adequate and whether tugboat captains had received the proper training in how to guide the giant ships through the chambers — a procedure that differed from the one used in the original canal. On July 22, in response to complaints, the canal’s administrator, Jorge Quijano, said the expanded canal was safe and was providing service. To back that up, he pointed to the 224 ships that had reserved future transit slots, in addition to the dozens that had already gone through. Canal officials called the Xin Fei Zhou’s incident “minor,” saying it did not significantly damage the vessel, disrupt canal traffic or injure anyone. No official investigation occurred, Mr. Quijano said, “because the informed that they would not attend the investigation meeting. ” Mr. Quijano also defended the utility of the canal’s buffering system, insisting that the fenders are sturdy and effective. “To imply that fenders are falling off as a sign of something wrong or that something is not functioning appropriately is inaccurate,” he said by email. “Because of its intended use, fenders will get damaged and sometimes do fall off the walls and subsequently are replaced. ” If the fenders prove inadequate, he added, changes will be made. “We believe in continuous improvements. ” The expanded canal operates differently from the original one. The new canal uses tugs to move ships through, while the original, which still operates, pulls ships through with locomotives that run alongside the lock walls. According to the Panama Canal Authority, tugs not only are cheaper, but are the only practical way to move the newer giant ships that carry much of the world’s cargo. In a 2014 report, written well before the expanded canal opened, the global insurance company Allianz wrote that the change was risky because it replaced “an elegant, simple system” — one that had lasted for 100 years — with “a more complicated system. ” It added: “Yes, they will be more up to date, but there will also be a greater potential for damage. ” Allianz believes that the tugs will be sufficient, but identified training as the key to mitigating the risks. “This will be a challenge,” the report stated. It is a challenge, tugboat captains say, made more difficult because so many of them have not been fully trained in the new system, said Iván de la Guardia, who heads the tugboat captains’ union. After three weeks of operation, Mr. de la Guardia said, 60 percent of his members had yet to be trained. Mr. Quijano said that “while we have an adequate amount of trained captains to cover our needs, the training is still being provided in order to satisfy the increased demand in the future. ” Given that the expanded canal is new, shippers are closely monitoring its operations, especially since the Xin Fei Zhou accident. “This is not an accident that should be happening,” said Basil Karatzas, a New maritime adviser to shipping companies. He estimated that repairs to the Chinese ship could cost “a few hundred thousand dollars. ” The ship waited several days before resuming its journey. “The delays and costs entailed with repairing the damage easily negate any benefits from passing through the canal,” Mr. Karatzas said. The Times obtained accounts of the two ships experiencing difficulty as they attempted to enter the set of locks without the approach wall. Canal workers also provided pictures of the damaged ship and the damaged fenders. Computer images, apparently recorded in real time, show tugboats struggling to position the Xin Fei Zhou as it approached the chamber before striking the left corner of the lock wall. Five days after the canal opened, the operators of another container ship, the MOL Benefactor, recorded details of its roughly transit through the expanded locks. It was uneventful until the ship reached the lock with no approach wall. The ship’s ranking officer became concerned, records show, because of what he described as “numerous” or “countless” bow thruster orders in addition to helm and engine orders — all indicating a level of uncertainty on the pilot’s part. Unlike the Chinese container ship, the MOL Benefactor eventually passed through the final set of locks without incident. Londor A. Rankin leads the union of canal pilots, who board transiting ships and direct them, along with the tugboats. Two days before the Xin Fei Zhou accident, in response to email questions, Mr. Rankin said pilots were indeed experiencing problems at the entrance without an approach wall. He also said that canal officials had said they were interested in designing and building some sort of structure to help pilots and that they had considered his union’s proposal to buy floating fenders as a better way to ease ships into the chamber. But, he added, “they have mentioned the inconvenience of doing so while the warranty of the new set of locks is still in effect. ” Asked why no approach wall had been built at the one entrance, Mr. Quijano said the walls had been built where the topography allowed it. He also said locks elsewhere do not use approach walls. Panama, in fact, copied the concept of the Berendrecht lock in Antwerp, Belgium, but that chamber is significantly wider than those in Panama’s new locks. Andrew Kinsey, a senior marine risk engineer for Allianz, said he eagerly awaited the results of the canal authority’s investigation, which he said should be shared with all interested parties. The authority has said it is conducting only an internal review that will not be released publicly, rather than a formal investigation. Historical weather data for the area, provided by CustomWeather, reported that when the accident occurred, the wind was around nine miles an hour, with light rain and scattered clouds. Mr. Quijano said that “just at the moment the vessel was entering the lock, it was suddenly hit by heavy crosswinds and very dense rain. ” Cosco Container Lines, which owns the ship, said in a statement: “This is a serious matter. ” “Is it a serious marine incident?” Mr. Kinsey asked. “That will depend on the findings and the extent of repairs. Is it a concern? Yes, there’s a hole in the ship. ” Another Chinese container ship, also owned by Cosco, was the first commercial vessel to pass through Panama’s enlarged canal, in late June. At the time, the authority proclaimed a “new era of global trade” that would provide “greater economies of scale to global commerce. ” Witnessing this historic transit, the officials said, were “25, 000 jubilant Panamanians,” heads of state, shipping executives and nearly 1, 000 journalists. Canal publicists asserted that the ship carried thousands of shipping containers, a load that would not have fit in the smaller, original canal. But the new canal’s sparkling narrative omitted one important fact: Most, if not all, of the shipping containers were empty. And even with the lighter load, the ship awkwardly brushed against a canal wall, according to photos posted online by canal workers. Mr. Quijano said some containers had contained cargo. Besides, he said, cargo containers constitute cargo even when empty. On Tuesday, Mr. Quijano announced that the canal authority was contemplating a ban on cellphones during transits because they were a distraction.
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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Wednesday ordered a review of a government database used for background checks on gun buyers, after a man who killed 26 people in a Texas church was left off the system despite having a criminal record. Sessions said the Nov. 5 shooting in Sutherland Springs, Texas, by Devin Kelley, a former Air Force serviceman who had a 2012 conviction for domestic assault, showed that not all the necessary information was being added to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, or NICS. In a statement, Sessions said he was directing the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives “to do a comprehensive review of the NICS and report back to me the steps we can take to ensure that those who are prohibited from purchasing firearms are prevented from doing so.” Kelley was found guilty by an Air Force court-martial in 2012 of assaulting his first wife and a stepson. Federal law prohibits anyone from selling a gun to someone who has been convicted of a crime involving domestic violence against a spouse or child. The Air Force has said it failed to provide information as required about Kelley’s criminal history to the FBI’s criminal database. Sessions said he was directing the FBI and ATF to determine if the Defense Department and other government agencies were properly reporting information to the database. Kelley, who killed himself during a getaway attempt after the shooting, bought guns from a store in Texas in 2016 and 2017, although it is not clear whether those were the weapons used in the massacre. The U.S. House of Representatives Armed Services Committee said earlier this month it would investigate the Air Force’s failure to notify the FBI of Kelley’s criminal record. U.S. Senator John Cornyn of Texas, the No. 2 Republican in the chamber, said he planned to introduce legislation to ensure that federal agencies put required criminal records into the database.
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WASHINGTON — President Obama said on Saturday that the death of Fidel Castro was an occasion for Americans to “extend a hand of friendship to the Cuban people” and acknowledge the “powerful emotions” the revolutionary leader had evoked in both countries, seeking to use Mr. Castro’s fraught legacy to underscore his own efforts to bury decades of bitterness between the United States and Cuba. “History will record and judge the enormous impact of this singular figure on the people and world around him,” Mr. Obama said in a statement that neither criticized nor praised Mr. Castro. “The Cuban people,” he added, “must know that they have a friend and partner in the United States of America. ” The death of Mr. Castro, the embodiment of decades of suspicion and enmity between the two countries, has the potential to hasten Mr. Obama’s goal of cementing the historic rapprochement that he hopes will be a signature part of his legacy. But with Donald J. Trump, who has been critical of the détente, set to succeed Mr. Obama, the fate of the thaw between the United States and Cuba is far from clear. Mr. Trump’s initial response on the matter Saturday morning was a post on Twitter. “Fidel Castro is dead!” he wrote. A few hours later, in a statement issued by his transition team, Mr. Trump called Mr. Castro a “brutal dictator” who had oppressed his own people for decades and left a legacy of “firing squads, theft, unimaginable suffering, poverty and the denial of fundamental human rights. ” “While Cuba remains a totalitarian island, it is my hope that today marks a move away from the horrors endured for too long, and toward a future in which the wonderful Cuban people finally live in the freedom they so richly deserve,” Mr. Trump said. “Though the tragedies, deaths and pain caused by Fidel Castro cannot be erased, our administration will do all it can to ensure the Cuban people can finally begin their journey toward prosperity and liberty. ” The statements from the president and the were remarkable both for their differences and their similarities. While Mr. Obama steered clear of disparaging Mr. Castro, in keeping with his efforts to essentially defang a mutual grudge, Mr. Trump condemned him. But both also described Mr. Castro’s death as a potential turning point for Cuba, and both appeared to accept as fact that its prospects for freedom and prosperity are bound up with that of the United States. During the campaign, Mr. Trump sent mixed signals about how he intended to approach American policy toward Cuba, even as Mr. Obama was using the final months of his presidency to try to codify as much of the opening as possible. While Mr. Trump said during the Republican primary race that restoring diplomatic relations with Cuba — a step the Obama administration took last summer — was “fine,” he called Mr. Obama’s December 2014 agreement with President Raúl Castro of Cuba, Mr. Castro’s younger brother, a “very weak agreement” that provided too many “concessions” to the Cubans. “All of the concessions Barack Obama has granted the Castro regime were done through executive order, which means the next president can reverse them, and that I will do unless the Castro regime meets our demands,” Mr. Trump said at a campaign event in Miami in September. “Not my demands. Our demands. ” Mr. Trump announced last week that he had named Mauricio a fierce critic of Mr. Obama’s opening with Cuba who leads a political action committee, to his transition team for the Treasury Department. The move was seen as a signal that Mr. Trump is considering unraveling the web of regulations Mr. Obama has put in place to ease trade and commercial restrictions against Cuba. Last month, Mr. Obama issued a sweeping directive setting forth a new United States policy to lift the Cold War trade embargo entirely — a move that would require congressional approval — and end a of clandestine plotting against Cuba’s government. And he announced that his administration was lifting perhaps the most symbolically potent aspect of trade restrictions, the $100 limit on bringing Cuban rum and cigars into the United States. Earlier, Mr. Obama had also resumed direct flights between the two countries. “During my presidency, we have worked hard to put the past behind us, pursuing a future in which the relationship between our two countries is defined not by our differences but by the many things that we share as neighbors and friends — bonds of family, culture, commerce and common humanity,” Mr. Obama said in his statement. Advocates of the opening argued that Mr. Castro’s death could be a pivot point, clearing away the last emotionally charged remnants of a policy that has outlived its usefulness. “Symbolically, it makes a difference,” said Senator Amy Klobuchar, Democrat of Minnesota, the sponsor of bipartisan legislation to lift the embargo. “A lot of this policy for decades has not been based on sound reason. It has been based on the ghosts of the past. This could mark a major change. I don’t think it’s going to happen immediately, but symbolism is important in this relationship. ” But among Republicans, such a shift was not immediately apparent. Senator Marco Rubio of Florida said that if anything, Mr. Castro’s death should stiffen the resolve of those determined to oppose the Cuban government. “The dictator has died, but dictatorship has not,” said Mr. Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants. “The future of Cuba ultimately remains in the hands of the Cuban people, and now more than ever Congress and the new administration must stand with them against their brutal rulers and support their struggle for freedom and basic human rights. ” Representative Ed Royce, a California Republican and the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, said, “Sadly, Raúl Castro is no better for Cubans who yearn for freedom. ”
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Last week’s announcement of a record-breaking US aid package for Israel underscores how dangerously foolish and out-of-touch is our interventionist foreign policy. Over the next ten years, the US taxpayer will be forced to give Israel some $38 billion dollars in military aid. It is money we cannot afford going to a country that needs no assistance to maintain its status as the most powerful military in the Middle East.
All US foreign aid is immoral and counterproductive. As I have often said, it is money taken from poor people in the US and sent to rich people overseas. That is because US assistance money goes to foreign governments to hand out as they see fit. Often that assistance is stolen outright or it goes to the politically connected in the recipient country.
Just as bad is the fact that much of what we call “foreign aid” is actually welfare for the wealthy here at home. The aid package to Israel is a very good example. According to the agreement, this $38 billion will all go to US weapons manufacturers. So the real beneficiaries are not the American people, and not even Israeli citizens. The real beneficiaries are the US military-industrial complex. Perhaps the money won’t even leave Washington – it may simply go across town, from the Fed to the Beltway bomb-makers.
While even US government aid to desperately poor countries should be opposed on moral and practical grounds, it is even harder to understand US aid to relatively rich countries. At a nominal per capita GDP of over $35,000, Israel is richer than Japan, Italy, and South Korea. Not long ago Business Insider published a report by the Institute for the Study of War showing that the Israel is the most powerful military force in the Middle East. We know they have hundreds of nuclear weapons, a sophisticated air force, drones, and even nuclear weapons-equipped submarines.
So why is the US giving a rich and incredibly well-armed country a record amount of military aid? Part of it is that the US government believes it can coerce Israel to do Washington’s bidding in the Middle East. History shows that this is a foolish pipe dream. If anything, US aid subsidizes Israeli human rights abuses in Gaza and elsewhere.
Another reason is a very powerful lobby in Washington, AIPAC, that pressures Members of Congress to focus on Israel’s interests instead of US interests. Members of Congress should look at our economy, with effectively zero interest rates, an anemic non-recovery from the 2008 crash, historically low participation in the work force, and inflation eroding the value of the dollar and conclude that this might not be the best time to start handing out billions of dollars in foreign aid. Unfortunately most Members of Congress find it impossible to say no to special interest groups like AIPAC.
Here’s a better aid package for Israel: free trade, travel, friendly relations, and no entangling alliances. Israel should be free to pursue its national interests and we should be free to pursue ours. If individual Americans feel compelled to provide assistance to Israel or any other country or cause overseas they should be allowed. But the rest of us should not be forced to do so. Trade, not aid.
