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Texas State Representative Matt Rinaldi ( ) claimed to have been threatened by a fellow lawmaker and assaulted by another during a Memorial Day closing session. Others claim it was Rinaldi that made death threats against Democrat legislators. [The incident occurred following protests in the House Gallery and a reported comment from Rinaldi that he called immigration officials about the protesters. In a post on Rinaldi’s official Facebook page, the representative stated Representative Poncho Nevarez ( Pass) threatened his life. He claimed the threat occurred after he threatened to call Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers about protesters in the House Gallery holding signs saying “I am illegal and here to stay. ” Texas Department of Public Safety troopers removed the protesters from the gallery after they became disruptive and held up signs protesting the state’s new sanctuary city law. Rinaldi claimed he called ICE after “Several Democrats encouraged the protestors to disobey law enforcement. ” Rinaldi also claimed to have been assaulted by Rep. Ramon Romero ( Worth) after he told Democrats he called ICE. He stated several of his colleagues heard the threats and witnessed the assault. Breitbart Texas reached out to Rinaldi to obtain more information about the altercations and to get the names of witnessing representatives. Despite leaving messages via phone, email, Twitter, and Facebook, Rinaldi and his staff did not respond to inquiries. His official statement posted on Facebook and Tweeted states: Nevarez did respond to inquiries from Breitbart Texas about the incident and recalled different details about the encounter. Nevarez stated that Rinaldi’s claims are very different from the events that actually took place. The representative from South Texas revealed that while tempers did flare during the heated session, the only threats came from Rinaldi who said “he would put a bullet in (Nevarez’s) head. ” Nevarez said the situation began when Rinaldi bragged to three other representatives about calling U. S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in regards to the various groups of protesters who had gathered at the Capitol to protest more commonly known as the “sanctuary cities bill. ” Rinaldi’s actions led to an escalating argument that turned into a shoving match on the House Floor, Nevarez stated. When the scrum began, Nevarez said that he went in the middle of it to push people back. He yelled at fellow representatives that they needed to “take it outside. ” “This is not the way to do it, this is not the place to do it, they needed to take it outside,” Nevarez said. “Does that merit putting a bullet in my head?” When asked about Rinaldi’s claims about Nevarez having said he would “get him” on the way to his car, the state representative said they are fabrications of an unstable individual. According to Nevarez, various other representatives witnessed the events and heard when Rinaldi yelled out that he would put a bullet in Nevarez’s head. “Does that warrant me getting killed?” Nevarez asked. “He has a violent nature, today he revealed his nature. We won’t let him push us around. ” State Rep. Justin Rodriguez ( Antonio) said he heard Rinaldi threaten to “put a bullet in Nevarez’s head, in a press conference video Tweeted by the Texas Tribune. WATCH: @RepJRod: “There was a threat made from Rep. Rinaldi to put a bullet in one of my colleague’s heads. ” #txlege https: . pic. twitter. — Texas Tribune (@TexasTribune) May 29, 2017, Rodriguez later Tweeted that he stands by his comments made in the video. The Texas Legislature is in the final day of its 2017 session. The legislature meets only every other year to conduct the State’s business unless a special session is called by the governor. This session has seen the passage of historic, but emotional legislation relating to prohibiting sanctuary cities in Texas. Senate Bill 4, authored by Senator Charles Perry ( ) is now the law of the state. The law which prohibits sheriff’s and police chiefs from ignoring immigration detainers and prohibits them from having policies forbidding officers from asking about immigration status becomes effective on September 1, 2017. The bill provides civil fines and even criminal penalties to law enforcement officials choosing to ignore immigration authorities. Twitter user @BrandonMond Tweeted some photos of protesters from inside the Capitol Rotunda. Pictures from the #NoSB4 protest at the Texas Capitol today. Texas fights back! pic. twitter. — (((Bear Peretz))) (@BrandonMond) May 29, 2017, The 85th Session of the Texas Legislature adjourned sine die later on Monday afternoon. Ildefonso Ortiz is an journalist with Breitbart Texas. He the Cartel Chronicles project with Brandon Darby and Stephen K. Bannon. You can follow him on Twitter and on Facebook. Bob Price serves as associate editor and senior political news contributor for Breitbart Texas. He is a founding member of the Breitbart Texas team. Follow him on Twitter @BobPriceBBTX and Facebook. | 0 |
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - The school collapse this week that killed at least 19 children during an earthquake has prompted many Mexicans to question whether building codes developed after a devastating 1985 temblor are too easily flouted. Stringent codes enacted after a massive temblor killed thousands three decades ago minimized damage this week across the metropolis of 20 million people, even if experts say it is nearly impossible to design structures to withstand any quake. At least 293 people died in Tuesday s quake, measuring 7.1 on the Richter scale, but the toll could have been far worse. Still, the collapse of some structures built under the new codes, including the Enrique Rebsamen school that became a symbol of this week s tragedy, has sparked concerns over implementation of the rules. There are still gaps that mean new buildings don t always fully comply, said Roberto Meli Piralla, a structural engineer and expert on seismic preparedness at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. It is too early to know if code violations, neglect or corruption were factors in the collapse of the school or about 50 other buildings in Mexico City. Yet engineers said that challenges remain in enforcing the codes uniformly and ensuring that builders, inspectors and property owners follow approved plans. Inspectors can be criminally liable if a building they OK proves structurally unsound. The mayor of the district where the school is located said her office has been unable to find documentation to assess its construction and structural history. She blamed problems, including corruption, on a predecessor administration. When we came into office, there were many files missing, said Claudia Sheinbaum, the mayor of the Tlalpan district. She said she had no proof that corruption had anything to do with the collapse. Before the quake, municipal officials were already discussing revisions to strengthen code oversight, said Piralla, who is part of an engineering group that made recommendations to the city in recent weeks. One suggestion, according to another engineer involved in the discussions, was to have an independent, third-party review of designs before inspectors sign off on them. The Secretariat for Housing and Urban Development, the municipal office that oversees the code, could not be reached for comment. Even if compliance were universal, engineers said, there is no way to fully prepare because earthquakes vary widely. Tuesday s temblor generated a different frequency of shockwave from the 1985 quake and toppled mid-sized buildings of roughly six to eight stories, compared with towers of about 12 to 15 floors in 1985. It s not possible to say what problems could have been foreseen, said Antonio Gallardo, a member of the board of architects in Mexico City, a council that upholds professional standards across the capital. Most of the damage on Tuesday happened in central and southern districts where soils are less solid than in northern neighborhoods, and urban development, even after improvements in recent decades, is still patchwork. Although the toppled buildings are still being investigated, some were built after the 1987 code, which has periodically been revised since. At the school, which is in southern Mexico City, the older of two structures remained standing while a newer building collapsed. It was built early last decade and opened in 2004, according to several people familiar with its history. The school is a private facility founded in the 1980s by the family that runs it, according to two adult former students. The principal, a daughter of the founders, lived in an apartment that was part of the collapsed structure. She survived the quake, current and former students said. Neither the principal nor other family members could be reached for comment. But local authorities, neighbors and parents are demanding answers. Who could have approved this school? asked Raul D az, a doctor whose 7-year-old son, Eduardo, died at the school. The building was poorly built. If prior quakes are any guide, investigations and a full accounting will take years. But experts said it would be impossible to build structures that could withstand all quakes. There is always going to be a degree of uncertainty, said Mary Comerio, a professor of architecture and researcher on disaster recovery at the University of California at Berkeley. She cited the 2011 earthquake that leveled even costly, modern structures in Christchurch, New Zealand. The extent of a phenomenon known as liquefaction, in which solid soil behaves like a liquid, surprised scientists. Notwithstanding architectural advances, many other variables come into play including human error, ground conditions, the location, depth and force of an earthquake. In 2006, Comerio authored a paper in the journal Science called Can Buildings Be Made Earthquake-Safe? The answer is largely no, she said. | 0 |
Before he decided to run for office, Trump’s political donations were a cost of doing business, suggesting that his practice of politics was transactional, not ideological. He hosted fundraisers and invited politicians to weddings. “I give to everybody. When they call, I give,” Trump said. “And you know what? When I need something from them — two years later, three years later — I call them. They are there for me.”
Trump and his major companies gave at least $3.1 million to local, state and federal candidates from both parties between 1995 and 2016, not including donations that may have flowed through the scores of limited-liability corporations that Trump controlled.
He donated to Hillary Clinton when she was running to be a U.S. senator from New York. Asked if he voted for her, Trump said: “I never say who I’m going to vote for.” He did say in a separate interview, however, that his votes for president were consistently Republican. Although he said he lost respect for the younger President Bush because of his handling of the war in Iraq, which he later called a “disaster,” he said he voted for Bush again in 2004 because he felt it was important to “carry the Republican line.” Recalling the 2004 vote, Trump said he showed his distance from Bush by not throwing fundraisers for him.
Trump’s public statements sent mixed signals about his political leanings. In 2006, he told the New York Times that Sen. John McCain, who would become the 2008 Republican presidential nominee, could not win because he advocated sending more troops to Iraq. Trump praised the future Democratic nominee, then-Sen. Barack Obama, for his “wonderful qualities.” Nonetheless, Trump contributed $3,600 to McCain during the 2008 campaign and said he voted for him.
Trump changed parties seven times between 1999 and 2012, starting when he left the GOP to consider a run under the Reform Party banner. After registering as a Democrat in 2001, he switched back to the Republicans in 2003. He became a Democrat again in 2005 and a Republican in 2009. He chose not to be affiliated with any party in 2011. Asked what he would say to critics who saw the constant party-switching as proof that he had no core beliefs, Trump responded: “I think it had to do more with practicality because if you’re going to run for office, you would have had to make friends.”
Then he returned to the GOP in 2012, once again stoking speculation that he had his sights on the presidency. | 1 |
Thursday, 10 November 2016 Don't ask me how I did it.
He said it would be rigged. He blatantly announced that the presidential election would be rigged. The squirrels supporting his presidential election promised the election would be rigged.
They would have poll monitors at various neighborhoods to police the possibility, and the various neighborhoods were in the predominately black areas of the country. Granted, he has questionable integrity, but why is no one taking him at his word?
Did Trump rig the election?
"We must support our new president," Hillary Clinton patriotically announced in her concession speech.
Hold it. Back up a couple of weeks.
Remember when the KGB was hacking into the Democratic National Committee, and Wiki-leaks published over 300 emails from John Podesta's computer? Seventeen US national security agencies announced that the hacking was traced to Russia. The former head of the KGB, Vladimir Putin, also had announced he was supporting Trump.
Then there was the Director of the FBI, James Comey's fiasco. First Hillary was guilty of original sin! Ten days later, in a perfect example of a Governor Rick Perry 'whoops', James Comey announced, "There is nothing there, there!"
So there!
Back up again. Wringing his hands, Comey feared that mutinous members of the FBI were about to reveal new evidence against Hillary Clinton found in Anthony Weiner's computer. Weiner is the estranged husband of Huma Abedin, Hillary Clinton's chief of staff.
Long story to short: the new evidence was suggested in a book, Clinton Cash , written by Breitbart News senior editor-at-large Peter Schweizer. Breitbart News is a conservative website and the executive chairman, Stephan Bannon, is also the chief executive of the Donald Trump campaign.
The dots are easy to connect: the smear campaign, drop in polls, catch up game and the votes were cast.
"This election is going to be rigged."
Hillary Clinton never regained the advantage she had before the Comey fiasco. The down ballot was definitely compromised.
Quoting someone from Wisconsin. "Wisconsin went for Trump and we don't know how that happened. At least she got the popular vote."
The election was rigged. He said it would be. This time, believe him.
Read more by this author: | 1 |
BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany s intelligence service has published the details of social network profiles which it says are fronts faked by Chinese intelligence to gather personal information about German officials and politicians. The BfV domestic intelligence service took the unusual step of naming individual profiles it says are fake and fake organizations to warn public officials about the risk of leaking valuable personal information via social media. Chinese intelligence services are active on networks like LinkedIn and have been trying for a while to extract information and find intelligence sources in this way, including seeking data on users habits, hobbies and political interests, they said. Nine months of research had found that more than 10,000 German citizens had been contacted on the LinkedIn professional networking site by fake profiles disguised as headhunters, consultants, think-tankers or scholars, the BfV said. There could be a large number of target individuals and fake profiles that have not yet been identified, they added. Speaking in Beijing on Monday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said the accusations were baseless. We hope the relevant German organizations, particularly government departments, can speak and act more responsibly, and not do things that are not beneficial to the development of bilateral relations, Lu said. Among the faked profiles whose details were published were that of Rachel Li , identified as a headhunter at RiseHR , and an Alex Li , a Project Manager at Center for Sino-Europe Development Studies . Many of the profile pictures show stylish and visually appealing young men and women. The picture of Laeticia Chen , a manager at the China Center of International Politics and Economy was nicked from an online fashion catalogue, an official said. A Reuters review of the profiles showed that some were connected to senior diplomats and politicians from several European countries. There was no way to establish whether contacts had taken place beyond the initial social media add . The warning reflects growing concern in European and western intelligence circles at Chinese covert activities in their countries and follows warnings from the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency over attempts by the economic giant s security services to recruit U.S. citizens as agents. The BfV invited concerned users to contact them if they encountered social media profiles that seemed suspect. | 0 |
SHANGHAI (Reuters) - Chinese customs authorities handled 2,773 cases of smuggling in the first 10 months of this year, part of a nationwide crackdown, the China Daily reported on Friday citing a senior official. The 2017 Sword Guarding the Country s Gate campaign netted 233 smuggling cases involving weapons and ammunition, 474 cases related to illegal drugs and 86 related to endangered species, according to Huang Songping, a spokesman with China s General Administration of Customs. He said 56 of the cases involved rice smuggling, with traders trying to avoid paying duties on imports worth a total of 1.6 billion yuan ($242.09 million). Previous cases this year involved the import of Thai white sugar, with nine arrested for trying to evade customs inspections by disguising their ship as a domestic vessel and entering the port of Yancheng, which is not open to overseas traffic. China also cracked down on an oil smuggling ring in which a criminal gang bought 400 million yuan worth of overseas oil products and sold it to gas stations in Zhejiang province, the customs authority said in a notice last month. China s environment ministry said this week that as many as 259 people had been arrested this year for smuggling more than 300,000 tonnes of foreign waste into the country for recycling and reprocessing. | 1 |
(Reuters) - U.S. President-elect Donald Trump on Friday accused his political opponents, “both Democrats and Republicans,” for putting together a dossier of unverified claims linking him to Russia and said the document was probably released by intelligence agencies. “Totally made up facts by sleazebag political operatives, both Democrats and Republicans - FAKE NEWS! Russia says nothing exists,” Trump said in a series of posts on Twitter. “Probably released by ‘Intelligence’ even knowing there is no proof, and never will be,” he said. On Wednesday, U.S. spy chief James Clapper said that media leaks of the material had not come from U.S. intelligence agencies and that the agencies had not judged whether the information was reliable. | 0 |
He won on a platform of reducing crime or something like that .Despite being arrested on drug and murder charges, an East Chicago city councilman was re-elected to his office in Tuesday s elections.East Chicago 3rd District Councilman Robert Coop Battle cruised to re-election even though he is accused in the Oct. 12 shooting of Reimundo Camarillo Jr. That isn t all. As The Munster Times reports, the councilman is also facing drug charges stemming from a traffic stop earlier in the year.Police say that Councilman Battle was found with 73 pounds of marijuana and more than $100,000 cash during a traffic stop in Porter County, Indiana.Even with all this legal trouble on his plate, no one filed to run against him, and he won re-election on Tuesday with his unopposed candidacy.Still, some have been calling for him to resign his office due to his mounting troubles.But the councilman s attorney insisted that his client is insulted by the claims that he should resign. He is presumed innocent until he is proven guilty, Attorney John Cantrell said. If he is acquitted, he ll keep his job. Apparently, Battle didn t even vote in his own election. As Lake County Sheriff John Buncich reported, Battle did not request an absentee ballot to vote from the jail.The Associated Press reports, Battle is seeking bail and a Nov. 17 hearing is planned. On Tuesday a Lake County judge granted prosecutors request for a DNA mouth swab from Battle. Via: Breitbart News | 1 |
Janet L. Yellen, the Federal Reserve chairwoman, made it clear Wednesday that she believes that the American economy is pretty much back on track. And that, in turn, sets the stage for a potential conflict with the incoming Trump administration in the months and years ahead. Congress assigns the Fed two goals: seek maximum employment and maintain stable prices. Ms. Yellen, in a speech in San Francisco, rather explicitly made clear that the nation isn’t far from attaining those goals. “Now, it’s fair to say, the economy is near maximum employment, and inflation is moving toward our goal,” she said. The unemployment rate, 4. 7 percent, is back near where it was before the 2008 recession. And “although inflation has been running below our 2 percent objective for quite some time, we have seen it start inching back toward 2 percent last year. ” It is Ms. Yellen’s clearest indication to date that the era of extraordinary efforts by the central bank to get the economy back in shape is nearing its end. The Fed has raised interest rates in each of the last two Decembers, and it is looking likely that there will be more than one rate increase this year. She said in her speech that she and her colleagues were expecting to increase the federal funds rate “a few times a year. ” As central bankers are wont to do, Ms. Yellen emphasized that those plans were contingent on the economy’s behaving as the Fed expected. If inflation starts to slip again, or improvements in the job market recede, the Fed will presumably hold off. But she spoke clearly of the risks of moving too slowly toward the neutral interest rate that neither stimulates nor slows the economy. “Waiting too long to begin moving toward the neutral rate could risk a nasty surprise down the road,” she said. “Either too much inflation, financial instability or both. ” But if things go as planned, there is a clear risk that the Fed’s goals could be on a collision course with the Trump administration’s goals. The and his advisers have often spoken of seeking stronger economic growth than the United States has experienced the last several years, perhaps seeking 3. 5 percent to 4 percent instead of the percent growth that has been the standard since 2009. A white paper by advisers to Mr. Trump released in the fall assessed the view that this lower growth rate reflected demographics and that it amounted to a “new normal,” and declared it “incomplete — and unnecessarily defeatist. ” That view is at odds with both Ms. Yellen’s comments Wednesday and economic projects that Fed officials have released. For example, the median Fed policy maker viewed the economy’s rate of G. D. P. growth as only 1. 8 percent a year, very much in the ballpark that Trump advisers would view as unnecessarily defeatist. So here’s one way things could go: The Fed steadily raises rates, to the degree that employment and inflation data cooperate with their forecasts, with faster rate increases the higher growth rises. It’s possible that what people in Mr. Trump’s orbit view as a desirable boom will look to Ms. Yellen and her colleagues as overheating, and prompt equal and opposite interest rate increases. There are a couple of potential twists in this story. The first would involve potential Trump appointments to the Fed the second could involve big moves in the dollar. Ms. Yellen’s term as chairwoman expires in about a year. Mr. Trump could appoint a new leader to the Fed who is more hospitable to his view (though she would have the option of continuing her time as a Fed governor, one of seven policy makers who are appointed to terms). There are two governor vacancies available now, so Mr. Trump could quickly influence the direction of the Fed with new appointees. But it’s not clear whether any new Trump appointees would steer the bank toward higher interest rates and greater concern about inflation or let a potential Trump boom advance unconstrained. Big fluctuations in the dollar could also shape a potential tension between Trumponomics and Fed policy. Economists believe a key element of a corporate income tax overhaul advanced by House Republicans, known as a border adjustment tax, would have the effect of creating a huge rally in the value of the dollar compared with other major currencies, perhaps 20 percent or more. The Fed has been more focused than ever in the last few years on how its decisions ripple through the global economy. It held off on rate increases in 2015 and early 2016 in significant part because a rally in the dollar seemed to be destabilizing many emerging markets and fueling risks of a global slowdown. A stronger dollar also reduces inflation in the United States, which in turn makes the Fed more inclined toward caution on rate increases. Mr. Trump has sent mixed messages on his views of a border adjustment tax, seeming to slap down the idea in a Wall Street Journal interview published this week. But if it looks as if policies on Capitol Hill are going to push the dollar up significantly. Of course, that too could cut in the other direction. A stronger dollar doesn’t help with Mr. Trump’s goals of reducing the trade deficit, and just this week he has seemed to try to talk the dollar down. Add up a week of new signals from incoming Trump administration officials and now Ms. Yellen’s speech, and it is looking like a distinct possibility that Ms. Yellen could wake up one morning in the year ahead to tweets directed her way, originating from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. | 0 |
Obama Admits to Rigged Elections back in 2008 10/27/2016
TRUTH REVOLT
There’s a lot of accusations going around that the 2016 election is rigged. From Democrats suggesting Russia is tampering with the presidential election to a plethora of documents and undercover video that proves Democrats are trying their darnedest to sway the outcome.
President Obama has laughed off the notion that Bernie Sanders was forced out by the DNC and believes Donald Trump is out of his mind for suggesting elections are rigged. And of course, Obama would never admit that Hillary Clinton could do something wrong. But candidate Obama, in 2008, sure was concerned that the election might be rigged against him.
Video of him answering a campaign question has surfaced to put to rest the notion that he doesn’t believe in the possibility:
“Well, I tell you what: it helps in Ohio that we’ve got Democrats in charge of the machines. [Cheering] But look, I come from Chicago, so I want to be honest, it’s not as if it’s just Republicans who have monkeyed around with elections in the past, sometimes Democrats have too. You know, whenever people are in power, they’re — you know, they have this tendency to try to, you know, tilt things in their direction.”
Watch above.
The Freedom Center is a 501c3 non-profit organization. Therefore we do not endorse political candidates either in primary or general elections. However, as defenders of America’s social contract, we insist that the rules laid down by both parties at the outset of campaigns be respected, and that the results be decided by free elections. We will oppose any attempt to rig the system and deny voters of either party their constitutional right to elect candidates of their choice. | 1 |
(Reuters) - U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump on Wednesday called for a “21st century” version of the 1933 Glass-Steagall law that required the separation of commercial and investment banking, a change the Republican Party also supported in its 2016 policy platform. Trump gave no details about his banking plan other than to say he would prioritize “helping African American businesses get the credit they need.” Democrat Hillary Clinton’s husband, former president Bill Clinton, signed legislation in 1999 that repealed Glass-Steagall. U.S. banking law was comprehensively revised by the Dodd Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act in 2010 as a response to the financial crisis of 2008. | 0 |
YANGON (Reuters) - Members of U.S. Congress said on Tuesday they were disturbed by the harsh response of Myanmar s security forces to attacks by militants in August which they said bore all the hallmarks of ethnic cleansing against the Rohingya Muslim minority. We are profoundly disturbed by the violent and disproportionate response against the Rohingya by the military and local groups, Democratic Senator Jeff Merkley told reporters in Yangon at the end of a visit to Bangladesh and Myanmar. Merkley, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, led the five-strong congressional delegation, which over the last few days met with people affected by the military crackdown on Rohingya Muslims which has forced more than 600,000 people to flee to Bangladesh. In early November, U.S. lawmakers proposed targeted sanctions and travel restrictions on Myanmar military officials over the treatment of the Rohingya. | 0 |
Email
It appears Bill and Hillary Clinton are making plans to flee the country in the event Donald Trump wins this election.
Reports are circulating that the Clintons have transferred 1.8 Billion dollars from the Clinton Foundation to the Qatar Central Bank, via a facilitation/abatement of JP Morgan Chase & Company for reasons not revealed.
This move of such a large sum of money to the country of Qatar says in itself, Hillary Clinton knows she is going to lose the election, and she doesn’t plan to allow herself to be prosecuted for various high crimes and treason under a Trump Administration.
The country of Qatar happens to be one of a handful of countries that does not have an extradition treaty with the United States, thus would be a perfect place for her to run to in escaping justice.
Donald Trump has said many times during his campaign and at the Presidential debates that once he gets into office, he intends to prosecute her on various high crimes from her latest crimes of sending classified material via a personal e mail server. All the way to gun running to terrorist groups in Syria resulting in the deaths of 4 Americans in Benghazi.
Apparently, Hillary is not the only person in Washington who has made plans to escape justice under a Trump Administration. John Kerry has quietly been selling his property in the US for millions of dollars of late, with an announcement of the sale of his $25 million dollar Nantucket mansion in June 2016, as well as the sale of his yacht for $3.9 million in July 2016.
President Barack H Obama has also apparently been making exit plans with his purchase of a $4.9 million dollar seaside mansion in Dubai in January 2016, another non extradition country.
Snopes and other supposed fact checking sites have debunked both the story of Obama’s purchase of the mansion and the firing of Rear Admiral Rick Williams. However, over the last several months, these sites have been busted for lying in trying to debunk such information as the before mentioned, when in fact the information is true.
