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London s Muslim Mayor Sadiq Khan, called on the British government today to cancel their visit with President Donald Trump. Speaking to Channel 4 news, Khan felt Trump s out-of-context criticisms and continued attacks on Twitter meant that the U.K. should not roll out the red carpet for the president as his policies go against everything we stand for. He added: When you have a special relationship it is no different from when you have got a close mate. You stand with them in times of adversity but you call them out when they are wrong. There are many things about which Donald Trump is wrong. Hollywood ReporterShouldn t London s government be more concerned with their current mayor s past than of President Trump s efforts to unify the world in the fight against extreme Islamic terrorism?In 2016, the now Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan was branded unfit to be London s Mayor after it emerged that he had described moderate Muslim groups as Uncle Toms a notorious racial slur used against black people to suggest that they are subservient to whites.The incendiary claim emerged in a 2009 interview with Iranian-backed Press TV, when Mr Khan was minister for community cohesion , in charge of Government efforts to stamp out extremism.The revelation is a major blow for Mr Khan, who has faced a string of claims about his past dealings with Muslim extremists during the bitter campaign to succeed Boris Johnson. Daily MailWatch the 2009 video here:That s not the only video that should make every London citizen be concerned about their Mayor s radical views. A 2002 video has emerged showing Sadiq Kahn defending convicted Islamic terrorists who attempted to revive the Islamic Liberation Party in Egypt.The video, via Josh Caplan of Vessel News, shows Khan defending terrorists. At the beginning of the video, Muslims in the street shout Allahu Akbar! GPRare clip from '02 shows then lawyer Sadiq Khan defending convicted terrorists who attempted to revive the Islamic Liberation Party in Egypt pic.twitter.com/gMS9NIYxMQ Josh Caplan (@joshdcaplan) June 6, 2017 | 0 |
Unfortunately, we will be losing President Obama at noon on January 20th, and he will be replaced with Donald Trump. Think about that one of the most loving, classy, dignified, accepting, extraordinary men on the planet will be replaced with a buffoon who is quite possibly the most vengeful, bigoted, fraudulent, dangerous man to ever walk the earth. It is truly an American tragedy. Well, we progressives on the ground aren t the only ones who feel this way. There are celebrities who are missing President Obama just as much as we are, and they wanted to make sure he knew it.The likes of A-listers like Tom Hanks, Leonardo DiCaprio, Ellen DeGeneres and more are making sure to give President Obama a great send-off. They all got together and produced an emotional video entitled Yes We Can: Your Most Memorable Moments from the Obama Presidency. In the video, the stars tell stories of their memories of President Obama s eight years in office, and what it meant to them. Here are just a few quotes:John Legend: I never cried from an election result before.Leonardo DiCaprio: When I was at the U.N. and I heard our president say that climate change is the most important issue facing, not only this generation but also future generations, it was inspiring. Ellen DeGeneres: The CVS experience with Michelle (Obama) was pretty cool and dancing with Barack at his birthday party. And he s a good dancer. He should not get any flack for that you re a good dancer. Alongside the A-listers, there are also children speaking of what President Obama has meant to them, and how he made them feel. The video is absolutely heartwarming and heartbreaking as well, considering what we are up against now. Get your tissues out for this one, folks.Watch below, via The Hill:[ad3media campaign= 1413 ]Featured image via video screen capture | 1 |
There s really no better person to roast Sarah Palin than Bill Maher, and he most definitely didn t disappoint on Friday s edition of his HBO show. After the failed vice presidential candidate and half-term governor of Alaska endorsed Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump this past week, it s been pretty much nonstop coverage of her idiocy. After all, the woman showed up, dressed in wind chimes, and was clearly either drunk or overly caffeinated. Any way you put it, no one put it better than Maher when he stated: Trump and Gump. Fatman and Little Brain it was really something. Did you happen to see any of her speech? Oh my God. It was like a crazy drunk bridesmaid grabbed the mic at a wedding reception. This woman has a thousand stupid clich s in her head, and when she opens her mouth, it s like they re all escaping a nightclub fire. He then showed a clip of all her craziness during the endorsement, and said: You cannot put into words how much she cannot put something into words. Maher also brought up Palin blaming her son s domestic violence on Obama somehow not respecting the troops, saying: and that s what makes the Republican party the party of personal responsibility If Obama would just secure the borders, maybe Bristol would stop getting knocked up all the time. And that s really the truth of all of it. Sarah Palin wants to pretend that she s some high and mighty person, somehow morally superior to others, but the truth of the matter is, her son beats up women, and her daughter needs to learn where the condom aisle is. Palin is a walking and talking joke, and the sooner she realizes this the better.Kudos to Bill Maher for utterly annihilating Palin and her craziness. Watch @BillMaher react to Sarah Palin s incoherent endorsement of @realDonaldTrump in his #RealTime monologue: https://t.co/KCzJxVmGAU Real Time (@RealTimers) January 23, 2016 Video/Featured image: Twitter | 0 |
FORMER CONSERVATIVE darling Tomi Lahren made a big deal about her upcoming appearance on The View. I know, because I set the alarm on my phone to remind me when she would be on their show so I wouldn t miss it. I figured there would certainly be fireworks, and at the very least, a few memorable moments with the marxist loudmouth hosts of The View. I thought if nothing else, it would be entertaining to see her put Joy Behar in her place. People have come to know and love The Blaze s conservative firebrand Tomi Lahren for her outspoken commentary on current political and social issues. Until now, most of us have believed that she actually meant what she was telling us. When she finally appeared on The View last Friday, she was mostly dealt softball questions and her answers were clearly more about getting along with the angry hosts than the defense of conservatism. That s okay I could live with that. As disappointed as I was in her wimpy responses to their ridiculous questions, nothing could have prepared me for the moment she decided to step out of her conservative persona and cross-over to the dark side, when host Sonny Hostin asked her about her position on abortion.Lahren: No, I m pro-choice, and here s why. I am a constitutional, you know, someone that loves the constitution. I am someone who is for limited government. So I can t sit here, and be a hypocrite and say I m for limited government, but I think that the government should I think that the government should decide what a woman can do with their bodies. I can t sit here and say that as a Republican. And I can say, ya know what, I m for limited government, so stay out of my guns and you can stay out of my body as well. Joy Behar jumped in (panting with excitement): You need to go out and speak to women about that. Lahren responded: I do. I do every day. And I get a lot of attacks from conservative women as well. I think it s equal hate from all sides for me. Really Tomi? You argue with women every day about your position on abortion? Maybe you can explain how only 3 months ago, you called people like Lena Dunham who were pro choice straight up baby killers! (Watch 2nd video below)Here is a short clip showing the abortion exchange: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOT3EiKCL-w&feature=youtu.beHere s Lahren calling anyone who is pro-choice a straight up baby killer . Note the Christmas tree in the background. That s because this video is only 3 months old. Wow apparently a lot happens in 3 months! Does she realize how damaging she is to her own narrative? Think about it: the pro-choicers are supposed to be about rare and safe abortions. That s how they avoid sounding like straight-up baby killers.Then we have Lena freakin Dunham out there wishing she could have murdered a fetus. Wishing for the option to kill your child doesn t exactly say much about the cause, her character, or the pro-choice movement.And here I thought the loving Left were all about peace, and love, and light, except when it comes to the unborn, I suppose. Then it s a different story, a story they write and rewrite to fit their narrative. | 0 |
The Failure of Democracy
How The Oligarchs Plan To Steal The Election By Paul Craig Roberts
I am now convinced that the Oligarchy that rules America intends to steal the presidential election. In the past, the oligarchs have not cared which candidate won as the oligarchs owned both. But they do not own Trump.
Most likely you are unaware of what Trump is telling people as the media does not report it. A person who speaks like this:
is not endeared to the oligarchs.
Who are the oligarchs?
Wall Street and the mega-banks too big to fail and their agent the Federal Reserve, a federal agency that put 5 banks ahead of millions of troubled American homeowners who the federal reserve allowed to be flushed down the toilet. In order to save the mega-banks balance sheets from their irresponsible behavior, the Fed has denied retirees any interest income on their savings for eight years, forcing the elderly to draw down their savings, leaving their heirs, who have been displaced from employment by corporate jobs offshoring, penniless.
The military/security complex which has spent trillions of our taxpayer dollars on 15 years of gratuitous wars based entirely on lies in order to enrich themselves and their power.
The neoconservartives whose crazed ideology of US world hegemony thrusts the American people into military conflict with Russia and China.
The US global corporations that sent American jobs to China and India and elsewhere in order to enrich the One Percent with higher profits from lower labor costs.
Agribusiness (Monsanto et.al.), corporations that poison the soil, the water, the oceans, and our food with their GMOs, hebicides, pesticides, and chemical fertilizers, while killing the bees that pollinate the crops.
The extractive industriesenergy, mining, fracking, and timberthat maximize their profits by destroying the environment and the water supply.
The Israel Lobby that controls US Middle East policy and is committing genocide against the Palestinians just as the US committed genocide against native Americans. Israel is using the US to eliminate sovereign countries that stand in Israells way.
What convinces me that the Oligarchy intends to steal the election is the vast difference between the presstitutes reporting and the facts on the ground.
According to the presstitutes, Hillary is so far ahead that there is no point in Trump supporters bothering to vote. Hillary has won the election before the vote. Hillary has been declared a 93% sure winner.
I am yet to see one Hillary yard sign, but Trump signs are everywhere. Reports I receive are that Hillarys public appearances are unattended but Trumps are so heavily attended that people have to be turned away. This is a report from a woman in Florida:
Trump has pulled huge numbers all over FL while campaigning here this week. I only see Trump signs and stickers in my wide travels. I dined at a Mexican restaurant last night. Two women my age sitting behind me were talking about how they had tried to see Trump when he came to Tallahassee. They left work early, arriving at the venue at 4:00 for a 6:00 rally. The place was already over capacity so they were turned away. It turned out that there were so many people there by 2:00 that the doors had to be opened to them. The women said that the crowds present were a mix of races and ages.
I know the person who gave me this report and have no doubt whatsoever as to its veracity.
I also receive from readers similiar reports from around the country.
This is how the theft of the election is supposed to work: The media concentrated in a few corporate hands has gone all out to convince not only Americans but also the world, that Donald Trump is such an unacceptable candidate that he has lost the election before the vote.
By controllng the explanation, when the election is stolen those who challenge the stolen election are without a foundartion in the media. All media reports will say that it was a run away victory for Hillary over the misogynist immigrant-hating Trump.
And liberal, progressive opinion will be relieved and off guard as Hillary takes us into nuclear war.
That the Oligarchy intends to steal the election from the American people is verified by the officially reported behavior of the voting machines in early voting in Texas. The NPR presstitutes have declared that Hillary is such a favorite that even Republican Texas is up for grabs in the election.
If this is the case, why was it necessary for the voting machines to be programmed to change Trump votes to Hillary votes? Those voters who noted that they voted Trump but were recorded Hillary complained. The election officials, claiming a glitch (which only went one way), changed to paper ballots. But who will count them? No glitches caused Hillary votes to go to Trump, only Trump votes to go to Hillary.
The most brilliant movie of our time was The Matrix. This movie captured the life of Americans manipulated by a false reality, only in the real America there is insufficient awareness and no Neo, except possibly Donald Trump, to challenge the system. Americans of all stripesacademics, scholars, journalists, Republicans, Democrats, right-wing, left-wing, US Representatives, US Senators, Presidents, corporate moguls and brainwashed Americans and foreignerslive in a false reality.
In the United States today a critical presidential election is in process in which not a single important issue is addressed by Hillary and the presstitutes. This is total failure. Democracy, once the hope of the world, has totally failed in the United States of America. Trump is correct. The American people must restore the accountability of government to the people.
Dr. Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal. He was columnist for Business Week, Scripps Howard News Service, and Creators Syndicate. He has had many university appointments. His internet columns have attracted a worldwide following. Roberts' latest books are The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism and Economic Dissolution of the West , How America Was Lost , and The Neoconservative Threat to World Order . | 0 |
MSNBC s Brian Williams spoke the truth on Tuesday night when he said that it is the media s job to scare people to death over North Korea. Wow! These are the first true words this serial liar has spoken in years!Williams commented that he thought Secretary of State Rex Tillerson s tone was different from President Trump s North Korea stance.Andrea Mitchell couldn t wait to jump in and criticize Trump: There s pressure. This could have been a signal to Beijing as well; Listen up, take this seriously. It could have been President Trump sending signals in a number of directions. The next comment from Mitchell is hysterical because she uses two of the most anti-Trump people in Congress to say that even they criticized Trump s tone: Senators Dianne Feinstein and John Songbird McCain wouldn t respond positively to pretty much anything that Trump said.Brian Williams then delivered his truth bomb: Malcolm, our job tonight actually is to scare people to death on this subject so the talk isn t as free as it is about a preemptive or a surgical military strike. You know that part of the world. The population centers, Andrea and the General have talked about, South Korea, the Japanese, and so on and so on. What was Williams thinking? He let the cat out of the bag and actually told the truth. The lefty media is frothing at the mouth to make President Trump out to be clueless on strategy when in reality Trump is a master strategist! He s also surrounded himself with great military leaders!Would this crew of armchair quarterbacks want Trump to do what previous leaders did and kick the can down the road? It s no thanks to those weak kneed leaders that we re in the position we re in now with North Korea! | 1 |
Dolly Kyle has written a scathing tell all book exposing the sickening hidden truth about Bill and Hillary Clinton. Hillary s war on just about anyone who is beneath her, or who would dare to get in the way of her ascent to the White House. When will the media do their job and report the truth about this horrible opportunist?Dolly Kyle who was just 11 when she first crossed paths with Bill, dated him through high school and began sleeping with him once they graduated published the claims about the Clinton couple s racial epithets and politics in her new book, Hillary: The Other Woman, published by WND Books.She writes of one occasion, when developmentally challenged children were having difficulty picking up the eggs at a traditional Easter egg hunt on the grounds of the governor s mansion during Bill s tenure in the Arkansas state house.Reluctant hostess Hillary had enough. The frustrated Me-First Lady demanded, When are they going to get those f*****g ree-tards out of here? Dolly writes.When Hillary arrived in Arkansas, Dolly writes, she looked down her nose at what she viewed as ignorant hillbillies .She was raised in a middle-class suburb in Illinois and considered herself above the southerners unless she was campaigning in New York state where she declared herself to be a lifelong Yankees fan.Hillary didn t belong in Arkansas but here she was .In the governor s mansion for eight years, Bill and Hillary were both getting tired of the routine and frustrations of the small Southern state and Bill opted out of running for reelection in 1990.He was marking his time until he could make a move for the White House. Via: Daily Mail | 0 |
NAIROBI (Reuters) - Kenya s main opposition party warned the election commission against reorganizing voting in four western counties where polls did not open on Thursday due to violence and said supporters should boycott any process that goes ahead. We advise the people not to walk into this trap of death. We call on the residents of these counties to stay away from these planned polls, Musalia Mudavadi, a senior member of the NASA coalition, told reporters. | 1 |
What about Chris Stevens, Sean Smith, Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods? | 1 |
Putin Takes On The NWO, October 2016 # thinkbig 18
Let me get this straight - if leaders of the world combined forces, we could alleviate poverty and the constant fear of terrorism? Could the Middle East be left alone, and not pillaged for oil, sending millions of refugees into Europe, creating an unprecedented cultural catastrophe in waiting? Could certain players on the global arena stop financing terror groups abroad, thus removing the threat entirely? But wait, there's more - Mr Putin is not calling for war with "the others", because only WE are the good guys? Unlike Nobel Peace Prize holder over there. Tags | 1 |
Wow! Poor Kathy Griffin The toxic comedian found herself facing a tsunami-sized backlash after she held a severed, and bloodied head of President Trump, during a comedy skit earlier in the year. And now, the former funny girl is telling anyone who will listen, that she s furious no one wants to hire her. Kathy Griffin starts her homemade 5-minute video by whining to viewers about all of the online hate by trolls that she s receiving. Griffin then goes on to trash the other not funny comedian Lena Dunham, who wrote about sexually assaulting her little sister, for defending a Hollywood actor who s been accused of sexually assaulting a female actress. Her comments that follow the Dunham remarks make no sense, although she seems to be attempting to make the point that the equally trashy liberal comedian, Lena Dunham, is still getting work, and how Griffin just doesn t think that it s fair. (After all, Dunham hates Trump as much as her right?)Griffin tells the camera that appears to be set up in her living room, I just want you guys to know that I am fully in the middle of a blacklist like I m in the middle of a Hollywood blacklist. It is real. I m not booked on any talk shows. Griffen continued to whine about her lack of jobs, I just want you guys to know, that when I get home, I do not have one single day of paid work in front of me, and the people who want me to go back and do clubs and do 10 minutes again I don t mean to be an asshole, but I m not gonna do that. I ve worked way too hard to go back and work for free, and do the club scene again because this is some bullshit. Because I ve been blacklisted.Griffin then goes on to tell her fellow Hollywood libs to stop sending her requests for donations to their fundraisers because she doesn t have any money. She goes on to explain that she s spent all of her money on lawyers because she believes in something. Griffin can t quite find a way to articulate what that something is, but she s apparently learned her lesson and has refrained from exposing her true obsession and desire, which was to destroy Donald Trump.Watch: | 0 |
BEIJING/TAIPEI (Reuters) - Taiwan will gradually get used to Chinese air force drills that encircle the island, China said on Wednesday, while Taiwan s premier reiterated the self-ruled island s desire for peaceful relations with its giant neighbor. China considers democratic Taiwan to be its sacred territory and has never renounced the use of force to bring what it views as a wayward province under Chinese control. It has taken an increasingly hostile stance toward Taiwan since Tsai Ing-wen, from the island s pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party, won presidential elections last year and has stepped up its rhetoric and military exercises. Beijing suspects her of pushing for the island s formal independence, a red line for China. Tsai says she wants peace with China, but also that she will defend Taiwan s security and way of life. Chinese state media has given broad coverage to island encirclement exercises near Taiwan this month, including showing pictures of Chinese bomber aircraft with what they said was Taiwan s highest peak, Yushan, visible in the background. Asked about the continuing drills and the footage released by the air force, China s policy-making Taiwan Affairs Office said it and the defense ministry had repeatedly described the exercises as routine. Everyone will slowly get used it, spokesman An Fengshan told a routine news briefing, without elaborating. China s air force has carried out 16 rounds of exercises close to Taiwan in the past year or so, Taiwan s defense ministry said in a white paper this week. China s military threat was growing by the day, it warned. Proudly democratic Taiwan has shown no interest in being run by autocratic China, and Taiwan s government has accused Beijing of not understanding democracy when it criticizes Taipei. Taiwan Premier William Lai told a year-end news conference in Taipei that the United States, Japan and South Korea were all paying close attention to the activities of China s air force. Lai said his government would take its lead from the president, who was in charge of relations across the Taiwan Strait. Under the president s leadership the Executive Yuan pushes forward government affairs, stabilizing cross-strait relations toward peaceful development, Lai said, using the formal name for Taiwan s cabinet. | 1 |
As the Supreme Court prepares to take up same-sex marriage next week, conservative scholars have produced a last-ditch argument to keep the scourge of homosexual unions from spreading across the land: Gay marriage kills.
They’re saying that legalizing same-sex marriage will cause 900,000 abortions.
The logic is about as obvious as if they had alleged that raising the minimum wage would increase the frequency of hurricanes. If anything, you’d think that more same-sex marriages would mean more adoptions.
But comes now Gene Schaerr, unsuccessful lawyer for Utah in that state’s case against same-sex marriages, to file an amicus brief with the Supreme Court on behalf of “100 scholars of marriage.”
“On the surface, abortion and same-sex marriage may seem unrelated,” Schaerr acknowledged in a post on the Heritage Foundation Web site in advance of a presentation he made to the conservative think tank Monday. But “the two are closely linked in a short and simple causal chain.”
To wit: Legalizing same-sex marriage devalues marriage and causes fewer heterosexual couples to marry, which leads to a larger number of unmarried women, who have abortions at higher rates than married women. As a result, Schaerr wrote, “nearly 900,000 more children of the next generation would be aborted as a result of their mothers never marrying. This is equal to the entire population of the cities of Sacramento and Atlanta combined.”
Case closed! Or at least it would be, if Schaerr’s “causal chain” were real. He freely acknowledged that he had no cause-and-effect proof when I asked him about it at Heritage on Monday.
“It is still too new to do a rigorous causation analysis using statistical methods,” he admitted, saying that he had found only a decline in marriage rates in states that had legalized same-sex marriage (in fact, marriage rates have declined overall). “The brief doesn’t even attempt to say conclusively that this reduction in marriage rates has been the result of adopting same-sex marriage,” Schaerr said, though there are “theoretical reasons” such causation might occur.
Or perhaps theological reasons. When Schaerr quit his law firm last year to take the Utah case, he wrote to colleagues that he was going to “fulfill what I have come to see as a religious and family duty.” A colleague leaked his resignation letter to the Human Rights Campaign, a gay rights group.
Utah argued that legalizing same-sex marriage would lead to lower birth rates, pointing out that some of the states with the lowest birth rates, such as Massachusetts, Vermont and Connecticut, had same-sex marriage, and some of the highest birth-rate states, such as Texas and Utah, did not.
But the national birth rate has been declining for years, from 14.2 per 1,000 people in 2006 to 12.4 in 2013. Texas and Utah actually had larger drops than Massachusetts, Vermont and Connecticut.
Utah lost its case, but Schaerr — a former clerk to Antonin Scalia — is now making a similar argument, claiming to show drops in marriage rates in the years after states adopted same-sex marriage.
Heritage’s Ryan Anderson, appearing with Schaerr on Monday afternoon, went even further than Schaerr’s conclusions in alleging that “every nation and every state that have redefined marriage have seen their marriage rates decline by at least 5 percent after that redefinition, even as the marriage rates in the rest of the states remain stable.”
The national marriage rate declined to 6.8 per 1,000 in 2012, from 8.0 in 2002, before Massachusetts became the first state to legalize gay marriage. The Massachusetts rate dropped from 5.9 in 2002 to 5.5 in 2011, while Connecticut went from 5.7 to 5.5 and Vermont went from 8.6 to 8.3. But Texas and Utah, free of same-sex marriage, dropped from 8.4 to 7.1, and from 10.4 to 8.6, respectively.
Fred Sainz, vice president of the Human Rights Campaign, accused Schaerr of “cherry-picking” his statistics. But though the numbers are dubious, Schaerr’s argument has the useful purpose of switching the debate away from same-sex marriage — on which public opinion is shifting decidedly against conservatives — and toward abortion, where positions are hardened.
Schaerr had other arguments, too. He asserted that Abraham Lincoln would find it “preposterous” that the 14th Amendment, guaranteeing equal protection, would be used to justify same-sex marriage.
What Lincoln would think in 2015 is unknowable — but such considerations did not deter Schaerr. He also speculated that an unemployed man who got his girlfriend pregnant in a state that had legalized same-sex marriage would be more likely to conclude that “I’m not going to assume these obligations to this woman and this child.”
From that idle speculation, all it takes is a slippery slope and an active imagination to get to 900,000 abortions.