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WASHINGTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) - Ted Wade hasn’t cared about politics enough to cast a vote in a U.S. presidential election for almost a quarter of a century, back when he supported Ross Perot’s independent candidacy in 1992. But Republican Donald Trump’s 2016 White House bid has motivated Wade to get involved and he plans to support the real estate mogul in Nevada’s nominating caucus next month. Trump is a “non-politician” who can fix the “chaos” in Washington, he says. About one in 10 Americans who plan to cast a vote this election will do so for the first time in years, if ever, and Trump holds a decided edge with them, according to polling by Reuters/Ipsos. (tmsnrt.rs/1SgeLvi) These voters offer Trump a pool of voters who could be decisive either in the Republican primaries or a general election. They could be crucial for Trump in early-voting states such as Iowa and South Carolina, where his nearest rival, Senator Ted Cruz, is putting pressure on Trump and enjoys a strong base of support with more traditionally conservative voters. In Reuters/Ipsos polling from June to December 2015, 27.3 percent of these “new” voters said they would vote for Trump, higher than his poll numbers among independents and Republicans who regularly vote. By way of comparison, Cruz captures just 3.4 percent of these voters. And Senator Marco Rubio of Florida snags only 4 percent. “I’m tired of the chaos between Democrats and Republicans and want to give somebody a try who I think can make a difference,” said Wade of Trump. The 51-year-old has already switched his affiliation from Democrat to Republican and even attended a Trump campaign event in Las Vegas. He has told his three older children to get involved in the elections, although he did not say whether he wanted them to vote for Trump. Trump, the Republican front-runner, has made targeting “lost” voters such as Wade a focus of his campaign. His anti-immigrant rhetoric and protectionist trade proposals have helped him to fashion a message tailored to reach Americans alienated by the endless enmity between the political parties and who, because of declining economic prospects, may feel like neither party has done much for them. Trump’s strategy is a gamble, given the lack of reliability of many of the voters with whom he is most popular. In interviews, some of those lost voters insist they will show up, saying they are drawn to Trump’s outsider status and his willingness to upend the political system. Tucson, Arizona, resident Renay Cunningham, 56, said she had never paid much attention to politics in the past. She plans to cast her first ever vote for Trump after hearing his proposed policies to curb illegal immigration, which include building a giant wall on the southern border and making Mexico pay for it. “We need a piranha in there, and he’s definitely a piranha,” she said. Trump and his operatives are confident they can do what few of his rivals for the Republican nomination have shown they can do — expand the party’s potential voter pool. But while Democrat Barack Obama did that eight years ago by largely registering new voters, including record levels of minorities, both male and female, in urban centers, Trump’s campaign has instead largely sought out the disaffected, who tend to be overwhelmingly older, white, and less educated than the broader electorate. “My whole campaign has been focused on expanding the number of people who want to, and will, participate in this election cycle,” Trump wrote in a recent op-ed in USA Today. When analyzing “lost” or “new” voters, Reuters compiled poll results from people who haven’t voted in the previous two presidential campaigns and midterm congressional elections. The results focused only on those who said they were nearly certain to vote in the November election. It included responses from 3,440 “new” Republican and independent voters – a sample that has a credibility interval of 2 percentage points. Jan Leighley, an expert on turnout at American University, said it’s too soon to compare Trump’s “new” voters with the disenfranchised voters, especially minorities, who in 2008 turned out in record numbers to elect the first black president. Those voters didn’t find their way to the polls simply because they were inspired to make history, Leighley said. “He also had a kick-ass mobilization structure.” “Obama’s campaign went door-to-door. They canvassed whole neighborhoods. “I don’t know if he (Trump) has the campaign infrastructure to make sure that the folks who are riled up are walked to the polls on Election Day,” she said. Trump’s campaign insists he does have the infrastructure, but won’t provide specifics on how it intends to turn casual supporters into engaged voters. The campaign says it does follow up with the thousands of attendees who jam arenas for Trump’s rallies. That’s one significant advantage the reality star has over the other candidates in the Republican field, as the challenge in reaching voters who have fallen out of the political process often lies in simply locating them. “We’ve identified a lot of people in early primary states who have not participated in the process before,” campaign manager Corey Lewandowski told Reuters. Lewandowski resists the notion that Trump needs to turn out “new” or reluctant voters to win states such as Iowa. Even if the Trump campaign isn’t necessarily counting on them, it may be reassuring that his supporters among “new” voters who responded to the Reuters/Ipsos survey appear motivated to cast a vote for him. At least for the time being. Ronald Thomas, a 49-year-old truck driver and Navy veteran in North Carolina, said he, too, has never voted in a presidential contest. His girlfriend would push him to vote but he would always say “Yeah, but the right one ain’t come along yet,’” Thomas said. Trump is that man. His willingness to take on the government has set him apart as someone who would “actually look out for the people,” said Thomas. Now he wants to know how to register so that he can vote for the billionaire. And there’s Vince DiSylvester, a retired maintenance worker in Missouri, who, at 73, said has never cast a ballot for president. But Trump has inspired him to rethink that. “He’s a businessman, he knows business, he knows how to get things done,” he said. “And he tells it like it is. If you don’t like it - well, too bad.” (Editing by Ross Colvin) SAP is the sponsor of this coverage which is independently produced by the staff of Reuters News Agency.
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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - He has been attacked over countless issues in partisan Washington, but U.S. President Barack Obama drew the line at this one: the idea that he is responsible for the rise of Donald Trump and the attendant Republican Party disarray. “I have been blamed by Republicans for a lot of things, but being blamed for their primaries and who they’re selecting for their party (nominee) is novel,” Obama told a news conference on Thursday. “What I’m not going to do is to validate some notion that the Republican crack-up that’s been taking place is ... a consequence of actions that I’ve taken,” the Democratic president said. Obama had been asked how he viewed being identified as the cause of Trump’s ascent to front-runner in the Republican race to pick a presidential candidate for the Nov. 8 election. Obama seemed to relish the question, replying with both serious criticism of Republicans and some pointed mockery of Trump. The New York billionaire is well ahead in the Republican race after the first six weeks of primary nominating contests but his bombastic style and statements on Muslims, immigrants and trade have dismayed many in the party establishment. Many party leaders worry Trump would lose to the eventual Democratic nominee in November’s election to replace Obama. Obama, whose White House tenure has been marked by steady resistance to most of his policies by Republicans in Congress, has said previously he regretted not being able to reduce the polarization between the two parties in Washington. But he scoffed on Thursday at the suggestion that his presidency had fueled the chaos among the Republicans. Conservative news outlets on television, radio and the Internet had convinced the Republican political base for seven years that cooperation with him was a “betrayal” and that “maximalist absolutist” positions were advantageous, Obama said. He was holding a joint news conference with visiting Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. In a clear dig at Trump, Obama said he had not prompted critics to question his U.S. citizenship or birth in Hawaii. Before he launched his longshot presidential run last year, Trump was a high-profile leader of the so-called “birther” movement, which believed Obama was born abroad and not eligible to be president, until he produced his Hawaii birth certificate to put the issue to rest. “What you’re seeing within the Republican Party is, to some degree, all those efforts over a course of time creating an environment where somebody like a Donald Trump can thrive,” Obama said. For good measure, he took a swipe at two of Trump’s rivals for the Republican nomination, saying the real estate magnate’s position on immigration was not much different from that of U.S. Senators Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio. Obama urged conservatives who were troubled by the party’s position to “reflect on what it is about the politics they’ve engaged in that allows the circus we’ve been seeing to transpire.” (Additional reporting by Eric Beech; Editing by Frances Kerry) This article was funded in part by SAP. It was independently created by the Reuters editorial staff. SAP had no editorial involvement in its creation or production.
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Getty - Thomas Cooper
Support for a ban on “assault weapons” is at the lowest rate in two decades, according to a poll released Wednesday.
In an October survey from Gallup, 36 percent of Americans favor an assault weapons ban, down 21 percent since the pollster asked the same question in 1996. Image Credit: Gallup
And the decrease in support for broader gun control measures spans all political affiliations.
While 50 percent of Democrats support a ban, Independents and Republicans are more closely aligned with 31 percent and 25 percent support for an assault weapons ban, respectively.
The only part of Gallup's survey that had Americans favoring stricter gun laws north of 50 percent centered on firearm sales specifically. According to Gallup, 55 percent of Americans think gun transactions should be more strict. However, that figure is also lower than levels from the 1990s.
While assault rifles with selective fire are limited to military use absent a very rare and special permit, proposed assault weapons bans generally encompass semiautomatic rifles, shotguns, and handguns that some lawmakers deem too dangerous for public use.
Gun rights and gun violence issues have been at the forefront of the presidential election for much of the year. But with many terrorist attacks and mass shootings resulting politicians' calls for bans, the opposition has only grown stronger.
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A GRASSROOTS movement which has distilled people’s myriad frustrations and anger into one simple, catch all phrase continues to gather pace on the ground in America this morning.
Providing a slogan to a loose affiliation of people’s desires, which often directly contradict or compromise the various factions involved, the populist movement is expanding at a worrying rate.
‘Make American Vote Again’, the name given to vast swathes of people who feel America really needs to vote again a second time to get it right, has seen large crowds gather at numerous rallies across the United States.
“Wrong” was the repeated phrase voiced by speakers at the rallies, as they cited the fact that America was headed in the wrong direction as evidence it needed a revolution in order to place it back on the right path.
Many media personnel in attendance sought to press rally goers on the finer points of their plan to make America vote again, but could only shout ‘make America vote again’ repeatedly. Followers of the movement also displayed an almost violent patriotic loyalty to the 1st Amendment of the Constitution, which they claim Donald Trump would dismantle once in power.
“It’s heartwarming to see such large crowds. But, where were you assholes yesterday,” shared one of the movement’s leaders Hillary Clinton.
Clinton, criticised for her populism which has seen her join the calls for another vote, is looking to tap into the sort of post-Brexit come down, which saw half of Britain ‘shit their pants’ and wish they could vote all over again.
The movement has drawn the attention of mainstream media which remains suspicious of Make America Vote Again, due to the face it is occurring online through social media channel outside the confines of the news media.
“It goes against our values, principles and ideals, it’s not something anyone likes to see,” confirmed Republican strategist Noren Hassleback.
“Having said that, despite the move being unconstitutional, many of the utterances bordering on being treasonous and discriminatory… they might be onto something”.
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Today, FBI Director James Comey sat down with Congress to talk on a wide range of scandals plaguing the Trump administration. It was Part One of a two part series of testimonies likely to destroy Trump s chances of ever pretending Russia didn t help him get elected or that he didn t know the people he staffed in the White House were rife with conflicts of interests. (Former acting Attorney General Sally Yates is up next, and it promises to be a doozy!)Comey started off by emphatically stating (again) that the intelligence community has clear evidence linking Russia and Russia specifically to interference with the election. Calling Russia the single biggest threat to American democracy, he didn t mince words. He also denied Trump s latest frantic attempt to cast doubt by debunking the White House s claim that it was probably China. Comey stood by the intelligence community s conclusions: This was Russia.But Comey s most powerful moment came when he was asked by Sen. Al Franken to explain why Russia wanted Trump over Hillary Clinton in the first place. What was the point? He wasn t Hillary Clinton, who Putin hated and wanted to harm in any possible way, Comey says on why Russia had a preference for Trump pic.twitter.com/xYCQoTJhnG CBS News (@CBSNews) May 3, 2017The point, according to Comey, was two-fold. By every shred of information the intel community has, it s clear that Russia s autocratic ruler Vladimir Putin despises Hillary Clinton. He s had a beef with her stretching back to her time as Secretary of State where she routinely stood up to his plans of expansion. He also blamed her State Department for stirring up Democratic protests against him by the Russian youth fed up with Putin s iron-grip on their country. (Like Trump, Putin often blames legitimate protests against his rule as caused by outside agitators.) In short, according to Comey, Putin wanted vengeance against Clinton for being tough on him and Trump was the way to do it.It also ties into Comey s second conclusion: Russia figured Trump, ignorant as he is, would be much easier to pull one over on. Comey put it slightly more generously: Putin believed he would be more able to make deals, reach agreements with someone with a business background than someone who had grown up in more of a government environment. Putin wasn t wrong. Before the election was even over, his campaign was secretly promising Putin that they would ease up on sanctions. Trump would later appoint Rex Tillerson, a man with very close ties to Russian oil companies and Putin himself, to Secretary of State. Russia got nearly everything they wanted on November 8th, 2016.None of this is good news for Trump. Having lost the popular vote by millions, Trump also has the distinction of being the least popular new president in history. He has a credibility problem. Comey s testimony only makes it clear that his illegitimacy problem extends internationally. Whether he coordinated with Russia intentionally or whether he was a useful stooge for Putin to exploit, remains to be seen. What is clear is that the FBI has every reason to believe Russia was celebrating Trump s win as hard as any Make America Great Again Trump voter.And Sally Yates has the second in the one-two punch coming next week.Featured image via CBS
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BEIJING (Reuters) - China exported no oil products to North Korea in November, Chinese customs data showed, apparently going above and beyond sanctions imposed earlier this year by the United Nations in a bid to limit petroleum shipments to the isolated country. Tensions have flared anew over North Korea s ongoing nuclear and missile programmes, pursued in defiance of years of U.N. resolutions. Last week, the U.N. Security Council imposed new caps on trade with North Korea, including limiting oil product shipments to just 500,000 barrels a year. Beijing also imported no iron ore, coal or lead from North Korea in November, the second full month of the latest trade sanctions imposed by U.N. China, the main source of North Korea s fuel, did not export any gasoline, jet fuel, diesel or fuel oil to its isolated neighbour last month, data from the General Administration of Customs showed on Tuesday. November was the second straight month China exported no diesel or gasoline to North Korea. The last time China s jet fuel shipments to Pyongyang were at zero was in February 2015. This is a natural outcome of the tightening of the various sanctions against North Korea, said Cai Jian, an expert on North Korea at Fudan University in Shanghai. The tightening reflects China s stance , he said. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said she didn t know any details about the oil products export situation. As a principle, China has consistently fully, correctly, conscientiously and strictly enforced relevant U.N. Security Council resolutions on North Korea. We have already established a set of effective operating mechanisms and methods, she said at a regular briefing on Tuesday, without elaborating. Since June, state-run China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC) [CNPET.UL] has suspended sales of gasoline and diesel to North Korea, concerned that it would not get paid for its goods, Reuters previously reported. Beijing s move to turn off the taps completely is rare. In March 2003, China suspended oil supplies to North Korea for three days after Pyongyang fired a missile into waters between the Korean Peninsula and Japan. It is unknown if China still sells crude oil to Pyongyang. Beijing has not disclosed its crude exports to North Korea for several years. Industry sources say China still supplies about 520,000 tonnes, or 3.8 million barrels, of crude a year to North Korea via an aging pipeline. That is a little more than 10,000 barrels a day, and worth about $200 million a year at current prices. North Korea also sources some of its oil from Russia. Chinese exports of corn to North Korean in November also slumped, down 82 percent from a year earlier to 100 tonnes, the lowest since January. Exports of rice plunged 64 percent to 672 tonnes, the lowest since March. Trade between North Korea and China has slowed through the year, particularly after China banned coal purchases in February. In November, China s trade with North Korea totalled $388 million, one of the lowest monthly volumes this year. China has renewed its call on all countries to make constructive efforts to ease tensions on the Korean peninsula, urging the use of peaceful means to resolve issues. But tensions flared again after North Korea on Nov. 29 said it had tested a new intercontinental ballistic missile that put the U.S. mainland within range of its nuclear weapons. Meanwhile Chinese exports of liquefied petroleum gas to North Korea, used for cooking, rose 58 percent in November from a year earlier to 99 tonnes. Exports of ethanol, which can be turned into a biofuel, gained 82 percent to 3,428 cubic metres. To view a graphic on China's trade with North Korea click on this link tmsnrt.rs/2BDYD1F
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President Trump was sporting a Commemorative Stetson hat today when he introduced the Made in America week starting with Omaha Steaks. He has a great one-liner in the video below this one about opening the beef trade again with China: The gentleman who was in charge of Omaha Beef. They do beef. He hugged me and he wanted to kiss me so badly. OPENING REMARKS:President Trump says Omaha Steaks CEO wanted to kiss me so badly for opening beef trade in China https://t.co/LQEanwTWY8 NBC Politics (@NBCPolitics) July 17, 2017President Trump admiring a Made in America baseball bat:President Trump admires a baseball bat during Made in America event: It s so beautiful I love to play baseball https://t.co/zvYjE7EG1e NBC Politics (@NBCPolitics) July 17, 2017President Trump mentioned Senator John McCain: We hope John McCain gets better very soon. We miss him. He s a crusty voice in Washington, plus we need his vote. https://t.co/ZSpibzJlG2 NBC News (@NBCNews) July 17, 2017
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To hear Donald Trump tell it, he s the best, hugest, biggest boss there has ever been and the way he runs his businesses (if you ignore the multiple bankruptcies and closures) means the people who work for him should be overwhelmingly proud to be under his leadership.But Reuters has done some number-crunching on what kind of financial support the people who work in his businesses have shown to his presidential campaign, and as he would say, it s very sad! Only a dozen of an estimated 22,450 people employed at Trump s companies have donated more than $200 to the celebrity businessman s bid for the U.S. presidency, a Reuters review of federal campaign finance records through August shows. Those who gave less to either Trump s campaign or his joint fundraising committees would not have shown up in the review.The contributors, including an office cleaner, a golf course groundskeeper, a bartender and an attorney, have given $5,298 to Trump s campaign, a fraction of the $112 million Trump s political operation has received from donors and joint fundraisers.The news service also points out that an employee at the Trump companies even has donated to Secretary Hillary Clinton, his electoral rival and the current front-runner in the presidential contest.By comparison, in 2012 people who had worked alongside Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney had donated $1.4 million both directly to his campaign and to the super PAC supporting his campaign.Secretary Clinton has also received donations from employees at the U.S. State Department, which she headed from 2009 to 2013.Trump has continually lagged behind Clinton in fundraising during the election, a disparity which has shown up in underfunded campaign operations in many of the key swing states and a severe lack of television advertising. Trump claimed he would self-fund his campaign, but while he has donated to the enterprise, it hasn t been a significant fraction of the billions Trump claims to possess, a figure which cannot be independently verified because Trump won t release his tax returns.Featured image via Flickr
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An Iranian ship purportedly carrying aid to Yemen should change course and head to Djibouti where the United Nations is overseeing humanitarian deliveries, US officials demanded Tuesday.