Snopes and other sites try their best to keep incriminating information from being believed, but the truth has a way of coming out on its own, as it always has. | 1 |
After being found competent to stand trial following a court-ordered psychiatric evaluation, Dylann Roof has decided to ditch his attorneys and represent himself in the Charleston Massacre trial.Judge Richard M. Gergel of Federal District Court in Charleston declared Roof competent to stand on Friday. Jury selection had been put on hold for three weeks after the defense team asked the judge to declare Roof incompetent due to mental defect. But a psychiatric evaluation found that Roof was able to assist in his defense and understood the consequences of the proceedings. Therefore, under the law, he was ruled competent.On Monday, things took a surprise turn when Roof petitioned the court to allow him to represent himself. Gergel advised Roof against firing his legal team, which is led by David I. Bruck, a noted capital defense attorney. The judge asked the defendant a series of questions to make sure he understood the ramifications of his actions. But ultimately, after having found Roof competent, Gergel had no choice but to honor Roof s Sixth Amendment right to act as his own attorney. I do find the defendant has the personal capacity to self-representation, Judge Gergel said. I continue to believe it is strategically unwise, but it is a decision you have the right to make. Although Roof will be taking the lead role in his defense, Brock and the rest of his legal team will continue to serve as standby counsel. Jury selection has since resumed.Roof is accused of killing nine African American people at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, S.C., on June 17, 2015. He reportedly mingled with his victims for an hour, sitting in on their bible study where they welcomed him with open arms. He then began shouting racial slurs and pulled out a Glock pistol from his fanny pack. He opened fire on his unsuspecting victims, killing the pastor of the church, three other ministers and five other members of the congregation.Robert Dunham, the executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, warned of the troubles defendants face when they represent themselves, especially if they have a mental illness. Key issues never get raised because the defendant knows nothing about the law, said Dunham. And often with mentally ill defendants whose murders were a product of their mental illness, they will attempt to justify their conduct instead of presenting evidence that their mental illness makes them less culpable. Abraham Lincoln said, He who represents himself has a fool for a client. While that may be true, it can also be particularly traumatic for the family when a defendant accused of slaughtering their loved ones is acting as his own attorney, as Dunham explained. When an emotionally disturbed defendant is permitted to cross-examine those witnesses and ask questions that may be based on a delusional view of reality, it only makes things worse, Mr. Dunham said.Featured image via Grace Beahm-Pool/Getty Images | 1 |
(Reuters) - Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky on Thursday filed a lawsuit against the state of Indiana, saying a new state law restricting abortion was unconstitutional. The law, which was signed last month by Indiana Governor Mike Pence and goes into effect on July 1, prohibits abortion in the early stages of a pregnancy based on genetic abnormalities and mandates a fetus be buried or cremated, according to the lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court. Planned Parenthood asked for an injunction on the law, according to the lawsuit, which was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of the nonprofit organization’s Indiana chapter. “The United States Supreme Court has repeatedly stressed that a woman, not the state, is to determine whether or not to obtain an abortion,” Ken Falk, legal director for ACLU of Indiana, said in a statement. “The state of Indiana’s attempt to invade a woman’s privacy and to control her decision in this regard is unprecedented and unconstitutional.” The lawsuit named the Indiana State Department of Health, prosecutors of several counties and the state medical licensing board. A spokeswoman for the health department referred all questions to the attorney general’s office, where no one could be reached for comment. A spokesman for the medical licensing board declined to comment about the lawsuit. Pence’s press secretary, Kara Brooks, said the governor is confident the law is constitutional. “We will work with the attorney general to defend the law that enhances information expectant mothers receive and enhances protection for the unborn,” she said. Indiana was the second U.S. state to prohibit abortions based on a prenatal diagnosis of disabilities such as Down syndrome, following North Dakota. Planned Parenthood does not ask patients to disclose why they are obtaining an abortion, but under the new law, doctors would be mandated to report if a fetal anomaly was present before the abortion. The new Indiana law would put physicians at risk for legal woes, and require additional costs for a fetus to be buried or cremated, according to the lawsuit. “Gov. Mike Pence isn’t a woman and he isn’t a doctor. He needs to get out and stay out of our doctors’ offices,” Betty Cockrum, chief executive of Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky, said in a statement. | 0 |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump suggested challenging licenses for NBC and other broadcast news networks following reports by NBC News that his secretary of state had called him a “moron” after a discussion of the U.S. nuclear arsenal. “With all of the Fake News coming out of NBC and the Networks, at what point is it appropriate to challenge their License? Bad for country!” Trump, a Republican, wrote in a post on Twitter on Wednesday. Trump and his supporters have repeatedly used the term “fake news” to cast doubt on media reports critical of his administration, often without providing any evidence to support their case that the reports were untrue. Trump kept up his criticism of the media in an appearance with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, saying: “It is frankly disgusting the press is able to write whatever it wants to write.” In a tweet late on Wednesday, Trump said: “Network news has become so partisan, distorted and fake that licenses must be challenged and, if appropriate, revoked. Not fair to public!” Any move to challenge media companies’ licenses, however, would likely face significant hurdles. The Federal Communications Commission, an independent federal agency, does not license broadcast networks, but issues them to individual broadcast stations that are renewed on a staggered basis for eight-year periods. Comcast Corp, which owns NBC Universal, also owns 11 broadcast stations, including outlets in New York, Washington, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Boston, Dallas and Chicago. A Comcast spokeswoman referred questions to NBC, which did not immediately respond. ABC, owned by Walt Disney Co, declined to comment. Shares in media companies fell, potentially reflecting concerns the war of words could worsen. Comcast was down 0.8 percent, while Disney shed 1.4 percent. CBS Corp fell 1.2 percent and Twenty-First Century Fox slid 2.8 percent. Recon Analytics analyst Roger Entner called the market response a “short-term irrational knee-jerk reaction” and said Trump faced essentially insurmountable hurdles to getting licenses pulled. A spokesman for FCC Chairman Ajit Pai did not immediately comment. Gordon Smith, the chief executive of the National Association of Broadcasters, defended the media’s free speech rights. “It is contrary to this fundamental right for any government official to threaten the revocation of an FCC license simply because of a disagreement with the reporting of a journalist,” Smith said in a statement. ABC, owned by Walt Disney Co, declined to comment. Numerous Democrats criticized Trump and urged Pai to denounce Trump’s comments. Senator Ed Markey wrote Pai on Wednesday asking him to “withstand any urges from President Trump to harm the news media and infringe upon the First Amendment,” a reference to the U.S. Constitution’s free speech and press freedom guarantee. Democratic U.S. Representative Frank Pallone said Trump “seemed to threaten broadcasters’ licenses only because he disagreed with their reporting. This threat alone could intimidate the press and lead to skewed and unfair reporting.” FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel responded to Trump by tweeting a link to an FCC fact sheet. “Not how it works,” she said on Twitter. When reviewing licenses the FCC must determine if a renewal is in the public interest, according to an agency fact sheet on its website. The FCC said in the fact sheet it expects “station licensees to be aware of the important problems and issues facing their local communities and to foster public understanding by presenting programming that relates to those local issues.” The agency does not issue similar licenses for cable networks such as CNN and MSNBC, or regulate internet news or other websites. The FCC has said the First Amendment “expressly prohibits the commission from censoring broadcast matter” and that its role “in overseeing program content is very limited.” In the early 1970s, then-President Richard Nixon and his top aides discussed using the FCC’s license renewal process as a way of punishing the Washington Post for its coverage of the Watergate burglary that ultimately brought down his presidency. NBC News has reported on tensions between Trump and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, and has said Trump sought a dramatic increase in the U.S. nuclear arsenal during a meeting with national security advisers in July. NBC reported Tillerson made his “moron” comment after that meeting. Trump on Saturday also suggested he should get “equal time” because of what he described as late-night television hosts’ “anti-Trump” material. The FCC’s equal time rules apply in limited cases to air time for political candidates and not to criticism of elected leaders. Trump may have been referring to the “Fairness Doctrine” that was designed to ensure broadcasters present opposing viewpoints about public issues. Republican President Ronald Reagan’s administration eliminated it in 1987. | 1 |
Well, well, well Elizabeth Warren went on a Twitter rant about what a capitalist pig Donald Trump is and now it turns out she also took advantage of the crash by flipping houses! This is awesome! She s being exposed as a huge hypocrite!Before the crash that she blamed on speculators, Senator Elizabeth Warren made a bundle by flipping houses.Nearly two years after Veo Vessels died, her daughter, 70-year-old Mary Frances Hickman, decided to sell the home her mother had left to her. A sprawling brick house in Oklahoma City s historic Highland Park neighborhood, it was built in 1924, just a year after Mary s birth.Decades later, one of Vessels great-grandchildren fondly recalls the wood and tile floors, the fish pond, the butler s quarters, and the multi-car garage where children played house. It was really, really nice, says Hickman s granddaughter, Andrea Martin. That s part of the reason she s so surprised her grandmother sold the home in 1993 for a mere $30,000. Despite a debilitating stroke, Martin says Hickman remained sharp, and she had always been business-savvy. As an Avon saleswoman, she had at times ranked among the top ten in the country. So I don t know why, Martin says. Maybe she just wanted out from underneath it, but to sell it for such a low number I don t know. Maybe she got bad advice, maybe she was just tired. The home s new owner: Elizabeth Warren, today a Massachusetts senator who has built a political career on denouncing the sort of banking titans and financial sophisticates who make a buck off the little guy. Five months after purchasing Veo Vessels old home, Warren flipped the property, selling it for $115,000 more than she d paid, according to Oklahoma County Property Assessor records.Warren rose to political prominence in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis as a crusader against big banks and a dispenser of common-sense economic advice. She campaigned for the creation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, intended to shield people from the predations of the mortgage and credit-card industries, among others. In her 2006 book All Your Worth, co-authored with her daughter, Amelia, Warren lists as a top myth the idea that you can make big money buying houses and flipping them quickly. She has made a career out of telling people how to behave in financially responsible ways, and out of creating laws that will make it illegal for them to do otherwise.Five months after purchasing Veo Vessels old home, Warren flipped the property, selling it for $115,000 more than she d paid. But Warren bought and sold at least five properties for profit at a different time in her life, before the cratering economy and a political career made her a star. Her life story has been the subject of much interest, and her 2014 memoir, A Fighting Chance, chronicled her rise from humble beginnings in small-town Oklahoma and her struggle to make ends meet. It didn t much mention, though, the early 1990s, years when her children were teenagers and she was once again happily married. These are years when she wasn t yet the multimillionaire she is today, and, she has said, she was voting Republican.Read more: National Review | 1 |
Hilarious conservative media analyst and Youtube sensation Mark Dice took to the streets of Los Angeles in 2013 while President Obama was still occupying our White House. He asked random people walking down the street if they would sign a petition to support violent criminals to be released from our prisons and onto our streets. It s interesting to see how many people accept that illegal aliens in our prisons are not being treated unfairly without any evidence. This false narrative was successfully promoted by Barack Obama, our media and the Democrats, who decided that illegal aliens should be not just be given equal treatment to American citizens, but instead, they should be given special treatment above and beyond those afforded to American citizens.Watch the video and check out the new statistics below that were just released by Zogby, showing that Hispanics in America now support President Trump more than any other demographic. Apparently supporting illegal aliens who commit crimes in America is no longer cool under a Trump administration:Most of the people who are seen signing this petition, are Hispanic. But that s when we had a president who shamed Americans into believing that giving special privileges to illegal aliens was expected. Today however, is a different story In its latest survey, Zogby Analytics said that Hispanic support has hit 45 percent, two points higher than the president s generic approval.That is 55 percent higher than the total Latino vote for Trump in the election. He won just 29 percent. The biggest surprise in this new poll is Trump s approval among Hispanic voters, which is at 45 percent approval/51 percent disapproval. In February the numbers were less among Hispanics at 39 percent approval/53 percent disapproval, said Zogby.Via: Washington Examiner | 1 |
PARIS (Reuters) - A British border guard was one of 12 people arrested in France and Britain as part of an operation against arms and drugs smuggling across the English Channel, British police said on Monday. The 36-year-old from Britain s southern port town of Dover and three other British nationals were detained near Calais. French police also seized 34 kilos of cocaine, 7 kilos of heroin and 11 firearms, Britain s National Crime Agency (NCA) said. The raid took place last Friday and all four remain in police custody. Eight other men were arrested in southern England. | 1 |
NAIROBI (Reuters) - Kenya s police service said five people were killed by mobs on Friday for looting during unauthorized processions called to welcome opposition leader Raila Odinga back to the country after a trip abroad. Reuters photographers had earlier counted two bodies with gunshot wounds sustained in the violence as police tried to disperse Odinga s supporters who walked alongside his convoy from the airport. | 1 |
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mired in allegations of corruption, Mexico s ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) has thrown its weight behind an untainted outsider in a bid to clean up its image and hang on to the presidency in elections next July. But having never been a member of the party, former finance minister and PRI presidential hopeful Jose Antonio Meade faces a delicate balancing act persuading undecided voters he will cut out graft without alienating the grassroots support he needs to win. It is proving to be a tough job. The awkward symbiosis limits Meade s ability to play to the strengths that PRI grandees hope will overcome the accusations of embezzlement, fraud and vote buying that have plagued the party under President Enrique Pena Nieto. Reliant on the PRI machinery to deliver votes, Meade must wrap himself in the party banner, while distancing his campaign from the failures of the outgoing government he also represents. He s between a rock and a hard place, said Andres Rozental, a former deputy Mexican foreign minister. Pena Nieto is constitutionally barred from re-election, and the centrist PRI will not formally elect its candidate until Feb. 18. However, the party has lined up behind Meade, who held various cabinet posts across two opposing administrations before announcing his run late last month. Meade, a technocrat with a sharp command of the minutiae of the economy, launched his campaign for the PRI candidacy in a straw sombrero festooned with red and green streamers in the poor southern town of San Juan Chamula on Dec. 14. Meade acknowledged Pena Nieto in his speech, which called for a secure and just Mexico. But he did not detail policies or directly address corruption. Like the president, he has said graft must be attacked by strengthening institutions. In subsequent outings to rally the PRI faithful, he has continued to frame his vision in general terms - prompting expressions of dismay by some of his supporters. It s a typical PRI campaign, said one pro-Meade lawmaker, shaking his head, and speaking on condition of anonymity. Polls show Meade has plenty of work to do. A survey by polling firm Parametria published on Dec. 19 put him 11 percentage points behind leftist front-runner Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, a former Mexico City mayor who has spent years railing against corruption and inequality. Another survey, by pollster Mitofsky, showed this month that 57.4 percent of voters reject the PRI, up nearly seven points from October, and 17 points more than any other party. In December 2011, the same point in the previous campaign, the PRI had a lead of about 17 points and only one in five voters rejected the party, according to Mitofsky data. Serving in the cabinet for almost seven years running, Meade has sold himself as irreproachably honest and the safest pair of hands for the economy, painting Lopez Obrador and conservative rival Ricardo Anaya as risky bets for Mexico s stability. However, his time in government has left the 48-year-old with a problematic legacy to defend. Gang violence has worsened in the past couple of years, with murders hitting a record high in 2017. [L1N1ON0EQ] Meanwhile the economy is growing at barely 2 percent annually, less than half the rate the government first targeted, inflation is near a 16-year high and the peso has depreciated by more than 34 percent against the dollar under Pena Nieto. A study by the Pew Research Center in September identified crime and corruption as the top concerns for Mexicans. As standard-bearer for an unpopular government, Meade has to present more compelling solutions to those problems than his rivals, said one senior official backing him. It was one of this government s biggest mistakes not to see the damage that corruption could do to its reputation, said the official, who also spoke on condition of anonymity. The official said he believed Meade s policies could become clearer once he is formally invested as PRI candidate. Meade s campaign did not reply to requests for comment. Another government official closely following the campaign said that while Meade could recognize failings in the PRI, he could not be expected to attack the party. You can t take the PRI s core vote for granted, the official said. With some PRI governors, lawmakers and Pena Nieto facing allegations of corruption, it could be suicidal for Meade to push a tough line on graft, said Juan Pardinas, general director of the Mexican Institute for Competitiveness, a think tank. How could you (take) a strong stance against corruption, being the PRI candidate?, he asked. It s like (taking) a strong stance against racism at a Ku Klux Klan rally. | 1 |
Oh the irony! Left-leaning MSNBC aired a segment about President Trump s proposed border wall, which ultimately proved the U.S.-Mexico border needs a bigger wall.HOW HIGH SHOULD WE GO? The Trump administration has approved the construction of eight prototypes of the border wall. These prototypes are nearing completion as the administration s deadline approaches. The prototypes have several guidelines they must satisfy. For instance, concrete walls have to be 30 ft. tall while walls made from alternate materials have to be 18 to 30 ft. tall.JUMPING THE FENCE MSNBC reporter Jacob Soboroff went to preview the prototypes that are being built between two existing border fences along the U.S.-Mexico border. During the segment, Soboroff was interviewing border patrol agent Roy Villareal when several migrants were caught on camera jumping the existing fence into the United States.EVERYDAY BORDER ENFORCEMENT = OPEN BORDERS A small group of three people just jumped over in the middle of the day, Soboroff noted. So can you explain to me what s going on? This is the reality of everyday border enforcement. The United States is the draw for people with dire situations where they are at, Villareal said. We are going to continue to witness this. It plays out on a regular basis for us. Soboroff went to the Mexican side of the border and showed how easy it was to cross the border under current conditions.THIS IS OUTRAGEOUS! Can you imagine how easy it s been for terrorists to cross?We just reported on a terrorist who made his way to Canada via Mexico and the U.S.: The Democrats are fighting against closing our border with Mexico at every step of the way. They want open borders It s that simple. If you vote for Democrats then you re voting for open borders. They have zero interest in stopping the flow of illegals to America. One of the key things to remember about open borders is it s not just the people from Mexico looking for a job or better life. The truth is that our open border has become a GLOBAL MAGNET for people from all over the world to come for many different reasons. One of the reasons is terrorism The case below highlights the desperate need for border control if we want to stop the flow of terrorists to America and Canada:The Somali terrorist who stabbed a Canadian police officer and ran over four pedestrians a few weeks ago entered the United States through the Mexican border and was released by Obama s Department of Homeland Security (DHS), allowing him to continue his journey north. The ISIS operative, Abdulahi Hasan Sharif, was ordered deported, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) spokeswoman told various media outlets recently, but was released on an order of supervision and the feds never saw him again.Sharif entered the U.S. in 2011 through the San Ysidro port of entry in California without documentation and was briefly held at the Otay Mesa Detention Center in San Diego, a local newspaper reported. A year later he crossed the border into Canada and settled in Edmonton after being granted refugee status. On September 30 he slammed into an Edmonton police officer with his car then got out of the vehicle and repeatedly stabbed the cop with a knife. After fleeing the scene, Sharif stole a truck and deliberately mowed down four pedestrians. Canadian authorities found an ISIS flag in his car and have charged him with multiple counts of attempted murder, criminal flight causing bodily harm and possession of a weapon. Two years ago, Canadian authorities investigated the 30-year-old terrorist for espousing extremist views. It s disturbing that Sharif s northbound trek took him through the U.S.-Mexico border.As part of an ongoing investigation into cartels, corruption and terrorism, Judicial Watch has for years reported that Islamic extremists are entering the country through Mexico and that ISIS is operating in border towns just miles from American cities. Judicial Watch launched the project in 2014 by exposing a sophisticated narco-terror ring with strong ties to ISIS and connections running from El Paso to Chicago to New York City. Two of the FBI s most wanted were embroiled in the operation that also had deep ties to Mexico. Less than a year later, Judicial Watch reported that ISIS is operating in a Mexican border town just eight miles from El Paso, the result of Islamic terrorists joining forces with drug cartels and human smugglers knowns as coyotes. When Judicial Watch reported that Mexican cartels were smuggling foreigners from countries with terrorist links into a small Texas rural town, federal authorities publicly denied the story was true. Never the less, high-level sources on both sides of the border confirmed to Judicial Watch that foreigners, classified as Special Interest Aliens (SIA), were being transported to stash areas in Acala, a rural crossroads located around 54 miles from El Paso on a state road Highway 20. Once in the U.S., the SIAs waited for pick-up in the area s sand hills just across Highway 20. At the time a Texas Department of Public Safety report leaked by the media had already confirmed that for years members of known Islamist terrorist organizations had been apprehended crossing the southern border.Last year a high-ranking DHS official told Judicial Watch that Mexican drug traffickers help Islamic terrorists stationed in Mexico cross into the United States to explore targets for future attacks. Among the jihadists that travel back and forth through the porous southern border is a Kuwaiti named Shaykh Mahmood Omar Khabir, an ISIS operative who lives in the Mexican state of Chihuahua not far from El Paso. Khabir trained hundreds of Al Qaeda fighters in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Yemen and has lived in Mexico for more than a year, according to information provided by Judicial Watch s government source. Now Khabir trains thousands of men mostly Syrians and Yemenis to fight in an ISIS base situated in the Mexico-U.S. border region near Ciudad Ju rez, the intelligence gathered by Judicial Watch s source reveals. Staking out U.S. targets is not difficult and Khabir actually bragged in an Italian newspaper article that the border region is so open that he could get in with a handful of men, and kill thousands of people in Texas or in Arizona in the space of a few hours. In the same article Mexico s top diplomat, Foreign Affairs Secretary Claudia Ruiz, said this new wave of fundamentalism could have nasty surprises in store for the United States. While much of the American mainstream media ignores that Sharif made it to Canada via the U.S.-Mexico border, it s hardly surprising considering Islamic extremists have been infiltrating the country through the famously unprotected region for years. Referring to the recent Canadian attack, a think-tank dedicated to investigating the operations, funding, activities and front groups of Islamic extremists worldwide writes: Fears about a terrorist using the U.S.-Mexican border as a gateway for an attack have been realized. Via: Judicial Watch | 1 |
‘How Am I Supposed To Explain This To My Children?’ Asks Melania Trump Thoughts - Nov 9, 2016 By: Sarah Pappalardo SHARE: Tweet
It’s been a long and draining election cycle, and I don’t think any of us could have expected the result that we saw today. For many of us with young children, you probably woke up this morning asking yourself, “How am I supposed to explain this to my children?”
I, Melania Trump, am asking myself the same thing.
How can any of us metabolize what happened to a ten-year-old? Should I be honest and let him know just how bad things are, or do I let him enjoy his childhood, his innocence a little while longer? How much longer can we pretend the bathroom door lock is “broken” while Donald is stuck in there?
Many of us are concerned about how our sons will learn to treat women in this dangerous, sexist climate. In the case of my son, the nation’s biggest tragedy since 9/11 just told him to stop being a pussy.
How am I supposed to explain that our next president is a bully, and also his father?
And how do I explain to my son that our next president is a man who intimidatingly looked over at my ballot, just to make sure I was still voting for him? Should I remind my son that this man is a terrible role model and his behavior unacceptable, just like I’ve been quietly whispering to him for his entire short life?
And when he gets older, how am I supposed to tell them how this all began? That their father admitted to sexual assault, never shared his tax returns, was endorsed by the KKK, and still somehow weaseled his way into the presidency without even winning the popular vote? I used to believe that this country was an equal playing field where anyone can make it with hard work, but now I’m not so sure. I hate that my son has to come of age in such a time of uncertainty and also have blood relation to the cause of it all.
What am I supposed to tell my only son about the loud, nasty man on TV who insults immigrants while hiring thousands of them, including me, his wife? Do I need to tell him anything at all when he is on the TV standing right next to that man?
It seems like it’s always on the tip of my tongue these days; that “Donald Trump is a bad man.” But I can’t bring myself to tell him. Mostly because a man said he’d “send me back to Slovenia” if I did. But in my heart, I am concerned for the future of our country. I’m concerned for the world my son has to grow up in, and that his father is the next leader of the free world.
What have we done? SHARE: | 1 |
KINSHASA (Reuters) - At least four civilians and a police officer were killed in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo on Monday in clashes between security forces and protesters demanding the departure of President Joseph Kabila this year, Human Rights Watch said. The national electoral commission announced this month that an election to replace Kabila, whose mandate expired last December, cannot take place until April 2019. The delay has raised fears of an escalation of violence in Congo, which is Africa s biggest copper producer. Activist groups in the eastern city of Goma had called for a general strike on Monday to protest against the election delay. Unrest broke out by 5 a.m. (0300 GMT) between police and protesters, who barricaded roads and burned tires, local residents and the police said. Security forces killed at least four civilians and one police officer also died in the clashes, said Ida Sawyer, central Africa director at New York-based Human Rights Watch. A spokeswoman for the U.N. mission in Congo said it had documented 37 arrests but could not yet confirm a death toll. Provincial police commissioner Placide Nyembo said that the police officer was beaten to death by protesters and one demonstrator was killed by a stray bullet. The police also said in a statement that they broke up a planned demonstration in the northern province of Tshopo by protesters with jerrycans filled with petrol. Deteriorating security across Congo this year, including a spike in militia violence, has prompted fears the country could slip back to the multi-sided civil wars of the turn of the century, when hundreds of thousands were killed in violence and millions are believed to have perished of hunger and disease. Kabila says the election delays are due to challenges registering millions of voters. His opponents say he plans to change the constitution to remain in power, as other African leaders have done. | 0 |
White House Deputy Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee-Sanders was the perfect choice to take on the media today following the release of a bombshell video by Project Veritas showing an undercover reporter capturing CNN s Supervising Producer admitting that most of the news they put out about the Trump-Russia collusion is bullish*t! Early this morning, James O Keefe released the Project Veritas video where reporters went undercover at CNN to investigate the #VeryFakeNews network. O Keefe said their intent in making the video was to determine the motivation behind CNN s Trump-Russia collusion obsession. Since the inauguration, CNN has mentioned Russian story nearly 16,000 times.During her press conference today, Sarah Huckabee-Sanders encouraged the room full of reporters to watch the Project Veritas video that exposes CNN as fake news for ratings. She even took it a step further and noted that while she couldn t confirm the accuracy of the tape, that every American should watch the video. Sanders appeared to be disgusted as she remarked that if the tape is accurate, then it is a disgrace to all of media to all of journalism. And furthermore, If the media can t be trusted to report the news, then that is a danger to all of America. BOOOM Sarah Huckabee Sanders advises ALL to watch Veritas Video where CNN producer admits they realize Trump/Russia is a hoax but dont care! pic.twitter.com/tng5DUmKq3 STOCK MONSTER (@StockMonsterUSA) June 27, 2017Although panicked fake network hosts like MSNBC s Joy Reid were praising reporter Brian Karem for attempting to stand up to Huckabee-Sanders, in reality, he was no match for the sharp-witted Huckabee-Sanders who claimed that media has gone into a dark place. One of the Democrat Party s top cheerleaders Joy Reid is no exception. Here s her tweet:Now following @BrianKarem who was every political reporter today. https://t.co/yJC2IXDKi4 Joy Reid (@JoyAnnReid) June 27, 2017The video below shows Karem s attempt to defend his fellow journalist s use of unnamed sources and fake news for ratings. Karem argued that Huckabee-Sanders was inflaming the CNN undercover video story, saying: Everybody in this room is only trying to do their job. Sarah Huckabee-Sanders blasted Karem as she shot back: I disagree completely. First of all, I think if anything has been inflamed, it s the dishonesty that often takes place by the news media. And I think it s outrageous for you to accuse me of inflaming a story when I was simply trying to respond to his question. :Here s the exchange between Brian Karem and Sarah Huckabee-Sanders:MUST WATCH: White House reporter @BrianKarem pushing back against Sarah Huckabee Sanders and saying what many people have been thinking. pic.twitter.com/hW49e0tdWY Yashar Ali (@yashar) June 27, 2017 | 1 |
After North Korea s most recent missile launch, the North Korean dictator, Kim Jong Un claimed he had finally realized the great historic cause of completing the state nuclear force. US Defense Secretary James Mattis claimed that North Korea now has the ability to hit everywhere in the world. Meanwhile, the New York Times is blaming the Trump administration for starving the North Koreans, after placing stricter sanctions on the rogue nation.The left-leaning New York Times bizarrely claimed this week that the decades-long famine plaguing North Korea is not the fault of its brutal communist regime, but most likely due to American interference and foreign policy, saying the hunger is devastating. And it s our fault. The article, published over the weekend, lays the blame of millions of starved and tortured North Koreans at the feet of the American administration, saying the US and its allies have crippled Kim Jong Un s ability to feed his own people. Led by the United States, the international community is crippling North Korea s economy, writes the author. In August and September, the United Nations Security Council passed resolutions banning exports of coal, iron, lead, seafood and textiles and limiting the import of crude oil and refined petroleum products. The United States, Japan and South Korea have each imposed bilateral sanctions on Pyongyang to further isolate the country. We are trying to inflict pain on the North Korean regime to stop the development of nuclear weapons and missiles. That s understandable. But in the process, we are also punishing the most vulnerable citizens and shackling the ability of humanitarian agencies to deliver aid to them, the author adds.North Korea s massive food shortages date back to the 1990s when dictator Kim Jong Il s regime was incapable of handling droughts and other natural disasters that cut dwindling food supplies by over 30%. Hannity.com | 0 |
Jenice Armstrong, Philly, October 26, 2016
The Temple attacks were about troublemaking teens–not race.
The youngsters who jumped those college students as they walked to campus Friday night are delinquents who need to be put in check before it’s too late.
They were nothing but miscreants who took out their aggression and misdirected rage on random passersby. Why? Because they felt like wilding out that night. They were out to create chaos, so they did.
So, don’t talk to me about gentrification in North Philly.
Don’t talk to me about poverty.
Don’t talk to me about race relations.
Those are whole other conversations and not what these attacks were about.
No one was safe from these teens that night. Not the six Temple students who were injured. Not the Temple police officer knocked from her bicycle by a 15-year-old. Not even a police horse. Anyone could have gotten caught up in that madness.
According to news reports, a crowd of 150 youngsters started gathering after an Instagram advertised an 8 p.m. meet-up at the AMC North Broad Street 7 (formerly the Pearl Theater at Avenue North), on Broad Street near Oxford at the southern end of the campus.
{snip}
Most of the high schoolers who responded to the online posting were good kids looking to socialize. But then the delinquents did what they often do and ruined it for everybody.
According to police, a group of 20 to 30 boys and girls in their early to late teens randomly attacked Temple students as they returned from a football game at Lincoln Financial Field.
{snip}
People keep trying to make this a racial thing because at least two of the victims were white and all of the assailants were African American. They make that assumption even though we don’t know the race of the other injured students. (Lots of African Americans go to Temple.) Nor do we know the race of the injured officers.
Street violence is street violence. It knows no skin color. {snip}
{snip}
Another student, a junior environmental science major who didn’t give her name, told a website called theTab.com, “My boyfriend ran and got away but the second I tried to run, they grabbed me by my hair and started beating my head and back.
“I remember shoes coming for my face and after that I heard other kids from the group saying, ‘Yo chill, yo chill, it’s just a girl,’ and they pulled my attackers off me.”
