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LAGOS (Reuters) - Nigeria s air force on Tuesday said it was deploying aircraft to the southeast of the country where unrest related to a campaign for secession has escalated in an area formerly known as Biafra. The military presence in the southeast has increased in the last few weeks as part of an operation that the military said was part of efforts to crack down on crime, kidnapping and secessionist agitation. The air force deployment marks a further escalation of the operation, which began this month. The essence of the deployment is to provide the necessary air cover to the ground troops to enhance overall operational cohesion and efficiency, said Olatokunbo Adesanya, a Nigerian Air Force (NAF) spokesman. The request by the Nigerian Army for close air support made the involvement of the NAF inevitable, he added. The military deployment has led to tension between troops and the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) secessionist group which last week accused soldiers of laying siege to their leader s home. The army denied the accusation. A curfew was subsequently imposed in Abia state, where the residence is located, and the army on Friday categorized IPOB as a terrorist organization . Secessionist sentiment has simmered in the southeast since the Biafra separatist rebellion plunged Africa s most populous country into a civil war from 1967 to 1970 that killed around one million people. | 0 |
It s official. Donald Trump is literally trying to murder the American people.As humans, we need clean air and clean water to survive as a species. Without them, we would suffocate or die of thirst. Crops and livestock also require clean water and clean air to produce our food supply.This is basic stuff, but Donald Trump doesn t care about the needs of human beings. He only cares about corporate greed and that greed is going to kill millions.Trump has already launched an all-out assault on the Environmental Protection Agency, which works every day fighting for clean water and clean air for the American people.The agency has been ordered to freeze grants and contracts which has halted air and water quality tests.But now Trump is looking to chip away at the bedrock of what the EPA exists to do.According to Vox,Jonathan Swan of Axios got a look at an agency action plan that Trump s advisers have written up for the EPA. Among the initiatives they plan to target: Clean Air Act greenhouse gas regulations for new (NSPS) and existing (ESPS or the Clean Power Plan) coal and natural gas power plants [CAFE] Standards Clean Water Section 404: Waters of the U.S. Rule (wetlands) TMDL (Total Maximum Daily Load) for Chesapeake Bay. By attacking the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts, Trump would be sentencing America to a deadly polluted future the likes of which have not been seen since the EPA was created.Americans look at Beijing in horror as China allows the air in that city to be so thick and poisonous that people need to wear gas masks every day if they go outside.Here s an image of New York in 1973 before the EPA aggressively fought for air standards via the National Archives.And here s one of Los Angeles.If Trump has his way, American cities will once again be choked by smog and our air quality with significantly decrease. One wonders if Trump has investments in gas mask companies.Fresh water has also been a worry among millions of Americans over the years as Republicans continue to make decisions that allow companies like Koch Industries to pollute our waterways. Trump s executive order to let the Keystone XL pipeline move forward is a direct threat to the Ogallala Aquifer, which provides water to millions of Americans in the Midwest and is responsible for creating what is now called America s Breadbasket. The Washington Post reports,In some places the aquifer is buried 1,200 feet deep, but in many places it is at or very close to the surface, often less than five feet below ground That s where concerns about the Keystone XL came in. Its original route traversed 92 miles of the Sand Hills and the Ogallala. TransCanada, which said it would bury the pipeline at least four feet underground, could in many places be putting it in water TransCanada submitted a revised route to the State Department, bypassing the Sand Hills but still passing over some parts of the aquifer.Should a massive oil spill occur, it could seep into the aquifer and poison it. And that would be a disaster even bigger than the lead poisoned water in Flint, Michigan because it would literally affect every American across the country.And these spills can contaminate water for decades. The reason why Flint s water supply was tainted with lead is because Republicans decided to save money by switching the city s water from Lake Huron to the Flint River, which was contaminated by lead decades ago, which is why Flint got it s water from Lake Huron. This is public knowledge, but Republicans ignored that and switched anyway.Trump also wants to expedite oil and gas permits and open up pristine natural lands to fracking and mining, which threatens habitats and our water supply. As we should all know, fracking has already poisoned water supplies in places around the country. Some people can even light their water on fire because of the chemicals fracking companies use. That will increase under Trump.Republicans now control Congress, so they will likely help Trump weaken the Clean Water and Clean Air Acts no matter how much the American people protest.So by letting Trump and the Republicans remain in office we are letting them kill us. Literally.Featured image via Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images | 0 |
What a role model for women and young girls, a presidential candidate who has one foot in prison and the other on the campaign trail That Hillary If she s not lying she s never mind, she s probably lying Clinton is merely the first woman to earn a major party nod but she follows these party standard-bearers who also tried to break the ultimate glass ceiling:1872: Equal Rights Party, Victoria WoodhullNearly 50 years before women earned the right to vote, Victoria Woodhull headlined a progressive all-star ticket, running with former slave and abolitionist leader Fredrick Douglass. Woodhull s agenda was well ahead of the Reconstructionist times; the newspaper editor turned Presidential nominee championed suffrage, civil rights and free love which is a radical threesome.1888: Equal Rights Party, Belva LockwoodLockwood was born in a log cabin and the first woman to argue a case before the Supreme Court, but her bootstraps story didn t impress some wags of the day. Old lady Lockwood, the Atlanta Constitution warned, would subject the country to petticoat rule. She got 4,100 votes in an age when half the electorate women still could not vote and most blacks were still disenfranchised.1940: Surprise Party, Gracie AllenLike Donald Trump s candidacy, what began as a joke between comedian Gracie Allen and her husband and show time side-kick George Burns, soon became a national amusement. Allen, who s political slogan was Down with common sense, vote for Gracie and vowed to resolve the California-Florida boundary dispute, seized the nation s attention with a series of campaign stops and satirical policy platform. It s estimated that she received 42,000 votes in November.1968: Communist Party USA, Charlene MitchellMitchell, a card-carrying member of the CPUSA from age 16, was the first African-American woman to be nominated for president. The ticket, which made it onto only two state ballots, received just over 1,000 votes.1972: Socialist Worker s Party, Linda JennessAt age 31, Jenness could not have actually served if she had been elected but that was part of the point. We think that constitutional requirement is ridiculous, Jenness said. Turning 35 does not make you a genius, politically, as so many of our politicians have proven. Jenness was an outspoken anti-war candidate and vocal critic of rival nominees, the Republican Richard Nixon and Democratic George McGovern.1976: People s Party, Margaret WrightThe World War II shipyard worker featured in the 1980 documentary The Life and Times of Rosie the Riveter fronted the People s Party ticket, a coalition of various socialist and anti-war organizations. The party received 49,016 votes, or .06% of the national total.1980: Right to Life Party, Ellen McCormackMcCormack s single-issue candidacy brought the pro-life agenda to the nation s attention. After a successful run as a Democrat that earned her 238,000 primary votes and raised over $500,000 in campaign contributions, McCormack s 1980 campaign received 32,000 votes in the three states in which she qualified. I think we are teaching working mothers it is more prestigious to work than be home with their children, the self-described housewife once said.1984: Citizens Party, Sonia JohnsonFor entire list go here: NYDaily News | 1 |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump said on Friday he would spend an extra day in the Philippines during his trip to Asia, which the White House confirmed would be to attend the East Asia Summit taking place there. We re actually staying an extra day in the Philippines. We have a big conference, the second conference, and I think we re going to have great success, Trump told reporters at the White House before leaving for his trip. | 1 |
ANKARA (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump s threats against Iran will damage the United States, a senior commander in Iran s Quds force, the overseas arm of the powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), was quoted on Friday as saying. We are not a war-mongering country. But any military action against Iran will be regretted ... Trump s threats against Iran will damage America ... We have buried many ... like Trump and know how to fight against America, the Tasnim news agency quoted Quds deputy head, Esmail Ghaani, as saying. The IRGC is Iran s most powerful security entity and wields control over large swathes of Iran s economy as well as considerable influence within its political system. | 0 |
Archives Michael’s Latest Video Now That The Election Is Over, Will Republicans And Democrats Learn How To Love One Another? By Michael Snyder, on November 16th, 2016
The 2016 election will be remembered as perhaps the most contentious election in modern American history, and things often got extremely angry and bitter on a personal level. If you spend much time on Facebook or Twitter you know exactly what I am talking about. The vitriol on social media has been off the charts, and there are some people that are actually unfriending anyone that supported the candidate that they were against. This election has also torn apart families, friends and even entire churches. Relationships that took decades to build in some cases are now permanently shattered because of fighting over Trump and Clinton.
Personally, I couldn’t imagine choosing never to talk to a family member or a close friend ever again because of a political disagreement. Trump and Clinton are only temporary, but your family will always be your family. Sadly, we live in a nation where strife, discord, bitterness and resentment are all running rampant, and unforgiveness has become a national pastime.
As a nation, we are extremely divided. In fact, at this moment we are more divided than we have ever been in my entire lifetime. A house divided against itself will surely fall, and if we don’t learn how to love one another I don’t see any reason to be optimistic about the future of this country.
If you are a Republican, can you honestly say that you love Democrats?
If you are a Democrat, can you honestly say that you love Trump supporters?
If this nation is ever going to heal, we have got to learn how to forgive, and we have got to learn how to love others that see things differently than we do.
I know what many of you are thinking at this point. Many of you are wondering if I have gone soft, and many of you are wondering how we are supposed to forgive people that believe some of the most horrible things imaginable.
I didn’t say that it would be easy.
And it is certainly not necessary to agree with someone or even acknowledge that their viewpoints are legitimate in order to love, forgive and value that person.
Let’s take abortion as an example. Most Democrats and many Republicans believe that we should continue to murder babies on an industrial scale in our abortion mills all over the country. In fact, many of them want to make it even easier and want to shower organizations such as Planned Parenthood with even more government money.
This is evil on a level that is difficult to put into words, and what we are doing to those precious little children is on par with what the Nazis did to Jewish people and other minorities in their concentration camps during World War II. And if we do not stop slaughtering babies, the judgment of God is going to absolutely devastate this nation.
According to Gallup, 79 percent of all Americans believe that abortion should be legal under at least some circumstances, and so unfortunately that is not likely to happen any time soon.
But just because someone believes in killing babies does not mean that we should hate that person.
On the contrary, every single individual is of immense value. Whenever you are tempted to hate someone, just remember that Jesus valued that person so much that He was willing to go to the cross to pay for that person’s sins. No matter what someone looks like, no matter where someone is from, and no matter how much money they have, each and every person is greatly loved in the Father’s eyes, and we are commanded to love them too.
We are to love all people at all times and in all ways. Christian maturity is far more about how much you love than it is about how much you know. Unfortunately, most people don’t seem to understand this simple truth.
These days a lot of people are running around touting how self-righteous they are, but most of those same people seem to be quite lacking in real love.
If you really want to be someone that “keeps the commandments”, you should start by getting your heart right. In Matthew 22, Jesus told us which commandments are the most important of all. The following is what Matthew 22:36-40 says in the Modern English Version …
36 “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the law ?”
37 Jesus said to him, “ ‘ You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind .’ 38 This is the first and great commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘ You shall love your neighbor as yourself .’ 40 On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”
We should all constantly endeavor to become people of great love.
Once again, that does not mean that you have to accept or approve of what others are saying or doing. In fact, often the loving thing is to point out that someone you love is being destructive to themselves or others.
And as a nation, we are being self-destructive on a scale that is almost unimaginable. We are literally committing national suicide, and until we start radically changing our behavior it isn’t going to matter much who is in the White House.
If you want to get your heart right on a personal level, a good place to start is by forgiving those that have hurt you or offended you. And that would include our politicians. I am certainly not saying that you should vote for anyone that stands for positions that are extremely offensive, but we can definitely forgive them and pray for them.
In addition, if you have had relationships that have been broken during this election season, perhaps now is a good time to reach out in a spirit of love and forgiveness.
Life is too short to go around holding grudges, and those that choose to forgive often find that they are the ones that are truly being set free. | 1 |
21st Century Wire says So far, after nearly 20 days of protests near Burns, Oregon, there s been no one hurt or injured, but it seems the state s chief executive is keen to change that result.According to reports today, Oregon Governor Kate Brown told a news conference hat federal officials, must move quickly to end the occupation and hold all of the wrongdoers accountable. The governor does not appear at all concerned with the Hammond family s plight, nor with any of this story s core issues like legal minimum sentencing, jury nullification, or private, state and federal land rights and yet, seems to want an armed confrontation in her state and not with any of her own state or county law enforcement agents, but by using federal agents instead. PLEADING TO FEDS: Oregon governor Kate Brown.She added, Residents of Harney County have been overlooked and underserved by federal officials response thus far. I have conveyed these very grave concerns directly to our leaders at the highest levels of our government: the U.S. Department of Justice and the White House. The Democratic governor also claims that the protest has cost the state over $500,000 over the last 3 weeks. We ll be asking federal officials to reimburse the state for these costs. It s not clear exactly how she arrived at that figure, but it can t be from calculating Harney County sheriff s deputies overtime pay.Harney County Judge Steve Grasty also voice a desire to see federal agents take a more aggressive approach towards Ammon Bundy and his fellow protesters, saying, I hope they lock it down. People shouldn t be coming and going. Maybe it s time. READ MORE HAMMOND NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire Hammond Ranch | 0 |
LONDON (Reuters) - A London court on Thursday rejected a legal challenge against the deal between Britain s ruling Conservatives and a Northern Ireland party that allowed the government to cobble together a parliamentary majority in June. After losing their majority in a disastrous snap election on June 8, Prime Minister Theresa May s Conservatives secured support from the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) in return for a pledge to spend an extra 1 billion pounds in Northern Ireland. In a crowdfunded legal challenge brought by a Northern Irish citizen, lawyers argued that the deal, known as a confidence-and-supply agreement, was corrupt because it amounted to using public money to buy votes. But after a one-day hearing, the High Court rejected their arguments and denied permission for judicial review of the deal. The judges said neither of the grounds put forward against the deal was legally arguable. The challenge was launched by Ciaran McClean, a mental health worker and Green Party member living in Northern Ireland, who raised 92,000 pounds ($121,600) on a crowdfunding website and was present in court on Thursday. Lawyers acting for him told the court that the Conservative Party purchased the political support of the DUP for the sum of 1 billion pounds and that the deal was an offence under the Bribery Act 2010. Government lawyers responded that the public expenditure contemplated by the deal would be authorized by parliament, and that the criminal law of bribery did not apply to a confidence-and-supply agreement between political parties. On his fundraising page, McClean had written that the Conservative-DUP deal violated Northern Ireland s 1998 Good Friday peace agreement which ended decades of armed sectarian conflict in the province. Under the peace deal, the UK government is required to be impartial between unionists who want the province to remain part of the UK and republicans who aspire to become part of Ireland. The government is threatening hard-won peace with their pact with the reactionary DUP, McClean wrote. However, for technical legal reasons, that line of argument did not form part of the case heard by the High Court. May, who replaced David Cameron as prime minister after the Brexit referendum in June 2016, inherited a narrow parliamentary majority from him. In April 2017, with opinion polls suggesting she had a double-digit lead over the opposition Labour Party, she called a snap election, hoping to increase her majority. But after an uninspiring campaign, they lost their majority. Support from the DUP s 10 members of parliament has enabled May to cling to power as Britain moves closer to the challenge of leaving the European Union. | 0 |
We have a weak leader in our White House who s willing to be pushed around after leaving a vacuum in the Middle East for chaos. Putin has decided he s in it for the long term and wants to have his presence strengthened in the Middle East since the U.S. has been so absent in the area. Remember THE RED LINE? That was a big turning point in our President s effectiveness in the area. Obama has done NOTHING and continues to let Putin bring in his military mite to take over dominance. So it s a win for Russia and Putin s desire to be the dominant big gun in the Middle East. Obama has officially surrendered influence in the Middle East and Assad is staying. Checkmate! FOX NEWS: Russian warplanes have begun bombarding Syrian opposition targets in the war torn nation s north, working on behalf of dictator Bashar al Assad, according to a senior military official.The official said airstrikes targeted fighters in the vicinity of Homs, located roughly 60 miles east of a Russian naval facility in Tartus, and were carried out by a couple of Russian bombers. It was not clear if the strikes targeted ISIS, Al Qaeda or other forces opposed to Assad, who Moscow is aiding. According to a Twitter handle belonging to the Syrian government, the Russian strikes were initiated at the request of Assad.The development came after Pentagon officials brushed aside an official request from Russia to clear air space over northern Syria, where Moscow intends to conduct airstrikes against ISIS on behalf of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, according to sources who spoke to Fox News.The request was made by a Russian three-star general who spoke with U.S. officials at the American embassy in Baghdad, sources said. The general, who was not identified, used the word please when delivering the verbal request, known as a demarche, according to the written transcript of the exchange. | 0 |
ABOARD AIR FORCE ONE (Reuters) - The White House on Friday said it was not given any prior notice on the FBI’s announcement that it was investigating additional emails relating to Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email system. “We did not have advance warning,” White House spokesman Eric Schultz told reporters traveling with President Barack Obama to a campaign event for Clinton in Orlando, Florida. Schultz said news of the Federal Bureau of Investigation probe has not affected Obama’s support for Clinton. “I don’t think anything has surfaced to changed the president’s opinion and views of Secretary Clinton,” he said. | 1 |
Before dawn on Wednesday, the feds raided the home of former Donald Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort. Trump, as intelligence expert Malcolm Nance says, is getting buggy. The investigation is getting closer and closer to him, and his poll numbers are in a free-fall, so from the safety of 17 day golf vacation in New Jersey, Trump is threatening war against not one, not two, but three countries.Most of the media has been covering his exchange of provocative nuclear threats with North Korean Dictator Kim Jong Un. If that s not terrifying enough, Trump also hinted that he s planning to attack Iran because, well, they may or may not be abiding by the nuclear deal. All indications are that they are, but that doesn t stop a commander-in-chief who desperately, so desperately, needs a way to wag the dog.On Friday, Trump announced that there might be a third war on the table. This one against Venezuela. We have many options for Venezuela, including a possible military option, if necessary, Trump told reporters at his New Jersey golf club on Friday.The president did not answer a question about whether American troops would lead a potential operation. We don t talk about it. But a military operation, a military option, is certainly something we could pursue, he responded.Source: CNBCTo be fair, Venezuela isn t exactly our friend. Two years ago, President Obama issued sanctions against the oil-rich country, in part over its human rights abuses.The White House said the order targeted people whose actions undermined democratic processes or institutions, had committed acts of violence or abuse of human rights, were involved in prohibiting or penalizing freedom of expression, or were government officials involved in public corruption. Venezuelan officials past and present who violate the human rights of Venezuelan citizens and engage in acts of public corruption will not be welcome here, and we now have the tools to block their assets and their use of U.S. financial systems, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said in a statement. We are deeply concerned by the Venezuelan government s efforts to escalate intimidation of its political opponents, he added.Source: ReutersTrump, whose only political tactic is to try to intimidate his political opponents, also complained about the human rights abuses, despite having no problems with the human rights abuses of Saudi Arabia, Russia and the Philippines.One fact, and only one fact, might indicate that Trump is just bluster. Trump s cozy relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin might actually be keeping us safer, at least as far as the idea of Trump waging war against Venezuela or North Korea. Venezuela is a strong trading partner of Russia. Putin also backs North Korea, as does our largest trading partner, China.This whole show could be just Trump trying to boost his poll numbers, or it could be his way of pretending to create distance between him and Putin, but regardless, the talk is reckless and potentially deadly. The people he s threatening don t see his talk as political posturing. They are taking it very seriously and even if Trump doesn t pull the trigger first, they certainly could.Featured image via Mark Wilson/Getty Images | 0 |
BRASILIA (Reuters) - Brazil s scandal-plagued political class voted on Wednesday to set up a 1.7 billion reais ($542 million) fund with taxpayer money to finance election campaigns, making up for a dearth of private funding ahead of next year s general election. A ban on corporate donations coupled with the drying up of under-the-table contributions and kickbacks in the wake of the country s biggest corruption scandal have left lawmakers struggling to raise campaign funding. The lower house of Congress approved a bill that had passed the Senate and will take funds from pork barrel appropriations and government payments to buy TV and radio time for parties. The fund was meant to be part of improvements to Brazil s discredited political system to reduce a proliferation of parties that has made it hard to govern Latin America s largest nation without unwieldy coalitions based on self-interest. The Senate unanimously approved on Tuesday a constitutional amendment that limits coalitions to parties with similar platforms, but it will not go into effect until the 2022 elections. More than 100 lawmakers are targeted by the Car Wash corruption investigation that uncovered a network of bribes from private companies seeking to win contracts or influence policies, and even implicated President Michel Temer and several of his cabinet ministers. Critics of the campaign fund said it was aimed at providing funding for lawmakers seeking re-election to shield themselves from prosecution for corruption. It is shameful that this fund will be used by unethical politicians who should not be sitting here in Congress, said Julio Delgado, leader of the Brazilian Socialist Party (PSB). Not a single lawmaker under investigation has opposed it. Backers of the use of public money for campaigns argued that organized crime would step in to finance politicians if funding was lacking. The sprawling Car Wash graft investigation that convicted dozens of executives from Brazil s main contractor companies has shut down the flow of undeclared payments to politicians. What most worries them is where they will get money for their campaigns now that companies cannot donate and are not willing to engage in illegal contributions, said Lucas de Arag o, partner at political risk consultancy Arko Advice. On the positive side, he said, Congress set a threshold for parties to be able to access public funding and free TV time based on the votes they win, which will help reduce the number of parties, today totaling 35. (This version of the story corrects the fifth paragraph to say coalitions reform will not go into effect until the 2022 elections). | 0 |
HARARE (Reuters) - Zimbabwe s President Emmerson Mnangagwa told members of his ruling ZANU-PF party on Friday they would have to start fixing the economy if they wanted a chance of winning next year s vote. Mnangagwa spoke at a party congress that drew a line under the rule of ousted veteran leader Robert Mugabe by formally expelling his wife Grace and her allies from the organization and by endorsing Mnangagwa as party chief and candidate. We will only win at the ballot box if we can show signs that we are reviving our economy and at the same time we will only be able to make economic gains if we can secure re-election, he said. Zimbabwe s economy collapsed in the latter half of Mugabe s rule, especially after violent and chaotic seizures of thousands of white-owned commercial farms. The southern African nation could hold elections as early as March, Mnangagwa said this week, which would be just five months after the de facto military coup which ended Mugabe s 37-year reign. Democracy bids that as a political party, ZANU-PF must always compete for office through pitting itself against opposition parties in elections which must be credible, free, fair and transparent, Mnangagwa, 75, told the congress in downtown Harare. British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said late last month that financial support for the new government to stabilize its currency system and help it clear World Bank and African Development Bank arrears depended on democratic progress . In a sign of the military further consolidating its political power, Mnangagwa made three generals members of the party s Russian-styled executive Politburo, the supreme decision-making organ of ZANU-PF. Major General Engelbert Rugeje was appointed political commissar, a job focused on revamping party structures and preparing for elections. Mnangagwa said he would name two deputies in a few days. Defence Forces Commander General Constantino Chiwenga is a strong contender for one of the vice presidency slots as a reward for spearheading the de facto coup that ended Mugabe s rule. Mnangagwa, whose sacking as vice-president set off the chain of events that led to Mugabe s removal, said the ZANU-PF congress should define a new trajectory - which he did not spell out - and put behind it the victimization of members seen in the past. | 1 |
November 9, 2016 at 1:35 pm
i agree with some of what you say but the shit about hitting russia hard? Ukraine wouldn't get within ten feet of russia, they would be wiped out in a day and so would the usa and nato if the come within 100 miles of russia borders. they need to drag russia out. thats why they wont fuck with crimea, that comes under russian territory and within russia umbrella of border area denial defence network. sure they can keep prodding but in july last year Ukrainian dumb cunts got too close.. a two minute salvo from russian artillery wiped out two battalions of vodka guzzling goat fucking neo nazis.. 2 fucking minutes. | 1 |
The topic of Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs), alongside the extraterrestrial hypothesis being one of multiple explanations for their appearance (which seems to be quite a common phenomenon), is an area of interest for many people that’s continually growing, and for good reasons.
Via CollectiveEvolution
“Intelligent beings from other star systems have been and are visiting our planet Earth. They are variously referred to as Visitors, Others, Star People, Et’s, etc…They are visiting Earth now; this is not a matter of conjecture or wistful thinking. – Theodor C. Loder III, Phd, Professor Emeritus of Earth Sciences, University of New Hampshire
Scroll Down For Videos Below This is in large part due to the fact that we now have hundreds of credible witnesses that have officially testified to the reality of an extraterrestrial presence, and its relation to the already disclosed UFO ‘problem.’
This is why members of government, like John Podesta, Chief of Staff for Bill Clinton, Counsellor to Barack Obama and head of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign before she dropped out, stated that “the time to pull the curtain back on this subject is long overdue. We have statements from the most credible sources, those in a position to know, about a fascinating phenomenon, the nature of which is yet to be determined.” (taken from Leslie Kean’s 2010 New York Times bestseller, UFOs: Generals, Pilots, And Government Officials Go On The Record, in which Podesta wrote the forward)
Although keep in mind, governments have been deceiving us on several different topics throughout history, it’s safe to assume that they would use “UFO disclosure” for their own personal interests in the same way they’ve used ‘false flag’ terrorism. Something to think about, but definitely a topic for another article.
As the F-4 approached a range of 25 nautical miles it lost all instrumentation and communications. When the F-4 turned away from the object and apparently was no longer a threat to it, the aircraft regained all instrumentation and communications. Another brightly lighted object came out of the original object. The second object headed straight toward the F4. ” – One example out of hundreds involving the military intercept of a UFO that was tracked on air radar, ground radar, and visually confirmed by pilots (source)
Why It’s Time To Listen To Contactees, Abductees & Experiencers/ A Psychological Standpoint Just to clarify, ‘contactees’ are usually those who have reported ‘friendly’ contact experiences with extraterrestrials, ‘abductees’ are those who have had what they perceive to be fearful experiences, and experiencers are those who neither view the experience as ‘good’ or ‘bad,” but simply just an experience. It’s important to note this, because various people have reported different types of experiences with different types of beings.
“Yes there have been crashed craft, and bodies recovered … We are not alone in the universe, they have been coming here for a long time.” – Dr. Edgar Mitchell, ScD, 6th man to walk on the Moon(source) (source)
The reality is that some people who claim to have had contact with intelligent extraterrestrial beings actually have.
John Mack, A Harvard professor, psychiatrist and Pulitzer Price recipient stresses that:
“Yes, it’s both. It’s both literally, physically happening to a degree; and it’s also some kind of psychological, spiritual experience occurring and originating perhaps in another dimension. And so the phenomenon stretches us, or it asks us to stretch to open to realities that are not simply the literal physical world, but to extend to the possibility that there are other unseen realities from which our consciousness, our, if you will, learning processes over the past several hundred years have closed us off.” (source)
We published an article earlier this year regarding John Mack, and more than 60 school children witnessing non-human beings and a large craft landing. The children were interviewed by him, and it was quite a remarkable story with all of the children providing very similiar stories. Until this day these children have been speaking of it, an event occurred more than 20 years ago….
“They describe these events like a person talks about something that has happened to them. I can tell that these are people of sound mind telling me something…” (quote continued and taken from the video linked below) -Dr. John Mack, professor of psychiatry, Harvard Medical School
You can watch THIS video of Mack Interview the children, and you can read THIS article that goes more into detail on that case.
According to retired McGill University professor in the Department of Psychology (research areas beings cognition and cognitive Neuroscience), Dr. Don Donderi:
“Some of what people report as UFOs are extraterrestrial (ET) vehicles. Some of those extraterrestrial vehicles actually have ET crews, and some of those ET crews catch and release humans.” (source)
Academicians like these, and others like Richard Dolan, David M. Jacobs and more have been studying this phenomena for decades, and the reports of beings and examining why they are here, what they are doing, what they look like and more has been documented by their (and others) research.
What I find most fascinating about these stories is how many of them seem to compliment each other instead of contradicting each other, which just adds to the mystery.
As far as physical research goes:
“There are a great many photographs of such body marks, many of which are in an equilateral triangle pattern of red dots on the wrist or near the ankle. Also common are scoop marks,” in which it appears as if a small amount of tissue was removed from beneath the skin, leaving an indentation.” -Richard Dolan (taken from his book, UFOs for the 21st century mind)
Below is a clip of Dr. Roger Leir. a doctor of podiatric medicine, and arguably the best known individual with regards to extracting alleged alien implants. He has performed more than fifteen surgeries that removed sixteen separate distinct objects. These objects have been investigated by several prestigious laboratories, including Los Alamos National Laboratories, New Mexico Tech, and many others. Unfortunately, he passed away in March 2014, but his legacy lives on.
Truth is, as former NASA astronaut and Princeton Physics Professor puts it, “there is abundant evidence that we are being contacted, that civilizations have been visiting us for a vary long time.”
**The information below is a very brief summary of a few of the most commonly reported extraterrestrials based on all of the research I’ve done on this subject.
Human Looking Extraterrestrials
Extraterrestrials with features drastically similar to human beings have reported by contactees, abductees and experiencers for a long time. This type of experience is actually quite common. Many people have reported that they’ve been taken into ships, and warned about the direction the human race is heading. They’re also often portrayed as assisting our planet in various ways, both on a physical level and an energetic one.
“Decades ago, visitors from other plants warned us about where we were headed and offered to help. But instead, we, or at least some of us, interpreted their visits as a threat, and decided to shoot first and ask questions after.” – Paul Hellyer, Former Canadian Defense Minister (source)
There have also been reports of human looking extraterrestrials working with humans inside of what’s known as the military industrial complex with regards to making technological advancements. This is why in the highly classified world, the black budget world, it’s probably the independent government contractors that are working in these areas.
Stories of human like extraterrestrials date from the beginning of time all the way up to the present day, and historical literature is littered with accounts of these types of encounters.
My people tell of Star People who came to us many generations ago. The Star people brought spiritual teachings and stories and maps of the cosmos and they offered these freely. They were kind, loving, and set a great example. When they left us, my people say there was a loneliness like no other.” – Richard Wagamese, Ojibway Author (source)
As far as the picture above, I am not sure if it’s real or fake, but that’s not the point. It was used to spark your imagination, it is supposedly one of the extraterrestrials that was discovered dead inside of a ship that was located on the moon – retrieved from one of the Apollo missions.
The picture to your left was released by a professor by the name of Bruno Sammaciccia. A Catholic historian with degrees in psychology and psychiatry, he was the author of more than 100 books and a well-known, distinguished figure in Italian academic circles.
He is thought to have taken this photograph of an alleged 10 foot tall extraterrestrial being in Italy in 1976.
If you read the lore, there are many stories of a mysterious group of extraterrestrials who look like humans and who established underground bases in Italy, meeting with local residents between 1956 and 1978.
Not long before his death, Sammaciccia claimed he had had direct physical contact with extraterrestrials over several decades. Dr. Roberto Pinotti, a leading Italian UFOlogist, has since confirmed his decades-long knowledge of the Sammaciccia cases. When it comes to human extraterrestrial contact in modern history, this case ranks among the most compelling, given the pictures and the number of witnesses involved.