The US military is tracking the ship after Tehran reportedly said it would send warships to escort the vessel to Yemen, Pentagon spokesman Colonel Steven Warren told reporters.
The ship, the Iran Shahed, had moved through the Strait of Hormuz and was now in the Gulf of Oman, according to the marinetraffic.com site. But the vessel was not under any naval escort at the moment, Warren said.
"We are monitoring the Iranian ship," he said. "We are aware of the Iranians' statement that they plan to escort this ship with warships."
The state Iranian IRNA news agency earlier quoted a naval commander, Rear Admiral Hossein Azad, saying naval forces would be "safeguarding" the vessel.
Iran's Red Crescent had said last week that it would send a ship carrying 2,500 tons of humanitarian aid to Yemen, where Tehran-backed Huthi rebels are fighting pro-government forces supported by a Saudi-led coalition.
"The Iranians have stated that this is humanitarian aid," Warren said.
"If that is the case, then we certainly encourage the Iranians to deliver that humanitarian aid to the United Nations humanitarian aid distribution hub, which has been established in Djibouti."
"This will allow the aid to be rapidly and efficiently distributed to those in Yemen who require it," he added.
When asked if the US military would try to search the ship or prevent it from docking in Yemen, Warren declined to comment.
The warnings from Washington raised the possibility of a potential confrontation at sea after tensions flared in recent days in the Strait of Hormuz.
The US Navy bolstered its presence in the Gulf after Iran seized a Marshall Islands-flagged vessel in the vital waterway.
Iranian authorities later released the ship, citing a commercial dispute with Denmark's Maersk group, which chartered the vessel.
"If the Iranians are planning some sort of stunt in the region, they know as well as we do that it would be unhelpful and in fact could potentially threaten the ceasefire (in Yemen) that has been so painstakingly brought about," Warren said.
"We call on the Iranians to do the right thing here and deliver their humanitarian aid in accordance with UN protocols which is through the distribution hub that's been established in Djibouti," he added.
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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican lawmakers and presidential candidates hardened their positions on Sunday on blocking a move by President Barack Obama to fill the Supreme Court seat left by the late conservative Justice Antonin Scalia, a lifetime appointment that would help decide some of the most divisive issues facing Americans. The next justice could tilt the balance of the nation’s highest court, which was left with four conservatives and four liberals. The vacancy quickly became an issue in the 2016 presidential race. “We ought to make the 2016 election a referendum on the Supreme Court,” U.S. Senator and Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” The normally nine-justice court is set to decide this year its first major abortion case in nearly a decade, as well as cases on voting rights, affirmative action and immigration. Scalia, 79, died on Saturday at a West Texas resort. The cause of death will not be determined for several days, the top official in the county where he died, Presidio County Judge Cinderela Gueara, said on Sunday in an interview with local TV station WFAA-TV. Obama, a Democrat, will nominate someone to fill the empty seat but will wait until the U.S. Senate is back in session, the White House said on Sunday. The Senate returns from recess on Feb. 22. “At that point, we expect the Senate to consider that nominee, consistent with their responsibilities laid out in the United States Constitution,” White House spokesman Eric Schultz said. The White House declined to give a more specific timeline for Obama to announce his nominee. The nomination will set up a battle with the Republican-controlled chamber, which must approve any nominee. Shortly after news of Scalia’s death, Republicans vowed not to act on the vacancy until Obama’s successor takes office next January. Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid said failure to act would be a “shameful abdication” of the Senate’s constitutional duty. Both sides said history was on their side. Reid said it would be unprecedented to have a vacancy on the court for a year. In the modern era, the longest Supreme Court vacancy was 363 days after Abe Fortas resigned in May 1969. Republicans cited 80 years of tradition in which no Supreme Court nominees were approved in presidential election years. In fact, Justice Anthony Kennedy was approved in 1988, after a bruising battle in which the Senate rejected President Ronald Reagan’s first nominee, conservative Robert Bork. Supreme Court nominations are rare, so neither side has much data to rely on in determining precedents. History is also an unreliable guide as the nomination process has become significantly more politicized in recent years. For Obama’s previous two Supreme Court picks, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor, he took about 30 days each to announce the elections after their predecessors, Justice John Paul Stevens and Justice David Souter, respectively, said they planned to step down. Ohio Governor John Kasich, a moderate among the Republicans vying for the White House, said the Senate should wait because a battle this year would only deepen divisions in the country. “You know how polarized everything is,” Kasich said on ABC’s “This Week.” “What I don’t want to see is more fighting and more recrimination.” Democratic U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy warned that a delay could have consequences in November’s election, when voters get to decide who fills one-third of the Senate’s seats. “If the Republican leadership refuses to even hold a hearing, I think that is going to guarantee they lose control of the Senate, because I don’t think the American people will stand for that,” he said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders said the Constitution was clear. “The president makes the appointment, Senate confirms, let’s get on with that business,” the senator from Vermont said on “Fox News Sunday.” One possible contender to replace Scalia is an Indian-American appeals court judge, Sri Srinivasan, who has pro-business credentials and a stellar resume. His nomination could make it more politically challenging for Republicans to block anyone put forward by Obama. Cruz, a Texas lawmaker, who sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee that takes the lead on Supreme Court nominees, said the vacancy left by Scalia made the presidential election even more critical. He warned that a justice chosen by Sanders or his Democratic presidential rival, Hillary Clinton, would mean the Second Amendment right to bear arms would be “written out” of the Constitution and abortion on demand would become the law of the land. Republican U.S. Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, another White House candidate, said he would want someone who echoed Scalia’s “originalist” ideology that looks at the U.S. Constitution through the lens of its framers’ 18th-century intentions. Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump, appearing on NBC, was more direct when asked what he would want: “Someone just like Justice Scalia.” That would mean someone who did not let ideological differences preclude civility or even friendship, former President Bill Clinton told CNN, citing Scalia’s bond with liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Ginsburg, in a statement on Sunday, called her friend “a jurist of captivating brilliance and wit” with whom she disagreed “now and then.” She cited a duet sung by the two justices in the 2015 opera “Scalia/Ginsburg” titled: “We are different, we are one.” She and Scalia, Ginsburg wrote, were “different in our interpretation of written texts, one in our reverence for the Constitution and the institution we serve.” (Additional reporting by Joan Biskupic, Alana Wise, Timothy Gardner in Washington; Sara Vasquez in Marfa, Texas; Writing by Doina Chiacu; Editing by Jonathan Oatis and Peter Cooney) SAP is the sponsor of this content. It was independently created by Reuters’ editorial staff and funded in part by SAP, which otherwise has no role in this coverage.
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Georgia s secretary of state has claimed the Department of Homeland Security tried to breach his office s firewall and has issued a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson asking for an explanation.Brian Kemp issued a letter to Johnson on Thursday after the state s third-party cybersecurity provider detected an IP address from the agency s Southwest D.C. office trying to penetrate the state s firewall. According to the letter, the attempt was unsuccessful.And now, Channel 2 Investigative Reporter Aaron Diamond has learned two more states election agencies have confirmed suspected cyberattacks linked to the same U.S. Department of Homeland Security IP address as last month s massive attack in Georgia.The two states reporting the suspected cyberattacks were West Virginia and Kentucky. We need somebody to dig down into this story and figure out exactly what happened, said Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp.In the past week, the Georgia Secretary of State s Office has confirmed 10 separate cyberattacks on its network over the past 10 months that were traced back to DHS addresses. We re being told something that they think they have it figured out, yet nobody s really showed us how this happened, Kemp said. We need to know. He says the new information from the two other states presents even more reason to be concerned. So now this just raises more questions that haven t been answered about this and continues to raise the alarms and concern that I have, Kemp said.Through an open-records request, Diamant acquired the results of a survey Kemp asked the National Association of Secretaries of State to send to its members.West Virginia wrote back, This IP address did access our election night results on November 7, 2016. Kentucky responded the same IP address did touch the KY (online voter registration) system on one occasion, 11/1/16. In a letter this week, DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson told Kemp the department sourced the mid-November activity in Georgia to a federal contractor conducting what he called normal internet searches on the Secretary of State s website. But Kemp says there s a problem with that answer. We haven t been able to recreate this the way they explained it to us, Kemp said.Kemp also told Diamant that DHS has yet to explain at least nine other suspected network scans linked to DHS IP addresses over the last year on or around important primary and presidential election dates. Kemp s call for answers is amplified now by the National Association of Secretaries of State, or NASS. WSBTV
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The National Rifle Association recently made a pathetic attempt to attack Hillary Clinton and it backfired horribly.The NRA thought it had released a clever video bashing Clinton s record of approving arms exports when she served as Secretary of State, but instead they validated what gun control advocates have been asking for all along: better background checks.In the video, Conservative host Dana Loesch accuses Clinton of letting the decision about whether or not to export arms to foreign nations be based on what countries had made donations to the Clinton Foundation. These were, of course, false accusations but the NRA still tried to shame Clinton for something she didn t do. In actuality, the U.S. has the highest standards in the world for deciding whether to approve gun sales to foreign nations. But the NRA was apparently so focused on bashing the Democratic front runner, that the right-wing organization completely missed the fact that they d made a great case for background checks when Loesch said:Brilliant. The video also makes another important point that countries approved for export permits are at least investigated to ensure that countries receiving guns from the United States will be using them to promote our national security interests and foreign policy objectives. But in America, that s a different story. Guns are not only available to our military, but to nearly anyone who can clear just a few legal/safety requirements.And it gets better. Loesch continued to spew nonsense, once again unintentionally making a case for women in other countries and completely ignoring the fact that America has a huge issue with guns and domestic violence: When Hillary Clinton isn t trying to disarm women and prevent us from the equal opportunity exercise of our pro-choice right to self-defense, she is approving billion-dollar arms sales to countries with horrendous human rights records. Countries where women have little to no rights, countries like Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Oman, and others. According to gun reform group Everytown Research, domestic violence and gun deaths are very closely linked, but the NRA is choosing to be ignorant. Domestic violence in America is to a significant degree a problem of gun violence. Over the past 25 years, more intimate partner homicides in the U.S. have been committed with guns than with all other weapons combined. And people with a history of committing domestic violence are five times more likely to subsequently murder an intimate partner when a firearm is in the house. This attack ad implies that women in other countries could and should be kept safe with strong background checks and rigid gun ownership laws. And by making no mention of protecting American women in the same way, the NRA s video suggests that women in this country should suffer the consequences that come with more relaxed gun laws. We could make the argument that in America, we need gun control the most the United States leads other developed countries in gun violence by a landslide.Clinton, on the other hand, is passionate about reducing gun violence so while the NRA tried to soil Clinton s record, they instead revealed a huge hypocrisy in their own argument. You can watch the video below:Featured image via Justin Sullivan / Getty Images
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LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A federal judge declared a mistrial on Thursday in the obstruction of justice case against former Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca, ruling that jurors were hopelessly deadlocked, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office said. Baca, aged 74 and suffering from the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease, was standing trial on charges of trying to thwart a federal corruption probe that overshadowed the final years of his tenure as chief custodian of the nation’s largest county jail system. U.S. District Judge Percy Anderson’s determination of a hung jury came during the fourth day of deliberations following a series of confidential “sidebar” talks between Anderson and the attorneys, joined at times by Baca and one of the jurors. After a final 30-minute round of deliberations, the 12-member panel said it could not reach a unanimous verdict and that further efforts were fruitless. Anderson then pronounced the jurors “hopelessly deadlocked” and dismissed them, according to Thom Mrozek, a spokesman for prosecutors. Jurors said afterward they had split 11-1 in favor of acquittal, local media reported. Anderson set a hearing for Jan. 10 on how to proceed. Prosecutors must decide whether to seek a retrial of Baca on charges of obstruction of justice and conspiracy to obstruct justice. The case stems from a wide-ranging federal investigation of inmate abuse by sheriff’s deputies and other wrongdoing, including cover-up attempts, at two downtown Los Angeles jails. The defense contended that Baca was unaware of efforts inside his department to impede the investigation and that his former second-in-command, Paul Tanaka, was to blame. Tanaka is serving a five-year sentence for his role in the corruption scandal, the highest ranking of 17 officials convicted in related cases. Baca has been slated to stand trial separately on a charge of making false statements to federal investigators, for which he plans to raise Alzheimer’s as a defense. Baca pleaded guilty last February to the false statement charge but withdrew his plea in August after a judge ruled that the six-month prison term prosecutors recommended as part of the deal was too lenient. He was indicted days later on all three charges of obstruction, conspiracy and making false statements, for which he could face 20 years in prison if convicted. Baca was the top elected law enforcement official in Los Angeles for 15 years before retiring in January 2014 amid the corruption probe at the county jail system, which houses some 18,000 inmates.
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( theoccidentalobsever.net ) Pictures and captions by Darkmoon
Yes, it’s just another Jewish plot. And the way they’re doing it is by scamming the public into believing that these illegal immigrants—all of them adult males—are helpless “child refugees”.
These “child refugees”, who have conveniently lost their passports, claim to be under 18. Some of the child migrants even have bushy beards. The British government and the elite media argue that migrants tend to “age quickly”—because of their traumatic war experiences. You can’t make this up.
The dismantling of the Calais “Jungle” refugee camp has been marked by huge scenes of disorder with rioting, at least one gang rape , and much of the camp going up in flames. But there has been uproar in Britain too since the realisation that most of the thousands of “child refugees” , which the Prime Minister had agreed to accept, were neither children nor refugees.
From the moment these healthy, strapping adult male migrants stepped off the bus in London it was obvious that the British people had been subjected to yet another massive immigration deception. Those who enabled and organised this “child refugee” scam are brazening it out, safe in the knowledge there will be no comebacks for them.
First they attempted to prevent any more embarrassing pictures by throwing blankets over the arrivals so they resembled state witnesses at a Mafia trial. Then a screened walkway from the bus alighting point to the door of the reception centre was erected overnight for the same purpose. Dental tests to determine the real age of these youths were ruled out as an “invasion of privacy.” And there is no question of having them deported, so nothing can be done now. They’re here. Get over it.
But of course, it all works better if there is no clamour from the public. So the powers-that-be have resorted to the tried and tested method of stifling dissent. Anyone who sticks his head above the parapet to raise doubts is subjected to stern lectures about their moral shortcomings. BBC TV presenter Gary Lineker chastised his fellow British for their “shameful” attitudes, while Labour shadow Home Secretary Diane Abbot t attacked those who wanted to carry out dental tests to assess their age as “racist.” Pop singer Lily Allen became a media darling when, on behalf of the people of Britain, she made a tearful apology to the refugees for causing their plight.