{snip}
Temple has promised increased security, but when it comes to random street violence, anything can happen to anyone–black or white. | 1 |
TORONTO (Reuters) - The name Trump will be removed from a high-rise hotel and condo development in downtown Toronto after the project’s new owner, JCF Capital ULC, reached a deal with Trump Hotels to buy out its management contracts for an undisclosed amount. U.S. President Donald Trump never owned the project, but his company had signed a long-term branding and management deal with the building’s developer, Talon International Development Inc, which defaulted on its construction loan last year. JCF Capital ULC earlier this year bought units in the 65-story Trump International Hotel & Tower that were not owned by individuals in a court-run sale. In a statement announcing the buyout on Tuesday, JCF Capital did not say whether it had reached a deal yet with another group to take over the management and branding of the building in Toronto’s financial district. Sources told Reuters earlier in June that Marriott International Inc’s (MAR.O) St. Regis brand was the lead bidder to take over the brand and management rights, with one saying that the Trump Organization had agreed to sever its connections. “We are pleased to have reached this agreement with JCF and have enjoyed our relationship with them as the new owners of this property,” Eric Danziger, chief executive of Trump Hotels, said in the JCF statement. JCF is a vehicle created by Juniper Capital Partners LLC and Cowie Capital Partners Inc to buy the tower. Trump’s business interest will receive at least $6 million for walking away from its long-term contracts, and the Trump signage could be removed as early as Aug. 1, Bloomberg reported, citing a person it did not identify. The tower, which opened in 2012 after construction delays, has had a troubled history, including lawsuits from unhappy investors and has also been the scene of several protests against President Trump’s policies and statements. His business connections around the world have sparked lawsuits and criticism about potential conflicts of interest since he took office in January. Since its opening, Talon had sold less than half of the tower’s residential condos, and the hotel’s occupancy rates have been lower than some investors in the rooms had hoped. A court last year ordered the developer to pay damages to one investor for “negligent misrepresentation” and for another sale to be rescinded. | 1 |
DUBAI (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia welcomed the reconciliation of rival factions Hamas and Fatah and said it will help Palestinians to gain their legitimate rights, the state news agency SPA reported on Friday. Citing an official source in the kingdom s foreign ministry, SPA said Saudi Arabia hopes the reconciliation will realize the brotherly Palestinian people s hope of ending divisions and achieving unity . Hamas and Fatah signed a reconciliation agreement on Thursday after Hamas agreed to hand over administrative control of Gaza, including the key Rafah border crossing, a decade after seizing the enclave in a civil war. | 0 |
Our culture is what makes this Nation great and very exceptional. Unfortunately, we ve elected a president who s changing our nation at warp speed with refugees (their words) deposited into towns everywhere: Working and middle class whites are becoming a slave class that toils to provide benefits to the Third Worlders imported to empower the ruling class of elitist liberals. THE CULTURE WAR WE RE INAmericans believe that they are exceptional because their country is exceptional. So the left eagerly swarms to argue that America is not exceptional, except maybe that it s exceptionally bad.Americans believe that individuals succeed with hard work. Obama and Elizabeth Warren bray that You didn t build that. Americans believe in religion and family. The left sets out to destroy them by proving that these institutions are evil and oppressive. Religious leaders are pedophiles. The family is setting for abuse that makes gay people feel bad. When the dust settlers, the only good religion and family are the kind defined by the left. Having destroyed the existing system of organization, the left replaces it with its own. That is the ultimate goal of a culture war. Not mere destruction, but absolute power.The culture war begins by attacking abstract ideas. Then it attacks organizations. Then it attacks people.By attacking the ideas, it undermines the organizations based on them so that it can seize control of them or destroy them. Once that s done, it controls a sector of society and begins enforcing its conformity agenda on individuals. Much of that is underway. The war is drilling down to the individual level. We are approaching the tyranny threshold.At the individual level, the goal of the culture war is to destroy your will to resist them. The left has many tools for doing this.Please read the entire piece by Daniel Greenfield: This Culture War We re InOBAMA ESCALATES CULTURAL GENOCIDEIt isn t enough to invite illegal aliens to invade the USA in their numberless hordes and then quickly distribute them along with their exotic diseases throughout the country. Obama is now using your money to fly them directly from Central America, so as to save them the bother of traveling through Mexico:To facilitate the often treacherous process of entering the United States illegally through the southern border, the Obama administration is offering free transportation from three Central American countries and a special refugee/parole program with resettlement assistance and permanent residency. The new arrivals will be officially known as Central American Minors (CAM) and they will be eligible for a special refugee/parole that offers a free one-way flight to the U.S. from El Salvador, Guatemala or Honduras. The project is a joint venture between the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the State Department.Readers will recall that DHS was originally set up to defend the homeland. Under the Orwellian Obama Regime, it is in charge of orchestrating an invasion of the homeland.After Pearl Harbor, some feared a Japanese invasion. It would have been preferable to what is happening to us now. If the Imperial Japanese had successfully invaded, they would have ruled for a time, but eventually would have been kicked out. The current invaders aren t going anywhere, and they reproduce much faster than Americans.Plus the Japanese never expected us to pay them to invade us:The candidates will then be granted a special refugee parole, which includes many taxpayer-funded perks and benefits. Among them is a free education, food stamps, medical care and living expenses. A State Department official promoted CAM as a family reunification program that will be completely funded by American taxpayers, though the official claimed to have no idea what the cost will be.Who can put a price on the future?The fig leaf of refugees being allowed into the country ahead of immigrants likely to make a positive contribution because their lives are supposedly in danger has been dropped.The State Department official assured that applicants need not express or document a credible fear to qualify under CAM because we want to make sure this program is open to as many people as possible. Consider this as part of the bigger picture of what is being done to America, and it goes beyond treason. It is cultural genocide.Our rulers know exactly what they are doing. From the official federal propaganda outfit Voice of America:America s demographics are changing like never before. In less than 30 years, whites will no longer be the racial majority in the United States.On the large scale, race and culture are inseparable. Americans are effectively becoming a minority within our own country. Our own democracy will be used against us to relegate us to a permanent second class status (as South Africa demonstrates, whites being a minority hardly spares them from Affirmative Action).Working and middle class whites are becoming a slave class that toils to provide benefits to the Third Worlders imported to empower the ruling class of elitist liberals. Eventually intermarriage will breed the last of our kind out of existence, as VOA happily implies:In 1960, multiracial marriages accounted for only 0.4 percent of all marriages in the United States. By 2010, that figure rose to 8.4 percent, with interracial couples accounting for 15 percent of all new marriages a trend that experts say will only continue.The VOA piece was given the Orwellian title, Experts: Coming Demographic Shift Will Strengthen US Culture. What they mean by this is that the deliberately engineered demographic shift will erase US culture, so that it can be replaced by a multicultural utopia preconceived by cultural Marxists.It used to be genocide meant herding unwanted demographic sectors into gas chambers. But that was crude and inefficient. Simply diluting us out of existence can be done without mess and incredibly, without resistance.Via: moonbattery | 1 |
Talk show legend Montel Williams is a conservative, one who has expressed very critical opinions of Barack Obama in the past. But Williams says there s an area where he can t disagree with the President Obama s plan to use his executive powers to help alleviate a problem most of his fellow conservatives won t touch.On Tuesday, the President broke into tears as he discussed the problem of gun violence in America today specifically, the lives lost in the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary in 2012, which Obama calls the worst day in [his] presidency. Obama has pledged to close the gun show loophole, which has traditionally allowed pretty damn near everyone to circumvent the background check procedure and get themselves a shootin stick with minimal hassle. In addition, the President will be removing legal barriers preventing a doctor from reporting when someone is too crazy to have a gun, strengthening licensing requirements for sellers, and making dealers responsible for reporting guns that go missing.While many conservatives, including the veritable Brady Bunch of ignorance that is the GOP 2016 presidential field, view these common sense steps as an attack on the freedom of every single man, woman, and child, Williams applauds the President s approach to the problem of gun violence today. I PROUDLY own 14 guns RESPONSIBLY, Williams wrote on Facebook. Naturally, I listened closely to what President Obama said today on guns, and I ve read what was put out detailing his proposals. He explained that no truly responsible gun owner should oppose the President s plans to reform gun laws, nor should any of them develop the opinion that the President and his jack-booted thugs will be going door to door taking people s firearms from them. I m a proud, responsible gun owner and we ought to be the LOUDEST voices for universal background checks, for keeping guns away from criminals and the mentally ill, he says. That is how to be a proud steward of the # 2a right I and so many others hold dear. If I thought for a minute the goal was to take my guns, I d oppose it, Williams added in a comment. I m a law abiding American nothing to fear. I think the corollary to effective background checks is to make it EASIER and more streamlined for law abiding folks to get guns. In an op-ed for HuffPo, Williams says that as a proud, responsible, gun owner, he can t NOT support the President s proposal: I realize this may not make me popular with some gun owners, and I realize there is deep distrust of President Obama and his use of executive action. Simply put, I ve always believed in being a responsible ambassador for the Second Amendment, a right that I hold dear; and, thus, I believe responsible gun owners MUST be the loudest voices for universal background checks and addressing the mental health crisis we face in this country, which form the crux of the president s proposals. Williams says that he has formed his views largely through his work with students in the wake of school shootings over the years. Williams challenges anyone who disagrees that it is important to enact common sense gun legislation to spend time with children who have survived school shootings: They all have the same, haunted look in their eyes, one that frequently keeps me up at night. I would challenge anyone to listen to their stories, experience their pain and then go back the next year and the next, and see how profoundly they are affected and then do it all over again for the next school you ll feel the same way I do. Universal background checks should be a no-brainer. Guns should not change hands without a background check, he says. I cannot give my car to my children without filing a form with the DMV, and no one complains about that burden, nor do they suggest it s a veiled attempt to de-car America. Unfortunately, the NRA and its acolytes spread fear Obama wants your guns to all who will listen, and unfortunately too many listen. The NRA and its bought-and-paid-for politicians fight progress with regard to gun legislation every step of the way including, of course, background checks. Giving up even that much, in their eyes, would be giving up their guns.Williams suggests that we dispense with the meaningless rhetoric, cross the aisle, and work together to solve the problem of gun violence in this country the root of which, he says, is that it s dangerous allowing people to acquire guns without a background check. Williams says that both liberals and conservatives need to skip the divisiveness that plagues our country and focus on the fact that our children s lives are at stake. He asks his fellow gun owners not to buy into the extreme Right s propaganda that paints this as a gun-grabbing measure: This is common sense, and, ultimately, the best way to advance and protect the Second Amendment right we hold dear. Williams is right. No one is trying to take anyone s guns. In fact, President Obama is attempting to ensure that everyone who should be able to get a gun can get one. In the end, this would even accomplish some conservative goals: people would feel safer around armed individuals if they all passed a comprehensive background check and were mentally competent to handle the weapon, for instance. In that sense, the President s plan is a godsend for pro-Second Amendment people of all stripes. If conservatives want to end the stigma associated with gun ownership, the absolute best way is to support this opportunity to protect the integrity of the Second Amendment.Featured image via Facebook/screengrab | 0 |
TOKYO (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson stressed on Thursday the importance of the United States working with allies Japan and South Korea to counter perceived threats from North Korea. “Trilateral cooperation is critical as we address the issue of North Korea,” Tillerson told Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida in Tokyo at the start of his first trip to Asia as President Donald Trump’s top diplomat. He visits South Korea and China later in the week. In addition to reassurances on dealing with Pyongyang’s repeated missile and nuclear tests, the former oil executive is also expected to press China to help restrain North Korea, while America’s allies will be looking to see how the new U.S. administration deals with Beijing’s growing economic and military clout. | 0 |
MANCHESTER, England (Reuters) - British Prime Minister Theresa May struggled to deliver her keynote speech to the Conservative Party s annual conference on Wednesday, repeatedly coughing and losing her voice. With the party members applauding to keep May going, she had to stop on several occasions to drink water and take a cough sweet which she said came from Chancellor Philip Hammond. Shows what good the chancellor s cough sweet is, she said, as she continued to attempt to give her speech. Earlier in the speech she was heckled by a protester who held up a P45 paper in front of her, a document handed out to employees leaving a job. | 0 |
ORLANDO, Florida (Reuters) - Britain’s Prince Harry and U.S. first lady Michelle Obama mixed with headline acts from music and film to launch the second edition of the Invictus Games for wounded military personnel on Sunday. British singers James Blunt and Laura Wright performed at the two-hour ceremony before Oscar-winning actor Morgan Freeman led the crowd at the ESPN Wide World of Sports Champion Stadium in reciting the Invictus Games pledge. Former U.S. President George W Bush, the honorary chairman of this year’s Games, also spoke on stage to the near 500 athletes from 14 different countries who will compete over four days from Monday in 11 Paralympic sports. Harry, who started the Games two years ago in London, paid tribute to the courage of the athletes, who paraded through an interactive 3-D cube decorated in their country’s colors to warm applause. “When we give a standing ovation to the competitor with the missing limbs, let’s also cheer our hearts out for the man who overcame anxiety so severe he couldn’t leave his house,” the 31-year-old royal told the crowd. “Let’s cheer for the woman who fought through post-traumatic stress.” That spirit was echoed by Obama, who thanked U.S. veterans for their service. “I’m here and honor all of you: our extraordinary service members, our veterans, and of course our military families. You all are amazing. Truly amazing,” she said. | 0 |
Tune in to the Alternate Current Radio Network (ACR) for another LIVE broadcast of The Boiler Room starting at 6 PM PST | 9 PM EST every Wednesday. Join us for uncensored, uninterruptible talk radio, custom-made for barfly philosophers, misguided moralists, masochists, street corner evangelists, media-maniacs, savants, political animals and otherwise lovable rascals.Join ACR hosts Hesher, & Spore along with Andy Nowicki from Alt Right Blogspot, ACR/21Wire contributor Randy J and Daniel Spaulding from souloftheeast.org. In this first broadcast of 2016 we re going off the rails and off the cuffs, listeners will be hearing us go around the BOILER ROOM on a myriad of topics including the Protest happening in Oregon over the Hammond Ranch incident and the federal abuse of small ranchers and farmers, the usual off-ramp into pop-culture topics, Obama s newest anti-gun executive order and more. If you want to participate, bring something interesting to throw into the boiler Join us in the ALTERNATE CURRENT RADIO chat room.BOILER ROOM IS NOT A POLICTALLY CORRECT ZONE! Live ACR player below Show goes live at 6 PM PSTThis week s topics: | 0 |
Hillary Clinton has doubled down on her assertion that the FBI declared her public remarks on her email scandal “consistent and truthful,” despite independent fact-checkers concluding otherwise.
“And as the FBI said, everything that I’ve said publicly has been consistent and truthful with what I’ve told [the FBI],” Clinton said Wednesday in an interview with Brandon Rittiman of KUSA News.
Washington Post fact-checker Glenn Kessler swiftly chided the Democratic presidential candidate for repeating the "roundly debunked" claim.
Clinton first cited the FBI in her defense last Sunday when “Fox News Sunday” host Chris Wallace noted Director James Comey had contradicted her claim she never sent classified material from her home server.
“That's not what I heard Director Comey say … Director Comey said that my answers were truthful and what I've said is consistent with what I have told the American people, that there were decisions discussed and made to classify retroactively certain of the emails,” she said.
Several fact-checkers, however, called her out on that claim.
The Washington Post's Kessler awarded her “four Pinnochios,” and noted, “Comey has repeatedly not taken a stand on her public statements.”
PolitiFact gave her a “Pants on Fire” rating for a lack of truthfulness and FactCheck.org declared her claims “false.”
Comey did tell Congress: “We have no basis to conclude she lied to the FBI.” But he did not say the same about her public statements.
During testimony before a House committee, Comey said it was “not true” that nothing Clinton sent or received was marked classified. To the contrary, he said, “there was classified material emailed.
Donald Trump also doubled down Thursday on his claim he saw video of Iranians taking $400 million in cash off an airplane on the same day American hostages were released. His campaign earlier said he meant that he saw television coverage of the hostages, not the cash, leaving an airplane.
Afterward, Trump once again clarified, this time via Twitter. | 0 |
Share on Facebook Share on Twitter We are having a New Moon in Scorpio on October 30th in most places around the world, and during the early hours of October 31st in Australia and New Zealand. It will occur at 5:38pm Universal Time ( click here for your time zone). advertisement - learn more New Moons bring in a new wave of energy for the upcoming month. It is the beginning of the first half of the lunar cycle, which is when the Moon is waxing (gaining light), while the Full Moon is the transition into the second half, when the Moon is waning (losing light). Therefore, the energy of the New Moon serves as more of a guidepost for those first 10-14 days of the cycle. Scorpio: Powerful, Deep, Intense, and Passionate Scorpio is a primal and passionate sign about desires, fears, and intensity. As a ‘fixed sign’ ruled by Mars and Pluto, it holds a high concentration of power that can be used to control or to transform. It likes and seeks what is real and refrains from anything that is lacking substance. The deep merging of two individuals or parties, whether it be sexually, financially, or resourcefully, is Scorpio territory. This sign seeks loyalty, yet it must be earned after a period of being under scrutiny. It wants to know what is hidden beneath the surface to decide on how much trust is to be earned. Scorpio is about willing to look at and even embrace the deepest, darkest, and scariest aspects of others, oneself, and the world around us. It is the sign of death and rebirth, love and hate, as it is the sign of extremes. An example of all of this is how we have Halloween followed by ‘All Saints Day’, and then followed by ‘All Souls Day’ back to back during Scorpio season. The shadow side of Scorpio is that it can be manipulative and controlling in a very calculated way. While the scrutinizing of others is to gain trust, it can also be about getting some sort of advantage to have more control over a person or situation. Although Scorpio seeks hidden aspects of others, it can be very guarded about one’s own secrets. advertisement - learn more New Moon Conjunct Mercury and Trine Neptune Mercury is also in Scorpio moving away from a conjunction with the Sun that was exact 3 days before on October 27th. In the days leading up to this New Moon, many people could have experienced important communications, ideas, deep thoughts, or some sort of mental efforts towards joint resources/efforts, money, sexuality, and/or some sort of strategy. Whatever it is, think of it as something that has been ‘gathered’ or ‘set-up’ to be implemented or expanded on in this moon cycle and in the coming months. The New Moon (with Mercury separating) is also in a trine with Neptune, which could assist us with our imagination, creativity, intuition, dreams, visions, and spiritual connection. Due to the nodes also being involved, there may also be a connection with how our past can help our future. For some lovers, it can be a time of feeling like soulmates. This energy is strong until November 2nd. Venus Conjunct Saturn, Mars In Capricorn Square Uranus The day before the New Moon, Venus made a conjunction with Saturn, which initiated a new 14 month cycle between the two. Venus is about fun, love, relationships, beauty, and pleasure while Saturn is serious and more concerned with responsibilities, structure, discipline, and commitments. Therefore, many of us will experience some sort of merging of these themes both in either favourable or unfavourable ways. Occurring in Sagittarius, it can be related to our beliefs, visions, travel, education, publishing, or marketing. Mars, a ruler of Scorpio, has been in the ambitious sign of Capricorn since September 27th. This has been an excellent time to really make things happen in terms of reaching our goals, and it will last until November 8th/9th. During this New Moon, Mars is separating from a square with Uranus which was stronger in the 2 days prior. At worst, their could have been sudden change, separation, instability, and the need to take some sort of action as a result. For some people, it could have of been rebellion or wanting to break free from a controlling situation. In other cases it could of positively brought innovation towards our ambitions. These are just some examples of how it could be manifested, but whatever it is for each of us, it has created the landscape for some new beginnings. Mercury and Sun Sextile Pluto, Venus Trine Uranus During the first week of the Moon cycle, Mercury (followed by the Sun) will be in a harmonious aspect with Pluto in Capricorn. Pluto, being the modern ruler of Scorpio, indicates that this is an excellent time to expand on what was initiated during the previous week when Mercury was conjunct the Sun. Powerful thoughts, communication, or deep research to assist us in our careers, managing or earning resources/money, or implementing some sort of structure or strategy to help gain some of sort of success and fulfill a goal. Venus is trine Uranus and will be strongest on November 4th-5th. This can be a fun and exciting time, and luckily it will fall on the weekend. This is a great time to connect with people, attend social events, especially since Venus is in Sagittarius, it is a good time to explore and try new things that can bring you enjoyment. This can be a great time for lovers as well with potential breakthroughs. Things To Consider And Making Intentions For This New Moon Look at everything that has played out for you in the last week prior to this New Moon. The next 10 days following it is a significant time to make a great effort to expand on what has been initiated, and take steps to move beyond anything challenging that has occurred. Your intentions for this Lunar Month should be related to improving on and/or facilitating the positive qualities of Scorpio energy into your life. This includes (but not limited to) improving your ability to earn or manage money/resources, tapping into and harnessing your inner power and sexual energy better, facing your fears, trying to understand complex things, seeing beyond fakeness or deceit, and becoming more in touch with what is real. The best time to make your intentions for the Moon cycle is during the first 24 hours following the New Moon but it could even be done within the first 3 days. The closer to the New Moon, the better. The exact time will be at 5:38pm Universal Time, but you can click here to find out what it will be in your time zone. — Have you ever had a personal astrology reading? For a limited time, Carmen is offering a 33% discount on personalized readings/consultations based on your exact birth date, time, and location. Click here for more information.
The Sacred Science follows eight people from around the world, with varying physical and psychological illnesses, as they embark on a one-month healing journey into the heart of the Amazon jungle.
You can watch this documentary film FREE for 10 days by clicking here.
"If “Survivor” was actually real and had stakes worth caring about, it would be what happens here, and “The Sacred Science” hopefully is merely one in a long line of exciting endeavors from this group." - Billy Okeefe, McClatchy Tribune | 0 |
Friday at the House Democratic Retreat in Baltimore, House Democratic Caucus Chair Rep. Joe Crowley ( ) said millions of Americans and people around the world are “frightened” by the “Trump regime,” who have “appointed several former generals,” which is “ . ” Crowley said, “You know, these are millions and millions of Americans, people around the world who are really concerned, maybe that’s an understatement. They’re nervous. They’re frightened about what they see happening to the American government. And this Trump regime — I don’t call it an administration, I call it a regime. That’s how they act. They have appointed several former generals, that’s very to the rest of the world. They have billionaires who have been appointed to cabinet positions, some of whom have no experience whatsoever in the field in which they are now in charge. That’s very frightening to people. ” “Cronyism at the highest levels has many people in this country nervous and around the world as well,” he continued. “So I think there’s going to be plenty of opportunities in the future, unfortunately, for the American people to express themselves, and I think we as Democrats will be able to support that effort when we believe it’s warranted. ” ( Grabien) Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN | 0 |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democratic election victories in Virginia and New Jersey showed Republicans losing more ground in suburban areas, where President Donald Trump’s unpopularity could cost them dearly in next year’s congressional races. The results from Tuesday, particularly in Virginia, suggest that Trump’s strategy of playing to a loyal but limited base has not enabled him to broaden support for his presidency or his party. Democrats were delighted, believing that control of the U.S. House of Representatives, and perhaps even the Senate, now both controlled by Republicans, might be up for grabs in next year’s elections. Some Republicans shared that view after their party’s candidates did poorly among independent, college-educated, women, and minority voters in suburban areas. “Unless we get our act together, we are going to lose heavily,” Republican Senator John McCain said on Wednesday. Democrats would need to pick up 24 seats next year to retake control of the House. Should that happen, Trump’s policy agenda would be effectively dead and the administration would come under greater scrutiny. The win by Democrat Phil Murphy in New Jersey’s governor’s race came as no surprise because of the unpopularity of outgoing Republican Governor Chris Christie. But Ralph Northam’s 9-point victory over Republican Ed Gillespie for governor in swing-state Virginia was larger than expected. Trump quickly tried to distance himself from Gillespie’s poor showing, saying on Twitter that the Republican candidate “worked hard but did not embrace me or what I stand for.” Still, Trump’s leadership record appeared to motivate Democrats to vote in record numbers in Virginia, with exit polls showing that many came out simply to express their displeasure with the president. “Trump is turning off more voters than he’s bringing in,” said Rodell Mollineau, a Democratic strategist in Washington. “His base is strong, but it isn’t growing.” During his first year in office, Trump has consistently played to a base of passionate supporters, many of them older white men who live in rural areas declining in population, and has shown little inclination to reach out to the majority of voters who disapprove of him. Whit Ayres, a Republican pollster based in Virginia, said the party was on a risky track. “Republicans have traded fast-growing upscale suburban counties for slow-growing or declining rural areas. That is not a formula for long-term success.” There also may be signs of slippage in Trump’s political base. In Virginia, Gillespie campaigned hard on immigration and crime - two hot issues with the president’s supporters - but did worse than expected in some rural and suburban areas that Trump easily won last year. In rural Dickenson County, considered to be the heart of Trump country in Virginia, Gillespie’s margin over Northam was almost 7 percentage points less than Trump’s margin of victory over Democrat Hillary Clinton last year. Trump won the city of Virginia Beach in 2016 by 3 points, but Gillespie lost to Northam there by 5, a swing of eight points. More critically, Gillespie was blown out by Northam in northern Virginia’s populous suburbs, where Trump also struggled in the presidential race. “The suburbs came out in full force,” said Matt Mackowiak, a Republican strategist. “They appear to be very motivated to try and deliver a message to Trump.” In growing Loudoun County, outside of Washington, Democrat Barack Obama barely edged out Republican Mitt Romney in the 2012 presidential race. On Tuesday, Northam buried Gillespie there by almost 20 points. “I’m worried,” Ari Fleischer, a former White House spokesman for Republican President George W. Bush, told Fox News on Wednesday. “Democrats came out in huge numbers yesterday in the races and if they have that kind of enthusiasm going into 2018, it’s going to be very tough sailing for Republicans.” Gillespie, a longtime Washington insider and lobbyist, tried to keep his distance from Trump personally even as he adopted some of his more combative campaign rhetoric. It was a strategy that failed and Mackowiak said the result reflected Trump’s historically low approval rating. “I don’t think the White House was worried about that before, but now I think they have to be.” The five-day Reuters/Ipsos tracking poll has Trump hovering around 35 percent approval nationally, with close to 60 percent of respondents disapproving of his performance in office. A person familiar with Trump’s political operation dismissed the election results on Tuesday as having anything to do with the president, noting that both New Jersey and Virginia were won by Clinton in 2016. Andrew Surabian, an adviser to the pro-Trump political group Great America Alliance, said Gillespie lost because he was exactly the kind of establishment Republican that Trump voters have rejected. “Ed Gillespie’s campaign went down in flames because he failed to fully embrace the president or his agenda,” Surabian said, “and without a coherent message and an authentic messenger, Republican candidates will not be successful moving forward.” | 0 |
A small percentage of these weapons of mass destruction is sufficient to destroy the world for centuries, as depicted in the film, Planet Of The Apes.
Russia Insider : Paul Craig Roberts: ‘ Putin’s Nukes Could Wipe Out Entire East Coast ‘ (PODCAST) If the US thinks it can continually transgress against Russia until Moscow gives in, it is gravely mistaken
Suffice to say, though children are at play, this is not a game.
Those who have been toying with outright war against Russia, and an escalation of the conflict in Syria, are putting the lives of all Americans at risk.
Of course, the threat of nuclear annihilation has been with us since the earliest days of the Cold War, but Russia has now positioned itself with the largest and most destructive nuclear arsenal of any country in the world.
Economist and political critic Dr. Paul Craig Roberts explains how diplomatic relations have broken between Russia and the United States, after the U.S. knowingly attacked pro-Assad Syria forces… that, of course, was the cherry on top of a host of insults, deliberate antagonism and a strategy that could only result in further chaos and war .
The end of negotiations is unfortunately, given that fighting it out could mean thermonuclear war that would make Hiroshima and Nagasaki look trivial in comparison.
After a period of some patience, Russia is now warning that the United States is dangerously close to turning a proxy war into a direct world war – and they are deadly serious about defending the motherland and their sworn allies – namely Assad.
Any further attack could result in immediate destruction.
Putin is a formidable opponent and Russia a powerful enemy. At present time, they have the capability of wiping the entire East Coast of the United States off the map – where more than 100 million people live. Will the ranking misleaders in Washington continue to gamble with all of our lives?
via the Express : VLADIMIR Putin’s nuclear stockpile could completely destroy the east coast of the US in one clean swipe should the Russian leader launch an attack on the West, an expert has warned. A staggering 112.6million people could be at risk of extermination from the deadly missiles. Russia has the largest haul of nuclear weapons of any country in the world and reportedly has the most powerful bomb named the SS-18 – menacingly nicknamed the Satan. Experts estimate Russia has 55 of the deadly weapons, but only five would be needed to destroy the East Coast of the US. […] “Five or six of these ‘Satans’ as they are known by the US military, and the East Coast of the United States disappears.” Dr Roberts said: “The atomic bombs that Washington dropped on these helpless civilian centres while the Japanese government was trying to surrender, were mere popguns compared to today’s thermo-nuclear weapons.
What’s more, the Russian have hinted strongly at the possibility that they would be able to disable electronics, communications and defense shields in the U.S. via electromagnetic warfare – perhaps an EMP .
Worst of all, the American misleaders haven’t even got a good reason for putting the population at such a risk – strategy in the middle east is muddied at best, and prodding for war with Russia doesn’t carry a clear narrative either.
The world could change, and American power could end in a few decisive minutes. Hopefully it would never come to that, but we shouldn’t live in a false world where we pretend these situations can’t harm us. | 1 |
HARARE (Reuters) - Ousted Zimbabwean vice president Emmerson Mnangagwa added his voice on Tuesday to those demanding 93-year-old President Mugabe resign, saying he needed to heed the clarion call of his people and step down. Mnangagwa, who said he fled Zimbabwe because of a threat to his life after being purged from the ruling party, said he had been in contact with Mugabe and invited to return but would not do so until his personal security could be guaranteed. I told the President that I would not return home now until I am satisfied of my personal security, because of the manner and treatment given to me upon being fired, he said in a statement. | 0 |
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Would-be presidential assassin John Hinckley Jr. was released from a psychiatric hospital on Saturday, media reports said, 35 years after he shot U.S. President Ronald Reagan in an attack prompted by a deranged obsession with the actress Jodie Foster. Hinckley, 61, is moving in with his elderly mother in a gated community in Williamsburg, Virginia, where he has been making increasingly long furlough visits in recent years under the watchful eyes of the U.S. Secret Service. A federal judge in July ordered Hinckley’s release from St. Elizabeth’s Hospital in Washington, finding that he no longer posed a danger to himself or to others. Hinckley was found not guilty by reason of insanity at a 1982 trial and was diagnosed with depression and psychosis, both of which are now in remission, according to his doctors. Local media, including The Washington Post, reported that Hinckley was officially released from St. Elizabeth’s on Saturday, when he had been scheduled to be freed. A hospital employee who answered the phone on Saturday said she could not comment on patients to the media. Residents of the town have seemed largely unfazed by the prospect of Hinckley’s release, though some have expressed wariness. As a 25-year-old college dropout, Hinckley had grown fixated upon Foster and the Martin Scorsese film “Taxi Driver,” in which she played a teenage prostitute. Inspired by the film’s main character, who plots to kill a presidential candidate, Hinckley opened fire on Reagan outside a Washington, D.C., hotel on March 30, 1981, in a misguided effort to win Foster’s affections. Reagan suffered a punctured lung but recovered quickly. His press secretary, James Brady, was left permanently disabled and eventually died of his injuries in 2014. The shooting left its mark in a number of ways. The Brady shooting helped launch the modern gun control movement, and a 1993 bill named after him imposed background checks and a waiting period. Hinckley’s verdict, meanwhile, led several states to rewrite their laws to make insanity defenses more difficult, and the Secret Service toughened its security procedures following the assassination attempt. Hinckley’s release has dozens of conditions attached, including a requirement that he work or volunteer at least three days a week, limit his travel, allow law enforcement to track his movements and continue meeting with a psychiatrist. The Reagan family issued a statement in July strongly opposing Hinckley’s release. Foster has declined to comment on Hinckley since 1981. | 0 |
Get short URL 0 43 0 0 The White House spokesperson explained why Washington abstained from a UN resolution ending the US blockade of the Carribean nation.
WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — The United States abstained from a UN resolution against the US blockade of Cuba as a demonstration that the decades-old policy of isolation of the Caribbean island nation did not work, White House spokesperson Josh Earnest told reporters on Wednesday. "The [United Nations] resolution is an excellent example of why US policy of isolation toward Cuba didn’t work. It was in place for five decades and, as measured by actions within the United Nations, served to isolate the United States, not Cuba," Earnest told reporters. ... | 0 |
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The more you look into Evan Bayh’s post-Senate “career,” the dirtier it becomes (he’s running for Senate again this year).
Earlier this week, I published a lengthy article examining Bayh’s shameless cash grab since he left Congress in the article, Democratic Senate Candidate Evan Bayh Represents Everything Broken, Corrupt and Wrong With America . I wrote: Many of you will know the name Evan Bayh. He’s the son of three-term Indiana Senator Birch Bayh, and went on to become Governor of Indiana from 1983-1997, and then Senator himself from 1999-2011. Upon leaving “public service,” he did what most of these government prostitutes do — made millions and millions of dollars doing pretty much nothing. As a recent article from Politico reveals, the Bayh family had assets worth $2.1-$7.7 million when he left the Senate in 2010, but it has since surged to a range of $13.8 million-$48 million. Making that kind of money isn’t easy for anyone, and it’s particularly suspicious in the hands of a man supposedly dedicated to public service. So how did the couple make all this money? Evan, for one, joined law and lobbying firm McGuireWoods and became an advisor to private equity giant Apollo Global as upon leaving the Senate. Meanwhile, I can’t figure out for the life of me what his wife Susan does. She seems to be a “professional board member” for a variety of large companies. Just one day after I published the above, The Huffington Post came out with a piece that adds additional pieces to the very slimy post-Senate history of Evan Bayh. Here’s some of what we learn:
Evan Bayh, the former Democratic senator from Indiana and current Senate candidate, has at least $1 million in holdings with a Bermuda-based insurance company, Athene, that has a business model that a class action lawsuit is challenging as a bait-and-switch scam.
Athene’s business plan, the suit claims, is to buy up the annuities of retirees that had previously been invested in bonds and blue chip stocks, and instead pump their money into the risky bets of a private equity firm. That firm turns out to be Apollo Global Management ― where Bayh is a highly paid senior adviser ― which actually owns Athene, so if the gamble pays off, Athene’s parent company gets rich. If it flops, the retirees take the hit.
Private equity’s push into the once-boring annuity industry was the subject of a 2013 Bloomberg story, which found Apollo leading the way. “It’s a heads-I-win, tails-you-lose game,” said Lawrence Rybka, CEO of wealth-advisory firm ValMark Securities.
Bayh has been working for Apollo as a senior adviser for public policy since early 2011, shortly after he retired from the Senate. On the personal financial disclosure he filed with the Federal Election Commission earlier this month in order to run for Senate in 2016, he states that he has received between $5.7 million and $20.9 million worth of assets in the firm. He lists his holdings in Athene as valued at between $1 million and $5 million.