Here is a brief summary of the Sammaciccia contact story as given by UFO researcher Dr. Michael Salla (founder of exopolitics.org):
In 1956 when Bruno Sammaciccia and two friends met with two mysterious individuals who said they were extraterrestrials. One was over 8 foot tall while the other was just over 3 foot. Sammaciccia and his friends, initially skeptical, were eventually taken into a large underground base where they saw more of the alleged extraterrestrials. They also saw their children being educated, some of the advanced technologies they used, and their space ships. Finally convinced that they were really having physical contact with extraterrestrials, Sammaciccia and his friends began to help the extraterrestrials. They began with material support by arranging for truckloads of fruit, food and other material to be transported and unloaded at an extraterrestrial base. Eventually, two truckloads of supplies were being delivered every month to bases in different regions of Italy where Sammaciccia and his assistants lived.
Sammaciccia finally described a violent conflict between two factions of extraterrestrials trying to influence humanity’s development and future. While his ‘Friendship’ faction promoted cosmic unity and ethical development, the other faction promoted technological development at all cost. This led to periodic violent clashes between the factions. Eventually, the underground bases of Sammaciccia’s extraterrestrial friends was destroyed in 1978. Survivors had to leave the Earth but promised to return at a future time when humanity was ready for a more ethical future of humanity interacting with extraterrestrials.
Sammaciccia’s astounding story sounds like an episode from Star Trek, but it is well supported by documentary evidence, some of Italy’s finest UFO researchers, and first hand witnesses of the events described. Some of the witnesses were leading statesmen, scholars and high society figures from Italy and Europe.
Below is a lecture given by one of the world’s foremost researchers of this topic, Timothy Good. He goes into detail about this supposed encounter, as well as many others.
To the left you will see a picture that was given to the world by Phil Schneider.
Phil was a very controversial figure, as was his death. He was born in 1947 and was the son of Oscar and Sally Schneider. Oscar was a Captain in the United States Navy who apparently worked in nuclear medicine and helped design the first nuclear submarines. He was also supposedly part of the famous ‘Philadelphia Experiment,’ as well as Operation Crossroads, a program to test nuclear weapons.
Oscar Schneider is the gentleman to the right of the man with the red circle around his head. Phil (man in the video below, apparently Oscars son, and Oscar appear to resemble each other quite strongly. The man with the circle around his head is the supposed extraterrestrial. The others are apparently some of the world’s top physicists from the time.
Philip claimed to be an ex-government structural engineer who was involved in building underground military bases (DUMB) around the country. We’ve actually published a couple of detailed articles about DUMBs, whose existence is not mere speculation.
Other common looks are tall, muscular with long hair, blue eyes and blond hair. The same type of figure has also been reported with black and white beings. Some reports have detailed beings with blue skin, larger eyes, as well as shorter beings, with a little more ’round’ of a head. There seems to be a large variation and a possibility of several different looking human-like extraterrestrial beings. This raises some very interesting questions regarding the origin of our species, if the humanoid form is common throughout the universe, what does that mean?
Contanctee’s commonly refer to these beings being from various star systems like Arcturus, Sirius, Andromeda and the Pleiades, just to name a few. Cat/bird like humanoid (like above) beings are also fairly common among supposed encounters.
It’s also noteworthy to mention that all types of beings seem to communicate using telepathy. The following is a selected list of downloadable peer-reviewed journal articles on psi (psychic) phenomena, most published in the 21 st century, you can click HERE Related CE Article: U.S. Defence Physicist Spills The Beans On What’s Really Happening On The Moon
The Grey Alien The grey alien is another very common type of extraterrestrial that’s been reported by several abductees, contactees and experiencers. Reports range from small, three to four feet tall beings all the way up to seven to nine foot tall beings and everything in between.
One of the most common types of experiences among several abductees is one in which they have their sperm or eggs extracted. Many have gone through what seems to be a pretty scary experience, despite the fact that multiple times people have reported the beings communicating to them and trying to calm them down, and tell the person that they weren’t going to cause any harm to them. At other times, forceful abduction goes without any communication. Many abductee’s report being impregnated, and then abducted years after to see their hybrid child. This seems to be a very common experience, and suggests that this race (Greys) are creating a human/grey hybrid race, or have been tinkering with the DNA of human beings for quite some time. Many researchers have suggested that these hybrids are already here, and that many babies being born today could have been ‘tinkered’ with. There have also been sightings of Grey like beings taking vegetation from our planet (perhaps’s to study, alien scientists?).
There have also been reports of woman being impregnated by a supposed extraterrestrial or extraterrestrial/human hybrid. Shortly after the experience the women are taken by ‘government’ agencies and the baby is removed and taken away to be studied by them. It’s not uncommon for these people who have had these experiences to get visits by these unknown people who seem to want to know more about the UFO/extraterrestrial phenomenon.
There are some reports of races like these working with certain governments (or ‘shadow governments’) in a technological exchange program. I have come across stories in my research where some groups of beings warn the human race not work with other groups of beings. These stories are endless, and quite fascinating, but I’ll save that for another article.
Reptilians
The ‘Reptilian’ type being is one that’s been reported and depicted in various human cultures that date back thousands of years all the way up to the present day. These beings have been reported as ‘friendly,’not so friendly and in between. That’s a common theme throughout most supposed extraterrestrial species. The fact that two different beings of the same race can be reported as benevolent and the other as malevolent.
Many people seem to believe that reptilian type beings are one (out of many) working behind the scenes with those who control the government to ‘en-slave’ the human race. Some even believe that that the global elite are in large part reptilian in origin.
To be honest, it’s not that far fetched. After researching this topic in depth for almost a decade, there is no doubt in my mind that not only have governments and ‘shadow governments’ become aware of the extraterrestrial presence, but they’ve interacted with several different groups of extraterrestrials.
It’s Ok To Ask These Questions Just to re-emphasize that things like this need to be discussed more, because they are and have been discussed at the highest levels of government, in secret, for almost one hundred years. For example, this particular FBI document was addressed to “certain scientists of distinction,” to “aeronautical and military authorities,” and to “a number of public officials.”
The document is a letter that was sent to the director of FBI in Washington from the San Fransisco office, on a matter pertaining to UFOs & extraterrestrials:
“Lt. Colonel (name redacted) of G2 [G2 means army intelligence], San Francisco advised today he has no further information, and that our Seattle office is in possession of all information known by him and is handling the matter at Tacoma, Washington.”
The document goes on to provide a copy of a letter written by someone with “several university degrees” and a former “university department head.”
The memorandum also states that “the mere fact that the data herein were obtained by so-called ‘supernormal’ means is probably sufficient to insure its disregard by nearly all persons addressed.”
Key words above – the fact that they would like to “insure its disregard” by “nearly” everyone addressed.Does this mean that ‘some’ of the people addressed should not disregard it?
The letter goes on to outline and state that: (pages 21 & 22)
Part of the disks carry crews, others are under remote control. Their mission is peaceful, the visitors contemplate settling on this planet. These visitors are human-like but much larger in size. They are not excarnate Earth people, but come from their own world The disks posses some type of radiant energy. They do not come from any “planet” as we use the word, but from an etheric planet which interpenetrates with our own and is not perceptible to us. The bodies of the visitors, and the craft also, automatically materialize on entering the vibratory rate of our dense matter. They re-enter the etheric at will, and so simply disappear from our vision, without trace. The region they come from is NOT the astral plane, but corresponds to the Lakas or Talas. Students of esoteric matters will understand these terms Please keep in mind that there are probably many different types of extraterrestrials out there, and many different kinds that have interacted with humanity in some way. The above document is probably referring to one specific race? I don’t know.
This is one out of thousands of examples of documents, and it’s not even one that I would pick as most startling. We should definitely be thinking about why these documents were concealed from the public for decades, and think about what other information still lay dormant inside of the military industrial complex when it comes to extraterrestrial beings. You can see examples of documents that go into detail on what happens when the military tracks a UFO on radar HERE.
For our latest articles on the UFO/Extraterrestrial topic, you can check out the exopolitics section of our website by clicking HERE.
There is a serious possibility that we are being visited and have been visited for many years by people from outer space, from other civilizations . . . [and] it behooves us, in case some of these people in the future or now should turn hostile, to find out who they are, where they come from, and what they want. This should be the subject of rigorous scientific investigation and not the subject of ‘rubishing’ by tabloid newspapers.
– Lord Admiral Hill-Norton, Former Chief of Defence Staff, 5 Star Admiral of the Royal Navy, Chairman of the NATO Military Committee (source)
You may be thinking that this is absolutely ridiculous. I know many people read the titles of articles like this one and turn their heads and scoff, immediately shutting down the possibility that these could be actual photos of extraterrestrial beings. Why do we hold onto our views so staunchly, at the expense of logic and reason? What prevents us from considering new ideas and new ways of viewing the world? So much new information is emerging every day which challenges the current accepted framework of knowledge, and it can be difficult for our opinions to evolve as quickly as the science. Nonetheless, this is an extremely important topic, especially with the recent disclosures of Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs) by various governments and defence intelligence agencies, and we must work past our reluctance to accept new ideas. These objects are constantly photographed and tracked on radar, as well as visually confirmed by the pilots who are sent out to see them, and we would be foolish to discount this kind of evidence.
A photo taken by two Royal Canadian Air Force pilots on August 27th, 1957, in McCleod, Alberta, Canada is another example of such evidence. The pilots were flying in a formation of four F86 Sabre jet aircraft. One of the pilots described the phenomenon as a “bright light which was sharply defined as disk-shaped” and which looked like “a shiny silver dollar sitting horizontal.” Another pilot managed to photograph the object, as you can see above.
There are a number of studies published in reputable peer-reviewed journals analyzing these cases. This specific sighting lasted for a couple of minutes, and the case was analyzed by Dr. Bruce Maccabee, who estimated (from available data) the luminosity of the object (the power output within the spectral range of the film) to be many megawatts. The Sturrock Panel also found that a strong magnetic field surrounding the phenomenon or object was a common occurrence:
If it does indeed turn out that there is relevant physical evidence, if this evidence is carefully collected and analyzed, and if this analysis leads to the identification of several facts concerning the UFO phenomenon, then will be the time for scientists to step back and ask, what are these facts trying to tell us? If those facts are strong enough to lead to a firm conclusion, then will be the time to confront the more bizarre questions. If, for instance, it turns out that all physical evidence is consistent with a mundane interpretation of the causes of UFO reports, there will be little reason to continue to speculate about the role of extraterrestrial beings. If, on the other hand, the analysis of physical evidence turns up very strong evidence that objects related with UFO reports were manufactured outside the solar system, then one must obviously consider very seriously that the phenomenon involves not only extraterrestrial vehicles but probably also extraterrestrial beings. -Peter Sturrock, An emeritus professor of applied physics at Stanford University
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Government forces appeared close to capturing the capital of Iraq’s largest province from the Islamic State on Monday, dealing a potentially significant blow to the militant group as it loses territory in both Iraq and Syria.
Soldiers and counterterrorism troops stormed into a sprawling government facility in Ramadi, driving the militants out of the area and effectively ending their seven-month occupation of the city, Iraqi officials said.
Television images showed the troops celebrating after their advance, which was aided by airstrikes from the U.S.-led coalition, by raising the Iraqi flag over the compound and slaughtering sheep inside it.
The compound was more symbolic than strategic, but its change of hands appeared to be the decisive blow to the militant group’s hold on the city. Now, government forces appear poised to press their offensive: Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, in a statement congratulating his forces for “defeating” the Islamic State in Ramadi, vowed to take the fight to the group in the country’s second-largest city.
“We are coming to liberate Mosul,” Abadi said.
The Islamic State shocked Iraqis in May when it captured Ramadi, capital of Anbar province. Losing the city would represent one of the most dramatic setbacks suffered by the group since its lightning assault across Iraq in June 2014.
“Daesh are running away now, and all the city is under our control,” said Maj. Gen. Hadi Rzaig, head of the Anbar police force. Daesh is the Arabic acronym for the Islamic State, which is also known as ISIS and ISIL.
Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter congratulated the Iraqi government on its progress in Ramadi but cautioned that the fight against the Islamic State “is far from over.”
The operation to retake Ramadi has produced intense fighting and caused vast destruction in the city, which had a population of more than a million before the Islamic State takeover. It is unclear how many Iraqi troops and civilians have been killed in the battles, which involved fending off the militant group’s waves of suicide bombers.
The governor of Anbar province, Sohaib al-Rawi, estimated that 1,000 Islamic State militants had been killed during months of grinding assaults to retake Ramadi. He called the capture of the government compound “a victory.”
Rebuilding Ramadi, if it can be fully secured by the government, will be no easy task.
Suspicion of Iraq’s Shiite-
dominated government runs high in the Sunni city, whose residents felt abandoned by officials in Baghdad as Islamic State militants mounted their assault in May. Lacking support from the government, Ramadi residents formed community defenses and even purchased their own weapons to defend the city. Islamic State militants killed scores of residents and exacted other forms of retribution on people who were associated with the government, including home demolitions.
But among the Iraqi forces in Ramadi on Monday, the mood was celebratory. Speaking to Iraqi television, Gen. Talib Shigati, a senior commander, thanked his troops and expressed confidence in their abilities.
[Iraqi armed forces see chance for redemption as they close in on Ramadi]
The capture of Ramadi would mark the first time that Iraqi armed forces have seized a city from the Islamic State without the aid of the country’s powerful Shiite militias, which did not participate in the operation because of concerns about sectarian tensions with the city’s mostly Sunni inhabitants.
Lt. Gen Abdulghani al-Assadi, a commander of a counterterrorism unit in the city, said that seizing control of the sprawling compound — which contains provincial and municipal government offices — gave his forces the decisive upper hand. It prompted most of the militants in Ramadi to flee, although he warned that some neighborhoods had “pockets” of apparent Islamic State militants that still had to be confronted.
“We are clearing out the city of booby traps and bombs, but the remaining Daesh fighters are in retreat,” Assadi said, describing the operation as “a historic moment for the Iraqi people and for the Iraqi armed forces.”
The push into Ramadi, about 80 miles west of the capital, Baghdad, underscores the flagging battlefield momentum of the Islamic State. The group has been losing control of territory in Iraq and Syria recently to U.S.-backed Kurdish and Arab opponents.
Army Gen. Lloyd J. Austin III, the chief of U.S. Central Command, congratulated Iraqi forces on securing the government complex in Ramadi, calling it “an important operational achievement.” He stopped short of calling it a strategic success, however, perhaps a nod to the tenuous security situation that remains in the city.
Col. Steve Warren, a U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad, said in a different statement that the U.S.-led coalition carried out more than 630 airstrikes to help Iraqi forces advance on Ramadi. Those forces also received help in clearing improvised explosive devices and other bombs that the Islamic State deployed against coalition-aligned forces, he said.
Retired Marine Gen. John R. Allen, who served as President Obama’s special envoy to the international coalition against the militants until October, said the success in Ramadi is best viewed not in isolation but as a part of broader regional efforts that have led to Iraqi forces taking back Tikrit, Baiji and other areas from the militants in the past few months. But he added that the victory in recovering Ramadi could be seen as both highly symbolic and physical in Iraq, considering how badly the Islamic State wanted to keep control of it.
Allen predicted that an operation to take back Mosul could begin in months but said it is dependent on what Abadi, the prime minister, wants to do. Obama has committed Apache helicopters and more Special Operations troops to the war, but their use must be balanced against concerns the Iraqis have about not overly “Americanizing” the war, Allen said.
“While Ramadi took a long time to pull off,” Allen said, “I think the Iraqis will come out of this with a greater sense of their capabilities and improved morale. The Iraqis will have to take stock of the state of their security forces as they emerge from Ramadi in terms of their casualties and what their replacement requirements will be, as well as their equipment and materiel losses.”
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said Monday that liberating Ramadi’s city center was a “major milestone” in the fight against the Islamic State, a significant achievement for Iraqi forces and a tribute to the effort of coalition forces who have assisted them. But he cautioned that much work remains to be done.
“The black flags of ISIL still fly over Mosul, Raqqa and other key parts of Iraq and Syria,” McCain said in a statement. “This threat is also metastasizing across the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia. And it now poses a more direct threat than ever to our homeland and that of our allies, as we have seen in recent terrorist attacks in San Bernardino, Paris, Beirut, Ankara and the downing of the Russian airliner over Sinai.”
McCain added that U.S. commanders estimate that Mosul will not be retaken by the end of next year, and it is unlikely that a local force will emerge in the foreseeable future to seize the Syrian city of Raqqa, the de facto Islamic State capital. He has frequently called in the past for more U.S. involvement, and did so again Monday.
“If our goal truly is to destroy ISIL in the near future, rather than kick the can down the road for others to deal with, the United States must play a far more active role than we are now, especially in supporting local Sunni Arab forces to take the fight to ISIL themselves,” McCain said.
Naylor reported from Istanbul. Brian Murphy and Dan Lamothe in Washington contributed to this report.
Inside the media machine of the Islamic State
Today’s coverage from Post correspondents around the world | 0 |
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi told a Lebanese Muslim immigrant Trump’s executive order permanently banning Syrian refugee resettlement “has not made us more safe,” calling it “reckless. ”[“You opposed President Trump’s plan to stop refugees from coming to the U. S.,” said Nedal Tamer to Pelosi during Tuesday’s town hall hosted on CNN. “Countries like Syria. I am Lebanese American Muslim. There are countries that harbor radical Islamic groups, and [teach] teenagers to hate anyone who is not Muslim. ” That’s all it takes for some to “come as a refugee and create a problem here,” Tamer continued. “How can you guarantee the safety for all Americans … If we let these refugees to come [in]?” Every refugee or “newcomer” who arrives in the U. S. with “hopes, dreams, aspirations” makes “America more American,” Pelosi said. “The reason I oppose this specific thing that President Trump did was the following: Refugees have the most stringent vetting of all newcomers to our country. The most stringent vetting,” she said. “And so, when he cuts off Syria, largely those are refugees coming, the most stringent vetting. We take an oath to support the American people and the Constitution of the United States. It’s our responsibility. So we’re not casual about our reasons to, our need to protect the American people. ” “But we have to be strong, and we have to be smart. We don’t have to be reckless and rash,” she said. “And we don’t have to discriminate against people because of their religion. And so, that’s why I oppose what he’s done with the seven countries. He has no case, in my view, with the refugees. ” While thanking Tamer for his question, Pelosi also revealed she believed that billions of foreigners around the world have a “right” to emigrate to America, a common leftist talking point. She said she had visited Lebanon and hoped “the way things go, I hope people can enjoy staying home and enjoying their lives there, as well as exercising the right to come to America. ” Trump’s executive order “has not made us more safe,” Pelosi told Tamer. Tamer has been profiled by the media before: He’s a Lebanese Muslim immigrant living with his wife and children in heavily Muslim Dearborn, Michigan, where he works in real estate. Last April, The New York Post quoted his praise of Trump and his proposals to control immigration: “I like the fact that he’s a little nuts. He’s got the good heart, he cares about America. ” In another interview last May, Tamer strongly opposed further Islamic immigration into the U. S.: “We don’t want these groups to come in here, or anyone with these refugee groups to come in here, and create any problem here,” he said to Al Arabiya English. “We’re going to pay the price, and that’s why the Muslim community and the Arab community have got to understand, every time we step forwards, we take 10 steps back because of these problems. ” “If you love this country, then you support this man. I will say this to any Arabic Muslim: if you love this country then you support this man,” Tamer added. | 0 |
Andrew Puzder, Trump s nominee for Secretary of Labor, hasn t had his confirmation hearing yet, but he ll probably end up getting confirmed despite opposition from pro-worker Democrats and labor groups. That s unfortunate, because he was once a part of a group with a ridiculous name: The Job Creators Network. This group is anything but pro-job creation, as they push all sorts of right-wing, anti-worker propaganda that s been shown to harm the economy and jobs.According to a report in The Nation, JCN pushes employers to pepper their employees with anti-government, pro-big business ideology, and while they don t specifically have their employers hold guns to their workers heads to force them to pay attention to this stuff, they encourage employers to send out government policy emails, stuff paycheck envelopes with flyers, run their videos during team-building meetings and other company exercises, and post notices and infographics around the workplace, where they can easily see it and read it.In other words, this group that Puzder belonged to until just recently works to ensure employees don t have much of a choice but to pay attention to at least some of their stuff.And their stuff is insidious. For instance, their website, informationstation.org, has a film that ominously depicts cartoon workers disappearing into thin air and getting replaced with robots. It talks about how minimum wage hikes in California and New York could kill 700,000 jobs and 500,000 jobs, respectively. It also says that 16.8 million jobs could disappear if we raise the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour.What it doesn t say is that the 16.8 million number is the uppermost number in a range derived by the right-wing American Action Forum, and that the low end is 3.3 million.It certainly doesn t mention anything whatsoever about higher minimum wages having a positive effect on jobs, like what the CEO of Wetzel s Pretzels noticed in California after their minimum wage went up.Watch the spin below:JCN also paints minimum wage earners as less-than deserving of a living wage. An infographic neatly informs workers that over half of minimum wage earners are ages 16-24, that 64 percent of them are part-time workers, that 65.2 percent have never been married, and 27.9 percent have not graduated high school. These statistics are true, but they re using them in very deceptive ways to push an anti-minimum wage message.And that message is quite clear: Minimum wage earners don t deserve a living wage, and since all raising it will do is destroy your job, you should vote for people who don t want to raise the minimum wage.They paint the new overtime rule as a job killer, too. And on and on it goes all of this is stuff that employees at many companies are forced to watch or read. According to The Nation s report, this propaganda effort has actually effected dramatic changes in the way workers see these issues, which, in turn, affects how they vote.This bullshit is why we have such terrible income inequality. JCN is selling the very myths that have created such a problem with income inequality and stagnant wages, and harms the workers they claim they want to protect. If any of this was going to actually work, it would have worked by now. It s had over 30 years to work.And Puzder belonged to this group until at least December, although JCN claims he never belonged. We re about to have a Secretary of Labor who isn t just in favor of these policies, but appears to have supported forcing workers to view propaganda, and outright lies, for the purpose of brainwashing them so the so-called job creators can continue to fatten their wallets, and for the purpose of getting them to vote Republican.Featured image by Jason Kempin via Getty Images for Dream Foundation | 0 |
BEIJING/TAIPEI (Reuters) - China warned self-ruled Taiwan on Wednesday that it would reap the consequences of promoting formal independence, a red line for Beijing which claims the island as its own. Taiwan s government hit back, saying it was a reality that the Republic of China, the island s formal name, was a sovereign country and that no matter what China said it could not change this fact. Taiwan is one of China s most sensitive issues. Beijing has never renounced the use of force to bring what it considers a wayward province under its rule. Defeated Nationalist forces fled to Taiwan in 1949 at the end of the Chinese civil war. Taiwan was a Japanese colony from 1895 until 1945. Speaking in parliament on Tuesday, newly appointed Taiwan Premier William Lai said he was a political worker who advocates Taiwan independence , but that it already was an independent country called the Republic of China and so had no need to declare independence. Ma Xiaoguang, spokesman for China s Taiwan Affairs Office, said in reaction that relations across the Taiwan Strait that separates them are not country to country relations, and there is no one China and one Taiwan . Taiwan is an inseparable part of Chinese territory, has never been a country and can never become a country, Ma said. The mainland side resolutely opposes any form of Taiwan independence words or action, and will never allow the historical tragedy of national separation to repeat itself. The consequences will be reaped for engaging in Taiwan independence separatism, he added, without elaborating. Taiwan s Mainland Affairs Council said it did not matter what Beijing said, it was an objective reality that the Republic of China was a sovereign state. Taiwan s future and the development of relations across the Strait will be jointly decided by Taiwan s 23 million people, it said. Taiwanese officials have said previously that there is no need to declare independence, as the Republic of China is already an independent country, though its territory only covers Taiwan, a few offshore islands close to China and some in the South China Sea. Relations between Taipei and Beijing have nosedived since Tsai Ing-wen of the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party won election last year. China suspects her of wanting independence, but she says she wants to maintain peace with China. Beijing has suspended a regular dialogue mechanism with Taipei established under the previous, China-friendly government in Taiwan, and there has been a dramatic reduction in the number of Chinese tourists visiting Taiwan. | 1 |
NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India has been investigating how Bloomberg Philanthropies, founded by billionaire Michael Bloomberg, funds local non-profit groups for anti-tobacco lobbying, government documents show, making it the latest foreign non-government organization to come under scrutiny. Prime Minister Narendra Modi s government has since 2014 tightened surveillance of non-profit groups, saying they were acting against India s national interests. Thousands of foreign-funded charities licenses have been canceled for misreporting donations. Critics, however, say the government has used the foreign funding law as a tool to silence non-profit groups which have raised concerns about the social costs of India s rapid economic development. The intelligence wing of India s home ministry last year drafted a note on Bloomberg Philanthropies, raising concerns that the foundation was running a campaign to target Indian tobacco businesses and aggressively lobby against the sector. Though the three-page note, reviewed by Reuters, said the Bloomberg initiative s claimed intention to free India of tobacco cannot be faulted given the known risks from tobacco, it highlighted the sector s importance, noting it brings in nearly $5 billion in annual revenue for governments, and provides a livelihood for millions of people. Foreign interests making foreign contributions ... for purposes of lobbying against an established economic activity raises multiple concerns, the note said, including, it said, an adverse economic impact on 35 million people. The June 3, 2016 note, marked SECRET and circulated to top government officials, including in Modi s office, has not previously been reported. The probe continued until at least April this year, another government document showed. Rebecca Carriero, a spokeswoman for Michael Bloomberg and New York-based Bloomberg Philanthropies, declined to comment as they were unaware of any investigation. A home ministry spokesman said queries which relate to security agencies cannot be answered. Modi s office did not respond to an email seeking comment. The ministry s note was one of the factors behind the rejection of a foreign funding license renewal of at least one Bloomberg-funded India charity last October, said a senior government official aware of the investigation. Michael Bloomberg, one of the world s richest people and a former New York City Mayor, has committed nearly $1 billion to support global tobacco control efforts. One of his focus countries is India, where tobacco kills 900,000 people a year. Other than funding Indian NGOs, Bloomberg s charity has in the past worked on improving road safety and supported federal tobacco-control efforts. In 2015, Modi called Michael Bloomberg a friend , and the two agreed on working together on India s ambitious plan to build so-called smart cities. The home ministry note said the Bloomberg charity successfully lobbied for the introduction of bigger health warnings on cigarette packs, contrary to the recommendations of a parliamentary panel. While the panel called for the size of warnings to be more than doubled to 50 percent of a pack s surface area, the health ministry sought a higher figure of 85 percent. Despite protests from India s $10 billion cigarette industry, the Supreme Court last year ordered manufacturers to follow the more stringent health ministry rules. That, the note said, was the first of the three-phase Bloomberg campaign targeting India s tobacco industry. It did not explain how exactly the Bloomberg charity lobbied. While the note mirrored some of India s tobacco lobby s positions - such as how anti-smoking policies could adversely impact farmers - the government official said the investigation was not done at the behest of the industry. Anti-tobacco lobby wants to kill revenue generating activities, the official said. A health ministry official, however, said: We don t see tobacco as an economic activity. He added that the health ministry was unaware of the home ministry s note on Bloomberg Philanthropies. India has stepped up scrutiny of NGOs registered under the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA). In 2015, the home ministry put the Ford Foundation on a watch list and suspended Greenpeace India s FCRA license, drawing criticism from the United States. Earlier this year, the government banned foreign funding for the Public Health Foundation of India, a group backed by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, saying it used foreign donations to lobby for tobacco-control policy issues, which is prohibited under FCRA. In the Bloomberg case, the home ministry note included a chart showing how funds flowed from Bloomberg Philanthropies to its partner, the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, which was then funding five local FCRA-registered NGOs. These NGOs, the note said, were being used by the Bloomberg charity for anti-tobacco lobbying activities. The FCRA license of at least one of them - the Institute of Public Health (IPH) Bengaluru - was not renewed in October, in part due to the home ministry s note, the government official said. The IPH said it was told by the home ministry that its license was not being renewed on the basis of a field agency report , but no details were given. It was unaware of the investigation on Bloomberg Philanthropies. In April, the home ministry wrote to the federal health ministry, citing an inquiry into foreign funding for lobbying to change laws in India. The letter, seen by Reuters, mentioned the Bloomberg initiative and directed the health ministry to report on anti-tobacco lobbying by foreign donors in other countries where tobacco is widely used. The health ministry has not yet sent that report, another government official said. The health ministry did not respond to questions. For a graphic on Bloomberg's efforts to reduce tobacco use globally click tmsnrt.rs/2iD1QcX | 0 |
(Reuters) - Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton will undergo surgery early next month for prostate cancer, he said in a statement Tuesday. Staff for Dayton, 70, said last week he was weighing treatment options after saying he had cancer in late January. A day before he announced the diagnosis, Dayton collapsed while delivering his state-of-the-state address in St. Paul, but later said he did not think the fainting episode was related to his illness. Dayton will have surgery to remove his prostate on March 2, he said in the statement. The operation will be done at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. Dayton said he will need to spend one night in the hospital. The cancer has not spread beyond his prostate, Dayton said. Dayton, a Democrat, served six years as a U.S. senator from Minnesota before he was elected to his first term as governor in 2010. His current term runs until early 2018. | 0 |