Let that sink in. Britain caused the plight of the refugees.
After voting for Brexit, for ordinary British people, who have seen their schools, hospitals and welfare services strained to breaking point, a fresh influx of immigrants was not exactly what they had been looking forward to. After all, Britain has no legal or moral obligation to take these people. They were supposed to be the responsibility of the first country they arrived at in the EU. And why are they coming to racist Europe anyway? It’s incredibly short-sighted of them. Why not go to some Asian or African country? Or Israel?
This fresh burden will be placed squarely on the local authorities that receive the immigrants, and they are going to have to dig deeply. While the government is providing £40,000 ($48,000) per annum for each young refugee, the total annual cost is around £133,000 ($162,000). So tax increases — or reduced services in other areas — are predicted.
Naturally little of this will fall on the prosperous London boroughs filled with BBC-watching, morally uplifted Whites. Instead many migrants are being located in far-flung areas such as Devon or poorer northern communities already thronging with refugees, such as Bradford.
The tipping point in the long battle to admit these bogus “child refugees” seems to have been a multi-faith initiative in which more than 200 religious leaders led by the former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Williams and senior representatives from the Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim and Sikh faiths — signed a letter urging the Prime Minister to admit 3,000.
In a speech at a London synagogue, Lord Williams described the Calais camp as “a stain” on the British conscience. But in fact, this alleged multi-faith support was not what it appeared to be. It was largely organised by dozens of Jewish activists working through an organisation called Citizens UK that organised the casework and poured substantial resources into ensuring that the necessary amendments to the law would make it through Parliament.
The Calais “Jungle” crisis has brought the Jewish community together in a unity of purpose rarely seen outside the occasion of Israel’s various wars. From the highest communal levels to the smallest youth groups, it seems everyone Jewish has been mobilised in the cause of getting uneducated, unassimilable Muslim economic migrants into Britain.
It is a campaign they have chosen to frame in entirely moral terms. The Jewish community’s loud insistence has been that not only is Britain under a strict moral obligation to take these migrants but that there should be no upper limit. To do otherwise would be to undermine our reputation as a humanitarian country that wishes to describe itself as civilised.
Their arguments have been formed around highly emotional anecdotes and images. Time and again we have been treated to stories of children struggling in the squalor at the Calais “Jungle” camp. The iconic photographs of the lifeless body of three-year-old Syrian boy Aylan Kurdi washed up on a Turkish beach are frequently invoked. The iconic picture (right) that reduced millions to tears and allowed the luvvies to cry “Let ’em all in!” You will notice that nowhere is there any consideration of the stress this is causing on existing British communities, especially those in the poorer areas where refugees are invariably housed. Nor is there any recognition of the profound unfairness this imposes on the native White community who will be required to support these strangers via the welfare system, health and housing services. Such a process is not only unaffordable, it makes a mockery of the basic idea that help from the welfare state is in return from previous tax contributions.
There is a largely unspoken reason for this: resentment over Britain’s perceived inadequacy in admitting Jewish refugees before World War II. In fact, Britain admitted many tens of thousands of Jews in the 1930s, but it is an article of faith amongst many Jews that Britain could and should have admitted many more.
Typical of this attitude was the speech of Rabbi Herschel Gluck, founder of the Muslim-Jewish Forum. He says he lost over 100 relatives in the Holocaust and implied that Britain’s wartime attitudes to refugees were to blame for this. “I feel obliged to ensure we don’t make the same mistakes,” he said.
Numerous references were made to the Kindertransport programme by which Jewish children from Europe were smuggled into Britain. (The TOO has already debunked much of this greatly mythologised episode.)
A veteran of that same Kindertransport is the figurehead for the Calais refugee crusade. eighty-four year old Lord Alf Dubs , a veteran Labour politician. He has tirelessly campaigned for mass immigration all his life. A former director of the Refugee Council, he somehow arrived in Britain aged six in 1939 despite Britain’s horrendous attitudes at the time, and was shown much Christian charity. Since then, he has chosen to repay this kindness by devoting his life to opening Britain’s borders to non-Whites from around the globe.
According to EU law, refugees should have been processed at the first country they arrived at, so some ruse had to dreamed up whereby Britain could allow their entry. This was done through a device known as the EU’s Dublin III regulation, whereby lone refugee children could be taken to any European country where they have a relative.
This was not enough for Lord Dubs. He wanted the “child refugees” in the Calais “Jungle” admitted to Britain without any “family reunion” qualification and pushed his own amendment which would oblige the British government to transfer to the UK any unaccompanied refugee children from Europe.
To this end Lord Dubs was able to count on wholesale establishment support. Not just the Archbishop of Canterbury but charities , NGOs and even economists all rallied round. JEWISH POLITICIAN LORD ALF DUBS “He has ceaselessly campaigned for mass immigration all his life, devoting his life to opening Britain’s borders to non-Whites from around the globe.”
The Occidental Observer has already shown the hugely disproportionate Jewish influence on a similar letter from senior lawyers. The same disproportionately Jewish influence can be seen in the plea from the 126 economists. One of the signatories was Jonathan Portes, who can be fairly regarded as the architect of Tony Blair’s mass immigration disaster .
So it seemed as if the passing of the Dubs amendment to an immigration bill was a foregone conclusion. But then at the vote in the House of Commons there was a problem. For Conservative politicians had not long finished fighting a general election campaign in which their voters had left them in no doubt how they felt about the never-ending waves of mass immigration. In the House of Commons the Dubs amendment was defeated . Jewish campaigners could barely contain their anger.
The nagging, scolding words of Dr. Edie Friedman , director of the Jewish Council for Racial Equality, were characteristic.
As a result, children across Europe will remain cold, alone and at risk over the coming months. This was an opportunity to stand on the right side of history, to bring relief to just 3,000 of the 95,000 unaccompanied children who applied for asylum in Europe last year.
We wake up this morning on the wrong side of history and on the wrong side of compassion.The Immigration Bill has shown the UK at its worst, uncaring about the suffering of children a mere 30 miles away in places like Calais, but it has also shown us (sic!) at our best.
Rabbi Harry Jacobi too was beside himself with anger at MPs voting in accordance with their electorate’s wishes. For him loomed the shadow of 1938, when Britain decided to stop the flood of Jewish refugees.
Too many MPs with hardened hearts, just like the biblical story of Pharaoh. To close their eyes and hearts to unaccompanied children, to insist that it is alright to detain pregnant women, and that refugees can still be detained indefinitely simply on the say so of an immigration official. These are not the actions of a world-leading moral civilisation. REAL CHILD REFUGEES FROM SYRIA FAKE “CHILD REFUGEES” FROM THE THIRD WORLD— the type being let into Britain right now under Jewish pressure.
Then, in one of his last acts as Prime Minister, David Cameron did a U-turn and announced he would allow the amendment to go through unopposed.
Now Britain could admit the bogus 3,000 “refugee children” unilaterally. — § —
Citizens UK’s main task seems to be getting migrants or “refugees” into Britain and dispersed around the country. It describes itself as a “community organiser’s hub,” but is in fact an arm of the state with deep pockets and a nationwide network of affiliated organisations. It has fought many legal battles for refugees and succeeded in getting migrant “child asylum seekers” released from detention centres and housed in the wider community.
So how Jewish is it? At letterhead level it seems to be drawn from a cross-section of the community, but at organiser level, the Citizens UK appears to be disproportionately Jewish. (This tactic of recruiting sympathetic non-Jews and giving them highly visible position in Jewish-dominated causes has a very long history, going back at least to immigration battles in the early twentieth century, as recounted in Chapter 6 of SAID [p. 192ff] and Chapter 7 of Culture of Critique [e.g., pp. 249-250].) They include the Citizens UK spokeswoman , Rabbi Janet Darley, who, of course, has a tear-jerking story to tell. She said it was when a 15-year-old migrant fell under the wheels of a truck he was trying to board that she felt that she had to get involved.
For me, that was the deal breaker — I knew I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t do everything I could to make sure there were no more dead children. … The Torah warns us against the wronging of a stranger. For us, this is core teaching and not an optional extra.
Another Jewish Citizens UK activist is senior organiser Charlotte Fischer, who is lobbying for Britain to increase the total number of “Syrian” refugees it has agreed to take from 20,000 to 50,000. “We are doing shamefully compared to Canada” she chides.
But the UK is doing awesomely compared to Israel. Doesn’t that count for anything? — § —
Citizens UK campaigner Rabbi Danny Rich is co-chair of yet another arm of the refugee industry, the National Refugee Welcome Board. He clearly has the magic touch when it comes to getting access on the BBC. Since the beginning of September he has graced at least half a dozen BBC outlets including the main BBC TV news and the BBC World Service and gets softball kidglove treatment from all of them. He blithely brushed aside the concerns of ordinary British people: “Look at the Kindertransport and the contribution made to Britain over the last 70 years by those who escaped the Nazis. Look at the contributions made today by doctors, nurses and care workers, many of who were not English born.” Anyone doubting the distinctly Jewish flavour of Citizens UK would be advised to look at this promotional video .
Of course, no British refugee campaign would be complete without the presence of Rabbi Laura Janner-Klausner who can be guaranteed to be at the forefront at any number of “multi faith” immigrant events including a Citizens UK vigil outside the House of Commons.
Citizens UK is an umbrella organisation overseeing local grass roots initiatives for refugees all over the country, many of which are Jewish-organised. One of the main ones is called Safe Passage UK . In an article for the Jewish Chronicle, the two Jewish organisers described their work as “fighting injustice.” Apparently a group of synagogues had raised £200,000 for them in just a few weeks.
Rabbi Rebecca Birk was recently named by the Evening Standard as one of London’s most influential people for her fund raising for Safe Passage UK. Again, her entire rationale is bound up with her Jewish identity, framed, of course, as a moral imperative stemming from the inherently moral essence of Judaism. She says :
The Jewish identity is predicated on being a foreigner, relying on the kindness of strangers, it runs through our own theology really: doing good, mending the world. We talk of three pillars the world stands on — the Torah, divine service, and kind acts. It’s an anathema to be a Jew and only be concerned with oneself.
LD : The idea that all Jews are full of sweetness and light, overflowing with the milk of human kindness toward their fellow human beings, can be dismissed at once as bordering on the absurd. Here are two prominent Jews who would like to see the White race genocided and White women and children cruelly raped and killed: 1. HARVARD PROFESSOR DR NOEL IGNATIEF 2. RABBI ISHMAEL LEVITTS — § —
A clear sense of Jewish identity also informed the efforts of the three fashionable north London women who decided to put their media careers on hold to set up the Help Refugees charity in the Calais “Jungle.” The women, two of whom are Jewish, have tapped into a lucrative market indeed, and their outfit was one of the biggest players in Calais. It has been a massive, trendy, profile-raising success. After setting up, they were inundated with corporate contributions, and now they run 26 projects from Israel and on the migrant trail all the way across Europe. Articles about them focus on “child refugees.” And because Hollywood is well-known for its high moralism, it is not surprising that actors such as Benedict Cumberbatch and Lena Dunham have lent their support.
Help Refugees even has a mobile kitchen on to the shores of Greece where their volunteers are helping refugees from Turkey from their dinghies and then seeing them off on their long journey across Europe. One of these women, Dani Lawrence, insists her parents fled anti-Semitism in Morocco in the sixties.
The Jewish community has an extremely high opinion of its charitable efforts. Their strong Jewish identities and loyalty to their tribe are obvious, and it is wonderful that all that philanthropy makes them feel so good about themselves. But it might be worthwhile for the White British to ask what exactly is in it for them, apart from Kosher certification?
It is time to ask some searching questions about the real motives that lie behind all this Jewish selflessness. After all, a charitable disposition towards Muslims is not exactly a characteristic of Jewish life anywhere else and certainly not in the Palestinian territories. And no question is guaranteed to infuriate Jewish activists more than asking why Israel doesn’t admit any refugees from Syria which is, after all, next door?
So what do they get out of this sudden influx of unassimilable immigrants who have neither the temperament nor inclination to fit into modern Britain? Sadly, as readers of TOO are all to familiar with (see, e.g., “ Is immigration a Jewish value? “), the motivation is not compassion but veiled ethnic vindictiveness aimed at undermining and dispossessing ordinary British people. The motivation is not compassion but veiled ethnic vindictiveness
One of the questions that British people might also ask themselves is this: If those British people in the 1930s who had admitted waves of Jewish refugees could see the fruits of what they had done, what would they think?
If those British people, who were to suffer so much in a war they were told was about “freedom”, if they were to see the streets of Peckham, Newham or any number of London boroughs or cities today overrun by Third-Worlders, what would they think?
And if they were then to be told, in detail, about the role of Jewish activism, power and “philanthropy” in bringing about this transformation, what would their thoughts be then?Perhaps they would agree with so many of us. That the Jewish invocation to “heal the world” seems to be code-words for eradicating White identity and eradicating the power of Whites to control their own destiny.
And perhaps, instead of admitting these “child refugees,” Britain would have been better off remembering the words of another Jewish sage, economist Milton Friedman, who said “You can have a welfare state or you can have open borders, but you cannot have both.”
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Breaking and developing news on the occupation of the Oregon wildlife refuge: Ammon and Ryan Bundy, the brothers leading anti-government protesters occupying Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon, and several other people were arrested Tuesday in a confrontation with authorities, the FBI said. One person was dead, the FBI said.Officials said it all began with a traffic stop while Bundy and some of his followers were en route to a community meeting in John Day, about 70 miles away.Shots were fired after FBI agents, Oregon State troopers and other law enforcement agencies made the stop.Details of the arrest remain unknown, but charges are pending related to the group s 25-day takeover of the wildlife refuge.Bundy and about three dozen of other individuals occupied the wildlife refuge earlier this month after two local ranchers were sent to prison. Here s more detail on this case:OREGON RANCHERS VS THE FEDSVia: katuVia: nbc
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BEIJING (Reuters) - Chinese Premier Li Keqiang called on Tuesday for advancing free trade agreement talks between China, Japan and South Korea, state news agency Xinhua reported. It provided no details but China has been seeking to get relations with Japan and South Korea back on track after disputes over how to rein in North Korea s nuclear and missile programmes, and, in Japan s case, over the two countries sensitive wartime history. China stands ready to work with relevant parties to speed up negotiations of the China-Japan-South Korea FTA, Li told a regional summit in Manila, Xinhua said. The three countries began free trade agreement talks in November 2012, with the latest round of talks being held in Tokyo in April, the report added.
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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan on Thursday said National Football League players’ protests were constitutionally protected free speech, but their decision to kneel while the national anthem played at games was “misguided.” “Clearly people have a right to express themselves,” Ryan told reporters at a news conference. But doing so in front of the U.S. flag, “it looks like you’re protesting against the ideals of America... I think it’s misguided,” he added.