Read more from Dana Milbank’s archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook. | 0 |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House said on Thursday the United States is “deeply concerned” that China’s new law on management of the activities of foreign non-governmental organizations will narrow the space for civil society in China. China’s parliament passed a law governing foreign NGOs, state news agency Xinhua reported. The law is part of a raft of legislation, including China’s counterterrorism law, put forward amid a new push to crack down on dissent by President Xi Jinping’s administration. The White House urged China to respect the rights and freedoms of human rights defenders, journalists, business groups, and others, “including by protecting the ability of foreign NGO’s to operate in China,” Ned Price, a spokesman for the National Security Council, said in a statement. | 0 |
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - European Council President Donald Tusk said on Monday that U.S. Vice President Mike Pence agreed with him on the need to preserve close cooperation between the United States and Europe, including Washington’s support for NATO and a united Europe. “After such a positive declaration, both the Europeans and the Americans must simply practice what they preach,” Tusk said after hosting Pence in Brussels.[nL8N1G51L3] | 1 |
Steve Bannon gets it He knows what s going on with all of the fuss with Trump. The press and politicians are doing their best to bring him down.Bannon knows the deep state and all of the evil within government. He knows we re in trouble in America and need to take our Country back.Please go to the 16:00 point and hear Bannon speak about the evil that is in Washington: It s not only not going to get better It s going to get worse | 1 |
Never mind that Iran continues to violate Obama s lopsided deal Senior Obama administration officials are expressing concern that congressional attempts to tighten laws preventing terrorists from entering the United States could violate the Iran nuclear agreement and prompt Tehran to walk away from the agreement.Congress is considering measures that would tighten the Visa Waiver Program to make it harder for potential terrorists to legally enter the United States by increasing restrictions on individuals who have travelled to countries with prominent terrorist organizations from bypassing security checks upon entering the United States.Iranian officials have in recent days repeatedly issued threatening statements to the Obama administration, saying that such moves would violate the nuclear agreement, and the Obama administration last week conveyed the Iranian anger to American lawmakers.Stephen Mull, the State Department official in charge of implementing the Iran deal, warned the Senate Foreign Relations Committee late last week that these congressional efforts could have a very negative impact on the deal. Under the revised law, which came in the week of a deadly terrorist attack in California, individuals who have travelled to Iran a lead sponsor of global terrorism would no longer be eligible to participate in the Visa Waiver Program, which permits individuals from 38 partner nations to more easily enter the United States.Congress remains concerned that gaps in the program could prevent federal law enforcement officials from detecting terror-tied individuals before they are granted entrance to U.S. soil.However, a portion of the Iran nuclear deal mandates that the United States not take any action that could harm Iran s economic relationships with other countries. Iranian officials maintain that the new restrictions violate this passage of the deal.Ali Larijani, the speaker of Iran s parliament, said last week that these tightened measures are aimed at harassment and that they blatantly violate the nuclear agreement, according to comments carried by the Iranian state-controlled press.Larijani warned that this action will detonate the deal before it has even been implemented. If the Americans pursue the plan, they will destroy an achievement with their own hands since it is against the [nuclear deal] and it will trouble them, he warned.Rep. Chris Murphy (D., Conn.) echoed these concerns last week when he questioned Mull during a Senate hearing.Visa waiver reform efforts include a naming of Iran such that individuals who have travelled to Iran will no loner be eligible for the visa waiver program, Murphy said. There has been a suggestion because there is an element of the agreement that obligates us to not to take steps that would stop economic relations between other nations and Iran that we could perhaps be in jeopardy of breaching the agreement. Mull agreed with this assessment. I have heard from very senior, and Secretary [of State John] Kerry has as well, from very senior officials of differing European allies of ours that it could have a very negative impact on the deal, he said.Sources working with Congress on the Iran deal criticized the Obama administration for attempting to stymie increased action on terrorism due to its desire to preserve the nuclear deal. According to the Obama administration s latest interpretation, the nuclear deal allows Iran to test ballistic missiles in violation of international law, but does not allow Congress to prevent terrorists from coming into the United States, Omri Ceren, the managing director of press and strategy at The Israel Project, a D.C.-based organization that works with journalists on Middle East issues, told the Washington Free Beacon.Seyed Araqchi, Iran s deputy foreign minister, also warned that Iran is prepared to take action against the United States for implementing visa restrictions.Iran s latest threat to break the deal comes amid numerous Iranian provocations, including multiple tests of advanced ballistic missiles, acts prohibited under United Nations Security Council resolutions.The Obama administration repeatedly said that, while it does not agree with those launches, they do not violate the nuclear deal.Via: WFB | 1 |
Does anyone else find it strange the Obama would lobby so hard to make it easy for Iran to develop nuclear weapons they will likely use against us and our allies in the Middle East? Maybe he s not aware that we re dealing with a country who has an actual day set aside to celebrate their hate for America and Israel Iran s Quds Day: Death to America, Death to IsraelThe ritualistic rally cries of Death to America and Death to Israel. Quds Day has become a day in which Iran and protestors in other societies attack the legitimacy of the state of Israel ( The Little Satan ) and continue to threaten the United States ( The Big Satan ). Gatestone Institute An apparent draft of one of the secret side agreements to the Iran nuclear deal indicates that Tehran will be permitted to use its own experts to inspect the Parchin nuclear site believed to have housed nuclear arms development.The Associated Press obtained the document, which an anonymous official described as a draft of an agreement between Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that does not differ much from the final version. The IAEA is the U.N. agency responsible for ensuring that Tehran abides by the stipulations in the finalized deal.The secret agreements between Iran and the IAEA of which there are at least two have to do with the inspection of Iran s Parchin military facility as well as the extent to which Tehran must admit to the details of its alleged nuclear weapons program.Despite repeated calls from lawmakers, President Obama has refused to provide Congress with the details of the secret deals.The AP reports:Any IAEA member country must give the agency some insight into its nuclear program. Some countries are required to do no more than give a yearly accounting of the nuclear material they possess. But nations like Iran suspected of possible proliferation are under greater scrutiny that can include stringent inspections.But the agreement diverges from normal inspection procedures between the IAEA and a member country by essentially ceding the agency s investigative authority to Iran. It allows Tehran to employ its own experts and equipment in the search for evidence for activities that it has consistently denied trying to develop nuclear weapons.The document suggests that IAEA officials will merely monitor Iranian experts as they inspect the Parchin site and provide the U.N. agency with photos and videos taken only of areas that Iran has not deemed off-limits because of military implications.Iranian technicians are also to perform the sampling of weapons development work, which is limited to seven samples inside the facility building.In the face of criticism, the Obama administration has denied that the nuclear deal is built on the trust of the Iranians.Multiple GOP lawmakers have sounded the alarm regarding the secret agreements between Tehran and the IAEA, accusing Obama of violating the law by denying Congress access to the details of the side deals.Before the final deal was reached in Vienna, Obama signed the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act, which requires congressional lawmakers view all documents of the nuclear agreement specifically including those reached on the side. Via: WFBWatch Barack Hussein Obama compare the GOP to Iranian s chanting death to America over their opposition to his heinous deal: | 0 |
MADRID (Reuters) - Spain s central authorities moved on Thursday to crush plans by the northeastern region of Catalonia to hold an independence referendum and took steps to prosecute regional lawmakers backing the ballot. A long-running campaign for independence by a group of Catalan politicians, who hold a majority in the regional parliament, came to a head on Wednesday when they approved a law to allow a vote on secession from Spain scheduled for Oct. 1. The country s Constitutional Court, Spain s highest legal authority on such matters, suspended the referendum law late on Thursday to allow judges time to consider whether the vote breaches the country s constitution. Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy said earlier on Thursday he had appealed to the court to declare the referendum illegal. The constitution states Spain is indivisible. This referendum will not go ahead, he said. In a separate move on Thursday, Spain s state prosecutor s office said it would present criminal charges against leading members of the Catalan parliament for allowing Wednesday s parliamentary vote to go ahead. Catalan lawmakers have said they are prepared to go to jail over the issue. The state prosecutor-general, Jose Manuel Maza, told reporters he had also asked the security forces to investigate any preparations by the Catalan government to hold the referendum. This could involve printing leaflets or preparing polling stations. Teachers, police and administrative workers are among civil servants that could risk fines or potentially the loss of their jobs by manning polling stations or taking part in other activities deemed as helping the vote. Polls show the debate over independence in the region is close-run, with those preferring to stay united with Spain slightly outnumbering independentistas . A majority of Catalans do want the right to hold a referendum, however. Barcelona residents on Thursday had mixed feelings about the possibility of a referendum. It will never be legal if it s not agreed with the government, said 53-year-old interior designer Laurent Legard. This is not the right path. Dolores, a 55-year-old receptionist who declined to give her surname, disagreed. We are delighted - we ve been waiting for this moment for many years. It really is a democracy to allow people to give their opinion about how they want to live and how they want their country to be, she said. Prime Minister Rajoy s recourse to the courts to block any independence referendum now and in a non-binding 2014 vote on a split from Spain has raised hackles in the industrial region. Any heavy-handedness on behalf of his government to stop leaflet printing or confiscate ballot boxes could trigger social unrest. Catalan s regional head, Carles Puigdemont, has said the results of the referendum will be binding no matter what the turn-out is. Analysts have said a low turn-out would harm the legitimacy of the result. Catalonia will declare independence within 48 hours of a yes vote, the referendum law states. | 0 |
Tucker Carlson debates the Russia conspiracy with Mustafa Tameez, former consultant for the Department of Homeland Security. Oh boy! It gets so heated but Tucker gets his point across to this political hack: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4xzSKcArdcThe Democrats so desperately want to take down this president that it s getting out of control. Just listen to this former consultant and his spin on the firing of Sally Yates and the Russia investigation. The reason they fired her isn t really the reason they say they fired her? Huh? It s like they can t keep up with all of the made up conspiracy theories. Tameez claims Trump is intimidating the people investigating him Oy vey! Tucker goes off the rails after this political hack tries to pull the same Democrat talking points I m done! | 0 |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Trump administration on Tuesday removed Moscow-based Kaspersky Lab from two lists of approved vendors used by government agencies to purchase technology equipment, amid concerns the cyber security firm’s products could be used by the Kremlin to gain entry into U.S. networks. The delisting represents the most concrete action taken against Kaspersky following months of mounting suspicion among intelligence officials and lawmakers that the company may be too closely connected to hostile Russian intelligence agencies accused of cyber attacks on the United States. Kaspersky products have been removed from the U.S. General Services Administration’s list of vendors for contracts that cover information technology services and digital photographic equipment, an agency spokeswoman said in a statement. The action was taken “after review and careful consideration,” the spokeswoman said, adding that GSA’s priorities “are to ensure the integrity and security of U.S. government systems and networks.” Government agencies will still be able to use Kaspersky products purchased separate from the GSA contract process. Kaspersky’s anti-virus software is popular in the United States and around the world, and the firm has been a leading player in the cyber security market for decades. In a statement, Kaspersky Lab said it had not received any updates from GSA or any other U.S. government agency regarding its vendor status. “Kaspersky Lab has no ties to any government, and the company has never helped, nor will help, any government in the world with its cyberespionage efforts,” the company said. It added that it had been “caught in the middle of a geopolitical fight where each side is attempting to use the company as a pawn in their political game.” The delisting was done the same day that ABC News reported the Trump administration was considering implementing a broader ban that would block agencies from using Kaspersky software. Last month the Senate Armed Services Committee passed a defense spending policy bill that would ban Kaspersky products from use in the military. The move came a day after the FBI interviewed several of the company’s U.S. employees at their private homes as part of a counterintelligence investigation into its operations. In May senior U.S. intelligence officials said in testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee that they were reviewing government use of software from Kaspersky Lab. Lawmakers raised concerns that Moscow might use the firm’s products to attack American computer networks, a particularly sensitive issue given allegations by U.S. intelligence agencies that Russia hacked and leaked emails of Democratic Party political groups to interfere in the 2016 presidential election campaign. Russia denies the allegations. | 1 |
Add another lie to an exhaustive list of Obama lies Emergency-room visits continue to rise in the second year of Obamacare, the Wall Street Journal reports.The visits are up despite claims by President Obama that the law would reduce emergency-room visits because Obamacare would increase access to other kinds of care. There was a grand theory the law would reduce ER visits, Dr. Howard Mell, a spokesman for the American College of Emergency Physicians, told the Journal. Well, guess what, it hasn t happened. Visits are going up despite the ACA, and in a lot of cases because of it. Emergency-room visits continued to climb in the second year of the Affordable Care Act, contradicting the law s supporters who had predicted a decline in traffic as more people gained access to doctors and other health-care providers.A survey of 2,098 emergency-room doctors conducted in March showed about three-quarters said visits had risen since January 2014. That was a significant uptick from a year earlier, when less than half of doctors surveyed reported an increase. The survey by the American College of Emergency Physicians is scheduled to be published Monday.Medicaid recipients newly insured under the health law are struggling to get appointments or find doctors who will accept their coverage, and consequently wind up in the ER, ACEP said. Volume might also be increasing due to hospital and emergency-department closures a long-standing trend.Via: Washington Free Beacon | 0 |
About 62 percent of Americans say they won t be taking a vacation this summer at all. Out of that, more than half said they couldn t afford it.Just like the Obama s keep telling us it s all about fair share or something like that As the weather heats up in Washington, DC, the Obamas as planning their summer vacation.The Boston Herald reports that President Barack Obama, first lady Michelle and daughters Sasha and Malia will be staying on Martha s Vineyard from August 8-23.The Obamas have spent almost every single summer on the tony island off the coast of Massachusetts Cape Cod except for 2012 when the president was running for re-election.Continuing yet another tradition of their annual retreat, the Obamas are also expected to stay at the same $12million cottage in Chilmark they rented last year.The 8,100-square-foot home features seven bedrooms, nine bathrooms, a basketball/tennis court, hot tub, infinity pool and views of the Elizabeth Islands.The home is owned by wealthy widow Joanna Hubschman, whose husband Henry died of cancer in 2011.Four years before his death, Mr Hubschman, a General Electric executive, contributed $6,900 the maximum donation then allowed to Hillary Clinton s 2008 bid for president, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.However, it was Barack Obama who took the party s ticket and went on to win the White House.Two weeks before the general election, Mr Hubschman contributed $2,300 to Obama s campaign.This year s vacation is likely to be a bit more relaxing for Mr Obama, who faced a wave of criticism for his golf playing last year in the midst of a crisis with ISIS.Via: UK Daily Mail | 1 |
Tonight’s presidential debate figures to be one of the most-watched political events in American history. Viewership for the first one-on-one showdown between Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump is expected to approach the 80 million who watched Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter in 1980. One-third of voters say the presidential debates will be very important in helping them […] | 1 |
Home / Be The Change / Armed Militias Prepping for Violence if Clinton Wins in “Stolen Election” Armed Militias Prepping for Violence if Clinton Wins in “Stolen Election” Matt Agorist November 3, 2016 2 Comments
As the insane circus act that is the 2016 election cycle comes to a head, Americans are playing right into the establishment’s plan of divide so that they can be conquered. 2016 is proving to be the year that America has lost its collective mind.
On November 8th, Americans will go to the polls and decide to cast their vote for a megalomaniacal flip-flopping establishment cozying crony or a murderous war criminal controlled by Soros and Rothschild.
Having failed to effectively support a third party candidate, America, once again, will be forced to choose between the lesser of two evils.
While peaceful militias are certainly healthy for protecting the citizens from the violence of a rogue state, a report out of Reuters shows that militias are now preparing to act if their statist doesn’t win.
As Reuters reports , “camouflaged members of the Three Percent Security Force have mobilized for rifle practice, hand-to-hand combat training – and an impromptu campaign rally for Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.”
A well-regulated militia is supposed to protect people from the state — not fight for a political candidate.
“This is the last chance to save America from ruin,” Chris Hill, a paralegal who goes by the code name “Bloodagent,” told Reuters. “I’m surprised I was able to survive or suffer through eight years of Obama without literally going insane, but Hillary is going to be more of the same.”
While the latter part of that statement is correct, Hill is missing the target widely if he thinks Trump will change anything. As Ron Paul said when Alex Jones attempted to trick him into supporting Trump, “Donald Trump would be the champion of the executive order.”
“How many people are voting for Trump? Ooh-rah!” asks Hill.
“Ooh-rah!” shouts back a dozen militia members.
As the most divisive presidential election in recent memory nears its conclusion, some armed militia groups are preparing for the possibility of a stolen election on Nov. 8 and civil unrest in the days following a victory by Democrat Hillary Clinton, reports Reuters.
Hillary Clinton would likely attempt to disarm Americans if she is elected. But Donald Trump is certainly no champion of the second Amendment either as he and Clinton both agree on the illegal and due process-removing notion of banning people on the terror watch list from buying guns.
No one is advocating that terrorists should have guns, but using an arbitrary list that people have no way of disputing to strip them of their rights is not only inefficient, but it is against the constitution. Where are the constitutionalists on this call by Trump?
“I will be there to render assistance to my fellow countrymen, and prevent them from being disarmed, and I will fight and I will kill and I may die in the process,” said Hill, as he conveniently ignores Trump’s anti-second amendment stance.
Protecting his fellow countrymen from a government who wishes to disarm them is most certainly an honorable stance. However, this stance should be universally applied and uncompromised — even if it means not supporting Donald Trump.
“If Trump loses, I’m grabbing my musket,” former Illinois Representative Joe Walsh wrote on Twitter last week. But, if Trump wins, Walsh could be stripped of his second amendment with no due process when he gets put on a terror watch list. . @KevinBuist If a person is a suspected terrorist, then charge him and present evidence. "Potential" is punished only in dystopian novels.
— Justin Amash (@justinamash) June 16, 2016
“We’ve been building up for this, just like the Marines,” said Hill. “We are going to really train harder and try to increase our operational capabilities in the event that this is the day that we hoped would never come.”
Unfortunately, as long as people are willing to compromise on their principles to fight for the lesser of two evils, that day will most certainly come and Trump will do nothing to stop it.
The good news is the three percenters seem to have the interests of the people in mind and Hill vowed to protect those who want to exercise their first Amendment by marching on Washington to protest in the event of a rigged election.
As we’ve already pointed out, Clinton’s only chance of winning is doing exactly that — rigging the election.
Beginning in Iowa and eventually getting blown wide open in Arizona, the fraud and suppression of votes have already let Americans know that their rulers are selected not elected.
Examples of this fraud were captured on video, documented on paper, and even broadcast live on television.
A rigged election is almost a certainty and should most definitely be resisted. However, as long as Americans continue to buy into the political shitshow, that is the two-party paradigm, it will only continue to get worse — no matter the puppets in white marble buildings. Matt Agorist is an honorably discharged veteran of the USMC and former intelligence operator directly tasked by the NSA. This prior experience gives him unique insight into the world of government corruption and the American police state. Agorist has been an independent journalist for over a decade and has been featured on mainstream networks around the world. Follow @MattAgorist on Twitter and now on Steemit Share Google + Joel W
A Reuters article as the source of this info? Really? Might as well get your stories from the CIA directly then. Irresponsible article. Nasty_ahughes798_woman
I want to see what these traitors will be able to do against an M1, or a bomb from a drone dropped from 15,000 feet. Social | 0 |
HO CHI MINH CITY (Reuters) - Outgoing U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said on Friday he was confident the next administration would stick to the same peaceful principles on Asian security as the current one, despite hawkish comments from President-elect Donald Trump’s cabinet picks. Referring to the disputed South China Sea, Kerry told a university audience in Ho Chi Minh City that countries, big or small, should refrain from provocation and any dispute should be resolved peacefully in accordance with international law. Kerry said he was “confident the next administration will continue to adhere to the same good faith with the policies that I just articulated.” His comments came after his nominated replacement, Rex Tillerson, said the United States must send a clear signal to China that its island-building in the South China Sea must stop and that its access to those islands must not be allowed. On Thursday, Trump’s pick to lead the Pentagon, retired Marine General James Mattis, said Russia, China and Islamist militants were presenting the biggest challenge to the U.S.-led world order since World War Two, and called for Congress to lift spending caps undermining military readiness. China claims most of the energy-rich South China Sea, through which about $5 trillion in ship-borne trade passes every year. Neighbours Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam also have claims. China has reclaimed seven reefs in the area, building man-made islands with anti-aircraft and anti-missile batteries, satellite images show. The United States would have to “wage a large-scale war” in the South China sea to prevent Chinese access to the islands, the influential state-run Chinese tabloid, the Global Times, said on Friday. “Tillerson had better bone up on nuclear power strategies if he wants to force a big nuclear power to withdraw from its own territories,” the paper said. The Philippines, which is seeking to improve ties with Beijing, said any U.S. action to drive China from the artificial islands would be its own prerogative, and in its own national interest. Foreign Secretary Perfecto Yasay was replying to a question during a television interview about Tillerson’s comments. “They said that they would prevent China from doing or undertaking these kind of activity. If it wants to do that, they have the force to do so, let them do it,” Yasay said. China has built several artificial islands in the exclusive economic zone of the Philippines, which an arbitration tribunal in The Hague last year ruled unlawful. Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte reiterated last month he wanted to avoid confrontation with China and saw no need to press Beijing to abide by the ruling. Yasay earlier said the Philippines wanted to strengthen ties with the United States and that Washington should be an “influential force” in Asia and help maintain balance there. He said he hoped the new government in Washington would refrain from criticising countries, as the Obama administration had over the Philippines’ deadly drugs war, and he welcomed Tillerson’s views that decisions and comments should be based on facts. | 0 |
WASHINGTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) - President Donald Trump brushed off the first indictments in the probe of his campaign’s ties to Russian election meddling, but the charges sent a clear signal to the White House and other Trump associates: Robert Mueller means business. By going after Trump’s campaign manager and another aide on money-laundering charges and securing a guilty plea from a third campaign adviser, the special prosecutor showed he would delve deeply into the past in search of criminal activity and use his broad powers aggressively. That left some Trump associates worried about what or whom Mueller would target next, despite the White House’s public dismissal of the developments as unrelated to the president and his campaign. “They’re flexing their muscles for anybody that they approach in this investigation and letting them know we really mean it,” said former federal prosecutor Patrick Cotter. “So if we come to you, you should talk to us. Manafort didn’t and look what happened to him.” Manafort and Rick Gates are charged with money laundering, tax fraud, conspiracy to defraud the United States, and other counts. They pleaded not guilty on Monday. The indictments, which closely detail the alleged crimes, appeared to be an opening salvo from Mueller. He was appointed by U.S. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein in May after Trump fired FBI Director James Comey, who had led an investigation into whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russia to influence the 2016 election. Mueller was given a mandate to probe potential collusion and “any matters that arose or may arise directly from the investigation.” Trump has denied any collusion with Russia and at times described the investigation as a “hoax” and a “witch hunt.” Russia has denied interfering with the 2016 election. With the first indictments on Monday, Mueller showed he was not afraid to use his powers, and Trump officials noticed. “One thing I’m worried about in a bigger scale is that Rosenstein, by giving Mueller this wide berth, has created this monster,” said one former White House official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. A former Trump campaign adviser fretted that the probe could, as a result, touch on Trump’s businesses, too. In a New York Times interview in July, Trump indicated that Mueller would be crossing a red line if he investigated Trump’s family business. Legal experts said Mueller would not be swayed by Trump’s view of the proper scope of the investigation. “I don’t think prosecutors concern themselves with what politicians say about red lines being drawn,” said former federal prosecutor Robert Capers. Jens David Ohlin, a professor of criminal law at Cornell Law School, said Mueller could be targeting alleged financial crimes by Manafort and Gates to gain their cooperation and uncover wrongdoing elsewhere. A number of lawyers said the guilty plea of George Papadopoulos, announced by Mueller’s team on Monday, could ultimately provide a closer link to the campaign and pressure others to open up. While the charges against Manafort and Gates were not related to their campaign work, Papadopoulos admitted he lied to the Federal Bureau of Investigation about his contacts with foreign nationals he believed to be tied to the Russian government while he was a campaign adviser. Prosecutors said they arrested Papadopoulos in July and that he was cooperating with the government. “God knows what this guy’s going to say now,” said the former Trump campaign adviser. “Since he’s cooperating, he could set any perjury traps up for others.” Cotter said Mueller’s unveiling of Papadopoulos’ guilty plea “was to head off any arguments that the case against Manafort and Gates is not about Russia.” Frank Montoya, a former senior FBI agent, said Manafort’s indictment and Papadopoulos’ plea indicated Mueller was not going to bow to White House pressure and would keep pushing hard to uncover wrongdoing. “It is pretty much a road map – we are going to be looking at the money laundering, we are going to be looking at the failure to report income, we are going to be looking at the general criminal conspiracies. This is also about Trump’s red line – we are going to cross it. And we are going to keep looking at the so-called collusion, or the coordination with the Russians to undermine democracy,” Montoya said. | 1 |
BENGHAZI, Libya (Reuters) - East Libyan forces said they had launched air strikes on Islamic State fighters after the militants made incursions south and east of their former coastal stronghold of Sirte. The jihadist group has grown bolder in recent weeks, setting up temporary checkpoints, attacking local forces, and taking over a village mosque to lead prayers during the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha, Libyan officials say. The increased activity has raised concern that Islamic State could regroup around Sirte, from where it was driven out in December by local forces and a U.S. air campaign. Most militants were killed in the nearly seven-month battle, but an unknown number fled into the desert to the south and west. Sirte lies at the center of Libya s Mediterranean coastline, on the dividing line between regions controlled by rival Libyan factions. Forces loyal to eastern-based commander Khalifa Haftar said they had carried out air strikes on Sunday against militants in the area of Ain Taqrift, between Sirte and the town of Zillah, 306 km (190 miles) to the south east. The area is close to oil fields previously damaged by Islamic State attacks. Both Haftar s Libyan National Army (LNA) and forces from the port city of Misrata, which led the campaign in Sirte last year, say they are mounting frequent patrols to monitor Islamic State movements in areas under their control. The LNA and Misratan brigades have been on opposite sides of a conflict that developed after the NATO-backed uprising that toppled Libyan strongman Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. Islamic State exploited the turmoil to establish a foothold in Libya, taking complete control of Sirte in 2015 and using it as a base for hundreds of foreign fighters. Both the main loose alliances in Libya have accused each other of allowing Islamic State space to operate in order to advance their own military ends. Misratan forces, which aligned themselves with the U.N.-backed government in Tripoli, have complained of receiving little support as they try to prevent the jihadists regrouping. Islamic State militants have stepped up their presence in several settlements east of Sirte, said Ibrahim Mlaitan, head of security for Sirte municipality. That included entering a local mosque to preach a sermon last Friday, he said. They set up checkpoints that last just for 10 minutes and then leave. They have been moving around freely in and out of these towns, and in the desert too, Mlaitan said. Eastern military officials denied reports that Islamic State had taken control of one of the villages, Um Qandeel, but a military source acknowledged that the militants had set up checkpoints there during fleeting night visits. The terrorist organization Daesh (Islamic State) from time to time tries to enter the coastal areas from the desert regions and they carry out kidnappings of civilians, and we are conducting surveillance on them, said LNA spokesman Ahmed al-Mismari. | 1 |