Find out how many are going to sign up to go to war when we keep doing this to those who protect us. Montel WilliamsMontel Williams got emotions during his appearance on Greta Van Susteren s On The Record, when discussing U.S. Marine veteran, Amir Hekmati who has been held in an Iranian prison for more than three years.Amir Hekmati, 31, has been jailed in the most dangerous Iranian prison for more than 1,300 days. The Iranian-American was born in Arizona but held dual citizenship when he flew to Iran to visit his dying grandmother.Hekmati was arrested and charged with spying for the United States government. He was sentenced to death, but that sentence was reversed. Hekmati was then convicted of a lesser charge and sentenced to 10 years in prison.Williams told Greta Van Susteren that the jailed Marine has been whipped and even made addicted to drugs just so that he could be tortured with withdrawal.Hekmati recently renounced his Iranian citizenship in an effort to be freed. It has become very clear to me that those responsible view Iranian-Americans not as citizens or even human beings, but as bargaining chips and tools for propaganda, Hekmati said. Considering how little value the Ministry of Intelligence places on my Iranian citizenship and passport, I, too, place little value on them and inform you, effective immediately, that I formally renounce my Iranian citizenship and passport. Williams said that it s an abomination that Americans don t know that a U.S. Marine who served in Iraq is now imprisoned in Iran. The State Department has not been speaking to Hekmati s family, Williams said.Williams had a request tonight for Fox News viewers. Please, hashtag #FreeAmirNow, start blasting this tonight so that by tomorrow morning when these [Iran nuclear weapon] discussions get ready to come to an end, we don t leave another Marine behind, Williams said.Via: FOX News | 1 |
CAIRO (Reuters) - Palestinian rivals Hamas and Fatah on Thursday agreed to complete the handover of administrative control of Gaza to a unity government by Dec. 1, a statement from Egypt s state information service said. | 1 |
LONDON (Reuters) - Prime Minister Theresa May s blueprint for Britain s exit from the European Union faces a crucial test starting on Tuesday, when lawmakers try to win concessions from a weakened leader on the government s legislation to sever ties. It is yet another battle for May after scandals and gaffes that have brought questions about her leadership into the open. As many as 40 of her lawmakers would support a no-confidence motion against her, according to the Sunday Times newspaper. But many sources in her governing Conservative Party say now is not the time to force her out because despite backing Britain remaining in the EU, even if reluctantly, they think she is still the best option to deliver Brexit. That makes the debates over EU withdrawal bill all the more important as a test of her ability to steer through legislation she says is crucial to give companies confidence that the rules will not change when Britain leaves in March 2019. With the power balanced in favor of lawmakers rather than the government after the Conservatives lost their majority in a June election, many - even within the party - will use the debate over coming weeks to put the pressure on. We have no intention of parliament being a bystander, we are a key participant in this process, said Hilary Benn, a lawmaker from the opposition Labour Party who is chair of the Brexit parliamentary committee. In the end we are going to have to vote on the final deal, and the outcome of the election and the balance of votes in the House of Commons now really does bring that home, he told the Institute for Government thinktank earlier this month. The public debate in parliament on Tuesday is the first of eight to discuss the bill before it goes on to other legislative stages. The schedule will be determined by the House of Commons over the course of the debates. Lawmakers have proposed 186 pages of amendments to the bill, which largely copy and paste EU rules and regulations into British law but also, critics say, hand the government wide-ranging powers and cut parliament out of some Brexit planning. The bill is separate from negotiations going on in Brussels, but the EU will want to see how many and which amendments are passed and will regard the showdown as a test of May s strength at home. May is under pressure to make progress with the EU at a summit in December after growing European frustration over Britain s refusal to say how much it thinks it should pay to leave. The amendments include one to stop the government from adopting the so-called Henry VIII powers, named after the 16th century monarch who ruled by proclamation, which allow the government to amend laws being transposed from EU law. Other amendments address criticism that parliament will not get a meaningful vote on the deal eventually agreed with the EU, and press the government to enshrine in law the EU protections Britons now enjoy such as workers rights and environmental protections. May s government has taken some of the fire out of the proposed challenges by signaling it is willing to bend on the Henry VIII powers, and on Monday, her Brexit minister David Davis said parliament would be offered a new vote on the final Brexit deal. The first debate will cover the part of the bill that repeals the 1972 European Communities Act on the retention, conversion and interpretation of existing EU laws, and EU rights. Getting parliamentary scrutiny is a winner. The government will change position because it doesn t want a defeat, said one Conservative lawmaker, speaking on condition of anonymity. But other issues, such as the push for a vote in parliament on the EU deal which could force the government back to the negotiating table, or even possibly overturn Brexit, present huge challenges. The debate comes at a new low point for May since she was made prime minister after Britain voted for Brexit last June. She has lost two ministers in a week, and her foreign minister, Boris Johnson, is under pressure from the opposition to resign over comments about a jailed aid worker in Iran, a case further complicated at the weekend by Gove, his ally. On Monday, Keir Starmer, the Brexit spokesman for the Labour Party, launched a new bid to derail the withdrawal legislation, saying May s policy to end the jurisdiction of the EU court - the European Court of Justice - was incompatible with her own policy for a smooth transition after Brexit. Over recent weeks, it has become increasingly clear that you alone do not have the authority to deliver a transitional deal with Europe and to take the necessary steps to protect jobs and the economy, he wrote in an open letter to May. | 0 |
BERLIN (Reuters) - Two aging Holocaust survivors joined forces with a younger Israeli singer to perform songs of hope at Berlin s Brandenburg Gate on Wednesday at a time when Germany is seeing a rise in anti-Semitism. Saul Dreier, a drummer aged 92, and Reuwen Ruby Sosnowicz, an 89-year-old accordionist, backed up Gad Elbaz at a site once used by Adolf Hitler for anti-Semitic speeches. I don t want to cry. If I can be 92 and be here after what I went through - there are no words, Dreier told Reuters at the end of a long and emotional day This is a miracle. I lost 30 people in my family, he told a crowd of around 80 people before the performance. Dreier said recent news of neo-Nazi marches in the United States and Germany made him sick and brought back memories of the horrors of the Nazi regime that killed 6 million Jews. It s very frightening. Young people have to make sure it never happens again. The men, who both live in Florida, formed their Holocaust Survivors Band in 2014 and went on to play in front of packed audiences from Warsaw and Las Vegas to Washington, D.C. Elbaz said the event in Berlin was meant to make sure younger people remained vigilant about the dangers of anti-Semitism. This is about reviving history and showing our generation how important it is not to forget where we came from, what we ve been through, and that it should never happen again, he said. Organizers plan to release a music video filmed during the performance of one of the songs, Let the Light Shine On . Shani Ramer, 48, who was born in Israel but grew up and lives in Berlin, said the concert reminded her of family members who perished. It touched my heart, she said. She welcomed the concert s message of hope. It s saying we are still here. No one will kill us now. Abida Ali, a Muslim tourist visiting Germany from Pakistan, joined other bystanders dancing to the upbeat music. Ali said she had experienced no discrimination during her visit despite her head scarf. It s only a small percentage of the people who are violent, she said. There is hope. Everyone really wants peace. A study by Bielefeld University carried out last year showed that 78 percent of Jews living in Germany believe anti-Semitism has increased to some extent, or to a large extent, in the previous five years. | 1 |
ZURICH (Reuters) - The Swiss government proposed on Friday allowing house arrest for people seen as posing a security threat even if they are not suspected of a specific crime. The step is part of an anti-terrorism package the country is drawing up to plug what it sees as gaps in its legal system when it comes to people it calls potential threats . At the moment police and justice officials have their hands tied in acting effectively against such people as long as no criminal investigation is under way, Justice Minister Simonetta Sommargua told a news conference. She cited the example of three Iraqis convicted in 2016 of supporting banned jihadist group Islamic State who are now free after being released from prison even though authorities still view them as a security threat. Under the proposals, which are open for comment before they go to parliament, the state could require such people to report regularly to authorities as some soccer hooligans now do, and restrict their movements and contacts. House arrest would be the last resort and require a judge s approval. Sommaruga said the government would carefully balance the need for security against protecting the rule of law. If we would put whole groups under blanket suspicion, for instance via sweeping surveillance of mosques or demanding preventative custody for as many as possible, we would only be creating red tape and spinning our wheels, which costs a lot and in the end brings nothing, she said. Switzerland on Monday released a national plan to prevent violent extremism, including training teachers and sports coaches to recognize warning signs. The Swiss so far have avoided the kind of attacks that have hit neighboring Germany and France, but the Swiss Intelligence Service said last month it was tracking 550 people deemed a potential risk as part of its jihad monitoring program, up from 497 at the end of 2016. Last month, Swiss and French police combined in a cross-border anti-terrorism swoop in which 10 people were arrested. Several high-profile criminal prosecutions have targeted people accused of supporting banned groups such al Qaeda or Islamic State. Neutral Switzerland has not fought in the conflicts in the Middle East, but some fear domestic policies could put it in the crosshairs of militants. Voters in 2009 banned the construction of new minarets, and the Italian-speaking canton of Ticino banned facial coverings. Bern is also tightening anti-terrorism laws, a push that could toughen sentences for people who support militancy and boost cooperation with foreign intelligence services. | 1 |
Barbra Streisand was an Obama sycophant and one of the corrupt Clinton s most loyal fans. She is also part of the Hollywood liberal resistance movement. Much like Rosie O Donnell, Kathy Griffin, and literally hundreds of overpaid celebrities, Barbara Streisand is obsessed with tweeting about how much she hates President Trump. It s Streisand s latest tweet that has conservatives calling her out for her complete and utter stupidity .Streisand tweeted: Collusion or no collusion, @realDonaldTrump should be impeached for sheer stupidity. Collusion or no collusion, @realDonaldTrump should be impeached for sheer stupidity. Barbra Streisand (@BarbraStreisand) December 30, 2017Twitter users wasted no time DESTROYING the has been entertainer.This tweet suggested her music and acting awards should be recalled due to the sheer stupidity of the recipient.I can think of a lot of Oscars, Emmy s, Tony s and Grammy s that should be recalled due to sheer stupidity of the recipient. Particularly this one: https://t.co/f4KtzLsOQA AnneMarie (@bulliegirl1959) December 30, 2017Dan Bongino suggested that talent aside, Streisand should be mocked for failing constitutional basics 101.Singing or no singing @BarbraStreisand should be mocked for failing constitutional basics 101. https://t.co/EeFKkiYtOb Dan Bongino (@dbongino) December 30, 2017 Mike truly schooled Streisand when he explained to her, You can t impeach a President, because of your feelings, Barbra. You can't impeach a President, because of your feelings, Barbra. https://t.co/vsmuW223pI Mike (@Fuctupmind) December 30, 2017Barbra got destroyed in one powerful image reminding her that Impeachment requires an actual crime pic.twitter.com/BBW1lEY9hn chach malone (@chachmalone) December 30, 2017OUCH! Rita replied to Barbra that she used to be a fan, but no more. She even took it a step further, and let Barbra know that she was now on her boycott list!!! I was a Fan of you!!! Now you are on my boycott list!!! Rita Reisch Afd (@rita_reisch) December 30, 2017Finally, this Twitter user refers to Barbra Streisand as a has been vs the President.There ya go!! A has been vs the President beaner (@CWhitam) December 30, 2017 | 0 |
LONDON (Reuters) - Under the gaze of a life-sized cardboard figure of Donald Trump, some 200 of his supporters gathered at an exclusive club near the Ritz hotel in London to celebrate Friday’s inauguration of America’s 45th president. Bunches of red, white and blue balloons, some of them star-shaped, adorned the walls of the Royal Over-Seas League where Trump’s appearance on the balcony outside the domed U.S. Capitol was greeted with whooping and cheering. As he completed the oath, the room broke into a standing ovation complete with high-five celebrations. Later, Trump’s inaugural speech was punctuated with cheers, especially his pledge to eradicate “radical Islamic terrorism”, while at the end the room chorused along with Trump’s trademark promise to make America great again. “The speech was great - Mr Trump just touched the most important subjects for America,” said Polish-born university professor Victoria Gorska-Rabuck. “His speech was very appropriate, very uplifting and promises a lot. We hope he can deliver what he promised,” she told Reuters. Businessman David Pattinson said he thought Trump would be a successful president. “I think he’ll succeed in cutting government spending although I don’t know whether he will be successful in getting rid of the establishment,” he said. “I wasn’t surprised when he won, I was satisfied,” he added. “I was expecting him to win. It was the same with Brexit in how the polls got it wrong.” | 1 |
MADRID (Reuters) - Spain s Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy on Friday called for calm in a tweet posted minutes after the Catalan regional parliament declared independence from the rest of the country in a disputed vote that will likely be declared illegal. I ask for calm from all Spaniards. The rule of law will restore legality in Catalonia, Rajoy wrote. | 0 |
TBILISI (Reuters) - Georgian President Giorgi Margvelashvili on Monday vetoed a draft new constitution and sent it back to parliament with his objections which included opposing its call for an end to direct elections for president. Parliament, which is dominated by the Georgian Dream Party, adopted the new draft last week over objections from Margvelashvili and the opposition. Under this new proposed new constitution, direct elections for president would be abolished from 2024, the country would transfer to full proportional parliamentary representation and the system of electoral blocs would be scrapped. In a televised statement, Margvelashvili, who was elected in 2013 for a five-year term, said he remained in favor of direct presidential elections rather than a system in which the president would be appointed by parliament. He said he had proposed to the parliamentary majority to allow parties to form electoral blocs for the next parliamentary elections in 2020. He said he also supported scrapping the voting bonus system under which votes of parties that failed to muster enough support to enter parliament would be transferred to the winner of the election. He also supported a switch to a proportional electoral system in 2020. I will send my justified objection to the parliament today, Margvelashvili said. The next presidential election in Georgia is to be held in 2018 and it is not clear whether Margvelashvili, who is at odds with the ruling party on several issues, will stand again. MPs from the Georgian Dream said after adopting the new constitution that they would give ground on only two of the president s objections allowing the parties to form electoral blocs and scrapping the voting bonus system. The ruling party has a constitutional majority at the parliament, allowing it to overcome the president s veto. | 1 |
The State Department redacted one sentence just one. Cleaning up for our former Secretary of State is something the State Department has gotten really good at: FYI. The idea of using private security experts to arm the opposition should be considered. That s it the one sentence that tells us so much. Rand Paul was on to the answer. Clinton slithered out of it .Among the emails released by the State Department today was one sent by Hillary Clinton to Jake Sullivan on April 8, 2011. Clinton was forwarding a private intelligence report that Sidney Blumenthal had sent her with the subject line: UK game playing; new rebel strategists; Egypt moves in. In the State Department release today, Clinton responds with FYI and a sentence that is redacted.But the New York Times posted its versions of the emails earlier this week and the sentence is not redacted. In the Times s version the redacted sentence reads: FYI. The idea of using private security experts to arm the opposition should be considered. The redaction in the State Department version is labeled a B5 Freedom of Information Act exception, which provides for a deliberative privilege in keeping the information from the public.The obvious question: Why did the State Department redact that sentence?Via: The Weekly Standard | 1 |
Just another big city destroyed by Democrats As the nation took to backyard BBQs and paused to celebrate the birth of our nation, the incessant gang warfare in and around the Chicago area continued without a hitch with 37 shootings and six deaths over the three-day weekend. The tragic toll included the death of a 39-year-father and his two young girls in a nearby Chicago suburb.At least 64 people were shot in the nation s third largest city over the Independence Day weekend, including four people who were fatally wounded. The grim violence in Chicago, which has recorded 329 homicides already this year, continued despite stepped up street patrols by the Chicago Police Department and the arrest of 88 gang members in two of the city s most violent neighborhoods ahead of the holiday weekend.Friday was atypical in that the shootings were relatively few and no one died, but the rest of the weekend more than made up for it. Friday featured only five citizens wounded, all in separate incidents.Saturday rang in with a vengeance with 11 shootings and two deaths, while Sunday saw 14 shootings and one death. Sunday also saw an additional three people murdered in a nearby suburb. By Independence Day itself, another four citizens were wounded.One of the most tragic shootings of the holiday weekend was the death of 39-year-old Dionus M. Neely, who was shot and killed along with his ten-year-old and three-year-old daughters, Elle and India.The murders took place in the nearby Chicago suburb of Hazel Crest on Sunday morning just after 2 AM, police report. Anyone who could kill a three-year-old and a ten-year-old, no matter what the circumstances, is nothing but pure evil as far as I m concerned, Hazel Crest Police Chief Mitchell Davis III said on Sunday afternoon.The long weekend brings the list of violence to 2,008 total Chicagoans shot, and 302 shot and killed, among the total 336 homicides in the Windy City thus far this year. BreitbartReverend Jesse Lee Peterson has some thoughts on why crime is so high in majority black cities and why Americans need to STOP blaming cops for the fatherless crisis that is plaguing inner city communities.Fatherless homes combined with the left s policies and attacks on free speech are creating thugs and cop killers. It s important to shine a light on this anti-cop mentality that has so contaminated America s inner cities. The underlying cause of all this of course? Young black men growing up without fathers.Progressives of all colors have intimidated most white Americans with the R word (racist), and now whites rarely comment on black criminality. These same progressives are perpetuating the fatherlessness and anti-police attitude that is wreaking havoc on America s inner cities.Many blacks today have a serious issue with authority figures. This problem starts in the home and manifests itself as early as preschool.A Department of Education study found that blacks make up 18 percent of all preschool children, but they account for 42 percent of suspensions.Education Secretary Arne Duncan blamed the problem on racial disparities, and was stunned that we were suspending and expelling 4 years olds. Duncan is more stunned by the disciplinary action of the schools than he is by the rotten behavior of the kids. No surprise. Rotten kids are anti-authority so are progressives.Attorney General Eric Holder said a zero-tolerance approach eventually leads many students into the criminal justice system and promised to end the school-to-prison pipeline. In other words, according to Holder, disciplining bad kids is creating a path to prison! This is progressive wisdom. Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, the NAACP, the Congressional Black Caucus and other leftist black leaders have been excusing black criminals and stoking hatred toward police for decades.The 1992 Los Angeles riots, sparked by the police beating of Rodney King, resulted in the deaths of 60 people. But Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., didn t call it a riot; she called it a rebellion. The rap music industry has long promoted violence toward cops. The most notorious perpetrators include: N.W.A. (Niggaz with Attitudes) with their F tha Police lyrics, rapper ICE-T s Cop Killer album, and Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg s 187 (about murdering cops). Video games like Grand Theft Auto also reinforce anti-police attitudes.Progressive mayors are allowing thugs and cop haters to flourish in our cities.Leftist NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio ended previous Mayor Rudy Giuliani s successful stop, question, and frisk program after complaints that it unfairly targeted minorities, and now violent crime has skyrocketed.According to CompStat figures, 129 people were shot last month a 43 percent increase over the same period last year.In Chicagoland, progressive policies and fatherlessness have created killing fields. The recent Independence Day massacre, where 82 shootings resulted in 15 people killed, doesn t help the city s image.Instead of aggressively going after Chicago s gangs, Obama former Chief of Staff and now Mayor Rahm Emanuel is focused on the guns, even though Chicago has some of the nation s toughest gun-control laws.Progressives have created an environment that rewards irresponsibility and dependency. Sending welfare payments to single women with children has resulted in the decline of black marriages. Today, 73 percent of black kids are born out of wedlock.Since most black fathers are not around, these children never develop respect for authority. In fact, they grow to hate the impatience and pressure their mothers put on them.Recently I interviewed Paul Raeburn, author of Do Fathers Matter? Here are just a few of his findings: When fathers are absent during mother s pregnancy, the baby is more likely to be born prematurely. The baby is four times as likely to die in the first year. If the man is depressed, the child is eight times as likely to have behavior problems and 36 times as likely to have difficulty getting along with peers. Kids with dads around are less likely to become bullies : Oxford researchers said when fathers were absent, children had higher rates of aggressive behavior.Obviously the missing link to end the cycle of violence and the anti-police attitude in the black community is to rebuild black families. Progressive policies of providing financial incentives for single mothers who have kids out of wedlock must end.Progressives also bully people into not speaking truth about moral cause and effect. They re not just immoral they are anti-moral. Yet, Americans especially white Americans have to start speaking out about the anti-authority mindset destroying our inner cities. If whites and blacks allow the lawlessness to continue, the chaos and anti-cop violence will spread everywhere. And when police are not safe no one is safe. Via: WND | 0 |
WASHINGTON/JERUSALEM (Reuters) - During his 2016 election campaign, Donald Trump signaled his presidency would be a boon for Israel and tough on Palestinians. The U.S. Embassy would move to Jerusalem, he would name an ambassador who backs Israeli settlements on land Palestinians seek for a state and there would be no pressure for peace talks. But as Trump prepares for his first White House meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his administration has not only toned down its pro-Israel bravado but also taken the first tentative steps toward a more cautious Middle East diplomacy, including consultations with Sunni Arab allies and U.S. lawmakers, according to people familiar with the matter. While any strategy is still far from complete, there is growing consensus in the White House that tackling the Israeli-Palestinian conflict could require gentle nudging of Israel together with assurances to the Arab world that Trump will be more even-handed than his campaign rhetoric suggested. “This is a case where campaign promises run head-on into geopolitical reality and they have to be adjusted accordingly,” said a U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity. As a result, relocating the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem – a step world leaders including Jordan’s King Abdullah warned against and which would probably inflame the Muslim world - has been put on hold for now. At the same time, the White House has adopted a more measured stance on Israeli settlement-building in occupied territory than candidate Trump appeared to advocate. Even so, there is little doubt that when Netanyahu meets Trump on Wednesday, he will find a Republican president determined to show more warmth to Israel than his Democratic predecessor, Barack Obama, with whom he had an acrimonious relationship. Social media exchanges have suggested a budding “bromance” between Netanyahu and Trump, who has pledged to be the “best friend” Israel has ever had in the White House. As a result, Palestinians fear their leaders will be frozen out and their statehood aspirations pushed aside. One White House aide cautioned that the administration is still in “listening mode” on the issue. Since taking office on Jan. 20, Trump has spoken by phone to Egyptian, Saudi and United Arab Emirates leaders and heard Abdullah’s concerns in person. All of these countries have growing contacts with Israel, mostly behind the scenes and centered on a shared desire to counter Iran, a point that Netanyahu has often cited as among the grounds for his country’s eventual thaw with the Arab world. Signaling an emerging view that U.S. Arab allies could be helpful on the Israeli-Palestinian issue, Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, assigned to a senior role in Middle East diplomacy, has met Arab officials, including the UAE’s ambassador to Washington, the New York Times reported. In his talks with Trump, Netanyahu is expected to try to keep the focus on forging a common front against Iran, Israel’s regional enemy and a target of Trump’s ire. The Israeli-Palestinian dispute will nonetheless be on the agenda, especially after Israel’s parliament drew international condemnation for approving a law retroactively legalizing 4,000 settler homes built on privately owned Palestinian land. Barring a curve ball from the sometimes unpredictable U.S. president, Trump is unlikely to use the talks to press Netanyahu for concessions toward the Palestinians in the way Obama did. But neither can Trump afford to be seen to abandon the U.S. commitment to a two-state solution, the bedrock of Washington’s Middle East policy since the 1993 interim peace accords and a principle embraced internationally. A White House statement on Feb. 2 set forth a more nuanced position, backing away from a longstanding U.S. view of settlements as an “impediment” to peace but instead saying new settlements or the expansion of existing ones beyond current boundaries “may not be helpful” to that goal. That shift transpired just hours after Trump met briefly with King Abdullah on the sidelines of an event in Washington. Even so, the emerging shape of Trump policy remains more accommodating toward Israel than at any time since Republican George W. Bush occupied the White House. “It seems we are headed for a new policy with this administration that is different from its predecessor in how it deals with the Palestinian leadership and the Palestinian cause,” said Wasel Abu Youssef, a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s executive committee. There has been no contact between the Palestinian leadership and the Trump administration so far, Palestinian officials said. Moderate, Western-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was among the first world leaders Obama called on his first full day in office in 2009. A White House official insisted, however, that the administration intends to develop a relationship with the Palestinian Authority. All the same, many Israeli officials do not read the White House’s settlements statement as a warning to Israel or a reining-in of Netanyahu. Not only does it conclude that settlements do not block peace prospects, it also says construction within established settlements is acceptable to Washington. “Bibi will be happy,” said an Israeli diplomat, using Netanyahu’s nickname. “He can put new settlements on hold and hold off the right wing by pointing to Trump. At the same time, he can build as much as he wants within existing settlements.” In that regard, the lines drawn by the White House help Netanyahu fend off demands from the far right in his coalition for sweeping steps, like annexing portions of the West Bank. Palestinians would be especially alarmed if Trump decided to proceed with moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem, essentially recognizing the city as Israel’s capital despite international insistence that its status must be decided in negotiations. The Palestinians want East Jerusalem, captured by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war and annexed in a move not recognized internationally, as the capital of their future state. Trump and his aides have played down the prospects for a quick embassy move since he took office. Some experts see a moderating influence in Trump’s national security team. It has members such as Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, a former Exxon Mobil chief executive with extensive contacts among Gulf Arab governments, and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, a retired Marine general. They will have to deal with other, sometimes ideologically driven advisers with close personal ties to Trump. David Friedman, Trump’s former bankruptcy lawyer and now nominee as ambassador to Israel, has raised funds for a West Bank settlement and voiced doubt about Palestinian statehood. Kushner’s family has donated tens of thousands of dollars to the same settlement. Aides may be moving circumspectly also in hope of keeping the door open if Trump – who has touted his skills as a master dealmaker – decides to seek what he has called the “ultimate deal”: Israeli-Palestinian peace. To pursue such an initiative, the United States needs to be seen as an even-handed mediator, while also overcoming the rigid disputes that have scuppered so many peace efforts over the years: settlements, borders, the status of Jerusalem, what to do with Palestinian refugees, and Palestinian political divisions. The last, U.S.-brokered round of peace talks collapsed in 2014. It remains to be seen whether the Trump administration will be inclined to devote much attention to the Israeli-Palestinian issue at a time when it is distracted by other priorities. In the Middle East alone, the fight against Islamic State and countering Iran are higher on the agenda. However, if Trump at some point does opt to wade in where so many of his predecessors have failed, for Netanyahu – who is looking for a reset of U.S.-Israeli relations – it might be a case of “be careful what you wish for”. | 1 |
If you or your conservative friends, as many still do, ever believed that the Iraq war was a response for 9/11, the CIA finally put that myth to rest. Not only was the Iraq war one of the most fiscally and internationally irresponsible moves the George W. Bush administration could have made, it was based on lies and, as the CIA just confirmed, a political agenda.As recently as a year ago, polls were conducted that said that more than half of Americans still believe the lie that Saddam Hussein was responsible for 9/11. He wasn t. The success of that massive lie is no doubt what led us to the fact free world which gave us Donald Trump.Instead of waiting to gather all the intelligence, according to the CIA, the Bush administration was fully committed to pulling the trigger immediately following the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.Discussing the first days of the Bush administration on BBC Radio 4 s Today Programme, (former CIA analyst John) Nixon said: We had gotten word that they saw Iraq as unfinished business . We never really understood at that point what unfinished business meant, but we knew that they wanted to do something. He added: You know, they had their minds made up from day one. And then after 9/11, that s when the death warrant for Saddam Hussein was signed. Source: IndependentNixon didn t offer any speculation as to why Bush had it in for Hussein, but a number of explanations have been floated, such as it was (as Nixon seems to imply) the younger Bush finishing what his father started when the George Bush Sr. invaded Iraq. Another possible explanation is even worse. It s war profiteering, plain and simple. It s also highly likely that it was both. The bottom line, though, is that we never should have been in Iraq and that was a giant failing of not just Washington, but of our media. Unfortunately, neither the media nor Washington seems to have learned their lessons and we will be led by lies from now until at least the end of the Trump administration.Featured image via Mike Heffner/Getty Images | 1 |
George Soros is trying his best to destroy America! He is ramping up his efforts now! James Woods said it best when he tweeted that Soros would be happy with what happened in Charlottesville: Attorney General Jeff Sessions released a statement that there would be an investigation into what happened in Charlottesville. We re hoping Sessions digs deep! If AG Jeff Sessions doesn t dig deep ASAP to uncover Soros involvement in Antifa and BLM, then this Soros-funded war will continue. We need a fighter to win the battle against this evil Hungarian globalist!Liberal billionaire George Soros s advocacy arm is ramping up its lobbying efforts this year, disclosure forms show.SOROS WANTS OPEN BORDERS AND GLOBALISM:The amount Soros spent on lobbying shot up to $11 million in 2013, a drastic increase from the $3.4 million the group had spent in 2012. The uptick could be attributed to the group s push for comprehensive immigration reform during this time.The Open Society Policy Center, a D.C.-based nonprofit that focuses on advocacy efforts and is a separate entity from the Soros grant making Open Society Foundations, has spent nearly as much on lobbying in the first half of 2017 as the group did in the entirety of 2016.The Open Society Policy Center reported spending $4.6 million in the first and second quarters, which runs from Jan. 1 to June 30, according its disclosure forms filed to the House of Representatives and the Senate.THREE IN-HOUSE LOBBYISTS? The group has three in-house lobbyists who lobby the U.S. Senate, House of Representatives, National Security Council, the Department of Defense, and the Department of State.Soros even tried to influence the decision of the Supreme court on immigration according to The Daily Caller:Open Society Foundations, Hungarian-born billionaire George Soros stated vehicle for progressive social change, orchestrated a well-funded attempt to secure a desired outcome in a U.S. Supreme Court case on illegal immigration enforcement, according to a newly discovered memo between the organization s top U.S. officials and board members.Soros drastically extended the policy scope of his lobbying efforts as the year progressed, including to issues that have been seen as a direct strike against the Hungarian-born billionaire.IF HUNGARY (SOROS HOME COUNTRY) CAN TRY AND BAN HIS GOV T INTERFERENCE, WHY CAN T WE?From January to March, Soros s group lobbied on three issues. From April to June, the group lobbied 17 different issues, including the Bill on Foreign Funded Organizations in Hungary (LexNGo), Hungary s crack down on foreign-funded organizations in the country.Hungary s parliament approved the law that targets foreign-funded organizations in June, which they have said can threaten the country s political and economic interests and interfere with the functioning of its institutions, according to text of the law.Although the law does not mention Soros by name, politicians in Hungary previously said they wanted to sweep out organizations tied to Soros.Soros s Open Society Foundations has given money to a number of prominent NGOs in Hungary. The group has said that the country s bill seeks to suppress democratic voices in Hungary. The lobbyists also worked on issues such as the Restricting First Use of Nuclear Weapons Act of 2017 and the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2018, among others.Soros s lobbying efforts have quietly skyrocketed in recent years.The policy center reported spending $19,120,000 on lobbying for policy and legislative efforts with Congress and government agencies between 2002 and 2012, which averages out to $1.9 million per year.WE HAD A PUPPET MASTER PULLING THE STRINGS IN THE WHITE HOUSE FOR 8 YEARS! IT S TIME FOR THIS TO STOP! READ MORE: WFB | 1 |