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MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexico s elite Tecnologico de Monterrey university said on Friday that structural shortcomings contributed to the collapse of walkways on its Mexico City campus in an earthquake last month, killing five college students. Rashid Abella Yunes, the school s vice-president for the Mexico City region, told Reuters that examinations showed two sets of pedestrian bridges stretching between three buildings were too weak to withstand the Sept. 19 quake that toppled dozens of buildings and killed nearly 230 people in the capital. The supports that were supporting the bridges were just 15 centimeters, which to the judgment of experts could have been larger, he said. The buildings made the bridges lose support, and they fell. Abella added that the university was leaving to Mexico City prosecutors the task of determining if any of the architects, contractors or inspectors that it hired between 1991 and 1998 to build the bridges could be held responsible. None of the professionals that Abella said worked on the bridges were immediately reachable for comment. Construction and safety documents published last month by the Tlalpan district, where the campus is located, included an August 2017 structural safety certificate. Abella also said that Mexico City s construction regulations do not specify the size that bridge supports need to be in order be structurally sound. The university, renowned for its engineering program, attributed its findings to Mexico City-based engineering firm Garcia Jarque Ingenieros, which it hired to investigate the collapse. A group of nearly 100 alumni have been pressing the school to explain how the bridges were constructed. Of all of the doubts that we ve had, none are resolved, said Carlos Brito, a 2010 graduate. Family members of two students who died at the site said their children were crushed by falling bridges as they raced out of the ground-floor cafeteria beneath. Juan Carlos Alvarez Blanco said his son, 19-year-old engineering student Juan Carlos, decided to stay on campus for lunch and died attempting to exit the cafeteria. We want facts, he said last week. Along with the other four families, we are very, very devastated. A relative of another student who died, who asked to not be named, said the young man, who studied engineering, had also been in the cafeteria. Both family members declined to provide further comment on Friday.
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CRAIOVA, Romania (Reuters) - NATO launched a new multinational force in Romania on Monday to counter Russia along its eastern flank and to check a growing Russian presence in the Black Sea following the Kremlin s 2014 seizure of Crimea. The force will initially be built around a Romanian brigade of up to 4,000 soldiers, supported by troops from nine other NATO countries, and complementing a separate deployment of 900 U.S. troops who are already in place. The plans are to include additional air and sea assets to give the force greater capabilities. Our purpose is peace, not war, Romanian President Klaus Iohannis told the NATO Parliamentary Assembly of alliance lawmakers, which is meeting this year in Bucharest. We are not a threat for Russia. But we need dialogue from a strong position of defense and discouragement, he said, before flying to the Craiova military base in south-eastern Romania. At the base, as military bands played, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg stood alongside Iohannis, addressed some of the troops in green face paint and inspected vehicles and weapons. We are sending a very clear message: NATO is here, NATO is strong and NATO is united, Stoltenberg told assembled Polish, Romanian, Spanish and Portuguese soldiers. Russia accuses NATO of trying to encircle it and threatening stability in Eastern Europe, which NATO denies. Around the Black Sea, Romania, Bulgaria and Turkey are NATO members while Georgia and Ukraine aspire to join. The NATO force aims to develop its presence in the Black Sea region, rich in oil and gas, without escalating tensions as it seeks to counter Russia s own plans to create what military analysts say is a buffer zone . The 2008 Russian operation to put troops in Georgia s South Ossetia region, its support for separatists in eastern Ukraine since 2014 and its annexation of Crimea have raised the stakes, with all sides warning of a new, Cold-War style scenario. Apart from Romania, Poland is the biggest troop contributor. Bulgaria, Italy and Portugal will train regularly with the force in Craiova, and Germany is also expected to contribute. In additional to existing NATO Black Sea naval patrols, a maritime presence will include more allied visits to Romanian and Bulgarian ports, training and exercises. Britain is deploying fighter planes to Romania. Canada is already helping to patrol Romanian air space, and Italian planes are helping patrol over Bulgaria. Some Eastern Europeans want NATO s new ballistic missile defense shield, which includes a site in Romania, to be part of NATO s eastern posture vis-a-vis Russia. The Aegis Ashore system would add another level of deterrence, said Maciej Kowalski, an analyst at the Polish Casimir Pulaski Foundation, referring to the U.S.-built system. NATO says the system is to intercept any Iranian rockets. As in the Baltics and Poland, where the U.S.-led alliance has some 4,000 troops, NATO says the relatively light multinational model recalls allied support for West Berlin in the 1950s, when the presence of British, French and U.S. forces ensured the Soviet Union could not control all of Berlin. Under NATO s founding treaty, an attack on one ally is an attack on all, meaning all 28 NATO nations would be required to respond in the case of any potential Russian aggression. While months in planning, the establishment of the force comes as Russia winds down its biggest war games since 2013. The Zapad, or West, games showed off Moscow s latest weaponry and its ability to quickly mass forces on NATO s borders. The enhanced NATO presence in Romania and Bulgaria marks a diplomatic success for Bucharest, which gained greater persuasive power because it is set to reach a NATO goal of spending 2 percent of economic output on defense this year, a priority for U.S. President Donald Trump. Romania pushed for bigger NATO naval presence on the Black Sea for more than a year, but found its neighbor Bulgaria wary of provoking Russia. Turkey supports only limited NATO reinforcements, concerned about breaking international rules limiting the scale of patrols in the Black Sea. Turkey has played down the extent of Russia s militarization of Crimea, which NATO says involves deploying surface-to-air missiles and communications jamming equipment.
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As reported earlier today, Reuters has named the whistleblower in Uranium One as William D. Campbell. According to John Solomon of Circa News, the undercover whistleblower is a consultant and his evidence will show Russian agents with suitcases of cash to bribe the Clintons for US uranium:Campbell says he s in fear for his life and will be testifying on Monday.John Solomon disputes the Reuters attempt to downplay the information from this informant He says this guy has big info on the Dems and Hillary OUR PREVIOUS REPORT ON REUTERS OUTING CAMPBELL AND THE GAG ORDER ON CAMPBELL: The FBI informant who went undercover to look into Hillary Clinton s role in an Obama administration-era uranium company was identified yesterday in an exclusive from Reuters:William Campbell, a Russian lobbyist, is the informant, according to Reuters. He will be testifying before a congressional committee about the 2010 sale of Uranium One, where a Russian-backed company bought a uranium firm with mines in the U.S. Campbell gave information to the FBI about what he saw while undercover as an informant. I have worked with the Justice Department undercover for several years, and documentation relating to Uranium One and political influence does exist and I have it William CampbellCongressional committees have previously tried to interview Campbell, as he was undercover for roughly five years, working to get information on Russia s efforts to grow its atomic energy business in the U.S.Department of Justice spokeswoman Sarah Isgur Flores told The Hill that a deal was reached in late October, clearing the informant to talk to Congress for the first time almost eight years after he first went undercover.Two House chairmen also announced a probe in late October which is digging into new reports about Russian efforts to influence the Uranium One nuclear purchase that gave Russia control of roughly 20 percent of America s uranium.When Clinton served as secretary of state, Russia routed millions of dollars to the Clinton Foundation, and former President Bill Clinton collected hundreds of thousands of dollars in Russian speaking fees as part of Russian efforts to influence the U.S. government to approve the deal, The Hill reported.OUR PREVIOUS REPORT ON THE GAG ORDER THAT HAS BEEN LIFTED BY SESSIONS:LAWYER FOR FBI INFORMANT: My Client Knows What Russians Were Saying During Bribery of Clintons [VIDEO]Campbell s attorney, Victoria Toensing, said on Fox Business that former attorneys general under the Obama administration are the reason her client hasn t been able to tell what all the Russians were talking about during the time that all these bribery payments were made. The lawyer for the FBI informant under a gag order that prevents him from going before Congress spoke out about what s to come with the Clinton/Russia Uranium story:Fox Business reported: An informant for the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is under a gag order that prevents him from testifying before the United States Congress that Russian nuclear officials were involved in fraudulent dealings in 2009 before the Uranium One deal was approved.Former Attorney General Loretta Lynch blocked the informant from testifying last year and threatened criminal action against him if he were to do so.In an interview with FOX Business Lou Dobbs, Victoria Toensing, the attorney representing the FBI informant, said she has never heard of a criminal penalty for breaching a non-disclosure agreement (NDA). If it does and it is unconstitutional and it s invalid, if it prohibits my client from giving information to the legislature, the executive cannot say to people, Hey, you can t give information to another body of the government, Toensing said.KEY POINTS: The Republican leadership was blocking the investigation into both Benghazi and the Russia uranium scandal involving Clinton.The NDA (gag order) is unconstitutional and Toensing says this type of gag order has a criminal penalty. She says she s never heard of this type of gag order.Victoria Toensing is one of the best lawyers in DC and will get to the bottom of this one way or another. The plot thickens on this one Read more: Daily Caller
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The number of middle and high school students using electronic cigarettes tripled between 2013 and 2014, according to government figures released Thursday, a startling increase that public health officials fear could reverse decades of efforts combating the scourge of smoking.
The use of e-cigarettes among teenagers has eclipsed the use of traditional cigarettes and all other tobacco products, a development that Tom Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, called “alarming” and “shocking.”
“What’s most surprising is how incredibly rapid the use of products other than cigarettes has increased,” Frieden said in an interview, adding that some e-cigarette smokers would undoubtedly go on to use traditional cigarettes. “It is subjecting another generation of our children to an addictive substance.”
The results, based on an annual survey of 22,000 students around the country and published Thursday by the CDC, detail a quickly evolving landscape of tobacco products that appeal to teenagers.
Anti-smoking advocates argue that the rise in the popularity of e-cigarettes stems in part from aggressive, largely unregulated marketing campaigns that Frieden said are “straight out of the playbook” of cigarette ads that targeted young people in earlier generations.
“These are the same images, the same themes and the same role models that the cigarette industry used 50 years ago,” said Matt Myers, president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. “It’s the Marlboro Man reborn. It’s the Virginia Slims woman recreated, with the exact same effect. ... This is not an accident.”
But advocates of e-cigarettes -- small devices that heat up flavored, nicotine-laced liquid into a vapor that is inhaled -- say the worries expressed by public health officials are premature and not backed up by data.
Cynthia Cabrera, executive director of the Smoke-Free Alternatives Trade Association, an industry group, said her organization has long supported age restrictions and other measures to keep e-cigarettes out of the hands of minors. But at the same time, she said there’s no definitive evidence e-cigarettes are a “gateway” to using traditional cigarettes and other tobacco products. On the contrary, she said, many teens have tried e-cigarettes in the past already were smokers.
“We need to not lose perspective about the potential these products have to eliminate harm from combusted tobacco,” she said. “I suspect teens experiment with a lot of things. And I suspect anytime someone is not smoking a cigarette, that’s a good thing.”
“The CDC should really be jumping for joy at the fact that smoking rates are declining. This is a huge success,” added Michael Siegel, a professor and tobacco control specialist at Boston University’s School of Public Health. “Instead, they are using this as another opportunity to demonize e-cigarettes.”
Siegel said he agrees that minors shouldn’t have access to any tobacco product. But he said the CDC numbers suggest that rather than serving as a gateway to cigarette smoking, e-cigarette use might be diverting teens from traditional cigarettes, which still kill hundreds of thousands of Americans each year. “That’s a good thing,” he said.
While tobacco giants such as Lorillard and Altria have indeed purchased e-cigarette companies in recent years, Cabrera disputed that those marketing campaigns target underage smokers. And she said the bulk of e-cigarette marketing is still done by hundreds of small companies whose ads on the internet and other platforms target only adults.
“If you’re thinking this is Big Tobacco redux, that’s the wrong thinking," she said.
This much seems certain: Teens are experimenting as much as ever. Roughly a quarter of high school students and near 8 percent of middle school students still report using a tobacco product at least once during the past 30 days.
But between 2013 and 2014, the findings show, e-cigarette use among high school students had increased from 4.5 percent to 13.4 percent. Usage also more than tripled among middle school students, according to the findings. Only among black students was another tobacco product, cigars, more popular than e-cigarettes, the CDC said.
During that same period, the use of hookahs — water pipes that are used to smoke specially made tobacco — roughly doubled for middle and high school students, also eclipsing the use of regular cigarettes.
[Seven things to know about e-cigarettes]
Meanwhile, use of conventional cigarettes sank to the lowest levels in years. According to the CDC, 9.2 percent of high school students and 2.5 percent of middle school students reported smoking a cigarette over the past month.
On the surface, that might seems like good news, given the hundreds of thousands of Americans that still die from smoking each year. And it might be. “The drop in cigarette use is historic, with enormous public health significance,” Myers said. But, he was quick to add, “the explosion of e-cigarette use among kids means these products are being taken up in record numbers with totally unknown long-term consequences that could potentially undermine all the progress we’ve made.”
Last April, the Food and Drug Administration announced that for the first time it would begin to regulate e-cigarettes, which has grown into a multibillion-dollar industry in the United States. The agency said its plan would force manufacturers to curb sales to minors, place health warning labels on their products and disclose the ingredients in e-cigarettes. The initial proposals stopped short of halting online sales of e-cigarettes, restricting television advertising or banning the use of candy and fruit flavorings that critics say are intended to appeal to young smokers.
A year later, the FDA has not finalized any new regulations involving e-cigarettes, though its top tobacco officials said in a statement Thursday the agency still plans to oversee the burgeoning market.
“In today’s rapidly evolving tobacco marketplace, the surge in youth use of novel products like e-cigarettes forces us to confront the reality that the progress we have made in reducing youth cigarette smoking rates is being threatened,” said Mitch Zeller, J.D., director of FDA’s Center for Tobacco Products. “These staggering increases in such a short time underscore why FDA intends to regulate these additional products to protect public health.”
Myers said such action can't come soon enough.
"The failure of the FDA to move more quickly means we have an urgent crisis that needs to be addressed," he said. "In the absence of strong governmental action, these numbers will only keep going up."