BEIJING (Reuters) - China called on the United States to play its part in resolving trade frictions between the two countries, and said Beijing isn’t devaluing its currency to boost exports as tensions simmered ahead of President Xi Jinping’s first meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump. Trump set the tone for what could be a tense meeting at his Mar-a-Lago retreat next week by tweeting on Thursday that the United States could no longer tolerate massive trade deficits and job losses. The leaders of the world’s two largest economies are scheduled to meet next Thursday and Friday for the first time since Trump assumed office on Jan. 20. In Thursday’s tweet, Trump said the highly anticipated meeting, which is also expected to cover differences over North Korea and China’s strategic ambitions in the South China Sea, “will be a very difficult one.” Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Zheng Zeguang acknowledged there was a trade imbalance, but said this was mostly due to differences in their two economic structures and noted that China had a trade deficit in services. “China does not deliberately seek a trade surplus. We also have no intention of carrying out competitive currency devaluation to stimulate exports. This is not our policy,” Zheng told a briefing about the Xi-Trump meeting. The yuan fell 6.5 percent last year in its biggest annual loss against the dollar since 1994, knocked by pressure from sluggish economic growth and a broadly strong U.S. currency. China’s last one-off currency devaluation, a 2 percent move in August 2015, shocked global markets and was widely viewed by traders and economists as a failure. Trump has frequently accused China of keeping its currency artificially low against the dollar to make Chinese exports cheaper, and “stealing” American manufacturing jobs. While he resisted acting on a campaign promise to declare China a currency manipulator on his first day in office, tensions have persisted over how the Trump administration’s China policy would evolve. Zheng said domestic consumption in China will increase as it pursues economic reforms, helping to raise demand for foreign goods and services, including those from the United States. “This also helps ameliorate the trade imbalance between China and the United States,” he said. Chinese investment in the U.S. is also rising, creating more employment opportunities, Zheng said, adding that Beijing is willing to work with Washington to promote more balanced trade between the two countries. He said the trade imbalance can be resolved by improved cooperation, and urged Washington to lift restrictions on civilian technology exports to China and create better conditions for Chinese investment in the United States. Referring to protracted negotiations on a U.S.-China Bilateral Investment Treaty given disagreements about access to sectors the sides deem sensitive, Zheng said China remained committed to seeking solutions through dialog. Nonetheless, the United States had to do play its part too, he said. “China can expand imports from the United States. The United States should take steps to promote exports to China,” Zheng said. “As long as both sides broaden their thinking, take positive moves, both countries can do a lot in the trade and business sphere, and can achieve mutually beneficial, win-win results.” | 1 |
It really seems as if Republicans don t think the things they say and do are recorded. It s as though they only live in the moment and history ceases to exist. Because if they realize the things they say and do are recorded they would know that we could throw what they ve said and done back in their faces, like with what is about to happen.You see, Republicans are hellbent in making sure President Obama doesn t nominate anyone to become the next Supreme Court Justice of the United States after the passing of Justice Antonin Scalia. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell even went so far as to say, The American people should have a voice in the selection of their next Supreme Court Justice. Therefore, this vacancy should not be filled until we have a new president. And don t forget Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley insisting we wait until next year to fill the vacant seat. He said: The fact of the matter is that it s been standard practice over the last nearly 80 years that Supreme Court nominees are not nominated and confirmed during a presidential election year. Given the huge divide in the country, and the fact that this president, above all others, has made no bones about his goal to use the courts to circumvent Congress and push through his own agenda, it only makes sense that we defer to the American people who will elect a new president to select the next Supreme Court justice. However, what both these Republicans fail to realize, alongside all the other conservatives and conservative pundits who share this opinion, is that it is the president s constitutional duty to nominate a new Justice so that order and balance is held within all three branches of government. It is also not their place to say that he can t. Truth is, they don t want him to, because they re terrified of who he might pick to replace the ultra-conservative Scalia.Here s the thing about history, though it will come back to bite you when you least expect it, and prove that you may, in fact, be a huge hypocrite. Here are some quotes from back when former President George W. Bush was trying to get a vote on his nominees. And you may recognize a couple of the names: Because of the unprecedented obstruction of our Democratic colleagues, the Republican conference intends to restore the principle that, regardless of party, any President s judicial nominees, after full debate, deserve a simple up -or -down vote. Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) (5/19/05) I hope that by the end of this session of Congress, my colleagues will give the President s qualified nominees what they, and all current and future nominees deserve: the opportunity to have a fair up-or-down vote on the floor of the Senate on their nomination. For the sake of the Senate, the nation, and our independent judiciary, I hope that these partisans will not launch more filibusters, but from what I ve heard today, I won t hold my breath. Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) (3/26/04) The bottom line has to be that the president has the right to get a vote, an up-or-down vote, on his nominees. Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) (11/10/04) Let s debate the nominees and give our advice and consent. It is a simple yea or nay, when called to the altar to vote. Filibustering a nominee into oblivion is misguided warfare and the wrong way for a minority party to leverage influence in the Senate. Threatening to grind legislative activity to a standstill if they do not get their way is like being a bully on the school yard playground. Let s do our jobs. Nothing is nuclear about asking the full Senate to take an up-or-down vote on judicial nominees. It is the way the Senate has operated for 214 years. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) (5/23/05) But denying these patriotic Americans, of both parties, who seek to serve this country an up-or-down vote is simply not fair, and it certainly was not the intention of our Founding Fathers when they designed and created this very institution. Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC) (4/20/05) Every nominee deserves a prompt up-or-down vote on the Senate floor. Dick Cheney (5/10/04)And if this truly how all these men felt at the moment, then they should still feel that way now. They should abide by the constitution, allowing President Obama to make his picks, as well as give him an up-or-down vote on who he decides would be the best fit. Only reasonable, right? You know, since it s their idea.Featured image: Flickr | 1 |
Something that Donald Trump needs to realize is that his words are now heard not only all over the nation, but around the world. He s currently the presidential nominee for the Republican Party, and the things that come out of his mouth need to be taken very, very seriously.So, when Trump decided he would say Second Amendment people should take out Hillary Clinton, it should not be taken with a grain of salt, but rather with the utmost scrutiny. Where Trump might think he s being funny, there could be some sociopath out there who listens to Trump s words and finds inspiration. A person who could do unspeakable things for any number of reasons.One person who knows exactly how dangerous people who are inspired to do horrific acts can be is Patti Davis, the daughter of former President Ronald Reagan. Reagan was himself shot by a deranged man named John Hinckley.Taking to Facebook after Trump s outrageous remarks, Davis laid into Trump as only a person with her life experiences can do. She said: To Donald Trump: I am the daughter of a man who was shot by someone who got his inspiration from a movie, someone who believed if he killed the President the actress from that movie would notice him. Your glib and horrifying comment about Second Amendment people was heard around the world. It was heard by sane and decent people who shudder at your fondness for verbal violence. It was heard by your supporters, many of whom gleefully and angrily yell, Lock her up! at your rallies. It was heard by the person sitting alone in a room, locked in his own dark fantasies, who sees unbridled violence as a way to make his mark in the world, and is just looking for ideas. Yes, Mr. Trump, words matter. But then you know that, which makes this all even more horrifying. And she s absolutely correct. Instead of doubling down on his remarks, or claiming what he said isn t actually what he said. He should have owned the fact that he misspoke, clarified his true intent, and apologized to not only Hillary Clinton, but to all those who have been affected by gun violence. However, the chances of that happening are slim to none, so, don t hold your breath.Featured image via Joe Raedle/Getty Images, Facebook | 0 |
What if Billy Bush had just changed the subject? As unlikely as that may sound to anyone who has heard the infamous 2005 tape of Donald J. Trump boasting about sexually accosting women to the chuckling encouragement of Mr. Bush, an “Access Hollywood” host at the time, it just might have stifled the celebrity billionaire. A body of psychological research shows that even mild pushback against offensive remarks can have an instant effect — as difficult as that can be, especially with a boss, a friend or a celebrity. It is research worth considering in a political season when ethnic, racist and sexual slurs, not to mention general insults, seem to have become part of everyday chatter. Polls show that people are increasingly unhappy with the tenor of the national debate but unsure what to do about the decline in civility. Researchers have detailed the difficulty of confronting prejudice, but they have also found that even the politest of objections — or subtle corrections to loaded words — can almost instantly curb a speaker’s behavior. With a clearer understanding of the dynamics of such confrontation, psychologists say, people can develop tactics that can shut down the unsavory talk without ruining relationships, even when the offender has more status or power: a fraternity president, say, or a team captain or employer. The alternative is passive complicity, psychologists say. “When we hear this egregious, uncomfortable talk and we don’t speak up, what’s actually happening is that the person speaking is getting a green light,” said Sharyn J. Potter, of the Prevention Innovations Research Center, at the University of New Hampshire. “It encourages them. ” It hardly takes a psychologist to explain the difficulty inherent in any such confrontation. “Simply saying, ‘I don’t appreciate that comment,’ or ‘That’s not cool’ — well, people aren’t going to like you very much after that,” said Linda Tropp, a professor of psychology at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. “But they do get defensive, and change their behavior quickly. ” It is important to realize that you don’t have to make a dramatic, principled stand. “We don’t want bystanders to think they have to fly in with their Superman cape,” said Dr. Potter, who is also an associate professor of sociology. There are many approaches people can use to stop talk they find noxious, say experts in what is known as bystander education. Among them: distraction, such as abruptly changing the subject. “Even in the locker room, guys can change the conversation, they can spray people with water, or crank up the music,” Dr. Potter said. Rather than calling out the speaker and shaming him or her publicly, which can carry the risk of retaliation, you could make it about you. “You could say: ‘This is bothering me. One of my good friends was raped. ’” Dr. Potter said. “If you put it on yourself, that might feel safer. ” Or you can try humor. Gail Stern, an educator and a of Catharsis Productions, which gives sexual violence prevention training on college campuses and in the military, said that one deft approach might be to assume that the speaker is being outrageous on purpose, and to respond with something like this: “I love satire. It’s so weird that people believe that for real and it’s so cool you called that out. ” She calls that tactic “verbal aikido,” after the Japanese martial art whose practitioners defend themselves by redirecting an opponent’s attack. An essential component of bystander intervention training is to get participants to imagine their own responses to scenarios. The goal is to get people to arm themselves with approaches that feel natural and innate, rather than outfitting them with model scripts. “If you have a plan in your head, then you can use it,” Dr. Potter said. Psychologists who study the effects of such confrontation divide offensive behavior into two loose categories. One includes strangers acting out — a mother who slaps a toddler, a boy who punches his girlfriend — and bystanders, when they react, tend to do so viscerally and quickly. The other category includes offensive jokes or references among people who know one another, like friends or . In those cases, there are more gray areas, as well as personality factors to consider and often a relationship at stake. Objections, if they come, often take a little longer than bystander intervention does. Deborah Cameron, a professor of language and communication at the University of Oxford, said that sexual banter often takes place among men who are friends, and that “the function of it is to promote bonding. ” Men may feel that if they challenge conversation they find tasteless, or simply don’t join in, “they’re spoiling the mood at a minimum and possibly putting their relationship to the group at risk,” she said. And sometimes they worry that “it will raise doubts about their masculinity or heterosexuality,” or that they will become targets of bullying, said Ms. Cameron, author of “The Myth of Mars and Venus: Do Men and Women Really Speak Different Languages?” Yet subtle objections can stop people in midsentence, in some cases prompting later reflection, psychologists have found. In one type of experiment, for example, study participants guess the occupations of people based on a photograph and limited information, like “spends most of his days walking the streets” or “does regular housework. ” Most of these profiles are ethnically neutral. But some are ringers. The photo of a black man who “walks the streets” often prompts guesses of “homeless” rather than mail carrier and a black woman who depends on money from the government gets identified as a welfare mom instead of a government employee or a student with loans. Then the researchers, under the guise of fellow participants, push back. “We confront them in a variety of ways, sometimes harshly — ‘That’s racist!’ — and sometimes much less so, appealing to equality: ‘Shouldn’t everyone be treated the same? ’” said Alexander Czopp, director of the Center for Research at Western Washington University. “Depending on how the confrontation is done, the participants might show different levels of defensiveness and anger right away but they usually show less attitudes on tests we do later. ” David Fleischer, director of the Los Angeles LGBT Center’s Leadership Lab, often sends gay and transgender people into socially conservative districts to do canvassing. “We have to handle these situations all the time,” said Mr. Fleischer, now canvassing in Cleveland. “We are seeking out people who are prejudiced, and they’re using offensive language. And if you correct that language, just use different words yourself, and your tone and demeanor are kind, people are very responsive, and you don’t have to get into a screaming match. ” In a recent study, Mr. Fleischer and other researchers found that this kind of canvassing can soften the views of some 10 percent of voters — a large shift when it comes to political behavior, and one that has prompted wider training in such cordial, respectful “correcting” of language. Of course, most people never get any training they make judgments on the fly, about costs, tactics and personal integrity. And some are more likely to speak up than others, new research suggests. Aneeta Rattan, an assistant professor of organizational behavior at the London Business School and Carol Dweck of Stanford found in a recent study that people who are optimistic and believe that others can change — that a bigot, with time, can change stripes — are more likely than the pessimists to say something. “In that sense,” Dr. Rattan said, “this work suggests that your belief system about others can either be a barrier or a staircase where you can take that first step — even if it’s just saying, ‘I disagree. ’” | 0 |
| January 15, 2016 at 6:00 am | Reply
Slavery still exists in Saudi Arabia (as well as parts of Africa) today. But what is Saudi Arabia? For all practical purposes, it is Great Britain’s vassal state, run by a family of criminals whom we and Great Britain protect. Saudi Arabia is not even a nation-state in the modern sense of the term: The Royal Family there considers themselves to be owners of the land—as if it were their personal property—who allow others to live on it. (Churchill and others either set up Saudi Arabia or allowed it to become established in its current political structure. They also established the current national boundaries in the Middle East, leading, in part, to the present troubles). What kind of a religion is this that encourages all of the worst carnality of men? St. Thomas Aquinas tackled this matter head-on: He wrote that Mohammed sought out men as carnal as himself, and he encouraged his followers to do the same. (And they consider Jesus Our Lord to be a prophet, as if He would EVER condone their evil?!) Islam, like the New World Order manipulating it, is a BEAST SYSTEM. It is a criminal racket with a political ideology and structure, masquerading as a religion! WAKE UP, PEOPLE! | 1 |
Scientists About To Pour $100 Million Into Looking For Aliens Around Weird Star 10/26/2016
THE DAILY CALLER
Astronomers are about to pour $100 million into investigating a star that may be surrounded by a large structure built by an alien civilization.
Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley’s Breakthrough Listen project of the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) are turning the program’s $100 million budget into investigating the star’s unique behavior.
“Everyone, every SETI program telescope, I mean every astronomer that has any kind of telescope in any wavelength that can see Tabby’s star has looked at it,” Dr. Andrew Siemion, director of the Berkeley SETI Research Center, said in a press statement . “It’s been looked at with Hubble, it’s been looked at with Keck, it’s been looked at in the infrared and radio and high energy, and every possible thing you can imagine, including a whole range of SETI experiments. Nothing has been found.”
Researchers will repeatedly scan the star for eight hours per night over the next two months to examine its extremely unusually dimming behavior. The star randomly dims by as much as 22 percent of its output at extremely irregular intervals. This is consistent with large orbiting masses, much larger than planets, blocking out some of the star’s light when they pass in front of it. All the natural forms of large masses which could cause KIC 8462852’s dimming aren’t consistent with the star’s age .
Scientists found the first possible evidence of this extraterrestrial civilization around KIC 8462852 last October , when astronomers with Yale University and other top schools published a study that used NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope.
So far, astronomers haven’t found a single naturalistic explanation for the star’s exceedingly unusual dimming, which explains the extremely unusual behavior of the star. Astronomers have examined 500 other stars in the vicinity of KIC 8462852, and seen nothing else like it.
The dense formations near KIC 8462852 are similar to “Dyson Spheres,” hypothetical, are energy-harvesting “megastuctures” theoretical aliens could hypothetically build by rearranging the solar system. Scientists have pondered the existence of Dyson Spheres since the 1960s, thinking they could be a potential solution to energy problems faced by an extremely old civilization. SETI scientists have long argued humans could detect distant alien civilizations by looking for technological artifacts like Dyson Spheres orbiting other stars.
“We spent a long time trying to convince ourselves this wasn’t real. We just weren’t able to,” Ben Montet, a Caltech astronomer who co-authored research on the star, told Gizmodo . “None of the considered phenomena can alone explain the observations.”
The best naturalistic explanation favored by astronomers, involves a huge mass of comets erratically orbiting the star and creating enough dust to dim the light, but a January analysis of the star’s history renders that hypothesis implausible, since the unprecedented dimming has continued for over a century. In order to dim for such a long time period, the star would need to have millions of times more dust and comets orbiting it than is the case.
Astronomers estimate that the dimming would require roughly 648,000 giant comets of 200 kilometers in diameter, all aligned to pass in front of the star. The chances of such a formation render it essentially impossible, and there is currently no remotely plausible scientific explanation for what is going on with KIC 8462852.
Astronomers have previously frequently misjudge abnormal stellar occurrences and, usually, the abnormalities are simply a new phenomenon.
A graduate student in astronomy, found an usual pulsing radio signal so predictable it seemed to be a sign of intelligent life in 1967. The astronomers even nicknamed the signal LGM-1, for “little green men,” and believed they had detected a signal from an extraterrestrial civilization , but it turned out to be the first pulsar. | 0 |
CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuela s opposition blamed President Nicolas Maduro s government on Monday for the death of a sick activist in detention, saying he was framed and then denied medical help. Carlos Garcia, a local legislator in western Apure state, suffered a stroke in August after being arrested in late 2016 during protests and having money planted on him, his party said. Two days before his death on Sunday, Garcia was granted house arrest but was never transported home, the Justice First party added in a statement, saying the accusations were invented and he was never allowed adequate medical help. He should never have been in prison and should never have died at the hands of a repressive government whose hands today more than ever are stained with blood, said the party s secretary general, Tomas Guanipa. Venezuela s opposition parties accuse Maduro, the 54-year-old successor of Hugo Chavez, of being a dictator and maintaining hundreds of political prisoners on trumped-up charges. He denies that, saying all activists behind bars are there on legitimate charges, including for terrorism and coup-plotting against his socialist government. Venezuela s Supreme Court said Garcia had been detained on suspicion of theft, instigation of disorder, and arson. He had received appropriate medical attention in hospital for a condition of immuno-deficient infectious disease, which may have led to the fatal brain problem, it added in a statement. We request the nation s political leaders to abstain from giving irresponsible opinions with false information intended to cause alarm in the population. On the contrary, we must give Christian respect to this Venezuelan citizen s memory. | 0 |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump took Republican Senator Bob Corker to task on Twitter on Friday, apparently responding to the Foreign Relations Committee chair’s comment that Trump did not understand the nation’s character and had not demonstrated competence. “Strange statement by Bob Corker considering that he is constantly asking me whether or not he should run again in ‘18. Tennessee not happy!” Trump wrote of the Tennessee senator. Responding to Trump’s comments about violence at a neo-Nazi and white supremacist protest earlier this month, Corker recently said, “The president has not yet been able to demonstrate the stability, nor some of the competence, that he needs to demonstrate in order to be successful.” | 0 |
By Jonas E. Alexis on October 30, 2016 What if China, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Russia end up forging an alliance, since they all realize that they have a common enemy? Would that be good news for the New World Order? In order to deal with Soros, Malaysian officials need to give Vladimir Putin a call. …by Jonas E. Alexis
George Soros has again shown that Jim W. Dean was right all along. Soros, Dean says, “ refuses to die and join his victims.” Soros, Dean moves on to declare, has been involved in the “the age-old pump-and-dump stock manipulation scam” for quite a while.
As we have argued elsewhere, Soros was involved in destroying the Russian economy in the 1990s. But he has created other covert activities as well. He was behind the Black Lives Matter movement . He wants to flood Europe with so-called refugees from virtually all over the Middle East while remaining silent about US officials supporting terrorist organs in Syria. In short, Soros still wants to move and shake the world.
Soros has recently turned his attention to Southeast Asia. He wants to taste economic blood in that region. He has been in that part of the world before. And government officials know him pretty well.
Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad of Malaysia declared back in 1997 that for people like Soros, “wealth must come from impoverishing others, from taking what others have in order to enrich themselves. Their weapon is their wealth against the poverty of others.” [1] The New York Times reported then: “Mr. Mahathir specifically blamed Mr. Soros for orchestrating Malaysia’s economic crisis—he told the assembled bankers and economists that Mr. Soros’s ilk had to be stopped.” [2]
Mahathir said: “I am saying that currency trading is unnecessary, unproductive and totally immoral. It should be stopped. It should be made illegal. We don’t need currency trading.” [3]
Mahathir was trying to articulate that rapacious usury is antithetical to the moral order and is therefore to be avoided. He has witnessed what usury, through “crony capitalism,” has done and how it precipitated the economic crisis in much of Asia, most specifically in South Korea and the Philippines. [4] The same “currency” has brought down economic progress in places like Thailand and Indonesia, where was a drastic decline in income. One scholar noted:
“ The enormity of the shock is captured by the fact that in the worst-affected countries real GDP growth has turned abruptly from over 7 per cent per annum to negative. In Thailand growth fell from 6 per cent in 1996 to almost zero in 1997, with all the decline concentrated in the second half of that year, and has fallen by at least a further 5 per cent in 1998. In Indonesia the corresponding swing is from 8 per cent growth up to the third quarter of 1997 to an absolute decline of 15 per cent in 1998…
“These huge aggregate income shifts were the result of a financial crisis reflected in precipitous currency devaluations and falls in equity prices. Currencies depreciated by up to 80 per cent in the worst case (the Indonesian rupiah) while equity and other asset prices fell by 50 per cent or more in the worst-affected countries.
“The key factor behind this currency and stock market collapse was a massive reversal of foreign capital flows. It has been estimated that for Indonesia, the Republic of Korea, Thailand, Malaysia and the Philippines net private inflows dropped from US$ 93 billion to 12 billion – a swing of 11 per cent of GDP between the end of 1996 and the end of 1997.”
Many countries in Asia were basically following capitalism by that time, and it was no accident that they had a huge debacle by 1997. [5] Mahathir, in that sense, was trying provide a response to that debacle. Soros didn’t like what Mahathir said because Soros is a capitalist and wanted to rip people in Southeast Asia off their labor. He fired back at Mahathir by saying:
“Dr. Mahathir’s suggestion yesterday to ban currency trading is so inappropriate that it does not deserve serious consideration. Interfering with the convertibility of capital at a moment like this is a recipe for disaster. Dr. Mahathir is a menace to his own country.” [6]
Mahathir seemed to have learned his lesson. By 2003, he created a storm of controversy by saying that “The Jews rule the world by proxy. They get others to fight and die for them.” [7]
Some have said that Mahathir was promoting violence against Jews, but that itself is false. If a person says that the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, it does not necessitate the illogical idea that every single Japanese person is responsible for Pearl Harbor at all. Mahathir was making a general claim, and many Jews, including Henry Makow, agreed with him. Elias Davidsson of Jerusalem concurred as well. He said:
“As a Jew myself (but opposed to Zionism) I need no encouragement from Malaysain PM Mahathir Mohammed to observe what should be obvious to the blatant eye: Namely that Jews effectively rule US foreign policy and thus determine to a great extent the conductof most countries…
“So it is with the proposition that Jews control the world. Surely the do not control every single action; surely it does not mean that every Jew participates in the ‘control.’ But for all practical purposes the proposition holds.
“Mahathir has neither asked to discriminate against Jews, let along to kill Jews. It is shameful to equate him to the Hitlerites.” [8]
Mahathir added elsewhere that “a U.S. dominated IMF was ‘trying to change the Asian system.” [9] Obviously that “U.S. dominated IMF” was in concert with capitalism, which has been refined in the twenty-first century by people like Milton Friedman. [10]
But Mahathir probably wouldn’t expect Soros to come back to Southeast Asia for round two. It has been reported that Soros is looking for a “color revolution” through his Open Society Foundation in Malaysia because he seems to think that there is a lack of “constitutional democracy.” [11] Like Rodrigo Duterte, Malaysian Prime Minster Najib Razak has recently been trying to build an alliance with China: “Malaysian Prime Minster Najib Razak heads to China next week to build closer ties and seek investment, which may further dent US aims in Southeast Asia after a push by President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines to bolster China ties.” [12]
Obviously this is not good news for New World Order agents at all. It gets worse: “Both Malaysia and the Philippines have long been in dispute with China over the South China Sea. However, Kuala Lumpur may follow in the footsteps of Manila, seeking to ease tensions with Beijing in exchange for economic benefits.” [13]
Soros again does not like that, and this might be one reason why he declared that “There is no Business like the Revolutions Business.’” Mathew Maavak of Risk Foresight at Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) comments:
“NGOs and the West-friendly media constitute a major subsidiary of the global social revolutions enterprise. Together, they seek out, identify and amplify public discontent in nations not aligned to the United States.
“Such US-engineered activisms have never led to more equitable societies; rather they have engendered endless bloodshed and global terrorism. To the agitprop entrepreneur, the returns on revolutionary investments are immense.
“A wealthy hedge fund manager can short a targeted market before executing a pre-planned ‘revolution.’ The resultant stock market and currency meltdown would provide self-evidentiary ‘proof’ to an anxious public, exerting more pressure on the government of the day to either capitulate or concede to ‘popular demands’ that are actually drafted abroad, likely by the IMF!” [14]
Maavak, like other experts in Asia, are well aware that Soros was behind the economic crisis in 1997. He writes, “The entire region was in turmoil, and the name of George Soros featured prominently in this sordid saga. The ‘Reformasi’ [protest] movement led by sacked [Malaysian] Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim — who had close to ties to Washington hawks — failed to topple the government of the day.” [ 15]
Perhaps Malaysia needs to do what China and Russia did: they need to kick Soros out of for good. Or perhaps they need to give Vladimir Putin a call and ask him how he did it. But what if China, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Russia end up forging an alliance, since they all realize that they have a common enemy? Would that be good news for the New World Order?
I guess US Deputy Secretary of Defense Bob Work has good reason to say: ““Our adversaries [Russia], quite frankly, are pursuing enhanced human operations and it scares the crap out of us.” [16]
[1] Edward A. Gargan, “Premier of Malaysia Spars With Currency Dealer,” NY Times , September 22, 1997.
[3] Ibid.
[4] For further studies on this issue, see David C. Kang, Crony Capitalism: Corruption and Development in South Korea and the Philippines (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002).
[5] See Helen Hughes, “Crony Capitalism and the East Asian Currency Financial ‘Crises,’” Policy , Spring 1999.
[6] Gargan, “Premier of Malaysia Spars With Currency Dealer,” NY Times , September 22, 1997.
[7] Quoted in E. Michael Jones, The Jewish Revolutionary Spirit and Its Impact on World History (South Bend: Fidelity Press, 2008), 1064.
[8] Ibid., 1064-1065.
[9] Paul Blustein, The Chastening: Inside the Crisis That Rocked the Global Financial System and Humbled the IMF (New York: Public Affairs, 2001 and 2003), 164.
[10] For a historical study on these issues, see E. Michael Jones, Barren Metal: A History of Capitalism as the Conflict Between Labor and Usury (South Bend: Fidelity Press, 2014).