WASHINGTON/KHOBAR, Saudi Arabia (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump publicly appealed on Saturday for Saudi Arabia to list national oil company Saudi Aramco’s shares in New York, intervening in a battle among the world’s top stock exchanges. “Would very much appreciate Saudi Arabia doing their IPO of Aramco with the New York Stock Exchange,” Trump wrote on Twitter. “Important to the United States!” Trump did not say why he raised the issue at this time or whether he was responding to any information about the NYSE’s bid. But by describing the listing as a priority for Washington, he could help sway the Saudis’ decision. The Saudi government, seeking to raise money as low oil prices strain its finances, plans to sell about 5 percent of Aramco next year in a sale officials say could raise about $100 billion, making it the world’s largest initial public offer ever. Saudi authorities have said they intend to list Aramco in Riyadh and on one or more foreign exchanges, setting off a competition among New York, London, Hong Kong, Tokyo and other bourses. An Aramco spokesman had no comment on Trump’s tweet, while a spokeswoman for the NYSE declined to comment. NYSE Group president Thomas Farley said at a conference in Riyadh last week that he had not given up on the IPO and was in talks with Saudi authorities. The London Stock Exchange has also received some government support for its bid, although that has been less public. Prime Minister Theresa May and the chief of the LSE pitched investments in Britain to the head of Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund on a visit to Riyadh earlier this year. While Trump’s tweet named the New York Stock Exchange, it did not mention rival Nasdaq Inc, which is also vying for the Aramco listing. “Generally, public servants should be impartial, not give preferential treatment to anyone, and avoid endorsements,” said Scott Amey, general counsel for the government ethics watchdog Project on Government Oversight in Washington. “We have already seen violations in this administration, and it doesn’t help that the president isn’t leading by example.” Nasdaq replied to Trump in a tweet, saying it agreed the United States was the “best destination for global companies” but that Aramco belongs on Nasdaq “with the 5 most valuable operating companies in the world.” Nearly two years after announcing their plan to sell Aramco shares, Saudi officials say they have not yet decided on foreign listing venues. Sources told Reuters in August that Riyadh favored New York for Aramco’s main foreign listing. But some financial and legal advisers have recommended London as a less problematic and risky option. Aramco’s lawyers warned about litigation risks associated with the U.S. Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act, or JASTA. Passed last year, the law allows the Saudi government to be sued on the grounds that it helped to plan the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, an allegation which Riyadh denies. Mohammed al-Sabban, who has been an adviser to former Saudi oil minister Ali al-Naimi, told Reuters that Trump’s intervention would not resolve the JASTA problem. “President Trump has forgotten completely that the risks of implementing the JASTA law against Saudi assets are still there,” Sabban said. “Probably during his administration he could prevent any case against Saudi Arabia. However, when President Trump’s term ends, this will raise fears that the JASTA law could still be applied.” Still, Trump may be able to wield diplomatic clout in Riyadh. Saudi leaders welcomed him warmly during a visit to the kingdom in May, partly because he has taken a tough stance against their nation’s diplomatic archrival Iran, and Riyadh is eager for close military ties with Washington. “President Trump’s tweet indicates that, from the White House’s perspective at least, a public listing of Aramco is not as dead as some recent reports indicated,” said Bob McNally, president of Washington-based energy market and policy consultant Rapidan Energy Group. “The tweet suggests the White House believes Saudi Arabia may be approaching a decision on where to list and wishes to either claim credit or push a possibly wavering Saudi Arabia for a New York listing,” McNally added. Exchanges hosting Aramco can look forward to a boost in fee income from trading the stock. The prestige associated with the company may help them attract more big listings, including IPOs of other state companies from the Gulf as governments there sell assets in an era of cheap oil. | 0 |
It s always fun when Hollywood shows a conservative side. Rob Low does just that with his Twitter bashing of socialist whack job Bernie Sanders. Good stuff! Actor Rob Lowe invoked his West Wing character Sam Seaborn to blast Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders communication style Monday night in CNN s Democratic Town Hall.Mr. Sanders attacked Wall Street for corporate greed and recklessness, while warning that the wealthy would have to pay more taxes under his presidency. Watching Bernie Sanders. He s hectoring and yelling at me WHILE he s saying he s going to raise our taxes. Interesting way to communicate, Mr. Lowetweeted to his 1.22 million followers.This prompted some to ask Mr. Lowe what his West Wing character, a Democratic deputy White House communications director, would have advised Mr. Sanders to do instead. He would say: modulate, senator, Mr. Lowewrote, linking to a clip from the show, where his character took issue with some people on his own side pushing for increased taxes on the country s highest earners, CNN reported. I m not talking about policy. I m talking about rhetoric, and the men you work for need to dial it down to five, Mr. Lowe says in the clip.VIA: WT | 1 |
WASHINGTON/MARRAKESH, Morocco (Reuters) - President-elect Donald Trump is seeking quick ways to withdraw the United States from a global accord to combat climate change, a source on his transition team said, defying broad global backing for the plan to cut greenhouse gas emissions. Since Trump’s election victory on Tuesday, governments ranging from China to small island states have reaffirmed support for the 2015 Paris agreement during climate talks involving 200 nations set to run until Friday in Marrakesh, Morocco. Trump has called global warming a hoax and has promised to quit the Paris Agreement, which was strongly supported by outgoing Democratic U.S. President Barack Obama. Trump’s advisers are considering ways to bypass a theoretical four-year procedure for leaving the accord, according to the source, who works on Trump’s transition team for international energy and climate policy. “It was reckless for the Paris agreement to enter into force before the election” on Tuesday, the source told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity. The Paris accord won enough backing for entry into force on Nov. 4, four days before the election. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said on Sunday in New Zealand the Obama administration would do everything it could to implement the Paris accord before Trump takes office. The accord says in its Article 28 that any country wanting to pull out after signing on has to wait four years. In theory, the earliest date for withdrawal would be Nov. 4, 2020, around the time of the next U.S. presidential election. The source said the future Trump administration is weighing alternatives to accelerate the pull-out: sending a letter withdrawing from the 1992 international framework accord that is the parent treaty of the Paris Agreement; voiding U.S. involvement in both in a year’s time; or issuing a presidential order simply deleting the U.S. signature from the Paris accord. Withdrawing from the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) would be controversial, partly because it was signed by former Republican President George H.W. Bush in 1992 and approved by the U.S. Senate. The action also could antagonize many other countries. [L8N1DB41L] The UNFCCC sets a goal of avoiding “dangerous” man-made damage to the climate to avert more heat waves, downpours, floods, extinctions of animals and plants and rising sea levels. The 2015 Paris Agreement is much more explicit, seeking to phase out net greenhouse gas emissions by the second half of the century and limit global warming to “well below” 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial times. Many nations have expressed hope that the United States will stay. But the host of the current round of climate negotiations, Morocco, said the pact that seeks to phase out greenhouse gases in the second half of the century was strong enough to survive a pullout. One party deciding to withdraw would not call the agreement into question, Foreign Minister Salaheddine Mezouar told a news conference. In Beijing on Monday, the foreign ministry spokesman, Geng Shuang, told a regular news briefing that China would like to continue working with all countries, including the United States, in the global fight against climate change. The agreement was reached by almost 200 nations in December and, as of Saturday, has been formally ratified by 109 representing 76 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, including the United States with 18 percent. The accord seeks to limit rising temperatures that have been linked to increasing economic damage from desertification, extinctions of animals and plants, heat waves, floods and rising sea levels. U.N. climate chief Patricia Espinosa declined to comment on the Trump source’s remarks to Reuters. “The Paris Agreement carries an enormous amount of weight and credibility,” Espinosa told a news conference. She said the United Nations hoped for a strong and constructive relationship with Trump. The Trump source said the president-elect’s transition team is aware of the likely international backlash but said Republicans in the U.S. Congress have given ample warning that a Republican administration would take action to reverse course. “The Republican Party on multiple occasions has sent signals to the international community signaling that it doesn’t agree with the pact. We’ve gone out of our way to give notice,” the source said. The source blamed Obama for joining up by an executive order, without getting approval from the U.S. Senate. “There wouldn’t be this diplomatic fallout on the broader international agenda if Obama hadn’t rushed the adoption,” the source said. | 0 |
6 Natural Herbs To Prevent Mental Disorders Antioxidants are found to play an important part in this regard. Herbs having antioxidant properties cancel the effects of oxidative compounds that are already present in the body. Since our body is incapable of producing antioxidants that can cancel the effects of all the oxidative free radicals, these have to be taken in the form of dietary supplements. Many herbs have been used since ancient times, for the prevention and treatment of almost every disease known to man. They can either be encapsulated or taken in form of herbal teas. The good thing about herbal treatments is that they do not pose any serious threats to one’s health as they have minimal side effects. MULUNGU BARK Mulungu bark is used in Central and South America for calming the nerves, improving the mood and aiding sleep. Mulungu contains erythravine, an active alkaloid which helps in anxiety reduction and protecting brain function. The flavanoids found in Mulungu are one of the best antioxidants and help in having a healthier brain. They are found to inhibit anxiety without any side effects and do not affect basic motor skills. Another effect of Mulungu is the strong physical sensation of well being. It elevates the mood as well. It is known to be helpful with brain diseases like epilepsy, insomnia and anxiety. Studies have shown that all these diseases lead to major brain disorders and other brain degenerative diseases. Mulungu can be taken on its own or with a stimulant like green tea to amplify its effects. It gives mental clarity and improves brain function. MUCUNA PRURIENS Mucuna has been used in ayurvedic medicine since 1500 B.C and is also known as the velvet bean. Mucuna contains L.dopa which is a biochemical precursor to several neurotransmitters. Dopamine happens to be one of these neurotransmitters in addition to adrenaline and noradrenalin, and it supports improved brain function and increased memory. It also regulates the mood and cognition. Mucuna is widely known as an anti aging herb. The antioxidant properties make it anti inflammatory and effective towards the protection of neurons. It protects brain function by keeping a check over cognitive and neural functions. Mucuna’s secret benefit is that it fights redness in brain, which is one of the symptoms of brain degradation. PASSIFLORA INCARNATA (PASSION FLOWER) Passion flower, also called apricot vine, was found in 1956 in Peru. Passion flower is used in herbal medicines to promote calmness and relaxation. It is also found to be very helpful in reducing anxiety. In synergy with other forms of treatment, it is found to be effective in reducing anxiety, irritability, insomnia and agitation. It also helps with psychiatric disorder called adjustment disorder with anxious mood. Passion flower also helps with sleep disorders and seizures. The best way to take passion flower is, as an herbal tea. According to the NYU Langone Medical Center, you should drink one cup of passion flower tea, three times a day. SCUTELLARIA LATERIFLORA (SKULLCAP) A natural tranquilizer, Skullcap is an American perennial herb found from New York to Virginia and southwards to South Carolina, Alabama and Missouri. Skullcap is a very powerful medicinal herb. It is used in treatments of many nervous related disorders like epilepsy, hysteria, insomnia and anxiety. It is also used in the treatment of ADD and a number of other nervous disorders. It is anti inflammatory, antispasmodic, febrifuge, sedative and tonic in nature. It contains volatile oils, tannins and scutellarins that are very helpful in mental disorders. Research suggests it possesses mood enhancing properties and protects brain against damaging effects caused by inflammation. According to HerbsList , Skullcap eases muscle spasms, muscle twitching and may help in ailments that involve involuntary limb movement, such as Parkinson’s disease and epilepsy. PIPER METHYSTICUM KAVA From the roots and stem of the piper methysticum plant, a non-alcoholic beverage is made. This herb is found in the islands of South Pacific. It is being used since the early 90’s as the herbal medicine for stress and anxiety. It contains kava lactones which are responsible for its psychoactive qualities. They work in the brain to produce non narcotic action against anxiety. Kava is beneficial for anxiety and doesn’t affect heart rate or blood pressure. Other disorders where Kava has been found beneficial are migraines, ADHD, psychosis, depression and chronic fatigue syndrome. GINSENG Ginseng, also called Panax ginseng, and is a widely used herbal remedy, all over the world. Its health benefits have been known for over thousands of years. It is used as a tonic to balance, stimulate and relax the nervous system. It brings strength and wisdom. Ginseng is an adaptogen. Adaptogens are known to make us more resilient to mental and physical stress. They reduce the stress hormone cortisol and increase the adrenal gland. Adaptogens can calm you down and boost your energy without over stimulation. It has the same relaxing effect and increased alertness as experiences after green tea. It helps in getting better sleep, increased energy levels and greater personal satisfaction. It is also helpful with the treatment of depression by regulating serotonin, dopamine and noreprinephrine. It works as brain booster and protector. It improves brain function and concentration. It helps with memory issues and protects against age related mental issues. Ginseng also works as an antioxidant and helps in protecting the brain cells against free radical damage. Increasingly large numbers of people are suffering from brain diseases like Alzheimer’s and Dementia . A number of medicines are also available to help with the symptoms, but they are heavy on the pocket and come with many side effects. These herbs have been in use since hundreds of years and do not pose any health threats. Continuous use of these herbs will ensure a healthy brain, strong enough to fight away any disease. By Alma Causey http://mobile.dudamobile.com/site/preventdisease/default?url=http%3A%2F%2Fpreventdisease.com%2Fnews%2F16%2F102516_6-Natural-Herbs-To-Prevent-Mental-Disorders.shtml#3037 | 1 |
Donald Trump is going to get us in a war, and based on his rhetoric, it s going to be nuclear. Multiple sources confirm that Donald Trump just stated that if North Korean threats continue as they have for years, with smart leaders downplaying the relatively impotent rage of the rogue nation-state and using diplomacy to de-escalate they will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen. See below:BREAKING: Trump: If NKorea escalates nuclear threat, 'they will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen.' The Associated Press (@AP) August 8, 2017.@POTUS warns North Korea over continued threats, per TV pool: "They will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen." Mike Memoli (@mikememoli) August 8, 2017Trump said that NK threats will be met with "fire and fury like the world has never seen". That sounds like something Kim Jong-Un would say. Roland Scahill (@rolandscahill) August 8, 2017pic.twitter.com/haw4yuGpfL Mark Curtis (@MarkCM07) August 8, 2017Read more:Featured image via Drew Angerer/Getty Images | 1 |
QUETTA, Pakistan (Reuters) - Gunmen in southwestern Pakistan killed four members of a Shi ite Muslim Hazara family, including a 12-year-old boy, on Sunday, in the latest sectarian attack on the minority community, a senior police official said. Two men on a motorcycle opened fire on a family of eight while they at a filling station some 30 kilometres (19 miles) north of Quetta, the capital of Pakistan s Baluchistan province. Aside from those killed, two others were wounded. Two female members of the family were unscathed, having remained in their vehicle. This was a sectarian attack, senior police officer Tanveer Shah told Reuters, adding that no group has claimed responsibility for the shooting. Hazaras are frequently targeted by Taliban and Islamic State militants, and other Sunni Muslim militant groups in both Pakistan and Afghanistan. Many Hazaras fled to Pakistan during decades of conflict in neighboring Afghanistan, and nearly half a million now live in and around Quetta. In 2013, three separate bombings killed over 200 people in Hazara neighborhoods, raising international awareness of the plight of the community. More than 20 Hazaras have been killed in similar shootings in Baluchistan in the past two years, police say. The ongoing violence in the province has fueled concern about security for projects in the $57-billion China Pakistan Economic Corridor, a transport and energy link planned to run from western China to Pakistan s southern deep-water port of Gwadar. | 1 |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. State Department has approved arms sales packages worth more than $3.8 billion to Bahrain including F-16 jets, upgrades, missiles and patrol boats, the Pentagon said on Friday. The approvals coincide with the State Department s notification to Congress, which had held up a similar arms deal last year over human rights concerns. The proposed sales include 19 F-16V jets made by Lockheed Martin Corp which could have a value of up to $2.7 billion, the Pentagon said. Other potential sales approved Friday include two 35 meter (114 feet) patrol boats with machine guns, 221 anti-tank missiles made by Raytheon Co and $1.8 billion worth of upgrades to Bahrain s existing fleet of F-16 jets, the Pentagon said in separate statements. In May, U.S. President Donald Trump said Washington s relations with Bahrain would improve, after meeting with the king of the Gulf Arab state during a visit to Saudi Arabia. However in June, U.S. Senator Bob Corker, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said he would block arms sales to members of the Gulf Cooperation Council, including Bahrain, until they made progress in resolving a simmering dispute with Qatar. But a U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity earlier on Friday, said the proposed sales were cleared by the Senate Foreign Relations and House Foreign Affairs Committees through the regular tiered review process which precedes this formal notification. The U.S. official also said the United States has regular discussions with Bahrain on human rights and political reform and continues to urge its government to pursue efforts that will enhance regional security. | 1 |
21st Century Wire says As 21WIRE reported previously, since this past summer Washington and its media surrogates have been seeding the news cycle with the talking point that Russia was responsible for the DC Leaks and WikiLeaks document dumps, and that Russia is somehow trying to hack the US elections. Here s what the Clinton campaign claimed:Once again, Russian propaganda network RT shows collusion w/ @wikileaks by promoting new email dump before even WL does. Glen Caplin (@GlenCaplin1) October 17, 2016Of course, they were completely wrong.21WIRE s Patrick Henningsen spoke to RT International about the Hillary Clinton campaign s ridiculous accusation that somehow RT News had the latest batch of emails before WikiLeaks did, and how the US media and political establishment can t comprehend a reality beyond their transient Twitter feeds. Watch: SUPPORT OUT WORK SUBSCRIBE & BECOME A MEMBER @21WIRE.TV | 0 |
This morning, Donald Trump tweeted that health insurance premiums were skyrocketing, and that Democrats own it because Democrats are responsible for the disaster that is the Affordable Care Act. But someone on Twitter took it upon himself to crunch the numbers and look up insurers reasons for the big hikes going into 2018. It s not a pretty picture for Donald Trump.Premiums were always going to go up that s what you get with the system we have and one major reason we need universal or single-payer coverage. But when Trump cut off the subsidies insurers and low-income Americans counted on, he threw the system into chaos which insurers did warn us about and now we re facing numbers like this:NATIONALLY: Unsubsidized rate hikes WITHOUT Trump #ACASabotage: ~12%; PARTIAL sabotage: ~16%; FULL sabotage: ~29.5%: https://t.co/HF44AGgk9F pic.twitter.com/rgwaPdTyI1 Charles Ghoooulba ? (@charles_gaba) October 29, 2017Individually, each state is seeing its own rate hikes of varying percentages, but a number of them cite Trump s sabotage as a big reason why they re raising rates as high as they are. Washington State is among those seeing hefty increases as it is, but Trump s sabotage is making that far more painful than it needs to be:WASHINGTON STATE: Unsubsidized rate hikes WITHOUT Trump #ACASabotage: 26.4%; WITH #ACASabotage: 36.4%: https://t.co/WkgfuXkx5N pic.twitter.com/8cRgTXNHDK Charles Ghoooulba ? (@charles_gaba) October 29, 2017They probably also had the strongest rebuke of Trump s policies, saying this: But there are others saying similar things:VIRGINIA: Unsubsidized rate hikes WITHOUT Trump #ACASabotage: 43.4%; WITH #ACASabotage: 57.7%: https://t.co/Ma4KOTMMXc pic.twitter.com/EyLR8nHCIy Charles Ghoooulba ? (@charles_gaba) October 29, 2017TENNESSEE: Unsubsidized rate hikes WITHOUT Trump #ACASabotage: 13.5%; WITH #ACASabotage: 28.5%: https://t.co/58otIhrCqr pic.twitter.com/HC0GVMHwD9 Charles Ghoooulba ? (@charles_gaba) October 29, 2017Yes, you read that correctly: nearly 100% of North Carolina s rate hikes are due SPECIFICALLY to Trump cutting off #CSR reimbursements: pic.twitter.com/q2R1wU5pOG Charles Ghoooulba ? (@charles_gaba) October 29, 2017NEW MEXICO: Unsubsidized rate hikes WITHOUT Trump #ACASabotage: 15%; WITH #ACASabotage: 30%: https://t.co/i4IopxaTPz pic.twitter.com/KGo76sfGjL Charles Ghoooulba ? (@charles_gaba) October 29, 2017ARKANSAS: Unsubsidized rate hikes WITHOUT Trump #ACASabotage: 8.5%; WITH #ACASabotage: 17.5%: https://t.co/e2YTaBgRcI pic.twitter.com/r1iqud0gXv Charles Ghoooulba ? (@charles_gaba) October 29, 2017CALIFORNIA: Unsubsidized rate hikes WITHOUT Trump #ACASabotage: 12.3%; WITH #ACASabotage: 16.6%: https://t.co/sjxJaVssrr pic.twitter.com/VB0XLJQUCo Charles Ghoooulba ? (@charles_gaba) October 29, 2017COLORADO: Unsubsidized rate hikes WITHOUT Trump #ACASabotage: 28.2%; WITH #ACASabotage: 34.3%: https://t.co/DmXHU7vQpi pic.twitter.com/DfWvpubKfi Charles Ghoooulba ? (@charles_gaba) October 29, 2017You can read the full thread here:THREAD: OH, IT S ON, MOTHERF*CKER. 1/ https://t.co/01VCq3UZGX Charles Ghoooulba ? (@charles_gaba) October 29, 2017His methodology and details are available here.It s pretty clear from these numbers that it s not Democrats who own this trainwreck; it s Trump. He can tweet all he wants about how it s anyone s fault but his, and yet, he s the one who took executive action to end subsidies for low-income Americans. And Charles isn t the only one coming up with horrific numbers, either. The Kaiser Family Foundation has done their own analysis and come up with some pretty damning numbers as well.The worst part is that the markets were starting to stabilize going into this year, which meant premium hikes would likely have slowed for next year, and maybe even started coming down in following years. Instead, they re now skyrocketing. Polls have also consistently shown growing support for fixing the ACA instead of repealing it. What Trump and his party did was a planned and deliberate political move to harm Obama s legacy without caring who else they hurt.These extreme premium hikes are on Trump s and the GOP s heads. Even red states say so.Featured image via Alex Wong/Getty Images | 0 |
This is the dumbest and biggest crime in the history of American politics. There's not even a close second. Jared Yates Sexton (@JYSexton) July 11, 2017It turns out little Jared was wrong. The Donald Trump Jr.-Russian collusion story is not only another nothing burger, it lends more credibility to the theory that the media is on an all-out witch hunt for President Donald Trump. Apparently, the hunt has now been extended to include members of the Trump family.Yates Sexton started his rant on Twitter by whining to his followers about chasing the story for a year, and how he got Trumped by Don Jr. when, much like his father, Jr. went around the media and took to Twitter to post the emails journalists were desperate to get their hands on.I chased this story for a year and he just tweeted it out. Jared Yates Sexton (@JYSexton) July 11, 2017Whining journalist part 2:Like. I spent hours and days and weeks and months. And his son just, hit tweet. Jared Yates Sexton (@JYSexton) July 11, 2017More whining:I tracked down sources. Followed so many dead leads. Labored over this. And then, he just, you know, tweeted out the proof. Jared Yates Sexton (@JYSexton) July 11, 2017Still more whining:Like, so many people out there were trying to track this down. And it just got delivered on a tweet. What the hell. Jared Yates Sexton (@JYSexton) July 11, 2017And you guessed it more whining!It's just so bizarre. As an independent journalist you work crazy hard hoping something will fall into your lap and he tweeted it? 2/ Jared Yates Sexton (@JYSexton) July 11, 2017And then, the fake relief over the release of the nothing burger emails by none other than Donald Trump Jr. himself:For the record, I'm beside myself in relief that this stuff is out there it's just my god. I cannot believe this. Jared Yates Sexton (@JYSexton) July 11, 2017Yates Sexton then turned his ire on Trump supporters who apparently are (gasp!) laughing at the rabid leftist media who won t let the fake Trump-Russian collusion narrative go:The son of the president just released the smoking gun and the people are laughing about it on the news. Jared Yates Sexton (@JYSexton) July 11, 2017Poor Jared he s, well, he appears to be baffled by the Trump s and how they don t follow the rules that have been put forth by the media:This is the most baffling day in a long, long stretch of baffling days. Jared Yates Sexton (@JYSexton) July 11, 2017And finally, in an appeal to his leftist fans who are surely as heartbroken as him, Yates Sexton suggests that if his followers like his style of dead-end reporting, perhaps they would enjoy paying $22.69 for his book. And now for the final test Will love Trump hate? Will liberals feel help poor little Jared feel better about wasting over a year of his life, while he chased his tail, pinning all of his hopes on being the one who finally found the Trump-Russia connection.If you do want to read my reporting, however, here's my book that's out in September.https://t.co/02qE5K9PFv Jared Yates Sexton (@JYSexton) July 11, 2017 | 1 |
21st Century Wire says Over the past month, more than 12 million declassified documents from the CIA have been reportedly published online. While the intelligence docu-dump supposedly sheds additional light on covert war programs, psychic research and the Cold War era, it also contains more evidence confirming the symbiotic relationship between the CIA and American media. In late January the UK s Guardian reported that the CIA themselves released millions of documents online: The CIA has published more than 12 million pages of declassified documents online, making decades of US intelligence files more easily accessible and searchable.The agency published the roughly 930,000 documents that make up the CIA Records Search Tool (Crest) on Tuesday. The online publication of the files was first reported by BuzzFeed News. Although all of the documents in Crest were part of the public record before Tuesday, they could only be inspected by visiting the National Archives in Maryland in person. Once at the archives, just four computers available only during business hours provided access to Crest. A lawsuit from the open-government nonprofit MuckRock prompted the CIA to make the documents available online. Further pressure to publish the documents came from the transparency advocate and journalist Michael Best, who began steadily scanning and uploading the documents one by one. Continuing, the Guardian reported that the CIA also kept files and documents on media organizations and individual reporters. In 2014, Best from MuckRock, filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit in order to get the CIA to post all of its documents online. Along the way, Best reportedly crowd-funded more than $15000 to print out and then publicly upload the records, one by one, to apply pressure to the CIA. Although some mainstream outlets have been somewhat congratulatory of the CIA, many of the files released remain heavily redacted.In the early 1950 s, the CIA ran a wide-scale program called Operation Mockingbird that was said to have infiltrated the American news media in particular, which propagandized the public through various front organizations, magazines and cultural groups. THE COMPANY The Central Intelligence Agency of the United States. (Image Source: zerohedge.com)In recent years, there has been a series of surreal and unreal news stories since the Smith-Mundt Act was effectively rendered obsolete by US lawmakers on July 2nd 2013, as published by RT below: Until earlier this month, a longstanding federal law made it illegal for the US Department of State to share domestically the internally-authored news stories sent to American-operated outlets broadcasting around the globe. All of that changed effective July 2, when the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) was given permission to let US households tune-in to hear the type of programming that has previously only been allowed in outside nations. The Smith-Mundt Act has ensured for decades that government-made media intended for foreign audiences doesn t end up on radio networks broadcast within the US. An amendment tagged onto the National Defense Authorization Act removed that prohibition this year. More from Washington s Blog below (Photo Illustration 21WIRE s Shawn Helton)Washington s BlogNewly-declassified documents show that a senior CIA agent and Deputy Director of the Directorate of Intelligence worked closely with the owners and journalists of many of the largest media outlets:The United States Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities found in 1975 that the CIA submitted stories to the American press:Wikipedia adds details:After 1953, the network was overseen by Allen W. Dulles, director of the CIA. By this time, Operation Mockingbird had a major influence over 25 newspapers and wire agencies. The usual methodology was placing reports developed from intelligence provided by the CIA to witting or unwitting reporters. Those reports would then be repeated or cited by the preceding reporters which in turn would then be cited throughout the media wire services.The Office of Policy Coordination (OPC) was funded by siphoning off funds intended for the Marshall Plan [i.e. the rebuilding of Europe by the U.S. after WWII]. Some of this money was used to bribe journalists and publishers.In 2008, the New York Times wrote:During the early years of the cold war, [prominent writers and artists, from Arthur Schlesinger Jr. to Jackson Pollock] were supported, sometimes lavishly, always secretly, by the C.I.A. as part of its propaganda war against the Soviet Union. It was perhaps the most successful use of soft power in American history.A CIA operative told Washington Post owner Philip Graham in a conversation about the willingness of journalists to peddle CIA propaganda and cover stories:You could get a journalist cheaper than a good call girl, for a couple hundred dollars a month.Famed Watergate reporter Carl Bernstein wrote in 1977:More than 400 American journalists in the past twenty five years have secretly carried out assignments for the Central Intelligence Agency, according to documents on file at CIA headquarters.***In many instances, CIA documents show, journalists were engaged to perform tasks for the CIA with the consent of the managements of America s leading news organizations.***Among the executives who lent their cooperation to the Agency were [the heads of CBS, Time, the New York Times, the Louisville Courier Journal, and Copley News Service. Other organizations which cooperated with the CIA include [ABC, NBC, AP, UPI, Reuters], Hearst Newspapers, Scripps Howard, Newsweek magazine, the Mutual Broadcasting System, the Miami Herald and the old Saturday Evening Post and New York Herald Tribune.***There is ample evidence that America s leading publishers and news executives allowed themselves and their organizations to become handmaidens to the intelligence services. Let s not pick on some poor reporters, for God s sake, William Colby exclaimed at one point to the Church committee s investigators. Let s go to the managements.***The CIA even ran a formal training program in the 1950s to teach its agents to be journalists. Intelligence officers were taught to make noises like reporters, explained a high CIA official, and were then placed in major news organizations with help from management.***Once a year during the 1950s and early 1960s, CBS correspondents joined the CIA hierarchy for private dinners and briefings.***Allen Dulles often interceded with his good friend, the late Henry Luce, founder of Time and Life magazines, who readily allowed certain members of his staff to work for the Agency and agreed to provide jobs and credentials for other CIA operatives who lacked journalistic experience.***In the 1950s and early 1960s, Time magazine s foreign correspondents attended CIA briefing dinners similar to those the CIA held for CBS.***When Newsweek was purchased by the Washington Post Company, publisher Philip L. Graham was informed by Agency officials that the CIA occasionally used the magazine for cover purposes, according to CIA sources. It was widely known that Phil Graham was somebody you could get help from, said a former deputy director of the Agency. Frank Wisner dealt with him. Wisner, deputy director of the CIA from 1950 until shortly before his suicide in 1965, was the Agency s premier orchestrator of black operations, including many in which journalists were involved. Wisner liked to boast of his mighty Wurlitzer, a wondrous propaganda instrument he built, and played, with help from the press.)***In November 1973, after [the CIA claimed to have ended the program], Colby told reporters and editors from the New York Times and the Washington Star that the Agency had some three dozen American newsmen on the CIA payroll, including five who worked for general circulation news organizations. Yet even while the Senate Intelligence Committee was holding its hearings in 1976, according to high level CIA sources, the CIA continued to maintain ties with seventy five to ninety journalists of every description executives, reporters, stringers, photographers, columnists, bureau clerks and members of broadcast technical crews. More than half of these had been moved off CIA contracts and payrolls but they were still bound by other secret agreements with the Agency. According to an unpublished report by the House Select Committee on Intelligence, chaired by Representative Otis Pike, at least fifteen news organizations were still providing cover for CIA operatives as of 1976.***Those officials most knowledgeable about the subject say that a figure of 400 American journalists is on the low side . There were a lot of representations that if this stuff got out some of the biggest names in journalism would get smeared .An expert on propaganda testified under oath during trial that the CIA now employs THOUSANDS of reporters and OWNS its own media organizations. Whether or not his estimate is accurate, it is clear that many prominent reporters still report to the CIA.A 4-part BBC documentary called the Century of the Self shows that an American Freud s nephew, Edward Bernays created the modern field of manipulation of public perceptions, and the U.S. government has extensively used his techniques.More from Washington s Blog here READ MORE PROPAGANDA NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire Propaganda FilesREAD MORE PENTAGON NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire Pentagon FilesSUPPORT 21WIRE by subscribing and becoming a MEMBER @ 21WIRE.TV | 1 |