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Donald Trump made the effort to visit the flood victims in Louisiana while Obama golfed and Hillary slept Who s looking presidential now?Donald Trump toured the flood areas in Louisiana today where he was greeted by grateful flood victims: We knew you d be here! WATCH: Crowd praises Trump for visiting Louisiana; "We knew you'd be here!" https://t.co/71RuHvAY4l ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) August 19, 2016 MAN TEARS UP WHEN TALKING ABOUT TRUMP S VISIT: TRUMP TOURS FLOOD DAMAGE IN LOUISIANA:
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Yesterday, The New York Times ran a story in which they gave moving accounts of two women who say that Donald Trump sexually assaulted them. Trump maintains that his boasts about being allowed to assault women because he s got star power were just words, and that he s never done such a thing. In a sorry attempt to maintain the illusion that he s a good person, Trump has had his lawyers send the Times an official cease-and-desist, claiming the story amounts to libel.The strange thing is that the bulk of this letter appears to be directed at the women that the Times spoke to than it is to the Times itself: [Y]ou apparently performed an entirely inadequate investigation to test the veracity of these false and malicious allegations, including why these two individuals waited, in one case, 11 years, and, in another case, more than three decades, before deciding to come forward with these false and defamatory statements. And there it is. Assassinating the characters of the victims by saying that, if they d really been assaulted sexually, they d have come forward right away, is a very typical ploy for those trying to defend themselves against such allegations. But there s still nothing in there about what, specifically, is false in the Times story and how they know the Times knowingly published a false story.Trump s victims could all find their names and characters dragged through the mud because of this, and make no mistake, he will do that as loudly as he can. The fear of having that happen, and of not being believed, keeps many sexual assault victims from coming forward.And that could easily be why Trump is doing this. However, his method appears to be two-fold: In addition to intimidating and bullying his victims, he s also intimidating and bullying press outlets. The hope there would be that they won t give a voice to any more of his victims out of fear of getting sued.This isn t the only absurdity in the letter, but it is the most damning, given its possible intent. The letter also makes it political instead of naming specific falsehoods, which is outright ridiculous if this is a serious cease-and-desist: Your article is reckless, defamatory and constitutes libel per se. It is apparent from, among other things, the timing of the article, that it is nothing more than a politically-motivated effort to defeat Mr. Trump s candidacy Clearly, The New York Times is willing to provide a platform to anyone wishing to smear Mr. Trump s name and reputation prior to the election irrespective of whether the alleged statements have any basis in fact. Really? That s a hell of a thing to say in a cease-and-desist. The letter itself is politically motivated it s actually quite difficult to believe that an actual lawyer wrote this baloney. Here s what a strong cease-and-desist letter should contain, and this is a template of a decent cease-and-desist. This idiocy meets none of the conditions it needs to.CNNMoney reports that Trump has also threatened the Palm Beach Post for publishing a separate story from yet another victim. Besides that, the Trump campaign told Times reporter Megan Twohey that he would sue if they published the story. She received her own letter yesterday afternoon and was called a disgusting human being. A lawsuit against the Times would uncover everything and probably sink Trump entirely, because these allegations are the tip of the iceberg. He knows that. But, if nothing else, the discovery phase of this would be interesting.You can read the letter in full here:BREAKING: Trump demands retraction from @nytimes, threatens lawsuit.https://t.co/GBwomM7tgA pic.twitter.com/Htm9uaEsne Christina Wilkie (@christinawilkie) October 13, 2016Featured image via Scott Olson/Getty Images
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Donald Trump is doing a horrendous job of raising his historically low approval rating in America, and it looks like he s not doing any better in trying to gain the approval and trust of the rest of the world.Thanks to a new survey by the Pew Research Center, we can now rest assured that the entire world hates Trump just as much as most Americans do. The Pew Research Center surveyed 37 countries, discovering that 74% of respondents stated that when it comes to international affairs, they have ZERO confidence that Trump will respond appropriately or do the right thing.This will be damaging enough to Trump s ego, but it gets even worse for him! Pew Research Center also reported that a similar survey was conducted on former President Barack Obama when he was POTUS, and it produced some VERY different results. That survey revealed that 64% of respondents had complete faith in Obama on international affairs.While the fact that most of the world hates Trump is kind of hysterical, what it has done to America s reputation is quite depressing. The study revealed that America s reputation has declined dramatically since the days of Obama. When respondents were asked how they felt about the U.S., only 49% were favorable since Trump got into the White House, which was a 15% decline from Obama s time and it s only been a few months. The authors of the survey said: In the eyes of most people surveyed around the world, the White House s new occupant is arrogant, intolerant and even dangerous. Among the positive characteristics tested, his highest rating is for being a strong leader. Fewer believe he is charismatic, well-qualified or cares about ordinary people. Ironically, the only two countries who reported to have more confidence in Trump than Obama were Israel and, you guessed it Russia. In fact, Russia increased 42% thanks to Trump s presidency, which should certainly raise some suspicion.You can check out the findings below:Featured image via Pool / Getty Images
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Here is his epic response to her criticism: Lady came up, told me I should take this hat off. Told her she should go get her money back for her ugly haircut. That ended THAT! Mic drop! Lady came up, told me I should take this hat off. Told her she should go get her money back for her ugly haircut. That ended THAT! Mic drop! pic.twitter.com/SfQQDMNi9V David A. Clarke, Jr. (@SheriffClarke) February 17, 2017
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Well, that didn t take long.After weeks of supporting Republican candidate Ed Gillespie on Twitter, Donald Trump quickly distanced himself from him as if he never supported him at all.The statewide elections in New Jersey and Virginia were landslide victories for Democrats this year, with Gillespie losing the Virginia gubernatorial race to Ralph Northam, who ran on an anti-Trump platform.The losses were a humiliating defeat for Trump, who desperately attacked Northam on Twitter and praised Gillespie on Election Day.Ralph Northam will allow crime to be rampant in Virginia. He s weak on crime, weak on our GREAT VETS, Anti-Second Amendment . Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 7, 2017 .and has been horrible on Virginia economy. Vote @EdWGillespie today! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 7, 2017.@EdWGillespie will totally turn around the high crime and poor economic performance of VA. MS-13 and crime will be gone. Vote today, ASAP! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 7, 2017Yet, Trump threw Gillespie under the bus after hearing about the defeat.Ed Gillespie worked hard but did not embrace me or what I stand for. Don t forget, Republicans won 4 out of 4 House seats, and with the economy doing record numbers, we will continue to win, even bigger than before! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 8, 2017Seriously.You can bet that if Gillespie had won Trump would kissing his ass right now and calling him a close friend and loyal supporter. But he lost so Trump is trashing him and pretending that he never really supported him.Trump also lied because not only did Gillespie embrace Trump and his bigotry, the economy is only hitting record numbers thanks to the policies of President Obama. Had Obama served a ninth year in office, we would be seeing these same economic numbers. Because Trump is still operating on the Obama budget and has not signed a single piece of economic legislation.If this election is a sign of things to come, Trump and the Republican Party should be scared to death. The American people are coming for them and it s not going to be pretty.Featured Image: Alex Wong/Getty Images
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First we were told that a Russian hacker had broken into the Democratic National Committee’s computers and gotten hold of its oppo file on Donald Trump.
Now someone who goes by 'Guccifer 2.0,' a nod to the shadowy Romanian hacker, is claiming credit for putting the Trump file out there. Gawker and the Smoking Gun both published the report yesterday.
But what I find so amusing is that the opposition research file is hardly filled with secret stuff, the product of private eyes digging up dirt or hired-gun sleuths poring over documents. This supposed treasure trove, submitted in December, consists mainly of published articles and televised segments.
In other words, it’s all out there. You can Google it. Any reasonably sentient media consumer would know this stuff. It’s what we in the journalism racket call a clip job.
“Trump is Loyal only to Himself.”
“Trump’s Business Have Gone into Bankruptcy Several Times.”
“He Has Devalued and Demeaned Women Repeatedly Throughout His Career.”
“Out of Touch/Hand-Outs for the Wealthy at the Expense of the Middle Class.”
And the sources? Wall Street Journal, AP, Politico, Washington Post, Forbes, etc.
Trump, for his part, isn’t buying the DNC explanation that this is the work of some nefarious outside hacker. “Much of it is false and/or entirely inaccurate,” he says in a statement. “We believe it was the DNC that did the ‘hacking’ as a way to distract from the many issues facing their deeply flawed candidate and failed party leader. Too bad the DNC doesn’t hack Crooked Hillary’s 33,000 missing emails.”
Now that sounds far-fetched as well. Not only is there nothing new here, but no one can absorb 200 pages at once. Why not dribble out the attacks, package them as talking points, put them in attack ads, rather than create a bogus hacking story and dump it all out there? Or dress it up with some narrative and release it as a report?
What we have here, whether it was done by Guccifer 2.0 or whoever, is a 21st-century Watergate. Instead of burglars breaking into DNC headquarters, a crime that led to the downfall of Richard Nixon’s presidency, we have cyberwarfare against DNC computers, only aimed at the de facto Republican nominee, and winding up in the now-bankrupt, sex-tape-publishing Gawker rather than the Washington Post.
Simply vacuuming up negative material on a candidate doesn’t work in today’s cluttered media environment. Trump has been awash in negative media reports since he got into the race one year ago. The trick to getting traction is by packaging some of the stuff in a way that it sticks—as the Democrats successfully did to Mitt Romney, and the Republicans to John Kerry.
Instead, the oppo file itself has become news—in a fleeting way that guarantees it will quickly become non-news.
Howard Kurtz is a Fox News analyst and the host of "MediaBuzz" (Sundays 11 a.m. and 5 p.m. ET). He is the author of five books and is based in Washington. Follow him at @HowardKurtz. Click here for more information on Howard Kurtz.
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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Defense Department needs to better manage its finances if it hopes to rebuild and modernize the U.S. Armed Forces, the Government Accountability Office said in a report released on Tuesday. The Pentagon needs to give its decision makers and weapons buyers more accurate budget and cost information so they can make better decisions as they modernize weapons systems, the report said. U.S. President Donald Trump’s $4.1 trillion fiscal 2018 budget proposal included $603 billion in defense spending for the Department of Defense as well as nuclear weapons programs at the Department of Energy and other national defense priorities. The GAO report comes as U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis presented lawmakers in the House and Senate with a $33 billion wish list of unfunded military needs. The report said despite increased defense funding under Trump, efforts “underway to rebuild readiness for portions of their military forces” are at risk without more comprehensive planning efforts at the Pentagon. The federal agency, which oversees government resources, also said the Defense Department could police global hot spots with less expensive and more numerous regular troops instead of U.S. special forces. “DOD has not taken steps to examine whether additional opportunities exist to reduce the high demand on these (special) forces by sharing some of their responsibilities with conventional forces,” the report said. U.S. President Donald Trump’s fiscal 2018 budget proposal gave the military a modest boost to their budget, 3 percent more than what former President Barack Obama had sought in his long-term budget plan. The $574.5 billion for the Department of Defense would go to warfighting readiness and critical program requirements. GAO said it has made approximately 3,100 recommendations to DOD since 2006. Of these about 1,037 have not been acted on, including 78 priority recommendations. The report released on Tuesday made no new recommendations.
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LIMA (Reuters) - Peruvian President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski s political troubles will likely continue despite his surprise victory over a bid in Congress to oust him this week, a key opposition leader said on Saturday, citing ongoing graft probes and opposing demands from allies. Jose Chlimper, secretary general of the right-wing Popular Force, said his party could eventually emerge stronger from this week s political crisis, despite failing to garner enough votes in the 130-member Congress to remove Kuczynski from office. For us having 71 lawmakers was an asset but also a liability. Because whatever Congress did was our fault, Chlimper told Reuters in a rare interview. The party, which grew out of the populist movement of imprisoned ex-president Alberto Fujimori, sought to remove Kuczynski from office this week over business links he once denied having to a company at the center of a massive graft scandal. Ten Popular Force lawmakers broke ranks to keep a presidential vacancy motion from succeeding. Chlimper called the defections a painful betrayal but said the rest of Popular Force lawmakers have reaffirmed their commitment to staying in the party and voting as a bloc. Kuczynski, on the other hand, could see the cross-party alliance that defended him this week evaporate going forward, said Chlimper. I don t see how he can come out stronger, he said. Chlimper said Kuczynski lured the rebel Popular Force lawmakers with a promise to free their movement s political leader, Fujimori, from prison - an accusation denied by Kuczynski s government. The dissident faction was led by Fujimori s youngest son, Kenji, who has challenged his sister Keiko s leadership of their father s following and who could receive a boost if the once-popular patriarch is released from prison. Kuczynski would lose the support of Fujimori s left-leaning foes if he makes good on the deal to secure the elder Fujimori s release, said Chlimper. In coming days, the left may have achieved what Fujimori s supporters have been unable to: a pardon for Fujimori, Chlimper said. At the same time, ongoing probes in Congress and in the attorney general s and comptroller s offices threaten to implicate Kuczynski in new allegations of wrongdoing, he added. His allies are going to have to explain themselves for the documents that will keep coming out, said Chlimper. This isn t a picture. It s a video. And we re going to keep seeing the scenery change in coming weeks and months, Chlimper said.
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A Missouri state representative is making national headlines today after he shared a video on Facebook of him decapitating a living chicken to drive home his disgusting opinion about abortion.In the grotesque video, GOP state Rep. Mike Moon promotes his anti-abortion bill while he hangs a live chicken upside down from a tree branch.Mr. Moon then says, When the governor called for the second special session this year, I was right in the middle of my summer job. But like any good career politician, when I get the call, I m going back to work, he happily exclaims as he starts to slice into the neck of the chicken, causing it to writhe around and flap its wings.He then proceeds to mutilate the chicken, pulling out its heart while lecturing about the need to protect human lives. God gave us man dominion over life. He allows us to raise animals properly and care for them and then process them for food so we can sustain life. And that s what I m doing here with this chicken. So we ve been called back to this special session for the primary purpose of supporting life, protecting the unborn specifically. I think we need to get to the heart of the matter here. So today, I m filing a bill that will lead to the stopping of abortion in the state of Missouri and I hope you ll support it. The Springfield News reports that Moon s bill emphasizes that Missouri protect the right to life of all humans, born and unborn and to require due process of law before the life of any human, born or unborn, is ended prior to natural death. The National Abortion Rights Leauge didn t think the stunt was very funny and calls Moon out for playing political games with the healthcare of women. It was insulting watching Rep. Moon use the rights of women across Missouri as some kind of political prop, the organization said. His call to ban abortion is disturbing and dangerous, no matter what he does with that chicken. Hopefully, the backlash from this stunt will make Mr. Moon realize that women deserve access to healthcare, regardless of what he likes to do to chicken in the privacy of his own home.Feature image via Screen Capture
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The actors and actresses of Fox News have received their marching orders and the run to November will officially be the propaganda machine for Donald Trump. That s how it seems, at least, as hosts align themselves with people like Newt Gingrich, and other hard-core party liners who will vote for whomever has an (R) next to their name. Gingrich vowed his support for Donald Trump as well as his contempt for some party heavy hitters.After a shot at Mitt Romney for trusting the party voters to deliver the candidate they want, he turned his attention to the two former presidents, George W. and George H.W. Bush. Both of those historical failures have decided that they refuse to support Donald Trump, and nor will they attend the convention to initiate the Fourth Reich. Little brother Jeb has also chimed in that he ll be on the sidelines as well, as though he had a choice. Jeb was Trump s first real target. When it worked and Jeb dropped out, pundits everywhere were shocked. Then one by one they fell. All of the party elite; all of the establishment favorites.The money from the Koch brothers never appeared, because as evil as they are, they aren t stupid. Donald Trump ran the most effective underdog campaign in history by loaning himself money and going out and getting free press. Trump used the Republican Party and the agenda of fear and hate they ve fostered for far too long against them like a champ. The uneducated bigots crawled out of the woodwork to demand the country be great again and (insert required amount of rhetoric and lies).As the stupidity gained steam and made its way towards a downhill run to Cleveland, the party began to fracture. The pledge they made Trump sign now makes them look like massive hypocrites. What they re left with are fights of the magnitude of Gingrich versus Bush:Gingrich: "When [HW, W & Romney] were the nominees they expected all of us to support them." https://t.co/0dzSQiMZjfhttps://t.co/7cYf30HPLf Fox News (@FoxNews) May 7, 2016Congratulations, GOP. You made your bed, now lie in it.Featured image via screen capture
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Is the last man standing in the West Wing about to be packing his bags? According to insiders, who refer to Trump s favored son-in-law Jared Kushner as the worst political adviser in the White House in modern history, President Trump is fed up with his daughter Ivanka s husband and trusted political advisor With the exception of Sebastian Gorka, who left the West Wing in August, here s a quick look at who s left the White House since Trump s inauguration. Somehow, Jared Kushner has managed to stay put:Breitbart Donald Trump reportedly blames his son-in-law, White House Senior Adviser Jared Kushner, for his role in the decision to appoint special counsel Robert Mueller, according to Vanity Fair s Gabriel Sherman.On a phone call Tuesday with Breitbart News Executive Chairman and former White House Chief Strategist Stephen K. Bannon, Trump blamed Jared Kushner for his role in decisions, specifically the firings of [former National Security Adviser] Mike Flynn and [former FBI Director] James Comey, that led to Mueller s appointment, according to a source who was briefed on the call.On Monday, Mueller indicted Trump s former campaign chair Paul Manafort on 12 counts ranging from making false statements to conspiracy against the United States as part of the ongoing, so-called Russia Investigation. Richard Gates, Manafort s deputy, was also charged.The New York Times reported that Kushner, along with his wife Ivanka Trump, also pushed Trump to hire Manafort, who was needed to fill the spot of Trump s initial campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, after Ivanka reportedly gave her father an ultimatum to fire him.While Mueller s charges bear no immediate connection to Trump or his campaign, Sherman reports that everyone in the West Wing is freaking out, with advisers on edge, doing whatever they can not to be ensnared. One person close to Dina Powell and Gary Cohn said they re making sure to leave rooms if the subject of Russia comes up. Regarding Kushner, though, there is particular concern. Here s what Manafort s indictment tells me, says former Trump campaign aide Sam Nunberg, Mueller is going to go over every financial dealing of Jared Kushner and the Trump Organization. Trump is at 33 percent in Gallup. You can t go any lower. He s f*cked, he adds.Kushner s finances are already under scrutiny. Breitbart News Adam Shaw reports:Kushner Companies has reportedly become a topic of interest for Mueller as he investigates alleged Russian interference, and the company was subpoenaed for its use of an immigration-for-investment scheme and for promoting the scheme to Chinese investors.Just this week, Maryland s attorney general announced an investigation into Kushner s family business over allegations of abusive debt collection and disgusting living conditions at several properties, reports Shaw.Kushner, who was tasked with a massive portfolio by Trump that includes solving America s opioid crisis, tackling criminal justice reform, and bringing peace to the Middle East despite having no experience in any of these areas and achieving virtually no accomplishments in his time in the West Wing is now reportedly shrinking his role, along with Ivanka, following their repeated terrible advice to the president and periodic confusion and resentment caused by their presence. Jared is the worst political adviser in the White House in modern history, Nunberg tells Sherman. I m only saying publicly what everyone says behind the scenes at Fox News, in conservative media, and the Senate and Congress.