In 2010, when Bayh was still a senator, he went to battle on behalf of Apollo and other money managers who were working desperately to thwart attempts to close or narrow what’s known as the “carried interest loophole,” which allows private equity and hedge fund managers to pay bargain-basement tax rates.
With Bayh’s help, the effort to close the loophole was derailed. An analysis of Apollo’s security filings suggests that the maintenance of the loophole has saved executives tens of millions of dollars on their tax bills since then.
Bayh’s rapacious grab for cash since his retirement has been extraordinary even by Clintonian standards, but it is made all the more poignant by the poetic bromides he offered on his way out.
“I want to be engaged in an honorable line of work,” Bayh told Ezra Klein in October 2010. He said he wanted to find work where he could come home and tell his wife, “Dear, do you know what we got done today? I’ve got this really bright kid in my class, and do you know what he asked me, and here’s what I told him, and I think I saw a little epiphany moment go off in his mind.”
We have since learned ― thanks to the Associated Press, which obtained his Senate schedule ― that by the time he was having this heady conversation, he had already been meeting with executives at Apollo, as well as the brass at the oil company Marathon and the law firm and lobby shop McGuire Woods. He went on to take jobs with all three, joining Apollo, sitting on Marathon’s board of directors, and working as a strategic adviser at McGuire Woods.
Earlier this month, Bayh warned his supporters in a fundraising appeal that the Koch brothers, Charles and David, were hell-bent on making sure Young won the Indiana race.
While the claim is true, Bayh makes an awkward messenger: The Koch brothers are clients of McGuireWoods, where Bayh is still a partner.
“Evan Bayh was paid by Koch Industries at his lobbying firm as recently as 2016 ― and he will work for them after Election Day whether he wins or loses,” said a source who lobbies for Koch Industries, asking for anonymity in order to speak openly about somebody else on their payroll. “He calls Koch names, but he’s grateful for the retainer they paid him, and Koch knows it.”
Bayh, announcing his retirement, delivered a sermon in The New York Times that was filled with regret for the decay of the Senate, complete with hopeful recommendations for reform. But what Bayh actually did while in office has only further degraded the chamber. He used his final year to cast industry-friendly votes while interviewing for jobs with those same industries. Then he left office and became, in a very short amount of time, a wildly rich man worth somewhere between $13.9 million and $48 million. Citizens United has nothing to say about that.
A few months after helping kill the bill, Bayh was literally sleeping at the Manhattan home of an Apollo executive, according to a Senate schedule the AP obtained. It was one of several meetings with the firm he’d joined shortly after leaving the Senate. (His spokesman told the AP he was staying with a friend.)
If Bayh were truly looking for an “honorable line of work,” working for a company that bought up the retirement accounts of the elderly, shifted them to risky investments and hit them with big fees is a strange way to go about it.
Here’s my related post from earlier this week in case you missed it: Democratic Senate Candidate Evan Bayh Represents Everything Broken, Corrupt and Wrong With America .
In Liberty, | 1 |
Fox News has declared war on the Merriam-Webster Dictionary for defining a hot dog as a sandwich.America s most embarrassing news network literally incited anger over the classification when Fox & Friends reported on it on Saturday.To celebrate Memorial Day, the Merriam-Webster Dictionary posted a tweet reminding everyone that a hot dog is a sandwich because the definition of a sandwich is two or more slices of bread or a split roll having a filling in between. While many people have differing opinions on the topic, the dictionary definition certainly makes it sound like a hot dog is, indeed, a sandwich. Look at Subway for instance.When Subway slices their bread open, they normally do not cut it open all the way through. If one were to turn the bread on its side it would look just like a hot dog bun, except stuffed with meat, cheese, and veggies.So it makes sense that a hot dog can be classified as a type of sandwich.But Fox News viewers lashed out and host Anna Kooiman read out an angry viewer s comment calling the definition an act of terrorism. Tucker Carlson then chimed in by calling it un-American. It sounds like overstatement but when you attack a hot dog you attack America, Carlson said.The pair then threw the segment to Clayton Morris, who was out and about in Times Square desperately looking for hot dog vendors to weigh in on the controversy. When Morris finally found one, the vendor wanted nothing to do with him or Fox News and actually ended up closing down his hot dog stand rather than talk to him. When Morris attempted to serve himself, which most people would call stealing, the vendor returned and apparently brought police with him.Here s the video via YouTube:Is there anything Fox News won t try to stoke anger over? Because trying to make Americans freak out over the dictionary definition of a hot dog is pretty damn petty and ridiculous. Fox clearly will do anything to keep their viewers angry.Featured Image: Pixabay | 1 |
The Left is all about gun control unless of course, they re talking about shooting someone who disagrees with phony man-made climate change Thought: in wartime, people deliberately spreading lies and misinformation get shot. Why not do the same with climate change deniers? Daniel Rendall (@danielrendall) October 30, 2015h/t Weasel ZippersJust in case they remove this Tweet, we ve taken a screen shot here: | 0 |
How very progressive After all, what would Super Bowl Sunday be without a little cop and White-shaming (Obama-Sharpton style), during the halftime show? WATCH:A day ahead of her anticipated return to the Super Bowl halftime show stage, Beyonce has released new single Formation along with an accompanying music video.Set in New Orleans, the clip features shots of Bey lying on top of a sinking New Orleans police cruiser as well as a graffiti d wall that says, Stop shooting us. There s also a scene of a black child in a hoodie dancing in front of a line of police officers in riot gear. At one point a man holds up a newspaper called The Truth with an image of Martin Luther King Jr. on the front page captioned, More than a dreamer. Blue Ivy Carter, Beyonce s daughter, also appears in the video.Beyonce will join Coldplay and Bruno Mars in the Super Bowl 50 halftime show on Sunday afternoon on CBS, during which Formation will make its live debut, according to Entertainment Tonight.Via: Variety | 0 |
Elton John famously collects eccentric eyewear. He is less widely known as a collector of photography — and yet the owns close to 8, 000 pieces dating from 1910 to the present. Highlights from that collection are now being shown here at Tate Modern. For the next six months (through May 7) “The Radical Eye” presents 191 works from the 1920s to the 1950s by a hit parade of photographers including André Kertesz, Edward Steichen, Man Ray, Irving Penn and Dorothea Lange. (Parts of the collection have been shown at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta in and at the Pinchuk Art Centre in Ukraine in 2007.) Mr. John and David Furnish, his husband and the collection’s are in talks with Tate over which works they will make available to the national collections as a “gift or promised gift,” said Simon Baker, senior curator of photography at Tate Modern. “This is undoubtedly one of the world’s most important collections of photography,” said Phillip Prodger, head of photographs at the National Portrait Gallery, who is not involved in the exhibition. “It contains many of the very finest examples of the most famous photographs in the world, particularly in that modern period between the wars. ” Mr. John began collecting photographs in 1990, shortly after coming out of rehab for alcohol addiction, he said in an interview published in the show’s catalog. While staying with friends in southern France, he attended a photography festival met a gallerist from Los Angeles who had brought photographs with him. “I’d never really noticed photography as an art form before,” he said in the interview. “I looked at them and thought, oh my God, these are so beautiful. I bought about 12 on the spot. ” The timing “couldn’t have been better,” Mr. John said. “Photographs were very undervalued then. ” He began by buying early photographs, including some that had caught his eye as a child, and hunted for vintage prints. In 1993, he paid $193, 895 for a print of Man Ray’s “Glass Tears” (1932) the most expensive photograph sold at auction at the time. “When he found his sobriety, he saw life with new eyes,” said Newell Harbin, the director of Mr. John’s collection since 2012. “He realized, going back to when he was a child and looking at posters of these famous photographs, that this was his moment, and that he could really start from there. ” “The Radical Eye” is like a crash course in photography: it includes nearly every major photographer from the period, and presents their works thematically rather than chronologically. Most of the pictures are in gilded, or painted wooden frames made for Mr. John in Atlanta, where he has a home. A room of portraits at the start features photographs by Man Ray of Pablo Picasso, Constantin Brancusi, and the Surrealist poet André Breton, among others there are a total of 25 Man Ray works in the show. The same gallery contains a wall of Irving Penn “corner portraits” — in which famous figures like Spencer Tracy, Joe Louis, Duke Ellington and Salvador Dalí were photographed squeezed into the corner of a room. Elsewhere in the show are significant works like Paul Strand’s “Wall Street, New York” (1915) and Dorothea Lange’s “Migrant Mother” (1936). But the exhibition also contains many gems, such as an image of a winding staircase taken around 1928 by Werner Mantz, or the Surrealist stills of Josef Breitenbach. “The really amazing thing about this collection is the provenance of some of the key works,” said Shoair Mavlian, the Tate assistant curator who organized the show together with Mr. Baker and Ms. Harbin. Ms. Mavlian said that the tiny image of Kertesz’s “Underwater Swimmer” was the very first contact print made by the artist in 1917, and the 1932 Herbert Bayer photomontage “Humanly Impossible ( )” was the first print that Bayer painted and which “every subsequent reproduction was made from. ” Ms. Harbin, who was previously manager of the photography collection at the Art Institute of Chicago, said Mr. John collected from all periods, including contemporary, and had recently acquired works by Christopher Williams and Sally Mann. “It has to speak to him,” she said. “He doesn’t just get that photographer because it has to tick a box. ” Mr. Prodger of the National Portrait Gallery’s said Mr. John was “very uncompromising in his collecting, and always sought out those examples that thrill when you see them. ” “It’s incredible not just that he has a print of such and such,” he added, “but he has the print. ” | 0 |
MELANIA TRUMP never hesitates to call someone on the carpet for lying about her Alec Baldwin knows now that he can t mess with the First Lady!A spokesperson for the first lady fired back at the actor after he claimed that she loves my impersonation of President Donald Trump. That is not true, which is why Mr. Baldwin has no actual names to go with his bizarre assertion, the spokeswoman told The Hill on Monday.The Saturday Night Live star had made the remarks on WYNC s The Brian Lehrer Show Monday.The 59 year-old actor claimed the first lady told this person, very high up in the White House brass there, that, That s exactly what he s like. Baldwin has been doing his impersonation of Trump for well over a year now on NBC s late-night sketch comedy show and won an Emmy Award in September for his portrayal of Trump.The president is not a fan, however, tweeting last year that the impression just can t get any worse and calling the show unwatchable. in a tweet from December of last year:Just tried watching Saturday Night Live unwatchable! Totally biased, not funny and the Baldwin impersonation just can't get any worse. Sad Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 4, 2016THE BIG LIE FROM BALDWIN: Apparently, Trump is horrified and beside himself that his wife actually thinks it s funny, Baldwin claimed Monday.The 30 Rock star was promoting his new book, You Can t Spell America Without Me: The Really Tremendous Inside Story of my Fantastic First Year as President Donald J. Trump. (A So-Called Parody). READ MORE: BPR | 1 |
ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Turkish police arrested a suspect on Saturday in the killing of a Syrian opposition activist and her journalist daughter in Istanbul, a police source said. Ahmet Barakat, a distant relative of the two women, was arrested in the city of Bursa, 90 km (55 miles) south of Istanbul, the source said, adding the motive for the killings was not known. The bodies of 60-year-old Orouba Barakat and her 22-year-old daughter Halla were found just over a week ago in their apartment in Istanbul s Uskudar neighborhood in the Asian side of Istanbul. Turkish media said Orouba Barakat was investigating reports of torture in prisons run by the Syrian government. It said she had initially lived in Britain, then the United Arab Emirates before coming to Istanbul. Hurriyet newspaper said Ahmet Barakat was arrested after a three-day operation. He was identified by CCTV footage and police were searching his house, the paper said. | 0 |
November 15, 2016
The CIA and FBI have confirmed they are working on it. ‘Ideally we would like a mad person or terrorist so it cannot be traced to us.’ said a spokesperson, who did not wish to be named. ‘Our preference is a ‘perpetrator’ from a foreign prosperous city so we can bomb the city to smithereens and also make loads of money from rebuilding it – as we usually do.’
‘At this moment in time we are busy compiling lists of easily-hypnotized gullible fools. As you can imagine, it’s not easy, as Mr Trump has found most of them already’. Farmer Giles | 1 |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The No. 2 U.S. diplomat on Tuesday sought to allay concerns among the State Department’s rank-and-file employees over possible layoffs and perceptions of a lack of firm direction under the administration of President Donald Trump. U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, formerly chief executive of Exxon Mobil and new to government, has initiated a top-to-bottom re-organization of the agency, saying it will improve diplomats’ experience and help the department better meet 21st-century challenges. “Re-design is not a synonym for layoffs,” Deputy Secretary of State John Sullivan was quoted as saying by two officials who listened to his remarks to around 450 employees at a town hall-style event that was closed to journalists. Diplomats have fretted over a hiring freeze that has hampered their ability to switch jobs, the slow pace of appointments to senior positions, and a proposed 28 percent cut in State Department funding. Sullivan acknowledged in remarks to a small group of reporters after the event that the pace of senior job hires had been frustrating. Tillerson is not directing any specific outcome from the re-design, which is being led by senior career officials, other than a better-running and more efficient department, Sullivan said. According to the Partnership for Public Service, which tracks political appointments, the Trump administration has not yet put forward a nominee for 86 of 131 Senate-confirmed positions at the department, including posts leading diplomacy on the Middle East and East Asia, where there are several potential crises. “No one here would say that we’re pleased by the fact that we don’t have more of our undersecretary and assistant secretary slots filled, but we’re working hard to do that,” Sullivan told reporters. Sullivan said media portrayals of a listless bureaucracy and “a hollowed-out State Department that is not effective” were wrong. He said work was being done on major issues such as the North Korea nuclear and missile programs, a rift between Gulf nations and Qatar and Ukraine. State Department officials said the tone of the town hall event was professional, with pointed exchanges of views at times. One said that Sullivan’s public appreciation for career diplomats “has been desperately needed.” Sullivan’s uncle was William H. Sullivan, the last U.S. ambassador to Iran, who left in 1979 when Iran’s monarchy was overthrown and replaced with an Islamic theocracy. In response to a question from an employee about State Department efforts for gay and lesbian couples posted abroad, Sullivan told employees he would do everything he can to make sure everyone is treated fairly, a remark that drew strong applause, one of the officials said. | 1 |
Germán Gorráiz López
An end to the United States’ trade embargo on Cuba, demanded for the 23rd consecutive year by the General Assembly of the United Nations and passed by the overwhelming majority of 191 votes in favor and two abstentions (the United States and Israel), would end an outdated embargo established by Kennedy in 1962, and reinstate free trade and open waters. But the embargo will continue in force because the vote is non-binding. This could mean direct or indirect losses of $110 billion according to the United Nations Development Program, and more than $1 trillion according to the Cuban government.
Prensa Latina estimated that between May 2012 and April 2013, the Cuban public health system incurred unnecessary expenses of $39 million because it had to acquire vital medicines and equipment from faraway markets. The embargo has lasted for 52 years and runs the risk of becoming interminable with all the side effects that might bring. Even President Obama has identified its resolution as being of utmost importance. US-Cuba Détente
The decision to free all 75 opponents and independent journalists arrested in 2003 in the “Black Spring” that was announced at the beginning of July 2010 marked the start of a warming in the previously hostile relationship between the United States and Cuba. In return, in 2010, Obama reinstated Clinton’s policies toward Cuba, which had been repealed by George W. Bush in 2003, that reduced restrictions on travel and money sent between the two countries. But Obama has held strong on the necessity of Alan Gross being released for new concessions to be made, including the release of the “Cuban Five.”
The story of the “Cuban Five” starts with Rene Gonzalez, who spent 13 years in prison in the United States for supposedly infiltrating an organization of Cuban exiles in Florida. He was accused of being part of the “Wasp Network,” which involved more than 40 Cuban intelligence agents and informants in southern Florida. Gonzalez was detained in 1998 and convicted of espionage in 2001 in Miami along with Gerardo Hernández, Ramón Labañino, Antonio Guerrero, and Fernando González.
Alan Gross, on the other hand, was a contract worker for an USAID “pro-democracy program” and was detained in Cuba in 2009 for “the illegal distribution of Internet equipment” and convicted in Cuba in the same year for “giving sophisticated communication equipment to Jewish Cubans.” Four years after the arrest of Alan Gross, a Jewish-American and presumed spy, who was sentenced in 2011 to 15 years in prison for committing “actions against the territorial integrity of the state,” we witnessed the beginning of a new, intricate diplomatic undertaking that could result in the trade of Gross for the “Cuban Five” as a gesture of good will. This would be a necessary step towards ending the outdated U.S. embargo on Cuba and a new era in relations between the U.S. and Cuba.
The diplomatic maneuvers began when Gross sent a personal letter to President Obama on the fourth anniversary of his arrest in Cuba, in which he expressed his disappointment, saying, “I fear that my government — the very government I was serving when I began this nightmare — has abandoned me. … I ask that you also take action to secure my release, for my sake and for the sake of my family,” followed by another letter along the same lines sent to the White House by Gross’ family.
These letters were followed a month later by another letter written by a bipartisan group of 66 senators, led by Democrat Patrick Leahy, urging Obama to “act expeditiously to take whatever steps are in the national interest to obtain his release.”
Ever since 2009, Obama’s administration has both publicly and privately asked for Gross’ release, and the situation has turned into the primary obstacle to relaxing the restrictions that the president initiated at the beginning of his presidency. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry confirmed: “In the case of Mr. Gross, we’ve had any number of initiatives and outreaches over the last several years … and we are currently engaged in some discussions regarding that, which I’m not at liberty to go into in any kind of detail.”
In addition to these official measures, there is word of secret conversations between Arturo López-Levy, a Jewish-Cuban professor at the University of Denver, and the Cuban authorities to negotiate a trade of the “Cuban Five” for Gross, which would eliminate a significant obstacle in the long road to establish normality between the U.S. and Cuba. Arturo López-Levy created and taught a summer postgraduate class at the Carter Center in Atlanta, Georgia and has direct access to Raul Castro because his cousin, the son of a general of the Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces, is married to one of Castro’s daughters. An End to the Embargo or a New Missile Crisis?
The measures taken by the Obama administration have followed the lead of the Clinton administration by relaxing communication restrictions, allowing more remittance money to be sent to the island, and initiating a round of conversations about immigration. But they have left the embargo intact and have not substantially changed policies in Washington. At the least, the measures reflect a consensus of a good percentage of U.S. citizens in favor of a change in policy toward the island, encouraged by the Cuban regime’s lessening of state control over the economy and permitting some free trade and small enterprise. Nevertheless, the automatic renewal of the trade embargo for another year by the United States and the implementation of regressive measures pushed by anti-Castro lobbyists in Miami (U.S. banks not permitting the Office of Interest of Cuba to use their services and the obstruction of open access to news from Prensa Latina) threaten current international financial and political systems.
This could mean losses of $50 billion for Cuba and the economic asphyxiation of Castro’s regime, even as the Obama administration starts moving slowly towards establishing the foundation for a new doctrine of “relations between equals” between the U.S. and Cuba. If the discreet conversations between López-Levy and Raul Castro fail, a new disregard for Obama could emerge in Cuba, creating a perfect opportunity for Putin to arrange a new Cuban-Russian military treaty (recalling the secret pact signed in 1960 in Moscow between Raul Castro and Khrushchev). A new radar base could be installed at the abandoned Lourdes military base, perfect for listening comfortably to secret whispers in Washington, and bases could be equipped with Iskander missiles and military planes with nuclear weapons (for example, those fearsome TU-160s known in the West as “Blackjacks”). We could see the revival of the Kennedy-Khrushchev missile crisis and the subsequent signing of the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. Related links | 1 |
Trump to tech leaders: You re doing well right now and I m very honored by the bounce so right now everybody in this room has to like me pic.twitter.com/LNhvHg31Wq Bradd Jaffy (@BraddJaffy) December 14, 2016 | 1 |
TOKYO (Reuters) - Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and U.S. President Donald Trump agreed to work together to raise pressure on North Korea, Yasutoshi Nishimura, a deputy chief cabinet secretary, said on Monday. Abe and Trump spoke by telephone after the Japanese premier s ruling coalition scored a big win in an election on Sunday. Nishimura told reporters that Abe and Trump were planning to play golf together on Nov. 5, when Trump makes his first visit to Japan. | 0 |
LA PAZ (Reuters) - Bolivian President Evo Morales said on Thursday that opposition from the United States convinced him to run for a fourth term in 2019, spurring a second day of protests after the constitutional court eliminated term limits. Morales government earlier brushed off criticism from Washington, which said it was deeply concerned over Tuesday s court decision. Morales himself then took it a step further, saying the U.S. reaction actually convinced him to run. I was not so determined; now I am determined, he said at a public event in the central Bolivian region of Cochabamba. I will be a candidate, sisters and brothers, in 2019. The court ruling is final and cannot be appealed. Groups opposed to the ruling protested in several cities again on Thursday, as opponents clashed with police outside an elections office in the city of Santa Cruz. Bolivia has a constitution and we should respect it, said Olga Flores, who identified as a human rights activist and was among several hundred protesters braving the rain in La Paz. Others chanted Bolivia said no! Morales, a former coca farmer in power since 2006, had previously accepted the results of a referendum in 2016, when 51 percent of voters rejected his proposal to end term limits. He later reversed course, saying that while he was willing to leave office, his supporters were pushing for him to stay. The U.S. State Department disputed that position. Twice in the last decade, the Bolivian people have expressed their opposition to the concept of indefinite reelection for elected officials, the department s statement said. It referred to a vote in favor of the current constitution in 2009 and the 2016 referendum. Morales administration dismissed the criticism. It looks like they are trying to tell us who our candidates should be, the minister of the presidency, Rene Martinez, said. He said right-wing political forces in Bolivia had joined with the United States and the Organization of American States to stop Morales from running again. Historically unstable Bolivia has enjoyed relative calm and prosperity under Morales, the country s first indigenous president. Approval ratings for Morales, a fierce critic of capitalism and ally of embattled Venezuelan socialist leader Nicolas Maduro, hover at around 50 percent. In September, Morales Movement to Socialism party asked the courts to rescind legal limits barring elected authorities from seeking reelection indefinitely. Morales says his first election took place under Bolivia s previous constitution and therefore did not count under the now-defunct two-term rule. | 0 |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President-elect Donald Trump plans to nominate former Labor Secretary Elaine Chao to head the Transportation Department, a source with knowledge of the decision said on Tuesday. The source, who requested anonymity, confirmed the pick to Reuters. Chao, the wife of Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, served as labor secretary under President George W. Bush and was the first Asian-American woman to hold a Cabinet position. The formal announcement was expected Tuesday afternoon. Although Trump spoke on the campaign trail about wanting to “drain the swamp” in Washington, more than half of Trump’s nine key appointments so far have been accomplished Washington insiders, such as Chao. Chao will face a number of big decisions at the agency that regulates the nation’s vehicles, airplanes, railroads, pipelines, ports and highways - including how to proceed on self-driving cars on U.S. roads, the use of small unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones, over people and whether U.S. fuel efficiency standards should be revised. There are dozens of other pending regulatory issues the next administration will face, including railroad safety and staffing rules, requiring event data recorders in all U.S. vehicles and whether to set rules for airlines requiring they give more passengers with disabilities seats with extra leg room and whether to ban or restrict phone calls made on personal phones on U.S. flights. She may also take a leading role in Trump’s plans to rebuild U.S. infrastructure. Trump has called for $1 trillion in infrastructure spending over 10 years to rebuild airports, bridges and other projects, but it is unclear how much of the funding would come from the federal budget. Mitch Bainwol, chief executive of the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, a trade group that has urged the Trump administration to conduct a sweeping review of auto regulations, praised Chao as a “superb choice.” He said the next administration will make important decisions on self-driving cars and how to maximize “the rate of innovation in the technologies that save lives, avoid crashes and improve fuel economy.” Former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich praised Chao’s expected nomination. She will be a “great Secretary of Transportation. She really understands the federal government-can lead rebuilding our infrastructure,” he wrote on Twitter. House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi said Democrats want to work with Chao on fixing infrastructure but “will not allow Republicans to use an infrastructure bill as a Trojan horse for undermining workers’ wages and handing massive tax breaks to big corporations.” Chao is a former deputy transportation secretary and sits on the boards of Wells Fargo & Co (WFC.N), Ingersoll-Rand Co [IRCOM.UL], News Corp (NWSA.O) and Vulcan Materials Co (VMC.N). A Chinese immigrant, Chao arrived in the United States at age 8. Her father, James S.C. Chao, is founder of the Foremost Group, an international shipping company. | 0 |
In case people weren t already aware, lesbians exist. I know, shocking, right? I mean, one even wrote this article. Reading this could be exposing you to unadulterated homosexuality. Yet, if you re not gay, it s not going to turn you gay. Just as me watching every Disney film featuring an extremely heterosexual princess did not turn me straight. So, how great would it be if their were a lesbian princess?However, it looks as though some folks just couldn t wrap their heads around a simple, innocent request to give Elsa from Disney s hit movie Frozen a girlfriend.I hope Disney makes Elsa a lesbian princess imagine how iconic that would be Alexis Isabel (@lexi4prez) May 1, 2016Dear @Disney, #GiveElsaAGirlfriend Alexis Isabel (@lexi4prez) May 1, 2016It would be iconic, and about damn time. Although, many of us already assumed Elsa was gay, and maybe Merida from Brave too. Oooh, how cute would they be together?Unfortunately, there are still a lot of stupid people out there who love to make sure their hatred of the LGBT community is as visible as possible. The homophobia speweth over:Why? This is a CHILDRENS FILM #giveElsaAGirlfriend pic.twitter.com/XXWSoXJqLh Witchy the Kitten. (@WitchySmiles) May 2, 2016#GiveElsaAGirlfriend is disgusting Conrad Schwarz (@ConradAnCat) May 2, 2016This person apparently believes homosexuality is an alternative who knows, maybe it is for them. Who am I to judge?.@Disney Please #DontGiveElsaAGirlfriend. #GiveElsaAGirlfriend is a terrible idea. Don't make alternative sexuality an issue for children. EvangelicalArminians (@ArminianSociety) May 2, 2016This person thinks everyone is gay now. In a perfect world, but alas, no #GiveElsaAGirlfriend , are y'all fr? Why does everyone have to be "gay" now? Disney characters? Wow. mini sosa (@AlyssaAriyanna) May 2, 2016Then there s just your typical homophobes:#GiveElsaAGirlfriend? No I'm sorry but this is sickening. brandon (@handstomyseIf) May 2, 2016And the people who think exposing their children to lesbians would fuck things up:Dear Disney Don't fuck up my daughter's favorite movie!#GiveElsaAGirlfriend my ass!!!? https://t.co/ts3f4mtX13 StayCalm4Change (@tiarrabanks1) May 2, 2016Some just kept it simple:#GiveElsaAGirlfriend ? I'm not with it pen griffey (@Naee_Noelle) May 2, 2016It would be so great if @Disney were to #GiveElsaAGirlfriendThere are multiple race princesses, now there needs to be more diversity ???? Kaz (@FluffetteKaz) May 2, 2016The fact that #GiveElsaAGirlfriend is trending makes me so happy, I wish I had gay @Disney characters to look up to ?? Tyler Thompson (@the_tythompson) May 2, 2016#GiveElsaAGirlfriend there is no reason not to, it's time to teach children of all genders that homosexuality is just as normal and valid wasd (@phancied) May 2, 2016#GiveElsaAGirlfriend WE NEED THIS. So many families could benefit from this, lets bring kids up to accept all kinds of love. Jenny 2.0 (Jasmine) (@LaurenToMyHolly) May 2, 2016Some pointed out the delicious hypocrisy:#giveelsaagirlfriend if it's "okay" for a girl to date a beast&sexualize a fish, then ofc its okay to date the same gender. #loveislove Reana (EP trash) (@reana_s_) May 2, 2016Ya think?!Although, this tweet pretty much sums things up perfectly:Spoiler alert: Frozen was a metaphor for a closeted person learning to love herself and your children adored it. #GiveElsaAGirlfriend Twitnter is Coming (@OhNoSheTwitnt) May 3, 2016No matter which way you look at it, it shouldn t matter either way, and the all the homophobes out there really need to let it go. Featured image via Facebook | 0 |
TOKYO (Reuters) - Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said on Friday that it is not so easy to change U.S. President Donald Trump’s mind on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). Trump will seek quick progress towards a bilateral trade agreement with Japan in place of the TPP deal he abandoned this week, when Abe visits the White House next month, an official in the Trump administration said on Thursday. | 1 |
Everything about this muslim boy s story is a lie. From the first lie that he made the clock to the lie about him being unfairly targeted by the school. But in the Muslim faith, it s okay to lie (taqiya)as long as you re promoting your faith. In Shi a Islam, taqiya ( taqiyyah/taq yah) is a form of religious veil, or a legal dispensation whereby a believing individual can deny his faith or commit otherwise illegal or blasphemous acts, especially while they are in fear or at risk of significant persecution.Our President Barack Obama brazenly supported and promoted the persecution of this poor Muslim boy:Cool clock, Ahmed. Want to bring it to the White House? We should inspire more kids like you to like science. It's what makes America great. President Obama (@POTUS44) September 16, 2015 Cool clock, Ahmed. Want to bring it to the White House? We should inspire more kids like you to like science. It s what makes America great. President Barack Obama, September 16, 2015It was a Hoax.Ahmed Mohamed s claims that he assembled a clock at home that he took to school is starting to unravel.Two investigators who have studied the image of Mohamed s device provided by Irving, Texas police have concluded that Mohamed did not make the clock. Both conclude that Mohamed disassembled a manufactured clock and installed it in a large pencil box without its casing. And both say it is possible it was done to provoke suspicion or to resemble a bomb.Update: Clock has been identified as being sold in a 1986 Radio Shack catalogue by an Art Voice reader. The headline and text for this article has been changed to reflect the update.14-year-old Mohamed, a Muslim, was briefly arrested and investigated for bringing a hoax bomb to MacArthur High School in Irving, Texas on Monday. He was subsequently cleared.Thousands of dollars have been donated to Ahmed Mohamed in just the past few days, reported CNN. On Monday, 14-year-old Mohamed was arrested for taking a homemade clock to school that his teachers thought was a bomb. So crowdfunding platform LaunchGood started a campaign to raise $100,000 for the Muslim teen. In just one day, the site had raised over $10,000 from more than 200 backers. It s hoping to raise $100,000 by October 13. The support for it has been amazing, said Chris Abdur-Rahman Blauvelt, CEO of LaunchGood, which supports projects started by Muslims or ones that are tied to the history and study of Islam. Blauvelt said his campaign has the approval of Mohamed s family. He said half of the money donated will go toward a scholarship fund for Mohamed and the rest to efforts that foster creativity and inventiveness in kids. In addition to LaunchGood, crowdfunding platform Gofundme has also launched a campaign for Mohamed. It s raised more than $4,000 with a goal of $60,000 that will go toward Mohamed s future college tuition. Thomas Talbot posted a video to YouTube explaining the various parts in the photo of Mohamed s briefcase clock belong to a manufactured alarm clock. Anthony , writing at the blog Art Voice, detailed how Mohamed s device is actually a 1980s digital alarm clock sold by Radio Shack.Via: Gateway Pundit | 1 |