Wow! Moonbeam Johnson addresses three issues he feels are very pressing! It s very scary to think 5-7% of Americans say they d vote for him if the election was held today Johnson claims things have never been better in America: We get along with each other better that ever. LOL!Sunday on ABC s This Week, Libertarian presidential candidate and former governor of New Mexico Gary Johnson called for space colonization as an answer for global warming by saying, the fact that we do have to inhabit other planets. I mean the future of the human race is of is space exploration. Partial transcript as follows:STEPHANOPOULOS: Let me ask you one final question, you ve said you re for free markets and you re against government regulation. And this and this week, a a comment circulated that you made in 2011, where you said we have to think about climate change as a long-term issue. And here s what you said.(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)JOHNSON: I think that we should. And the long-term view is, is that in billions of years, the sun is going to actually grow and encompass the Earth, right? So global warming is in our in our future. -Via Breitbart(END VIDEO CLIP)https://youtu.be/GcwFk7rqGQo | 1 |
Report Copyright Violation GOP Cites Success in Limiting Voter Fraud One of the best ways to limit voter fraud is to reduce the number of people able to vote, since, if the amount of voter fraud is constant percentage-wise, when there are less people voting, the voter fraud will automatically be reduced. It is particularly important to do this in areas with high numbers of democrats, since that is where such noted poll watchers and intellectuals as Alex Jones and Trump ally Roger Stone say the voter fraud actually occurs: | 1 |
Based Stickman, aka Kyle Chapman became famous on social media after he was one of the first Trump supporters to fight back at a California Trump rally after violent Antifa thugs randomly began cracking skulls and stabbing people who dared to openly supporting our President. Americans were fed up with watching innocent Americans being physically harmed and threatened while police officers stood down and watched the violence unfold. Once Kyle Chapman took the lead and started fighting back, other Trump supporters joined him. It wasn t long before the Antifa cowards stopped attacking innocent Trump supporters.Here s a short video showing Base Stick Man in action, as he takes the lead in defending his fellow Trump supporters who were being attack by a large mob of violent Democrats:Communists/Anarchists start a fight they cant finish @ UC Berkeley #March4Trump pic.twitter.com/OoZJrzkxXG Andrew Quackson (@AndrewQuackson) March 5, 2017Today, Kyle Chapman (Based Stickman) and conservative Latino activist Robert Herrera were on the streets of New York showing their support for President Trump when Chapman noticed a 15-yr. old girl proudly displaying a communist poster her mother allegedly purchased for her. Chapman questioned the young girl about her knowledge of communism and asked her if she s aware of the millions of people who have been murdered throughout history at the hands of communist dictators? The 15-yr. old girl s mother can be seen videotaping the exchange until she realizes that her daughter is actually getting an education about the ugly truth about Communism, at which time she asks Chapman to stop engaging her daughter while videotaping her. As the mother-daughter duo walk away, the New York City police officer who witnessed the entire exchange can be seen stepping up to congratulate Chapman on a job well done. The unidentified police officer remarks about how he appreciated the way in which Chapman conducted himself with civility. As the officer begins to move away, he can be heard remarking, Facts hurt people s feelings .Watch:Although Based Stickman was arrested and charged with assault for defending himself and other Trump supporters from Antifa thugs, it hasn t slowed down his enthusiasm for defending President Trump or innocent Americans who are simply exercising their First Amendment Right. America could use a thousand more Kyle Chapman s and Robert Herrera s | 1 |
BUDAPEST (Reuters) - Hungary will not change its anti-immigration stance after the European Union s top court dismissed a challenge against migrant quotas, Prime Minister Viktor Orban said on Friday. The EU s highest court ruled on Wednesday that member states must take in a share of refugees who reach Europe, dismissing the challenge by Slovakia and Hungary and re-igniting an east-west row that has shaken EU cohesion. We must take note of the ruling as we cannot erode the foundation of the EU - and respect of law is the foundation of the EU - but at the same time this court ruling is no reason for us to change our policy, which rejects migrants, Orban told state radio. The Mediterranean migrant crisis of 2015 flooded the Balkans, Italy and Greece with migrants, which prompted the EU to impose mandatory quotas on its member countries for relocating asylum seekers. The flow of migrants has receded, easing pressure to force compliance on nationalist leaders like Orban, who is benefiting from his tough anti-immigrant policies as elections approach in 2018. Now that the legal challenge has failed, Orban said he would pursue a political fight to force the EU to change its mandatory migrant quotas. The whole issue raises a very serious question of principles: whether we are an alliance of European free nations with the Commission representing our joint interests, or a European empire which has its center in Brussels and which can issue orders, Orban said. He said EU countries which let in migrants, unlike Hungary, decided to do so of their own will and now they cannot ask Hungary to take a part in correcting their mistake. It is not us Hungarians who question the rules of the club, but the Commission had changed the rules and this is unacceptable, Orban added. He said that unlike some of the major member states of the EU, whose colonial legacy has made them immigrant countries , Hungary did not have a colonial past. These countries with colonial legacy, which have become immigrant countries by now, want to impose on us Central Europeans their own logic ... but Hungary does not want to become an immigrant country, Orban said. At the same time, he said Hungary was committed to EU membership, because Hungarians had decided in a referendum to join the bloc in 2004. No government can lead Hungary out of the EU as it was the Hungarian people which decided to be inside and this is right. | 1 |
There are all kinds of pushes designed to stop Trump from officially taking office in January. There s a petition on Change.org with over four million signatures calling on electors to make Hillary president. A recount effort is underway in three crucial battleground states. There are calls for investigations into his conflicts of interest, which could be unconstitutional and could prevent him from legally taking office.And now, a group of electors has gotten together to start raising money for a three-week mad dash to stop Donald Trump s election. It s true that these are Democratic electors, but their goal is to successfully lobby enough of their Republican counterparts to put someone ahem sane into the White House.The group is calling itself the Hamilton Electors, presumably after founding father Alexander Hamilton. Hamilton described both the need and the purpose of the Electoral College in Federalist No. 68 as the following: [The Electoral College] affords a moral certainty, that the office of President will never fall to the lot of any man who is not in an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications. Trump is eminently unqualified for the office of the president, and yet he won the necessary electoral votes. Therefore, if we look at what Hamilton said, our electors are obligated to reject Donald Trump and choose someone else.It s not yet clear what the Hamilton Electors will actually do with the money they raise, but their endgame is clear: Stop Trump in any legal way possible. They have already registered a 527 non-profit organization, and Colorado Democratic elector Michael Baca and his compatriots are looking to replace Trump with a more mainstream Republican.Wait, what? Why a mainstream Republican? Because as much as it should go to Hillary given the popular vote totals, the electors they have to convince to reject Trump are never going to do it if their alternative is a Democrat, and especially if it s Hillary. A mainstream Republican, such as John Kasich, is an alternative that many Republicans could probably get behind. This, however, means convincing Democratic electors in addition to Republican electors.Someone like Kasich could do a lot to halt the progress we ve made over the last 8 years, but he s sane, at the very least. He also won t be flying off the handle on Twitter at every single last perceived slight. He has his problems, but at least we can be reasonably sure the country will survive to see 2020.Under Trump ? There s a lot less of a guarantee, especially with Congressional leaders signaling that they re ready to work with him. And, as some are pointing out, the electors have an obligation to ensure that we don t put a demagogue into the White House. And there is currently no law or precedent preventing the College from choosing its own candidate.There have been no overt signs that Republican electors will get behind the Hamilton Electors, however, the Democratic coalition says they re getting through to at least some of them. Even a split vote, where Trump doesn t get 270 electoral votes on Dec. 19, might help because that would send it to Congress and they d have the final say.Unfortunately, they d probably choose Trump anyway.If someone else, like Kasich, Mitt Romney, or another mainstream Republican managed to get 270 electoral votes, there would likely be some serious problems. That s particularly true for Trump voters, the RNC, and Congress. The chances that the Hamilton Electors will succeed in their efforts are slim, but at least we have a group in the Electoral College that s trying.Featured image by Drew Angerer via Getty Images | 1 |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump is considering a new order to replace his soon-to-expire travel ban on people from six Muslim-majority countries that would be tailored on a country-by-country basis to protect the United States from attacks, U.S. officials said on Friday. With the current ban on people from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen due to expire on Sunday, Trump was given recommendations by Elaine Duke, the acting homeland security secretary, but has not yet made a decision on the details of any new order, the officials told reporters. Miles Taylor, counselor to Duke, said she recommended to Trump “actions that are tough and that are tailored, including travel restrictions and enhanced screening for certain countries.” Taylor declined to say which or how many countries would be targeted, including the status of the six countries covered by the current ban. White House spokesman Raj Shah said that while “we can’t get into decision-making,” the next step will be a presidential proclamation setting out the new policy. He declined to say when that would come, including whether Trump would act before the existing ban expires. The American Civil Liberties Union, the rights group that mounted one of the legal challenges to the March order, expressed skepticism about Trump’s forthcoming action. “This looks to be the Trump administration’s third try to make good on an unconstitutional campaign promise to ban Muslims from the United States,” ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero said. Trump’s six-nation travel ban was laid out in a March 6 executive order that was blocked by federal courts before being allowed to go into effect with some limits by the U.S. Supreme Court in June. Under the recommendations Trump is weighing, there would be restrictions on U.S. entry that differ by nation, based on cooperation with American security mandates, the threat the United States believes each country presents and other variables, Taylor said. He did not specify the nature of the restrictions, but said that after being imposed they could be lifted “if conditions change.” The legal question of whether the existing ban discriminates against Muslims in violation of the U.S. Constitution, as lower courts previously ruled, will be argued before the Supreme Court on Oct. 10. Officials declined to say how the proposed change in policy could affect the upcoming Supreme Court case. The March travel ban and an earlier January one that targeted the same six countries as well as Iraq are some of the most controversial actions taken by Trump since assuming office in January. Critics have called the policy an unlawful “Muslim ban,” accusing the Republican president of discriminating against Muslims in violation of constitutional guarantees of religious liberty and equal protection under the law, breaking existing U.S. immigration law, and stoking religious hatred. Trump, who has promised that “radical Islamic terrorism” will be “eradicated,” wrote on Twitter on Sept. 15: “The travel ban into the United States should be far larger, tougher and more specific-but stupidly, that would not be politically correct!” The expiring ban blocked entry into the United States by people from the six countries for 90 days and locked out most aspiring refugees for 120 days to give Trump’s administration time to conduct a worldwide review of U.S. vetting procedures for foreign visitors. The existing refugee ban expires on Oct. 24. Taylor said American officials in July notified every foreign government of requirements for the minimum cooperation the United States needs to validate traveler identities to ensure they do not represent a national security threat. Those countries were given 50 days to respond. People from countries that did not meet the requirements may not be allowed to enter the United States or may face other travel restrictions, Taylor said. Most countries met those requirements or agreed to work toward meeting them, Taylor added. “At the end of the day, some countries were still unable or, worse yet, deliberately unwilling to comply with the new baseline that we laid out,” Taylor said. Trump, who promised as a candidate to impose “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States,” has said the soon-to-expire ban was needed to protect the United States from terrorism. “We need to know who is coming into our country,” Taylor said. “We should be able to validate their identities and we should be able to confirm that our foreign partners do not have information suggesting such individuals may represent a threat to the United States.” While Trump’s January and March orders were quickly blocked by federal courts, the expected new restrictions might be harder to challenge because they are the product of a worldwide review process examining vetting procedures of foreign countries, legal experts said. | 1 |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump said on Friday the United States would maintain sanctions on Cuba and Venezuela until they restore political and religious freedom. We re confronting rogue regimes from Iran to North Korea and we are challenging the communist dictatorship of Cuba and the socialist oppression of Venezuela, Trump told a conservative political conference. And we will not lift the sanctions on these repressive regimes until they restore political and religious freedom for their people. | 1 |
CLEVELAND Avik Roy is a Republicans Republican. A health care wonk and editor at Forbes, he has worked for three Republican presidential hopefuls Mitt Romney, Rick Perry, and Marco Rubio. Much of his adult life has been dedicated to advancing the Republican Party and conservative ideals.
But when I caught up with Roy at a bar just outside the Republican convention, he said something Ive never heard from an establishment conservative before: The Grand Old Party is going to die.
I dont think the Republican Party and the conservative movement are capable of reforming themselves in an incremental and gradual way, he said. Theres going to be a disruption.
Roy isnt happy about this: He believes it means the Democrats will dominate national American politics for some time. But he also believes the Republican Party has lost its right to govern, because it is driven by white nationalism rather than a true commitment to equality for all Americans.
Until the conservative movement can stand up and live by that principle, it will not have the moral authority to lead the country, he told me.
This is a standard assessment among liberals, but it is frankly shocking to hear from a prominent conservative thinker. Our conversation had the air of a confessional: of Roy admitting that he and his intellectual comrades had gone wrong, had failed, had sinned.
His history of conservatism was a Greek tragedy. It begins with a fatal error in 1964, survived on the willful self-delusion of people like Roy himself, and ended with Donald Trump.
I think the conservative movement is fundamentally broken, Roy tells me. Trump is not a random act. This election is not a random act.
The conservative movements founding error: Barry Goldwater
In 1955, William F. Buckley created the intellectual architecture of modern conservatism by founding National Review, focusing on a free market, social conservatism, and a muscular foreign policy. Buckleys ideals found purchase in the Republican Party in 1964, with the nomination of Barry Goldwater. While Goldwater lost the 1964 general election, his ideas eventually won out in the GOP, culminating in the Reagan Revolution of 1980.
Normally, Goldwaters defeat is spun as a story of triumph: how the conservative movement eventually righted the ship of an unprincipled GOP. But according to Roy, its the first act of a tragedy.
Goldwaters nomination in 1964 was a historical disaster for the conservative movement, Roy tells me, because for the ensuing decades, it identified Democrats as the party of civil rights and Republicans as the party opposed to civil rights.
THE GRAVITATIONAL CENTER OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY IS WHITE NATIONALISM
Goldwater opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. He himself was not especially racist he believed it was wrong, on free market grounds, for the federal government to force private businesses to desegregate. But this principled stance identified the GOP with the pro-segregation camp in everyones eyes, while the Democrats under Lyndon Johnson became the champions of anti-racism.
This had a double effect, Roy says. First, it forced black voters out of the GOP. Second, it invited in white racists who had previously been Democrats. Even though many Republicans voted for the Civil Rights Act in Congress, the post-Goldwater party became the party of aggrieved whites.
The fact is, today, the Republican coalition has inherited the people who opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 the Southern Democrats who are now Republicans, Roy says. Conservatives and Republicans have not come to terms with that problem.
Conservative intellectuals were blind to the truth about the GOP hence Trump
Avik Roy (L) discusses Obamacare on television. (William B. Plowman/NBC/NBC News/Getty Images)
The available evidence compiled by historians and political scientists suggests that 1964 really was a pivotal political moment, in exactly the way Roy describes.
Yet Republican intellectuals have long denied this, fabricating a revisionist history in which Republicans were and always have been the party of civil rights. In 2012, National Review ran a lengthy cover story arguing that the standard history recounted by Roy was popular but indefensible.
This revisionism, according to Roy, points to a much bigger conservative delusion: They cannot admit that their partys voters are motivated far more by white identity politics than by conservative ideals.
Conservative intellectuals, and conservative politicians, have been in kind of a bubble, Roy says. Weve had this view that the voters were with us on conservatism philosophical, economic conservatism. In reality, the gravitational center of the Republican Party is white nationalism.
Conservative intellectuals, for the most part, are horrified by racism. When they talk about believing in individual rights and equality, they really mean it. Because the Republican Party is the vehicle through which their ideas can be implemented, they need to believe that the party isnt racist.
So they deny the partys racist history, that its post-1964 success was a direct result of attracting whites disillusioned by the Democrats embrace of civil rights. And they deny that to this day, Republican voters are driven more by white resentment than by a principled commitment to the free market and individual liberty.
Its the power of wishful thinking. None of us want to accept that opposition to civil rights is the legacy that weve inherited, Roy says.
He expands on this idea: Its a common observation on the left, but its an observation that a lot of us on the right genuinely believed wasnt true which is that conservatism has become, and has been for some time, much more about white identity politics than it has been about conservative political philosophy. I think today, even now, a lot of conservatives have not come to terms with that problem.
This, Roy believes, is where the conservative intellectual class went astray. By refusing to admit the truth about their own party, they were powerless to stop the forces that led to Donald Trumps rise. They told themselves, over and over again, that Goldwaters victory was a triumph.
But in reality, it created the conditions under which Trump could thrive. Trumps politics of aggrieved white nationalism labeling black people criminals, Latinos rapists, and Muslims terrorists succeeded because the partys voting base was made up of the people who once opposed civil rights.
[Trump] tapped into something that was latent in the Republican Party and conservative movement but a lot of people in the conservative movement didnt notice, Roy concludes, glumly.
For conservatism to live, the conservative movement has to die
A sign with one of the RNCs most popular slogans. (Bill Clark/CQ Roll Cal)
Over beers, I ask Roy how he feels about all of this personally. His answer is very sad.
When Marco [Rubio] lost, I went through the five stages of grief. It was tough. I had to spend some time thinking about what to do for the next several years of my life, he says.
I left a comforting and rewarding career as a biotech investor to do this kind of work. I did it because I felt it was important, and I care about the country. Maybe its cheesy to say that, but I really sincerely do, he continues. So then, okay, what do I do? Do I do the same things Ive been doing for the last four years? To me, just to do that to collect a paycheck didnt make a lot of sense.
This soul-searching led Roy to an uncomfortable conclusion: The Republican Party, and the conservative movement that propped it up, is doomed.
Both are too wedded to the politics of white nationalism to change how they act, but that just isnt a winning formula in a nation thats increasingly black and brown. Either the Republican Party will eat itself or a new party will rise and overtake its voting share.
Either the disruption will come from the Republican Party representing cranky old white people and a new right-of-center party emerging in its place, or a third party will emerge, la the Republicans emerging from the Whigs in the [1850s], Roy says.
The work of conservative intellectuals today, he argues, is to devise a new conservatism a political vision that adheres to limited government principles but genuinely appeals to a more diverse America.
I think its incredibly important to take stock, he says, and build a new conservative movement that is genuinely about individual liberty.
I dont know how this would work. I dont think Roy knows either.
For the entire history of modern conservatism, its ideals have been wedded to and marred by white supremacism. Thats Roys own diagnosis, and I think its correct. As a result, we have literally no experience in America of a politically viable conservative movement unmoored from white supremacy.
Ive read dozens of conservative intellectuals writing compellingly about non-racist conservative ideals. Writers like Andrew Sullivan, Ross Douthat, Reihan Salam, Michael Brendan Dougherty, and too many others to count have put forward visions of a conservative party quite different from the one we have.
But not one of these writers, smart as they are, has been able to explain what actual political constituency could bring about this pure conservatism in practice. The fact is that limited government conservatism is not especially appealing to nonwhite Americans, whereas liberalism and social democracy are. The only ones for whom conservatism is a natural fit are Roys cranky old white people and theyre dying off.
Maybe Roy and company will be able to solve this problem. I hope they do. America needs a viable, intellectually serious right-of-center party.
Because we now know what the alternative looks like. Its Donald Trump.
Watch: How the Republican Party went from Lincoln to Trump | 0 |
Twenty four years ago Hillary Clinton walked on stage at the 1992 Democratic National Convention, as the hopeful future first lady. Thursday night she walked on stage at the 2016 convention as the first woman to accept the presidential nomination of a major U.S. political party.
"Stronger together" was the overwhelming theme Thursday evening as Clinton took the stage, with an early shout-out to Bernie Sanders supporters, some of whom protested her nomination with glow in the dark shirts.
Clinton's main efforts focused on differentiating herself from rival Donald Trump, as well as focusing on the "steady leadership" she would provide on foreign policy and the economy.
Largely absent from her speech: mentions of faith, religious liberty and abortion. She did get in a dig at Trump's proposed ban on Muslims entering the country, saying "we will not ban a religion."
She also referenced her Methodist faith, telling of her mother's admonition to "do all the good you can, for all the people you can, in all the ways you can, as long as ever you can."
Aside from Clinton making history as the first female presidential nominee from a major U.S. political party, her daughter Chelsea is also making history, having both of her parents run as the presidential candidate for their party.
"I am here as a proud American, a proud Democrat, a proud mother, and tonight in particular a very, very proud daughter," Chelsea Clinton said in her speech introducing her mother.
"I am so grateful to be her daughter, she makes me proud every single day," Clinton said.
Although Hillary Clinton won the nomination, the big question surrounding her historic night was would she be able to garner the attention and popularity she needs in order for Democrats to get behind her. She was quick to praise President Barack Obama whose legacy she hopes to build on.
"America is stronger because of Obama's leadership," Clinton said.
In an attempt at party unity she also pointedly affirmed her former opponent Bernie Sanders in the first few minutes of her speech, hoping to appease his supporters.
Her focus later turned to rival Donald Trump as she alternately fired away at his campaign and cast a vision for her own.
"Don't let anyone tell you our country is weak. We are not. Don't let anyone tell you we don't have what it takes--we do," Clinton said.
She continued to tell the audience to never believe someone who says he can fix the country on his own, referring to Trump.
"He is forgetting every last one of us," Clinton said.
She went on to use her campaign slogan saying, "We can fix it together," and referenced her book, It takes a Village.
"'Stronger together' is not just a slogan for our campaign, but a guiding principle," she said.
Clinton made multiple promises throughout the nearly one-hour speech, from her plan to support "local forces" to take out ISIS to creating "more good jobs with rising wages" in the United States.
She also promised to work with Sen. Bernie Sanders on education.
"Bernie Sanders and I will work together to make college tuition free for the middle class and debt-free for all. We will also liberate millions of people who already have student debt," she said.
Clinton assured her audience that she'll provide the necessary leadership in foreign policy and attacked Trump's ability to handle complicated foreign affairs.
"Imagine him in the Oval Office facing a real crisis," she said. "A man you can bait with a tweet is not a man we can trust with nuclear weapons."
Clinton said the United States will prevail over ISIS, promising to strike its sanctuaries from the air, support local forces on the ground and increase intelligence.
Earlier on Thursday, FBI Director James Comey warned of the great threat the U.S. faces with the growing terrorist organization.
Clinton ended the night on a note of promise for the future, telling Americans, "We are stronger together." | 0 |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States on Monday condemned Venezuela’s weekend gubernatorial elections as neither free nor fair and vowed to use its economic and diplomatic power to support Venezuelans in restoring democracy in the oil-exporting nation. “We condemn the lack of free and fair elections yesterday in Venezuela. The voice of the Venezuelan people was not heard,” State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said in a statement. “As long as the (Venezuelan President Nicolas) Maduro regime conducts itself as an authoritarian dictatorship, we will work with members of the international community and bring the full weight of American economic and diplomatic power to bear in support of the Venezuelan people as they seek to restore their democracy.” | 1 |
THE ALBINO MINE, Venezuela — The 12th time Reinaldo Balocha got malaria, he hardly rested at all. With the fever still rattling his body, he threw a pick ax over his shoulder and got back to work — smashing stones in an illegal gold mine. As a computer technician from a big city, Mr. Balocha was for the mines, his soft hands used to working keyboards, not the earth. But Venezuela’s economy collapsed on so many levels that inflation had obliterated his salary, along with his hopes of preserving a life. So, like tens of thousands of other people from across the country, Mr. Balocha came to these open, swampy mines scattered across the jungle, looking for a future. Here, waiters, office workers, taxi drivers, college graduates and even civil servants on vacation from their government jobs are out panning for gold, all under the watchful eyes of an armed group that taxes them and threatens to tie them to posts if they disobey. It is a society turned upside down, a place where educated people abandon jobs in the city for dangerous, backbreaking work in muddy pits, desperate to make ends meet. And it comes with a steep price: Malaria, long driven to the fringes of the country, is festering in the mines and back with a vengeance. Venezuela was the first nation in the world to be certified by the World Health Organization for eradicating malaria in its most populated areas, beating the United States and other developed countries to that milestone in 1961. It was a huge accomplishment for a small nation, one that helped pave Venezuela’s development as an oil power and fueled hopes that a model to stamp out malaria across the globe was at hand. Since then, the world has dedicated enormous amounts of time and money to beating back the disease, with deaths plummeting by 60 percent in places with malaria in recent years, according to the W. H. O. But in Venezuela, the clock is running backward. The country’s economic turmoil has brought malaria back, sweeping the disease out of the remote jungle areas where it quietly persisted and spreading it around the nation at levels not seen in Venezuela for 75 years, medical experts say. It all starts with the mines. With the economy in tatters, at least 70, 000 people from all walks of life have been streaming into this mining region over the past year, said Jorge Moreno, a leading mosquito expert in Venezuela. As they hunt for gold in watery pits, the perfect breeding ground for the mosquitoes that spread the disease, they are catching malaria by the tens of thousands. Then, with the disease in their blood, they return home to Venezuela’s cities. But because of the economic collapse, there is often no medicine and little fumigation to prevent mosquitoes there from biting them and passing malaria to others, sickening tens of thousands more people and leaving entire towns desperate for help. The economic breakdown has “triggered a great migration in Venezuela, and right behind it is the spread of malaria,” said Dr. Moreno, a researcher at a laboratory in the mining region. “With this breakdown comes a disease that is cooked in the same pot. ” Once out of the mines, malaria spreads quickly. Five hours away in Ciudad Guayana, a rusting former industrial boomtown where many are now jobless and have taken to wildcatting in the mines, a crowd of 300 people packed the waiting room of a clinic in May. All had symptoms of the disease: fevers, icy chills and uncontrollable tremors. There were no lights because the government had cut power to save electricity. There were no medicines because the Health Ministry had not delivered any. Health workers administered blood tests with their bare hands because they were out of gloves. Maribel Supero clutched her son as he trembled, unable to speak. José Castro held his daughter as she screamed. Griselda Bello, who works at the clinic, waved her hands helplessly and told yet another patient to hold on a bit longer. The pills had run out. There was nothing she could do. “Come back tomorrow at 10 a. m.,” she said. “My God,” the patient said. “Someone might die by then. ” “Indeed, they might,” she said. In the nearby town of Pozo Verde, residents said malaria had swept in after miners began returning home sick, the government fumigators having vanished two years ago. Now, the public high school has become an incubating ground of its own: A quarter of its 400 students have contracted malaria since November. “You would think we would do something — a cordon, a quarantine,” said Arebalo Enríquez, the principal of the school, who contracted malaria, as did his wife, mother and seven other members of his family. Officially, the spread of malaria in Venezuela has become a state secret. The government has not published epidemiological reports on the disease in the past year, and it says there is no crisis. But the most recent internal figures, obtained by The New York Times from Venezuelan doctors involved in compiling it, confirms a surge is underway. In the first six months of the year, malaria cases rose 72 percent, to a total of 125, 000, according to the figures. The disease cut a wide path through the country, with cases present in more than half of its 23 states. And among the malaria strains present here is Plasmodium falciparum, the parasite that causes the most fatal form of the disease. “It is a situation of national shame,” said Dr. José Oletta, a former Venezuelan health minister who lives in the capital, Caracas, where malaria cases are now appearing, too. “I was seeing this kind of thing when I was a medical student a ago. It hurts me. The disease had disappeared. ” In El Dique, a rural town where malaria was largely unknown until two years ago, Juana García, 66, sat outside her home, newly widowed since her husband fell ill with the disease and died. She hardly spoke or moved from her chair. “She will keep fighting,” said her daughter Ana María Padrón. Inside Ms. Padrón’s adobe home, her two sons were fighting malaria, too. Almost like clockwork, their fevers began in the morning: at 8 a. m. for Omar, who is 8 at 11 for Aristides, who is 7. The family has found no medicine. The boys have only painkillers. “We pray,” their mother said. The illegal mines