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Jeff Sessions just got busted for lying about his ties to Russia during the campaign and Donald Trump was quick to whine about it.When Sessions was being grilled in the Senate during his confirmation hearing, Senator Al Franken asked him directly if he had been in contact with the Russians during the election. I have been called a surrogate at a time or two in that campaign and I did not have communications with the Russians, Sessions said.Sessions statement was made under oath, which means he committed perjury. Perjury is illegal and that means the United States currently has an Attorney General who broke the law to gain his position.Several lawmakers have demanded that Sessions resign and recuse himself from any investigations into Donald trump s ties to Russia.So far, Sessions has refused to resign, which is rather hypocritical since Michael Flynn lied to Mike Pence and had to resign. And Flynn was not under oath when he lied. Sessions WAS under oath.Despite getting caught lying, Trump issued an official White House hissy fit calling the whole scandal a witch hunt against an honest man while also once again bringing up the election results and the leaks. Jeff Sessions is an honest man, Trump began. He did not say anything wrong. He could have stated his response more accurately, but it was clearly not intentional. This whole narrative is a way of saving face for Democrats losing an election that everyone thought they were supposed to win. They lost the election and now, they have lost their grip on reality. The real story is all of the illegal leaks of classified and other information. It is a total witch hunt! JUST IN: President Trump releases a statement on Attorney General Jeff Sessions, says It is a total witch hunt! pic.twitter.com/Jogoc25Ggt CBS Evening News (@CBSEveningNews) March 3, 2017But Sessions DID say something wrong when he lied in response to a question he received during his confirmation hearing. He directly insisted that he did not have any communications with the Russians during the campaign. But, in fact, he DID meet with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak twice during the election, which means he LIED to Congress.Sessions violated U.S. Code 1621 by committing perjury and is subject to a fine or a maximum five years behind bars. Congress has a duty to punish Sessions for lying under oath and he should be forced to resign as Attorney General. The Russia scandal just keeps getting worse for Trump, and it is time for Republicans to appoint a special prosecutor and independent commission to investigate.Featured image via Getty Images
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MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - When a devastating earthquake rocked Mexico City on Tuesday, 32 years to the day after another deadly temblor, the city s traumatized inhabitants struggled to understand why disaster had struck twice on the same date. Just two hours after a city-wide seismic drill to mark the earlier tragedy, Mexico City was shaken by a magnitude 7.1 quake, its second major tremor in less than two weeks, which killed at least 100 people in the capital and 230 nationwide. The annual drill is a legacy of the 1985 quake, a harrowing disaster imprinted on the national psyche after claiming over 5,000 lives in Mexico City. In a country with a long history of supernatural beliefs, the timing of the quakes triggered conspiracy theories and reopened old wounds. It seems like a thing of the devil, said Luis Pastrana, a 52-year-old industrial designer who lived through both tremors. Another Cursed September 19, Mexican daily El Economista proclaimed on its front page on Wednesday. In Tlatelolco, a modernist housing project, residents gather every Sept. 19 for morning mass at the site where two tower blocks collapsed 32 years ago, killing hundreds. On Tuesday, when the ground began to shake several hours after the service, locals swarmed the historic plaza where they congregate after each quake, crying and praying. Some suffered panic attacks. Some were positing that the Mexican government must have known the temblor was coming, and others speculated that North Korea was involved, said Antonio Fonseca, 66, a local history expert. They believe fantastical things, he said. Since there is no explanation, there are lots of rumors. Situated at the intersection of three tectonic plates, Mexico is one of the world s most earthquake-prone countries, and the capital is particularly vulnerable due to its location on top of an ancient lake bed. Tuesday s quake striking on the 1985 anniversary appeared to be purely coincidental, said Jana Pursley, a geophysicist with the United States Geological Survey, noting that the epicenters were hundreds of kilometers apart. But for some Mexico City residents, the timing may have made lingering anxieties more acute, said Elizabeth Willems, a local psychologist who has treated patients coping with post-traumatic stress disorder from the 1985 disaster. In a phenomenon known as the anniversary effect, distress levels can spike as the date of a traumatic event approaches, Willems said. The repetition of the event would have compounded the stress, she added. Willems said she had heard from some of her patients who were rattled by the latest quake. The trauma of the 1985 tremor frequently arises, she said. It s almost like working with someone who was in Manhattan during the events of September 11. It s almost a question I ask automatically: Where were you that day? she said. Maria del Carmen Herrera, a 60-year-old resident of the Juarez neighborhood who survived the 1985 quake, said she was struck by a premonition during the earthquake drill on Tuesday morning. I was afraid. I thought, it s going to shake, she said. Those of us who survived 1985, we re left marked forever. For Fonseca, nothing can compare to the devastation of the 1985 quake. But as he watched the ceiling trembling in his 10th-floor apartment on Tuesday, he feared the worst. I say that coincidences don t exist, he said. This was something I don t know how to classify.
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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republicans lawmakers on Thursday pressed ahead in trying to strip down U.S. regulations, with the House of Representatives passing a bill that requires Congressional approval of major rulemakings that could affect areas ranging from the environment to education. The House voted 237 to 187 on legislation known as the “REINS Act” that is intended to keep agencies from pumping out new rules. “Excessive regulation means higher prices, lower wages, fewer jobs, less economic growth and a less competitive America,” House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte said before the vote, echoing the anti-regulation sentiment popular in his party. President-elect Donald Trump has promised to roll back regulation, saying it would boost economic growth. The Judiciary Committee’s senior Democrat, John Conyers, called the REINS Act “gumming-the-works legislation” that imposes unworkable deadlines and prescribes convoluted procedures in order to “end rulemaking as we know it.” “Without question, it was the lack of regulatory controls that facilitated rampant predatory lending, which nearly destroyed our nation’s economy,” Conyers said, referring to the 2007-09 financial crisis and recession. “It led to millions of home foreclosures and devastated neighborhoods across America. In fact, it nearly caused a global economic meltdown.” On Wednesday, the House passed a bill giving Congress the power to kill dozens of new rules at once. On Thursday Republican Senator Ron Johnson introduced an identical companion bill in the Senate. The legislation would allow lawmakers to bundle a variety of rules finalized since May together for a single vote of disapproval. Under a law known as the Congressional Review Act, Congress currently can only vote to void rules one-by-one. That could take days, given the high number of recently enacted rules that rankle Republicans on energy, the environment, transportation, finance, education and communications. Disapproval votes require simple majorities to pass. Senate Democrats, however, are poised to block Johnson’s bill and most other anti-regulation legislation. Many in the party believe regulations benefit and protect individuals. While Republicans control Congress, and in a couple of weeks will take over the White House, Democrats can cripple their efforts through Senate filibusters and possibly start a protracted fight over regulations. “This legislation would make the process much quicker, but I’m committed to working as long as we need to in order to take advantage of the Congressional Review Act,” Johnson said. “We ought to work 24-7 if necessary to bring regulatory relief to American consumers and businesses.”
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Shawn Helton 21st Century Wire The gunman named in a mass shooting that was said to have killed 26 people at a small church outside of San Antonio was convicted by the military several years before the tragic attack in 2012. This past week new information concerning the apparent First Baptist Church gunman 26-year-old Devin Patrick Kelley, revealed that the previously convicted Air Force airman was already well-known to authorities via his bad conduct discharge from the military in 2012. The recent acknowledgement in Kelley s case history, coupled with his unusually relaxed plea bargain deal, has only prompted more questions from those concerned about the most recent high-profile mass shooting in America.According to officials, the Sutherland Springs shooting at the First Baptist Church may have been caused by a domestic dispute involving Kelley and his ex-mother-in-law Michelle Shields. However, it turns out that Shields was not present at church services on the morning of the mass shooting, although her mother was named as one of the victims.A more precise motive in the deadly Sutherland Springs massacre has yet to be uncovered by authorities TEXAS CHURCH SHOOTING 8 years after the Fort Hood mass shooting, the First Baptist Church attack raises big questions. Its also worth noting, the recent church shooting echoes a scene in the 2015 Hollywood film Kingsman: The Secret Service. (Photo Illustration 21WIRE s Shawn Helton)The Texas Church ShooterWhile many in media have focused on the military s inability to log Devin Patrick Kelley s domestic violence court-martial case into a federal database, a police report from 2012 revealed that the gunman named in the First Baptist Church shooting had been previously caught attempting to sneak firearms onto a CIA linked military base in New Mexico where he was stationed. The El Paso police report concluded that after Kelley escaped the mental health facility believed to be Peak Behavioral Health Services Center in Santa Teresa, he sought to carry out death threats against his superiors at New Mexico s Holloman Air Force base.A CBS Affiliate from Dallas further explained the church shooter s lengthy criminal background: The information was contained in a police incident report after Devin Patrick Kelley briefly escaped in June, 2012 from a mental health facility in New Mexico where he had been committed. KPRC television in Houston first reported about the escape. Police in El Paso, Texas, where Kelley was caught after the escape, said in the report that an official of the mental health facility told them that Kelley was a danger to himself and others. The report says that Kelley had already been caught sneaking firearms onto Holloman Air Force base. It also says that he was attempting to carry out death threats that (Kelley) had made on his military chain of command. Moreover, a FOX News report just days ago revealed additional information concerning Kelley s violent threats at Holloman Air Force base: Former Air Force Staff Sgt. Jessika Edwards told The New York Times that Kelley would shake with rage and vow to kill his superiors when he was assigned menial tasks as punishment for poor performance. At one point, Edwards told the Times, she warned others in the squadron to go easy on Kelley, believing he was likely to come back and shoot up the place. Rather strangely, former Air Force Staff Sgt. Edwards still kept in close contact with the criminally convicted and discharged logistical readiness airman, stating that he asked her to be a job reference in 2015. Shortly there after, Kelley allegedly became obsessed with the polarizing case involving Charleston church shooter Dylann Roof. CHURCH SHOOTER What is the real motive in the First Baptist Church shooting? (Image Source: nbcwashington)The shocking claims of death threats prior to the Sutherland Springs church shooting taking place raises questions not only about the criminally convicted shooter Kelley, who was accused of a slew of abusive behavior but also the military s handling of the gunman s well-known history of violence from a prosecutorial standpoint.QUESTION: How did Kelley manage to get such a relaxed sentence considering he had several other major charges dropped including an additional incident where he allegedly pointed a loaded firearm at his wife?Furthermore, as the public and media are still bewildered over Kelley s ability to legally purchase guns following his 2012 military conviction due to his prior violent abuse, information concerning his alleged plot to kill military superiors has been completely underreported and by the looks of it, may have even gone unpunished.According to official reports, Kelley was sentenced to a year s confinement, reducing rank from an airman first-class (A1C) to airman basic. Additionally, after being convicted of crimes by a military court in 2012, he received a bad conduct discharge following an apparent plea deal.The NY Times added the following details regarding the military court case: Prosecutors withdrew several other charges as part of their plea agreement with Mr. Kelley, including allegations that he repeatedly pointed a loaded gun at his wife.He was ultimately sentenced in November that year to 12 months confinement and reduction to the lowest possible rank. His final duty title was prisoner. QUESTION: Did Kelley s plea agreement also include the exclusion of charges concerning his alleged death threat plot against military superiors at the CIA linked Holloman Air Force base?Moreover, if that wasn t a part of the plea, how was Kelley not dishonorably discharged due to the severity of charges he faced from military superiors?Although we ve been told this latest soft target shooting spree on American soil was carried out by yet another lone gunman, there have also been questions raised concerning a shooter allegedly firing from the roof top down on to church parishioners below.Watch and listen to shooting survivor Rosanne Solis, as she recounts what she witnessed during the First Baptist Church shooting . QUESTION: Is it also possible that Solis saw multiple shooters at the First Baptist Church? If not, how did Kelley swiftly move from the roof top location to ground level in a matter of a few minutes, assuming the account told by Solis is true?The Sutherland Springs mass shooting, along with other high-profile active shooter incidents this year and year s past have once again predictably sparked socio-political hot button issues concerning gun reform, background checks, mental illness and SSRI prescription drugs. This is something that has prompted critics to consider that there might be even more to the story.Below is a CNN video report discussing the lengthy criminal background of the First Baptist Church gunman. Note the strong emphasis in this report regarding Kelley s access to weaponry rather than a deeper analysis over how he received such a relaxed military conviction Drills, Dupes & Informants?A day after the suspicious San Bernardino shooting in 2015, San Antonio s nonprofit Alamo Community Group began practicing active shooter scenarios with employees. San Antonio is only 35 miles from where the Sutherland Springs mass shooting took place and a city that has been rigorously training for mass casualty scenarios for the last five years, holding active shooter drills with approximately one hundred officers a week over at least the last couple of years. Here s a passage from an ABC affiliate in San Antonio on the matter: Though it [the training] is simulated for active shooting scenarios, the training could easily be applied to many other mass casualty situations as well. In past two years, about 4,000 people have been involved in San Antonio s new rescue task force training program. As 21 WIRE has documented over the years, many so-called shooting/terror/attacks involve individuals being monitored by security services prior to an alleged act taking place. A place where a lone wolf graduates into the ranks of a known wolf. Although the military wasn t officially keeping Kelley under watch, his case profile does exhibit potential signs of a possible informant status due to the litany of charges he managed to avoid through a cushy plea deal with the military. Historically, government operators have often made use of low-life criminals, and mentally disturbed individuals to fulfill various roles in entrapment stings or sometimes as bona fide solo actors in an actual attacks. Links between security agencies, military facilities and alleged attackers with a criminal history should arouse suspicion if they become connected to any future crimes.In January of 2015, a strategic security service think-tank known as The Soufan Group, reported that a larger national security threat resides with those who ve had a lengthy criminal background with known ties to security agencies: The Soufan Group, a New York think tank, said a better term for lone wolves would be known wolves , given how many are already known to Western intelligence agencies before they strike. These individuals, acting alone or in small groups have been on the radar of various agencies and organisations, highlighting the difficulty of effectively monitoring and managing people at the nexus of criminality and terrorism, it said in a report this week Domestically in America, it has been well documented that the FBI created a counter-intelligence program known as COINTELPRO (similar in scope to the CIA s Operation CHAOS), not only as a way to influence, but also a way to disrupt and coerce both left and right-wing political factions from the inside out. The FBI program infiltrated countless groups and movements across the political spectrum.Over the past several years, the FBI has been routinely caught foiling their very own terror plots. Following one of America s most deadly mass shootings at the Orlando Pulse nightclub, reports revealed that the FBI had a close relationship with the suspected attacker through the use of a well-known confidential informant. Similarly, recent reports state that FBI, court filings have revealed how the agency allowed an alleged home grown ISIS attack to take place in Garland, Texas. 21WIRE had previously uncovered the suspicious nature of the cartoon/shooting event in Garland when it occurred.In 2015, another strange informant case/FBI sting attempted to persuade a group into attacking the Humphrey Scottish Rite Masonic Center in Milwaukee.QUESTION: Is it possible the FBI or any or intelligence agency played some part in the Sutherland Springs church shooting whether inadvertently or otherwise?FBI informants have reportedly played a central role in over 50% of all domestic terror cases in the United States since 2009. According to reports, informants might earn up to $100,000 per case, as they are meant to build relationships with persons of interest. While the Sutherland Springs shooting is not considered a terror case, it does fit the profile of possible soft target scenarios outlined by the FBI.Here at 21WIRE, we ve kept a running report on many known wolf actors and other suspicious intelligence informant cases:Tamerlan Tsarnaev (see his story here) Buford Rogers (see his story here) Jerad Miller (see his story here) Naji Mansour (see his story here) Quazi Mohammad Nafis (see his story here) Mohamed Osman Mohamud (see his story here) Timothy McVeigh (see his story here) Salim Benghalem (see his story here) Michael Adebolajo (see his story here) Daba Deng (see his story here) Elton Simpson (see his story here) Man Haron Monis (see his story here) Abu Hamza (see his story here) Haroon Rashid Aswat (see his story here) Mark Vicars (see his story here) Glen Rodgers (see his story here) Omar Mateen (see his story here) Samy Mohamed Hamzeh (see his story here) Tashfeen Malik (see her story here) Djamel Beghal (see his story here) Anjem Choudary (see his story here) Cherif Kouachi (see his story here) Said Kouachi (see his story here) Amedy Coulibaly (see his story here) Hayat Boumeddiene (see her story here) Salah Abdeslam (see his story here) Michael Zehaf-Bibeau (see his story here) Nidal Malik Hassan (see his story here) Abdelhakim Dekhar (see his story here) Abdelhamid Abaaoud (see his story here) Samy Amimour (see his story here) Isma l Omar Mostefa (see his story here) Mohamed Lahouij Bouhlel (see his story here) Anis Amri (see his story here) Esteban Santiago-Ruiz (see his story here) Abdulkadir Masharipov (see his story here) Khalid Masood (see his story here) Khuram Butt (see his story here) Youssef Zaghba (see his story here) Sayfullo Saipov (see his story here)According to pastor Frank Pomeroy, who was out-of-town at the time of the shooting with his wife Sherri, the hundred member First Baptist Church, is slated to be demolished sometime soon. However, prior to the demolition, the site will become a temporary memorial and the building will be scrubbed down and whitewashed, as white chairs will be placed inside to remember those who died.There are still a number of questions following the Sutherland Springs mass shooting tragedy *** 21WIRE associate editor Shawn Helton is a researcher and writer, specializing in forensic analysis of high-profile crime scene and counter terrorism investigations, and the deconstruction and analysis of the mass-media coverage surrounding those cases. He has compiled an extensive body of work covering a number of high-profile events since 2012.READ MORE DAILY SHOOTER NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire Daily Shooter FilesSupport our work by Subscribing and become a Member @21WIRE.TV
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MUMBAI (Reuters) - India s central bank on Saturday dismissed media reports that it was not necessary to link national identity card numbers, known as Aadhar numbers, to bank accounts. It said in a statement the requirement remained in force under anti-money laundering rules. The Reserve Bank clarifies that, in applicable cases, linkage of Aadhaar number to bank account is mandatory under the Prevention of Money-laundering (Maintenance of Records) Second Amendment Rules, 2017, it said in a statement. The RBI also said that anti-money laundering rules announced in June 2017 have statutory force and banks have to implement them without awaiting further instructions. The Aadhar program, which is the world s largest biometric identity card program, has triggered some claims that it is an infringement of privacy of citizens. India s top court in August had said that privacy is a fundamental right and the verdict was expected to complicate efforts of Prime Minister Narendra Modi s government to make linking of the ID card numbers with bank accounts, telephone numbers, etc.