Donald Trump is running a campaign that does nothing but tap into the hateful underbelly of American populism. However, this time, it seems the guy has gone to a new low, when nobody believed it possible. Rachel Maddow took Trump to task for a disturbing campaign stop he made in Suffolk County New York which just happens to be where a Latino immigrant was murdered in an anti-immigrant hate crime. The crime happened in November 2008, just as we were electing President Barack Obama for the first time.Maddow says of Trump s decision to stop there: In presidential politicking, symbolism is a deliberate choice. And racial provocation is something with a deep and resonant history. It is one thing to do that as a small-fry politician; it is another thing to do it as a front-runner for a major party s presidential nomination. Being a presidential front-runner is a powerful thing. It can also be a dangerous thing if you want it to be. Trump chose to stop in Patchogue, New York, right near where 37-year-old Marcel Lucero was murdered by a gang of racist teenagers. One of the teens, Jeffrey Conroy, is currently serving 25 years in prison for manslaughter. The prosecution also got him convicted of a hate crime. Further, it was discovered, aftr Lucero s death and the reasoning behind it came to light, that it was just the most brutal in a long line of attack on Latino immigrants. Maddow continued: Patchogue s history of racist and fatal hate crimes against Latino immigrants is not necessarily a nationally-famous story. But it is a New York-famous story. Donald Trump has not yet won the Republican nomination he s still trying to win the New York primary but campaigning in Patchogue today on the street where Marcelo Lucero was murdered, it means something specific in New York. Now, considering what happened at that site and considering Trump s heavy, divisive, and dangerous anti-immigrant rhetoric, there can be no questions what kind of message the current GOP frontrunner was trying to send with that particular campaign stop, and it is a dangerous one.If even one immigrant winds up being attacked by a Trump supporter after this, The Donald himself needs to be held responsible.Watch the video below, courtesy of MSNBC. The Trump remarks start at 11:43.Featured image via video screen capture | 0 |
The family of an illegal immigrant arrested during a recent roundup of criminal aliens seems shocked that immigration laws are being enforced. [U. S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers arrested Miguel Angel Torres, an illegal immigrant living in Austin, Texas, for the past fourteen years, during the recent Operation Cross Check roundup of criminal aliens. It appears immigration officers arrested Torres while they were looking for his a previously deported illegal alien, the Texas Tribune reported. “[My husband] is a person who’s never done anything wrong and who complies with the law,” Irma Perez, the wife of the illegal immigrant, told the Texas news outlet. “We don’t know why they detained him. He was driving his own car, not my brother’s. He has nothing to do with my brother. ” Texas law does not allow a person who does not have legal status in the U. S. to obtain a driver license or legally operate a motor vehicle. Perez, who admitted she is also an illegal immigrant, said her husband drove to their daughter’s school to deliver a Valentine’s Day box of chocolates. Agents who stopped Torres asked if he was Jose Manuel Perez, his wife’s brother. It appears officers checked his identity and learned he was in the country illegally and placed him in custody. Operation Cross Check is a law enforcement action planned to round up criminal aliens and process them for removal proceedings. While the operation targets criminals, gang members, and others who violate immigration laws, ICE officials acknowledged that could be caught up in the net. “During targeted enforcement operations ICE officers frequently encounter additional suspects who may be in the United States in violation of federal immigration laws,” ICE officials said in a written statement obtained by Breitbart Texas. “Those persons will be evaluated on a case by case basis and, when appropriated, arrested by ICE. ” In this case, it appears the ICE officers were searching for Perez’ brother, Jose Manuel Perez, an illegal alien she admitted had been previously deported. She did not say why he had been deported, or how many times he faced deportation. When ICE officers stopped Torres, they asked if he was Perez. Irma Perez said she believe the officers had followed Torres from their home to the school. She believed they might be staking out her home because she had provided her address to law enforcement officials when she paid off her brother’s traffic fines. Perez’ immigration lawyer Mark Kinzler told the Texas Tribune reporter, “They were looking, apparently, for someone else, and he wasn’t that person, but then they took him anyway. ” He seemed to expect that immigration officers would just ignore the law when they found out Torres was illegally present in the U. S. “Even though ICE’s PR campaign is that they’re picking up criminals and picking up people with prior deports, and I’m sure some of them are, it already seems like a lot of them are not those people,” Kinzler continued. “People who work every day and try to take care of their families are getting swept up. ” The targeted immigration enforcement operation picked up 51 foreign nationals in the Austin area during the action, Breitbart Texas reported. At least 23 of those arrested had criminal convictions. Those included a Mexican national previously deported following a conviction for aggravated assault a Salvadoran national who pleaded guilty to sexual assault of a child and another Mexican national convicted of domestic violence as a repeat offender, information obtained by Breitbart Texas from ICE officials revealed. In addition to criminal aliens, the officers were also targeting those with pending removal status and those who had been previously deported, like Perez, and known to be back in the country. Breitbart Texas Managing Director and Brandon Darby contributed to this article. He the Cartel Chronicles project with Ildefonso Ortiz and Stephen K. Bannon. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook. Bob Price serves as associate editor and senior political news contributor for Breitbart Texas. He is a founding member of the Breitbart Texas team. Follow him on Twitter @BobPriceBBTX. | 0 |
During a campaign stop, Republican primary candidate Ted Cruz was confronted with the most well-known troll in United States politics. In case you are not in on the joke, Vermin Supreme runs in every presidential election. He is a performance artist who pulls stunts that satirize the U.S. election system.The confrontation was hilarious, to say the least. Supreme and a group of his supporters ambushed Cruz, who was standing outside his campaign bus. They swarmed Cruz, carrying handmade Vermin Supreme 2016 signs. Shouting into a megaphone, Supreme asks Cruz: Ted Cruz, do you agree that the waterboarding water should be fluoridated? Shouldn t we at least fluoridate the water that we use to water board the bad people with? That s Supreme s act in a nutshell. He makes completely ridiculous comments about either real issues or fictional ones. Supreme rose to fame instantly when a video was published online that showed him campaigning on the promise that if he is elected, everyone will get a free pony.Obviously not knowing what the heck is going on, Cruz flees to the safety of his campaign bus. Once inside Supreme shouts into the megaphone towards the bus: Surrender, Ted Cruz, surrender. We have you surrounded. You must surrender immediately. Put your hands in the air and drop your pants for your safety, thank you. Mr. Cruz, why do you hate America? Sir, why do you hate America? Taking shots at both Cruz s religious zealotry and his hawkish foreign policy platform, Supreme concludes the protest/campaign event/performance piece by holding a prayer. Supreme prays that: That, uh, we don t get into any wars, and the war that we do get into against Narnia, that there will not be very many American causalities. The video of the encounter was posted to Twitter. You can watch it below in full.Vermin Supreme trolls Ted Cruzhttps://t.co/sSdA3u9fyd Independent Journal (@INJO) February 9, 2016 Featured image from video screenshot via Twitter. | 1 |
NAIROBI (Reuters) - Kenya s Supreme Court on Wednesday criticized the election board for failing to verify official results of last month s presidential election before announcing them, but did not find any individual at the board responsible for the failings. The court was offering a detailed ruling as to why it annulled the Aug. 8 election and ordered a fresh presidential vote within 60 days. The Sept. 1 decision was the first of its kind in Africa. The election board had said incumbent President Uhuru Kenyatta won the contest by 1.4 million votes, but opposition leader Raila Odinga challenged the result in the Supreme Court. He says the previous two elections were also stolen from him. Kenya is a key Western ally in a region often shaken by violence. Its status as a diplomatic, trade and security hub for East Africa means the court s ruling and preparation for the fresh election, now scheduled for Oct. 17, are being closely watched for signs of instability or violence. On Monday, the French technology company supporting the election said it would be nearly impossible to be ready for that date. The court s Sept. 1 ruling identified some procedural problems, but the key finding against the election board on Wednesday was that officials had announced results before being able to verify them. Kenya used two parallel systems: a quick electronic tally vulnerable to typos and a slower paper system designed as a verifiable, definitive back-up. The official results were based on the electronic tally before the paper results were fully collated, the judges said. The system was designed that way after a disputed 2007 presidential vote sparked violence that killed around 1,200 people and displaced some 600,000 more. If elections are not seen to be free and fair, they can trigger instability. We do not need to look far for examples, said Chief Justice David Maraga. The board overseeing the 2017 vote did not have all the tally forms when it announced results, and some forms lacked security features like water marks, signatures or serial numbers, which calls their authenticity into question, the court said, adding there was no evidence of individual wrongdoing. Though the petitioner claimed various offences were committed by the issues of the first respondent, that is the IEBC (elections board), no evidence was placed before us to prove that allegation, Maraga said. We are therefore unable to impute any criminal intent or culpability. Odinga has said he will not take part in the repeat election if several demands, including the sacking of senior staff at the election board, are not met. Judge Philomena Mwilu said the forms should have been quickly available for inspection, noting officials said thousands of forms from polling stations were still unavailable four days after the official results were announced. The (board) cannot therefore be said to have verified the results, she said. It is an inexcusable contravention ... of the election act. She also censured the board s refusal to comply with court orders to open its computer servers, saying it meant that opposition claims of hacking or manipulation might be true. Noncompliance or failure by the board to do as ordered must be held against it, she said. But although the tallying process was questioned, voter registration, identification and voting all appeared to have been conducted in accordance with the law, she said. Opposition claims against Kenyatta were largely dismissed. Maraga said the opposition had failed to show evidence Kenyatta had campaigned using state resources or undue influence. Two judges read lengthy dissenting opinions and accused their four colleagues who issued the majority judgment of misinterpreting the law and other failings, including not paying attention to the evidence and judicial limits. As judges spoke, police used tear gas to disperse groups of rival political supporters holding demonstrations outside the Supreme Court. The election re-run has divided Kenya, with many opposition supporters celebrating it and the president and some members of the ruling party criticizing it harshly. After the majority decision was read, Deputy President William Rut tweeted: Evidently a supreme coup on sovereign Will of the people was executed on basis of technicalities against their verdict captured in ballots. On Tuesday, the chief justice told a news conference that judges were getting threats and the police were not offering adequate protection, an allegation that the chief of police denied. | 1 |
Channel list
Following hurricane Matthew's failure to devastate Florida, activists flock to the Sunshine State and destroy Trump signs manually
Tim Kaine takes credit for interrupting hurricane Matthew while debating weather in Florida
Study: Many non-voters still undecided on how they're not going to vote
The Evolution of Dissent: on November 8th the nation is to decide whether dissent will stop being racist and become sexist - or it will once again be patriotic as it was for 8 years under George W. Bush
Venezuela solves starvation problem by making it mandatory to buy food
Breaking: the Clinton Foundation set to investigate the FBI
Obama captures rare Pokémon while visiting Hiroshima
Movie news: 'The Big Friendly Giant Government' flops at box office; audiences say "It's creepy"
Barack Obama: "If I had a son, he'd look like Micah Johnson"
White House edits Orlando 911 transcript to say shooter pledged allegiance to NRA and Republican Party
President George Washington: 'Redcoats do not represent British Empire; King George promotes a distorted version of British colonialism'
Following Obama's 'Okie-Doke' speech , stock of Okie-Doke soars; NASDAQ: 'Obama best Okie-Doke salesman'
Weaponized baby formula threatens Planned Parenthood office; ACLU demands federal investigation of Gerber
Experts: melting Antarctic glacier could cause sale levels to rise up to 80% off select items by this weekend
Travel advisory: airlines now offering flights to front of TSA line
As Obama instructs his administration to get ready for presidential transition, Trump preemptively purchases 'T' keys for White House keyboards
John Kasich self-identifies as GOP primary winner, demands access to White House bathroom
Upcoming Trump/Kelly interview on FoxNews sponsored by 'Let's Make a Deal' and 'The Price is Right'
News from 2017: once the evacuation of Lena Dunham and 90% of other Hollywood celebrities to Canada is confirmed, Trump resigns from presidency: "My work here is done"
Non-presidential candidate Paul Ryan pledges not to run for president in new non-presidential non-ad campaign
Trump suggests creating 'Muslim database'; Obama symbolically protests by shredding White House guest logs beginning 2009
National Enquirer: John Kasich's real dad was the milkman, not mailman
National Enquirer: Bound delegates from Colorado, Wyoming found in Ted Cruz’s basement
Iran breaks its pinky-swear promise not to support terrorism; US State Department vows rock-paper-scissors strategic response
Women across the country cheer as racist Democrat president on $20 bill is replaced by black pro-gun Republican
Federal Reserve solves budget crisis by writing itself a 20-trillion-dollar check
Widows, orphans claim responsibility for Brussels airport bombing
Che Guevara's son hopes Cuba's communism will rub off on US, proposes a long list of people the government should execute first
Susan Sarandon: "I don't vote with my vagina." Voters in line behind her still suspicious, use hand sanitizer
Campaign memo typo causes Hillary to court 'New Black Panties' vote
New Hampshire votes for socialist Sanders, changes state motto to "Live FOR Free or Die"
Martin O'Malley drops out of race after Iowa Caucus; nation shocked with revelation he has been running for president
Statisticians: one out of three Bernie Sanders supporters is just as dumb as the other two
Hillary campaign denies accusations of smoking-gun evidence in her emails, claims they contain only smoking-circumstantial-gun evidence
Obama stops short of firing US Congress upon realizing the difficulty of assembling another group of such tractable yes-men
In effort to contol wild passions for violent jihad, White House urges gun owners to keep their firearms covered in gun burkas
TV horror live: A Charlie Brown Christmas gets shot up on air by Mohammed cartoons
Democrats vow to burn the country down over Ted Cruz statement, 'The overwhelming majority of violent criminals are Democrats'
Russia's trend to sign bombs dropped on ISIS with "This is for Paris" found response in Obama administration's trend to sign American bombs with "Return to sender"
University researchers of cultural appropriation quit upon discovery that their research is appropriation from a culture that created universities
Archeologists discover remains of what Barack Obama has described as unprecedented, un-American, and not-who-we-are immigration screening process in Ellis Island
Mizzou protests lead to declaring entire state a "safe space," changing Missouri motto to "The don't show me state"
Green energy fact: if we put all green energy subsidies together in one-dollar bills and burn them, we could generate more electricity than has been produced by subsidized green energy
State officials improve chances of healthcare payouts by replacing ObamaCare with state lottery
NASA's new mission to search for racism, sexism, and economic inequality in deep space suffers from race, gender, and class power struggles over multibillion-dollar budget
College progress enforcement squads issue schematic humor charts so students know if a joke may be spontaneously laughed at or if regulations require other action
ISIS opens suicide hotline for US teens depressed by climate change and other progressive doomsday scenarios
Virginia county to close schools after teacher asks students to write 'death to America' in Arabic
'Wear hijab to school day' ends with spontaneous female circumcision and stoning of a classmate during lunch break
ISIS releases new, even more barbaric video in an effort to regain mantle from Planned Parenthood
Impressed by Fox News stellar rating during GOP debates, CNN to use same formula on Democrat candidates asking tough, pointed questions about Republicans
Shocking new book explores pros and cons of socialism, discovers they are same people
Pope outraged by Planned Parenthood's "unfettered capitalism," demands equal redistribution of baby parts to each according to his need
John Kerry accepts Iran's "Golden Taquiyya" award, requests jalapenos on the side
Citizens of Pluto protest US government's surveillance of their planetoid and its moons with New Horizons space drone
John Kerry proposes 3-day waiting period for all terrorist nations trying to acquire nuclear weapons
Chicago Police trying to identify flag that caused nine murders and 53 injuries in the city this past weekend
Cuba opens to affordable medical tourism for Americans who can't afford Obamacare deductibles
State-funded research proves existence of Quantum Aggression Particles (Heterons) in Large Hadron Collider
Student job opportunities: make big bucks this summer as Hillary’s Ordinary-American; all expenses paid, travel, free acting lessons
Experts debate whether Iranian negotiators broke John Kerry's leg or he did it himself to get out of negotiations
Junior Varsity takes Ramadi, advances to quarterfinals
US media to GOP pool of candidates: 'Knowing what we know now, would you have had anything to do with the founding of the United States?'
NY Mayor to hold peace talks with rats, apologize for previous Mayor's cowboy diplomacy
China launches cube-shaped space object with a message to aliens: "The inhabitants of Earth will steal your intellectual property, copy it, manufacture it in sweatshops with slave labor, and sell it back to you at ridiculously low prices"
Progressive scientists: Truth is a variable deduced by subtracting 'what is' from 'what ought to be'
Experts agree: Hillary Clinton best candidate to lessen percentage of Americans in top 1%
America's attempts at peace talks with the White House continue to be met with lies, stalling tactics, and bad faith
Starbucks new policy to talk race with customers prompts new hashtag #DontHoldUpTheLine
Hillary: DELETE is the new RESET
Charlie Hebdo receives Islamophobe 2015 award ; the cartoonists could not be reached for comment due to their inexplicable, illogical deaths
Russia sends 'reset' button back to Hillary: 'You need it now more than we do'
Barack Obama finds out from CNN that Hillary Clinton spent four years being his Secretary of State
President Obama honors Leonard Nimoy by taking selfie in front of Starship Enterprise
Police: If Obama had a convenience store, it would look like Obama Express Food Market
Study finds stunning lack of racial, gender, and economic diversity among middle-class white males
NASA: We're 80% sure about being 20% sure about being 17% sure about being 38% sure about 2014 being the hottest year on record
People holding '$15 an Hour Now' posters sue Democratic party demanding raise to $15 an hour for rendered professional protesting services
Cuba-US normalization: US tourists flock to see Cuba before it looks like the US and Cubans flock to see the US before it looks like Cuba
White House describes attacks on Sony Pictures as 'spontaneous hacking in response to offensive video mocking Juche and its prophet'
CIA responds to Democrat calls for transparency by releasing the director's cut of The Making Of Obama's Birth Certificate
Obama: 'If I had a city, it would look like Ferguson'
Biden: 'If I had a Ferguson (hic), it would look like a city'
Obama signs executive order renaming 'looters' to 'undocumented shoppers'
Ethicists agree: two wrongs do make a right so long as Bush did it first
The aftermath of the 'War on Women 2014' finds a new 'Lost Generation' of disillusioned Democrat politicians, unable to cope with life out of office
White House: Republican takeover of the Senate is a clear mandate from the American people for President Obama to rule by executive orders
Nurse Kaci Hickox angrily tells reporters that she won't change her clocks for daylight savings time
Democratic Party leaders in panic after recent poll shows most Democratic voters think 'midterm' is when to end pregnancy
Desperate Democratic candidates plead with Obama to stop backing them and instead support their GOP opponents
Ebola Czar issues five-year plan with mandatory quotas of Ebola infections per each state based on voting preferences
Study: crony capitalism is to the free market what the Westboro Baptist Church is to Christianity
Fun facts about world languages: the Left has more words for statism than the Eskimos have for snow
African countries to ban all flights from the United States because "Obama is incompetent, it scares us"
Nobel Peace Prize controversy: Hillary not nominated despite having done even less than Obama to deserve it
Obama: 'Ebola is the JV of viruses'
BREAKING: Secret Service foils Secret Service plot to protect Obama
Revised 1st Amendment: buy one speech, get the second free
Sharpton calls on white NFL players to beat their women in the interests of racial fairness
President Obama appoints his weekly approval poll as new national security adviser
Obama wags pen and phone at Putin; Europe offers support with powerful pens and phones from NATO members
White House pledges to embarrass ISIS back to the Stone Age with a barrage of fearsome Twitter messages and fatally ironic Instagram photos
Obama to fight ISIS with new federal Terrorist Regulatory Agency
Obama vows ISIS will never raise their flag over the eighteenth hole
Harry Reid: "Sometimes I say the wong thing"
Elian Gonzalez wishes he had come to the U.S. on a bus from Central America like all the other kids
Obama visits US-Mexican border, calls for a two-state solution
Obama draws "blue line" in Iraq after Putin took away his red crayon
"Hard Choices," a porno flick loosely based on Hillary Clinton's memoir and starring Hillary Hellfire as a drinking, whoring Secretary of State, wildly outsells the flabby, sagging original
Accusations of siding with the enemy leave Sgt. Bergdahl with only two options: pursue a doctorate at Berkley or become a Senator from Massachusetts
Jay Carney stuck in line behind Eric Shinseki to leave the White House; estimated wait time from 15 min to 6 weeks
100% of scientists agree that if man-made global warming were real, "the last people we'd want to help us is the Obama administration"
Jay Carney says he found out that Obama found out that he found out that Obama found out that he found out about the latest Obama administration scandal on the news
"Anarchy Now!" meeting turns into riot over points of order, bylaws, and whether or not 'kicking the #^@&*! ass' of the person trying to speak is or is not violence
Obama retaliates against Putin by prohibiting unionized federal employees from dating hot Russian girls online during work hours
Russian separatists in Ukraine riot over an offensive YouTube video showing the toppling of Lenin statues
"Free Speech Zones" confuse Obamaphone owners who roam streets in search of additional air minutes
Obamacare bolsters employment for professionals with skills to convert meth back into sudafed
Gloves finally off: Obama uses pen and phone to cancel Putin's Netflix account
Joe Biden to Russia: "We will bury you by turning more of Eastern Europe over to your control!"
In last-ditch effort to help Ukraine, Obama deploys Rev. Sharpton and Rev. Jackson's Rainbow Coalition to Crimea
Al Sharpton: "Not even Putin can withstand our signature chanting, 'racist, sexist, anti-gay, Russian army go away'!"
Mardi Gras in North Korea: " Throw me some food! "
Obama's foreign policy works: "War, invasion, and conquest are signs of weakness; we've got Putin right where we want him"
US offers military solution to Ukraine crisis: "We will only fight countries that have LGBT military"
Putin annexes Brighton Beach to protect ethnic Russians in Brooklyn, Obama appeals to UN and EU for help
The 1980s: "Mr. Obama, we're just calling to ask if you want our foreign policy back . The 1970s are right here with us, and they're wondering, too."
In a stunning act of defiance, Obama courageously unfriends Putin on Facebook
MSNBC: Obama secures alliance with Austro-Hungarian Empire against Russia’s aggression in Ukraine
Study: springbreak is to STDs what April 15th is to accountants
Efforts to achieve moisture justice for California thwarted by unfair redistribution of snow in America
North Korean voters unanimous: "We are the 100%"
Leader of authoritarian gulag-site, The People's Cube, unanimously 're-elected' with 100% voter turnout
Super Bowl: Obama blames Fox News for Broncos' loss
Feminist author slams gay marriage: "a man needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle"
Beverly Hills campaign heats up between Henry Waxman and Marianne Williamson over the widening income gap between millionaires and billionaires in their district
Biden to lower $10,000-a-plate Dinner For The Homeless to $5,000 so more homeless can attend
Kim becomes world leader, feeds uncle to dogs; Obama eats dogs, becomes world leader, America cries uncle
North Korean leader executes own uncle for talking about Obamacare at family Christmas party
White House hires part-time schizophrenic Mandela sign interpreter to help sell Obamacare
Kim Jong Un executes own " crazy uncle " to keep him from ruining another family Christmas
OFA admits its advice for area activists to give Obamacare Talk at shooting ranges was a bad idea
President resolves Obamacare debacle with executive order declaring all Americans equally healthy
Obama to Iran: "If you like your nuclear program, you can keep your nuclear program"
Bovine community outraged by flatulence coming from Washington DC
Obama: "I'm not particularly ideological; I believe in a good pragmatic five-year plan"
Shocker: Obama had no knowledge he'd been reelected until he read about it in the local newspaper last week
Server problems at HealthCare.gov so bad, it now flashes 'Error 808' message
NSA marks National Best Friend Day with official announcement: "Government is your best friend; we know you like no one else, we're always there, we're always willing to listen"
Al Qaeda cancels attack on USA citing launch of Obamacare as devastating enough
The President's latest talking point on Obamacare: "I didn't build that"
Dizzy with success, Obama renames his wildly popular healthcare mandate to HillaryCare
Carney: huge ObamaCare deductibles won't look as bad come hyperinflation
Washington Redskins drop 'Washington' from their name as offensive to most Americans
Poll: 83% of Americans favor cowboy diplomacy over rodeo clown diplomacy
GOVERNMENT WARNING: If you were able to complete ObamaCare form online, it wasn't a legitimate gov't website; you should report online fraud and change all your passwords
Obama administration gets serious, threatens Syria with ObamaCare
Obama authorizes the use of Vice President Joe Biden's double-barrel shotgun to fire a couple of blasts at Syria
Sharpton: "British royals should have named baby 'Trayvon.' By choosing 'George' they sided with white Hispanic racist Zimmerman"
DNC launches 'Carlos Danger' action figure; proceeds to fund a charity helping survivors of the Republican War on Women
Nancy Pelosi extends abortion rights to the birds and the bees
Hubble discovers planetary drift to the left
Obama: 'If I had a daughter-in-law, she would look like Rachael Jeantel'
FISA court rubberstamps statement denying its portrayal as government's rubber stamp
Every time ObamaCare gets delayed, a Julia somewhere dies
GOP to Schumer: 'Force full implementation of ObamaCare before 2014 or Dems will never win another election'
Obama: 'If I had a son... no, wait, my daughter can now marry a woman!'
Janet Napolitano: TSA findings reveal that since none of the hijackers were babies, elderly, or Tea Partiers, 9/11 was not an act of terrorism
News Flash: Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA) can see Canada from South Dakota
Susan Rice: IRS actions against tea parties caused by anti-tax YouTube video that was insulting to their faith
Drudge Report reduces font to fit all White House scandals onto one page
Obama: the IRS is a constitutional right, just like the Second Amendment
White House: top Obama officials using secret email accounts a result of bad IT advice to avoid spam mail from Nigeria
Jay Carney to critics: 'Pinocchio never said anything inconsistent'
Obama: If I had a gay son, he'd look like Jason Collins
Gosnell's office in Benghazi raided by the IRS: mainstream media's worst cover-up challenge to date
IRS targeting pro-gay-marriage LGBT groups leads to gayest tax revolt in U.S. history
After Arlington Cemetery rejects offer to bury Boston bomber, Westboro Babtist Church steps up with premium front lawn plot
Boston: Obama Administration to reclassify marathon bombing as 'sportsplace violence'
Study: Success has many fathers but failure becomes a government program
US Media: Can Pope Francis possibly clear up Vatican bureaucracy and banking without blaming the previous administration?
Michelle Obama praises weekend rampage by Chicago teens as good way to burn calories and stay healthy
This Passover, Obama urges his subjects to paint lamb's blood above doors in order to avoid the Sequester
White House to American children: Sequester causes layoffs among hens that lay Easter eggs; union-wage Easter Bunnies to be replaced by Mexican Chupacabras
Time Mag names Hugo Chavez world's sexiest corpse
Boy, 8, pretends banana is gun, makes daring escape from school
Study: Free lunches overpriced, lack nutrition
Oscars 2013: Michelle Obama announces long-awaited merger of Hollywood and the State
Joe Salazar defends the right of women to be raped in gun-free environment: 'rapists and rapees should work together to prevent gun violence for the common good'
Dept. of Health and Human Services eliminates rape by reclassifying assailants as 'undocumented sex partners'
Kremlin puts out warning not to photoshop Putin riding meteor unless bare-chested
Deeming football too violent, Obama moves to introduce Super Drone Sundays instead
Japan offers to extend nuclear umbrella to cover U.S. should America suffer devastating attack on its own defense spending
Feminists organize one billion women to protest male oppression with one billion lap dances
Urban community protests Mayor Bloomberg's ban on extra-large pop singers owning assault weapons
Concerned with mounting death toll, Taliban offers to send peacekeeping advisers to Chicago
Karl Rove puts an end to Tea Party with new 'Republicans For Democrats' strategy aimed at losing elections
Answering public skepticism, President Obama authorizes unlimited drone attacks on all skeet targets throughout the country
Skeet Ulrich denies claims he had been shot by President but considers changing his name to 'Traps'
White House releases new exciting photos of Obama standing, sitting, looking thoughtful, and even breathing in and out
New York Times hacked by Chinese government, Paul Krugman's economic policies stolen
White House: when President shoots skeet, he donates the meat to food banks that feed the middle class
To prove he is serious, Obama eliminates armed guard protection for President, Vice-President, and their families; establishes Gun-Free Zones around them instead
State Dept to send 100,000 American college students to China as security for US debt obligations
Jay Carney: Al Qaeda is on the run, they're just running forward
President issues executive orders banning cliffs, ceilings, obstructions, statistics, and other notions that prevent us from moving forwards and upward
Fearing the worst, Obama Administration outlaws the fan to prevent it from being hit by certain objects
World ends; S&P soars
Riddle of universe solved; answer not understood
Meek inherit Earth, can't afford estate taxes
Greece abandons Euro; accountants find Greece has no Euros anyway
Wheel finally reinvented; axles to be gradually reinvented in 3rd quarter of 2013
Bigfoot found in Ohio, mysteriously not voting for Obama
As Santa's workshop files for bankruptcy, Fed offers bailout in exchange for control of 'naughty and nice' list
Freak flying pig accident causes bacon to fly off shelves
Obama: green economy likely to transform America into a leading third world country of the new millennium
Report: President Obama to visit the United States in the near future
Obama promises to create thousands more economically neutral jobs
Modernizing Islam: New York imam proposes to canonize Saul Alinsky as religion's latter day prophet
Imam Rauf's peaceful solution: 'Move Ground Zero a few blocks away from the mosque and no one gets hurt'
Study: Obama's threat to burn tax money in Washington 'recruitment bonanza' for Tea Parties
Study: no Social Security reform will be needed if gov't raises retirement age to at least 814 years
Obama attends church service, worships self
Obama proposes national 'Win The Future' lottery; proceeds of new WTF Powerball to finance more gov't spending
Historical revisionists: "Hey, you never know"
Vice President Biden: criticizing Egypt is un-pharaoh
Israelis to Egyptian rioters: "don't damage the pyramids, we will not rebuild"
Lake Superior renamed Lake Inferior in spirit of tolerance and inclusiveness
Al Gore: It's a shame that a family can be torn apart by something as simple as a pack of polar bears
Michael Moore: As long as there is anyone with money to shake down, this country is not broke
Obama's teleprompters unionize, demand collective bargaining rights
Obama calls new taxes 'spending reductions in tax code.' Elsewhere rapists tout 'consent reductions in sexual intercourse'
Obama's teleprompter unhappy with White House Twitter: "Too few words"
Obama's Regulation Reduction committee finds US Constitution to be expensive outdated framework inefficiently regulating federal gov't
Taking a page from the Reagan years, Obama announces new era of Perestroika and Glasnost
Responding to Oslo shootings, Obama declares Christianity "Religion of Peace," praises "moderate Christians," promises to send one into space
Republicans block Obama's $420 billion program to give American families free charms that ward off economic bad luck
White House to impose Chimney tax on Santa Claus
Obama decrees the economy is not soaring as much as previously decreeed
Conservative think tank introduces children to capitalism with pop-up picture book "The Road to Smurfdom"
Al Gore proposes to combat Global Warming by extracting silver linings from clouds in Earth's atmosphere
Obama refutes charges of him being unresponsive to people's suffering: "When you pray to God, do you always hear a response?"