spill out over dozens of miles, leaving a pockmarked stretch of earth where the jungle gives way to countless craters and scars. Some are no more than tiny pools where two men sift the mud with pans, like a scene from the California goldfields more than a century ago. Others drain wide marshes with tangled networks of tubes and pumps. In another spot, hundreds of wildcatters had dug out a gaping maw of red and white soil. It sinks 15 stories deep and runs the length of a football field. They call it Cuatro Muertos, or Four Dead Men. It was not supposed to be this way. The gold reserves were once controlled by a Canadian company before President Hugo Chávez expropriated them and pledged to use their profits to fund his revolution. But the expropriation followed the pattern of mismanagement and neglect that many others did during the Chávez era. The state eventually abandoned the territory around the mine, and the potentially lucrative profits. Wildcatters have moved in, and so have the armed groups that now call themselves the law here. But at least there is food. As the country convulses from food shortages and riots, as hungry mobs ransack grocery stores, restaurants and bakeries, the mining town of Las Claritas, only a short drive from the mines, lives in a state of relative plenty. Restaurants offer full menus. Street markets are packed with fruit. Pickups drive by loaded with pumpkins. In a country where soap is in short supply, a dozen brands are on sale in a grocery store, where seven models of televisions are also available. Miners dish out fat wads of their gold earnings in cash, which run through a machine. The promise of a different Venezuela — one where there is ample food and work that pays enough — led Yudani González to abandon a program to become a preschool teacher in Ciudad Bolívar, the provincial capital, where unemployment is rampant. Instead, she headed to a ramshackle jungle camp, where she cooks for miners with one hand and cares for her two young children with the other. “Here, you can get ahead,” Ms. González said, washing her daughter in a plastic bucket on the counter as she cooked. Danneris Flores, a government employee moonlighting as a mining camp cook, sat nearby. She is an administrative assistant in a health clinic, but Venezuela’s currency has tumbled so far that her salary amounts to only about $1 a day at the current street value. So she asked for a vacation — and used it to work for a couple of weeks at the mines. Her who works for the state oil company, Pdvsa, does the same thing. In a short stint at the mines, Ms. Flores said she could earn twice her monthly wages. She counted the days until she would be home to see her three children, whom she had left after “closing my eyes and making my heart small. ” “I never imagined that I would work in a mine,” she said to Ms. González as they served a meal. “Before, people thought of going to school. ” A miner walked in to greet the women and said he had recently watched someone collapse and die of malaria on her way to a market. Ms. González said she had come down with it four times herself. Her she said, has had it three times. “They charge you two grams of gold for medicine,” she said. “You pay what they ask. ” Not everyone can find medication, even with gold earnings. José Yoel Castillo stumbled to the doorstep of the malaria clinic in Las Claritas, carried on the shoulders of two relatives as he convulsed and was unable to speak. He had been making a living in the town of Caicara del Orinoco, driving passengers on the back of a motorcycle. But an armed gang took the vehicle, and Mr. Castillo could not afford a new one. So he came to the mines. He quickly found work and money — even malaria medication the first time he became ill. But when the symptoms came a second time, he could not find treatment anywhere. “Some people can just keep working through it,” said his Alejandro López. “But others can’t. ” Even with money in their pockets, the miners know the dangers of going back home. Josué Guevara, 20, gave up last November on his university studies in industrial engineering in a city about 10 hours away. He once pictured himself as a manager at the aluminum company, Alcasa. But his family members who worked there could barely afford food, he said. “Now I have other goals,” he said, standing at the edge of the Cuatro Muertos mines, where he lives and works today. Using gasoline and other chemicals to extract the gold, Mr. Guevara earned 500, 000 bolívars — around $500 at exchange rates, about 33 times the country’s minimum wage — during a lucky stretch. But when he got malaria this spring, he did what many miners do: He returned to his hometown to recover, bringing the disease with him. “Everything has its risks,” he said. On the other side of the vast pit, Pedro Pérez, 38, sat in a structure made of tree poles and tarp where he sleeps with 10 other miners. He tested positive for malaria twice in March. The third time he fell ill, he did not bother to get tested. “I was lying here and I felt the same symptoms,” he said. He, too, went back home — to the provincial capital, Ciudad Bolívar, where his mother eventually caught malaria, as well. “It’s coming from us,” Mr. Pérez said. Mr. Pérez remembered his life before he came to the mines last fall: He was a supervisor at a metal refinery, he said. He owned a house and a 2005 Ford Focus. He and his wife, a lawyer, once jetted off on getaways to Isla Margarita, a tropical island off the north coast of Venezuela. Yet even before he lost his job last year and was unable to find another, Venezuela’s plummeting currency had whittled his salary down to about $26 a month. He eventually left home for the mine. “I am still not used to washing myself every day in a river of dirty water,” he said. “I thought I had a good life. ” A few weeks ago, his wife came to Las Claritas to buy the food and soap she could not find in Ciudad Bolívar. The couple spent three nights together in a miner’s hostel. After she left, Mr. Pérez felt the strains on their marriage. “‘I know it’s hard for you,’ I tell her, ‘but we have to accept this new reality,’” he said. Back in Las Claritas, at a table in a dark brothel that smelled of alcohol, sat Angélica, a young woman with long black hair whose parents do not know she has turned to prostitution to make her living. She left the eastern city of Maturín three months ago when riots erupted because food had gone scarce. “Before, you waited in line for hours, but you got something,” said Angélica, who did not give her last name, ashamed of her work. “But now there is nothing there. ” Today she earns the equivalent of $40 when a miner wants to spend the night with her. More often, the money comes in increments of $8, when a customer wants to have sex and leave a short time later. At times, she said, it may be a stranger who is trembling with fever, unable to perform because of malaria. Other times, it is the owner of one of the Chinese grocery stores. The men come from all corners of the country. “The most difficult part of this life is being with someone who you do not love,” she said. Venezuela rose only after malaria declined. It was the 1920s and another resource had set off a bonanza — the black gold of oil, discovered in massive supply. But a vast malaria hot zone, then of Venezuela, stood between the country and its riches. The deadly scenes were later immortalized in “Dead Homes,” a 1955 Venezuelan novel about the rural epidemics of malaria and the waves of migration to the country’s oil fields. Freeing the country of malaria became pivotal to Venezuela’s development, said Dr. Oletta, the former health minister. “Only once malaria was gone, roads could come, industry,” he said. “This was a sick country, and when it got well, things changed. ” That transformative effort was led by Dr. Arnoldo Gabaldón, the former health minister who began one of the world’s first efforts to eradicate malaria and who became a national hero during his age. Teams across the Venezuelan countryside built irrigation ditches to drain pools of standing water, distributed quinine and constructed cinder block homes in rural areas so that mosquitoes had fewer places to breed. Dr. Gabaldón founded a research center in the city of Maracay, outside of Caracas and itself a malaria zone at the time, to broaden the mission and train officials from Latin America and Africa. But it was his use of insecticides — initially DDT, then other substances — that began to turn the tide. The walls of nearly every rural home in the country were sprayed, a technique that killed mosquitoes when they landed to rest. Fumigators would leave an envelope showing the date they would return. By 1949, malaria deaths had fallen drastically: to nine per 100, 000 people from 300. By the time Mr. Chávez assumed the presidency 50 years later and began to carry out his vision for Venezuela, the regimented system of Dr. Gabaldón had long faded, though malaria still appeared to be confined to a few rural areas. But the restructuring of the economy under Mr. Chávez and his followers, including a growing dependence on oil revenue and a system of currency controls restricting American dollars, would eventually change that. In 2014 and 2015, as oil prices collapsed and the government scrambled for money to pay for goods, services and imports, there were long shortages of chloroquine and primaquine, two drugs used for Plasmodium vivax, the most prevalent malaria parasite in the Americas. By 2016, doctors said there were shortages of nearly all drugs, most notably a drug cocktail for the deadly falciparum strain that costs just several dollars for a full round of treatment. Though debilitating and even fatal, malaria is easily treatable with the proper medication. Dr. Leopoldo Villegas, an international malaria expert in Bangkok, said the government also relied on outdated methods like outdoor fogging with insecticides, which had unproven effects on adult mosquitoes that transmit malaria. And because it was not publishing epidemiological reports of new malaria cases or deaths, it was unclear how much medicine was needed each year. “This is an emergency, this is an outbreak, and it’s not being dealt with by the government this way,” Dr. Villegas said, adding that the Venezuelan government had repeatedly denied the extent of malaria’s resurgence to international organizations that could help prevent its spread. Gustavo Bretas, a Brazilian malaria expert, said that Venezuela once trained people throughout the region in malaria prevention. But Venezuela’s inability to contain its own outbreak means that it now plays the opposite role: It poses a threat to the countries around it, particularly Brazil, where there are also illegal gold mines. “It’s starting to spill over into neighboring countries,” he said, adding that the lack of government statistics made the extent of the problem hard to assess. Venezuela’s Health Ministry did not respond to requests for an interview, including a letter delivered to its offices. Oscar Noya now works in Dr. Gabaldón’s old laboratory in Caracas under a picture of his mentor in a suit and bow tie. On a recent day, malaria patients once again sat on the steps, most having arrived from the mines. Fifteen had come on a recent morning 12 of them tested positive for the disease. Dr. Noya tries to make do without many vital drugs, like artesunate, listed by the W. H. O. as an essential medicine for the treatment of severe cases of falciparum malaria. He has only three vials of it left. He needs six to treat a single patient with a serious case. One recent night, a gang entered one of his malaria laboratories and stole the computers, one of about 20 attacks this year against the Tropical Medical Institute where he works, Dr. Noya said. He wonders if the groups are aligned with the government. “We believe this is no more than intimidation because we’re not quiet and we won’t be quiet,” he said, referring to public advocacy about malaria and the spread of other diseases. Dr. Noya put away his vials of artesunate as more patients gathered outside. He looked up with an air of desperation. “Dr. Gabaldón would have died of a heart attack if he’d seen what is happening,” he said. Despite the constant churn of workers from across Venezuela, there is a clear order to the mines. It is enforced by an armed group known as the Union. One of the Union’s bosses came to the mines years ago to work as a dentist. He still does. But the squads of patrolmen on motorbikes who dominate this place are the real source of his wealth and power. He sports gold chains, two gold teeth — and brass knuckles made of gold. After the government abandoned them, the mines soon grew again, this time at an unruly pace as wildcatters plowed into the forest, creating pools of stagnant water and a population of easy prey for the mosquitoes that breed in them, paving the way for the explosion of malaria. Sitting on his patio, the boss, who declined to be named because he could be arrested by the government, took pride in what he said was the Union’s ability to fill in for the vacuum left by the state. Yes, he acknowledged, the punishments the group meted out could be gruesome, like shooting off a man’s hand when he stole, or tying others to posts at the entrance of town with a sign detailing the offense committed. But he argued that the discipline kept crime in the camps low and allowed miners to go about their business in peace — another aspect of life that has steadily eroded in Venezuela’s dangerous cities. “To get justice from the police is a joke,” he said. “You have to get your own justice. ” Eduardo Medina agreed. A former pharmacist, he said he had left the drugstore where he worked in the state of Zulia a year ago to start mining because he saw the economic crisis spread and law and order slip away. “At any time, you might go out and someone would put a pistol in your face for your phone, or knife your mother,” Mr. Medina said in his tent. “Crime is under control here. They charge us, but they solve the problems, too. ” But the appearance of calm is deceiving. Storms rage in other places where rivals vie for control of the mines. In March, at least 17 miners were killed in what the authorities believed was one such dispute. Mr. Medina, on a break, looked down into the pit where his fellow miners labored. “At any moment, you can be killed in Zulia,” he said. “But you can be killed here, too. ” For all the challenges of keeping order, the boss said, malaria was even harder. “On malaria, we are screwed,” he said. The task of monitoring the disease seems to have been delegated to people like a state health employee named Miguel Martínez, who sat at a lonely post a short walk from a brothel near the mines, examining blood samples from miners. Under his microscope, a dye had stained the malaria parasite a dark purple. The log beside him showed that half of the patients who had visited him that day had tested positive for malaria. Like many health workers in this country, Mr. Martínez was exasperated. “Just as there are no rice and beans in this country, there are no medicines,” he said. Evening approached at the mine, the time when the Anopheles mosquito begins to feed. Dusk settled over a clapboard Pentecostal church, where parishioners speak in tongues, and past a circus tent promising alcohol and a strip tease. Under a tarp, five men hammered away at a vein of quartz, which they would grind down and sift for gold. Others waded up to their shoulders in pools laden with heavy metals like mercury, angling tubes to pump the mud. Tropical birds flew in the distance. “Is the malaria really coming from the miners?” asked Aníbal Flores, 28, a miner who sleeps in a hammock between two poles beside the mine. “But where else can we go to make money? The city? There is no food there. ” Lately, many Venezuelans have taken matters into their own hands. Five hours away in the newly infected town of El Dique, residents were collecting 100 bolívars from each household to hire a fumigator to come spray their homes. In the mine, where malaria tests are sometimes unavailable, miners said they had developed an exam of their own: Drink two bottles of beer. If a sharp pain is felt afterward in the liver, where the parasites reside, then the patient has malaria, the test goes. Health officials said the measure was futile. Still, Mr. Balocha, the former computer technician who works in the Albino Mine, lives by it. Miners call it an “artisanal test. ” He was sick once again, waiting for medicine at a fence on the edge of a clinic. He recalled the words of his uncle, who phoned him a year ago when Mr. Balocha found his salary as a computer technician to be worthless in the city of Valencia. “There is money here,” said the uncle, who was mining then. “You have to know how to find it. ” Mr. Balocha started as a “palero,” a stone breaker, getting the smallest cut of the take. But it was still more than what his salary bought in the city after inflation had whittled it away, he said. He recalled the first time he got malaria, too, the “chills like you were lying down between two blocks of ice. ” “The first time you get malaria is the ugliest,” Mr. Balocha said. “You can’t control the tremors. You feel like you will die. You feel like you are a zombie. ” But he would become a millionaire here, he joked, and one day he would head to Europe — with a Latin American woman, he added — far from the mines, the malaria and the Union. He sighed, looking up at the sky. “In the mine, happiness is only temporary,” he said. | 0 |
There are moments in life when you have to admit you made mistakes. However, for New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, this is not one of those moments. To be blunt, he s having a very bad week. Not only is Christie no longer in the running for the White House, he made the bizarre choice to endorse Donald Trump on the same weekend that Trump wouldn t disavow the Ku Klux Klan. And it even seems as if Trump isn t that thrilled with the support, telling Christie that he should just go home. Christie claims he s proud to support Trump, but his actions at a recent press conference suggest otherwise. He insisted that he only be asked questions that were on-topic, and anytime he was asked about Trump he would go off into a rehearsed non-answer to avoid the subject. He said things, such as: No, I won t permit you to. I told you that there s going to be only on-topic questions today. So, permission denied. That s an off-topic question. I think you understand that I m answering on-topic questions today. And then when asked why he wouldn t answer any questions related to Trump, he responded with the maturity level of a four-year-old being asked to eat his peas: Because I don t want to. At this point the New Jersey governor should just go back to his state to take care of business instead of try to hold on to whatever remaining spotlight he can. He should do so not only for his state, but also for his dignity.Christie, back away slowly while you still can and do your job. Both your state and your nation will appreciate it. Not only does your endorsement mean nothing to Trump, it makes you look like, to use your language, an idiot.Watch the awkward moments from the press conference here:Featured image via screen grab | 1 |
Earlier today, Donald Trump had a joint conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and he used it as an opportunity to embarrass himself (and the rest of the United States) in front of yet another world leader. Sadly, this is a pattern that the once highly respected America is becoming used to.When Trump was asked if he regretted some of his tweets, particularly his insane wiretapping accusations against former President Barack Obama, Trump failed miserably in his attempt to handle the situation and redeem himself with Merkel, who he d been criticizing for the past few months after she allowed Syrian refugees into her country.Trump stated that he very seldom regrets the things he posts on Twitter, right before turning to Merkel and making a reference to the unfounded wiretapping accusation he created. Trump suggested that perhaps the two of them had something in common, in an attempt to make a joke about Obama s surveillance of Germany s administration and press. The problem was, it took several moments for anyone in the audience to get the joke, and the tension in the room was nothing but awkward and uncomfortable as everyone tried to figure out just what the hell Trump was talking about.You can watch this strange moment unfold below, thanks to MSNBC:This humiliating moment was just one of the memorable instances between Merkel and Trump today. Trump embarrassed himself again during a sit-down meeting with the German chancellor by turning down her offer to shake hands, making himself seem even more offensive and rude than ever before. Considering Trump s horrendous track record with women, he couldn t have chosen a more disrespectful thing to do. Then again, I guess we should all be thankful that he didn t grab her by the p*ssy.Trump continues to make the U.S. look horrible in front of other countries, and it s only been two months. I don t even want to think about the damage he could do to our reputation in four years. Hopefully, he won t last that long.Featured image via Justin Sullivan/Getty Images | 1 |
If Trump isn t willing to attach his name to something, you know it must really be bad no matter how wonderful he says it is.On Monday, House Republicans passed what they dubiously refer to as the American Healthcare Act, which repeals the Affordable Care Act.The bill would strip healthcare from millions of Americans, including the millions who were able to access Medicaid coverage. The bill also defunds Planned Parenthood and sticks senior citizens with higher costs among a litany of other things that screw over the American people.On Tuesday, Donald Trump praised the bill on Twitter.Our wonderful new Healthcare Bill is now out for review and negotiation. ObamaCare is a complete and total disaster is imploding fast! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 7, 2017Of course, the only reason why the Affordable Care Act is imploding is because Trump and Republicans have been sabotaging it.But as wonderful as Trump says the Make America Sick Again bill is, his propaganda minister Kellyanne Conway is desperate to make sure Trump s name is not attached to it.After being asked by Fox News host Bill Hemmer if it would be okay to call the bill Trumpcare, Conway was quick to reply that Trump s name should not be associated with it in such a way. It s the American Health Care Act, and I think it s aptly named that for this reason, Conway said. It wants to cover, it wants everyone to have access to coverage, and that is something that didn t happen under Obamacare I ll call it Trumpcare if you want to, but I didn t hear President Trump say to any of us, I want my name on that. It s not about branding according to someone s name. This is serious business. Here s the video via YouTube:Gee, that didn t stop Republicans from branding the Affordable Care Act as Obamacare, even though the landmark healthcare law was aptly named because it actually made healthcare more accessible and affordable for millions of Americans.Trump s American Healthcare Act only strips millions of Americans of their healthcare coverage. It does nothing to give coverage to everyone. If Trump wants to cover all Americans he would push for universal healthcare, not a bill that takes healthcare away from millions, including people who voted for him.The real reason why Conway doesn t want Trump s name on the bill is because it s a bad bill that will harm a lot of people. In fact, it will likely lead to the deaths of many Americans.Trump and his Republican sycophants don t give a shit about all the people they are going to hurt by repealing the Affordable Care Act. Ad they certainly do not care about this country and its future. They only care about themselves.Featured image via screenshot | 0 |
White House Spokesperson Sarah Huckabee Sanders called out a liberal reporter today when he asked a question about DACA: I learned that in 8th grade! She went on to say that it s the job of Congress to step up on immigration reform: With all due respect, the American people elected Congress to do tough things. For those in Congress who can t do the heavy lifting, they should get out of the way and let someone in who can do the work .The entire presser is below. All we can say is we re so lucky Sarah is in this position! She does a great job!Her comment is at the 6:20 point here:And you knew THIS would happen: Republican leaders are cowards or are all for illegals The Washington Examiner reported: Mitch McConnell praises Trump s DACA move but doesn t commit to fast immigration fix. McConnell left out a specific pledge to take up DACA legislation, which Trump has called on Congress to do. FIGURES! | 0 |
HERNDON, Va. — Stung by the recent Supreme Court decision that overturned Texas abortion clinic restrictions, leaders of the country’s largest group are redoubling their efforts for restrictions on abortion that they claim will prevent fetal pain and that they believe can fare well in the public eye and, they hope, in the courts. The group’s leaders said they remained confident in their strategy of undermining Roe v. Wade one step at a time, with their main focus less on rules for clinic safety of the kind that were just overturned, and more on what they call the “humanity of the unborn child,” based on assumptions about fetal development that are sharply disputed by mainstream scientists. “Our people have had setbacks before, but they’re going to keep on fighting,” Carol Tobias, the president of the group, the National Right to Life Committee, declared at the organization’s annual meeting that was held here Thursday through Saturday — a combination of pep talks, tactical training and sharing of legislative strategies. “The movement is optimistic and excited about the future,” Ms. Tobias told hundreds of delegates from across the country. In public meetings, at least, the Supreme Court decision, which was described by many legal experts as a landmark victory for abortion rights, received only passing mention here. States have passed more than 300 measures since 2011, from mandatory ultrasounds to rules for burial of fetal remains. While the Supreme Court ruling could change the terms, it is already clear that pitched battles over abortion will continue in many states in the year ahead. But amid a continued flurry of bills, National Right to Life and its affiliates will give the highest priority to two measures in particular, the leaders here said. One is to promote state and federal bans on abortion at 20 weeks after conception, based on the claim, which mainstream medical scientists say is unfounded, that the fetus can feel pain at that point. The second is to outlaw the most common method of abortion, a form of dilation and evacuation, on the grounds that it is brutal and cruel. The Supreme Court decision on June 27, ruling that stringent clinic and physician regulations in Texas were unconstitutional, is widely seen as the most important abortion ruling in decades. The Texas regulations required doctors to have admitting privileges at local hospitals, and required clinics to meet the physical and staffing requirements of surgery centers — measures, the state argued, that protected women’s health. But the court ruled that the state had failed to show significant benefits for women’s health and safety and placed such onerous burdens on clinics that many would have to shut down. And so, the court held, in a decision, that the state had placed an illegal “undue burden” on women’s basic right to abortion up to the point that the fetus is viable outside the womb. The ruling, Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt, has already led courts to block similar clinic and physician rules in other states and is expected to figure in lawsuits over other restrictions, like bans on remote prescribing of pills for abortions, or waiting periods that cause hardship for poor women who must travel to reach a clinic. But how broadly the ruling will apply to abortion laws that do not involve claims about clinic safety or women’s health will emerge from lower court decisions over a period of years, legal experts say. Jennifer Dalven, the director of the Reproductive Freedom Project at the American Civil Liberties Union, predicted in an interview that the decision will have effects on any abortion restrictions that are based on scientifically dubious claims, whether related to clinic safety or not. “The court was crystal clear that politicians can no longer rely on flimsy justifications for abortion restrictions,” she said. “You have to have evidence that it serves a claimed interest, then weigh it against the burden. That has application to virtually any regulation. ” But leaders are hoping and predicting that the effect will be more narrow. They believe that the Supreme Court, and particularly Justice Anthony Kennedy, who has provided the swing vote in past cases, may look more favorably on laws that focus on the life of the fetus. “The Supreme Court case was focused on the health of the mother, but we take a different approach,” said Mary Spaulding Balch, the director of state legislation for National Right to Life, noting that clinic safety regulations had mainly been promoted by other groups. “Our legislation focuses on the humanity of the unborn child. ” Olivia Gans Turner, the executive director of the Virginia affiliate of National Right to Life, said that the Supreme Court decision, if anything, “really did energize a large part of our constituency. ” “Our people were anxious to find out, ‘Can we still move ahead? ’” she said. “It was a chance to educate people,” she said, adding that other priority laws such as the proposed ban should not be affected. Promoted by National Right to Life and other groups, bans based on the fetal pain theory have been adopted by 15 states and are under consideration in several more. It was telling, Ms. Balch said, that when abortion rights groups challenged the Texas clinic laws, they did not include the state’s ban, which was adopted at the same time and remains in effect. Legal experts for abortion rights say that the laws are a clear violation of existing Supreme Court rulings that women have a right to an abortion until the fetus is viable outside the womb, which is often about 22 weeks after conception. They say they are waiting for the right occasion to bring a court challenge to these bans, which affect relatively few women, and that fending off the regulations that closed down clinics was a higher priority. But Ms. Balch said groups welcomed the chance to test the bans before the Supreme Court, possibly leading it to change the existing dividing line for abortion rights based on fetal viability. In a more recent push, six states have acted to ban the most common method used in abortions, in which the fetus is torn and extracted with tools. In two of those states, Oklahoma and Kansas, the courts have temporarily blocked the bans, which many doctors have called an intrusion into medical decisions that could expose women to unneeded or more dangerous procedures. As disappointed as they were by last month’s Supreme Court decision, groups are far more concerned about the November elections for the Senate and the presidency, and the effects on the future makeup of the court. While Donald J. Trump has in the past expressed support for abortion rights, the leaders here said they took at face value his statements that he had converted to their cause and would appoint conservatives to the Supreme Court. A victory by Hillary Clinton and the appointment of one or more justices who share her strong support for abortion rights “would be catastrophic,” for the movement, said Anthony J. Lauinger, the chairman of Oklahomans for Life and a vice president of National Right to Life, creating “a very grim situation. ” But whatever happens, Mr. Lauinger said, “We view the glass as half full. ” Mr. Lauinger, 72, who has been an activist since the Roe v. Wade decision in 1973, said he felt encouraged in the face of periodic setbacks because “young people are picking up the battle. ” | 0 |
When you have a crowd of people listening to this kind of idiotic drama, I think it s safe to say you should expect to be booed off the stage if you don t tow the line. Here r the Black Net Roots speaker s dramatic introduction for Governor O Malley: Let s be clear Every single day folks are dying! Not being able to take another breath! We are in a state of emergency! We are in a state of emergency and if you don t fill that emergency you are not human! As the Washington Examiner noted Saturday, former Maryland governor and current presidential candidate Martin O Malley was being interviewed at the annual Netroots Nation conference and was making a statement about the need for civilian police review boards. The interview was interrupted by a group of protestors chanting, Say, black lives matter! In response to a question by one of the protestors about alleged instances of police brutality against African Americans, O Malley stated, I think all of us have a responsibility to recognize the pain and grief caused by lives lost to violence. Black lives matter. White lives matter. All lives matter. The statement is said to have drawn boos from the crowd. A minute or two later, O Malley apologized.The incident illustrated neatly illustrated the cultural divide between the left and the rest of America. Most people, without much of a thought, would agree that all lives matter, whether they belong to someone killed in an altercation with police or say a Marine gunned down by a terrorist. The crowd at Netroots Nation disagreed.More importantly, O Malley failed the Sister Souljah test by apologizing for saying something that should be axiomatic. A Sister Souljah Moment refers to an incident during the 1992 presidential campaign in which then Governor Bill Clinton condemned a rapper named Sister Souljah for racially incendiary lyrics in some of her songs. The statement caused a great deal of consternation, but Clinton received praise for taking on an extremist who was part of an important Democratic constituency. Clinton went on to be elected and then reelected four years later. Via: The Examiner | 0 |
NEW YORK (Reuters) - David McCormick has declined an offer to be U.S. deputy secretary of defense in President-elect Donald Trump’s administration, a person familiar with the situation said on Tuesday. It had been unclear how seriously McCormick - an Army veteran and former federal official who is now president of the world’s largest hedge fund manager, Bridgewater Associates LP - had been considered for the post. McCormick, who had previously been under consideration to be Treasury Secretary, declined partly because he is happy with his job at Bridgewater and the government role was not the right fit, said the person, who requested anonymity because the information is private. Westport, Connecticut-based Bridgewater declined to comment. McCormick did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment. The news of his withdrawal was first reported by Bloomberg. The Washington Post said the Trump team was considering keeping the current deputy defense secretary, Robert Work, on for at least several months. Retired Marine General James “Mad Dog” Mattis has been nominated to be Trump’s defense secretary, succeeding current Pentagon chief Ash Carter. Before joining Bridgewater, McCormick, a West Point graduate, was both a White House adviser and U.S. Treasury under secretary for international affairs under Republican President George W. Bush. | 0 |
Merkel was booed by residents of Saxony who re 100% FED Up! with her open borders policy sound familiar? | 1 |
It doesn t get any clearer than this that Iowa Rep. Steve King is a racist.During a story about King introducing Sarah s law, a program that allows parents to check if someone around their child has ever been convicted of sexual offenses against children, cameras busted the Republican openly displaying a Confederate flag on his office desk.Here s the video via YouTube. The flag can be seen at the 26 second mark.This pretty much confirms that King is a racist who fantasizes about secession. After all, he is a vicious critic of Black Lives Matter and has always hated President Obama, whom he directly blamed for the Dallas shootings in a post on Twitter.#DallasPoliceShooting has roots in first of anti-white/cop events illuminated by Obama Officer Crowley. There were others. Steve King (@SteveKingIA) July 8, 2016Furthermore, King tried to block the addition of Harriet Tubman, a former slave who escaped and became a prominent abolitionist who helped other slave gain their freedom via the Underground Railroad, to the $20 bill in defense of slave-holder Andrew Jackson, who is going to be moved to the back.King claimed that putting Tubman on the $20 bill is racist while he tried to portray his effort as unifying This is liberal activism on the part of the president that s trying to identify people by categories, and he s divided us on the lines of groups, King said. This is a divisive proposal on the part of the president, and mine s unifying. It says just don t change anything. King is also a fan of secession. When the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union last month, he cheered the vote on Twitter. Congratulations to UK, especially @Nigel_Farage & UKIP, for your noble & farsighted national decision to #BreExit. WesternCiv can be saved. Steve King (@SteveKingIA) June 24, 2016Texas conservatives also cheered the decision and have used it to push their own secession movement.Democratic candidate Kim Weaver, who is challenging King for his seat, told the De Moines Register, Like a lot of Iowans, I m disgusted by his gross insensitivity to the millions of Americans for whom that flag is a symbol of racism and division, and I join them in calling on Mr. King to remove it immediately. Even Iowa s GOP governor opposes King s display of the Confederate flag because Iowa was a Union state during the Civil War.Indeed, 76,242 Iowa men fought against the Confederacy. Iowans fought bravely with distinction at the Battle of Wilson Creek in Missouri and many are buried at Vicksburg National Cemetery. King s support of the Confederate flag is an insult to their memory and the memory of the 13,000 Iowans who died trying to defeat the Confederacy. It s also disgraceful to the Iowans who were killed by Confederate bushwhackers who repeatedly raided the southern part of the state during the war.Iowa heavily backed Abraham Lincoln and the Union, so Steve King s display of an enemy flag is totally offensive, especially since he is supposed to be a United States congressman.Featured Image: Screenshot | 0 |