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Email
Sex crimes with children, child exploitation, money laundering, perjury, and pay to play, reads the partial list of crimes that, say New York City Police Department sources, could “put Hillary and her crew away for life.”
Shocking evidence of such criminality has been found on ex-congressman Anthony Weiner’s laptop computer, say the sources, which was seized from him by NYC officials investigating his allegedly having sent sexually explicit texts to a 15-year-old girl. Moreover, Hillary Clinton’s “crew” supposedly includes not just close aide and confidante Huma Abedin and her husband, Weiner, but other aides and insiders — and even members of Congress. Reports True Pundit : NYPD sources said these new emails include evidence linking Clinton herself and associates to: • Money laundering • Sex crimes with minors (children) • Perjury • Pay to play through Clinton Foundation • Obstruction of justice • Other felony crimes NYPD detectives and a [sic] NYPD Chief, the department’s highest rank under Commissioner, said openly that if the FBI and Justice Department fail to garner timely indictments against Clinton and co- conspirators, NYPD will go public with the damaging emails now in the hands of FBI Director James Comey and many FBI field offices. “What’s in the emails is staggering and as a father, it turned my stomach,” the NYPD Chief said. “There is not going to be any Houdini-like escape from what we found. We have copies of everything. We will ship them to Wikileaks or I will personally hold my own press conference if it comes to that.”
These revelations would explain why Director Comey reopened the investigation into Clinton’s mishandling of classified information, a move that shook the political world and caused Comey to come under fire. As the NYPD chief put it, the new e-mails contents truly are “alarming.”
True Pundit also reports FBI sources as stating that Abedin and Weiner are both trying to cut immunity deals with federal officials and that, if they didn’t cooperate, they’d face long prison sentences. Abedin’s turning state’s evidence would no doubt be devastating for Clinton, as the two women have for years been joined at the hip. Abedin has at times been like Clinton’s shadow, has been called her “body woman,” and has even been rumored to be Clinton’s lesbian lover. So Abedin likely knows where, as is said, the bodies are buried.
Of particular note, the new e-mails allegedly contain information revealing that Hillary, Bill Clinton, Weiner, and numerous congressmen took trips to convicted billionaire pedophile Jeffrey Epstein’s private island, where he is said to pimp out underage minors of both sexes to prominent people. The trips were taken aboard Epstein’s Boeing 747, dubbed the “Lolita Express”; the pedophile’s island, in the US Virgin Islands, has been called “ Sex Slave Island .”
These revelations would also explain why Clinton used powerful software called BleachBit to scrub damning information from her private server. According to BleachBit’s website, its program gives criminals and others the ability to “shred files to hide their contents and prevent data recovery.”
Yet it can’t scrub bumbling perverts from your personal life, and Weiner’s laptop also contains incriminating e-mails revealing the mishandling of classified information by Abedin and Clinton, say the sources. Both women “sent and received thousands of classified and top secret documents to personal email accounts,” and this information could have been “accessed, printed, discussed, leaked, or distributed by untold numbers ... of unknown individuals,” writes True Pundit .
Consequently, FBI sources say the new Clinton investigation has been broadened and now includes matters such as how, informs True Pundit : • Abedin forwarded classified and top secret State Department emails to Weiner’s email • Abedin stored emails, containing government secrets, in a special folder shared with Weiner warehousing over 500,000 archived State Department emails. • Weiner had access to these classified and top secret documents without proper security clearance to view the records • Abedin also used a personal yahoo address and her Clintonemail.com address to send/receive/store classified and top secret documents • [a] private consultant managed Weiner’s site for the last six years, including three years when Clinton was secretary of state, and therefore, had full access to all emails as the domain’s listed registrant and administrator via Whois email contacts.
This story just adds more intrigue to a presidential campaign that is truly unprecedented, with a torrent of WikiLeaks and Project Veritas revelations and now Clinton’s Weiner woes. From vote fraud to inciting violence to child sex abuse to pay-for-play to perjury, it’s becoming clear to many that the Democratic Party — and the Clintons in particular — are essentially a criminal syndicate. As former assistant FBI director James Kallstrom said in a Sunday interview, “The Clintons, that’s a crime family, basically. It’s like organized crime. I mean the Clinton Foundation is a cesspool.... God forbid we put someone like that [Clinton] in the White House.” And now we know better why, as I wrote Sunday, this “appears standard FBI sentiment. I personally know of an ex-agent — someone with knowledge of Clinton ‘crime family’ dealings — who I’m told is having trouble sleeping at night due to the prospect of a Clinton presidency.”
All these revelations raise important questions: How could Hillary Clinton and her cohorts have bumbled so badly that they appear a cross between Inspector Clouseau and Boss Tweed ?
And if Clinton is so careless with her own personal survival, how can she be trusted with national survival?
Part of the explanation is general incompetence, yet there’s another factor: Both Clintons have engaged in continual criminality over the decades — and have been allowed to skate at every turn. This lack of accountability has led to complacency and ever-increasing brazenness, just as with a child never punished for wrongdoing.
So, finally, perhaps, Clinton corruption has reached critical mass. And with Donald Trump ahead 10 points (according to one respected poll) among the 88 percent of voters who have definitely made up their minds, maybe, come late Tuesday evening, some tossing and turning FBI agents will finally be able to enjoy a good night’s rest.
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The new Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) retired Marine General John Kelly, believes he can make good on President Donald Trump’s promise to build a wall on the U. S. border in 2 years or less. [In an interview with Fox News late Wednesday, Secretary Kelly said, “The wall will be built where it’s needed first, and then it will be filled in. That’s the way I look at it. I really hope to have it done within the next two years. ” Kelly’s attitude toward border enforcement is 180 degrees from previous heads of DHS — even under President Bush, whose Undersecretary Asa Hutchinson halted all interior enforcement in Southern California due to political outcry back in 2004. As a General, Kelly is as accustomed to giving orders as following them. While it may be an ambitious schedule, unlike his predecessors, Secretary Kelly will not have to fight the executive branch in order to secure the border. In the same interview, he sounded optimistic about Congress, saying that the money will come. “I think the funding will come relatively quickly and like I said, we will build it where it’s needed first as identified by the men and women who work the border,” Kelly emphasized. Speaker Paul Ryan confirmed Kelly’s optimism in an interview Thursday with Fox Friends. “We have already authorized this, meaning the law was passed almost 10 years ago,” Ryan said. “And then we will give the financing to Secretary Kelly and the border security plan. So, it’s really up to them as to how fast they can execute this policy. I think that’s great. He’s the kind of guy that can get this sort of thing done. He will have the funding to do it and he already has the authorization to do it. ” Ryan is referring to the Secure Fence Act of 2006, which was passed by Congress, signed into law by President Bush, but never adequately funded and never fully executed. According to a Yahoo News story, cost estimates are all over the map: “Trump has said that his cost estimates for building the wall range from $4 to $10 billion, but other estimates put the price at $11 billion for 400 more miles of fencing. The MIT Technology Review estimated that a 1, 000 mile steel and concrete wall would cost $27 to $40 billion. ” Whatever the cost, a wall is only one part of the solution — but according to those charged with securing the border, it is a critically important and welcome tool in their arsenal. Even though Democrats are likely to throw up road blocks, citing environmental and other concerns — which have succeeded in the past in delaying construction indefinitely — Secretary Kelly has the backing of the President and his advisors. Whatever roadblocks arise, the retired Marine General is likely to steamroll over, tunnel under or just blow up. Until today, the single most important component required to complete the border wall has not been money or materials, but political will. Tim Donnelly is a former California State Assemblyman. Author, Patriot Not Politician: Win or Go Homeless, FaceBook: https: . facebook. . donnelly. Twitter: @PatriotNotPol
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The legendary newsman appeared on MSNBC to slam the media for not holding Donald Trump accountable for what he says and does, but also had time to laugh at Sarah Palin.As a guest on Morning Joe on Monday, Tom Brokaw criticized the media for not doing their jobs when it comes to Donald Trump, whose violent and hateful rhetoric has helped him become the presumptive Republican presidential nominee. In the course of the campaign, [Trump has] said some things that were just blatantly not true. He s never been held accountable for it, so many of them, and the things that he s said. Having said all of that, he did touch a big nerve out there and he ran a campaign that no one at this table or in the political world expected him to do as well as he has. But all factors in life are about how do you adjust to the reality of where you are next, how you re going to deal with the next phase of this. And we re now in the next phase. And if he keeps punching out the people in his own party in the way that he has, I don t see how that s going to help him. I just don t. But earlier on in his remarks, Brokaw talked about how Donald Trump has been treating House Speaker Paul Ryan and mentioned how Sarah Palin declared that Ryan s career will be over if he doesn t support Trump. Brokaw s mentioning of Palin immediately drew laughter from Joe Scarborough, who made a hilarious observation of his own that caused the rest of the panel to laugh as well.BROKAW: For him to just punch out Paul Ryan the way that he has. To have Sarah Palin to be saying that Paul Ryan has no career now, that it s over for him SCARBOROUGH: Says someone who has no career now. Here s the video via Media Matters.Sarah Palin just got burned by Joe Scarborough and Tom Brokaw and it was hilarious because what they said is true.Indeed, Sarah Palin has no career of her own. The closest she came was as governor of Alaska before she quit halfway into her term. Ever since then, she has become a professional grifter who swindles gullible supporters out of money in any way she can, including jumping on the Trump bandwagon to get more attention. Make no mistake, Sarah Palin is a joke and people should laugh at her.Featured Image: Mark Wilson/Getty Images
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Hillary Clinton appears to have scared away much of the competition should she seek the Democratic nomination for president in 2016. But her early and practically all-encompassing effort also presents the potential liability that she will sail through the primary season largely untested for the bare-knuckled general election.
And it could deny Democrats the chance to define themselves to Americans, strategists say.
“It's not good for a party because the Democratic Party needs a real debate about what it's for, who it's for, what it's about and where we'll take the country,” says Dennis Kucinich, a former Democratic congressman, presidential candidate and a Fox News contributor.
The 67-year-old Clinton plans to make an official announcement in early 2015, leaving some doubt about whether she will indeed run. But her frontrunner status is unquestionable.
She has roughly 62 percent of the likely vote and leads all potential Democratic challengers by a numbing 49.5 percentage points.
And those numbers combined with an ambitious public-speaking schedule and the fundraising and cheerleading group Ready for Hillary are making it difficult for potential primary challengers to raise money.
In addition, Clinton’s most formidable, likely primary challenger now, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, insists she’s not running, leaving the Democratic field so wide open that 73-year-old Bernie Sanders, an independent and junior senator from Vermont, is now fourth behind Clinton, Warren and Vice President Biden, according an averaging of polls by RealClearPolitics.com
“I think you miss the chance to vet ideals,” says Richard Fowler, a Democrat and host of the progressive-leaning “Richard Fowler Talk Show.” “I think that's what elections are about. Elections are about ideals and how ideals … would then turn into policy that will then turn into how we govern.”
Clinton, a former first lady, secretary of State and New York senator, hasn’t been in a campaign-style debate since 2008, when she lost the Democratic presidential primary to President Obama, then a freshman Illinois senator.
Still, a relatively easy 2016 primary, if Clinton indeed runs, would likely save her from the pummeling she took last time.
“You’re likeable enough, Hillary,” Obama said on stage to Clinton, who was the early Democratic frontrunner in that race, too.
Among the tough questions she will likely face, and needs to answer well, include what she knew about security at the U.S. outpost in Benghazi, Libya, in which four Americans were killed in a 2012 terror attack.
Clinton, who is worthy millions of dollars, also will likely have to make a strong case that she will champion the country’s poor and working class, after saying on her 2014 book tour: “We came out of the White House not only dead broke, but in debt.”
“Hillary Clinton, I think, has proven that when you're off the trail for a while, you come back rusty,” said Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics. “She certainly came back rusty on that book tour.”
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