Obama regrets the US government didn't provide his mother with free contraceptives when she was in college
Fluke to Congress: drill, baby, drill!
Planned Parenthood introduces Frequent Flucker reward card: 'Come again soon!'
Obama to tornado victims: 'We inherited this weather from the previous administration'
Obama congratulates Putin on Chicago-style election outcome
People's Cube gives itself Hero of Socialist Labor medal in recognition of continued expert advice provided to the Obama Administration helping to shape its foreign and domestic policies
Hamas: Israeli air defense unfair to 99% of our missiles, "only 1% allowed to reach Israel"
Democrat strategist: without government supervision, women would have never evolved into humans
Voters Without Borders oppose Texas new voter ID law
Enraged by accusation that they are doing Obama's bidding, media leaders demand instructions from White House on how to respond
Obama blames previous Olympics for failure to win at this Olympics
Official: China plans to land on Moon or at least on cheap knockoff thereof
Koran-Contra: Obama secretly arms Syrian rebels
Poll: Progressive slogan 'We should be more like Europe' most popular with members of American Nazi Party
Obama to Evangelicals: Jesus saves, I just spend
May Day: Anarchists plan, schedule, synchronize, and execute a coordinated campaign against all of the above
Midwestern farmers hooked on new erotic novel "50 Shades of Hay"
Study: 99% of Liberals give the rest a bad name
Obama meets with Jewish leaders, proposes deeper circumcisions for the rich
Historians: Before HOPE & CHANGE there was HEMP & CHOOM at ten bucks a bag
Cancer once again fails to cure Venezuela of its "President for Life"
Tragic spelling error causes Muslim protesters to burn local boob-tube factory
Secretary of Energy Steven Chu: due to energy conservation, the light at the end of the tunnel will be switched off
Obama Administration running food stamps across the border with Mexico in an operation code-named "Fat And Furious"
Pakistan explodes in protest over new Adobe Acrobat update; 17 local acrobats killed
White House: "Let them eat statistics"
Special Ops: if Benedict Arnold had a son, he would look like Barack Obama | 1 |
BANGKOK (Reuters) - Thailand on Friday held a nationwide Buddhist almsgiving ceremony to mark the passage of a year since the death of its revered King Bhumibol Adulyadej, a father figure to the nation during a reign that spanned seven decades. As many as 199 Buddhist monks in orange robes participated in the event at Siriraj Hospital in Bangkok, the capital, where the king spent most of his twilight years being treated for various ailments before his death last year on Oct. 13. The monks filed past hundreds of Thais clad in mourning black, receiving packages of biscuits and bottled water, among other items, in large brass alms bowls, as a way of amassing merit for the people s king , who helped shape the Southeast Asian nation in the decades after World War Two. We ll remember his goodness and follow his every footstep, said one of the mourners, Laksana Lueprasert, 65, her voice breaking as she said the feeling of loss would never fade from her heart. He is gone, but we still keep him in our thoughts to this day, said Manee Chawalitnate, 58. At Bangkok s Government House, Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha led government officials and media in a similar ceremony that observed 89 seconds of silence, to mark the king s age if he had lived until his birthday on Dec. 5. Rows of monks prayed amid portraits of the king bordered with yellow marigold flowers. The nationwide ceremony precedes a royal cremation function on Oct. 26 at the Grand Palace, where Thais will bid the king a final farewell. Though steeped in ancient traditions, the funeral, which will run five days, will allow greater participation by the public than those of previous kings. Artisans have spent 10 months working in Bangkok s ancient quarter to build an elaborate cremation site fashioned after a vision of heaven. King Maha Vajiralongkorn, or Rama X, succeeded his father and has overseen sweeping changes to the royal household, including the running of palace finances. | 1 |
THE BIG QUESTION WITH THE EXTRADITION OF THE HACKER NAMED GUCCIFER: Will he only be used to demonstrate how easy it was to crack Max Blumethal s private account and thus how negligent Hillary was in handling classified material?WE REPORTED ON THE SMOKING GUN RELEASE OF GUCCIFER S INFO ON CLINTON/BLUMENTHAL EXCHANGES. The e-mails between Clinton and Blumenthal expose what self-centered lunatics they are. Unreal:Testimony from State Department Employee on Clinton s handling of classified information: The extradition of Romanian hacker Guccifer to the U.S. at a critical point in the FBI s criminal investigation of Hillary Clinton s email use is not a coincidence, according to an intelligence source close to the case.One of the notches on Guccifer s cyber-crime belt was allegedly accessing the email account of Clinton confidant Sidney Blumenthal, one of Clinton s most prolific advice-givers when she was secretary of state. It was through that hack that Clinton s use of a personal account clintonemail.com first came to light.Former law enforcement and cyber security experts said the hacker, whose real name is Marcel Lehel Lazar, could now that he s in the U.S. help the FBI make the case that Clinton s email server was compromised by a third party, one that did not have the formal backing and resources of a foreign intelligence service such as that of Russia, China or Iran. Because of the proximity to Sidney Blumenthal and the activity involving Hillary s emails, [the timing] seems to be something beyond curious, said Ron Hosko, former assistant director of the FBI s Criminal Investigative Division from 2012-2014.On Tuesday, Lazar appeared in an Alexandria, Va., federal courtroom for his detention hearing, attended by Fox News. He faces a nine-count federal indictment on computer hacking charges and, according to both Romanian and U.S. officials, is expected to be in the country for 18 months.A spokesman for the FBI s Washington Field Office, which led the Guccifer investigation, had no comment on the extradition, the timing, and any potential intersection with the Clinton email probe.On or about March 31, Lazar was extradited 3,700 miles to Alexandria from a prison in Arad, Romania, where he has been serving a seven-year sentence for hacking crimes committed in his native country. His targets in Romania were prominent government officials and political figures whom he often taunted under the name of Micul Fum or Little Smoke. Following his 2014 conviction, Lazar was effectively neutralized in prison and no longer a threat, which makes his transfer to the U.S. all the more noteworthy.The 44-year-old entered the Alexandria courtroom wearing a green jumpsuit, with the yellow word PRISONER stenciled on the back. Lazar appeared confident and relaxed during the four-minute appearance, telling the court he did not need the translator provided for the hearing.According to the 15-page federal indictment, Lazar specialized in gaining unauthorized access to the online accounts of high-profile individuals including Clinton ally Blumenthal, who appears to be identified as Victim 5 a journalist and former presidential advisor who was the true owner of an AOL account with subaccounts known to the grand jury. The indictment went on to note that using his alias of Guccifer on Blumenthal s account, Lazar attempted to conceal his identity by accessing the account from a proxy server located in Russia. Read more: FOX News (Catherine Herridge and Pamela Browne) | 1 |
21st Century Wire says President Trump s Executive Order: Protecting the Nation From Foreign Terrorist Entry Into the US, is under fire in the American legal system. The American Civil Liberties Union and multiple US State Attorney Generals are filing law suits against the Federal Government lots of law suits.US District Court Judge, James Robart, issued a temporary restraining order against enforcement of the Trump Executive Order calling it un-lawful, un-American and un-constitutional. The White House has replied by saying that they believe the order is just and within the presidents constitutional authority and that at the earliest possible time the Department of Justice will file for a stay of the order.Are we about to see a legal battle to dwarf all legal battles? Do the ACLU and the agitated Attorney Generals have any legal feet to stand on a opposing Trump s Executive Order?RT reports below with more analysis on this situation RTThe State Department, since being notified by the Justice Department of the ruling from the US District Court for the Western District of Washington, has been in contact with the Homeland Security Department and legal teams to coordinate operations, according to Reuters.Customs and Border Protection officials said they would reinstate visas in compliance with the order. At the earliest possible time, the Department of Justice intends to file an emergency stay of this order and defend the executive order of the President, which we believe is lawful and appropriate, the White House said in a statement. The president s order is intended to protect the homeland and he has the constitutional authority and responsibility to protect the American people. In response, the DOJ will not file an emergency stay request of the order Friday night, a spokesperson said, Reuters reported.Last Friday, Trump issued an executive order that banned citizens from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen from entering the US. The rollout of the executive order caused mass confusion, deportations and protests. By Saturday, the lawsuits had begun, with at least 40 active lawsuits in 17 states.At the state level, Virginia, Washington, Minnesota, New York and Massachusetts have filed cases against the federal government. The attorneys general of 16 states and the District of Columbia issued a joint statement earlier this week calling the executive order unconstitutional, un-American and unlawful. After 2 weeks in office, President Trump faces 50+ lawsuits, far more than his predecessors faced in that span https://t.co/NXMetwCLnj pic.twitter.com/2kERF2n7Ga NPR (@NPR) February 3, 2017In California, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a lawsuit that seeks class-action status, which New York and Massachusetts have joined. There are individual lawsuits in Georgia, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Texas and elsewhere, NBC News reported. The lawsuits claim violations of the First, Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments, which guarantee religious equality, due process and equal protection under the law, as well as denials of asylum and discriminatory visa processing. We re being sued right now in 10 different courts. We re going to be sued tomorrow in 20 different courts, Erez Reuveni from the Justice Department s Office of Immigration Litigation told a Virginia judge on Friday.On Friday afternoon, a US District Court judge in Washington state ruled that the combined cases put forward by Washington and Minnesota provided evidence that the executive order has caused immediate harm. Judge James Robart also said that the lawsuit has substantial likelihood of success in challenging the constitutionality of the order, the Seattle Times reported.Robart asks DOJ's Bennett how many arrests of foreign nationals there have been from the 7 countries since 9/11. She says she doesn't know. Sydney Brownstone (@sydbrownstone) February 3, 2017 The Constitution prevailed today, Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson said in a statement. No one is above the law not even the President. On Monday, Ferguson became the first state attorney general to file a lawsuit against Trump, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and high-ranking Trump administration officials; on Wednesday, Minnesota joined the suit as a plaintiff. In their complaint, the states argued that the executive order was motivated by animus and a desire to harm a particular group, and that the discriminatory terms and application of the Executive Order are arbitrary and cannot be justified by federal interests. As such, the order is unconstitutional and violated the visa-holders rights, they said.Robart s restraining order covers the whole country for at least two weeks until the preliminary injunction hearing, The Stranger reported. It also stops the government from enforcing the part of the ban that grants exemptions to non-Muslim refugees on the basis of their religion.Even @AGOWA Bob Ferguson seemed stunned at breadth of victory. "Holy cow.. OK" he said to colleagues following ruling #ImmigrationOrder Jim Brunner (@Jim_Brunner) February 3, 2017Earlier on Friday, US District Court Judge Leonie M. Brinkema expanded and extended her order staying the enforcement of the travel restrictions in Virginia. She also allowed the commonwealth to join the lawsuit by Tareq and Ammar Aqel Mohammed Aziz, Yemeni brothers who are permanent legal residents and who were turned back at Dulles International Airport on Saturday. The two men said they were forced to sign forms giving up their status as lawful permanent residents against their will and without their knowledge or consent, according to court documents.Brinkema noted that, although the president has almost unfettered power when it comes to securing US borders, this is not no limit. Sha also had harsh words for the executive order, which she said was was poorly planned and rolled out. It s quite clear that not all the thought went into it that should have gone into it, she said. There has been chaos without any kind of actual hard evidence that there is a need to revoke visas that had already been granted.Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring praised the ruling outside the Alexandria courthouse, according to the Washington Post, saying he was really pleased the judge recognized real harm is happening in Virginia. Brinkema did not hold government officials in contempt for reportedly preventing immigrants access to lawyers, a violation of her previous order. She told the court that she didn t have enough information to make the contempt determination, even though Virginia had cited news reports and affidavits from lawmakers that US Customs and Border Patrol agents had not allowed attorneys access to the visa holders. There were so many lawyers there willing to help, and not a single one got access, Virginia Solicitor General Stuart Raphael said during the hearing.Brinkema also required that, by Thursday, the federal government provide Virginia with a list of all people with valid visas who were denied entry or removed from the US who had Virginia ties since the order was signed. At least 350 students at state universities, as well as professors and other employees, were affected by the executive order, Virginia officials said.On Thursday, the ACLU filed a lawsuit in a California federal district court, accusing the Trump administration of violating the religious freedom of those visa holders who were barred from entering the country. It proposes class-action status on behalf of nationals who are living or have lived in the United States and are from the seven countries listed in the executive order. Senior advisers to defendant Trump have engaged in anti-Muslim rhetoric that provides additional support for the notion that the executive order was prompted by animus toward Islam and Muslims, the suit said.New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman and Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey announced Tuesday that they would join lawsuits filed by the ACLU chapters in their respective states. As I ve made clear: President Trump s executive action is unconstitutional, unlawful, and fundamentally un-American, Schneiderman said in a statement. That is why my office will be filing to join the federal lawsuit against President Trump and his administration. I m proud to partner with these organizations to fight to permanently strike down this dangerous and discriminatory order. Although the Bay State has joined in the ACLU s lawsuit, Massachusetts state attorneys were in court seeking an extension to the seven-day restraining order against Trump s travel ban that was originally granted there on Sunday. US District Judge Nathaniel Gorton did not issue an extension, but is reviewing arguments and will rule by Sunday.However, Robart s nationwide restraining order provides coverage in case Gorton s ruling does not extend the local stay.I don't wake up every day looking for a way to sue Donald Trump. But we are 10 days in and I've filed three cases already. Maura Healey (@maura_healey) January 31, 2017 If an Executive Order looks like a Muslim ban, acts like a Muslim ban, and has been talked about as a Muslim ban, then it s probably a Muslim ban, Friday s complaint read.The initial lawsuit in the commonwealth was filed Sunday on behalf of two state university professors from Iran with green cards who were detained at Boston s Logan Airport on their way back from an academic conference. An amended complaint added six new plaintiffs, including several non-citizens legally in the US who are afraid they will be unable to return if they leave the country, WHDH reported.Indeed, visas for two of the plaintiffs a doctoral student at the University of Massachusetts with family in Iran and a businesswoman who often travels to the US have already been revoked, meaning they will not be allowed to return to the country if they leave, said Joshua Press, an attorney with the Department of Justice, according to the Boston Herald.In Virginia on Friday, Reuveni said in court that 100,000 visas had been revoked as a result of the executive order. The number 100,000 sucked the air out of my lungs, Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg of the Legal Aid Justice Center, who represents the Aziz brothers, told the Washington Post.However, the State Department later said the number was actually less than 60,000. The US government issues about 90,000 visas a year to people from the seven restricted countries. Some of those visas last longer than one year, so the overall number of people from the seven countries in the US is much higher.Reuveni also argued that, since Sunday, green-card holders no longer face any enhanced scrutiny when entering the country. However, other legal visa holders already in the US have had their visas revoked, and so will not be able to return if they leave, Virginia Elliott, a spokeswoman for the Bureau of Consular Affairs at the State Department, told the Washington Post.On Sunday, DHS issued a blanket waiver for lawful permanent residents, ditching the case-by-case waivers that had been in operation prior. On Thursday, White House Counsel Don McGahn issued what he called authoritative guidance that green-card holders were not covered under Trump s executive order.What the government says is happening and what volunteers at airports are experiencing are not the same thing, however.Although immigration attorneys are legally allowed to give face-to-face legal counsel to permanent residents still in the secured area of airports, that s not what s happening in practice. Despite Brinkema s previous ruling, immigration attorneys at Dulles International Airport in Virginia aren t allowed into the secure area to talk to visa holders. Instead, they wait until people exit into the main part of the airport.Proud to work with the great group of volunteer attorneys @DullesJustice pic.twitter.com/cet86qpHfm Christine B (@cdbachy) February 1, 2017 When people come through the international arrivals, we line that area, and lawyers are trying to get all the information they can from people coming through arrivals, Molly Hartshorn, a volunteer with Dulles Justice Coalition, told RT. There s a great wall of attorneys asking people, How was Customs? Did you see anything strange? Did anything get handed out on the airplane that was strange? Did they make you sign anything? Even on Tuesday, after the ruling, lawyers were still only gaining information from arriving passengers who were allowed to enter the US, Sirine Shebaya, a volunteer lawyer, told Vox. Although returning green-card holders were being allowed in the country after extensive screening, first-time lawful permanent residents were still being turned away.A beautiful crew of folks who fed us and stood with signs to support all those coming in from customs. pic.twitter.com/dVyfatXS61 Justin Eisele (@Jteisele) February 2, 2017Customs and Border Patrol agents refused to talk to Shebaya or Azadeh Erfani, who works with the Capital Area Immigrants Rights Coalition, according to Vox. That doesn t mean that the CBP employees agree with the executive order, however. Asylum law requires CBP officers to affirmatively ask if an applicant fears return when placing them into expedited removal, an immigration official told The Intercept. By pressuring them to simply get on a plane without going into formal removal proceedings, they are violating our obligations under the refugee convention. We are violating international law. Continue this report at RTREAD MORE TRUMP NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire Trump FilesSUPPORT OUR WORK BY SUBSCRIBING & BECOMING A MEMBER @21WIRE.TV | 1 |
UPDATE: June 4 -- The health insurance enrollment figures cited in this video were derived from a report that counted enrollment as of Feb. 22, which the Department of Health and Human Services published on March 10. The department released new data on June 2, detailing enrollment as of March 31. According to the new report, 7.3 million people were covered by plans purchased via the federally operated health insurance exchanges in the 34 states subject to the Supreme Court ruling, and 6.4 million of them received subsidies. The new report includes additional information about each state, but does not update the calculation of average unsubsidized premiums. | 1 |
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - European Union leaders could hand Theresa May an olive branch in deadlocked Brexit negotiations next week by launching their own internal preparations for a transition to a new relationship with Britain. Draft conclusions submitted by summit chair Donald Tusk to the 27 other EU governments made final Brussels rejection of opening free trade talks now. But they also but gave the beleaguered British prime minister hope that they would do so in December and that, if she ups her offers on divorce terms, the EU will be ready to start talking almost right away. With nerves fraying and threats flying about walking out without a deal come the March 2019 deadline for departure, the pound took a knock when EU negotiator Michel Barnier said a new round of talks this week had ended in continued deadlock over a British refusal to clarify how much it will pay on leaving. But it rallied on word that, despite tough demands from EU governments on what they want from London, the Union is ready to talk about how to avoid a hard Brexit and to ease Britain out with less disruption probably by agreeing to keep it in the single market for a couple of years, diplomats say. The draft of conclusions which would be issued by leaders of the 27 next Friday, a day after meeting May in a full EU summit, still have to be agreed. Envoys, including from heavyweights Germany and France, objected last week to a suggestion from Barnier that the EU should start working on transition plans. But EU officials noted that Tusk, the European Council president, has sounded out most national leaders in recent days he briefed May by on his preparations on Thursday. A senior EU official closely involved in the negotiations said Brussels did not expect major changes to the summit text. A diplomat from one big country said only that the text would be discussed by national envoys in Brussels on Friday. The first version, seen by Reuters, confirms what Barnier and others have said this month: that there is not sufficient progress on agreeing three key elements of a withdrawal treaty for leaders to agree now to open the trade talks May wants. But in an effort to defuse accusations in Britain about EU intransigence, the leaders would welcome progress to date on their three key issues: the rights of 3 million EU citizens in Britain; protecting peace in Northern Ireland from the effect of a new border on the island; and Britain s outstanding payments. They would pledge to reassess things at their next summit in mid-December Barnier on Thursday spoke of making progress in the next two months. And in order not to waste time once they do decide to launch talks on a post-Brexit future, they would ask Barnier and their envoys to start preparing now for a transition albeit without actually starting talking to Britain about it. The European Council invites the Council (Article 50) together with the Union negotiator to start internal preparatory discussions, the draft read. Another EU official said that would avoid weeks of delay in launching a new phase by the new year which business leaders say is vital if they are to make informed investment decisions in 2018 for the time after Brexit. Without a good idea by early next year of what a transition period will look like, international businesses in Britain would start to vote with their feet and move operations to the continent for fear of a hard Brexit , some have warned. The uncertain grip May, who campaigned last year against Brexit, has over her party and hardliners demanding she resist EU demands and be ready to walk out with no deal, has left Europeans unsure of where negotiations may lead. The gesture to May reflects some willingness to help reinforce her in office. Barnier and his British counterpart, Brexit Secretary David Davis, told reporters there had been some progress this week on citizens rights and the Irish border question. Davis renewed his call for EU leaders to give a green light to trade talks next week but that has long been a forlorn hope. Barnier made clear that despite new momentum from May s concessions in a speech at Florence last month, British proposals still failed the sufficient progress test, notably on tens of billions of euros the EU says London owes. May said Britain would ensure the other 27 countries did not lose out financially from Brexit in the current EU budget period to 2020 and would honor commitments but Barnier said London was failing to spell out just what it was ready to pay. There was no negotiation on this, but we did have technical discussions which were useful, he said. We are, therefore, at a deadlock on this question. This is extremely worrying for European taxpayers and those who benefit from EU policies. Nonetheless, he offered hope: I am still convinced that, with political will, decisive progress is within reach in the coming two months. With David Davis, we will organize several negotiating meetings between now and the end of the year. May herself said there had been good progress and welcomed Barnier s talk of further progress over the coming weeks . | 0 |
MUNICH (Reuters) - The United States on Saturday redoubled its longstanding demand that Germany and other European countries spend more on defense, saying their failure to meet NATO’s 2 percent military spending target was eroding the foundation of the Atlantic alliance. “When even one ally fails to do their part, it undermines all of our ability to come to each other’s aid,” U.S. Vice President Mike Pence told the Munich Security Conference, even as he assured NATO allies of Washington’s unwavering support. German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel said Germany remained committed to reaching the NATO target, but that it would be hard to boost its defense budget quickly by the 25 billion euros ($26.5 billion) that would be required. Germany now spends about 1.2 percent of gross domestic product on the military. He called for a broader approach that also addressed security risks such as climate change, and said Germany should get credit for the 30 to 40 billion euros it is spending to integrate over a million refugees, many of whom were displaced as a result of failed military interventions of the past. “We are taking these people in and integrating them and preventing them going to other parts of the world as ‘freedom fighters’,” Gabriel said. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told the conference that Europe needed to better integrate its fragmented defense industry, but that this remained a political challenge for countries seeking to protect their own industries and jobs. EU Industry Commissioner Elzbieta Bienkowska told a closed-door session that “we must progressively build a defense union in Europe”, according to one of those present. EU militaries operate 19 types of armored infantry fighting vehicles, compared with one in the United States, while 25 billion euros of defense spending are wasted every year, according to European Commission data. Gabriel also questioned the wisdom of pegging the NATO military spending target to gross domestic product, noting that Greece met the goal, but was having trouble paying its pensions. French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault told the conference that it was important to focus increased spending on equipment needs, rather than military pensions. “The question is not funding NATO or changing budgets, but how Europe can ... improve its deployability without creating a European army,” he said. | 0 |
PARIS (Reuters) - President Emmanuel Macron told U.S. President Donald Trump that the Paris climate deal could not be renegotiated and that while France would continue to work with Washington, it would no longer discuss climate issues with the United States, a French source said. “The president spoke with President Trump in a five-minute phone call. The exchange was direct,” a source close to Macron said. “The president said that they could continue to talk, but indicated that nothing was renegotiable with regard to the Paris accords. The United States and France will continue to work together, but not on the subject of climate,” the source added. | 1 |
PARIS — Searchers in the Mediterranean have found the first sunken wreckage of the EgyptAir flight that mysteriously veered off course and plunged from 37, 000 feet last month, the Egyptian government reported Wednesday. All 66 people aboard the jetliner, EgyptAir Flight 804 bound for Cairo from Paris, were killed in the crash on May 19, as the plane was on the final leg of its trip in Egyptian airspace. News of the discovered wreckage was reported in a statement from the Egyptian Aircraft Accident Investigation Committee, established by the government to find out what happened to the plane, an Airbus A320. The statement said a search vessel, the John Lethbridge, had found and “identified several main locations of the wreckage” and that investigators had been provided with photographic images taken from the seabed, roughly 10, 000 feet below the surface. There was no immediate word on the precise location of the wreckage or whether it included the data recorders that are essential for helping determine why the plane crashed. The discovery was the first significant breakthrough in the search for the plane since investigators said they had detected signals from one of its two flight recorder beacons, or “pingers,” nearly two weeks ago. With the battery life of those beacons expiring by next week, investigators are hoping to retrieve the recorders — which contain cockpit conversations and data from the plane’s onboard computers — before they fall silent. Investigators and search teams will begin mapping the debris field on the ocean floor, the Egyptian committee said. Even in the absence of the data from the flight recorders, air accident experts have said that the distribution of the wreckage would yield significant clues. If the debris contains large pieces of the plane that are concentrated in a relatively small area, that would suggest that the plane hit the water largely intact. Smaller debris scattered across a wide area would suggest that it broke up in midair — possibly the result of an explosion. Remi Jouty, the director of France’s air accidents bureau, which is advising Egypt in the investigation, said last week that investigators were still “very far” from understanding what may have caused the crash. Earlier this week, the Egyptian authorities appeared to back away from suggestions that Flight 804 had disappeared abruptly from radar screens — a scenario that had fanned theories that the plane might have been brought down by a terrorist bomb or other deliberate act, rather than a mechanical or other failure. In a statement published Monday, the Egyptian investigation committee said it had validated radar data provided by the Greek authorities in the days after the crash that indicated that the plane had swerved abruptly off course, first making a sharp left turn before veering to the right and spiraling down into the sea. With the wreckage found, the French Navy said it had recalled its survey ship, the Laplace, from the search zone. Investigators aboard the John Lethbridge will now deploy an underwater robot and sonar equipment to locate the flight recorders and bring them to the surface. The Egyptian authorities this week invited experts from the United States National Transportation Safety Board to join the EgyptAir crash investigation team, as well as engineers from Honeywell, the manufacturer of the flight recorders. Besides the radar tracks now confirmed by both the Greek and Egyptian authorities, the only confirmed data received from the plane were a series of seven automated messages sent to an EgyptAir maintenance base. Those messages included two smoke alerts — one in a bathroom, and another in an electronics bay near the cockpit and close to many of the plane’s computerized control systems. But while the alerts indicate that there was an emergency on board, experts have said they are not sufficient to explain the disaster. | 0 |
Posted on November 7, 2016 by Carl Herman
John Hankey ’s documentary of the assassination of President Kennedy is the single most favorite of my US History students among ~100 film clips I show as a National Board Certified Teacher (shown below). John is a retired Advanced Placement US History teacher, and the best documentary I’ve found on that game-changing history revealing the US rogue state .
John’s sharp 12-minute video, Is Donald Trump for Real?
John has rushed to create the following 63-minute documentary connecting Donald Trump to the .01% criminal rogue state leaders: The first 27 minutes document that the Orlando “shooting” included concocted rhetoric to promote fear of so-called “radical Muslims.” This connects to FBI Director James Comey, who refused to prosecute Hillary Clinton for obvious crimes of secret State Department communications hiding Clinton Foundation looting in the billions, then attempting to destroy the e-mail evidence . This expands into CIA/US intelligence interests to recruit assets they use for rogue state actions , but pitch to assets as patriotic undercover service. John’s analysis concludes that since 9/11, any so-called “leader” fear-mongering of “radicalized Islam” are the real terrorists of the US rogue state. The head cheerleader for this fear is Rudy Giuliani, John Trump’s alleged Director of Homeland Security .
John’s commentary for this work:
I didn’t expect Trump to bring Rudy Giuliani into his campaign. I didn’t anticipate the speeches either of them would give at the convention. I didn’t expect Trump to pick someone as dark and dirty as Mike Pence as his vice President. Trump has tied himself, through his policies and speeches, to the perpetrators of both 911 and Orlando. That’s what I learned making this video.
What is the lesson from the 9-11 attacks? Who did the Orlando attacks? This video answers both questions. FBI director, Comey, and the entire FBI organization, began lying and covering up, within hours, perhaps minutes, of the Orlando shooting. He is clearly implicated. This is the same Comey that is in the news right now, holding himself up as a paragon of virtue.