Hilarious conservative media analyst and Youtube sensation Mark Dice took to the streets of Los Angeles in 2013 while President Obama was still occupying our White House. He asked random people walking down the street if they would sign a petition to support violent criminals to be released from our prisons and onto our streets. It s interesting to see how many people accept that illegal aliens in our prisons are not being treated unfairly without any evidence. This false narrative was successfully promoted by Barack Obama, our media and the Democrats, who decided that illegal aliens should be not just be given equal treatment to American citizens, but instead, they should be given special treatment above and beyond those afforded to American citizens.Watch the video and check out the new statistics below that were just released by Zogby, showing that Hispanics in America now support President Trump more than any other demographic. Apparently supporting illegal aliens who commit crimes in America is no longer cool under a Trump administration:Most of the people who are seen signing this petition, are Hispanic. But that s when we had a president who shamed Americans into believing that giving special privileges to illegal aliens was expected. Today however, is a different story In its latest survey, Zogby Analytics said that Hispanic support has hit 45 percent, two points higher than the president s generic approval.That is 55 percent higher than the total Latino vote for Trump in the election. He won just 29 percent. The biggest surprise in this new poll is Trump s approval among Hispanic voters, which is at 45 percent approval/51 percent disapproval. In February the numbers were less among Hispanics at 39 percent approval/53 percent disapproval, said Zogby.Via: Washington Examiner | 0 |
Saturday Night Live has helped bring quite a bit of levity to this otherwise horrific election year but in the final episode before the election, before we as a nation go to the polls and decide if we want to be extraordinary or deplorable, the cast of Saturday Night Live could not help but drop the act and get real with America.It began as it normally does, with Alec Baldwin s masterful Donald Trump character and Kate McKinnon s excellent portrayal of Hillary Clinton (if she spent all day every day mainlining a dangerous mixture of sugar and caffeine). I never use emails, Trump says in the cold opener. I use a very private, very secure site where one can write whatever they want to and no one can read it It s called Twitter. After he is informed that everyone can see his tweets, Trump replies: Really? And I m still in this thing? America you must really hate this lady. After a scathing rebuke of the media s decision to ignore Trump s cozy relationship with Putin, the KKK, and the FBI and instead focus on something as meaningless as Hillary Clinton s emails, something magical happened: McKinnon and Baldwin dropped the facade and got serious. I m sorry, Kate. I just hate yelling all this stuff at you like this, Baldwin says. I just feel gross all the time about this. Don t you all feel gross? he added, addressing the audience.McKinnon agrees and the two embark on a friendship montage through the city before returning to the stage. Then they dropped perhaps the most important message you will hear this election year. None of this would have mattered if you don t vote, Baldwin says. We can t tell you who to vote for, but on Tuesday we all get a chance to choose what kind of country we want to live in, McKinnon finishes.They re right.Watch it below: Featured image via screengrab | 1 |
GENEVA (Reuters) - The United Nations reaffirmed on Friday that torture is illegal and that refugees deserve protection, while ducking any direct criticism of remarks made by new U.S. President Donald Trump. Major human rights groups have denounced Trump’s stance on torture and warned against restoring a CIA secret detention program for interrogating terror suspects. Trump is also reviewing spending, including at the U.N., where the United States is the largest donor. “International human rights law is clear on the absolute prohibition on torture,” U.N. human rights spokesman Rupert Colville told a news briefing. Pressed repeatedly to comment on Trump’s remarks this week that torture “works”, Colville noted that prominent U.S. Senators including Republican John McCain, himself a torture victim, and Democrat Dianne Feinstein, who chaired an inquiry on the CIA program under former President George W. Bush, had spoken out. It was still very early days in terms of how the U.N. human rights office interacts with the new administration, he said. “We have to work out strategically what is going to be effective.” The UNHCR was also tepid in its comments on Trump’s moves to restrict refugees. He is expected to sign an executive order that would include a temporary ban on all refugees, and a suspension of visas for citizens of Syria and six other Middle Eastern and African countries. “Of course UNHCR believes that refugees should be offered assistance, protection, opportunities for resettlement, regardless of their race, religion or ethnicity,” UNHCR spokeswoman Vannina Maestracci said. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has temporarily halted trips by staff to interview refugees abroad ahead of a likely shakeup of refugee policy by Trump, two sources said on Thursday. During the election campaign, Trump decried former President Barack Obama’s decision to increase the number of Syrian refugees admitted to the United States over fears that some fleeing the country’s civil war might carry out attacks. Some 25,000 refugees were resettled in the United States between October and year-end under UNHCR’s program for the most vulnerable, Maestracci said. A host of U.S. federal government agencies are involved and extensive background checks are carried out, she said. “I think it’s fair to say that refugees coming into the United States to be resettled are some of the most vetted individuals entering the United States,” Maestracci said. | 1 |
Barack Obama has been accused again and again of ruining the economy but where s the proof? Oh wait, there is none because he s done the exact opposite of that. In fact, president Obama has broken records by creating jobs.According to the majority of Republicans, Obama has done just about nothing right. He gets zero credit for the good things he s done and all the credit for anything that goes slightly wrong. Well, that has to change. Obama has done everything he can for America and is still doing so. Obama is currently on a 78 month long streak of creating jobs. In those 78 months he s created over 15.1 MILLION jobs. That s more than any other president in history.On the off chance that a republican president had managed something like this, they would be receiving plenty of praise. In fact Jesse Lee tweeted a rather accurate remark on that:In alt universe where Romney won, these #s would be getting chiseled under his face on Mount Rushmore as we speak. https://t.co/7prryK5nPF Jesse Lee (@jesseclee44) September 2, 2016It s ridiculous how poorly Obama has been treated since he s been in office. He s worked harder than president-elect Donald Trump ever will, and has made so much progress for this country. Yet all he has received is criticism and sarcastic remarks: thanks Obama. Well it s time for us to start saying thank you to Obama, and mean it.Featured Image via Getty Images | 1 |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A majority of the U.S. House of Representatives on Friday voted to advance legislation instructing committees to write legislation repealing President Barack Obama’s landmark healthcare law. The procedural vote of 235 to 188 clears the way for a vote later on Friday to pass the measure to begin work on repealing Obamacare that already has been approved by the Senate. It strictly followed party lines, indicating solidarity among House Republicans on the issue. | 0 |
Now that it appears that Donald Trump is the inevitable next president, Alec Baldwin has job security at Saturday Night Live for at least four more years (unless Trump is impeached). Trump s not happy, at all.This week, Baldwin skewered Trump s Twitter obsession. The sketch showed the President-Elect as so distracted by his Twitter account that he just had to retweet a high school boy, rather than pay attention during a security briefing. Kellyanne, referring to campaign manager Kellyanne Conway, played by SNL s Kate McKinnon, I just retweeted the best tweet. I mean wow, what a great, smart tweet. When advisors reminded Trump that he was in a security briefing, Baldwin s Trump replied, He s 16, he s in high school, and I really did retweet him. Seriously, this is real. Trump s advisors tried to steer him back to the situation in Syria but Trump said, God, Seth seems so cool. His Twitter bio says he wants to make America great again. That s when McKinnon s Conway dropped the truth bomb about why Trump really tweets:Trump tweets to much to distract the media from his business conflicts and the scary people in his cabinet, but in Trump s words the real reason is because his brain is bad. But what s Donald Trump if he can t brag about something he had absolutely nothing to do with:As the adults in the room continued to admonish Trump for his incessant tweeting, he disputed the fact that it was preventing him from focusing on his work. I was elected 25 days ago and already unemployment is at a nine-year low, millions and millions of people have health care and Osama bin Laden is dead, he said. Next I m going to do what I promised my whole campaign and I m going to build that swamp. Here s the full video:Trump was not at all happy with the portrayal. Within minutes, he posted this:This thin-skinned compulsive tweeter, my fellow Americans, is our next president.Featured image via video screen capture. | 0 |
Ed Henry of FOX News tells us tonight that Hillary Clinton lied again! Just hours before the very important Iowa Caucus, Hillary gives voters another reason not to trust her AND not to vote for her. | 1 |
Tuesday turned out to be quite the day for the English language. [First, Philadelphia Phillies broadcaster Mike Schmidt said that Philadelphia’s Odubel Herrera’s “language barrier” prevented him from becoming a player that the Phillies could build around. Then, Red Sox broadcaster Jerry Remy got in on the act. During the middle innings of Tuesday night’s game between the Yankees and the Red Sox, Yankees starter Masahiro Tanaka had a meeting on the mound with Yankees pitching coach Larry Rothschild, and Tanaka’s translator. Tanaka, who hails from Japan, needs the translator because he doesn’t speak English. Shortly after Tanaka’s translator walked off the mound, Remy on the subject of foreign players using translators. Remy said, “I don’t think that should be legal. I really don’t. ” “What is it you don’t like about that?” asked Red Sox announcer Dave O’Brien. “Learn baseball language,” Remy said. “It’s pretty simple. You break it down pretty easy between pitching coach and pitcher after a long period of time. ” It’s unknown if Remy made these comments because of Schmidt’s earlier remarks. It’s impossible to imagine that Remy wasn’t aware of them. Either way, this seems like a perfectly stupid thing to say. Who cares whether or not the guy uses a translator? “Learn baseball language?” If signs, and a couple carefully selected words were all that was needed to communicate with a pitcher, then managers and pitching coaches would never go to the mound, and would just give signals from the dugout. By definition, if the team ventures out to the mound, unless they’re just stalling for time, it means something needed to be said which required actual conversation. If the player and the coach don’t speak the same language, that’s a problem. Masahiro Tanaka isn’t some refugee, or illegal alien attempting to make America become more like Japan. He’s a baseball player, being paid $155 million dollars to win baseball games. Something he hasn’t done a whole lot of this year. That’s a bigger problem. One obvious enough that it doesn’t require a translator. Follow Dylan Gwinn on Twitter: @themightygwinn | 0 |
WASHINGTON — Now that the White House has formally accused Russia of meddling in the presidential election with cyberattacks and information warfare, devising a response might seem fairly easy: unleash the government’s cyberwarriors to give the Kremlin a dose of its own malware. Technologically, that would not be too difficult, American officials say. But as a matter of strategy and politics, formulating the right kind of counterstrike is not that straightforward. President Obama’s options range from the mild — naming and shaming the Russians, as he did on Friday — to the more severe, like invoking for the first time a series of economic sanctions that he created by executive order after North Korea’s attack on Sony Pictures Entertainment. The Justice Department could indict the Russians behind the attacks on the Democratic National Committee and the email accounts of prominent individuals, as it did with members of China’s People’s Liberation Army, who have been charged with stealing industrial secrets. Or Mr. Obama could sign a secret intelligence finding — similar to many he has issued to authorize Central Intelligence Agency efforts in Syria or drone strikes against the Islamic State — to attack and disable Russian computer servers or expose the financial dealings of President Vladimir V. Putin and his oligarch friends. While the last option is tempting, officials say, it would carry risks with the election just a month away. Attacks on online voter registration rolls could sow chaos at polling places, and the election infrastructure has never truly been tested against a power like Russia. The system that underpins American democracy is not even listed as an element of the nation’s critical infrastructure, a list that includes movie theaters and the Jefferson Memorial, among other monuments. Just as Henry Kissinger and other American strategists argued decades ago whether it was possible to wage a limited nuclear war, officials at the Pentagon and intelligence agencies, as well as outside experts, have been debating whether it is possible to control the escalation of a cyberconflict. In the nuclear era, seven decades passed with no answer, despite some close calls. Online, where the damage is less lethal but cheap, and attacks are hard to trace and easy to carry out, Mr. Obama and other top officials are proceeding cautiously. cyberpowers face few limits to their ability to escalate attacks. And it is unclear how the United States can establish what the generals call “escalation dominance” — the assurance that America can ultimately control how a conflict ends. Michael J. Morell, a former deputy director of the C. I. A. and a veteran of many debates on the growing cyberweapon arsenal in the Bush and Obama administrations, said on Saturday that the American response had to strike at something that Mr. Putin held dear. But, he added, unleashing a counterattack may not be the answer. “Our response needs to be proportionate to the attack,” said Mr. Morell, who now advises Hillary Clinton on national security matters and is widely believed to be in line for a top intelligence post if she is elected president. Criminal indictments and sanctions against individuals “are only a slap on the wrist,” he said, adding that “offensive cyberactions can’t be seen and are inconsistent with the norms we want to set in the world on cyber. ” Mr. Morell advocated two approaches: deep sanctions on the entire Russian economy and an “aggressive Voice of America program in Russian to tell the Russian people that Putin is only interested in his own aggrandizement” and is threatening the only hope for the country’s economy: integration with the West. But the challenges, as Mr. Morell acknowledges, are clear. Europe is unlikely to go along with sanctions if that means cutting off their access to the Russian gas that keeps them warm. And Voice of America programs, a relic of the Cold War, are slow to work, if they can work at all in the internet age. At its core, the problem that the Obama administration faces is this: What the Russians have done in hacking into American political institutions — and perhaps accessing voter registration rolls — is a digital form of hybrid warfare. In Ukraine, this took the form of Russian soldiers engaging in quiet guerrilla actions out of uniform to undermine the government. (Russia also turned off the electric grid in part of Ukraine last December, mostly to show that they could.) Leaking emails and phone conversations, and generally stirring chaos around elections, have been a Russian art form in Europe, especially in former Soviet states. Such actions walk the line between harassment and conflict. Now, they have come to American shores. That, at least, was the assessment of the director of national intelligence and the Department of Homeland Security on Friday, though they did not show their evidence. “We believed, based on the scope and sensitivity of these efforts, that only Russia’s officials could have authorized these activities,” the statement said. In background conversations, officials strongly hinted that the evidence had come, in part, from data collected by the National Security Agency’s implants in foreign computer networks, presumably including Russia’s. The question, said James Lewis, a former government official who specializes in cybersecurity, espionage and warfare at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, is how to deter future attacks while maintaining escalation dominance. “We don’t necessarily want to start a war with Russia,” he said. Mr. Lewis said he doubted that using intelligence findings to embarrass Mr. Putin — leaking details of his financial dealings, his personal life or his relationships with the moneyed elite who help keep him in power — would be the solution. “If we couldn’t deter Moscow from going into the Ukraine, we’re not going to deter them from hacking us,” Mr. Lewis said. For a declining power like Russia, whose economy has been battered by falling oil prices and economic sanctions, cyberattacks are an easy answer. They usually happen below the radar. And for the past two years, Russian hackers operating at the behest of, or directly for, the state have had a string of successes against foreign targets, even testing the limits of the American doctrine that destructive hacking attacks could be considered acts of war. Russian hackers were identified by German intelligence officials as the culprits behind a cyberattack that damaged a blast furnace owned by ThyssenKrupp, Germany’s biggest steel maker. Forensics experts discovered malware in the plant’s system that had previously been tied to a Russian espionage group. That same group was later found to be responsible for a cyberattack on a major French television network, TV5Monde, last year that brought down the station for several days and cost tens of millions of dollars in repairs. And the Russian group, known in the cybersecurity community as APT28 or Fancy Bear, was responsible for a string of cyberattacks on the White House, the State Department and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Mr. Obama decided not to name the Russians in those attacks. “The Russians have had a string of unbroken successes against U. S. targets, and they haven’t paid much of a price,” Mr. Lewis said. That may have created an impression in the Kremlin that cyberattacks would carry no consequences. The deeper concern is that Russia, like other major powers, has a long playbook ready for potential future attacks. Security experts point to evidence that a Russian hacking group, known as Energetic Bear, has been probing the networks of power grid operators and energy and oil companies in the United States, Europe and Canada. That could be exploration — or it could be preparation of the battle space in the event of a future conflict. This summer, hackers calling themselves the Shadow Brokers released a trove of N. S. A. tools that the agency had used to break into and spy on foreign networks. Though it is not yet clear who was behind the attack, some speculated that an N. S. A. insider had leaked the trove, while others said it may have been Russian hackers putting the United States on notice. Mr. Obama seems likely to invoke some kind of financial sanctions under the new executive order, which allows the Treasury secretary to freeze the financial assets of individuals tied to hacking attacks or prevent them from conducting financial transactions. The White House considered applying the sanctions against the Chinese companies and individuals involved in the hacking of the Office of Personnel Management last year, but ultimately decided against it after China pledged that it would not conduct economic espionage against the United States and arrested several individuals. But a similar deal with Russia seems hard to imagine. “How can we choose not to use the sanctions?” Mr. Lewis said. “The question is if we name and punish these guys, will Russians take the hint? My sense is no. ” | 0 |
A week after President Trump endorsed Ron DeSantis for Florida governor via Twitter, a handful of billionaires have thrown their support behind the three-term Republican congressman, per Politico.Here s President Trump s tweet endorsing Rep. Ron DeSantis for governor of Florida. Trump tweeted: Congressman Ron DeSantis is a brilliant young leader, Yale and then Harvard Law, who would make a GREAT Governor of Florida. He loves our Country and is a true FIGHTER! Congressman Ron DeSantis is a brilliant young leader, Yale and then Harvard Law, who would make a GREAT Governor of Florida. He loves our Country and is a true FIGHTER! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 22, 2017Why it matters: The monetary support DeSantis has received could prove instrumental in his race, because, in a state as big as Florida, where a week s worth of saturation TV during next year s general election could cost as much as $3 million, cash is king, per Politico.Supporters include casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, hedge fund heiress Rebekah Mercer, investment tycoon Foster Friess, as well as other donors who have funded Trump s 2016 campaign and the conservative Koch brothers network, per Politico. AxiosRepresentative Ron DeSantis (R-FL) is a fighter. Here s an example of how DeSantis took on the fake Trump-Russian collusion story:Sun Sentinel DeSantis, who hasn t officially announced his candidacy, thanked Trump in a press release with the headline, President Trump Backs Ron DeSantis for Governor of Florida. I m grateful to have the president s support and appreciate what he has done, DeSantis said, adding praise for Trump achievements that have pleased conservatives: recognizing Jerusalem as Israel s capital, signing the tax reform legislation, and appointing conservative judges.DeSantis, a Republican from Ponte Vedra Beach, has been a strong supporter of Trump.In August, he proposed cutting off funding for special counsel Robert Mueller s investigation into possible ties between the Trump campaign and Russian efforts to influence the 2016 presidential election.DeSantis proposal, which went nowhere, would have stopped money for the investigation 180 days after it becomes law. And it would have prevented Mueller from investigating matters that occurred before Trump announced his presidential campaign.Also in August, DeSantis used an appearance at the Palm Beach County Republican Party s annual lobsterfest to advertise his pro-Trump credentials.As he delivered a combination political speech and invocation, the big screens at the front of the room flashed a picture of DeSantis, his wife, their infant daughter, the president and First Lady Melania Trump outside the White House.DeSantis said the president complimented his wife on her appearance.At that Palm Beach County appearance, and at events throughout the state, DeSantis has been laying the groundwork for a 2018 candidacy for the Republican nomination to run for governor.Here s Ron DeSantis blasting the press and our government agencies for giving Barack Obama a free pass over his support for Hezbollah:The Trump effect: DeSantis reflects the shifting type of Republican candidate under Trump: he s a Fox News contributor, a member of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, a supporter of Trump s recent decision to make Jerusalem the home of the U.S. embassy in Israel, and he opposes Special Counsel Bob Mueller s Russia probe (even calling for it to end after just six months). | 1 |
Since the Colin Kaepernick and his fellow players started their Black Lives Matter kneeling campaign, social media has been lit up with photos of empty stadiums, proving that fans are not interested in supporting players who disrespect our flag and our law enforcement officers. The photos seem to suggest that every week more and more seats remain empty in NFL stadiums across America. Here s a look at a number of NFL stadiums today:Check out this photo of the Cleveland Browns stadium:Cleveland #NFL #Browns RT @middlebunns: @EmptySeatsPics #JAXvsCLE Opening kickoff pic.twitter.com/WjDTdfamD0 Empty Seats Galore (@EmptySeatsPics) November 19, 2017The Lions games in neighboring Chicago are always very popular not so much today.Got a feeling there will be a lot of #Lions blue in the stands at Soldier Field the other color is the empty seats. #Bears are 3-6 pic.twitter.com/Et7LeQwG3n Cheryl Raye Stout (@Crayestout) November 19, 2017Empty seats in the smallest modern stadium in the NFL , Chicago s Soldier Field are a rare sight indeed, especially when the visiting team is right next door in Michigan.Bears v Lions. Opening kick off against a divisional opponent at the smallest modern stadium in the #NFLIt's empty (great shot of Trump Tower in the background though) #MAGA pic.twitter.com/4xRoKknjMv Buda (@labuda_robert) November 19, 2017The Minnesota Viking stadium looks like their hosting a local high school game instead of a professional football team.@Vikings sec345 row 6 seat 19. pic.twitter.com/DzThB1r26i Peter Klages (@pakman75) November 19, 2017@Vikings section 101 row 22, seats 6-8 we d like to meet some legends pls thank you pic.twitter.com/FAGvyr9rYq Emily (@OhDagEmily) November 19, 2017You could ve shot a cannot through the NY Giants stadium today.The Unknown #Giants Fans. pic.twitter.com/sAyITREEwm James Kratch (@JamesKratch) November 19, 2017Kickoff is just minutes away! WATCH #NYGiants Pregame Warmups presented by @Visa pic.twitter.com/dwsw5viPtI New York Giants (@Giants) November 19, 2017Wow. I have never seen this many empty seats here before. John Mara must be thrilled. #GiantsPride. pic.twitter.com/G7Nw7g9Hlq Kevin McCleerey (@KevinMcCleerey) November 19, 2017It almost looks like it s a practice day in Cleveland.I think you ll see this a lot. Squalls every 20 minutes or so. #JAXvsCLE #Jaguars pic.twitter.com/nLHxTxgHur Brent Martineau (@BrentASJax) November 19, 2017Texans fans must have started their Christmas shopping early and decided to skip the game today.View from my seat for today's #Texans game. More empty seats than normal for the start of a game. pic.twitter.com/3PpxhtPJue Ryan Kahrhoff (@xman30) November 19, 2017Lots of empty seats at NRG as they are about to toss the coin pic.twitter.com/PJvF07byVl Kent Somers (@kentsomers) November 19, 2017you can really tell the orange is indeed oranger with all these empty seats pic.twitter.com/hgcDG2bUwJ Jordan Zirm (@clevezirm) November 19, 2017The Miami stadium seats are mostly empty.NFL football with @bellavate! #TBvsMIA #HardRockStadium pic.twitter.com/iTzYbBnnFD Kevin #Destiny2 PC (@ORIGINPCCEO) November 19, 2017 | 1 |
ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkey s Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu spoke by phone with U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on Wednesday, Turkish foreign ministry sources said, amid a dispute between the two NATO allies over the detention of a U.S. consulate worker. Further details on the phone call were not immediately available. | 0 |
Tune in to the Alternate Current Radio Network (ACR) for another LIVE broadcast of The Boiler Room starting at 6 PM PST | 9 PM EST for this special broadcast. Join us for uncensored, uninterruptible talk radio, custom-made for barfly philosophers, misguided moralists, masochists, street corner evangelists, media-maniacs, savants, political animals and otherwise lovable rascals.Join ACR hosts Hesher, & Spore along with Andy Nowicki of Alt Right Blogspot, Jay Dyer from jaysanalysis.com, Randy J, and Shawn Helton of 21Wire for the 69th episode of BOILER ROOM. Dim the lights, dawn the headphones and indulge in some Boiler Room with the crew. Tonight we re further deconstructing Cointel Pro with Jay and Shawn, discussing cults & Zen Gardner s recent admission of his involvement with the Children of God. A scathing analysis of the mainstream media being remiss in talking about the new Russian deal with Iran as well as the theater of absurdity that is the US State Department and much more.Please like and share the program and visit our donate page to get involved!BOILER ROOM IS NOT A POLICTALLY CORRECT ZONE! LISTEN TO THE SHOW IN THE PLAYER BELOW ENJOY!Reference Links: | 1 |
Food Stamp use has miraculously gone down in several states! It s a miracle! In 13 Alabama counties, food stamp use went down a whopping 85%!When Obama took out the welfare-to-work requirement, the use of food stamps skyrocketed to nearly 45 million Americans! That s 1 in every 7 US citizens using food stamps! Now that the Trump administration has vowed to reduce the use, it s interesting to see that people jump off of assistance when the work requirement is put back in.Georgia and Alabama have seen a sharp decrease in food stamp use with the work requirement back in:Georgia:More than half of the 11,779 people enrolled for food stamps in 21 counties, an estimated 7,251 people, have dropped out of the food stamp program a drop of 62 percent, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.Georgia first rolled out its work requirements for the food stamp program in three counties in January 2016. Since then, the state has expanded work requirements in an additional 21 counties, giving people in those 21 counties until April 1, 2017 to find a job or lose food stamp benefits. Via: BNALABAMA:Thirteen previously exempted Alabama counties saw an 85 percent drop in food stamp participation after work requirements were put in place on Jan. 1, according to the Alabama Department of Human Resources.The counties Greene, Hale, Perry, Dallas, Lowndes, Wilcox, Monroe, Conecuh, Clarke, Washington, Choctaw, Sumter and Barbour had been exempt from a change that limited able-bodied adults without dependents to three months of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits within a three-year time frame unless they were working or participating in an approved training program.During the economic downturn of 2011-2013, several states including Alabama waived the SNAP work requirements in response to high unemployment. It was reinstituted for 54 counties on Jan. 1, 2016 and for the remaining 13 on Jan. 1, 2017. As of April 2017, the highest jobless rate among the 13 previously excluded counties was in Wilcox County, which reported a state-high unemployment rate of 11.7 percent, down more than 11 percentage points from the county s jobless rate for the same month of 2011.Ending the exemption has dramatically cut the number of SNAP recipients in the counties.As of Jan. 1, 2017, there were 13,663 able-bodied adults without dependents receiving food stamps statewide. That number dropped to 7,483 by May 1, 2017. Among the 13 counties, there were 5,538 adults ages 18-50 without dependents receiving food stamps as of Jan. 1, 2017. That number dropped to 831 a decline of about 85 percent by May 1, 2017. Based on the trend, the number of (able-bodied adults without dependents) recipients for SNAP benefits is expected to continue to decline statewide and in the formerly 13 exempted counties, according to Alabama DHR spokesperson John Hardy.Statewide, the number of able-bodied adults receiving food stamps has fallen by almost 35,000 people since Jan. 1, 2016. Each recipient receives about $126 a month in benefits.Nationwide, there are about 44 million people receiving SNAP benefits at a cost of about $71 billion. The Trump administration has vowed to cut the food stamp rolls over the next decade, including ensuring that able-bodied adults recipients are working.Via: al.com | 0 |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump intends to nominate Michael Griffin, a former administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), as undersecretary of defense for research and engineering, the White House said on Monday. The White House had said in October that Trump intended to tap Griffin for principal deputy undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology, and logistics. Monday’s announcement did not give a reason for the change. Griffin most recently served as chairman and chief executive officer of the Schafer Corporation, a provider of scientific, engineering, and technical services and products in the national security sector, the White House said. He held the top NASA job from 2005 to 2009. | 0 |
Listen up people! This is great! Lou Dobbs gets it and knows how important this election is! | 1 |
An as yet unconfirmed number of white students of a Catholic school in California have been suspended after sending a video to a black student threatening a lynching.The Modesto Bee reports:A racist death threat video posted on social media by a Central Catholic High junior has led to the suspension of students involved and a criminal investigation, but an African American community group is calling for calm while police do their work. People are asking me, What can I do?, but I want to find out what s been done, first. Let the natural process take its course, said attorney Jacq Wilson, who is working with the family of the boy targeted in the video.Efforts to dismiss the incident as a high school prank fell on deaf ears in the community. As Wilson puts it: When has bullying ever been a joke? When has a death threat ever been a joke? Right now, with everything going on (nationally), what were they waiting for, for someone to die? The fact is that people are hurt. People are scared. It s a hate crime. It s possibly even a domestic act of terrorism. It s a criminal threat, It is also reassuring that Central Catholic High President Jim Pecchenino came out immediately with his own unambiguous statement on the matter. Students involved in that video have been suspended. They are not on our campus. We ll follow our process for discipline, he said. The whole video is despicable, every part of it. The noose, the gun going off, it s just unconscionable to view. It s very unsettling. The students remain on suspension while the matter is investigated further, with a view to pressing chimerical charges against those responsible. Featured image via Screengrab | 0 |
Rajoy aparece en un Delorean para llevar a los españoles una hora atrás en el tiempo "DEBEMOS VIAJAR AL PASADO PARA RESTABLECER EL EQUILIBRIO", HA DICHO viajes en el tiempo
Gritando que no hay tiempo que perder y que todos los españoles deben desplazarse al pasado, el recién investido Presidente del Gobierno, Mariano Rajoy, ha irrumpido en la madrileña Puerta del Sol montado en un coche marca Delorean al que ha animado a subir a todo el mundo, según han explicado varios testigos. Su aparición ha tenido lugar a las 2:55 de la madrugada.
En cinco minutos, según el Gobierno, todos los españoles deberán subir al coche del presidente a fin de poder viajar al pasado y poder llevar a cabo el cambio de hora anual que debe efectuarse hoy.
“¡Rápido, subid, no hay tiempo para explicaciones!”, ha gritado Rajoy, según las fuentes.
Despeinado y con más tics nerviosos de lo habitual, Rajoy se ha mostrado muy agitado, han explicado los testigos. Al parecer, se le veía desorientado y pronunciando frases inconexas como “Rápido, se va a cerrar el agujero de gusano”.
El Gobierno también advierte que una vez todos los españoles se hayan desplazado al pasado “es absolutamente imprescindible que nadie toque nada”. Si un español se encuentra consigo mismo en el pasado “es conveniente evitar el encuentro” y es imprescindible no advertir a nadie sobre lo que ya sabemos del futuro “especialmente el hecho de que Rajoy al final ha sido investido”.
Rajoy ha configurado su máquina del tiempo para viajar tan sólo una hora, a las dos de la mañana, pero ya ha advertido que “no soy mucho ni de twitter ni de máquinas del tiempo y no prometo nada”.
“Soy el Dr. Mariano Rajoy. Estoy en el estacionamiento del Centro Comercial Bazar Amigo. Es sábado, 29 de octubre de 2016. 2:58 a.m. Este es el experimento temporal número uno”, ha declarado Rajoy, grabadora en mano.
Finalmente, el político ha señalado boquiabierto al reloj de la plaza: las manecillas se movían hacia atrás por el cambio de hora. “¡Salven el reloj de la torre! ¡Salven el reloj de la torre!”, ha gritado Rajoy temiendo que el icónico reloj de Puerta del Sol estuviera estropeado, según los presentes.
