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ANKARA/BERLIN (Reuters) - Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Tuesday Germany would only restrict some arms sales to Turkey, softening an earlier announcement of a freeze on major arms sales after Ankara said that would hurt their joint fight against Islamic State. Merkel spoke a day after Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel said Berlin had put all major arms exports to NATO partner Turkey on hold, citing deteriorating human rights there and strained diplomatic ties. She told broadcaster NDR that Germany would decide on arms sales requests from Turkey on a case-by-case basis, noting that Berlin cooperated with Ankara on security matters. We also remain in a joint fight against Islamic State, Merkel said, in an apparent rebuff of the more forceful remarks made by Gabriel, a senior member of the Social Democrats (SPD), junior partners in her ruling coalition. Turkey accused Gabriel of using the issue for political gain ahead of a Sept. 24 national election. The countries ties through the U.S.-led military alliance have come under increased pressure since Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan started a crackdown on political opponents after a failed coup last year. Germany has criticized mass arrests in Turkey, refused to extradite people Turkey says were involved in the putsch and demanded the release of around a dozen German or Turkish-German citizens arrested in recent months. This month, Merkel went as far as saying she would seek to end Turkey s membership talks with the European Union - drawing accusations from Turkey that she was flirting with populism to build support before the election. Berlin is also considering adding Turkey to a list of countries that pose high security risks for intelligence agents, police officers and military officials, Germany s Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper and two broadcasters reported, citing a spokesman for the Interior Ministry. The list includes China, Russia, Pakistan, North Korea and 26 other countries. Merkel did not give details of what criteria Germany would use to make its case-by-case decisions on arms exports. But in a written response to a question from Greens lawmaker Ozcan Mutlu about German arms exports to Turkey, Economy Ministry state secretary Matthias Machnig said they would not be approved if Berlin suspected they could be used for repression. Machnig s response, dated Sept. 7, also showed arms sales to Turkey had declined significantly since a year earlier. He listed arms exports to Turkey approved between Jan. 1 and Aug. 31 this year - primarily bombs, torpedoes and missiles with some small arms and munitions - worth a total of about 25 million euros ($29.84 million), down from 69 million euros in the same period last year. After Merkel spoke, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said he found the chancellor s approach more suitable and chided Gabriel for using the issue to drum up votes. Gabriel s SPD is running 13 to 14 percent behind Merkel s conservatives in many opinion polls. Turkish EU Affairs Minister Omer Celik, speaking in London, had said Gabriel s ban on major arms deals would weaken Turkey s fight against terrorism and make Europe less secure. A NATO spokesman said the alliance has no role in commercial arms sales between member states. It does not monitor, promote or facilitate such transactions, the spokesman added. | 1 |
A man who shot and killed his own daughter as she came home from her first day of middle school has told authorities that she startled him, so he shot her. He then tried to get rid of his gun after taking her to a hospital, where she later died from her wounds.Timothy Batts originally told police that his daughter, Timea, came in and woke him up, saying she d been shot after getting off the school bus. After police found evidence that he d fired his gun inside his house, he admitted his lies to the police. He told them that he was his daughter s killer after a noise she made woke him up, and her yell startled him.In other words, he thought she was an intruder, and fired his gun before making sure he knew who was in his house. While there s every possibility that he thought it was someone coming after him, this kind of thing is a growing problem as we increasingly refuse to respect the danger that guns are.Worse, he s a convicted felon. Felons aren t supposed to be able to have guns, and yet, he had one. It s not clear how he came to own a gun, despite having previous convictions of felony drug possession and attempted criminal homicide, and yet, he had one. Why?His daughter s death was a mystery in the town of Hendersonville, Tenn., where people were shocked to learn of Timea s death nobody could figure out what an 11-year old could possibly have done to get herself shot in the few feet there were between the bus stop and her house. Police were confused as to why there were so few clues other than her father s account of what happened.Later that evening, though, the case took a turn when police investigated Batts house and found that Batts had fired his gun. He s now facing charges of reckless homicide, tampering with evidence, false reporting and felon in possession of a firearm. He s currently being held on a $1 million bond, and his cousin has actually started a Gofundme account in order to raise money for his bail.He could have obtained his gun legally or illegally, but the fact remains that his daughter would still be alive if he hadn t shot first and thought later.Featured image via screen capture | 0 |