[11] “Leaked Memo: Is Soros Planning ‘Series of Color Revolutions’ in Southeast Asia?,” Sputnik News , October 28, 2016. | 1 |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Frequent breakdowns of advanced uranium enrichment devices have inadvertently helped Iran comply with restrictions in the international agreement curbing its nuclear program, according to a new report by a Washington-based think tank. Iranian compliance also is due to tougher policing by U.S. President Donald Trump s administration of the 2015 pact to prevent Tehran from developing nuclear weapons, the Institute for Science and International Security said in a report due on Friday. A copy of the report was seen by Reuters. Iran can be expected to continue to push the deal s limits, commit violations and seek interpretations that are unfounded, the report said. One should expect many struggles to keep Iran within the nuclear limits for the duration of the deal. For those reasons and because Tehran is unlikely ever to build a financially viable uranium enrichment plant, an expansion of Iran s program would either be a colossal waste of money ... or the basis of a nuclear weapons program, which would not care about costs, the report said. Washington and its negotiating partners in the agreement should find a way to make the deal s restrictions permanent or severely extend their expiration times, it said. Under the deal between Iran, Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States, Tehran agreed to restrict its nuclear program in return for the lifting of economic sanctions that had crippled its economy. The report comes as Trump weighs whether to certify to Congress that Iran is complying with the agreement. He has until Oct. 16 to make that decision. Decertifying Iran could lead Congress to reimpose U.S. sanctions on Iran, threatening to collapse the deal and intensify tension in the Middle East. Supporters of the deal, called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, insist that strong international monitoring will prevent Iran from developing nuclear bombs. Iran has denied that it is seeking nuclear weapons. The International Atomic Energy Agency, which monitors the pact, has found no material breaches by Iran, a judgment with which Washington has concurred. Tehran has exceeded some deal restrictions, such as a limit on its heavy water stockpile, used in nuclear reactors, the Institute for Science and International Security said in a November 2016 report. But it either rectified some infractions or won exemptions - while President Barack Obama was in office - before the pact took effect in January 2016. In its new report the institute listed other alleged Iran compliance issues, including changes to the design of a heavy water reactor that can produce plutonium, another weapons fuel. Iran s improved compliance this year in part has been unintentional or accidental because advanced uranium enrichment devices called centrifuges have broken during testing more often than expected, according to the think tank report. Enrichment produces low-enriched uranium for power plants, but it also can make highly enriched weapons-grade uranium. By August, Iran had tested eight advanced IR-8 centrifuges although the deal limits it to one at most, the report said, adding that Iran also operated between 13 and 15 interconnected IR-6 machines, which the deal restricts to 10. However, according to the report, all but one of the IR-8s and many of the IR-6s broke because carbon fiber components failed. David Albright, a former U.N. nuclear inspector who authored the new report, said Iran s compliance also had improved because the United States is taking a tougher line on attempts to violate the nuclear limits and exploit loopholes. Two sources, including a senior U.S. official, said on Wednesday that the White House does not want to kill the deal. Instead, it wants lawmakers to hold off taking action while it discusses with European allies making the limits on Iran s program permanent and fixing what U.S. officials consider other flaws, said the sources, who requested anonymity. | 0 |
VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Francis and Orthodox Christian leader Patriarch Bartholomew called on Friday for a collective response from world leaders to climate change, saying the planet was deteriorating and vulnerable people were the first to be affected. The appeal comes three months after U.S. President Donald Trump withdrew from a global agreement, struck in Paris, to limit greenhouse gas emissions. We urgently appeal to those in positions of social and economic, as well as political and cultural, responsibility to hear the cry of the earth and to attend to the needs of the marginalized, Francis and Bartholomew said in a joint statement. Above all , the leaders of the world s 1.2 billion Catholics and up to 300 million Orthodox Christians asked for a response to the plea of millions and support (for) the consensus of the world for the healing of our wounded creation. The joint message was not addressed to any specific world leaders. Many were dismayed when the U.S. backed out of the Paris accord, a decision a senior Vatican official later called a disaster . | 0 |
PYONGYANG - North Koreans stage a demonstration of devotion to their leader Kim Jong Un at least once a year, in a large ceremonial square in Pyongyang. Mansae! the people call as they parade past the 33-year old, who stands on a balcony above them: Live long! This December, Kim will mark six years in power. In that time he has purged or executed around 340 people, according to the Institute for National Security Strategy, a think tank of South Korea s National Intelligence Service (NIS). The people on parade carry flowers including North Korea s national blooms, Kimilsungia and Kimjongilia, which were specially created in honor of Kim s grandfather and father, Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il. North Korea is the only socialist country to have passed power down the family line. Images of former presidents are pinned on the left side of every jacket and dress. They are worn there to be close to the wearers hearts. In private conversations, some North Koreans quietly lament the shortcomings of their system: It s too bureaucratic, takes too long to get things done, is disorganized, they say. But few dare to openly criticize the Supreme Leader. North Korea s GDP per capita, estimated at $1,700 in the CIA Factbook, places it 215th in the world it is poorer than Haiti, Zimbabwe and Afghanistan. Defectors say many North Koreans lead double lives, earning money in unofficial market places to supplement state incomes. The leadership turns a blind eye to this. Traditionally, Pyongyang has been the home of North Korea s elites. But the inhabitants of the capital must also prepare for the parades. Around this time, everyone everywhere must increase production in a process known as a battle. People, organized into work units, are assigned duties on top of their usual jobs. The 70-day battle ahead of a Party congress in 2016 meant long after-work hours sprucing up the capital. State media released a report: Some work units had delivered 110 percent of their quotas. The fatigue shows in some flower-wavers faces. On June 1, 2016, the country announced that a new campaign of celebration was to be held. This time, it said, the battle would last 200 days. | 1 |
YANGON (Reuters) - Two Reuters journalists who have been detained in Myanmar for the past two weeks were remanded in custody for a further two weeks on Wednesday as a probe continues into allegations they breached the nation s Official Secrets Act. Judge Ohn Myint granted the 14-day extension in the case of the journalists, Wa Lone, 31, and Kyaw Soe Oo, 27, at the request of the police, who then took them to Yangon s Insein prison. They were previously being held in a police compound. When they appeared at the Mingaladon court for the proceedings, Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo were allowed to meet their families and their lawyer for the first time since their arrest. The two journalists had worked on Reuters coverage of a crisis in the western state of Rakhine, where - according to United Nations estimates - about 655,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled from a fierce military crackdown on militants. They were detained on Dec 12 after they had been invited to meet police officials over dinner. The Ministry of Information has said they illegally acquired information with the intention to share it with foreign media and faced charges under the British colonial-era Official Secrets Act, which carries a maximum prison sentence of 14 years. The two journalists said they had not been mistreated in custody. The situation is okay, Wa Lone said after the hearing. We will face it the best we can because we have never done anything wrong, he said. We have never violated the media law nor ethics. We will continue to do our best. A Reuters spokesperson said they should be freed. These two journalists are being held for simply doing their jobs and have done nothing wrong. It is time for Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo to be released, the spokesperson said. About 100 journalists, lawyers and farmers held a protest in the town of Pyay, 290 km (180 miles) north of Yangon, to demand the release of Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, one of the participants said. Members of the Protection Committee for Myanmar Journalists sat draped in chains in a public square in the center of the town and wrote the names of the two arrested reporters on their palms, an often used symbol in Myanmar of solidarity with those in jail. Government officials from some of the world s major nations, including the United States, Britain and Canada, as well as top U.N. officials, have previously called for their release. Dozens of reporters and cameramen were outside the courthouse in a northern district of Yangon for the appearance of the two journalists. They were brought in a white van, rather than a police truck, dressed in casual clothes and were not handcuffed. Their lawyer, Than Zaw Aung, who has been retained by Reuters, also said the two had only been doing their job as journalists. They are being accused under this charge while doing their work as media, he told reporters. Lieutenant Colonel Myint Htwe, a senior staff officer from the Yangon Police Division, said: We took action because they committed the crime. It needs to be solved in court. Only their lawyer and the families of the two journalists, along with police and government lawyers, were allowed into the courtroom. The families were later allowed to travel in the van as the two journalists were taken to prison. I believe that he didn t commit any crime, Pan Ei Mon, Wa Lone s wife, told Reuters. I would like to request the government to consider releasing them. Nyo Nyo Aye, a sister of Kyaw Soe Oo, said her brother told her he had not committed any offense. I believe that he can come home soon, she said. | 1 |
Top Dems want White House to call off Part B demo — The next cancer drug shortage | 0 |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House on Friday defended its deportation policy after complaints from Democratic presidential candidates and congressional leaders that a sweep targeting Central American illegal immigrants is inhumane. Reuters reported on Thursday that U.S. immigration officials plan a month-long series of raids in May and June to deport hundreds of Central American mothers and children found to have entered the country illegally. White House spokesman Josh Earnest acknowledged that the deportation operations were consistent with President Barack Obama’s policy to focus on deporting criminals and recent immigrants who crossed the U.S. border illegally after Jan. 1, 2014. “No one is removed if they have an ongoing, pending claim or appeal for asylum or some other form of humanitarian relief,” Earnest told reporters at a briefing. “If this serves to discourage people from considering to make this journey, that would be a good thing,” Earnest said. In 2014, a wave of children fleeing violence in Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala surged across the U.S. border, inflaming the debate over how to deal with the more than 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the United States. The planned new raids are in response to a renewed surge of illegal entries by Central American women traveling with their children. In January, immigration officers rounded up 121 people, mostly women and children, in three states. That sparked criticism from Democrats running to replace Obama in the Nov. 8 presidential elections. On Thursday, Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton reiterated her concerns about the new plans. “I’m against large-scale raids that tear families apart and sow fear in communities,” Clinton said. Democratic presidential candidate Senator Bernie Sanders said he opposed “the painful and inhumane business of locking up and deporting families” trying to escape violence in other countries. In Congress, Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid called on Obama to reconsider the plans and focus on addressing the instability in Central America. Democratic representative Luis Gutierrez of Illinois, a critic of the Obama administration’s deportation policies, complained the administration was leaking word of the deportations to scare people away from coming to the United States. “The last time they did this, people called my office about raids that were not existent because it creates panic, it creates fear, it’s terrible, it’s a terrible way to bring about policy on this issue,” Gutierrez told reporters. “Stop talking about them as illegal immigrants. They are asylum seekers,” he said. | 0 |
A Imam is in court accused of telling his congregation to support Islamic State and carry out acts of terrorism. [“Influential” preacher Kamran Sabir Hussain faces eight offenses in connection with his work leading a mosque on Tunstall high street in the northern town. He is charged with two counts of addressing the mosque with the intent of “encourage support for a proscribed organisation, namely Islamic State, or to further its activities” the Stoke Sentinel reports. The other six counts relate to “publishing a statement” in the form of giving a sermon to a congregation, in which he “intended or was reckless as to whether members of the public would be, directly or indirectly encouraged or otherwise induced by the statement to commit, prepare or instigate acts of terrorism”. All of the charges relate to a period between the 24th of June and 16th of September 2016. At a brief hearing, the ’s defense lawyer Matt Foot said Mr. Hussain would plead not guilty to the two counts of addressing a meeting at the mosque and six counts publishing statements. Mr. Hussain, of Knightsbridge Way, Tunstall, was remanded in custody and will appear at the Old Bailey on the 17th of March. A is currently being fought in the town, with UKIP looking to snatch the seat from Labour for the first time since the Second World War. During the campaign, it was reported that a Labour party activist claimed UKIP were “enemies of Islam” warning Muslim voters they will go to hell if they fail to vote Labour in the . Navid Hussain said that voting for any party other than Labour would result in the electing of “an and MP” in a text message sent to Muslims in Central. “Will you be able to answer for this in the Grave and on the Final Day? ?? ‘I helped the Enemies of Islam because … ” he wrote in the message, which was circulated via SMS and WhatsApp among the constituency’s Muslim community. | 0 |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democrat Bernie Sanders is expected to endorse presidential rival Hillary Clinton on Tuesday at a campaign event in New Hampshire, The New York Times reported on Thursday. Citing three Democrats who have been involved in the planning, the Times said the endorsement was partly the result of daily talks between the candidates’ campaign managers about bringing them together and advancing Sanders’ policy priorities. The Sanders campaign declined to comment. Sanders, a U.S. senator from Vermont, has resisted endorsing Clinton in a show of party unity since she clinched the Democratic nomination last month. Sanders chose to continue his campaign as leverage to win concessions on his liberal policy agenda and reforms to the Democratic Party nominating process. In a speech to supporters last month, Sanders vowed to help Clinton defeat Republican Donald Trump in the Nov. 8 election but did not end his campaign. Sanders risked being left behind, however, as other prominent Democrats have rallied around Clinton, including President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden and U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren, a favorite of the party’s liberal wing. Clinton, who shifted to the left under pressure from Sanders during the campaign, adopted another of his issues on Wednesday when she proposed eliminating tuition at public colleges and universities for in-state students whose families earn less than $125,000 annually. Sanders’ endorsement is expected to ensure he has a prominent speaking slot at the Democratic convention later this month, the Times quoted the three Democrats as saying. | 1 |
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BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany s three would-be coalition partners went deep into overtime in talks on Saturday as they sought enough common ground in climate and migration policy to form a government and stave off the prospect of a repeat election. Incumbent chancellor Angela Merkel s only realistic hope of securing a fourth term after suffering losses in September s election is an awkward three-way conservative-liberal-Green alliance. But after four weeks of talks, the parties remained far apart as they adjourned for the night. The biggest sticking points are climate change, where the Greens want emissions cuts that the other parties see as economically ruinous, and immigration, where Merkel s arch-conservative allies in Bavaria insist on stricter rules. With the pro-business, tax-cutting Free Democrat (FDP) liberals freshly returned to parliament after four years in the wilderness, and the Greens out of office for 12 years, neither is keen to give ground. A self-imposed deadline of Thursday for wrapping up exploratory talks and starting formal coalition negotiations passed without agreement, forcing the conservatives to promise further concessions on emissions cuts to the Greens. FDP leader Christian Lindner said the talks now had to be wrapped up by 1700 GMT on Sunday. But President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, a former foreign minister who now plays an apolitical role, said brinkmanship was to be expected. Before the formal talks start, there are always attempts by parties to drive prices up, he told the weekly Welt am Sonntag. What we ve seen in the past weeks isn t so different from previous coalition negotiations. Greens chairwoman Simone Peter said much that had earlier been agreed on emissions policy had been undone, without giving details. Bavaria s Christian Social Union (CSU) faces regional state elections next year, and fears the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) could unseat it after 60 years if it fails to secure tough immigration rules - which are anathema to the left-leaning Greens. Among its demands are a cap of 200,000 per year on the number of refugees Germany will take, and an end to the practice of allowing successful asylum seekers to bring their immediate families to join them. All parties are anxious to avoid a repeat election, which they fear could boost the AfD, which surged into parliament for the first time in September s national election. But the heterogeneous three-way coalition, made necessary after the conservatives and the centre-left suffered punishing election losses, is untested at national level. | 0 |
WASHINGTON — The White House is fiercely divided over President Trump’s campaign promise to “cancel” the Paris agreement, the 2015 accord that binds nearly every country to curb global warming, with more moderate voices maintaining that he should stick with the agreement despite his campaign pledge. Stephen K. Bannon, Mr. Trump’s senior adviser, is pressing the president to officially pull the United States from the landmark accord, according to energy and government officials with knowledge of the debate. But, they say, he is clashing with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and the president’s daughter Ivanka Trump, who fear the move could have broad and damaging diplomatic ramifications. Mr. Trump vowed on the campaign trail to tear up President Barack Obama’s global warming policies, and on the home front he is moving aggressively to meet those pledges with deep cuts to the Environmental Protection Agency and a new E. P. A. administrator, Scott Pruitt, who is a skeptic of climate science. Next week, Mr. Trump plans to sign an executive order directing Mr. Pruitt to start the lengthy legal process of unwinding Mr. Obama’s E. P. A. regulations for cutting greenhouse pollution from power plants. Those regulations are the linchpin of the last administration’s program to meet the nation’s obligations to reduce climate emissions under the Paris agreement. While the president cannot, as Mr. Trump suggested, unilaterally undo a accord that has already been legally ratified, he could initiate the process to withdraw the world’s largest economy and climate polluter from the first worldwide deal to tackle global warming. Such a move would rend a global deal that has been hailed as historic, throwing into question the fate of global climate policy and, diplomats say, the credibility of the United States. But it would also demonstrate to his supporters that Mr. Trump is a man of his word, putting American coal interests ahead of a global deal forged by Mr. Obama. On one side of that debate is Mr. Bannon, who as a former chief executive of Breitbart News published countless articles denouncing climate change as a hoax, and who has vowed to push Mr. Trump to transform all his major campaign promises into policy actions. On the other side are Ms. Trump, Mr. Tillerson, and a slew of foreign policy advisers and career diplomats who argue that the fallout of withdrawing from the accord could be severe, undercutting the United States’ credibility on other foreign policy issues and damaging relations with key allies. Although Ms. Trump has not spoken out publicly for action to combat climate change, proponents and opponents of such action see her as an ally. Former Vice President Al Gore met with her during the Trump transition, and was ushered in by the “first daughter” to see the . The actor and activist Leonardo DiCaprio even slipped her a DVD copy of his documentary. “President Trump Must Not Wobble on Climate Change — No Matter What Ivanka Says … ” blared a Breitbart post on Monday written by James Delingpole, who is close to Mr. Bannon and who leads the website’s coverage of policy. Mr. Trump wants to make a decision by next week, say people familiar with the White House’s debate on the climate pact, in order to announce his executive order to undo Mr. Obama’s climate regulations in conjunction with his plans for the Paris deal. According to leaked budget documents, the president will also propose killing off nearly two dozen E. P. A. programs, including the Clean Power Program, climate partnership programs with local governments, Energy Star grants to encourage efficiency research in consumer products and research. Those would be part of a broader budget submission that would cut the E. P. A. ’s funding by 25 percent, to around $6. 1 billion from $8. 2 billion, and its staff by 20 percent. “If the goal is to fulfill the president’s campaign promises and implement his agenda, there is no value in staying in Paris,” said Thomas J. Pyle, an adviser to the Trump transition and the president of the Institute for Energy Research, an organization partly funded by the billionaire brothers Charles G. and David H. Koch, who have worked for years to undermine policies. Mr. Trump has cited Mr. Pyle’s group as being influential in shaping his energy and climate proposals, including his campaign pledge to withdraw from the Paris deal. “The two greatest obstacles to a Clexit (climate exit from U. N. Paris agreement) are probably Ivanka and Tillerson,” wrote Marc Morano, a former Republican Senate staff member who now runs Climate Depot, a website that promotes the denial of climate science, in an email. “Tillerson with his ‘seat at the table’ views could be biggest proponent of not withdrawing the U. S. from the agreement. ” Mr. Tillerson is a former chief executive of Exxon Mobil, which, like many major global corporations, endorsed the Paris agreement. While his former company once denied climate change, it has more recently publicly acknowledged the threat posed by burning oil and supported proposals to tax carbon dioxide pollution. Asked during his Senate confirmation hearing about the Paris accord, Mr. Tillerson said, “It’s important that the U. S. maintains its seat at the table about how to address the threat of climate change, which does require a global response. ” Under the Paris agreement, every nation has formally submitted plans detailing how it expects to lower its pollution. The Obama administration pledged that the United States would reduce its carbon pollution about 26 percent from 2005 levels by 2025. However, that pledge depends on enactment of Mr. Obama’s E. P. A. regulations on power plants, which Mr. Trump and Mr. Pruitt intend to substantially weaken or eliminate. But under the Paris deal, those numerical targets are not legally binding, and there are no sanctions for failing to meet them. The primary legal requirements of the deal are that countries publicly put forth their emissions reductions targets, and later put forth reports verifying how they are meeting the targets. It would be possible for the Trump administration to stay in the deal and submit a less ambitious target. Even senior Republican voices in the foreign policy debate have said it may be wiser to stay in but keep a low profile. “There’s really no obligation,” Senator Bob Corker, Republican of Tennessee and chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, said in an interview. “It doesn’t require us to do anything. I think they may take a little time to assess whether pulling out makes sense now. ” Foreign policy experts say withdrawing from Paris would have far greater diplomatic consequences than President George W. Bush’s withdrawal from the world’s first global accord, the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. “I think it would be a major mistake, even a historic mistake, to disavow the Paris deal,” said R. Nicholas Burns, a retired career diplomat and under secretary of state under Mr. Bush. “In international politics, trust, reliability and keeping your commitments — that’s a big part of how other countries view our country,” Mr. Burns said. “I can’t think of an issue, except perhaps NATO, where if the U. S. simply walks away, it would have such a major negative impact on how we are seen. ” The Paris deal is more consequential than Kyoto. Unlike that pact, which required action only from developed economies, the Paris agreement includes commitments from every nation, rich and poor, to cut emissions, including China and India, the world’s largest and polluters. Also, the science of climate change has become far more certain and the impact more visible in the 20 years since Kyoto. Each of the last three years has surpassed the previous one as the hottest on record. Some of the United States’ closest allies are urging the Trump administration not to pull out. In a letter to Mr. Trump after he won the election, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany wrote, “Partnership with the United States is and will remain a keystone of German foreign policy, especially so that we can tackle the great challenges of our time. ” They include, she wrote, “working to develop farsighted climate policy. ” As Mr. Trump and his advisers weigh their Paris options, one proposal is gaining traction, according to participants in the debate: Mr. Trump could declare that the Paris agreement is a treaty that requires ratification by the Senate. The pact was designed not to have the legal force of a treaty specifically so that it would not have to go before the United States Senate, which would have assuredly failed to ratify it. “If there are camps forming in the White House, then let the people decide, the elected representatives,” Mr. Pyle said. “Let’s put the question to them. ” Proponents of that idea say it could shift some of the weight of the decision from Mr. Trump to Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, at least in the eyes of some foreign diplomats, and of the president’s daughter. | 0 |
Black pastors rally in Washington for AG nominee Jeff Sessions.RT if you also think he will make a FANTASTIC Attorney General! pic.twitter.com/Y1Uv4NSIf4 Tennessee GOP (@TEN_GOP) January 10, 2017 | 0 |
(Reuters) - A U.S. federal judge in Virginia ruled on Friday that President Donald Trump’s travel ban was justified, increasing the likelihood the measure will go before the Supreme Court as the decision took an opposing view to courts in Maryland and Hawaii that have halted the order. U.S. District Court Judge Anthony Trenga rejected arguments by Muslim plaintiffs who claimed Trump’s March 6 executive order temporarily banning the entry of all refugees and travelers from six Muslim-majority countries was discriminatory. The decision went against two previous court rulings that put an emergency halt to the order before it was set to take effect on March 16. The order remains halted. Trump has said he plans to appeal those unfavorable rulings to the U.S. Supreme Court if needed, and differing opinions by lower courts give more grounds for the highest court to take up the case. Trenga, an appointee of Republican President George W. Bush, said the complaint backed by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a Muslim civil rights group, found that more than 20 individuals who brought the suit had been able to show they were harmed by the travel ban since they might be unable to reunite with their relatives. But he also ruled that Trump’s revised order, which replaced a more sweeping version signed on Jan. 27 and rejected by courts, fell within the president’s authority to make decisions about immigration. He said that since the order did not mention religion, the court could not look behind it at Trump’s statements about a “Muslim ban” to determine what was in the “drafter’s heart of hearts.” Trump has said the ban is necessary to protect the country from terrorist attacks, but his first order was halted by a federal judge in Seattle and a U.S. appeals court in San Francisco due to concerns it violated the U.S. Constitution’s prohibition against religious bias. “We’re confident that the president’s fully lawful and necessary action will ultimately be allowed to move forward through the rest of the court systems,” said White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer at a briefing. CAIR said it would appeal the decision to the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Lena Masri, CAIR’s national litigation director, said the 4th Circuit and the Supreme Court “are the judicial bodies that will ultimately decide whether the Constitution protects the rights of Muslim Americans.” A ruling by U.S. District Judge Derrick Watson in Hawaii - an appointee of Democratic President Barack Obama - put a stop to the two central sections of the revised ban that blocked travelers from six countries and refugees, while leaving other parts of the order in place. U.S. District Judge Theodore Chuang in Maryland, also an Obama appointee, only put a halt to the section on travelers. The Virginia lawsuit sought to strike down the revised ban in its entirety. Watson scheduled a hearing for Wednesday to decide whether his temporary order blocking the travel and refugee restrictions should be converted into a more formal preliminary injunction. The Justice Department has said it would oppose that bid. The government has appealed Chuang’s decision in Maryland, also to the 4th circuit, and a hearing in that case is scheduled for May 8. Other lawsuits against the ban continue to move forward around the country. Also on Friday, the Southern Poverty Law Center and other groups filed a new complaint in U.S. District Court in Washington D.C. on behalf of Muslim community organizations. | 1 |
Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press” during a panel discussion about the alleged Russian hacking efforts intended to influence November’s presidential election, CNBC contributor Rick Santelli took on a panel led by show moderator Chuck Todd and consisting of New York Times columnist David Brooks, MSNBC anchor Andrea Mitchell and former Rep. Donna Edwards ( ). During the discussion, Santelli accused Todd of “picking sides” and dismissed Mitchell’s defense of the attention given to the Russian hacking controversy by the media. Partial transcript as follows: DAVID BROOKS: Putin is a guy who murders journalists, who has destroyed the democratic process in his own country and now suddenly he feels the freedom to try to do that in our country. It’s not normal statecraft. (CROSSTALK) RICK SANTELLI: To see Russians happy because Trump won — on election night, I never saw you so unhappy. You pick sides. Everybody picks sides. ANDREA MITCHELL: That’s not true, Rick. CHUCK TODD: Who picks sides? MITCHSLL: That’s just not true. Let’s get back to the facts here. SANTELLI: What are the facts? We were hacking [Angela] Merkel’s phone. Everybody does it. MITCHELL: Rick, here’s the difference. We do it, they do it. What made this different is that the Russians weaponized it by transferring it through intermediaries to WikiLeaks. They dumped it out. We do it and hold it. They do it and hold it. (CROSSTALK) MITCHELL: Let me finish my sentence — WikiLeaks was out from the end of the summer and it was being investigated. SANTELLI: So where were these headlines then? (CROSSTALK) MITCHELL: There was plenty of headlines. There was no proof of who did it. SANTELLI: People in charge of intelligence are political as well. DONNA EDWARDS: What happened here is the intelligence gathering that normally takes place was operationalized by the Russians to interfere with our elections. If you look at the report — MITCHELL: They did it in Ukraine. They’re doing it in Germany. EDWARDS: They’re doing it in Germany right now and this is really serious. We’re not going to get over by just saying everybody does it. SANTELLI: Right, we should be solving the problem instead of making it a political hot potato. Let me see the Cuban missiles on the island picture. Trump needs to see it before networks need to see it. MITCHELL: I went to the hearing — SANTELLI: Oh the hearing. There’s hearings on everything. They’re kabuki theater. MITCHELL: Well Rick, if you had been there you would have seen something very different. Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor | 0 |
Read Friday’s Storm Watch for the latest updates on Hurricane Matthew. Taking aim at Central Florida’s Atlantic coast, Hurricane Matthew intensified Thursday into a Category 4 storm with winds of at least 140 miles per hour and strengthening. The storm was blamed for the deaths of more than 280 people in Haiti. “Extremely dangerous, weather conditions are forecast in the next 24 hours,” the National Weather Service warned Thursday afternoon. “Airborne debris lofted by extreme winds will be capable of breaching structures, unprotected windows and vehicles. ” Residents were streaming away from coastal regions, jamming highways, after Gov. Rick Scott of Florida told 1. 5 million people living in evacuation zones: “You need to leave. Evacuate, evacuate, evacuate. ” Developments dispatches from our reporters in Florida, Georgia and South Carolina a live storm tracker map and answers to reader questions will be updated below. ■ Some forecast models suggested late Thursday that the storm had moved slightly eastward, raising hopes that Florida would be spared a direct strike. ■ The eye of the hurricane was about 125 miles southeast of Cape Canaveral, Fla. as of 11 p. m. on Thursday, moving northwest at 13 m. p. h. as it churned away from the Bahamas. The eye was projected to pass near Cape Canaveral at about 8 a. m. Friday, and to pass close to Jacksonville about 12 hours later. ■ President Obama declared a state of emergency in Florida and South Carolina on Thursday, allowing the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Emergency Management Agency to coordinate relief efforts. ■ Mr. Scott activated 3, 500 National Guard troops to help with evacuations and prepare for operations. ■The Miami Herald published a series of storm preparation checklists. • To cover the storm and its aftermath, The New York Times has deployed journalists in Miami Orlando, Fla. Port St. Lucie, Fla. Titusville, Fla. Jacksonville, Fla. Atlanta and Charleston, S. C. Follow our correspondents on Twitter. Florida’s governor pleaded with people on Thursday to evacuate from the state’s east coast as Hurricane Matthew threatened to roar past as a Category 4 storm. “There are no excuses,” Mr. Scott said in Tallahassee, the state capital. “You need to leave. Evacuate, evacuate, evacuate. ” Mr. Scott, who has spent days warning that the storm could be catastrophic in a state that has not had a major hurricane make landfall since 2005, added: “This storm will kill you. Time is running out. ” Evacuations were underway all along the state’s eastern coast. wind was expected to arrive by Thursday night, the National Hurricane Center said. The governor’s office said that more than 1. 5 million people were in evacuation zones, and that tolls had been suspended on the Florida Turnpike and other crucial routes. The Coast Guard closed major ports, including facilities in Fort Pierce, Miami and Palm Beach. — LIZETTE ALVAREZ in Miami and ALAN BLINDER in Atlanta Lizette Alvarez, a Times reporter, recalled her night in Florida City, Fla. in 1992 when Hurricane Andrew destroyed most of the motel she was staying in. Read more» NASA is preparing for what could be a disaster for the Kennedy Space Center. The last hurricanes to strike the facility where most of the nation’s spacecraft are assembled and launched hit in 2004, and were much weaker. Hurricane Matthew is expected to hit the space center on Friday, with sustained wind of 125 m. p. h. with gusts up to 150, and so it could cause far greater damage to the facilities than occurred in 2004. NASA closed the space center on Wednesday, and “essential personnel” prepared for the storm by checking the space center for loose debris. There’s a very valuable satellite that’s waiting for launch in a month: the a weather satellite for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that was designed to improve, among other things, our tracking and intensity measurement of hurricanes. A NOAA posting on Reddit by the system program director for satellites, said that it was being held in a building in Titusville that can withstand a Category 4 hurricane. The space center, whose launchpads sit less than a mile from the beach, has been dealing with the threat of climate change for a number of years, and has had to fight beach erosion caused in part by Hurricane Sandy in 2012. Why, then, put vital space infrastructure in such a vulnerable place? Much of the reason has to do with physics: launching rockets from a site relatively close to the Equator gives a speed boost into orbit. — JOHN SCHWARTZ in New York The Haitian government on Thursday said more than 280 people were now dead from the effects of Hurricane Matthew, drastically revising earlier estimates as more of the affected areas are reached by aid personnel, according to local reports. Now that transportation and at least some communication to the areas have been restored, the death toll appears to be rising drastically, according to a news conference held by the Ministry of Interior on Thursday morning. The deaths come amid a broad tableau of devastation: houses pummeled into timber, crops destroyed and large parts of towns and villages under several feet of water. — AZAM AHMED in Miami If they tell you to get out — get out. Water rises swiftly and is more powerful than most people could imagine. And put your valuables in the fridge. What one New York Times editor learned four years ago during Hurricane Sandy. Read more» People who live near the coast or in mobile homes or who just did not want to test their luck at home lugged suitcases, cases of water and clutched their favorite pillows as their minds drifted to what they left behind. Lois Paul, 78, was one of 130 people at an elementary school in Brevard County, Fla. that was being used as a shelter on Thursday. “My house is blue I call it ‘my blue heaven,’” Mrs. Paul said. “This one can blow your house away. ” Mrs. Paul brought patio cushions to sleep on, sheets, pillows, an extra set of clothes and a windbreaker. She has done this three times before, during Charley, Frances and Jeanne in 2004. “I’m afraid for my home,” she said. “The worst part is not knowing what’s going on there while you’re away. You just don’t know what you’re going to find when you get home. ” — FRANCES ROBLES in Titusville, Fla. They were boarding up the windows of the graceful city hall in Charleston on Thursday. Boarding up the Confederate Museum. Boarding up luxury hotels and graceful antebellum homes and businesses from the high end to the low. On Queen Street, a few blocks from the waterfront, Lese Corrigan, 59, was busy boarding up her art gallery. With red paint and a fat brush, she painted a paean to the hurricane aesthetic that has transformed the Charleston peninsula for now: “NATURE ART MAKES,” she wrote over the plywood. The adjacent storefront, also an art gallery, had just been boarded up by Nelson and Mary Ohl. Ms. Ohl, 52, a Charleston native, marveled that so many thousands of people had already evacuated. There were a few stragglers, but mostly the city was quiet and still. Ms. Corrigan had a theory. This country, she said, has been overcome lately by all kinds of events that people cannot control: attacks by terrorist sympathizers, a rash of controversial police shootings, a turbulent political season. Leaving town, she said, was a way for people to take charge of something. “This is an anxiety you can do something about,” she said. — RICHARD FAUSSET in Charleston, S. C. The effect of the storm is being felt on the presidential campaign, too. A joint appearance by Hillary Clinton and President Obama planned for Wednesday in Miami Gardens, Fla. was postponed. The Trump campaign was also affected: The Miami Herald reported that Ivanka Trump scrapped a Wednesday night at Trump National Doral golf resort. The hurricane could steal attention away from the campaign if it causes extensive damage. The Clinton campaign was preparing for that possibility, investing in advertising on the Weather Channel in markets across Florida, according to Politico. — ALAN RAPPEPORT in Washington John Schwartz, a New York Times reporter who covers climate change and the environment, is answering reader questions about the storm. He rode out his first hurricane, Carla, in his hometown, Galveston, Tex. at age 4. He has covered the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, as well as other storms for The Times. Ask your hurricane questions here. What is the relationship between Hurricane Matthew and climate change? How important is it for the news media to depict and discuss this? — Cynthia Young Cynthia, this is one of the great questions of our age — not just establishing the role of climate change on extreme weather events, but also in stating clearly what we know and do not know. Short answer: It is difficult to attribute a particular storm to climate change, especially in the middle of the action. But climate scientists are working at quick attribution, and that science is developing. After interviewing Gabriel A. Vecchi, a climate researcher, I put it this way in an article a few weeks ago: Kerry A. Emanuel, a climate scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said the evidence suggested climate change would cause the strongest storms to grow even stronger, and to be more frequent. Unresolved questions surround the effect of warming on the weaker storms, but even those will dump more rain, leading over time to increased damage from flooding. Read more» Two veteran journalists discuss the challenges inherent in covering hurricanes. Read more» | 0 |
It s probably just a big misunderstanding. Bill likely misspoke kinda like, I did not have sexual relations with that woman. | 1 |
Home › GUNS › OCTOBER GUN SALES SEE MASSIVE SPIKE, SET YET ANOTHER RECORD OCTOBER GUN SALES SEE MASSIVE SPIKE, SET YET ANOTHER RECORD 0 SHARES
[11/1/16] The FBI’s background check system for gun sales processed more than 2.3 million checks in October, setting an all-time record for the month.