I didn’t expect to learn what I did learn about the shooter: that he went along on ride-alongs with police in high school; that he told his high school friends that he wanted to be a cop; that he was hired by the state of Florida directly out of high school as a prison guard; that he got a degree in police science from the local college; that he worked for the most prestigious, high-security, government-contracted security firm in the world for the last 10 years. He received good reviews in every one of these positions from his supervisors. The FBI saw fit to not mention any of that in their discussions of him. The shooter was gay, and most definitely not devout as a Muslim. Dozens of witnesses say he was the nicest guy you’d ever want to meet. And he supported Hillary for president. Clearly he was expendable.
John’s game-changing documentary on the JFK assassination, Dark Legacy, in its 2-minute trailer :
1-minute video of George Bush, Sr.’s apparent duping delight of JFK’s assassination:
Dark Legacy highlights in ten minutes :
Full Dark Legacy documentary in 103 minutes :
My context for the .01% immediate history: The Crimes The US is a literal rogue state empire led by neocolonial looting liars. The history is uncontested and taught to anyone taking comprehensive courses. If anyone has any refutations of this professional academic factual claim for any of this easy-to-read and documented content , please provide it. US ongoing lie-started and Orwellian-illegal Wars of Aggression require all US military and government to refuse all war orders because there are no lawful orders for obviously unlawful wars. Officers are required to arrest those who issue obviously unlawful orders. And again, those of us working for this area of justice are aware of zero attempts to refute this with, “War law states (a, b, c), so the wars are legal because (d, e, f).” All we receive is easy-to-reveal bullshit . When Americans are told an election is defined by touching a computer screen without a countable receipt that can be verified, they are being told a criminal lie to allow election fraud . This is self-evident, but Princeton , Stanford , and the President of the American Statistical Association are among the leaders pointing to the obvious (and here , here , here , here , here , here , here , here , here , here , here , here , here , here , here , here , here , here ). Again, no professional would/can argue an election is legitimate when there is nothing for anyone to count. And, duh, corporate media are criminally complicit through constant lies of omission and commission to “cover” all these crimes. Historic tragic-comic empire is only possible through such straight-face lying, making our Emperor’s New Clothes analogy perfectly chosen. The top three benefits each of monetary reform and public banking total ~$1,000,000 for the average American household, and would be received nearly instantly. Please read that twice. Now look to verify for yourself . Demanding arrests as the required and obvious public response rather than ‘voting’ for more disaster:
The categories of crime include: Wars of Aggression (the worst crime a nation can commit). Likely treason for lying to US military, ordering unlawful attack and invasions of foreign lands, and causing thousands of US military deaths. Crimes Against Humanity for ongoing intentional policy of poverty that’s killed over 400 million human beings just since 1995 (~75% children; more deaths than from all wars in Earth’s recorded history).
US military, law enforcement, and all with Oaths to support and defend the US Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic, face an endgame choice: Demand arrests , with those with lawful authority to enact it. An arrest is the lawful action to stop apparent crimes , with the most serious crimes documented here meaning the most serious need for arrests. Watch the US escalate its rogue state crimes that annually kill millions, harm billions, and loot trillions.
In just 90 seconds , former US Marine Ken O’Keefe powerfully states how you may choose to voice “very obvious solutions”: arrest the criminal leaders (video starts at 20:51, then finishes this episode of Cross Talk ): Solutions worth literal tens of trillions to ‘We the People’:
Again: The top three benefits each of monetary reform and public banking total ~$1,000,000 for the average American household, and would be received nearly instantly. Please read that twice. Now look to verify for yourself . We can quantify the end of the lie-started and illegal Wars of Aggression quickly into the trillions, and that said, it’s worth a lot more than what we quantify. Truth : a world in which education is expressed in its full potential to only and always begin with good-faith effort for objective, comprehensive, and verifiable data.
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Note: I make all factual assertions as a National Board Certified Teacher of US Government, Economics, and History, with all economics factual claims receiving zero refutation since I began writing in 2008 among Advanced Placement Macroeconomics teachers on our discussion board , public audiences of these articles , and international conferences (and here ). I invite readers to empower their civic voices with the strongest comprehensive facts most important to building a brighter future. I challenge professionals, academics, and citizens to add their voices for the benefit of all Earth’s inhabitants.
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Carl Herman is a National Board Certified Teacher of US Government, Economics, and History; also credentialed in Mathematics. He worked with both US political parties over 18 years and two UN Summits with the citizen’s lobby, RESULTS , for US domestic and foreign policy to end poverty. He can be reached at
Note: Examiner.com has blocked public access to my articles on their site (and from other whistleblowers), so some links in my previous work are blocked. If you’d like to search for those articles other sites may have republished, use words from the article title within the blocked link. Or, go to http://archive.org/web/ , p aste the expired link into the box, click “Browse history,” then click onto the screenshots of that page for each time it was screen-shot and uploaded to webarchive. I’ll update as “hobby time” allows; including my earliest work from 2009 to 2011 (blocked author pages: here , here ). This entry was posted in General . Bookmark the permalink . Donate Recent Posts | 0 |
ABUJA (Reuters) - A major Nigerian oil union suspended a nationwide strike on Monday, the same day it began, after a dispute resolution ended with a domestic oil and gas company recalling laid off staff, the union s president said. | 0 |
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump told Emmanuel Macron on Thursday that he had been his favorite to win the French presidential election and media reports that he was backing far-right leader Marine Le Pen were wrong, a French official said. “You were my guy,” Trump told the new French president when they met for the first time in Brussels, the French presidency official said. Trump told Macron that, contrary to media reports during the race, he had not backed Le Pen and had followed Macron’s campaign with great attention, the source said, adding that the two leaders had spoken in English. White House spokesman Sean Spicer said he did not know if Trump had said this to Macron but noted that the two men had good chemistry. Centrist Macron beat National Front leader Le Pen in a May 7 run-off vote after a hard-fought campaign that pitted Macron’s pro-European views against Le Pen’s anti-globalisation, anti-EU and anti-immigration stance. After a policeman was killed in Paris in April by a suspected Islamist militant, Trump told the Associated Press he thought the attack would “probably help” Le Pen because she was the candidate who is “strongest on borders”. However, he said he was not explicitly endorsing Le Pen. Le Pen said she was best placed to defend France’s interests in what she called the “new world” of Trump and Russia’s Vladimir Putin. | 1 |
Brought to the United States from Venezuela as a toddler, Carlos Roa was among the first young undocumented immigrants to be protected from deportation under a program President Obama set up in 2012 by executive action. Since then Mr. Roa, now 29, has put himself through college and is training to be an architect, drafting blueprints at a Chicago firm. But with the election of Donald J. Trump as president, Mr. Roa and 750, 000 other immigrants in the program, who came to the United States as children, have been swept up in a wave of anxiety, worried about losing the progress they have made and being forced back underground or even deported. Mr. Trump has promised to “immediately terminate” Mr. Obama’s executive actions on immigration, including the youth initiative. With deep roots in the United States, and with many supporters in civil rights groups, universities and city governments already mobilizing to shield them, many who came here as youths said they were prepared to fight efforts to end the program or expel them from the country. “I have been here for 27 years, and I am not going anywhere,” Mr. Roa said, in between strategy sessions at Casa Michoacán, a gathering place in Chicago where immigrants planned moves to resist. Young immigrants, who call themselves Dreamers, are already protesting at many colleges, and they have called for a march from New York to Washington starting Tuesday. They are pressing universities and employers to organize to defend the program and are making plans for havens on campuses and in churches. Canceling the program is one move Mr. Trump could make to satisfy his supporters, who reject Mr. Obama’s executive actions as illegal amnesties and examples of presidential overreach. A larger program for undocumented parents of American citizens and legal residents was halted this year by the Supreme Court. Among Latinos and immigrants, the program, called Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals or DACA, is very popular, the only gain that Mr. Obama has achieved for undocumented immigrants. Most young people in the program are Latinos, and Latino organizations place a priority on protecting them, said Daniel Garza, the president of the Libre Initiative, a conservative Latino advocacy organization. “These kids are going to be exposed if DACA is rescinded and that’s so unfair,” Mr. Garza said. “We should be keeping families together, not tearing them apart. ” Mr. Trump has not provided details of his plans and his transition team did not respond to emails requesting comment. But the program was set up through policy guidelines written by the secretary of Homeland Security at the time, Janet Napolitano — there is not even a formal presidential order — so it can be terminated with a stroke of a new secretary’s pen. Immigrants are taking Mr. Trump at his word when he said he would eliminate the program: He has selected Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama, a Republican who is one of its most vigorous opponents, as attorney general. Another Trump adviser, Kris Kobach, the Republican secretary of state of Kansas, brought a federal lawsuit against the program in 2012 it did not succeed. Mr. Trump’s pledges are chilling for the immigrants because when they signed up to the program, they provided identity information — including the names of their parents, home addresses, utility bills and school transcripts — to United States Citizenship and Immigration Services. The authorities deferred any action to deport them and gave them renewable work permits, but no official immigration status. Administration officials said the citizenship agency could be asked to turn over that information to Homeland Security enforcement agents, who could track down the immigrants to deport them or their parents. Mr. Trump could also take a less harsh approach by allowing existing work permits to lapse and not approving new ones, but not initiating deportations. Advocacy groups have been inundated with calls from people afraid or despondent. Ruben Rivas, 27, a Mexican immigrant, said he had vacillated from fear to sadness to denial. In 2012 Mr. Rivas, the son of undocumented immigrants who spent their lives working jobs, graduated from San Jose State University with a degree in business finance. He applied that year for DACA, never stopping to worry about offering the government details about his life. Now he works as a financial consultant and a small income tax firm. “The first thought I had is that I have done everything right and it is all going to be taken away from me,” he said of his fears for the future of the program. “It feels a little bit like a betrayal. I’ve been here since I was 4 years old. I’m an American. ” Jennifer Marin, 29, a legal assistant, was brought to California from Guatemala when she was 1 year old. As a student at California State University, Dominguez Hills, she worked at a store to pay her tuition. She applied for the program to get her driver’s license, worried that one missed stop sign could send her to jail and deportation, a prospect she could not face with two children. Now she has a license, a car and a home in a Los Angeles suburb she bought with her savings. “It feels like a step backward, to be back in this insecure place where you don’t know what the next step might be,” she said, her voice breaking with tears. She has tried not to cry in front of her children and to assure them that she is safe. Last week, Mr. Obama appealed to Mr. Trump “to think long and hard” before scrapping the program. Dick Durbin of Illinois, the Senate Democrat, said on the floor and on Twitter that he would do “everything in my power” to save the program and protect “Dreamers who have stepped forward to contribute” to the country. Rights groups have been encouraging immigrants up for renewal on the program to reapply quickly. But they are generally urging newcomers not to apply. “The risk for everyone feels much larger than the potential benefit right now,” said Daniel Sharp, the legal director of the Central American Resource Center, a nonprofit legal aid organization in Los Angeles. Groups are pressing the Obama administration to speed up approvals to eliminate any backlogs before Mr. Trump takes office. On Thursday three House Democrats, including Representative Luis V. Gutiérrez of Illinois, asked Mr. Obama to issue a pardon to immigrants in the program. But White House officials said the president did not have the authority for a pardon that would provide lasting protection. If their work permits are canceled or expire, immigrants could face cascading consequences — losing jobs, driver’s licenses, professional certificates and the chance to pay tuition for college. The impact would vary by state. In places like California — home to half of all DACA recipients — and New York, additional protections are enshrined in laws. But in the South and Midwest where there are fewer protections, “people might find they really stand out and are targeted,” said Roberto Gonzales, a Harvard professor who has studied young people in the program. Yet there were signs that young immigrants, who have been battling for a legal foothold in the United States for more than a decade, would not go back underground quietly. United We Dream, a national organization of young immigrants, said it would work with Voto Latino, a voter mobilization group, to encourage colleges to create havens for students who become undocumented once again. At the University of Houston, students organized a walkout on Monday and are working with local activists to designate the city as a sanctuary for undocumented immigrants. Mr. Roa, in Chicago, recalled that a decade ago he was afraid to confess his undocumented status to other students or have his photograph published in a newspaper. “Do you really think we are going back in time?” he asked. “I am going to be kicking and screaming. ” | 0 |
After spending Friday searching for him, we met with Mayor Roger Claar of Bolingbrook, Ill. at City Hall. He had been a bit difficult for us to locate since a he helped organize for Donald J. Trump became an issue in the village’s mayoral race. BOLINGBROOK, Ill. — It was supposed to be an easy glide to yet another term for the longtime mayor of this suburb of Chicago. But then Mayor Claar helped throw the and things got complicated. Jackie Traynere, 54, a labor organizer, is mounting an ambitious challenge against him. Here’s the story of one village election on Tuesday that has become as much about Mr. Trump as the candidates on the ballot. • Ms. Traynere was so mad about the event last fall that she decided to run against Mr. Claar. The Democratic apparatus in Illinois — senators, members of Congress, you name it — is lining up behind her. • Mayor Claar hadn’t answered our interview requests, so we had been hoping to catch up with him Friday. • Finally, we talked with him at City Hall — he does not regret the though he has been disappointed by the reaction. Here’s how the search unfolded. A little about Bolingbrook, 30 miles southwest of Chicago: About 74, 000 people live here and it’s fairly diverse. The mayor’s race is officially nonpartisan, and usually only several thousand people show up to vote. But with a challenger to Mr. Claar and all the attention on the race, this year could be different. The “Rog Mahal” — also known as the Bolingbrook Golf Club — was the scene of the for Mr. Trump. It was built by the city for $36 million in 2002, according to The Chicago Tribune, and many people in Bolingbrook see it as a sign of lavish excess. Mayor Claar’s election HQ is along a stretch of strip shopping centers, tucked between an optometrist’s office and a cellphone store. Campaign signs are plastered on the glass doors, and little wooden Uncle Sams decorate the entry. Three workers are milling around. One of them: the mayor’s wife. Ms. Claar was polite but said she had nothing to add about how the campaign was going or why Mayor Claar might not want to meet. Onward. Around here, Mayor Claar has plenty of fans. Everyone seems to know him. He’s been around through this village’s expansion. Subdivisions have replaced cornfields. The population has almost doubled since 1990, and Mayor Claar has been there through it all. At Sophia’s House of Pancakes, Ms. Traynere is meeting with supporters over club sandwiches and bowls of soup. She seems energetic and talks fast, but she also says she’s starting to come down with a cold as her campaign reaches the homestretch. Her complaints about her competitor, the mayor? She says the village’s debt is too high. She says he runs the whole village — top to bottom — and that he can be a “bully. ” But most of all, she says the Trump event turned her stomach. “Trump’s own words,” she says are what threw some residents here for a loop. Bolingbrook is 20 percent black, 25 percent Hispanic and 11 percent Asian — a big change, she says, from when she was growing up here. “The way he talks about minorities,” she says, “that’s not what we experience in our community. That just doesn’t jibe with our town. ” She goes on: “When people realize that that was the mayor who brought him here, that definitely turned their head to think, ‘hmm, maybe I ought to look at a few other things. ’” But why is such an array of prominent Democrats lining up behind her for a little municipal race? Critics say it seems a bit much. Her supporters don’t seem the least bit troubled by all the backing, though. They’re thinking more about the mayor and the . Off to City Hall — we need to find Mayor Claar. After a wait in the lobby of Bolingbrook’s municipal building, Mr. Claar suddenly appears in the doorway. Mayor Claar has gotten word of our search for him, and is actually clutching a printout of the story we have been writing today. For the record, he acknowledges that he has gotten our earlier phone messages and email requests for interviews, but says that he simply had not wished to talk to us. That said, he shows us to a conference room and patiently takes more than half an hour of questions. The mayor says that the he helped throw for Mr. Trump is the essential reason that he finds himself with such a race. He doesn’t regret the . Not at all, he says. But he adds: “I’m disappointed that some people will take that one thing over 31 years and that’s it. ” | 0 |
Its a disgrace , they have wrecked the FBI , its worse than Hoover and thats saying something , they have to make a stand sometime ,its getting like Alcapone arresting Alcapone . What a mess . Trump should make something out of this stopping honesty in the FBI is an outrage of the highest order. Your brave guys/girls but where is the help you deserve ///???? No one is against the FBI They just hate crooks in their undermining the whole legal syatem if you could call it that . You have to give Sibel Edmons some credit she named Hillary as part of the Dirty dozen . Looks like they are trying to destroy thm going on who they keep putting in charge. | 1 |
5 Questions That Now Loom Over Tonight's Debate
It's hard to be any more gobsmacked about the state of the presidential race right now, after a video of Donald Trump making vulgar comments about women surfaced Friday, prompting more than 30 prominent Republicans to call for him to step aside as the nominee. Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton is also in headlines for a WikiLeaks email dump that included alleged excerpts of her speeches to Wall Street banks.
But there is a debate Sunday night, so its time to pick our jaws off the floor and contemplate 5 things we'll be watching:
This is the big question of the night. Trump, as usual, has given conflicting clues. In a video statement posted on Facebook, he said he was sorry ("I said it. I was wrong. I apologize") but also pivoted to an attack on Bill and Hillary Clinton saying he abused women and she intimidated Bill's accusers. Later, he retweeted messages from Juanita Broaddrick, who claims Bill Clinton raped her.
So what does Trump prioritize: contrition or defiance?
Trump tweeted: "The media and establishment want me out of the race so badly - I WILL NEVER DROP OUT OF THE RACE, WILL NEVER LET MY SUPPORTERS DOWN! #MAGA"
Mike Pence, in an extraordinary show of disloyalty for a vice presidential candidate, briefly jumped off the tightrope he's been walking for weeks and issued Trump an ultimatum for the debate.
Pence said he and his family were "offended" and said "we look forward to the opportunity he has to show what's in his heart (tonight)".
Something else might be going through Trump's mind.
The list of Republicans calling on Trump to step aside is growing, but the number is still tiny compared to the GOP leaders who prefer to condemn Trump's words while maintaining their support. House Speaker Paul Ryan, for example, said he was "sickened" by Trump's comments about grabbing women's genitals but he has not un-endorsed or called for him to step aside as the nominee.
Ryan was heckled by Trump supporters at a campaign event in Wisconsin Saturday, which gives you an idea of how deep the split is inside the GOP. Trump's die-hard supporters are still the majority of the GOP base.
The administration believes Russian security agencies authorized the hacking of Democratic party officials emails in order to influence the U.S. elections (and hurt Clinton).
WikiLeaks posted emails from Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta — including ones from his gmail account that contain excerpts allegedly from Clinton's paid speeches to Wall Street banks.
In them she says she's for free trade and open borders and shows some sympathy for Wall Street bankers.
They represent views that she subsequently moved away from as the campaign progressed, but you can see why she chose not to release the transcripts during her primary battle with Bernie Sanders .The hacked emails could hurt her with Sanders supporters, (although Sanders himself has dismissed them) younger voters ,and blue-collar Democrats.
If there is a contest for the October Surprise prize, Trump's hot mic probably beats WikiLeaks.
Still, tonight Clinton will need to come up with a good explanation for why she said those things to a private room filled with Wall Street bankers.
The debate format is unusual and presents lots of pitfalls for both candidates.
There are two moderators (ABC's Martha Raddatz and CNN's Anderson Cooper), but half the questions will come from ordinary voters.
It's harder to attack your opponent in a room full of real people who want you to tell them how you will make their lives better. And any question from a voter has the presumption of validity — making it hard to ignore or to pivot away to boilerplate speech chunks or talking points (a favorite tactic of presidential candidates).
But both campaigns claim this is a great format for their candidate.
Trump has spent more hours in front of a T.V. camera than any Republican presidential candidate other than Ronald Reagan. Even so, Trump's "practice town hall" in Sandown, N.H. on Thursday night did not show that Trump has learned how to connect with people the way a town hall format demands.
The audience was handpicked supporters, the questions were vetted, friendly and read from notecards by the moderator.
The Clinton campaign says the town hall format is a good one for Hillary Clinton since she prefers small listening sessions and roundtables with small businesspeople or working moms over big set piece speeches at rallies.
But most of the questions she gets in those forums are friendly softballs.
Clinton has been preparing diligently — as usual — for this debate. She presumably is working on better answers to questions about her emails, the WikiLeaks revelations and the line that was the most effective for Trump in the first debate — that he represents change and she is the staus quo.
Winning means different things for Clinton and Trump.
Trump has a monumental task. Even before the Access Hollywood hot mic audio was leaked, he was in a hole — a hole that he dug and kept digging for himself because of his poor performance in the first debate, his subsequent feud with former Miss Universe Alicia Machado, and the story about his $916 million dollar business loss/tax deduction.
So tonight Trump needs a performance so unexpectedly good that it will reverse that downward spiral.
Clinton, on the other hand, comes into the second debate with a small but growing lead in the polls. She needs to connect with voters and show them she's not the dishonest, unlikeable person they think she is. But most of all, her goal is to not screw up.
A large number of issues have simply been absent from the conversation this campaign — such as health care, energy, job creation and economic growth.
Will voters tonight ask for specifics on any of these topics, or are they happy to watch another chapter in the food fight that campaign 2016 has become?
The debate will begin at 9 p.m. ET. You can listen to special coverage from NPR on your local station or watch at NPR.org. | 1 |
With 95% of the vote in, all signs point to a Trump Victory in Florida.
Trump leads Clinton 48.8% to 48.0%
The New York Times Prediction caster at the time of this writing gives Trump a 91% of winning Florida with only 5% of the votes remaining.
Securing Florida is a needed step for Trump is what will still be a difficult but possible bid to achieve 270 delegates and win the Presidency. Ohio, North Carolina, Michigan and Virginia are all looking very close as well. Comment on this Article Via Your Facebook Account Comment on this Article Via Your Disqus Account Follow Us on Facebook! | 0 |
FERGUSON, Mo. -- Less than 24 hours after two officers were hit by gunfire, a quieter protest took place outside police headquarters Thursday night, with no problems or arrests in this city torn by racial unrest. Missouri highway patrol and St. Louis County police took over security for the evening.
As the clock approached midnight, organizers dismissed the people who had gathered.
Earlier on Thursday, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder sharply condemned the shootings of police Wednesday night as a "disgusting and cowardly attack."
"What happened last night was a pure ambush," Holder said. "This was not someone trying to bring healing to Ferguson. This was a damn punk, a punk, who was trying to sow discord."
President Obama, in an appearance on the Jimmy Kimmel Live TV show Thursday night, said, "We don't yet know what happened" in the shooting but offered his prayers to the wounded officers and their families.
"There's no excuse for criminal acts,'' the president said. "They're criminals. They need to be arrested. And then what we need to do is make sure that like-minded, good-spirited people on both sides, law-enforcement who have a terrifically tough job and people who understand they don't want to be stopped and harassed because of their race, that we're able to work together to try and come up with some good answers."
Mayor John Knowles was notified that the highway patrol and county would take over the security duties from the Ferguson police department "until further notice," the county police department said in a statement.
Sgt. Brian Schellman, a spokesman for the St. Louis County police, said investigators interviewed several people regarding the shooting but made no arrests.
Just after 8 p.m., clergy gathered blocks from the Ferguson Police Department for a candlelight vigil. They prayed for the safety of the demonstrators and for the health of the two wounded police officers.
Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon was in St. Louis County to be briefed by local officials. He said the highway patrol and county police will be sending additional officers in anticipation of more protests Thursday night.
"I ask Missourians to join me in calling for calm in the wake of the cowardly and reprehensible ambush of two police officers who were acting to protect the public," Nixon said. "I also thank all the brave law enforcement officers who selflessly risk their lives each day to keep communities safe."
Routine police service remains in the hands of the embattled Ferguson police department, whose chief resigned in the wake of scathing criticism of the force by the Justice Department for racially biased policing.
St. Louis County police chief Jon Belmar had called for a "measured response" to the shooting of the two officers around midnight Wednesday, but reserved the right to beef up security as warranted.
The two officers "took a very hard hit" and were seriously injured, but will not sustain long-term injuries, he said. They were released from the hospital Thursday morning.
"We were lucky by God's grace that we didn't lose two officers last night," Belmar told reporters. "We could have buried two police officers over this. ... It's a miracle we haven't had any instances similar to this in the summer and fall."
Police recovered shell casings at the scene and fanned out across the city looking for the shooter.
A St. Louis County SWAT team stormed a home about four blocks from the police station Thursday morning, clambering on top off the roof, KSDK-TV reported.
Neighbors said three people were taken from the home in handcuffs. Police said they were taken in for questioning, but there were no immediate arrests.
The shootings occurred as demonstrators were winding up a protest following the resignation of the city's police chief in the wake of a scathing Justice Department report alleging bias in the police department and court.
"This is really an ambush," he said. "You can't see it coming. You don't understand that it's going to happen and you're basically defenseless from the fact that it is happening to you at the time. "
Belmar said one of the officers, a 32-year-old, seven-year veteran from nearby Webster Groves, was shot below his right eye. The bullet lodged near his right ear, he said.
The second officer, a 41-year-old with 14 years on the St. Louis County force, was hit in the shoulder by a bullet that came out his back.
At the time of the shooting, Belmar said, the number of demonstrators had dwindled from around 150 to about 75 and the number of police at the scene had dropped to about 40.
He said the two wounded officers were standing in a line of 20 to 25 other officers when three or four shots were fired from about 125 feet away.
"I feel very confident that whoever did this was there for the wrong reason, not the right reason, and came there for whatever nefarious reason it was," Belmar said in a news conference. "But I do feel like there was an unfortunate association with that gathering."
Jeff Roorda, who heads the St. Louis Police Officers Association, said the shooting sent a chill through the law enforcement community.
He called on state and county officials to restrict protests to daytime hours.
"This is a very volatile situation," Roorda said. "You have outside agitators racing to be here. This isn't safe for police, community or peaceful protesters."
Roorda said he's spoken to the police officer who was shot in the shoulder and that he was doing remarkably well considering the circumstances.
Police officers at the scene last night said were jolted by the timing of the incident. The protests were breaking up and only a few dozen demonstrators were left when the shots were fired.
"There's been a recurring phenomenon throughout the protests where you see the flash-points, the bad things coming ," he said. "But last night, as it was described to me by many of the cops that were here here, it wasn't that way. The crowd was just mulling around. A lot of the protesters were starting to disperse. No one saw it coming."
The shootings came hours after Ferguson officials announced that Police Chief Thomas Jackson, who will step down March 19.
Jackson, 57, became the third top city official to leave following the release of the Justice Department report. Judge Ronald Brockmeyer and City Manager John Shaw resigned earlier this week.
Lt. Col. Al Eickhoff is serving as acting chief until the city completes a nationwide search for a new police chief, the city said in a news release. Jackson will receive a severance payment of approximately $100,000 and health insurance for one year.
Belmar said he has called for a "measured response" to the shootings, but reserved the right to call upon the highway patrol for additional help if necessary.
He said police are planning to assess their security plans outside the Ferguson Police Department and talk to protesters and community leaders about how to move forward.
When asked about security in the area moving forward, Belmar said it is very difficult to sustain this kind of situation without injuries to the public or police officers.
"I think we need to re-evaluate that, and that's one of the things I've been doing since my phone rang at midnight tonight," said Belmar. "We're going to be looking for different ways to approach this. Obviously my first priority is to the community, but that's followed very very closely to my police officers and making sure that they're able to do what they're supposed to do out there in a safe manner."
Earlier in the day, Obama condemned the shootings, saying in a tweet that "violence against police is unacceptable." "Our prayers are with the officers in MO," he wrote. "Path to justice is one all of us must travel together."
St. Louis County Executive Steve Stenger said doesn't believe the shooting will set back any gains made in the city.
"I don't consider this incident a setback toward healing," he said. "I don't believe it's going to affect any healing process that is going on in the community. I think the community at large is fully supportive of these police officers and probably wishes the very best for them."
Knowles and the Ferguson City Council released a statement thanking law enforcement agencies that have helped the city in the past seven months and reaching out the community.
"While we respect the right to peacefully protest, we cannot continue to move forward under threats of violence and destruction to our community," the statement said. "We ask our residents and clergy in this area to partner with us as we make our way through this process."
The shootings came as a shock to the crowds gathered outside the police department. DeRay McKesson, 29, one of the most visible protesters in Ferguson, was sitting in his car and about to tweet that the crowd was thinning out when he heard about four gunshots to his right.
"It was like pow, pow, pow, pow — like four consistent shots," he said. "I was looking straight up at the police department and I see an officer fall and I see officers surround him."
McKesson said protesters, who had been gathered at the police department since 8 p.m. Wednesday, hit the ground as soon as the shots rang out and scattered trying to get to safety amid the chaos.
"Every single gun any officer had was drawn and they were all behind something," he said, adding that officers ran and ducked behind cars and the department building.
St. Louis County Alderman posted a Vine showing people crawling on the ground after police reacted to the gunshots.
Heather De Mian, 44, of St. Charles, Mo., was live streaming the scene outside of the police department when the shots rang out.
"Those gunshots went right past my head," said De Mian, who is in a wheelchair and tried to duck down. "I tried to go down low so my head wasn't sticking out."
She said soon after the shots a swarm of St. Louis County Police crime scene cars showed up and later, a group of officers marched up the hill on a side street in the direction of where the sound of gunshots had come from.
Meanwhile, De Mian is adamant that the shooters were not with demonstrators.
"The shots came from a block away from the protests," she said. "It's incredibly dangerous to try to link the protesters to this without evidence. It could be someone trying to frame the protesters or someone who was aiming at the protesters and was a bad shot. Whoever shot put everyone's life in danger."
An Aug. 9 shooting of unarmed African-American teen Michael Brown by white Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson set off weeks of unrest and violence in the St. Louis suburb.