Cuando las manecillas han marcado de nuevo las 02:00 a.m., Rajoy ha vuelto a bajar del Delorean, eufórico, gritando: “¡Lo he conseguido! ¡Lo he conseguido!”. Siempre según los testigos, ha agarrado a Dora la Exploradora por la pechera de su disfraz, y le ha preguntado: “Dime, joven del futuro: ¿Quién es el Presidente del futuro?”. Cuando Dora le ha respondido “Mariano Rajoy”, éste ha reído, sorprendido: “¿Rajoy? ¿El registrador de la propiedad? ¿Y quién es Vicepresidente? ¿Una mujer?”. | 1 |
Georgia conservatives really wanted to enshrine their hate and bigotry into law under the guise of religious liberty, and because their governor refused to do so they are punishing him.Unlike the Republican governors of North Carolina and Mississippi, Georgia Governor Nathan Deal refused to sign the anti-LGBT bill passed by the GOP-controlled legislature. Deal mulled over the bill while witnessing the economic backlash similar bills are causing other states.In North Carolina alone, corporations are threatening to leave or have cancelled plans to expand into the state, resulting in the loss of hundreds of jobs and money that could have sparked economic growth. Furthermore, the state also faces the loss of federal dollars. Mississippi is facing the same backlash and South Carolina has also suffered the loss of a corporate headquarters for just introducing the bill.Georgia certainly faced the same consequences. Disney and Marvel threatened to stop filming movies in the state and other corporations and businesses urged the governor to veto the bill.Realizing that the economic backlash was not worth it, Governor Deal vetoed HB 757. He angered conservatives but saved the economy of his state from ruin.But those conservatives were looking forward to being able to use their Bibles as a shield so they can discriminate against anyone they please.And so, they decided to send a message to Republicans and any Republican who sits in the governor s mansion in the future that not doing what they want is unacceptable and will be punished.Despite being urged not to do so, conservatives of the Georgia Third District voted overwhelmingly to censure Deal. According to the Atlanta Journal Constitution: Though it is purely symbolic, it s a startling sign of the conservative backlash to Deal s decision to reject the legislation and another reminder that the debate over the measure never really ended. A censure is a formal statement of severe disapproval, which means Republicans literally just punished Deal publicly for refusing to support a bigoted policy supported by conservatives in his state.It s basically a warning shot to other Republicans that they better not veto future efforts to legalize discrimination in Georgia or they too could be censured or worse.This is why Republicans made a huge mistake by letting extremists have a mainstream seat at the party table. Because now they are beholden to do as the extremists desire or else.Featured image via YouTube | 1 |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump will strike a blow against the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement on Friday in defiance of other world powers, choosing not to certify that Tehran is complying with the deal in a major reversal of U.S. policy. Trump s decision will not withdraw the United States from the agreement, which was negotiated by Washington and other world powers during the administration of former President Barack Obama. The move likely gives U.S. lawmakers 60 days to decide whether to bring back sanctions on Iran that were lifted under the deal. If Congress reimposes the sanctions, the United States would in effect be in violation of the terms of the nuclear deal and it would likely fall apart. If lawmakers do nothing, the deal remains in place. Here is a look at where key U.S. lawmakers stand on the deal: SENATE MAJORITY LEADER MITCH MCCONNELL: Like every Republican in Congress, McConnell voted against the Iran nuclear agreement. He has not expressed a position on how he will respond to Trump s decertification, but has not yet broken from Trump on policy matters. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES SPEAKER PAUL RYAN: Has not said where he stands. I don t want to get ahead of the president, he said last week. HOUSE MAJORITY LEADER KEVIN MCCARTHY: Has not said what he would do. SENATE FOREIGN RELATIONS COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN BOB CORKER: Repeatedly spoke out against the agreement and wrote legislation that gave Congress some say over it. While he has questioned Trump recently on some foreign policy issues - helping spark a Twitter feud - Corker has followed the administration line on most policy matters. Corker said on Friday he expected to introduce legislation to address flaws in the pact without violating it. HOUSE FOREIGN AFFAIRS COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN ED ROYCE: Royce says As flawed as the deal is, I believe we must now enforce the hell out of it. It was not clear how he would respond to the legislation. SENATE MINORITY LEADER CHUCK SCHUMER: Opposed the deal two years ago but more recently says it should be left in place but strongly enforced with efforts to clamp down on other activities like Iran s ballistic missile program. HOUSE MINORITY LEADER NANCY PELOSI: Supported the original deal, still supports it. SENATE FOREIGN RELATIONS COMMITTEE TOP DEMOCRAT BEN CARDIN: Opposed the deal two years ago, but says U.S. should honor it now, while strictly enforcing it and clamping down on other Iranian activities detrimental to the interests of the United States and its allies. HOUSE FOREIGN AFFAIRS TOP DEMOCRAT ELLIOT ENGEL: Opposed the deal two years ago but said killing it now would be a grave mistake. Still an Iran hawk on issues such as Tehran s ballistic missile program, human rights violations and its support for what Washington sees as terrorism. | 1 |
JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - Zimbabweans took to the streets of the Yeoville and Hillbrow districts of the South African city of Johannesburg on Tuesday to celebrate news of Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe s resignation. Around 3 million Zimbabweans have emigrated from their home country to South Africa in search of work following Zimbabwe s economic collapse. | 1 |
Wouldn t it be great if our first Black President would make an effort to quell the angry and violent crowds in Baltimore by and asking for calm? Is it too much to ask that he take this opportunity to address our nation and behave like a leader for the entire country and not like a Community Organizer with an agenda? As long as the negro finds himself living every day in a major depression, then every city will sit on a powder keg and will explode over the slightest incident. This is why I have constantly said that riots are socially destructive and self-defeating. After all, the negro ends up on the losing end. We can t win a violent revolution. The persons who end up not being able to get milk for their children are the negros, because things where they have to live are destroyed. Dr. King: Nonviolence is the Most Powerful Weapon Violence creates more social problems than it solves. | 0 |
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Democratic state senators in California on Thursday unveiled a series of bills designed to freeze in place Obama administration-era environmental regulations in the event the Trump administration moves to weaken them. The bills, collectively known as the “Preserve California” package, aim to make existing federal clean air, water, and endangered species laws enforceable under state law and protect federal lands in the state from being sold to oil companies. “The goals and objectives of these measures... is to do everything within our power to make sure the federal government doesn’t encroach on our far-reaching progressive policies,” California Senate Leader Kevin de Leon said during a press conference in Sacramento on Thursday. The Trump administration did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the bills. If the bills become law, they could set the stage for legal battles between the left-leaning state and the conservative Trump administration, which have already clashed over President Donald Trump’s policies on immigration. After the presidential election, California Democrats hired former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, who served in the Obama administration, to help in any legal battles with the Trump administration. De Leon said that while the state is not looking to go to court against the administration over the proposed policies, it will deploy Holder as needed. “The less that we use Eric Holder, the better,” de Leon said. “The more we use Eric Holder, that means bad things are happening towards California.” One of the bills released on Thursday is designed to prevent federal lands in the state from being opened up to development and would give the state the right to halt the sales of federal land. “There are prominent members of Congress and prominent members of the Trump administration who are on the record supporting a large-scale sell off of our federal lands,” said Senator Ben Allen, the bill’s author. “Either opening them up to mineral and oil and gas exploitation or direct sales to corporations who want to use those lands for commercial gain,” he said. Another bill would shield whistleblowers in federal agencies who are also licensed to practice in California from losing their professional certification under state law. It would also direct state environmental and public health agencies to protect any data under state law, even if parties in Washington D.C. order their censorship or destruction, according to Senator Hannah-Beth Jackson, the bill’s author. | 1 |
Michelle Obama has been wearing some interesting fashion choices during her overseas trip to Italy. To each his own but the latest outfit crossed over the line because it was disrespectful to the religious guests of Siena Cathedral. Women are supposed to cover their shoulders upon entry into the cathedral. Who does that?Rules must be for the little people and not for the Obamas Sienna, Tuscany is one of the stops for the Obamas on their trip to Italy. | 1 |
For anyone who thinks Trump s comments have crossed over the line, perhaps they ve forgotten about the Obama supported Arab Spring in Egypt that resulted in the violent overthrow of President Hosni Mubarak who was replaced by the radical Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohamed Morsi. And that s just one example Donald Trump accused President Barack Obama on Wednesday of founding the Islamic State group that is wreaking havoc from the Middle East to European cities. A moment later, on another topic, he referred to the president by his full legal name: Barack Hussein Obama. In many respects, you know, they honor President Obama, Trump said during a raucous campaign rally outside Fort Lauderdale, Florida. He is the founder of ISIS. He repeated the allegation three more times for emphasis.The Republican presidential nominee in the past has accused his opponent, Democrat Hillary Clinton, of founding the militant group. As he shifted the blame to Obama on Wednesday, he said crooked Hillary Clinton was actually the group s co-founder.Trump has long blamed Obama and his former secretary of state Clinton for pursuing Mideast policies that created a power vacuum in Iraq that was exploited by IS, another acronym for the group. He s sharply criticized Obama for announcing he would pull U.S. troops out of Iraq, a decision that many Obama critics say created the kind of instability in which extremist groups like IS thrive.The White House declined to comment on Trump s accusation.The Islamic State group began as Iraq s local affiliate of al-Qaida, the group that attacked the U.S. on Sept. 11, 2001. The group carried out massive attacks against Iraq s Shiite Muslim majority, fueling tensions with al-Qaida s central leadership. The local group s then-leader, Jordanian-born Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, was killed in 2006 in a U.S. airstrike but is still seen as the Islamic State group s founder.Trump s accusation and his use of the president s middle name, Hussein echoed previous instances where he s questioned Obama s loyalties.In June, when a shooter who claimed allegiance to IS killed 49 people in an Orlando, Florida, nightclub, Trump seemed to suggest Obama was sympathetic to the group when he said Obama doesn t get it, or he gets it better than anybody understands. In the past, Trump has also falsely suggested Obama is a Muslim or was born in Kenya, where Obama s father was from. Via: AP | 1 |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Senate on Thursday voted narrowly to repeal regulations requiring internet service providers to do more to protect customers’ privacy than websites like Alphabet Inc’s Google (GOOGL.O) or Facebook Inc (FB.O). The vote was along party lines, with 50 Republicans approving the measure and 48 Democrats rejecting it. The two remaining Republicans in the Senate were absent and did not cast a vote. According to the rules approved by the Federal Communications Commission in October under then-President Barack Obama, internet providers would need to obtain consumer consent before using precise geolocation, financial information, health information, children’s information and web browsing history for advertising and internal marketing. The vote was a victory for internet providers such as AT&T Inc (T.N), Comcast Corp (CMCSA.O) and Verizon Communications Inc (VZ.N), which had strongly opposed the rules. The bill next goes to the U.S. House of Representatives, but it was not clear when they would take up the measure. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said the Senate was overturning a regulation that “makes the internet an uneven playing field, increases complexity, discourages competition, innovation, and infrastructure investment.” But Democratic Senator Ed Markey said, “Republicans have just made it easier for American’s sensitive information about their health, finances and families to be used, shared, and sold to the highest bidder without their permission.” FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said consumers would have privacy protections even without the Obama administration internet provider rules. In a joint statement, Democratic members of the FCC and the Federal Trade Commission said the Senate vote “creates a massive gap in consumer protection law as broadband and cable companies now have no discernible privacy requirements.” Republican commissioners, including Pai, said in October that the rules would unfairly give websites like Facebook, Twitter Inc (TWTR.N) or Google the ability to harvest more data than internet service providers and thus dominate digital advertising. The FCC earlier this month delayed the data rules from taking effect. The Internet and Television Association, a trade group, in a statement praised the vote as a “critical step towards re-establishing a balanced framework that is grounded in the long-standing and successful FTC privacy framework that applies equally to all parties operating online.” Websites are governed by a less restrictive set of privacy rules overseen by the Federal Trade Commission. Jonathan Schwantes, senior policy counsel for advocacy group Consumers Union, said the vote “is a huge step in the wrong direction, and it completely ignores the needs and concerns of consumers.” | 0 |
Flip flopping is what Maxine Waters has been doing when it comes to calling for the impeachment of President Trump. See the video below for just one of many examples of Waters lying through her teeth saying she never called for the impeachment of Trump. Here she is at a CBC Town Hall revving up the crowd with her phony baloney call for the impeachment of Trump. We re guessing it all depends on who she s talking to. Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), who previously has called for the impeachment of Donald Trump, on Thursday told a Congressional Black Caucus Town Hall on Civil Rights that she expects other members of the black community to back her up: Impeachment is about whatever the congress says it is. Seems as though Maxine Waters is willing to lie to have President Trump impeached. pic.twitter.com/Jx8A9ShMrK Kyle Morris (@RealKyleMorris) September 21, 2017 Don t come here and tell me, Maxine, you keep on doing what you do. But when you gonna give me some support? she asked. How many of you in your organizations have said, Impeach 45 ? Waters urged the crowd not to get hung up on what law to invoke in the impeachment process:Impeachment is about whatever the Congress says it is. There is no law that dictates impeachment. What the Constitution says is high crimes and misdemeanors, and we define that.Bill Clinton got impeached because he lied. Here you have a president, who I can tell you and guarantee you is in collusion with the Russians to undermine our democracy. Here you have a president who obstructed justice. And here you have a president who lies every day.Thank God that the special counsel is beginning to connect the dots and understand Facebook s role in it and social media s role in it. When is the black community going to say, Impeach him ? It s time to go after him. I don t hear you!Don t another person come up to me and say, You go, girl. No, you go!Waters received a standing ovation Oy vey!MAXINE DENIES CALLING FOR TRUMP S IMPEACHMENT:WHICH IS IT? | 1 |
Washington (CNN) If you're running for President, get used to becoming hung up over Iraq.
Because barring a miracle, whoever wins the White House will become the fifth consecutive American president ensnared by a nation that has consumed trillions of U.S. dollars and thousands of American lives. It has also blighted a string of high-flying political careers.
If the last week on the 2016 campaign trail has proved anything, it's that American politics is still nowhere near purged of the bitter political divides of a war undertaken 12 turbulent years ago, somewhat like the Vietnam War that reverberated through successive presidencies.
Leading Republican candidates have suddenly been tripped up by the most basic question -- was President George W. Bush right to invade Iraq way back in 2003? And no doubt Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton will yet again have to answer for the vote she cast in favor of the war while in the Senate.
The American entanglement with Iraq started under President George H.W. Bush when Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein marched into Kuwait in 1989, evolved into a standoff and occasional air strikes under President Bill Clinton and erupted into a full-scale invasion under George W. Bush.
And now under President Barack Obama a quarter of a century later, America's misadventure in the fractured Middle Eastern nation has transformed into a slog against the bloodthirsty Sunni radicals of ISIS.
With no end in sight.
Senior administration officials have already admitted that the fight against ISIS will go beyond the current presidency -- in the process hinting at one of the great disappointments of the Obama era.
In 20 months, the President who was elected perhaps more than anything else to end the Iraq war, will bequeath to his successor a new phase of that same intractable conflict.
Despite declaring the war over -- and bringing home the last U.S. soldier in December 2011 -- Obama has been sucked back in. Just this weekend, an ISIS surge into the key Iraqi city of Ramadi and a U.S. Special Operations raid into Syria to kill one of the group's top leaders have shown that American involvement has not ended, and that the engagement is proceeding without any clear sign of victory.
Iraq's enduring power to confound American presidents -- and to reverberate in successive presidential campaigns -- is a reminder that when America goes to war abroad, anything but a swift, clear-cut victory unleashes an unpredictable cascade of political consequences at home.
"Failed wars always hurt the president fighting them, but also continue to impact the party of the presidency for decades after they are gone," said Julian Zelizer, a professor of history at Princeton University.
Iraq has become a political issue akin to Vietnam, as politicians seize on the aftermath of an inconclusive war to eviscerate their rivals' handling of foreign policy.
Democrats make a case that the 2003 invasion invalidated an entire school of Republican political thought -- neoconservatism -- and say the war proves the GOP cannot be trusted with U.S. national security.
Republicans meanwhile insist the war was all but won in 2009 by Bush's belated troop surge and blame Obama for being more concerned with honoring a political promise to end the war than the reality of the deeply unstable nation he left behind.
Still, Mark Atwood Lawrence, professor of history at the University of Texas at Austin, argues that political fallout from the Iraq war could prove to be less radioactive than that of Vietnam, which took decades to play itself out.
One reason for that is the bipartisan consensus now forming that the war was a mistake given that Hussein's weapons of mass destruction -- used as a justification for war -- did not exist.
It's perhaps a surprise that politicians took so long to catch up to this predominant view given that citizens made up their minds long ago.
In a New York Times/CBS News poll last year, 75% of those asked said the Iraq war was not worth the loss of American lives. The findings are consistent with other opinion surveys.
The GOP reluctance to criticize the decision to go to war stems in part from the candidates' desire not to alienate conservative primary voters thirsting for tough-talking foreign policy. And calling the war a mistake raises the treacherous question of whether the deaths of more than 4,000 U.S. troops were a waste.
But it still perplexed many political insiders that it took former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush a week of painfully groping for answers to come up with a satisfactory, and some believed obvious, response: that had he known then that U.S. intelligence on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction was flawed, he would not have gone to war in 2003.
Jeb Bush was at least trapped between his own political fortunes and loyalty to his brother. But Republican candidate Marco Rubio, a Florida senator, had no such family ties to blame for his trouble putting to rest questions about his views on the topic. Rubio got into a heated dispute on Fox News Sunday after denying that he had flip-flopped by now concluding that the Iraq war was a mistake.
Their apparent confusion has provided an opening for fellow Republican Rand Paul, a Kentucky senator and presidential candidate, to renew his argument for a foreign policy derided by critics as isolationist but in tune with the majority of voters who now view the Iraq war as a mistake.
Paul said at a GOP dinner in Iowa this past weekend that the notion that the Iraq war should never have been fought is "a valid question, not just because we're talking about history, but we are talking about the Middle East, where history repeats itself."
It isn't only Republicans who are vulnerable on the issue. Hillary Clinton needs no reminder of the capacity of Iraq to crush political dreams, after her 2002 Senate vote to authorize the Iraq war cost her primary support and paved Obama's way to the presidency.
Clinton, conscious of the consequences of admitting her judgment on national security was flawed, never said during her 2008 White House bid that her Senate vote on Iraq was a mistake.
But in last year's book "Hard Choices," in which she provided a blueprint for how supporters could defend her record, she was much more clear.
"I got it wrong. Plain and simple," she wrote.
Some U.S. foreign policy veterans are warning that the political debate in Washington is hampering hopes of meeting the challenge to U.S. security posed by ISIS and finally closing America's book on Iraq. Where once it was politically difficult to oppose the use of force in Iraq, now that position has become toxic.
"Now Iraq poses a threat -- it didn't 10 years ago," said James Rubin, an assistant secretary of state under Clinton, referring to ISIS and its efforts to export its ideology and terror tactics to the West.
"It's a shame that the politics, the pendulum of our political system, has swung so far to the other direction that our President and others are not prepared to take some modest steps to defeat a genuine threat, not the fake threat that was exaggerated 10 years ago," Rubin told CNN. | 0 |
To pander to Hispanics Hillary states some whoppers on Univision page: 1 link Ah, Hillary. You change your accent depending on who you talk to. You tell Blacks in an interview you carry hot sauce everywhere. You try to appeal to Native Americans with Elizabeth Warren (hahahaha) but for her this is a low. USing her own grandchild....it isn't the first time she has used the grandchild either. It was the excuse for Bill and Loretta also... Link First, when asked, she says her favorite food is Mexican. In an article this year for “Thrillist,” detailing her favorite restaurants in the state of the New York, Clinton listed Rao’s (Italian), Northern Lights Creamery (gelato ice cream), Lange’s Little Store (sandwiches), Charlie The Butcher’s (meat) and others. But she didn’t list a single Mexican establishment. Second, she went on to tell the hosts her 2 y/o granddaughter is learning Spanish. Really? I mean she should have walked on stage with an El Chapo t-shirt, a sombrero and a six pack of Sol for goodness sake. Now, i know, this is not a big deal but stop and think. She is pathological. Is that who we really want in the White House? Someone who will say ANYTHING to ANYBODY in order to get them to agree. Using your grandchild to pander to a voting block. She is Nasty. If I was HIspanic this may not drive me to vote Trump, even though they should and will, I certainly would not vote for someone as fake as she is. Only good thing was she got a bottle of Tequila for her birthday. I am sure Bills foot massagers in his library will love it.... edit on 10pm31pmf 2016-10-26T14:56:02-05:000202 by matafuchs because: (no reason given) edit on 10pm31pmf 2016-10-26T14:57:05-05:000205 by matafuchs because: (no reason given) | 1 |
In the days after King’s assassination, Americans considered many of the same questions that we are asking today: Was this the work of one lunatic, or of a larger racial ideology? How should lawmakers respond? Would the violent tragedy lead to gun control legislation? White Southerners even debated whether to lower the flag in King’s honor. In the end, many ministers and leaders cautioned that King would have died in vain if the country did not act boldly to root out racial injustice. The fact that we are having similar conversations, almost 50 years later, seems a mark of our collective failure.
As word of King’s assassination traveled around the country on the night of April 4, 1968, two of America’s leading journalists sat down at their typewriters: Mike Royko in Chicago and Ralph McGill in Atlanta. They reached the same conclusion – that an entire society had murdered King, regardless of which individual pulled the trigger.
At that point, the assassin remained at large and his identity was unknown. There were no social media profiles to parse, no manifestoes to read. That kind of information was unnecessary. Both McGill and Royko knew that a sick and racist nation was to blame.
In the spring of 1968, King was far from a sanitized national hero. Many white Americans detested his activism and begrudged his fame. In 1967, King had delivered a forceful speech opposing the Vietnam War. Other civil rights leaders turned against him, and he faced a round of criticism in the nation’s newspapers and magazines. His relationship with President Lyndon Johnson, already frayed, fractured completely. King then announced plans for the Poor People’s Campaign, in which droves of the nation’s poor would set up tent encampments on the Washington Mall in a show of nonviolent civil disobedience. King was attacking capitalism and imperialism, and calling for a “revolution of values.”
In early 1968, he traveled to Memphis, where 1,300 black sanitation workers were waging a strike. King led a protest march through downtown Memphis on March 28. Some demonstrators behind him resorted to violence; as chaos took hold, King was whisked away from the scene. The national press intensified its criticism of King. On Capitol Hill, elected officials denounced him as a lawless radical. He had become the target of deepening hatred.
To Mike Royko, a popular columnist for the Chicago Daily News, it was this scorn and revulsion that ultimately killed King. Royko published a column on April 5 titled “Millions in His Firing Squad.” Royko expressed confidence that the authorities would soon arrest the assassin.
But “they can’t catch everybody,” Royko wrote, “and Martin Luther King was executed by a firing squad that numbered in the millions.” From many corners of the nation, white Americans fed “words of hate into the ear of the assassin.” The killer was simply following orders. “The man with the gun did what he was told. Millions of bigots, subtle and obvious, put it in his hand and assured him he was doing the right thing.”
Royko blamed white Northerners: the anti-busing leaders, the law-and-order demagogues, all of those Chicago residents who stood against King’s open-housing programs and pelted him with rocks in Marquette Park. He also indicted the FBI for its propaganda campaign against King, and proceeded to condemn every white American who nodded at racist jokes.
“It was almost ludicrous,” Royko wrote of the hostility directed at King. “The man came on the American scene preaching nonviolence … He preached it in the North and was hit with rocks. He talked it the day he was murdered.” But Americans refused to hear his calls for peace and freedom. “Hypocrites all over this country would kneel every Sunday morning and mouth messages to Jesus Christ. Then they would come out and tell each other, after reading the papers, that somebody should string up King, who was living Christianity like few Americans ever have.” In a legendary career, this was one of Royko’s finest moments – and one of his angriest.
Ralph McGill targeted the Southern bigots. McGill, the publisher of the Atlanta Constitution and a leading Southern liberal, chose a title for his editorial that was sure to aggravate the haters: “A Free Man Killed by White Slaves.” He wrote, “White slaves killed Martin Luther King in Memphis. At the moment the triggerman fired, Martin Luther King was the free man. The white killer, (or killers), was a slave to fear.”
In McGill’s formulation, millions of white Americans stood captive to racial fear. McGill located many such “slaves” in Memphis, which was “bound by such terrible chains” of enmity. Hatred at the sanitation workers, and at King himself, had swirled around the Delta city. McGill beseeched white Americans to strike at racial prejudice and injustice. “The white South – the white population in all the country – must now give answer.”
To two of the nation’s most perceptive observers, the important issue was not the assassin’s mental state. The crucial fact was that a climate existed in the country that sanctioned racial hatred.
Of course, others rejected this logic. The Chicago Tribune bristled at Mike Royko’s indictment. “The murder of Dr. King was a crime and the sin of an individual,” the Tribune’s editors asserted on April 9 – the morning of King’s funeral. The “rest of us” were “not contributory to this particular crime.” The Memphis Commercial Appeal also dismissed the notion of collective guilt. “It was the work of an individual, a warped, mixed-up, emotional mind,” the Commercial Appeal editorialized on April 6. In reality, the Commercial Appeal itself had helped to whip white Memphis into a feverish state. The newspaper had criticized the sanitation strike for the better part of two months, and deplored King’s decision to assist the strikers. The newspaper’s “Hambone” cartoon – which had appeared six days a week since the 1910s – continued to trade in crass racial stereotypes. In 1968, the Commercial Appeal focused on one person’s “warped, mixed-up, emotional mind” instead of the racism and racial inequality that so shaped the city and the nation.
Then as now, it was easier to blame a deranged individual than to craft a response that might address racial inequality or gun violence. Hours before King’s death, the Senate Judiciary Committee finally voted on a gun-control bill that had been pending before it for three years. The bill was initially proposed by Sen. Thomas Dodd of Connecticut, and supported by Lyndon Johnson. James Eastland, the longtime segregationist from Mississippi, chaired the Senate Judiciary Committee. The committee defeated a proposal to ban interstate gun sales. The committee then considered a proposal to combine gun control legislation with a safe streets bill. It failed to approve this measure, then adjourned for the evening. An hour later, James Earl Ray aimed his rifle at the balcony of the Lorraine Motel and murdered Martin Luther King Jr.
On Saturday, April 6, the committee met again. This time, it voted 9-to-7 to attach the gun control regulations to the safe streets bill. But to achieve even this tiny advance, the supporters of gun control agreed to exempt rifles and shotguns. That same day, members of the National Rifle Association descended upon Boston’s Sheraton Hotel for the organization’s annual meeting. They would rally against the pending legislation. The Senate began to debate the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act. This law would prohibit felons from buying guns, ban all mail-order gun sales, and impose restrictions on certain out-of-state transactions. The Senate passed the bill on May 24. The House did not act until after the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy. One day after Kennedy’s death, on June 6, 1968, the House approved the bill. Months later, Congress passed a more expansive law called the Gun Control Act of 1968. It established a licensing system for gun purchases, mandated serial numbers on weapons, and expanded many of the previous bill’s measures. This was the apogee in the history of American gun control legislation. It was eventually undone in 1986, by the Firearm Owners’ Protection Act. Palm Sunday fell on April 7, 1968, three days after King’s assassination. Millions of Americans gathered in churches to mourn the slain leader. Tributes to King rang out in black houses of worship, among white congregations, and at public gatherings that drew interracial crowds. The nation pressed together to grieve for the prophet of nonviolence. Many religious leaders offered the same message: that for King’s death to have a lasting impact, the nation needed to commit itself to racial justice in deed as well as in word. At New York City’s Church of the Holy Family, Monsignor Timothy Flynn declared that King’s death “will be redemptive if it stirs the white community to an adequate healing social action.” Rabbi Mark Tannenbaum of the American Jewish Committee agreed. “It will be a great desecration of his holy name if the Congress of the United States and the citizens of this nation do not respond … by providing the elementary decencies for which he sacrificed his life: jobs, housing, education, health.” The Urban League’s Whitney Young, a civil rights leader known for moderation, declared: “We must have concrete, tangible action that will remove the inequities in our society.” If the nation could see its way toward such substantive action, if it could begin to remove those inequities, then King “may have achieved in death something he was never quite able to do in actual life.” American leaders never did remove such racial inequalities. Instead, the “white backlash” intensified as the “silent majority” lifted Richard Nixon to the presidency. The Fair Housing Act of 1968 was in effect the last civil rights bill. And the safe streets bill, its robust gun control regulations notwithstanding, would give rise to the era of mass incarceration. In the days after King’s death, Southern leaders debated whether to lower the American flag – and Southern state flags – in King’s honor. A dramatic standoff occurred at the Georgia Statehouse in Atlanta, King’s native city. Ben Fortson, Georgia’s secretary of state, had lowered both the American and state flags to half-staff immediately after King’s assassination. Georgia’s flag was essentially the Confederate flag, alongside a small image of the state seal. (Georgia had added the stars-and-bars to its flag in 1956.) The governor at the time was Lester Maddox, a segregationist icon. On April 8, 1968, Maddox called Fortson to register his objections about the lowering of the flags. King’s funeral service would begin the next morning; thousands of mourners had flocked to the city. On April 9, Maddox surrounded the Statehouse with 160 state troopers in riot gear as well as 20 armed wildlife rangers. Maddox then marched over to the flagpole and began to raise both of the flags. He suddenly realized that television cameras from CBS, NBC and ABC were tracking his every move. Maddox ultimately left the flags where they were and retreated into his office. He later explained, “I didn’t think we oughta use our flag to honor an enemy of our country.” The symbolism was hard to miss: the Confederate flag remained at half-staff, in King’s honor. In 2001, Georgia adopted a new state flag – the result of Gov. Roy Barnes’ efforts. After 14 more years, and the slaughter of nine African-Americans, South Carolina may finally retire that symbol of racial hatred. Still, our nation is dotted with many more shrines to the Confederacy. Hundreds of towns have monuments to slaveholders; some public schools are named after Confederate leaders. Perhaps those symbols will be the next to fall. Maybe this awful moment can nudge us toward necessary reforms. We comfort ourselves with the notion that the gunman was insane, when it is obvious that he was acting out – in extreme form – the ugliest truth of our time: that our society places little value on black life. If Ralph McGill and Mike Royko were still with us, they would not busy themselves with the assassin’s Internet posts. They would not look at him; they would look at us. They would scrutinize our society, at what we have built and what we have condoned. In this painful hour, we might realize that we don’t have to keep living this way. We can harness the sadness, the outrage and the feeling of unity, and use that energy to force our leaders into action – urging them to pursue policies that will make it harder for people to kill one another, and to honor the dead by creating a more peaceful and just society for the living. | 1 |
ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) - At least 61 people have been killed in clashes between different ethnic groups in Ethiopia s Oromiya region, officials said, the latest bout of violence to highlight increasing instability in a province racked by bloody protests in 2015 and 2016. From Thursday, 29 ethnic Oromos were killed by ethnic Somali attackers in the region s Hawi Gudina and Daro Lebu districts, regional spokesman Addisu Arega Kitessa said. The violence triggered revenge attacks by ethnic Oromos in another district, resulting in the killing of 32 Somalis who were being sheltered in the area following a previous round of violence. The region is working to bring the perpetrators to justice, the spokesman said in a statement. The cause of the latest violence was not known, but it followed protests in Oromiya s Celenko town where the region s officials said 16 ethnic Oromos were shot dead on Tuesday by soldiers trying to disperse the crowd. We do not know who ordered the deployment of the military. This illegal act should be punished, said Lema Megersa, the region s president. The clashes are likely to fuel fears about security in Ethiopia, the region s biggest economy and a staunch Western ally. Lema s comments also illustrate growing friction within Ethiopia s ruling EPRDF coalition, since unrest roiled the Oromiya region in 2015 and 2016, when hundreds of people were killed. At that time, the violence forced the government to impose a nine-month state of emergency that was only lifted in August. The unrest was provoked by a development scheme for the capital Addis Ababa that dissidents said amounted to land grabs and turned into broader anti-government demonstrations over political and human rights. It included attacks on businesses, many of them foreign-owned, including farms growing flowers for export. | 0 |
PRAGUE (Reuters) - Andrej Babis, whose ANO movement is heavily tipped to win this weekend s Czech national election, is his country s second-richest man with an empire of chemicals, food processing, farming and media firms. He also owns a restaurant on the French Riviera with two Michelin stars. Forbes magazine puts his worth at $4 billion, behind only Petr Kellner at $14.2 billion. Babis said in an interview with Blesk daily this week he had valued his main asset Agrofert at $4.6 billion. Babis set up fertilizer trader Agrofert in 1993 as the Czech unit of Slovakia-based and formerly state-owned trading firm Petrimex that had Babis worked for since the 1970s. He took control of Agrofert in 1995 and has since expanded it, often through acquisitions. Babis moved ownership of Agrofert and his other main firm SynBiol to two trust funds at the beginning of this year. The step was required by new conflict-of-interest legislation that applied to him as finance minister at the time. The two trust funds AB private trust I and AB private trust II are managed by long-term collaborators of Babis, Agrofert Chairman Zbynek Prusa and board member Alexej Bilek. Babis s firms receive national and EU subsidies, both regular farming payments and investment aid, have numerous business deals with the public sector, and also depend on government regulation in sectors such as biofuels. Babis, finance minister from 2014 until May this year, has admitted being at some points in conflict of interest but has denied abusing the position. Police charged Babis earlier this month over a 2 million euro EU subsidy awarded in 2008 to one of his projects, Stork Nest, and have also been looking into his past tax strategies which cost him the finance ministry in May. He denies any wrongdoing. A group of over 250 firms and 34,000 employees, it has activities in 18 countries, notably the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Germany and Hungary, focusing on chemicals, farming, food processing, forestry and media. Agrofert had sales of 155.3 billion crowns ($7.16 billion) and earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization of 14.7 billion crowns in 2016. It reported receiving subsidies, mostly EU farming funding, of 1.5 billion crowns last year. - About 9,000 people work for a host of firms including Deza, Lovochemie, Precheza, Synthesia, Fatra, Slovakia s Duslo and Germany s Stickstoffwerke Piesteritz. - Products include fertilisers, sulfur, aromatic reactants, phenols, tar oils, pigments, acids, salts, PVC, polymers, pesticides, urea. - 103,000 farmed hectares - grains trade, storage, seeds, feed, crop growing and livestock. - forestry and timber - 16,500 employees - meat, poultry, dairy, bakeries - operations in Czech Republic, Slovakia, Germany - includes a large new bakery plant in Germany - The largest Czech producer of rapeseed-based biofuels, which are by law mixed into motor fuels. - Major supplier to state-owned fuels distribution firm Cepro. - Babis s most criticized acquisition, including 23 newspapers and magazines, 3 small TV stations and a national radio. The main asset is MAFRA, the publisher of two national broadsheet daily newspapers, Mlada fronta Dnes and Lidove Noviny as well as free newspapers, magazines and a number of news and entertainment websites, which Babis acquired when he was running in the 2013 election. MAFRA says it reaches 2.5 million print and 2.8 million internet readers. The purchase sparked an exodus of staff who said they would not work for an owner who was a politician. Babis has denied ever influencing content although a leaked tape earlier this year suggested he discussed coverage of opponents with a journalist. The journalist was fired. Media holdings also include Radio Impuls, the largest private radio station by number of listeners. Firm controlling other main investments. Assets include FutureLife, a network of fertility clinics valued at over 100 million euros; smaller biotech, food and real estate investments. An arm looking after real estate, some farming and other projects, including the conference center and mini-Zoo Capi Hnizdo (Stork Nest), the source of Babis s biggest legal trouble. Police charged Babis with hiding ownership of the project a decade ago so it qualified for a 2 million euro European Union development subsidy which was meant for small business. He denies any wrongdoing. He faces possibly years in jail if convicted. A restaurant near Cannes, France, that has received two Michelin stars. It features dinner tasting menus costing 98 to 185 euros per head. ($1 = 21.6940 Czech crowns) | 1 |
Police on Tuesday arrested two people and were seeking a third after a shooting in Northwest Rochester, MN.In 2014, Rochester, MN was ranked No. 2 on Livability.com s second annual national list of the Top 100 Best Places to Live.Rochester, MN is now a gateway city for refugee resettlement and it is being systematically destroyed. Violent crime is at unprecedented levels. Daily reports of gunfights are not uncommon.Authorities received multiple emergency calls about 12:50 p.m., reporting shots fired in a parking lot at Minnwest Bank, 331 16th Ave. NW. According to Sgt. Frank Ohm of the Rochester Police Department, the incident involved three to four black males fighting, and shots were fired.One or two individuals ran south, and one or two individuals ran north away from the parking lot, Ohm added. Two suspects were arrested down the street and were taken into custody for further questioning.UPDATE: Attempted murder charges have been filed against the two Rochester men arrested as suspects in Tuesday s shooting near the Olive Garden restaurant.Arraigned Thursday were 21-year-old Abdi Abukar and 22-year-old Idris Haji-Mohamed. Conditional bail for the two suspects was set at $500,000.Multiple witnesses have identified Abukar as the one who was firing shots at a third man as he ran through the parking lot of the restaurant just before 1 p.m. The gun suspected of being used in the shooting was found near where the two men were apprehended. Police suspect a second gun was involved. And, at least one witness told police it appeared two men were shooting at each other. The man who was being fired at is still being sought.Police aren t sure what the motive was for the shooting because the two suspects have not given a statement. It s suspected it may be related to two recent shootings in the city. Pamela Gellar | 1 |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer on Friday expressed optimism on chances for a deal with Republicans to continue Obamacare’s subsidy payments for low-income people, despite President Donald Trump’s decision to scrap the healthcare insurance supports. Speaking to reporters on a conference call, Schumer said, “We’re going to have a very good opportunity to get this done in a bipartisan way” during negotiations in December on broad federal spending legislation, “if we can’t get it done sooner.” | 0 |
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