There were 2,333,539 gun-related checks processed through the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, known as NICS, last month, according to FBI documents posted on Monday. That represents an increase of more than 350,000 checks over the previous October, itself a record. It’s also the 18th month in a row to set a record.
With two months to go, 2016 has already seen 22,206,233 NICS checks, making it the second highest year for checks in the history of NICS with only 2015 seeing more .
NICS checks are considered to be one of the most accurate indicators for gun sales because nearly all sales made through federally licensed firearm dealers require a check by law. The number of NICS checks in a month do not represent an exact count of gun sales for a number of reasons. For instance, many states require a NICS checks for those applying for gun carry permits, and many states do not require NICS checks for sales between private parties.
“These statistics represent the number of firearm background checks initiated through the NICS,” the FBI said. “They do not represent the number of firearms sold. Based on varying state laws and purchase scenarios, a one-to-one correlation cannot be made between a firearm background check and a firearm sale.” Post navigation | 0 |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican U.S. Representative Trent Franks said on Thursday he would resign after two female staffers complained that he had discussed surrogacy with them. Franks, 60, who has been a member of Congress from Arizona since 2003, said in a statement that he would step down on Jan. 31. The House of Representatives Ethics Committee said on Thursday it had opened an investigation into accusations of sexual harassment against Franks. The congressman said he was resigning because coverage of the committee’s investigation in the “current cultural and media climate” would “damage those things I love most.” Franks said he and his wife had struggled with infertility and sought a surrogate in order to have another child after they had twins with a surrogate. “I have recently learned that the Ethics Committee is reviewing an inquiry regarding my discussion of surrogacy with two previous female subordinates, making each feel uncomfortable,” Franks said. “I deeply regret that my discussion of this option and process in the workplace caused distress,” he said. Franks denied he ever “physically intimidated, coerced, or had, or attempted to have, any sexual contact with any member of my congressional staff.” U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan was briefed on the allegations on Nov. 29 and urged Franks to resign in a conversation the following day, Ryan’s office said in a statement. “The speaker takes seriously his obligation to ensure a safe workplace in the House,” the statement said. Franks, a member of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, represents Arizona’s 8th Congressional District, a mainly suburban area of Phoenix. He won re-election in 2016 with 68.5 percent of the vote. Republican President Donald Trump carried the district by 21 points last year. Republican Arizona Governor Doug Ducey will call a special election to fill the seat. The nominating primary must be held between 80 and 90 days after the vacancy and the general election must be conducted 50 to 60 days after the primary, according to state law. Numerous prominent men in U.S. politics, media and entertainment have been accused in recent months of sexual harassment and misconduct. Earlier on Thursday, Democratic Senator Al Franken of Minnesota said he would resign in a few weeks following allegations of sexual misconduct. U.S. Democratic Representative John Conyers of Michigan resigned on Tuesday after accusations of sexual harassment were leveled against him. Conyers denied the allegations, while Franken said some of the accusations against him were untrue and he remembered other incidents differently from his accusers. Reuters has not verified the allegations against either man. | 0 |
November 7, 2016 at 6:55 pm
Flopot,
Yes, I know it makes your blood boil to consider the “lesser of two evils” scenario. But LD has always been a conscientious non-voter and is therefore unlikely to be voting for either Trump or Hillary. Nor am I for that matter, since I am a UK resident and do not get to vote in the American elections.
You really must reconcile yourself, Flopot, to the fact that Hillary is held in such visceral loathing that her millions of haters feel they have no option but to vote for her opponent, Donald Trump, even though they are aware of the Donald’s many faults and his Zionist connections.
It’s either not voting at all or voting for the lesser of two evils. | 1 |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Presidential candidate Donald Trump on Wednesday lashed out at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s scathing criticism of his stance on trade, highlighting divisions within the Republican Party that threaten unity ahead of the Nov. 8 election. At a campaign rally in Maine on Wednesday, Trump called the nation’s largest business association “controlled totally by various groups of people who don’t care about you whatsoever.” He said new trade deals should be negotiated because foreign countries are taking advantage of America. “Every country that we do business with us look at us as the stupid people with the penny bank,” Trump said Wednesday at the rally in Bangor, Maine. The Washington-based lobbying group, which represents the United States’ largest companies and business interests, is typically a reliable backer of Republican policies. But on Tuesday it took issue with Trump’s vocal opposition to trade deals, calling his proposals “dangerous” ideas that would push the United States into another recession. Trump said the Chamber’s argument that his policies would cause a trade war were incorrect because the United States was already at a deficit. “We’re already losing the trade war, we lost the trade war,” Trump said. “Nothing can happen worse than is happening now.” In speeches on Tuesday, Trump called for renegotiating or scrapping the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with Canada and Mexico, calling it a job killer, and reiterated opposition to the pending Trans-Pacific Partnership among the United States and 11 other Pacific Rim countries. He also lambasted China’s trade and currency policies. The Chamber has consistently backed trade deals. The public squabbling between the presumptive Republican nominee and the business group was unusual, one of a series of reminders that Trump still struggles to unite his party behind his campaign. The Republicans and many business leaders tend to share policy goals and work in lockstep, and many business leaders have traditionally been big donors to Republican candidates. So far, the Chamber’s political action committee has donated $134,000 to federal candidates or their committees, with $127,500 of that total going to Republicans, according to U.S. government campaign finance records. Billionaire Republican donor Paul Singer, who bankrolled an effort to try to defeat Trump during the campaign’s nominating phase, said on Wednesday that a Trump presidency and his trade positions would almost certainly lead to a global depression. “The most impactful of the economic policies that I recall him coming out for are these anti-trade policies,” Singer said during a panel discussion at the Aspen Ideas Festival in Colorado, according to CNBC. But opposing trade deals has proven a winning strategy for Trump among voters concerned about the loss of manufacturing jobs. Art Laffer, an economic adviser to President Ronald Reagan who supports Trump, said he did not like the tone of Trump’s speech on Tuesday but thought it was an improvement over his past comments on trade. “It’s not terribly alarming to me,” Laffer said. “I didn’t see any 45 percent tariffs across the board. ... “I saw negotiating better trade deals rather than throwing away all the trade deals we have now. He points out the flaws in these trades, and that’s all true,” Laffer said. “I don’t like the tone of it, but I dislike the tone less today than I did three weeks ago.” Peter Navarro, a Trump trade policy adviser, defended the candidate’s position. “Here’s the central point to understand: The White House has been utterly and completely soft on China’s illegal trade practices,” said Navarro, a professor at the University of California, Irvine. “The status quo is the worst of all possible worlds for the United States.” Trump also took fire from for his positions on trade from Democrats. In a call organized by rival Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, U.S. Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, a former businessman and tech entrepreneur, said that while the country needed to do a better job protecting workers, more resources should be put into training them for a new economy. He also noted that it was unusual to see a Republican standard-bearer and the Chamber divide. “You’ve really got a special circumstance when the U.S. Chamber of Commerce” responded to Trump’s economic plan with a “full-fledged onslaught,” Warner said. “No one could have predicted this kind of election season.” Clinton held no public campaign events on Wednesday but did announce she would appear next week with President Barack Obama, the first time this year that he and his former Secretary of State have campaigned together. | 0 |
LONDON (Reuters) - British Prime Minister Theresa May is fully focused on tackling extremism, her spokesman said on Thursday, responding to a tweet by U.S. President Donald Trump telling her to focus on destructive Radical Islamic Terrorism . Asked if May was focused on tackling extremism: her spokesman said: Yes. The overwhelming majority of Muslims in this country are law-abiding people who abhor extremism in all its forms. The prime minister has been clear ... that where Islamist extremism does exist it should be tackled head on. We are working hard to do that both at home and internationally and ... with our U.S. partners. | 0 |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump repeatedly urged senior Senate Republicans over the summer to end the Senate Intelligence Committee’s probe into Russian meddling in the 2016 election, including the panel’s chairman, the New York Times reported on Thursday, citing several lawmakers and aides. Senator Richard Burr, the committee's chairman, said in an interview this week Trump told him that he was eager to see the investigation come to an end, the Times reported. (nyti.ms/2AlKdmT) “It was something along the lines of, ‘I hope you can conclude this as quickly as possible,’” Burr told the Times. He said he replied to Trump that “when we have exhausted everybody we need to talk to, we will finish,” the newspaper reported. The panel is among several congressional committees, along with the Justice Department’s special counsel Robert Mueller, investigating allegations that Russia sought to influence the U.S. election and potential collusion by Trump’s campaign. Moscow has denied any meddling and Trump has said there was no collusion. White House spokesman Raj Shah said on Thursday that the president had not acted improperly, the Times reported. Trump “at no point has attempted to apply undue influence on committee members” and believes “there is no evidence of collusion and these investigations must come to a fair and appropriate completion,” the newspaper quoted Shah as saying. White House officials did not immediately respond to a request by Reuters for comment. Trump’s requests were a highly unusual intervention from a president into a legislative inquiry involving his family and close aides, the Times said. Trump also told Senator Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader, and Republican Senator Roy Blunt, a member of the intelligence committee, to end the investigation swiftly, the Times reported, citing lawmakers and aides. Spokesmen for McConnell, Burr and Blunt did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The Times quoted Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein, a former chairwoman of the intelligence committee, as saying in an interview this week that Trump’s requests were “inappropriate” and represented a breach of the separation of powers. “It is pressure that should never be brought to bear by an official when the legislative branch is in the process of an investigation,” Feinstein was quoted as saying. | 1 |
CNN s Fareed Zakaria recently caused a bit of a media firestorm when he decided to deliver his analysis of Donald Trump bluntly, calling him a bullshit artist on live television. Now, Zakaria has a new segment where he explains the reason behind his use of the word and provides more examples as to why Trump is oh so deserving of the label. Zakariah also says that he does not use the term lightly. I was asked by CNN to make one more case where Donald Trump had said something demonstrably false and then explained it away with a caustic tweet and an indignant interview. I replied that there was a pattern here, and there is a term for a person who did this kind of thing, a bullshit artist. I was not using that label casually, and in case you have sensitive ears, I m going to use it a few more times. At that point in the segment, Zakaria explains that he was borrowing the term from Harry Frankfurt s classic essay, On Bullshit rather than just using it as a derogatory descriptor in the colloquial sense.Zakaria then delves into more examples of Trump s bullshit artistry, including his promise that he will flip blue states red, without giving any inclination as to how he intends on doing so. Harry Frankfurt concluded that liars and truth-tellers are acutely aware of facts and truth. The bullshit artist, however, has lost all connection with reality. By virtue of this, Frankfurt writes, bullshit is a greater enemy of the truth than lies are, Zakaria says.You can watch the segment in its entirety below.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYEzqUZ9UyAFeatured image from video screenshot | 1 |
BRASILIA (Reuters) - Brazilian President Michel Temer faces a split in his coalition that is likely to derail his plans to put Brazil s financial house in order after a majority of Congressmen from his main ally party voted to put him on trial on graft allegations. The lower house of Congress voted 251-233 on Wednesday to shelve the corruption case against Temer, ensuring his survival in office. But the president s reform agenda appears in tatters, with little chance of passing an effective overhaul of the costly social security pension system after most Brazilian Social Democratic Party (PSDB) lawmakers opted for him to go on trial. In the biggest revolt yet against his 13-month-old government, 23 Congressmen for the PSDB voted to have him stand trial before the Supreme Court, with only 20 supporting the president. With his coalition in disarray, Temer cannot muster sufficient votes to pass a pension reform that is the cornerstone of his efforts to plug a budget deficit that has scared off investors. Temer celebrated his Wednesday victory by proclaiming that the truth had won out and said his government would return to its task of recovering Brazil from its worst ever recession. His chief of staff Eliseu Padilha said pension reform talks would resume within days. However, Temer did not even win a simple majority on Wednesday night in the 513-seat lower house. That simple majority is needed to pass any new laws, and was far from the 308-vote super majority required for a constitutional amendment such as the pension reform bill. I don t see it being approved, or even debated, Fabio Sousa, a first-term PSDB lawmaker, said of the pension reform. His government is fragile and there are general elections next year. Sousa believes there were grounds to put Temer on trial for graft and he wants to see his party break with the government and withdraw its four ministers from the cabinet. Many in the PSDB, while backing economic reforms like those Temer has proposed, think they need to come from a more legitimate government. Temer s popularity has sunk below that of impeached leftist Dilma Rousseff who he helped oust last year. Brazil s stocks, foreign currency and other financial markets reacted calmly to Wednesday s vote, with ups and downs far below 1 percent, a sign that Temer s survival by a narrow margin was well priced in. Everyone knows Temer is a lame duck now, and nobody believes in social security reform anymore, said Fabio Knijnik, managing director for Sao Paulo-based wealth fund K2 Capital. He said that if even the smallest pension reform passes, it would be a big surprise and plus for investors. Finance Minister Henrique Meirelles told journalists the government would insist with its current proposal of a minimum retirement age and stricter rules for pension benefits. The pension bill would make Brazilians retire later in order to stave off a financial collapse of the social security system. Many lawmakers, including those who voted to spare Temer from a criminal trial, are reluctant to vote for an unpopular bill with elections approaching in 2018. It is clear that a broad pension reform will not be approved in Congress by the Temer administration. But some changes are possible, political analysts at Brasilia-based consultancy Arko Advice wrote in a report this week. | 0 |
// <![CDATA[ (function(d, s, id) { var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; if (d.getElementById(id)) return; js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = "//connect.facebook.net/en_US/sdk.js#xfbml=1&version=v2.3"; fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);}(document, 'script', 'facebook-jssdk')); // ]]>We the people ! Don t bite the hands that feed you people !Posted by Saad Kooza Salman on Saturday, June 6, 2015 You cannot handle their freedom, thats why you re full of hate Where do you think those 2 -3 million soldiers who fought your f ass s in Fallujah and Ramadi and Baghdad and up-north went? They are here they did not forget how to kill, they did not forget how to fight. The same ones who fought you in Fallujah, they will f - you up here too. They got guns, but they don t want to choose that path. Don t call it your country if you don t fight for it, you coward! And you, as Americans, sympathizing with those mother f s , trying to off police officers and killing American people here! Shame on you! Stand up! Grow some balls! I m not an advocate for war, but the time has come to let them know. We will die for this nation, we will fight for this country. Whites, blacks, Chinese, I don t care what color you are! You are Muslims living here and benefiting from this country! Stand up for this America! I don t see no religion, I don t see no color. I see you are an American with us or you are against us! That s my message to you! Deal with that! I m an American by choice my friend, I love this flag and I will stand by it and I will die for it. That s my message to you. | 0 |
Brand new White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer is off to a rough start. In just a few days, the media has been relentless for calling him out on his never-ending stream of lies, or, as Kellyanne Conway put it, alternative facts. Publicly, everything seems peachy keen after all, the boss has been known to fudge a truth or a few thousand. Privately, though, there s word that the Trump White House is already looking to replace its first scapegoat. Not, though, because of the lies. Trump s not a fan of Spicer s performance because of optics:Politico Playbook alum Mike Allen writes, This West Wing is a tough neighborhood. Even AFTER Sean Spicer s successful get-back-on-the-horse presser yesterday, I m told that a top White House official was discussing his possible replacement. On Day 4! He continues, reporting that Trump himself is displeased with Spicer for reasons completely divorced from his argumentative skills. Unfortunately for Spicer, Trump is obsessed with his press secretary s performance art. Our Jonathan Swan hears that Trump hasn t been impressed with how Spicer dresses, once asking an aide: Doesn t the guy own a dark suit? Source: MediaiteTrump s problem with Spicer has nothing to do with the media s calling him out on his lies. If anything, for Trump, Spicer didn t lie enough, and he certainly didn t prop up his new Commander-in-Chief enough:Many critics thought Spicer went too far and compromised his integrity. But in Trump s mind, Spicer s attack on the news media was not forceful enough. The president was also bothered that the spokesman read, at times haltingly, from a printed statement.Trump has been resentful, even furious, at what he views as the media s failure to reflect the magnitude of his achievements, and he feels demoralized that the public s perception of his presidency so far does not necessarily align with his own sense of accomplishment.Source: Washington PostAs for Trump preferring a woman, don t take that as a sign that the glass ceiling will break during Trump s administration. Trump wants a spokesmodel who he can easily manipulate.While Spicer might get better at his job and at predicting his boss wants, press secretaries don t have a lot of job stability. None have lost their jobs after less than a week though.Featured image by Shawn Thew via Getty Images | 0 |
JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - Zimbabwe opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai is out of danger in hospital in South Africa after being airlifted from Harare at the weekend following the sudden onset of severe vomiting, a party source said on Tuesday. Tsvangirai, who is due to challenge President Robert Mugabe in elections next year, was recovering well but had been told by doctors to avoid stress and strain until at least the weekend, the source said. The 65-year-old s symptoms came on suddenly at a meeting of his opposition coalition, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), on Thursday evening in Kadoma, a city around 160 km (100 miles) southwest of the Zimbabwe capital. The MDC sought to play down Tsvangirai s hospitalization, describing it as routine and denying local media reports that he was on life support after being airlifted to Johannesburg in the early hours of Saturday morning. Tsvangirai has been receiving treatment for colon cancer since last year but says he is in good health. His sudden illness was not thought to be related to his cancer or cancer treatment, two party sources told Reuters. It comes a month after Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa, a favorite to succeed 93-year-old Mugabe, was rushed to South Africa for emergency medical care. Mnangagwa, who has since returned, denied local media reports he had been poisoned. | 1 |
David Daleidan, the ringleader for the deceptively named Center for Medical Progress, is foolishly rejecting a plea deal after being indicted by a Texas grand jury for the illegal activities he took part in to create the infamous baby parts videos used in an attempt to discredit and destroy Planned Parenthood. Daleidan surrendered to police on Thursday, and held a press conference in which he held steadfast to his stance that the beloved women s health organization is some kind of grotesque baby part mill. As he spoke to the huge crowd by the courthouse, Daleidan told them: I think we all know that every day that goes by that the Texas authorities do not prosecute Planned Parenthood for their illegal trade in baby parts, they are sending a message to the entire country. The state of Texas right now is open for business in baby body parts. Daleidan s attorneys spoke to the media, insisting that their client would not be making any kind of plea deal with prosecutors, even though he would get no jail time, only probation. They went on to have the gall to actually put Daleidan s work on par with that of people from 60 Minutes. If we re going to be prosecuting undercover journalists, we are sending ourselves down a very, very dark path. This is fully in the tradition, a long storied tradition, of undercover journalism. Well, real investigative journalists don t doctor videos, and real journalists don t break the law, which Daleiden and his organization of rabidly anti-choice zealots did repeatedly. That was when the lawyer actually had the nerve to demand that Daleiden receive an apology for being charged in the first place: What we want is an apology. He deserves an apology at this point. He is innocent of those charges. No, what he deserves is a jail cell, and hopefully at the end of his trial, that is exactly what he gets.Watch the video below:Featured image from video screen capture via Raw Story | 0 |
CHICAGO (Reuters) - The fate of a spending plan and tax hike aimed at ending Illinois’ unprecedented two-year budget impasse moved on Tuesday to the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives, which will seek to enact the legislation by overriding the Republican governor’s vetoes. Steve Brown, a spokesman for Democratic House Speaker Michael Madigan, gave no time frame on possible House votes, though some House Democrats posted on their social media accounts that voting would take place on Thursday. “We’re still assessing when the best day will be for the people who supported passage of the legislation to return and deal with the veto message,” Brown said in an interview. In an action-packed Fourth of July holiday session, the Democratic-led Senate gave final legislative approval to a $36 billion fiscal 2018 budget and $5 billion tax increase package passed by the House Sunday and Monday. Within hours, Governor Bruce Rauner vetoed the trio of budget and revenue measures. The Senate then quickly overrode the vetoes, moving the final override to enact the bills over the governor’s vetoes to the House. A stalemate between Rauner and Democrats who control the legislature has left the nation’s fifth-largest state without a complete budget for two fiscal years. While fiscal 2018 began on Saturday, lawmakers have been scrambling to piece together a spending and revenue plan to avoid Illinois becoming the first-ever U.S. state whose credit is rated junk. Ted Hampton, an analyst at Moody’s Investors Service, which rates Illinois at Baa3, one notch above junk, said on Tuesday a continuation of the state’s budget impasse would not bode well from a credit standpoint. “That’s going to be a negative for the state’s credit position not reflected in its (current) rating,” he said. In his veto message, the governor lashed out at lawmakers for passing budget measures that he said would make Illinois’ fiscal woes worse. “The package of legislation fails to address Illinois’ fiscal and economic crisis – and in fact, makes it worse in the long run. It does not balance the budget. It does not make nearly sufficient spending reductions, does not pay down our debt, and holds schools hostage to force a Chicago bailout,” Rauner said. The House on Tuesday adjourned until Wednesday without taking action on the override resolutions, a result of diminished ranks on a national holiday. Only 54 of the chamber’s 118 members were present on Tuesday afternoon - too few to conduct business under House rules. Among the missing were five of 15 House Republicans who had been vital for the tax increase piece of the budget package to pass on Saturday with 73 votes. Seventy-one votes are necessary to block Rauner’s vetoes. The House speaker’s spokesman, Brown, said he did not foresee any danger that previous votes in support of the budget - including from the 15 Republicans - would flip toward the governor, endangering the override push. | 1 |
Dr. Ben Carson is so full of great common sense and wisdom! | 0 |
What s happening within the Donald Trump campaign is absolutely disgraceful. The Republican front-runner has been openly condoning violence at his rallies, going so far as to say he would even pay the legal fees of those going after protesters.Then there s the issue of Trump s utter racism which is obvious and abhorrent. He s consistently going after minority groups, blaming them for all the nation s problems, and somehow Trump and his overwhelmingly white group of supporters are apparently the ones who are being oppressed. This is literally reminiscent of another fascist ideologue from Europe in the 1930s and 40s.And of course, Trump s son, Donald Trump Jr., is defending his father the whole way and completely cementing the fact that they believe the aggression is against them and not the other way around. However, the brilliant and talented John Legend took a moment to step in and school them on what is actually going on..@DonaldJTrumpJr I think they were protesting your racist father. This isn't complicated. John Legend (@johnlegend) March 12, 2016But of course, some jackass decides to just blindly call Legend uneducated because he had the audacity to disagree with Trump and Trump Junior, so the Grammy Award winner tweets out a very interesting and funny fact..@DanielT03571138 @DonaldJTrumpJr the Donalds and I graduated from the same University, funny enough. John Legend (@johnlegend) March 12, 2016Legend then drives the point home, after what can only be assumed hundreds of tweet replies telling him that he is really the racist, by posting an article about how Donald Trump turned away people of color. Thus exposing who the true racist is. Yes, Trump trolls. I'm the real racist. https://t.co/xzgMsEPeh4 John Legend (@johnlegend) March 12, 2016Racism is alive and well in America, in particular among those supporting Donald Trump. And this racism isn t new, it hasn t been brought about by anyone, it never went away, but rather into hiding. However, with people like Donald Trump openly spewing his racist rhetoric at any chance he can get, it opened the floodgates for racists everywhere to feel that behavior is now somehow acceptable.But guess what? We are in the year 2016, and racism will be called out. This isn t an infringement on any constitutional right. In fact, it is the right of the protesters to openly dissent and condemn racism where it stands.Featured image via Instagram/Instagram/Twitter | 0 |
Remember when Donald Trump said he would debate Bernie Sanders and then refused to do so when Sanders accepted? Well, now we know how it would have gone.During Trump s coronation at the RNC Convention, the Vermont Senator sat back at home and responded to Trump s acceptance speech on Twitter and the result clearly shows that Sanders can wipe the floor with Trump on social media or in person.Of course, Sanders targeted Trump s economic proposals in particular, but he also counter-punched the Republican nominee on his Middle East policy, students loans, the Supreme Court, and Citizens United all while lampooning Trump for using other nations to manufacture his products.#RNCwithBernie pic.twitter.com/x5nuSI6AuN Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) July 22, 2016 Will Trump mention climate change, the great environmental crisis of our time? Been waiting for a year now. #RNCwithBernie Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) July 22, 2016Those who voted for me will not support Trump who has made bigotry and divisiveness the cornerstone of his campaign. #RNCwithBernie Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) July 22, 2016 We believe in bringing people together, not dividing them up. Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) July 22, 2016Trump is wrong. The real cause of instability in the Middle East was the Bush-Cheney invasion of Iraq. By the way, where is President Bush? Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) July 22, 2016 Trump s big economic plans: Give trillions in tax breaks to millionaires, refuse to raise the federal minimum wage. #RNCwithBernie Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) July 22, 2016Trump s economic plan: $3.2 trillion in tax breaks for millionaires, cut programs for low-income Americans. #RNCwithBernie Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) July 22, 2016 What a hypocrite! If Trump wants to fix trade he can start by making his products in the US, not low-wage countries abroad. #RNCwithBernie Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) July 22, 2016Fix trade. Stop manufacturing Trump shirts in Bangladesh at 30-cents an hour. #RNCwithBernie Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) July 22, 2016 Fix trade. Stop manufacturing Trump ties in China. Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) July 22, 2016Fix trade. Stop manufacturing Trump clothing in Mexico. #RNCwithBernie Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) July 22, 2016 Citizens United is one of the worst decisions in our history. Will Trump mention it or is he too afraid of the Koch brothers? #RNCwithBernie Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) July 22, 2016Still waiting for a single word about covering the 28 million Americans without health insurance. I guess they don t matter much to Trump. Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) July 22, 2016 Trump: I alone can fix this. Is this guy running for president or dictator? #RNCwithBernie Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) July 22, 2016Trump: I alone can fix this. Maybe he doesn t understand that a president has to work with Congress. #RNCwithBernie Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) July 22, 2016 Looks like Ted Cruz was right about one thing. Trump does not understand what the Constitution is about. #RNCwithBernie Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) July 22, 2016Our movement understands that what we don t need is Trump s huge tax breaks for millionaires. #RNCwithBernie Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) July 22, 2016 Trump thinks climate change is a hoax. My supporters understand that we must move away from fossil fuels, not expand them. #RNCwithBernie Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) July 22, 2016Will there be one word about student debt or making college affordable? Or just concerned about more tax breaks for the rich? #RNCwithBernie Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) July 22, 2016 Trump s economic plan: same old, same old trickle-down economics. Pathetic. #RNCwithBernie Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) July 22, 2016Trump s economic plan: let states lower the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour, already a starvation wage. Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) July 22, 2016 Trump s Supreme Court nominees would, like Scalia, oppose a woman s right to choose, support Citizens United and gut the Voting Rights Act. Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) July 22, 2016Bernie definitely made it clear that Donald Trump is NOT a viable alternative for his supporters to turn to in the wake of his endorsement of Hillary Clinton. Sanders understands that Trump would be a disaster for this country and going forward a little by voting for Hillary is way better than going completely backwards by voting for Trump.Oh, and it s also pretty clear that Sanders kicked Trump s ass.Featured image via Twitter | 0 |