Brown's family issued a statement Thursday condemning the police shootings. "We reject any kind of violence directed toward members of law enforcement," the statement said. They also denounced the actions of "stand-alone agitators" who might try to derail the a peaceful movement addressed at police brutalit
Wilson was not charged in Brown's killing and the Justice Department found no reason to bring civil rights charges against him. | 0 |
Have you ever seen something so stupid that you wish you could just go back to bed on the off-chance that it was a dream? That s how my day has gone so far. You know, we regularly hear from the NRA that gun owners are responsible individuals ready to leap into action and save us from all the ISISes, Commies, and other assorted (largely imaginary) bad guys who are lying in wait to attack us while we re walking around a grocery store or eating at Chipotle (though, of course, the food there might be seen as a reasonable threat these days). In some incredibly rare circumstances, it might be useful to have a gun. But, as usual, one of the NRA s Chosen has reminded us that the risks of universal gun ownership far outweigh the benefits.A woman who reportedly lives in the Southern United States didn t like that her kids disobey her, practically live on social media, and basically are teenagers. While most parents would take their children s electronics to teach them some respect, this unnamed woman decided a SECOND AMENDMENT SOLUTION was in order so she grabbed her shotgun and began shootin stuff while someone else recorded. I hereby denounce the effects that social media have on my children, the mom shouts at the beginning of the video, her trusty boomstick ready to dish out some justice. Their disobedience and their disrespect. She then takes aim at her children s iPhones and fires a shot, blasting them to bits. She then instructs the man behind the camera to place the broken bits of electronics back on the tree stump because she isn t quite through with them yet.Up to this point, the kids have been quite disrespectful, cursing at her and even flipping their mother the bird. In other words, she is likely right that they deserve punishment but she continues to take things to the extreme I refuse to be cursed, she bellows. I refuse to be disobeyed. I take back my role as your parent. This shining example of much of what is wrong with America then instructs the cameraman to make sure the kids are on camera and they can be seen standing with their arms crossed as their mother continues to go insane. One of them throws up both middle fingers because he s exactly the sort of kid someone like this would raise. She fires another shot, blowing the already-destroyed cell phones to even smaller bits. Anything left put it on top, she tells the cameraman who dutifully obeys. Mom then announces that she refuses to have them influenced in negative ways like, hypothetically, if their mother were to line them up and force her children to watch her shoot their belongings while screaming like a crazy woman. She wouldn t stand for that. Oh, wait To emphasize her point, she grabbed a sledgehammer and beat the fragments of the phones with it. I m done, she yelled as she dropped the hammer and walked away.It s easy for some to imagine a world in which everyone is armed but they fail to realize that people like this woman exist, who think a Second Amendment Solution is appropriate for even the most mundane of scenarios. She was not defending her home, saving lives, hunting, or even fighting back against an oppressive government. She used her weapon in an apparently failed attempt to intimidate her children (but let s face it: everyone in this scenario is an asshole). Fortunately, no one was hurt, but someone could have been. Watch it below:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxbMlVPThp0Featured image via screengrab | 0 |
H1B Visas have been the downfall of thousands upon thousands of white-collar American jobs. Obama is now signing an executive order to bring even more foreign jobs to our shores. OUTSOURCING AMERICAN JOBS NEEDS TO END! You might recall that Disney was in hot water for firing American workers and then hiring H1B visa holders. The backlash was so huge that Disney rehired some American workers. So now Obama is going all out to destroy the American worker in the name of cheap foreign labor What a jackwagon! As the nation prepares to ring in the New Year, President Barack Obama is preparing a colossal new executive action that could print-up work permits for a huge number of foreign white-collar graduates every year, above and beyond the levels set by Congress.This executive action, which directly bypasses Congressional lawmakers, is likely to reverberate across the presidential race, as GOP voters look to choose a nominee they believe will most effectively roll back the President s still-expanding agenda. And it will certainly raise new security concerns as it covers categories of immigration utilized by migrants from the Middle East and nearby regions.President Barack Obama s Department of Homeland Security plans to publish the proposed rule tomorrow, the last day of 2015.The 181-page rule focuses primarily on giving work-permits to foreign college-grads who will compete against Americans for white collar jobs, despite the large number of American graduates now stuck in lower-wage positions and struggling to pay off college debts. The rule will also make each foreign graduate much cheaper for U.S. employers to hire than many U.S.-born college grads. Obama has gone the Full Monty to bust the immigration system, says immigration lawyer John Miano. What is going on is he is effectively giving Green Cards to people on H-1B visas who are unable to get Green Cards due to the [annual] quotas it could be over 100,000. THE TECH INDUSTRY PUSHES FOR OUTSOURCING:President Obama s White House has pulled a language switcheroo, replacing the immigration terms alien and immigrant with the term Americans-In-Waiting. The Washington Times reports the White House is using the term to refer to the thousands of spouses of high-skilled H1B visa holders who have been waiting for green cards.The move is a big victory for Silicon Valley employers, who have heavily lobbied presidential administrations for years to increase the number of H1B visas and to allow the spouses of their workers to also work.The rule change could possibly double the number of workers for tech firms looking for skilled, cheaper labor.VIA: BREITBARTVIA: IJREVIEW | 1 |
Here s @chucktodd s interview with @BuzzFeedBen about BuzzFeed s decision to publish that dossier https://t.co/Oa7Fs6IVLT Bradd Jaffy (@BraddJaffy) January 11, 2017 | 0 |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - North Korea s Kim Jong Un will be tested like never before, U.S. President Donald Trump said on Friday as the two leaders continued to trade insults and Pyongyang threatened to test a hydrogen bomb over the Pacific Ocean. Kim Jong Un of North Korea, who is obviously a madman who doesn t mind starving or killing his people, will be tested like never before, Trump tweeted, one day after announcing additional sanctions on Pyongyang. | 1 |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The deputy director of the U.S. National Security Agency, the intelligence agency in charge of electronic surveillance and code-breaking, is retiring, an NSA spokesman said on Friday. Richard Ledgett, who just turned 59, will retire in the spring, spokesman Michael Halbig said in an emailed statement. “It has been anticipated that he would retire in 2017 and he decided the time is right this spring after nearly 40 years of service to the nation.” Ledgett played a central role in the agency’s response to massive leaks of U.S. surveillance programs by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden. Ledgett is among the many top U.S. intelligence officials who have announced they are leaving since Donald Trump’s victory in the Nov. 8 election. In the UK, the head of NSA’s British counterpart agency GCHQ, Robert Hannigan, announced two weeks ago that he was stepping down for family reasons. The NSA has faced continued challenges since Snowden’s 2013 revelations, believed to be the largest leak in the secretive agency’s 65-year history. Another NSA contractor, Harold Thomas Martin, is facing espionage charges for allegedly stealing vast amounts of classified information. In November, the head of the Pentagon and the U.S. intelligence community recommended to then-President Barack Obama that NSA’s director, Navy Admiral Michael Rogers, be removed from his post, sources familiar with the matter said. Obama took no action in the matter, which the Washington Post first reported. | 0 |
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Six Russian long-range bombers struck Islamic State targets near the town of Albu Kamal in Syria s Deir al-Zor Province on Wednesday, the Russian Defence Ministry said in a statement. The TU-22M3 bombers took off from bases in Russia and overflew Iran and Iraq before launching the strike, it said. The ministry said the planes had bombed Islamic State supply depots, militants, and armored vehicles and that satellite and drone surveillance had confirmed that all of the designated targets had been destroyed. It said Sukhoi-30SM fighter jets, based at the Hmeymim air base in Syria used by Russian forces, had escorted the bombers while they were in Syrian air space and that all the bombers had safely returned to their bases. Russia on Tuesday accused the United States of providing de-facto cover for Islamic State units in Syria and of only pretending to fight terrorism in the Middle East. Specifically, the Russian Defence Ministry said the U.S. air force had tried to hinder Russian strikes on Islamic State militants around Albu Kamal. Asked about the Russian allegations, Colonel Ryan Dillon, a spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition fighting Islamic State, said: The Russian ministry of defense statements are about as accurate as their air campaign and I think that is a reason for them to start, you know, coming out with their latest barrage of lies. | 1 |
A judge has refused to toss out a federal lawsuit against the city of San Jose, California, in which the city police are accused of allowing an angry mob of left-wing agitators and violent protesters to target peaceful pro-Trump fans. Several people were injured during the June 2 rally:The city was sued by attorney Harmeet Dhillon, in a pro bono case, representing some of the victims. Dhillon, the national committeewoman of the California Republican Party and a contender to lead the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice, also attended the rally. Citizens ranging from their teens to their 70s were assaulted, abused, chased, hunted, and terrorized in a situation for which the city is responsible, and must now answer, Dhillon told LifeZette. This lawsuit seeks to vindicate the principle that every American regardless of his or her political beliefs is entitled to equal protection of the laws, and to the rights of free speech and free assembly, particularly in the support of their candidate of choice. The unfortunate series of events happened just weeks after Republican businessman Donald Trump had sewn up the GOP presidential nomination in May 2016. The Trump supporters were leaving the San Jose rally, exiting the convention center on June 2.Read more: Lifezette | 1 |
The election in 232 photos, 43 numbers and 131 quotes, from the two candidates at the center of it all. | 1 |
John Podesta is the guardian of the Clintons just like Valerie Jarrett was for the Obamas. He was instrumental during the 2016 election as the Clinton campaign chair and was exposed when the Wikileaks hack happened. He was just interviewed by the House Intel Committee regarding the Russia scam and was asked about it in the heated debate below:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9U5zxVyTqAJohn Podesta is not just the former chairman of the Hillary Clinton s presidential campaign, but also a central figure in the ongoing narrative of Russian meddling in the US election of 2016. His hacked emails were at the heart of what some have called a coordinated news campaign led by Wikileaks, and so he met with the House Intelligence panel yesterday behind closed doors.This morning he appeared on Fox Business to discuss the Russian interference, allegations of collusion with Trump campaign and more with host Maria Bartiromo in what became a testy debate that perfectly exemplifies the divided positions that so many Americans hold right now.Bartiromo showed skepticism over the Russia claims rightfully so!. And there may be no other individual that best embodies the Clinton s web of influence for good and bad than Mr. Podesta. He s the definition of a weasel.Bartiromo aggressively attacked Podesta and Democrats for what she said were deeper ties with Russia, specifically asking about Podesta s investment portfolio:THIS IS JUST ONE EXAMPLE OF A DEEP TIE TO RUSSIA:Russia gave John Podesta 35 millions dollars (1 billion rubles) while he advised Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.Russia gave John Podesta 35 millions dollars (1 billion rubles) while he advised Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. pic.twitter.com/cf042XZLeU Based Vet (@BasedVet) March 28, 2017 Get your facts straight, the former Clinton campaign chair shot back, before dismissing the FBN hosts claims as coming from a dubious source like InfoWars. It went downhill from there. | 0 |
LANGUAGE WARNING] TMZ Sports released video of Cincinnati Bengals cornerback Adam “Pacman” Jones’ arrest from earlier this month, and the had some harsh words for his arresting officers. Jones was booked on misdemeanor charges of assault, disorderly conduct and obstructing official business, but picked up another charge of resisting arrest, as well as a felony charge of harassment with a bodily substance for spitting on a jail nurse. In the video from the police car, Jones can be heard telling the officer, “Suck my d***. ” “I hope you die tomorrow,” he later added. Jones continued to berate the cop, calling him a “b****” and “n****. ” He is due back in court February 10. Follow Trent Baker on Twitter @MagnifiTrent | 0 |
Richard Schickel, who was so captivated by Walt Disney’s “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” when he was 5 years old that he grew up to be a noted film critic, Hollywood historian and prolific author and documentarian — and estimated that he had watched 22, 590 movies — died on Saturday in Los Angeles. He was 84. His daughter Erika Schickel said the cause was complications of dementia. Fortified by boxes of Good Plenty licorice rather than popcorn, Mr. Schickel reviewed films for Life magazine from 1965 until it closed in 1972, then wrote for Time until 2010 and later for the blog Truthdig. com. In a career that spanned the studio era and the rise of independent directors, he also wrote 37 books on movies and filmmakers and wrote or directed more than 30 documentaries, mostly for television. He shared or received three Emmy nominations, for “Life Goes to the Movies” in 1976 and “Minnelli on Minnelli: Liza Remembers Vincente” in 1987. Richard Zoglin, a fellow critic and now a contributing editor at Time, said that what distinguished Mr. Schickel among his peers was his comprehensive knowledge of the movie industry’s players and processes coupled with “an astute critical sensibility” that resisted the trendy. “He wrote from the perspective of a film insider,” Mr. Zoglin said in a phone interview, “but responded to films from a gut level and never lost the sense of being an average filmgoer reacting to what was on the screen. ” Mr. Schickel pulled no punches. Reviewing Stanley Kramer’s “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner” in 1967, the interracial love story starring Sidney Poitier, Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy, Mr. Schickel groused, “Kramer is earnestly preaching away on matters that have long ceased to be true issues. ” He even dismissed “The Maltese Falcon,” John Huston’s 1941 film noir classic starring Humphrey Bogart, as “cramped and static” and was damning in a retrospective look at “Gone With the Wind” in The Atlantic in 1973. Mr. Schickel wrote that two measures of a movie’s quality should be how much a viewer retains and how much one wants to see it again. By both measures, he loved “Citizen Kane,” “Double Indemnity,” “The Godfather,” “The Searchers,” “Chinatown,” “Fargo,” “Meet Me in St. Louis,” “Yankee Doodle Dandy,” “Pinocchio” and the original “King Kong,” as well as outliers like Audie Murphy’s western “No Name on the Bullet” and François Truffaut’s “The 400 Blows. ” Mr. Schickel did not view filmgoing as an experience frozen in memory. “You loved ‘My Friend Flicka’ when you saw it at age 10,” he wrote. “If you see it at age 65, you may respect it, but you won’t think it’s a masterpiece (which does not mean you should deprive your grandchildren of the pleasure of seeing this picture when they are the perfect age for it). ” He also understood that the public’s perception of his role had evolved. A critic, he told The Hedgehog Review in 2005, is “a very endangered species in a nation that wants indulgence more than a criticism that questions its fatuity. ” But responding to an article in The New York Times, which suggested that blogging might be making book reviewing more democratic, he wrote in The Los Angeles Times in 2007: “Criticism — and its humble cousin, reviewing — is not a democratic activity. It is, or should be, an elite enterprise, ideally undertaken by individuals who bring something to the party beyond their hasty, instinctive opinions of a book (or any other cultural object). It is work that requires disciplined taste, historical and theoretical knowledge and a fairly deep sense of the author’s (or filmmaker’s or painter’s) entire body of work, among other qualities. ” Richard Warren Schickel was born on Feb. 10, 1933, in Milwaukee, the son of Edward Schickel, who worked in advertising, and the former Helen Hendricks, a docent. He was named for an ancestor, Richard Warren, who arrived on the Mayflower. He was raised in suburban Wauwatosa, Wis. and escaped to the movies on weekends with friends, he wrote in a memoir, “Good Morning, Mr. Zip Zip Zip: Movies, Memory, and World War II” (2003) “because the serene and placid little world I inhabited as a kid was so lacking in romantic and heroic adventure. ” He saw Charlie Chaplin’s “The Great Dictator” when he was 8. “I mimed enchantment for my parents’ benefit,” he wrote in American Heritage magazine in 2006. “I did a lot of that in those days. They were so sweetly earnest, as I now appreciatively recall, about introducing me to ‘the finer things.’ Their problem back then was finding, in Milwaukee, finer things for me to appreciate. ” Mr. Schickel graduated from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, in 1955 with a bachelor’s degree in political science and moved to New York, where he freelanced for magazines and reviewed his first film, “A Boy Ten Feet Tall,” starring Edward G. Robinson, in 1965. He described it as “quite a good little movie. ” His marriage to Julia Carroll Whedon, a writer, ended in divorce. In addition to their daughter Erika, who is also a writer, he is survived by another daughter from that marriage, Jessica Vild a stepdaughter, Ali Rubinstein, from his second marriage, to the former Carol Rubinstein, a TV producer who died in 1991 and four grandchildren. His books included biographies of Woody Allen, Marlon Brando, James Cagney, Charlie Chaplin, Gary Cooper, Clint Eastwood, Lena Horne and Elia Kazan. His documentaries include a PBS series, “The Men Who Made the Movies. ” “The truth, very simply, is that most movies are lousy or, at best, routine,” Mr. Schickel wrote in “Keepers: The Greatest Films — and Personal Favorites — of a Moviegoing Lifetime” (2015). “We go to see them, much of the time, in search of something else — the comforting darkness of the theater, the play of light and shadow on the screen, the consolations they offer for some temporary trouble,” he wrote. “A lot of the time we don’t give a hoot what’s playing. We are at a public event for private reasons which we don’t always recognize until later, if at all. It is the occasion, the atmosphere, that we crave. ” | 0 |
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The underpinnings of a decent society are neutral laws — laws that favor no particular individual or group — and the impartial enforcement of those laws. The U.S. Supreme Court's job is to ensure the impartial enforcement of our laws. But our two presidential candidates differ in their visions of court appointees. Hillary Clinton says that she would "look broadly and widely for people who represent the diversity of our country" and that "we need a Supreme Court that will stand up on behalf of women's rights (and) on behalf of the rights of the LGBT community." In contrast, Donald Trump says, "I will appoint justices who, like Justice (Antonin) Scalia, will protect our liberty with the highest regard for the Constitution." Limited government and rule of law are conflict-reducing, whereas diversity-oriented justices who stand up for the rights of particular individuals are conflict-enhancing. Let's look at a simple example of the benefit of neutral rules and their impartial enforcement.
Football teams spend four quarters battling each other. After the conflict, players and coaches shake hands and often hug one another. Their competitive struggle ends peacefully, as well as on friendly terms, because the referees, whom we can think of as justices, enforce neutral rules impartially. There would be a different outcome if referees exercised compassion instead of impartial rule enforcement. Let's be specific.
On Nov. 20, the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Cleveland Browns will play. So far this season, the Browns have not won a single game; their record is 0-9. On top of this sad record, the Browns have not had a winning season since 2007. By contrast, the Steelers haven't had a losing season since 2003. In anyone's book, this is a gross disparity. On Nov. 20, should the referees have the empathy to understand what it's like to be a perennial loser? What would you think of a referee whose decisions are guided by empathy? Let's be explicit.
In the name of compensatory justice, referees might stringently apply pass interference or roughing the passer violations against the Steelers and apply the rules less stringently against the Browns. Another question is: Would you support a referee who refuses to make defensive pass interference calls because he thinks it's a silly rule? You'd probably remind him that the league makes the rules, not referees. Most people would agree that football justice requires that referees apply the rules blindly and independent of the records or any other characteristic of the two teams. They would also agree that referees should impartially apply the rules of the game even if they personally disagree with some of the rules.
If referees exercised compassion, football games would not end so peaceably. Losing coaches and players would not feel a need to go back to the drawing board and figure out how they could improve themselves. Instead, they would focus their energies on choosing sympathetic referees.
The essence of a Supreme Court justice's job is just like that of a referee — namely, impartially enforcing the U.S. Constitution, our rules of the game. The status of a person appearing before the court should have absolutely nothing to do with the rendering of a decision. That's why Lady Justice, often appearing on court buildings, is shown wearing a blindfold. It's to indicate that justice should be meted out impartially, regardless of identity, power or weakness. Also, as Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes said, "men should know the rules by which the game is played. Doubt as to the value of some of those rules is no sufficient reason why they should not be followed by the courts." In other words, the legislative branch makes the rules, not judges. True justice must be settled by process questions, such as: Were the rules unbiased and evenly applied? If so, any outcome of the game of life is just. Decisions based upon empathy would make it unjust.
Walter E. Williams is a professor of economics at George Mason University. To find out more about Walter E. Williams and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate webpage at www.creators.com .
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NAIROBI (Reuters) - Kenyan police fired tear gas at opposition leader Raila Odinga s car, a Reuters witness said. Earlier, police and supporters of Odinga had fought running battles on Friday along the main road to Nairobi s international airport before Odinga landed from an overseas trip. | 0 |
Here s the fake black guy, Shaun King weighing in on how awesome it is that Bernie Sanders can now come out of the socialist closet. Because America is soooo ready (or so Shaun thinks anyhow) to embrace a socialist. Here is his tweet:#1.https://twitter.com/ShaunKing/status/654100720929632256Here is a great question from the Janie Johnson:#2.The bottom 49% of earners pay zero taxes how much more fair do you want the tax system? #DemDebate Janie Johnson (@jjauthor) October 14, 2015Truth!#3.https://twitter.com/weknowwhatsbest/status/654128633385107456And this tweet is priceless:#4.https://twitter.com/weknowwhatsbest/status/654128132295802880Some race baiters were not satisfied that enough divisive questions were posed to the candidates. How much time exactly should we giving to the issue of race during our presidential debates? Would 50% of the debate time be acceptable to the #BlackLivesMatter terrorists?The first is from #BLM activist and George Soros favorite, Deray McKesson:#5..@AndersonCooper, you were strong tonight, though I hope there are more questions about race at the next debate. #DemDebate deray mckesson (@deray) October 14, 2015Next is from the fake black guy, Shaun King who bemoans the lack of diversity on the debate stage:#6 and #7https://twitter.com/ShaunKing/status/654095075069296640https://twitter.com/ShaunKing/status/654113225005510656And then we have the self proclaimed Trump girls, Diamond and Silk weighing in on the debate hilarious!#8.We out. This is not a debate. This is a disgrace. Hope .@realDonaldTrump come to save the day. #stump4trumpbaby pic.twitter.com/I1CcLL31lX Diamond and Silk (@DiamondandSilk) October 14, 2015Best tweet of the night goes to the Donald:#9"@releafpen: Dem debate message summary = More free handouts. They will be voting in droves. We need to get out and vote Trump BIG TIME!" Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 14, 2015And the runners-up are Two from conservative actor James Woods:#10.Thank God money grows on trees. This bunch has no allergy to spending it. Free college not only for Americans, but anybody from anywhere James Woods (@RealJamesWoods) October 14, 2015We actually fibbed, there are 12 favorite tweets. We save 2 of our favorites from @iowahawk for last:I got 10 bucks that more people are following the debate on Trump's Twitter feed than on CNN David Burge (@iowahawkblog) October 14, 2015How to make college affordable: don't go David Burge (@iowahawkblog) October 14, 2015 | 1 |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The conservative House Freedom Caucus came out in support of a reworked U.S. healthcare overhaul bill even though it would not fully repeal Democratic former President Barack Obama’s signature healthcare law, the group said in a statement on Wednesday. The group last month helped sink an effort to pass a Republican healthcare overhaul, called the American Health Care Act. But it remained unclear whether the amended bill could win enough support from moderate Republicans to get the 216 votes needed to pass the U.S. House of Representatives given unanimous Democratic opposition. “While the revised version still does not fully repeal Obamacare, we are prepared to support it to keep our promise to the American people to lower healthcare costs,” the House Freedom Caucus said in a statement posted on the website of its chairman, Republican Representative Mark Meadows. Republicans in Congress have made repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act, commonly known as Obamacare, a central campaign promise for seven years. Republican President Donald Trump also made it a top campaign promise. The Republican healthcare bill would replace Obamacare’s income-based tax credit with a flat age-based credit, roll back an expansion of the Medicaid government health insurance program for the poor and repeal most Obamacare taxes. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated 24 million fewer people would have insurance under the bill. In its statement, the House Freedom Caucus said it welcomed an amendment that would let states seek waivers from some Obamacare requirements, including the highly popular provision mandating that insurers charge those with pre-existing conditions the same as healthy consumers and that insurers cover so-called essential health benefits, such as maternity care. The amendment was hammered out between Meadows and Representative Tom MacArthur, a leader of the so-called Tuesday Group of Republican moderates in the House. Yet several moderates said on Wednesday they had not yet made a decision on whether to support the bill while others remained opposed. Some complained that they had not been part of discussions drafting the amendment, saying they had only seen it after it was released. “It doesn’t address any of the concerns I’ve been raising for weeks,” said Republican Representative Charlie Dent, including how to reform Medicaid. Republican Representative Chris Collins, another member of the Tuesday Group, said pressure to follow through on Republicans’ top campaign promise for the past seven years had shifted from the party’s conservative wing to the moderates. “We need to get this passed to fulfill our campaign promise, and this is the compromise that looks like it will make it happen,” he said. Republican leaders have not scheduled a vote on the bill. They said they would do so when they are confident they have the votes needed for passage. | 0 |
A REVENGE ATTACK in London is the scene again of terror but this time it took place in the Muslim community. At 12:15 am at Seven Sister Road in Finsbury Park, London, a van plowed into a crowd of worshippers leaving a mosque. Muslims were coming out from midnight prayers at the mosque when the van hit and injured about 10 people. The suspect was pinned down by a crowd and kept on the ground until the police could arrive. The video below shows the suspect against a police van being handcuffed while angry onlookers yelled at him:The attack is now being reported as terrorism. A 48-year old man is in custody for killing one and injuring 9 others.It s being reported that he said, I ve done my bit and I want to kill Muslims | 0 |
JUBA (Reuters) - Rebels in South Sudan attacked government forces in Unity State, where oil fields have been abandoned due to fighting, and 25 people including civilians were killed, a local government official said on Tuesday. South Sudan, which gained independence from Sudan in 2011 after protracted bloodshed, fell into civil war in late 2013 with troops loyal to President Salva Kiir fighting those of the ex-vice president he sacked, Riek Machar. Those killed during Monday s fighting in the town of NhialDiu included women, elderly people and local police officers, Lam Tungwar, state minister of information of Northern Liech state, told Reuters. A rebel spokesman, Lam Paul Gabriel, put the death toll at 18 while the government said it had managed to repulse the rebels and were pursuing them. Dickson Gatluak Jock, military spokesman for South Sudanese Vice President Taban Deng Gai, said the attack coincided with dialogue in NhialDiu between pro-rebel and pro-government clans aimed at securing peace in the region. | 1 |
If you ve ever wondered if Donald Trump is completely unqualified to make any decisions about anything involving the good of our nation, ever, look no further than incoming Deputy Secretary of State John Bolton (who fills in the Crazed Conspiracy Theorist box on your Apocalypse BINGO cards, if you re playing). On Sunday, Bolton appeared on Fox News to let the world know to ignore the CIA s evidence that Russia actively worked to install The Donald in the Oval Office because it s all big gubmint propaganda or something a false flag operation, to be exact.Yes, this is a term that we have heard applied to the Sandy Hook shooting and pretty much anything that places conservatives in the uncomfortable position of having to self-analyze their horrific positions on guns, race, gender, and other topics. The phrase was largely made popular by Trump ally Alex Jones and deceased right-wing propagandist Andrew Breitbart (Yeah, the guy conservatives think Obama had killed for knowing too much. They ve even combined this conspiracy theory with the one about Hillary Clinton having child sex slaves in some circles. But I digress) and usually virtually assures that the person who uttered the term is a f*cking idiot.Which, of course, brings us to Bolton. It s not at all clear to me just viewing this from the outside that this hacking into the DNC and the RNC computers was not a false flag operation are words actually uttered by someone Trump just placed in a very important position. Talking Points Memo provided a pretty handy transcript of what went down:BOLTON: It s not at all clear to me just viewing this from the outside that this hacking into the DNC and the RNC computers was not a false flag operation. Let s remember what FBI director James Comey said dealing with Hillary s home brew server. He said we found no direct evidence of foreign intelligence service penetration, but given the nature of this, we didn t expect to. Meaning, a really sophisticated foreign intelligence service would not leave any cyber fingerprints. And yet people say they did leave cyber fingerprints in the hacks regarding our election. So the question that has to be asked is why did the Russians run their smart intelligence service against Hillary s server but their dumb intelligence services against the election SHAWN: When you say false flag, that s a very serious charge. False flag by whom? Here is The Washington post. The Post reported the CIA has concluded individuals with close ties to the Russian government hacked the e-mails. Intelligence officials have determined that Russia s goal was to help trump win rather than simply undermine confidence in the election. Are you actually accusing someone here in this administration of trying in the intelligence community of trying to throw something?BOLTON: We just don t know, but I believe that intelligence has been politicized in the Obama administration to a very significant degree.SHAWN: Would the intelligence officials politicize this to go so far that could damage our republic and what we have for 200-plus years stood for.BOLTON: I think the whole thing is called into question and an independent investigation becomes extremely important. I think it s critical to answer the question I posed. If you think the Russians did this, then why did they leave fingerprints?SHAWN: Maybe because we have such sophisticated and BOLTON: James Comey and the FBI couldn t find any fingerprints SHAWN: They use a different standard. It s been shown they have a criminal start by the CIA has more of an intellectual BOLTON: Let s hear the debate.SHAWN: What do you want to hear? Something from the CIA director?BOLTON: I d like to know. I think we have something now. We don t want to compromise intelligence sources and methods but when you make that kind of allegation, if it were true, and the Russians have the capability and the intention of doing it, I m not by any means trying to exonerate them, but if you say they ve done that, let me be clear, either in the cyber world or elsewhere, we should retaliate. It is unacceptable for the American constitution to be assaulted by foreigners in that way. So it is absolutely critical as well that we get the facts right on this, and I don t think we have anywhere enough in the public domain to know what the facts are.SHAWN: The president has ordered a review. Senator McCain and others of the Armed Services Committee are having hearings on this with the new congress. Let me read you a statement from both Senators McCain, SenatorsGraham, Schumer, and Jack Reed of Rhode Island, both bipartisan. For years foreign adversaries have directed cyber attacks at America s physical, economic, and military infrastructure while stealing our intellectual property. Now our institutions have been targeted. Recent reports of Russian interference in our election should alarm every American. This cannot become a partisan issue. The stakes are too high for our country. McCain this morning called Putin a thug, a killer, and a murderer. The president has ordered a public review. What are you calling on the president to do before January 20th? To reveal the classified information? To bring it all out so Americans can know if Russia had a hand in this election?BOLTON: One thing that makes me very nervous is Barack Obama saying let s have this report before the 20th of January so I can wrap it up. I think the burden for well or ill is going to fall on Mike Pompeo who has been named as president-elect trump s cia director. I think he s trusted by republicans and democrats. He doesn t bring any baggage. He s a new official at the CIA. I d look to him to head up an investigation across the entire intelligence committee. I just think these are such serious charges, again, if the Russians or any other foreign government think that they can undermine the integrity of our elections or defeat our constitutional process, this is just as serious an attack as a military attack.SHAWN: For those who are bothered by your claim of a potential false flag, that s very disturbing as an American.BOLTON: We would want to know who else might want to influence the election and why they would leave fingerprints that point to the Russians. That s why I say until we know more about how the insurance intelligence community came to this conclusion While he didn t say definitively that he believed this to be a false flag, Bolton made it clear that he might-or-might-not believe that President Obama whose administration has a history of politicizing intelligence to a very significant degree, wink, wink might or might not have told the CIA to falsely claim that Russia helped Donald Trump get elected because reasons. Makes perfect sense.Watch the interview below:Featured image via screengrab | 1 |
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