Maddow has a freak out at the 48 second mark: | 0 |
Members of a congressional committee ripped Obama and his attorney general for covering up an investigation into the death of Border Patrol agent Brian Terry. Terry was killed as a result of a botched government gun-running project known as Operation Fast and Furious:The House Oversight Committee also Wednesday released a scathing, nearly 300-page report that found Holder s Justice Department tried to hide the facts from the loved ones of slain Border Patrol Brian Terry seeing his family as more of a nuisance than one deserving straight answers and slamming Obama s assertion of executive privilege to deny Congress access to records pertaining to Fast and Furious.Senator Grassley accused the DOJ and ATF officials of obstructing the investigation and working to silence ATF agents who informed the Senate of Fast and Furious: The Department of Justice and ATF had no intention of looking for honest answers and being transparent. In fact, from the onset, bureaucrats employed shameless delay tactics to obstruct the investigation. One of the silenced ATF agents, John Dodson, testified Wednesday that he remains in a state of purgatory since objecting to Fast and Furious and has been the subject of reprisals and ridicule at the agency: That decision, the single act of standing up and saying, What we are doing is wrong instantly took my standing from being that of an agent of the government to an enemy of the state. ATF and DOJ officials implemented an all-out campaign to silence and discredit me. Suffice to say, the last six to seven years at ATF have not been the best for me or my career. Grassley s and Dodson s testimony reinforced findings of the report, which states that the Justice Department knew before Terry s death that the ATF was walking firearms to Mexico and knew the day after the agent s death that Fast and Furious guns were involved in the shootout despite denying these facts to the media. It goes on to state that the Justice Department s internal investigation focused more on spinning the story to avoid negative media coverage than looking into lapses by either the DOJ or ATF.The whistleblower testimony is especially compelling at the 42:00 point of the video:Several emails revealed in the report appear to indicate that some Justice Department staffers were working to keep information from political appointees at the department. I don t want to jinx it but it really is astounding that the plan worked so far, former Deputy Attorney General James Cole wrote in an email to Holder, according to the report.The report also says that Holder s Justice Department stonewalled inquiries from Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and deceptively told him that the ATF makes every effort to interdict firearms purchased by straw buyers. There are important reasons for not giving Grassley everything he is asking for: it would embolden him in future fights and would use up a lot of the material that we will eventually need to release to (California Rep. Darrell) Issa . . . as the oversight struggle continues, the Office of Legislative Affairs Assistant Attorney General Ron Welch said in an email to DOJ colleagues.Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry died in a gunfight between Border Patrol agents and members of a six-man cartel rip crew, which regularly patrolled the desert along the U.S.-Mexico border looking for drug dealers to rob.Read more: FOX | 1 |
RAQQA, Syria (Reuters) - Raqqa s hospital, a big complex pocked with bullets holes, whose capture will signal the end of Islamic State s crumbling Syrian capital, lies just 200 yards from a front-line base of the Syrian Democratic Forces. Beyond it, a roundabout where the jihadists once displayed the heads of their enemies, crucified people and held military parades at the height of their expansion is another strategic prize sought by the U.S.-backed militia alliance. Commanders directing the battle on the ground say seizing these and a nearby stadium, Islamic State s last strongholds in the city, could take as little as a week once a final assault begins against just a few hundred remaining militants. But the ultra-hardline group is holding civilian hostages in the hospital and stadium and using sniper fire, booby traps and tunnels that emerge behind SDF lines to slow the battle. The SDF faces a tough final showdown with IS which commanders say will end at the hospital, now almost completely surrounded. There are many civilians being held. We can t use heavy weaponry or air strikes around the hospital or stadium, so we ll encircle them as we advance, commander Haval Gabar said at the front-line base, a home that SDF units captured last week. The hospital will be the last point (in Raqqa) to be freed, he said on Saturday, as bullets coming from the sprawling medical complex whizzed over the base. The SDF, an alliance of Kurdish and Arab militias dominated by the Kurdish YPG, has been fighting since June to drive Islamic State from Raqqa city, backed by air strikes and special forces from a U.S.-led coalition. The assault, which YPG officials initially predicted would take weeks, has dragged on as Islamic State bogs down forces with tactics used in other bastions such as Iraq s Mosul. Senior Kurdish commanders recently said Raqqa would fall by the end of October. Right now there s no advancing, Gabar, 25, said. There have been many attacks from behind us with militants launching surprise raids from a network of tunnels they dug after marauding through swathes of Syria and Iraq and capturing Raqqa in 2014, he said. When that happens we divert forces from front-line assaults to deal with the infiltration. But it doesn t take long, maybe half an hour to deal with each attack. The home the SDF was using as a base had an IS tunnel emerging into its living room - now blocked up with furniture. Commander Zilzal Tarhams said militants emerged from a second nearby tunnel two days before and fired a rocket into a house occupied by the SDF. If we find tunnels we usually cave them in with explosives. There are so many, he said. The commanders were confident of total victory soon, however, with Islamic State surrounded in a small portion of the city which houses the remaining strategic sites. Gabar, who directs fighting on the western front, said forces were waiting for the order for a final push, after which the roundabout, stadium and hospital would quickly fall. When we begin it will be quick, maybe 10 days or so, he said. Tarhams predicted a week. It s really because of the civilians presence that it s taking us some time, Gabar said. There were thousands of residents still trapped in the city, including an unknown number at the stadium and hospital, he said. Air strikes that have been used heavily in other parts of the city are not as frequent around the remaining sites, although missiles still slam into buildings in the city center. Gabar and Tarhams did not say how the SDF planned to capture the stadium and hospital, both of which provide high vantage points over the city center, while avoiding the deaths of residents held there. Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi commanded his militants not to negotiate or surrender in an audio message released recently. Raqqa s complete capture will end the group s sway in the city from where it plotted deadly attacks abroad, and projected its power in 2014 parading through streets flying black flags on military vehicles. The two SDF commanders estimated there were no more than 350 militants left in Raqqa and said these were not the elite of the group. Many leaders are believed to have fled to Deir al-Zor where the SDF and Syrian government forces are pressing competing offensives against IS. Other tactics the jihadists were using to slow SDF advances include laying booby traps, Tarhams said. They put mines under rugs in homes and use motion sensors to set off bombs. It s a huge obstacle. Battle weary, the commanders were keen to capture the last strategic sites as soon as possible. We want to finish before winter - bad weather makes it harder to advance, Gabar said. We ll need months to fully clear the explosives afterwards - that s going to be an even bigger job. | 0 |
CAIRO — Libyan militias backed by American air power said Wednesday that they had seized the Islamic State’s last stronghold in the country, in the seaside city of Surt. If confirmed, the capture would be a severe blow to the militant organization’s expansion into North Africa, and extend the string of territorial retreats it has suffered this year in Syria and Iraq. Militia announcements quoted by Libyan news agencies and television outlets said the militia fighters were still hunting remnants of the Islamic State forces hiding in residential neighborhoods in Surt. But the militias claimed to have taken the heavily fortified Ouagadougou Center, which the Islamic State had used as its headquarters. In a statement broadcast on Misurata TV, a station based in the nearby city of Misurata, Mohamed a spokesman for the attacking militia force, said that the Ouagadougou Center and a nearby hospital had been captured. TV, a Libyan broadcaster, posted on its Twitter account photos of what appeared to be triumphal fighters outside the center posing with their flag. The center was heavily fortified, with underground bunkers and fortifications dating from the era of Col. Muammar the longtime leader of Libya overthrown nearly five years ago. The Islamic State’s loss of Surt would signify the culmination of a offensive by militias from Misurata, under the auspices of the Government of National Accord, the authority backed by the United Nations. It comes against the backdrop of other military setbacks for the Islamic State, which once held wide areas of Syria and Iraq but has been forced to relinquish territory in recent months. Iraqi forces retook control of the city of Falluja from the Islamic State in June. The Syrian Army, backed by Russia, expelled the Islamic State from the ancient city of Palmyra in March. Syrian insurgents and Kurdish militias, including some factions, have been squeezing Islamic State positions in northeast Syria near Raqqa, the organization’s headquarters. Over the last 10 days, the militias fighting the Islamic State in Libya have been supported by heavy American airstrikes, using drones based in Jordan. The United States Africa Command has reported 28 airstrikes from the beginning of that campaign, Aug. 1, to Monday. The Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, had held Surt for the past year. Its occupation of the city represented the organization’s most brazen expansion from its power bases in Iraq and Syria. While the American military did not specify exactly where its airstrikes had been aimed, it is believed that they were concentrated in and around Surt. The militias’ offensive against the Islamic State had reduced the area they controlled from 150 miles of coastline to the area immediately around the city. The birthplace of Colonel Qaddafi, Surt is also where the Libyan dictator was killed by antigovernment militia fighters in 2011. Officials at the Pentagon said they could not confirm that the Islamic State’s headquarters in Surt had fallen, but one senior official, speaking on condition of anonymity under military rules, said he had no reports suggesting the militia claims were untrue. Libya’s hodgepodge of militias, answering to three different factions claiming to control the country, have often been prone to exaggerated claims. factions also reported that a Libyan Air Force warplane had been shot down by Islamic State fighters in Surt on Wednesday. The territory seized by the Islamic State in Libya had been considered the most important of the group’s overseas wilayats, or provinces. As early as October 2014, extremists in the Libyan city of Darnah pledged allegiance to the Islamic State, and a month later, the Islamic State leader, Abu Bakr named Libya as one of the group’s official provinces. That province was eventually centered in Surt, which became the axis of the Islamic State’s power in Libya. The organization sought to give its Libya province the trappings of a state, modeled after the one it was trying to run in Iraq and Syria. Early on, senior Islamic State members arrived by boat to help administer the territory, creating a degree of connective tissue that has mostly been lacking in other areas the group has seized. The Islamic State set up offices mirroring those in Syria, including a media office, which put out content tailored to a Libyan audience, according to Aymenn Jawad a research fellow at the Middle East Forum. The production techniques used in execution videos produced in Libya were so similar to ones emerging from Syria that some experts theorized that the Islamic State must have dispatched a cameraman from Syria to Libya to achieve that congruence. The latest developments in Surt came as the Government of National Accord has been struggling with other resilient threats to Libya’s frail stability. Fears have risen that militias in eastern Libya that have refused to recognize the government could attack the Zueitina oil export terminal, where Libya petroleum officials hope to resume disrupted shipments. The governments of France, Britain, Spain, Germany and the United States on Wednesday issued a statement expressing “concern at reports of increasing tension” near Zueitina and supporting the government’s efforts to “resolve the disruptions to Libya’s energy exports. ” | 0 |
(Reuters) - Dr. Scott Gottlieb, President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, has outlined measures he would take to untangle his ties to the pharmaceutical industry if confirmed by the Senate. In an ethics disclosure form filed with the Department of Health and Human Services on Tuesday, Gottlieb said he would resign from multiple corporate boards including GlaxoSmithKline Plc and consulting positions. Gottlieb’s financial ties to the healthcare industry are extensive. If confirmed he has agreed to recuse himself from matters in which he has a financial interest and divest his holdings in about 20 mostly small healthcare companies. Gottlieb, 44, is widely expected to be confirmed, though his pharmaceutical ties are likely to be scrutinized by Democrats. For the past decade he has been a partner at New Enterprise Associates, a large venture capital fund with investments in the life sciences. He would also resign from his position at the investment firm T.R. Winston & Co, and said he would not perform any consulting work while running the agency or participate in any matter involving previous clients for a year after last providing services to a client. Gottlieb, a resident fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute think tank, is viewed favorably by the drug industry. He would be responsible for implementing key elements in the recently passed 21st Century Cures Act, which calls on the agency to streamline the drug approval process. | 1 |
You re gonna love this patriot! He speaks for each and every one of us who are 100% FED Up! with offended Americans! Enjoy this awesome rant and God bless America!// <![CDATA[ (function(d, s, id) { var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; if (d.getElementById(id)) return; js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = "//connect.facebook.net/en_US/sdk.js#xfbml=1&version=v2.3"; fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);}(document, 'script', 'facebook-jssdk')); // ]]>HAS AMERICA GONE STUPID? Warning!!!! this video will most likely offend the majority of the population.!Posted by Highways and Hedges Ministries on Monday, January 18, 2016 | 0 |
Bill Clinton simply is not wielding that kind of influence - good or bad - over voters so far this year, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll. A majority of Americans, including 73 percent of Democrats and 52 percent of Republicans, said Bill Clinton does not factor into their opinion of Hillary for president.
The poll, conducted Jan. 7 to 13, found that 12 percent of Americans are more likely to vote for Hillary, the former secretary of state, because of her marriage to Bill. Among Democrats, fewer than half said Bill Clinton should be more prominent in his wife's campaign, and less than half felt that his presence in the race would boost her chances of winning.
Bill Clinton, who was widely credited for helping Barack Obama win a second term in 2012, has become much more active on the campaign trail this month, especially in New Hampshire, where Hillary Clinton trails Bernie Sanders in several recent statewide polls. Hillary called Bill her "not-so-secret weapon" when announcing the move, though his increased involvement created an opening for Republicans, especially Trump, to bring up allegations of sexual misconduct that dogged the Clintons in the 1990s.
Despite two terms of strong economic growth and a trade surplus, Bill Clinton's legacy as president has been marked by several high-profile missteps. Several women came forward during his tenure in the White House with allegations of consensual sexual encounters.
He also spent much of his tenure fighting accusations of unwanted advances toward women, including Paula Jones, an Arkansas state employee, who later filed a lawsuit. In 1998, he was impeached by the House of Representatives after attempting to cover-up an affair with another woman, Monica Lewinsky.
After Hillary said that Trump, the Republican front-runner, had shown a "penchant for sexism," the real estate mogul took to Twitter to warn the Democratic front-runner against using her husband as a surrogate on the campaign trail.
"If Hillary thinks she can unleash her husband, with his terrible record of women abuse, while playing the women's card on me, she's wrong!" Trump wrote in late December.
Voters, however, do not seem to care. A majority of Americans in the Reuters/Ipsos poll, including 68 percent of Democrats and 50 percent of Republicans, said that Bill's past sexual misconduct "made no difference" in the current presidential race.
Among women, 56 percent said it did not matter, while another 21 percent said it would hurt Hillary Clinton's chances of winning the election. A tiny proportion of women - 4 percent - said they thought the experience would actually help her chances of winning.
Democrats who turned out to listen to the former president this week in New Hampshire dismissed the allegations of sexual misconduct as no longer relevant.
"I just think it's none of our business," said Randall Ferrara, a retired pastor who came to listen to Bill stump in Keene, New Hampshire. "It's old news and a weapon they use when they don't have anything else."
Ferrara said he is still deciding between Clinton and her chief rival, U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders of nearby Vermont. Shirley Ferrara, his wife, said that she would be supporting Hillary. She agreed with the roughly half of Democrats that told Reuters/Ipsos that the former president "should take a prominent role" campaigning for his wife and that it would help her.
"I think he would be an asset to her," Ferrara said.
Rachel Reekie, a Sanders supporter and Keen State University student who was in elementary school during Clinton's presidency, said she was "fully aware" of the allegations.
"It's not a big deal; it's over," Reekie said. "I don't think his presence will have an effect."
The online panel of 1,947 adults has a credibility interval, a measure of accuracy, of about 4 percentage points. | 0 |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross has divested his interests in oil tanker company Diamond S Shipping and is in the process of selling off his holdings in another shipping firm, Navigator Holdings, a Trump administration official said on Tuesday. Ross had originally intended to retain his shipping interests following his confirmation in February. But the 79-year-old investor came under criticism after disclosures on Sunday that one of Navigator’s major clients is the Russian gas company Sibur, a firm whose owners include members of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s inner circle. Information about the business ties between Navigator, which operates gas-carrying ships, and Sibur was based on leaked documents from offshore law firm Appleby that are part of the so-called Paradise Papers, which show details of business dealings by wealthy people and institutions ranging from Ross to Britain’s Queen Elizabeth and trading firm Glencore (GLEN.L). Reuters has not independently verified the documents. “He began divesting his Navigator interests in May,” the administration official said of Ross. “He is nearing completion of that process.” An office of government ethics disclosure filed by Ross on June 20 showed that he sold an interest in Navigator valued at $15,001 to $50,000 on May 30. The official did not provide an explanation for Ross’s divestitures. Ross had owned stakes in the firms through several partnerships. Ross, a billionaire investor who is helping to shape Republican President Donald Trump’s trade policy, had told U.S. senators during his confirmation hearing in January that his research showed that retention of shipping interests would not present a conflict of interest. U.S. ocean shipping regulation is handled by the Federal Maritime Commission, a separate, independent agency. Diamond S Shipping, based in Greenwich, Connecticut, operates 33 petroleum product tankers and 12 crude oil tankers operated under the flags of Hong Kong, the Marshall Islands and Malta. Ross told media on Monday that he had nothing to do with London-based Navigator’s relationship with Sibur and had never met any of Sibur’s owners. These include Putin’s son-in-law, Kirill Shamalov, and Gennady Timchenko, a Putin associate who is subject to U.S. Treasury sanctions. Ross said in multiple media interviews that he had fully disclosed his stake in Navigator Holdings as part of government ethics requirements. | 0 |
ABIDJAN (Reuters) - Three United Nations soldiers from Bangladesh were killed by an explosive device that detonated as they were escorting a convoy in northern Mali on Sunday, the West African country s peacekeeping mission and Bangladesh s military said. Attacks on peacekeepers in Mali, where Islamist groups continue to operate in the vast desert in the north of the country, have made the U.N. mission there, MINUSMA, the organization s deadliest. Another five U.N. troops were seriously wounded in Sunday s explosion, which occurred at around 7 a.m. (0700 GMT) on the main road between the towns of Anefis and Gao, MINUSMA said in a statement. Our thoughts go firstly to the families and loved ones. We pledge our complete support to them during this painful ordeal, the head of MINUSMA, Koen Davidse, said. The mission will use all means to ensure that justice is rendered. The U.N. did not immediately release the nationalities of the soldiers. But the Bangladesh military s media department confirmed that three of its soldiers had died by an improvised explosive device during an encounter with militants, adding that four other Bangladeshi peacekeepers were injured in the attack. West Africa s arid Sahel region has in recent years become a breeding ground for jihadist groups some linked to al Qaeda and Islamic State that European countries, particularly France, fear could threaten Europe if left unchecked. Despite a 2013 French-led military operation that drove back militants who had seized control of Mali s north, the area remains home to groups that have staged assaults on high-profile targets in the capital Bamako, Burkina Faso and Ivory Coast. MINUSMA, established in the wake of the French intervention, has struggled to quell the unrest. The U.N. Security Council established a sanctions regime this month that allows the body to blacklist anyone who violates or obstructs a fragile 2015 peace deal signed by Mali s government and separatist groups. Anyone who attacks peacekeepers, hinders the delivery of aid, commits human rights abuses or recruits child soldiers could also face sanctions, including a global travel ban or asset freeze. | 0 |
WASHINGTON, D. C. — President Donald J. Trump told Breitbart News in an exclusive Oval Office interview that the “intent” of the New York Times in its negative coverage of him is “so evil and so bad” and that “they write lies. ”[“If you read the New York Times, if you read the New York Times, it’s — the intent is so evil and so bad,” President Trump said in the interview on Monday afternoon. “The stories are wrong in many cases, but it’s the overall intent. Look at that paper over the last two years. In fact, they had to write a letter of essentially apology to their subscribers because they got the election so wrong. ” He went on to say about the newspaper that “they write lies. ” Trump’s comments came in a discussion about the media generally, in a part of the exclusive Oval Office interview focused on “fake news” and “fake media” versus journalists who are trying to get it right. The president specifically praised this reporter, and Steve Holland of Reuters, as two examples of journalists who do try to accurately report the news — and made a distinction between “fake” media and the media as a whole. Trump said that the “fake” media has made a concerted effort to conflate his distinction between “fake media” and the media generally, and that “there’s a difference” between the two. He said that his comments about the “opposition party” and the “enemy of the American people” were specifically about the “fake media,” not the media as a whole. This is a point that the president made in his speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) hosted by the American Conservative Union (ACU) last Friday in National Harbor, Maryland, just outside Washington, D. C. Hope Hicks, the director of Strategic Communications at the White House, joined in part of the conversation with the president. The president also specifically singled out the New York Times for one embarrassing and egregious error the newspaper made during the course of the campaign, when it posted an article — and printed it on the front page — containing allegations from several women against him. The piece, by Michael Barbaro and Megan Twohey, was actually challenged by women quoted therein, prompting even the vehemently CNN to question the authenticity of the Times’ reporting, with CNN’s Kate Bolduan saying the piece was “concerning” to her “as a journalist. ” President Trump also declined to comment specifically on the looming Warner potential merger, a deal that would boost CNN’s parent company significantly, but did say generally speaking he believes there should be “competition in the marketplace” — especially in the media industry. Read a full transcript of this section of President Trump’s interview with Breitbart News, including the section with Hicks: BREITBART NEWS NETWORK (BNN): “The big thing I kind of wanted to zone in on right off the bat is ‘the opposition party,’ the media — “ PRESIDENT TRUMP (POTUS): “Well, it’s not the media. It’s the fake media. ” BNN: “That’s what I was going to — “ POTUS: “There’s a difference. The fake media is the opposition party. The fake media is the enemy of the American people. There’s tremendous fake media out there. Tremendous fake stories. The problem is the people that aren’t involved in the story don’t know that. ” HOPE HICKS: “Just the fact that they didn’t report that accurately proves your point. ” POTUS: “Which accurately?” HICKS: “They said ‘Oh Donald Trump said the press is the enemy of the American people. ’” POTUS: “Right. They take ‘fake’ media off. They say ‘the media is the enemy of — well, they didn’t say the ‘fake media.’ I didn’t say the media is the enemy — I said the ‘fake media.’ They take the word fake out and all of a sudden it’s like I’m against — there are some great reporters like you. I know some great honorable reporters who do a great job like Steve [Holland] from Reuters, others, many others. I wasn’t talking about that. I was talking about the fake media, where they make up everything there is to make up. ” BNN: “Right and that’s what I wanted to zone in on with you because I know you made that very clear in your CPAC speech. Can you kind of more clearly define what standards and quality we should expect from those who are doing reporting?” POTUS: “It’s intent. It’s also intent. If you read the New York Times, if you read the New York Times, it’s — the intent is so evil and so bad. The stories are wrong in many cases, but it’s the overall intent. Look at that paper over the last two years. In fact, they had to write a letter of essentially apology to their subscribers because they got the election so wrong. They did a front page article on women talking about me, and the women went absolutely wild because they said that was not what they said. It was a big article, and the Times wouldn’t even apologize and yet they were wrong. You probably saw the women. They went on television shows and everything. ” BNN: “Yes, it was pretty embarrassing for the Times. ” POTUS: “[They said] ‘we really like Donald Trump and he [the Times reporter] totally misrepresented us. He said he was going to say good and it was absolutely bad.’ This was a front page article, almost the entire top half of the New York Times, and it was false. It was false. Did they apologize? No. I call them the failing New York Times and they write lies. They write lies. Nobody would know that. For instance, when people read the story on the women — first of all, the reporter who wrote the story has a website full of hatred of Donald Trump. So, he shouldn’t be allowed to be a reporter because he’s not objective. It’s not all, but it has many negative things about Donald Trump. But he shouldn’t be allowed to write on Donald Trump. And, he writes that story. But that’s one of many. So, when you read the Sunday New York Times, it’s just hit after hit after hit. And honestly, I think people are wise to it because if you look at the approval rating, you see it’s down. You know, it’s gone. There’s very little approval. ” BNN: “Now, during the campaign, one of the things you and a lot of your campaign guys like Peter Navarro talked about was breaking up some of these oligopolies in the media. If you look at the media, part of the problem seems to be that a vast majority of the media companies are owned by just a handful of different companies. Obviously, there’s a looming merger between ATT and Time Warner. I wanted to see what your thoughts are on that and if CNN’s pretty bad behavior over the course of — they really don’t seem to be making an effort to get it right — does that give you hesitation in terms of approval of the deal?” POTUS: “I don’t want to comment on any specific deal, but I do believe there has to be competition in the marketplace and maybe even more so with the media because it would be awfully bad after years if we ended up having one voice out there. You have to have competition in the marketplace and you have to have competition among the media. And I’m not commenting on any one deal, but you need competition generally and you certainly need it with media. ” Specifically, this part of the interview came in the wake of the president’s CPAC speech, in which he delineated the difference between fake news and real news. At CPAC on this topic, Trump said: I want you all to know that we are fighting the fake news. It’s fake, phony, fake. A few days ago I called the fake news the enemy of the people. And they are. They are the enemy of the people. Because they have no sources, they just make ’em up when there are none. I saw one story recently where they said, “Nine people have confirmed. ” There’re no nine people. I don’t believe there was one or two people. Nine people. And I said, “Give me a break. ” Because I know the people, I know who they talk to. There were no nine people. But they say, “Nine people. ” And somebody reads it and they think, “Oh, nine people. They have nine sources. ” They make up sources. They’re very dishonest people. In fact, in covering my comments, the dishonest media did not explain that I called the fake news the enemy of the people. The fake news. They dropped off the word “fake. ” And all of a sudden, the story became the media is the enemy. They take the word “fake” out. And now I’m saying, “Oh, no, this is no good. ” But that’s the way they are. So I’m not against the media, I’m not against the press. I don’t mind bad stories if I deserve them. And I tell ya, I love good stories, but we don’t get — I don’t get too many of them. But I am only against the fake news, media or press. Fake, fake. They have to leave that word. I’m against the people that make up stories and make up sources. They shouldn’t be allowed to use sources unless they use somebody’s name. Let their name be put out there. Let their name be put out. “A source says that Donald Trump is a horrible, horrible human being. ” Let ’em say it to my face. Let there be no more sources. And remember this — and in not — in all cases. I mean, I had a story written yesterday about me in Reuters by a very honorable man. It was a very fair story. There are some great reporters around. They’re talented, they’re honest as the day is long. They’re great. But there are some terrible dishonest people and they do a tremendous disservice to our country and to our people. A tremendous disservice. They are very dishonest people. And they shouldn’t use sources. They should put the name of the person. You will see stories dry up like you’ve never seen before. So you have no idea how bad it is, because if you are not part of the story — and I put myself in your position sometimes. Because many of you, you’re not part of the story. And if you’re not part of the story, you know, then you, sort of, know — if you are part of the story, you know what they’re saying is true or not. This is the second part of President Trump’s exclusive interview with Breitbart News in the Oval Office on Monday. The first focused on the epic fail at the Academy Awards in Hollywood on Sunday night. More pieces from President Trump’s exclusive interview, including details about his Tuesday night address to a joint session of Congress and key matters such as immigration, health care, taxes, trade, and national security are forthcoming. | 0 |
Canadian actor and filmmaker Seth Rogen believes it is important that resistance to Donald Trump’s presidency and his policy agenda be “normalized. ”[“I don’t want to look back in ten years and think, ‘I just didn’t say anything during that time,’ because it seems like a time where it’s very important to normalize dissent,” Rogen told the Daily Beast in an interview at the SXSW festival, where his latest film, The Disaster Artist, premiered this week. The Sausage Party star says he’s “been very conscious not to insult people who voted for Donald Trump,” but believes it also important for him to normalize “the idea that a lot of people do not think that he is a good president, and do not think that he is bringing the country in a good direction, and not making it seem like some fringe, thing that only really aggressive people who have whipped themselves into some sort of frenzy are expressing. ” Rogen added that “as a white dude,” he realizes that he’s “not the one who’s in real trouble right now. ” “I find myself not even aligned with the left wing of American politics often, because in Canada, even that is pretty far right in many lines of thinking,” he said. “I’m not used to being thrilled with American politics in general. But I do think it’s a lot better than most places better than a lot of other places I’ve been. I’m allowed to say and do things here that I couldn’t in other places. ” Rogen has stepped up his criticism of the president in recent months. In February, he tweeted a message to Donald Trump Jr. asking his dad to resign from office before he “destroys the planet. ” Let’s see if this works! pic. twitter. — Seth Rogen (@Sethrogen) February 16, 2017, On Twitter, the actor has also taken aim at the GOP effort to repeal and replace Obamacare, and has criticized Trump’s recent executive order on immigration. But Rogen says as someone who “mostly just tries to observe a little bit,” he can empathize with people who are both for and against Trump. “I agree with the people who are very angry,” Rogen said, “and I also agree with the people who are like, ‘We have to look for ways to not create more division, and to come together,’ and I sympathize with the people who are like, ‘F*ck that! This is ridiculous,’ and I sympathize with the people who are like, ‘F*ck that! That’s never going to solve anything. ’” However, the says he won’t be surprised “if one day we’re sitting at home watching a tape of Donald Trump jerking off while women piss on each other, if that’s where all this ends, then that’s just fantastic. ” Follow Jerome Hudson on Twitter: @JeromeEHudson | 0 |
Wow it looks like Dem candidate for governor, John Bel Edwards has some friends who really know how to throw a party for early voters. The stripper poles on the purple party bus are a special feature that goodness knows, every early voter requires Yesterday, the Hayride exclusively reported on gubernatorial candidate John Bel Edwards campaign rally at the New Orleans night club known as Lyve New Orleans.Lyve New Orleans is a night club on Tulane Ave. and yesterday, the night club posted a couple of photos of their John Bel Edwards event, in which they promised a Meet and Greet with Edwards and a party bus that would take voters to go early vote.Today, the Hayride has obtained all of the videos from the night club campaign rally for Edwards, in which a party bus is seen covered in Edwards campaign signs, blaring Missy Elliot beats accompanied by strobe lights.The Edwards campaign was invited to a Family Forum yesterday to discuss social issues with his opponent Sen. David Vitter (R-LA), but skipped out on the event. Vitter, however, did attend.The videos below (caught by America Rising) show Edwards and his wife Donna Edwards meeting with voters before entering the club. Following the meet and greet event some of the attendees hopped on the party bus to City Hall for early voting, and the bus illegally parked in front of City Hall and had to be moved.Here s a copy of the invitation to the rally for John Bel Edwards for Governor of LA: Take a look at all of the footage from Edwards campaign rally below:Here is John Bel Edwards arriving at Lyve Nite Club:Here s an inside look at the John Bel Edwards purple party bus that was apparently to be used for transporting voters to the early voting polls. The bus is complete with stripper poles, a wall of speakers and strobe lights:After parking illegally, the John Bel Edwards Party/ride to early voting precincts bus was made to move:The photos obtained by the Hayride yesterday via Lyve New Orleans Facebook and Instagram account can be seen below, depicting Edwards invite (bottom left) among the rest of the night club s featured performers and rappers:After the Hayride posted the exclusive story, multiple Facebook users and Twitter users quickly attempted to shoot down the story, claiming the story was intellectually dishonest and that Edwards was not associated with the night club event.Via: The Hayride | 1 |
You re gonna love this patriot! He speaks for each and every one of us who are 100% FED Up! with offended Americans! Enjoy this awesome rant and God bless America!// <![CDATA[ (function(d, s, id) { var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; if (d.getElementById(id)) return; js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = "//connect.facebook.net/en_US/sdk.js#xfbml=1&version=v2.3"; fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);}(document, 'script', 'facebook-jssdk')); // ]]>HAS AMERICA GONE STUPID? Warning!!!! this video will most likely offend the majority of the population.!Posted by Highways and Hedges Ministries on Monday, January 18, 2016 | 0 |
Remember when half of America had their credit information compromised during the Equifax data breach? Over 143 million people were affected by the largest banking hack ever recorded. People s Social Security numbers, names, addresses, birth dates, and even driver s license numbers in some cases were accessed by the hackers. They even got more than two hundred thousand actual credit card numbers.The CEO is now the former CEO, although it remains to be seen whether he ll get a giant golden parachute severance package. Especially after testifying Wednesday that the whole mess was pretty much one guy s fault which is either laughably ridiculous or absolutely terrifying and effectively passing the buck on responsibility for the worst security failure the banking industry has ever seen.But when disgraced former Equifax chief Richard Smith appeared in front of the Senate Banking Committee to finally answer questions regarding why the company didn t address the vulnerability months ago when they were first made aware of it, there was a spectator in the room who was clearly concerned about the findings of the committee as well: Rich Uncle Pennybags, better known as the Monopoly Man.He s ruined family relationships since 1936. He s sold false hope inside tiny stamps to McDonald s customers since 1987. And now Uncle Pennybags is trolling Richard Smith and the Senate Banking Committee.How anyone kept a straight face when they saw this in the room is totally beyond me:A tip of the hat to the Monopoly Man!You good sir took a chance and it paid off during the Equifax hearings.Now go collect $200 pic.twitter.com/kR8m2qID8U Red T Raccoon (@RedTRaccoon) October 4, 2017Imagine Elizabeth Warren looking that character in the eye and not just cracking up.The best part? That s not even a guy. According to CNBC:The protester was Amanda Werner of Americans for Financial Reform and Public Citizen, who also handed out Monopoly-style Get out of jail free cards.The internet absolutely loved Werner s impression:How about Monopoly Man showing up for the Equifax hearings pic.twitter.com/pocgvR8ZIW Kmarko (@Kmarkobarstool) October 4, 2017The Monopoly Man is still at it, almost two hours into the Equifax hearing pic.twitter.com/rRBdBxW7qv Haley Byrd (@byrdinator) October 4, 2017It was appropriate to add the #CurbYourEnthusiasm theme song to the Monopoly Man at today's @BankingGOP hearing. pic.twitter.com/VWtxOVUnBS ClotureClub.com (@ClotureClub) October 4, 2017The Monopoly Man who is wiping his brow with money and twirling his mustache is magical.? pic.twitter.com/GhbtyhIkLw Carolyn Altland (@AltlandCarolyn) October 4, 2017Werner s group, Public Citizen, tweeted their purpose at Wednesday s hearing:We sent the Monopoly man to the #Equifax hearing to send a message: Forced arbitration gives @Equifax a monopoly over our justice system. pic.twitter.com/6pPtqLNPig Public Citizen (@Public_Citizen) October 4, 2017If you re still worried about what the Equifax breach means for you, you can visit the Federal Trade Commission website, where there is some valuable advice and instructions for checking your vulnerability.Featured image via Mark Wilson/Getty Images | 0 |
NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. President-elect Donald Trump is set to name Indiana health policy consultant Seema Verma as his pick for administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, a transition official told Reuters on Monday. Trump is expected to officially announce his selection of Verma and Republican U.S. Representative Tom Price, an orthopedic surgeon who he will nominate to be secretary of health and human services, casting them as his “dream team” whose job will be to transform the U.S. healthcare system, the official said. | 0 |
Donald Trump is the best player on the terrorist organization s team, and they couldn t be happier that he won the election.Tuesday s election results have not only emboldened racists to attack minorities across the country, it has emboldened ISIS.Trump s victory drew celebration from ISIS fighters on social media, and the comments should make Americans regret their decision to put such an inexperienced person in the White House. Rejoice, he will show America s ugly face, said fighter wrote.And Trump has already done that by using the divisive and hateful rhetoric that is splitting the country along political and racial lines that will take years to heal. Trump can beg for unity all he wants, he squandered that opportunity from the very first day of his campaign. I am optimistic about Trump s victory because he is a stupid, arrogant, hubristic bull who is dumber than Bush, another ISIS fighter said.And it s true. Donald Trump doesn t have a clue how to govern and he certainly doesn t know how to lead a military force. After all, he dodged the draft multiple times during Vietnam and ridiculously claimed that he knows more about ISIS than the generals do, all while expressing wonder at why the United States doesn t just use nuclear weapons to defeat enemies.Most of all, ISIS fighters are cheering Trump s victory because he is inspiring others to join them. Trump s vulgarity will embarrass (Arab) tyrants and enlarge the field of jihad, one fighter wrote. If Trump wins, it s in our favor, another said.But they are only too happy to let Donald Trump rip the United States apart for them. Praise God, may He increase this, one fighter said of the divisions and hate Trump has caused. If we can inflame the dissension and troubles in their countries maybe they ll withdraw, wrote another, signaling that ISIS may try to stoke fear and violence among Americans.And they are hoping that Trump is the beginning of the end of the United States as a world power and beacon of democracy. Trump s rule may be the beginning of a split in the United States and the era of its disintegration, Considering Trump did significant damage to our democratic values and system, and the fact that Russia probably believes they have a puppet in the White House who will help them weaken NATO, it s pretty clear that Donald Trump is already harming this country domestically and around the world.America is a joke now because of Donald Trump s victory. He is a vengeful man who ignores facts and is easily provoked. ISIS wants nothing more than for the United States to sacrifice more blood and treasure in the Middle East and he may very well give them want they want because he wants to prove how tough he is. Our enemies sense weakness and they are moving to exploit that weakness for their own gain. Conservatives may think they found their champion, but our enemies know they found their fool.Featured Image: Brian Blanco/Getty Images | 1 |
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Some of the most controversial proposals Donald Trump made while running for U.S. president disappeared from his campaign website on Thursday, but a spokesman said what some observers took as a softening of Trump’s policies was due to a technical glitch. The link to Trump’s Dec. 7 proposal titled: “Donald J. Trump statement on Preventing Muslim Immigration,” in which he called for “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States” vanished temporarily from the website but later reappeared. So too did a list of Trump’s potential Supreme Court justice picks as president and certain details of his economic, defense and regulatory reform plans. “The website was temporarily redirecting all specific press release pages to the home page,” Trump spokesman Steven Cheung said in an email. Links to Trump’s policy proposals, including the Muslim ban, were working again by 3:30 p.m. EST (2030 GMT). The links, which had redirected readers to a campaign fundraising page, appeared to have been removed around Election Day on Tuesday, when Trump won a historic upset against Democratic rival Hillary Clinton, according to a website that records historic snapshots of web pages. In an appearance on CNBC on Thursday, Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal praised Trump for removing the Muslim ban proposal from his website and also said Trump had deleted statements offensive to Muslims from his Twitter account. The prince could not be reached for comment after the links were restored. Several tweets attacking Muslims that Trump sent while campaigning for president remained in his feed on Thursday, including a March 22 tweet in which Trump wrote: “Incompetent Hillary, despite the horrible attack in Brussels today, wants borders to be weak and open-and let the Muslims flow in. No way!” After initially praising the removal of the Muslim ban proposal at a news conference with other civil rights leaders on Thursday, Samer Khalaf, president of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, said in a follow-up interview the group was hoping to see better behavior from Trump. “False hope just came over us,” Khalaf said, but “we didn’t really think it was monumental that they took down the language.” Khalaf said Trump’s policies were more important than any statements. “He’s elected, he said some horrible things, now we have to see what his policies are. If they’re good policies we’re going to commend him for it. If they’re horrible policies we’re going to challenge him on it.” Despite the temporary glitch, most of Trump’s core policy positions had remained on his website, including his central immigration promise to build an “impenetrable physical wall” on the border with Mexico and make Mexico pay for its construction. It was not the first time the Trump campaign blamed technical difficulties for changes to its website. The campaign this year also replaced the part of the site describing Trump’s healthcare policy with a different version. When contacted about it by Reuters in September, the campaign put the original page back up. | 0 |
It's an unusual move for a presidential candidate to pick a vice presidential running mate before winning his party's nomination – even more unusual when his path to the nomination is blocked. But despite trailing Trump, Cruz went ahead and announced his choice.
But will he hit a home run by naming former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina as his running mate – or will he strike out?
"Carly isn't intimated by bullies," the Texas senator declared Wednesday. "Over and over again, Carly has shattered glass ceilings."
"This is the fight of our time," Fiorina said during Wednesday's announcement. "And I believe Ted Cruz is the man to lead that fight. And I am prepared to stand by his side and give this everything I have, to restore the soul of our party, to defeat Donald Trump, to defeat Hillary Clinton, and to take our country back."
Fiorina tussled with Trump early in the primary season for comments he made about her face. The GOP front-runner dismissed this latest move.
"A new relationship has started – Cruz and Carly," the tycoon said. "Cruz can't win. What's he doing picking a vice president?"
Trump had other things to talk about as well. He gave a major foreign policy speech in Washington and said America's allies would have to start paying for their own defense. He also railed on the Bush and Obama administrations for not stopping persecution of Christians in the Middle East.
"We have done nothing to help Christians, nothing, and we should always be ashamed of that – for that lack of action," he said.
Trump went from there to Indiana where he got the endorsement of legendary Indiana Hooters basketball coach Bobby Knight, ahead of Tuesday's primary.
"If we win Indiana, it's over," he said. "It's over. I'm not playing games with Indiana."
After Indiana votes, Clinton is hoping it's also over for Bernie Sanders. The delegate math is not with Sanders, who rallied thousands of screaming fans at Indiana University hours after he announced the layoffs of hundreds of campaign staffers.
"Next Tuesday let's have the largest voter turnout in Indiana history," Sanders said.
Cruz is 400 delegates behind Trump and while he expects to win Indiana, if he doesn't, analysts say it's all over. | 0 |
BEIJING (Reuters) - China sentenced a prominent rights activist to eight years in jail for subversion on Tuesday, his lawyer said, the harshest sentence passed in a government crackdown on activism that began more than two years ago. In a separate case, a rights lawyer avoided criminal punishment despite being found guilty of inciting subversion, because he admitted his crimes, the Chinese court trying him said. Wu Gan, a blogger better known by his online name Super Vulgar Butcher , plans to appeal against the eight-year sentence handed down by the Tianjin Municipality s No. 2 Intermediate People s Court, his lawyer, Yan Xin, told Reuters. The harshness of the sentence prompted the German embassy in Beijing to issue a statement expressing disappointment. Wu regularly championed sensitive cases of government abuses of power, both online and in street protests. He was detained in May 2015 and charged with subversion. The activist criticized China s political system online and used performance art to create disturbances, as well as insulting people and spreading false information, according to a statement from the court posted on its website. He carried out a string of criminal actions to subvert state power and overthrow the socialist system and seriously harmed state security and social stability, the court said. Before his arrest, Wu used his platform to cast doubt on the official version of events in an incident in early May 2015, in which a police officer shot a petitioner in a train station in northern Heilongjiang province. Wu s refusal to bow to pressure or admit guilt likely explains his harsh sentence, said Kit Chan, Hong Kong-based director of China Human Rights Lawyers Concern Group. Wu Gan is being punished for his non-conformity, she said. His sentence is the most severe in what rights groups have called an unprecedented attack on China s rights activists and lawyers, known as the 709 crackdown, which began in full force on July 9, 2015. The hardline approach to rights activism has shown no sign of softening as Chinese President Xi Jinping enters his second five-year term in office. In the other case concluded on Tuesday, rights lawyer Xie Yang received no punishment after being found guilty of inciting subversion and disrupting court order, the Changsha Intermediate People s Court said on social media. The court released a video of the proceedings, in which Xie said he accepted the outcome and would not appeal. He also thanked authorities and said he will be a law-abiding citizen. Xie had worked on numerous cases deemed sensitive by Chinese authorities, such as defending supporters of Hong Kong s pro-democracy protests. In May, he confessed to the charges against him in what rights groups called a scripted sham trial. In January, Xie s wife and lawyer released detailed accounts of torture suffered by Xie at the hands of the authorities, which were widely reported on in the international media. Chinese state media branded those reports fake news and said the accounts were concocted as a means of gaining attention. Xie s lawyer told Reuters he stands by the account. In both cases these have been serious concerns about violations of due process of law, the German embassy in Beijing said in a statement. The decision to hand down both sentences the day after Christmas, when there would likely be less attention from diplomats and international observers, reeks of cynical political calculation , said Patrick Poon, Hong Kong-based researcher for Amnesty International. Asked about the verdicts, China s foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told a regular briefing that Amnesty is biased when it comes to China and should not be believed, adding that China abides by the rule of law. | 0 |
Previous Oathkeepers to Prevent Voter Fraud- Operation Sabot
I recently interviewed Oathkeepers Stewart Rhodes and one of his writers who goes by the handle of “Navy Jack” about their plans to oversee the elections for fairness and to remove the intimidation that is coming from the Soros/Clinton cabal.
This interview produced some of the best election analysis that is on the airwaves. Among the many points discussed centered around the possibility of Clinton being indicted after winning the election but before the the Inauguration. We would have an old-fashioned Constitutional crisis.
Listen to this fascinating interview and then please circulate this widely. Make it go viral! | 0 |
Awesome! Two protesters crashed the Trump Assassination play tonight yelling Goebbels would be proud! and Liberal Hate Kills! This is the second night protesters have jumped on stage at the Shakespeare in the Park production of Julius Caesar where a modern twist shows a President Trump look-a-like assassinated. Lovely, huh?A second protester jumped on stage and yelled but a videographer capturing the moment was tackled by liberal thugs.The videographer was eventually released by the police with the assurance that the police are on their side.In case you missed the first protest on Friday night: Laura Loomer of Rebel Media rushed the stage at the controversial NYC Shakespeare in the Park performance that takes a modern twist on Julius Caesar by playing out an assassination of a President Trump look-alike. Loomer yelled stop leftist violence before she was escorted off stage.We re huge fans and hope more people will follow her lead. Can you imagine if the tables were turned and they performed the same play using Obama as the one to be assassinated? The double standard here is unbelievable! You have the blood of Steve Scalise on your hands! The interesting irony is that the liberal crowd screamed and yelled at her. The left loves civil disobedience -except when it spoils their enjoyment of highbrow assassination porn. Do they advocate for violence against our president?They literally have Antifa chants during Julius Caesar before Trump gets assassinated pic.twitter.com/6AbHOChSnC Jack Posobiec (@JackPosobiec) June 17, 2017Ms. Loomer was arrested by the the NYPD and was released within hours. Laura s press conference: Jack Posobiec also got up and bravely yelled at the crowd. He yelled You re all Goebbels In case you don t know:GOEBBELS WAS THE NAZI PROPAGANDA MINISTER:German Nazi Party member Joseph Goebbels became Adolf Hitler s propaganda minister in 1933, which gave him power over all German radio, press, cinema, and theater.In 1925 Goebbels met the party leader Adolf Hitler. In 1926 he was made Gauleiter, or party leader, for the region of Berlin, and in 1927 he founded and became editor of the official National Socialist periodical Der Angriff (The Attack). He was elected to the Reichstag, the German parliament, in 1928. By exploiting mob emotions and by employing all modern methods of propaganda Goebbels helped Hitler into power. His work as a propagandist materially aided Hitler s rise to power in 1933. When Hitler seized power in 1933, Goebbels was appointed Reichsminister for propaganda and national enlightenment. From then until his death, Goebbels used all media of education and communications to further Nazi propagandistic aims, instilling in the Germans the concept of their leader as a veritable god and of their destiny as the rulers of the world. In 1938 he became a member of the Hitler cabinet council. Late in World War II, in 1944, Hitler placed him in charge of total mobilization. As Reichsminister for Propaganda and National Enlightenment, Goebbels was given complete control over radio, press, cinema, and theater; later he also regimented all German culture. Goebbels placed his undeniable intelligence and his brilliant insight into mass psychology entirely at the service of his party. His most virulent propaganda was against the Jews. As a hypnotic orator he was second only to Hitler, and in his staging of mass meetings and parades he was unsurpassed. Utterly cynical, he seems to have believed only in the self-justification of power. He remained loyal to Hitler until the end. On May 1, 1945, as Soviet troops were storming Berlin, Goebbels committed suicide.Via: whale | 1 |
BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) - Argentina s top prosecutor quit on Monday under pressure from the government over accusations that she hampered corruption investigations into officials from the previous administration of President Cristina Fernandez. Alejandra Gils Carbo, whose resignation will take effect on Dec. 31, was appointed chief prosecutor during populist Fernandez s second term and stayed in the post under business-oriented President Mauricio Macri. Macri, in office since late 2015, accused Gils Carbo of failing to bring corruption charges against members of Fernandez s cabinet. Gils Carbo is herself the focus of a corruption investigation cantering on her tenure as lead prosecutor. She has denied corruption allegations. At a press conference in July, Macri described Gils Carbo as a political activist who misused her power as attorney general. After repeatedly calling for her resignation, Macri s government began a campaign for reforms that would allow for Gils Carbo s firing, which ultimately prompted her to step down. In her resignation letter, Gils Carbo told Macri she was concerned that his actions would end up hurting state institutions by significantly affecting the autonomy of the public prosecutor s office. Gils Carbo resigned one week after a powerful minister from the Fernandez era was arrested following a vote in Congress that stripped him of his parliamentary immunity in two corruption cases. The former minister, Julio De Vido, is the most powerful official from the Fernandez administration to be jailed. Macri s coalition was empowered by midterm elections on Oct. 22, and he has pledged more reforms. | 1 |
Ever since last month, the US media and the left wing politicians have been up in arm about alleged rise of Nazism in America. By now, the coverage has been incessant and beyond hysterical, as pundits and antifascist activists claim that a viable white supremacist movement is threatening to take over the country which is a media-driven alternative reality. What America s mainstream media establishment will not mention is the US government s own role, particularly that of the Obama Administration and Hillary Clinton s State Department (and funded by her campaign financier George Soros) in helping to fuel the scourge of Nazism in eastern Europe, in the Ukraine. Likewise, Republicans and so-called conservatives will not want to mention party luminary Senator John McCain s own personal role in promoting Ukraine s Far Right parties and helping shoe-horn them into power in 2014 after a successful US-backed coup d etat and putsch, and the disastrous junta which has followed.The following open letter was posted by Aleksandr Gontar from Donetsk in eastern Ukraine, skillfully articulates the current farce in the United States and the feigned righteous indignation from the progressive left over the recent staged political altercation in Charlottesville, Virginia I always considered myself as a person with left-wing views, but looking at what is happening in the US I can t escape the thought that the American left, in its majority, is the dumbest and most useless comrade on the planet. As a minimum, to profess liberal views and at the same time to call oneself leftist is a bit silly.The desperate fight of American comrades against Nazis in general is comical. They are shocked by a torchlight procession in Charlottesville, while regular torch processions in the capital of Ukraine, which they so fervently support in its fight for democracy , don t shock them. I speak as well about simple red-blue rainbow plankton, as well as about the famous fighters against oppression a la Tom Morello (whom I respect as a musician) and other celebrities, cosplaying Che Guevara with a red star on the cap. A nightmare, Nazis are in America! They hoisted the colors of the confederates and shaved their heads! OH MY GOD . American Nazis are the same clowns as American anti- fascists , by the way.Kids, come into The Ukraine, we will show you Nazis. Real ones. Who kill people kill massively, proceeding from the racial theory. They kill in savage ways like the SS did in the 40 s. We will show you a whole State that erects monuments to the ideologists and performers of the Holocaust, of Jewish riots, of the genocide of Poles. Who sweep away monuments to the liberators of mankind from Nazism. A State with a Nazi Ministry of Truth, repressions against dissent, promotion of racial hatred in schools, on TV, in children s books. A State in which the Ministry of Internal Affairs supervises a website that incites the committing of murder of unreliable citizens, openly publishing all their personal information as well as members of their families.So, when you will have such things in America, we will talk. When you have, instead of a car crashing into a crowd of anti-fascists, these anti-fascists like cattle are herded into the local House of Trade Unions and will be burned with Molotov cocktails (finishing off with steel poles those who try to escape), when the FBI creates a website on which it will publish the addresses of those who criticize Trump and the White Race, and the organized alt-right will start to go to these addresses, who, after your murder, will be called patriots and will be released, so then we will believe in your whining about Nazis.And for now, suck on it, Mr American anti-fascists.This letter was originally published at Stalker Zone, translated by Ollie Richardson and Angelina Siard.READ MORE ALT RIGHT NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire ALT RIGHT FilesSUPPORT OUR WORK BY SUBSCRIBING & BECOMING A MEMBER @21WIRE.TV | 1 |
Michigan s Republican governor, Rick Snyder hasn t quite satisfied his penchant for evil doing. Snyder, who is globally infamous for overseeing the poisoning of the city of Flint, Michigan, is now trying to re-steal more than half a billion dollars from Michigan s teachers.In 2010, a law was passed that forced school employees to contribute 3 percent of their pay to their healthcare retirement benefits. The law was ruled as unconstitutional by the Court of Appeals on June 7. That means that the already collected $550 million dollars that are currently held in escrow must be returned to the school employees that it was originally stolen from. Governor Snyder s decision to drag this case out, even though the Attorney General will not assist in the appeal, is a shameful use of the people s time and money. School employees deserve to have their hard-earned money returned to them as soon as possible, but instead they will have to wait as Governor Snyder spends more time defending what is clearly an unconstitutional law, said David Hecker, president of American Federation of Teachers Michigan.That ruling doesn t fit into Snyder s master plan. He is now suing to appeal the court s decision. The suit is so frivolous and politically toxic that even the governor s Republican comrade, Michigan Attorney General Bill Schutte isn t willing to touch it with a ten-foot pole. Schuette has announced that he will not represent the Snyder administration. After reviewing the appellate decision in American Federation of Teachers V. State of Michigan the Attorney General is declining to provide counsel if the Governor wishes to appeal the ruling, said Schuette spokeswoman Andrea Bitely.Bitley also said that In this case, we ve not only reviewed the ruling, but we ve also spoken with many teachers and heard from many teachers across Michigan, and it just didn t make sense to continue the appeals process through our office at this point. Snyder insists that he is trying to protect the stability of the system, according to a statement from Snyder s press secretary, Anna Heaton.The Snyder administration has proven once again how badly government functions when it is controlled by Republicans. Snyder s political career is virtually over. That means he is free to fight for the causes he truly believes in without worrying about his name becoming more tarnished than it already is. Apparently, those causes include stealing from teachers and school employees paychecks.Featured image from Mark Wilson/Getty Images | 1 |
We Are Change
On October 28, Tesla unveiled its new solar roof tiles. Few of us in attendance, if any, realized the solar roofing tiles were actual functional solar panels until Elon Musk said so. Sure, it’s a neat trick, but what’s the big deal?
Why does it matter that Tesla is making a fashion statement when the point is green power and a future where we aren’t so dependent on fossil fuels?
I’ve heard from some people suggesting that this is nothing new, because of other similar previous projects, including Dow Chemical’s canned solar shingle project , for example. Others are wary of Tesla’s ability to sway consumers with a solar solution that sounds like it’ll still be quite expensive in terms of up-front (or, with payment plans, deferred but net) installation costs. Still others aren’t clear on Tesla’s goals with this product, or how it fits into the company’s overall strategy relative to its electric vehicles.
Looks matter It’s easy to dismiss the aesthetic import of how Tesla’s tiles look, but it’s actually important, and a real consideration for homeowners looking to build new homes or revamp their existing ones. The appearance of the tiles, which come in four distinct flavors (Textured Glass, Slate Glass, Tuscan Glass and Smooth Glass) is going to be a core consideration for prospective buyers, especially those at the top end of the addressable market with the disposable income available to do everything they can to ensure their home looks as good as it possibly can.
As with other kinds of technologies that are looking to make the leap from outlier oddity to mainstream mainstay, solar has a hurdle to leap in terms of customer perception. Existing solar designs, and even so-called attempts to make them more consistent with traditional offerings like the above-mentioned Dow Chemical project, leave a lot to be desired in terms of creating something that can be broadly described as good-looking.
It’s like the VR headset — Oculus and Google can make claims about their use of fabric making their headsets more approachable, but both are still just options somewhere along the curve of things with niche appeal. Neither is very likely to strike a truly broad audience of users as acceptable, and neither are solar panels that don’t succeed in completely disguising themselves as such.
Halo effects Tesla has been referred to as the Apple of the automotive world by more than a few analysts and members of the media, and if there’s one thing Apple does well, it’s capitalize on the so-called “halo effect.” This is the phenomenon whereby customers of one of its lines of business are likely to become customers of some of the others; iPhone buyers tend to often go on to own a Mac, for instance.
For Tesla, this represents an opportunity to jump-start its home solar business (which it’ll take on in earnest provided its planned acquisition of SolarCity goes through) through the knock-on effects of its brisk Tesla EV sales, including the tremendous pre-order interest for the Model 3. It’s strange to think of halo effects with big-ticket items, including vehicles and home energy systems, but Tesla’s fan base shares a lot of characteristics with Apple’s, and because they’re already purchasing at the level of an entire automobile, the frame of reference for what constitutes a valid halo purchase is actually appropriate.
Tesla, like Apple, scores well with customer satisfaction and brand commitment, and that’s something that no one trying to sell a solar home energy system at scale can match. As strange as it sounds, “buying a roof because you like your car” might be the new “buying a computer because you like your phone.”
Benefits beyond basic solar Tesla’s solar tiles claim to be able to power a standard home, and provide spare power via the new Powerwall 2 battery in case of inclement weather or other outages. Musk says that the overall cost will still be less than installing a regular old roof and paying the electric company for power from conventional sources. But Musk’s claims about the new benefits of the new solutions don’t end there.
Tesla’s tiles will actually be more resilient than traditional roofing materials, including terra-cotta, clay and slate tiles. That’s because of the toughness of the glass used in their construction, according to Musk, who demonstrated the results of heavy impact from above, using a kettlebell as you can see in the video below.
This should make them theoretically more resistant to potential damage from elements like hail, or even debris like fallen tree branches. In fact, Musk also said at the event that the roofs should far outlast the standard 20-year life cycle common for roofing materials used today — by as much as two or even three times. Fewer roof tile replacements means more value, provided that’s not already factored into his estimates of the up-front cost.
There’s also the possibility that the new tiles could become more efficient than existing solar panel options. Though in their current form, Musk says they achieve 98 percent of the efficiency of regular panels. He said that the company is working with 3M on coatings that could help light enter the panel and then refract within, letting it capture even more of the potential energy it carries to translate that into consumable power.
A new kind of ecosystem The announcement of Tesla’s solar tiles does not guarantee a sweeping solar power revolution; far from it, since Tesla says it won’t start installing the product in any consumer homes until next year, and a lot can happen between now and then. But Musk also said with full confidence that he ultimately expects the Powerwall to outsell Tesla cars, and easily so.
Solar roofing, Powerwall and Tesla cars taken together represent a new kind of ecosystem in consumer tech, one that carries a promise of self-sufficiency in addition to ecological benefits. Tesla has already tipped its hand with respect to how it intends to make vehicle ownership a revenue generator for its drivers, rather than a cost center. You can see how it might eventually do the same for solar power using solar tile roofs combined with Powerwalls installed in series, giving homeowners surplus power generation and storage with a few different potential options for monetizing the excess (including, say, acting as a supercharger station for other Teslas, or selling back to the grid).
It’s tempting to look at Tesla’s unveiling last week and think that it’s more of an incremental development in the home solar industry. But it’s more likely a step toward a future where individuals have more direct control over power generation, leading to a big difference in how we think about renewable energy.
Source; https://techcrunch.com/2016/10/31/why-teslas-new-solar-roof-tiles-and-home-battery-are-such-a-big-deal/#
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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday approved a $68 billion increase in military spending next year with legislation that also provides money to start construction of President Donald Trump’s Mexican border wall. The bill increased spending on the U.S. capability to defend itself from foreign missile attacks amid growing concerns about North Korea’s increasing capacity to hit the United States with a nuclear-tipped missile after it successfully tested an intercontinental ballistic missile in July. The money for the wall is dwarfed by the $658.1 billion the bill would provide for the Defense Department, an increase of $68.1 billion above the fiscal year 2017 enacted level and $18.4 billion above Trump’s budget request. The House voted 235-192 for the fiscal 2018 spending bill that would provide $1.6 billion for initial construction of a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border, which was a centerpiece of Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. Democrats repeatedly have referred to any money for the wall as a “poison pill” and are likely to try to kill it in the Senate. Congress is up against an Oct. 1 deadline - the start of a new fiscal year - for either passing spending bills or temporarily extending funding at current-year levels to give negotiators more time to come to agreements. Funding for the wall was tucked into a wide-ranging national security appropriations bill at the last minute by Republican leadership, knowing that many House members who oppose the wall would not sink defense spending with a “no” vote. Trump has argued that a “big beautiful wall” was needed along the entire southwestern U.S. border and that Mexico would ultimately pay for its construction. Mexico has flatly refused to pay and in recent weeks Trump indicated that there could be portions of the border that are not conducive to a wall. Democrats and many Republicans in Congress have questioned the feasibility and effectiveness of a border wall, with immigration advocacy groups arguing that it would not stem the flow of illegal border crossings and would hurt U.S.-Mexico relations. In interviews in recent weeks with more than a half-dozen Republican senators from states that voted for Trump for president last November, only Ted Cruz of Texas embraced building the wall. Similarly, House Republicans representing districts along the U.S.-Mexico border have expressed opposition to the barrier, which could end up costing well over $21 billion. Representative Nita Lowey, the senior Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, called the wall a “waste ... that experts confirm is unneeded and ineffective and cuts against our values as Americans.” Furthermore, Lowey noted that Pentagon funding would run into a technical problem as it breaches a cap on defense spending by $72 billion. If the bill became law, she said, it actually would “trigger across-the-board cuts of 13 percent to every defense account” in order to stay within the cap. The beefed up defense spending would allow the Pentagon to continue military activities in Iraq, Afghanistan and other trouble spots and hire more troops while providing soldiers with a 2.4 percent pay raise. It also would allow the Pentagon to undertake a shopping spree with money to buy ships and submarines, aircraft, tanks and other big-ticket items. The House-passed bill also includes an increase for America’s nuclear weapons stockpile managed by the Department of Energy, as well as for U.S. Capitol Police following a June 14 shooting that gravely wounded Republican Representative Steve Scalise. A $825 million increase for the Missile Defense Agency to more than $8.6 billion is more than Trump asked for and includes additional boosters and missile silos for the main system that would defend against an ICBM attack, a program run by Boeing Co. Missile defense would also gain 14 more THAAD interceptors made by Lockheed Martin Co. | 0 |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Senate confirmed Representative Mike Pompeo as President Donald Trump’s CIA director on Monday, after a delay tied to some lawmakers’ worries he might expand surveillance or allow the use of certain interrogation techniques widely considered torture. Sixty-six senators backed Pompeo and 32 voted against. All the opposition was from Democrats, except for Senator Rand Paul, a leading Republican advocate for strict control of surveillance. Shortly afterward, Pompeo was sworn in by Vice President Mike Pence. Some senators felt Pompeo, 53, had not pledged strongly enough to allow only the use of interrogation techniques included in the Army Field Manual, as required by law, rather than return to waterboarding and other “enhanced interrogation techniques,” or EITs, used by the CIA in the years after the Sept. 11 attacks. Trump’s predecessor, Barack Obama, signed an executive order in 2009 banning waterboarding - a form of simulated drowning - and other EITs, which are denounced by many lawmakers and rights groups as torture. In response to written questions from the Senate Intelligence Committee, Pompeo said he was open to changing policy under certain circumstances. “I will consult with experts... on whether the Army Field Manual uniform application is an impediment to gathering vital intelligence to protect the country.” Pompeo wrote. Trump promised during his presidential campaign to bring back waterboarding and “a hell of a lot worse.” Democratic Senator Ron Wyden spoke for more than an hour in the Senate in opposition to Pompeo’s nomination, saying he had provided inconsistent answers on surveillance and interrogation tactics, making it impossible to know how he would implement policy at the CIA. Wyden cited an op-ed Pompeo co-authored last year that called for restarting the bulk collection of domestic telephone metadata and combining it with financial and lifestyle information into one searchable database. He accused Pompeo of having proposed “the most sweeping new surveillance program I have ever heard of.” Paul wrote in an op-ed: “I voted against the new CIA Director because I worry that his desire for security will trump his defense of liberty.” Most Republicans called Pompeo, a member of the House Intelligence Committee, an excellent choice. Senator John McCain, a leader of the fight for legislation barring the use of the rough interrogation methods, said: “I have no reason to doubt Congressman Pompeo’s word.” McCain added: “I fully support his confirmation. Going forward, I will continue to closely monitor this issue, and use my oversight powers to ensure the law is obeyed.” | 1 |
One of the more interesting lessons Democrats may learn in their newfound enthusiasm for George Orwell’s Nineteen — which is a critique of socialism, but never mind — is the way that totalitarian societies destroy intimate relationships. [In the dystopian future envisioned by Orwell, children betray their parents to the Thought Police, and sex is discouraged because it creates relationships outside the state. A secret love is the most revolutionary act — and, ultimately, a futile one. Today, in the United States, we are witnesses to — and participants in — the destruction of friendships and relationships over political disputes that rage uncontrollably on social media, carry over into the workplace, and even continue into the home. A few weeks ago, a poll revealed that 39% of Americans had argued about politics with friends and family, and had “stopped talking to a family member or friend because of the election. ” True, 40% of respondents said they had not had those kinds of arguments, but that may also be because Americans are increasingly withdrawing into political camps. It is fashionable, especially in Washington, to blame these divisions on an increasingly partisan media. And that is partly true. Orwell observed — separately, in 1944 — that modern innovations in communication and travel had inspired new ways to divide people, rather than bringing the world together. Of radio, for example, he observed: “It is nonsense to say that the radio puts people in touch with foreign countries … each national radio is a sort of totalitarian world of its own, braying propaganda night and day to people who can listen to nothing else. ” The same is true of social media and domestic politics today. Theoretically, Facebook and Twitter ought to make it easier for us to communicate with, and understand, people with different views. In practice, they encourage us to huddle with people and sever relations with the other side. Twitter is the most brutal of social media platforms, because it allows people to bash each other from behind pseudonyms and avatars. But Facebook is even more damaging, because it takes associations — families, schools, towns — and exposes them to the ravages of intense political debate. On Twitter, we form alliances with strangers who agree with us on Facebook, we discover the opposing political views of people with whom we may have shared close lifelong connections. Social media platforms are increasingly important sources of news. And so the new political divisions in the world of journalism are filtering into our social media, which in turn exacerbates those media divisions in a seemingly endless feedback loop. But the media are not solely responsible. The deliberate politicization of intimacy began with a specific campaign — namely, President Barack Obama’s 2008 run, which used social media technology to drive a political message. Obama told his supporters explicitly to approach their neighbors and “argue with them, and get in their face. ” His surrogates took that approach even further. Hollywood celebrity Sarah Silverman encouraged Obama’s Jewish supporters to travel to Florida and tell their ostensibly racist grandparents to vote for him. Later, once Obama was in office, the supposedly Rock the Vote organization told young people to withhold sex from partners who refused to support Obamacare. The politicization of intimacy has been a Democratic campaign strategy ever since. And after the 2016 election, it has only continued. Anecdotally, conservative acquantances report that their (understandably) frustrated and (irrationally) fearful liberal Facebook friends have tried to hold them personally responsible for every perceived misstep by President Donald Trump. As much as conservatives disliked Barack Obama and his policies, that kind of behavior seemed far less common. Just recently, a friend posted on Facebook: “I got blocked by a liberal tonight. My brother. ” This quiet dissolution of American social life should worry us, for the simple reason that the intimate connections among neighbors, family, and friends are the glue that holds our otherwise individualistic society together. Alexis de Tocqueville noted in Democracy in America, nearly 200 years ago, that our system functions because of the overlapping associations we form with one another. Those are at risk. Fifteen years ago, Americans were deeply divided over the results of the 2000 presidential election and the Florida recount. It took the horrific events of September 11th, 2001 to bring the nation together. One hopes it does not take a similar event this time. This week, in addressing Congress, President Trump united the nation in applauding and comforting the widow of a fallen Navy SEAL. It was a rare moment of unity, a reminder that we can — and must — renew what we still hold in common. Joel B. Pollak is Senior at Breitbart News. He was named one of the “most influential” people in news media in 2016. His new book, How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak. | 0 |
Podesta emails reveal extent of Bill Clinton’s ‘for profit’ activities Podesta emails reveal extent of Bill Clinton’s ‘for profit’ activities By 0 32
Conflicts of interest between Bill Clinton and the Clinton Foundation, as well as the former president’s “for profit” activities and acceptance of “expensive gifts” have been revealed in WikiLeaks’ Podesta emails.
One of the emails released by the whistleblowing site from the account of Hillary Clinton’s campaign chair, John Podesta, includes a November 2011 email chain between Podesta and Douglas Band, a former Foundation fundraiser and long time adviser to the Clintons.
Band attaches a 12 page document detailing the many ways Bill Clinton had conflicts of interest with the Foundation and his “for profit” activities.
Band is co-founder of global PR consulting firm Teneo and worked as Bill Clinton’s personal assistant during his presidency. Teneo had raised millions for the Foundation while also working for Bill Clinton’s personal interests when he was a paid adviser to the company. In 2012, Clinton’s position changed to “friend and unpaid adviser” to Teneo as well as being a client of the company.
Previous Podesta emails have shown that at the time of the memo, Chelsea Clinton was concerned about Band’s conflicts of interests between his work at the Foundation and Teneo. She accused Brand and Teneo co-founder Declan Kelly of profiting off her father and the foundation.
Shortly after, Band penned the memo to show how Bill Clinton had his own conflicts of interest.
The memo, addressed to lawyers that were working on a review of the foundation, refers to “Bill Clinton Inc.” to describe “more than $50 million for-profit activity we have personally helped to secure for President Clinton to date or the $66 million in future contracts, should he choose to continue with those engagements.” This includes $3 million paid to Bill Clinton for speeches given to clients of the company.
Band said his role as “primary fundraiser for the Foundation for the past 11 years” and his work at Teneo allowed him and Kelly to encourage clients to contribute to the Foundation. “Through our efforts, we have brought new donors to the Foundation and garnered increased giving from existing donors,” he said.
He says he also obtained “in-kind services for the President and his family – for personal travel, hospitality, vacation and the like.”
The memo had been discussed in an earlier release by WikiLeaks but no file was attached. In these emails, Band refers to a conflict of interest policy he signed as a board member of the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI).
READ MORE: #Podesta emails: Bill Clinton & Obama worked to influence EU’s Greece austerity deal
“Teneo represents 4 cgi sponsors, 3 of which teneo brought to cgi. Oddly, wjc [Bill Clinton] does not have to sign such a document even though he is personally paid by 3 cgi sponsors, gets many expensive gifts from them, some that are at home,” he says.
The memo shows examples of companies paying Bill Clinton directly when they were also donors to the Foundation.
For profit education firm Laureate’s relationship with the Foundation “evolved into a personal advisory services business relationship for President Clinton,” Band wrote. According to the memo, Laureate paid Bill Clinton $3.5 million a year to advise and be the honorary chairman. Clinton was honorary chancellor / chair from 2010 until 2015, and was paid over $16 million.
Brand says Dubai-headquartered GEMS Education approached Clinton in 2009 to seek his personal services as an adviser to the company and Band “convinced them to initiate a relationship to the Foundation, which they did.” Bill Clinton has made more than $5.6 million for his role with GEMS, AP reports .
Coca Cola gave $4.3 million to the Foundation and promised $2 million more over seven years, the memo reads. According to Band, Kelly introduced Bill Clinton to CEO Muhtar Kent in 2009 at a meeting at Clinton’s home.
“Over the course of 2009, Mr. Kelly cultivated Mr. Kent’s interest in the Foundation — first in CGI and the Foundation. Mr. Kelly asked Mr. Kent to give $5 million to the Foundation, which he pledged in early 2010.”
Coca Cola has donated between $5-10 million to the Foundation. A set of emails released by DCLeaks this month show the Clinton campaign backed away from her comments on a soda tax in April following angry emails from the company.
“Really??? After all we have done,” Coke’s Clyde Tuggle emailed on April 20 to Sarah Latham, Podesta’s current chief of staff and Capr icia Marshall, who has consulted for the Clinton campaign. “I hope this has been falsely reported. Pls give me some talking points for Muhtar [Muhtar Kent, Coke’s CEO] in the am.”
According to the memo, Dow Chemical has given $780,000 to the Foundation. Kelly invited CEO Andrew Liveris to play golf with Clinton in 2009 and then asked Dow to sponsor CGI. Dow donated $150,000 to the Foundation “for President Clinton to attend a Dow dinner in Davos,” Band said.
Swiss financial services company UBS was told to donate to the Foundation before booking Bill Clinton for speeches. “In addition to the $540,000 UBS contributed to the Foundation, Teneo partners have secured a commitment from UBS for President Clinton to deliver three additional paid speeches for them in 2012, should he choose to do so.”
UBS paid Bill Clinton $540,000 for speeches in 2011.
Kelly also “urged and ensured” the American Ireland Fund would be a “significant donor to the Foundation,” and successfully secured “$350,000 to date,” the memo reads.
A section of the memo titled “For profit activity of President Clinton” details how the company helps Clinton “secure and engage in for-profit activities, including speeches, books, and advisory service engagements”
Band says he and Justin Cooper have “personally helped to secure” over $50 million for the former President and have brought business deals for advisory services to Clinton.
The memo shows Teneo secured a number of speeches for Clinton including telecommunications company Ericsson paying Clinton $750,000 plus $400,000 for a private plane to speak in Hong Kong.
Teneo cultivated its client relationship with bank Barclays to help secure two paid speeches in 2010 and 2011 totaling more than $700,000.
The conflict between Band and Chelsea resulted in the well documented “spoiled brat” comment Band made as revealed in earlier batches of the Podesta email leak.
Via RT . This piece was reprinted by RINF Alternative News with permission or license. | 1 |
NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Nikki Haley may have been born in the United States but her extended family back in India is thrilled that the South Carolina governor has been named by U.S. President-elect Donald Trump as ambassador to the United Nations. Haley’s parents hail from rural Punjab, in northwestern India. They moved to Amritsar - home to the Golden Temple that is the most holy place of the Sikh religion - before emigrating to North America in the early 1960s. Haley, 44, was born Nimrata Randhawa in Bamberg, South Carolina - she was called “Nikki” as a child and took the family name of husband Michael when they married in Sikh and Methodist ceremonies in 1996. Kanwaljit Singh Randhawa, a 70-year-old cousin, told Reuters family and friends were delighted by Haley’s appointment and said it could help improve relations between the United States and India. “It is a great achievement for Punjab and India. We are proud of the fact that (Nikki) has achieved this success,” Randhawa told Reuters by telephone. Randhawa, a retired lecturer, said he was in regular touch with Nikki’s father, Ajit Singh Randhawa, who grew up in the village of Pandori Ran Singh, south of Amritsar. India’s foreign ministry said it was happy to hear news of Haley’s appointment, describing her as a supporter of closer U.S.-India ties who had met Prime Minister Narendra Modi when he visited Washington in June. “We know Governor Haley very well,” said spokesman Vikas Swarup. India’s foreign secretary visited the United States earlier this month and interacted with “very senior levels” of the Trump transition team, he also said. Haley came only once to India as a four-year-old child, doesn’t speak Punjabi and has converted to Christianity. But she has visited India more recently in an official capacity, going to Amritsar in November 2014 on what she called “an emotional and very personal day”. “I always yearned to see Punjab - my motherland - and now I am so proud to be here after almost 40 years,” she told TV reporters at the time, her voice choking with emotion as she steadied herself with nips from a water bottle. Her biography is similar to that of Richard Verma, the first U.S. ambassador to New Delhi of Indian origin. He was born in the United States into a Punjabi family but visited often as a child. Verma was mobbed by relatives and locals when he visited his ancestral home in early 2015. Haley has little foreign policy experience, while Trump has expressed favorable views toward India, where he has real estate interests. The tycoon-turned-TV reality star told one cultural event put on by diaspora Republicans during the presidential campaign that he loved the country and its people. Trump’s stated intention of banning immigration by Muslims from countries that are a source of Islamist militancy has played well with many in India, a majority Hindu nation that has long been at odds with Muslim-majority Pakistan. Much of the diplomacy over the rivalry between India and Pakistan, both nuclear-armed powers, plays out in the corridors of UN headquarters in New York and Haley’s appointment is likely to be seen positively in New Delhi in that light. India, the world’s largest democracy, is also lobbying to be made a permanent member of an expanded UN Security Council, although it’s doubtful this would be a priority for Trump. Back in Punjab, relatives and old family friends are planning a major celebration to mark the elevation of Haley to the top diplomatic post. “We are going to the Golden Temple in Amritsar to pray for her success,” said Randhawa. “And we will speak to our friends and villagers to have a function in the next few days.” | 1 |
Because there s nothing more compassionate than convincing young boys and girls that the gender that God assigned to them at birth means absolutely nothing. In fact, with a few government funded surgeries, they can try out any sex they think they might identify with You will want to contact the School Board if you live in Fairfax County, VA and let them know how you feel about using your tax dollars for the radical indoctrination of your children.One of the nation s largest public school systems is preparing to include gender identity to its classroom curriculum, including lessons on sexual fluidity and spectrum the idea that there s no such thing as 100 percent boys or 100 percent girls.Fairfax County Public Schools released a report recommending changes to their family life curriculum for grades 7 through 12. The changes, which critics call radical gender ideology, will be formally introduced next week. The larger picture is this is really an attack on nature itself the created order, said Peter Sprigg of the Family Research Council. Human beings are created male and female. But the current transgender ideology goes way beyond that. They re telling us you can be both genders, you can be no gender, you can be a gender that you make up for yourself. And we re supposed to affirm all of it. The plan calls for teaching seventh graders about transgenderism and tenth graders about the concept that sexuality is a broader spectrum but it sure smells like unadulterated sex indoctrination.Get a load of what the kids are going to be learning in middle school: Students will be provided definitions for sexual orientation terms heterosexuality, homosexuality and bisexuality; and the gender identity term transgender, the district s recommendations state. Emphasis will be placed on recognizing that everyone is experiencing changes and the role of respectful, inclusive language in promoting an environment free of bias and discrimination. Eighth graders will be taught that individual identity occurs over a lifetime and includes the component of sexual orientation and gender identity. Individual identity will also be described as having four parts biological gender, gender identity (includes transgender), gender role, and sexual orientation (includes heterosexual, bisexual, and homosexual). The district will also introduce young teenagers to the concept that sexuality is a broader spectrum. By tenth grade, they will be taught that one s sexuality develops throughout a lifetime. Emphasis will be placed on an understanding that there is a broader, boundless, and fluid spectrum of sexuality that is developed throughout a lifetime, the document states. Sexual orientation and gender identity terms will be discussed with focus on appreciation for individual differences. As you might imagine parents are freaking out. Parents need to protect their kids from this assault, said Andrea Lafferty, president of Traditional Values Coalition. Who could imagine that we are in this place today but we are. Last week, the school board voted to include gender identity in the district s nondiscrimination policy a decision that was strongly opposed by parents.Lafferty, who led the opposition to the nondiscrimination policy, warned that the district is moving towards the deconstruction of gender. At the end of this is the deconstruction of gender absolutely, she told me. The majority of people pushing (this) are not saying that but that clearly is the motivation. School Board spokesman John Torre told the Washington Times the proposed curriculum changes have nothing to do with last week s vote to allow boys who identity as girls to use the bathrooms and locker rooms of their choice.He would have us believe it was purely coincidental.To make matters worse, Lafferty contends parents will not be able to opt their children out of the classes because the lessons will be a part of the mandatory health curriculum.However, Torre told me that parents will indeed be able to opt out of those classes including the sexual orientation and gender identity lessons. They are not being forthright with the information, Lafferty said. They are not telling people the truth. They are bullying parents. They are intimidating and they are threatening. I must confess that I m a bit old school on sex education. I believe that God created male and female. My reading of the Bible does not indicate there were dozens of other options.However, I m always open to learning new things so I asked the school district to provide me with the textbooks and scientific data they will be using to instruct the children that there are dozens and dozens of possible genders.Here s the reply I received from Torre: Lessons have not been developed for the proposed lesson objectives, he stated. Because of the need to develop lessons, the proposed objectives would not be implemented until fall 2016. In other words they don t have a clue.And the Family Research Council s Sprigg said there s a pretty good reason why they can t produce a textbook about fluidity. It s an ideological concept, he told me. It s not a scientific one. He warned that Fairfax County s planned curriculum could be harmful to students. It s only going to create more confusion in the minds of young people who don t need any further confusion about sexual identity, he said.The board will introduce the changes on May 21. Lafferty said she hopes parents will turn out in force to voice their objections.Via: FOX News | 1 |
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