PARIS (Reuters) - French President Emmanuel Macron laid out his vision for reform of the European Union on Tuesday, detailing a desire for a major overhaul of the single currency bloc and ideas on deeper defense and immigration cooperation. Macron was setting out his ideas before German Chancellor Angela Merkel begins the task of building a coalition government after she suffered a sharp fall in support in Sunday s election, which may hamper her ability to help him deliver reform. Below are highlights from his speech: A more fragile Europe is today exposed to waves of globalization. The only path that assures our future is the rebuilding of a Europe that is sovereign, united and democratic. At the beginning of the next decade, Europe must have a joint intervention force, a common defense budget and a joint doctrine for action. We must provide Europe with a joint civil protection force. It is only with Europe that we can efficiently protect our borders and welcome those who need protection in a dignified manner, and at the same time send back those who are not eligible for asylum. We must create a European asylum office, which accelerates and harmonizes our procedures. Says he wants the gradual creation of a European border police to assure the better protection of Europe s borders. We can no longer see Africa as a threat but as a partner. Development aid must be increased. We need a tax on carbon at the borders of Europe. This is indispensable. Studies show that a carbon price below 25-30 euros per tonne is not efficient. Macron says Europe needs an agency for disruptive innovation ... let us finance research in new areas such as Artificial Intelligence. We cannot accept that there are European firms that are taxed and internationals one that are not. Says he wants EU heads of states to take up the issue of a tax on value where it is created, which will enable us to review our tax systems profoundly, to tax without complacency those companies that set up outside Europe for the sole purpose of escaping tax. A durable economic power can only be built around a single currency. It is from this economic and monetary union that we can create an integrated Europe. The fundamental issue is not a mechanism which will magically solve all our problems ... it is not about mutualizing our past debts or solving the financial problems of one country or another. What is at stake is to reduce unemployment which affects one in five European youths. Macron says Europe needs its own budget to finance joint investments and assure stability when confronted by economic shocks ... A budget can only go hand in hand with strong political leadership led by a common minister and a strong parliamentary supervision at the European level. Macron says wants to define a common corporate tax band ; Europe needs to define a minimum wage that reflects the economic reality of each country. We need a Europe that is simpler, more transparent and less bureaucratic. Simple, efficient, protective, the single market should become a space for convergence rather than competition. In the context of a wider Europe: We cannot continue with a (European) Commission of 30 members, as if each country must have its own members. It has no sense and does not reflect the European project. A Commission of 15 members should be our target. FRANCO-GERMAN AXIS To Germany: Why not set ourselves the objective that by 2024 we integrate totally our markets by applying the same rules to our companies, from corporate law to bankruptcy regulation. On Merkel: We share the same European ambitions and I know her commitment to Europe. I m proposing to Germany a new partnership We will not agree on everything, not immediately, but we will discuss everything. This Europe which has allowed us to turn our backs on war needs to be ambitious once again. | 0 |
Among the findings:A Complex Fiscal Picture Welfare use. Our findings show that many of the preconceived notions about the fiscal impact of illegal households turn out to be inaccurate. In terms of welfare use, receipt of cash assistance programs tends to be very low, while Medicaid use, though significant, is still less than for other households. Only use of food assistance programs is significantly higher than that of the rest of the population. Also, contrary to the perceptions that illegal aliens don t pay payroll taxes, we estimate that more than half of illegals work on the books. On average, illegal households pay more than $4,200 a year in all forms of federal taxes. Unfortunately, they impose costs of $6,950 per household.The Impact of Amnesty. Finally, our estimates show that amnesty would significantly increase tax revenue. Because both their income and tax compliance would rise, we estimate that under the most likely scenario the average illegal alien household would pay 77 percent ($3,200) more a year in federal taxes once legalized. While not enough to offset the 118 percent ($8,200) per household increase in costs that would come with legalization, amnesty would significantly increase both the average income and tax payments of illegal aliens.What s Different About Today s Immigration. Many native-born Americans observe that their ancestors came to America and did not place great demands on government services. Perhaps this is true, but the size and scope of government were dramatically smaller during the last great wave of immigration. Not just means-tested programs, but expenditures on everything from public schools to roads were only a fraction of what they are today. Thus, the arrival of unskilled immigrants in the past did not have the negative fiscal implications that it does today. Moreover, the American economy has changed profoundly since the last great wave of immigration, with education now the key determinant of economic success. The costs that unskilled immigrants impose simply reflect the nature of the modern American economy and welfare state. It is doubtful that the fiscal costs can be avoided if our immigration policies remain unchanged. Center For Immigration Study | 1 |
Donald Trump is facing seriously fierce blowback for his attacks on black athletes who choose to protest racism and police brutality by taking a knee during the national anthem before games. Everyone from owners to players to players to former players are giving Trump a big middle finger during Suturday s games on Sunday, and former NFL star Chris Kluwe didn t stay out of the fray. During an interview with CNN host Fredricka Whitfield, Kluwe, who believes he was blacklisted in the league for speaking out for LGBTQ rights, did not hold back. First, Whitfield asked: This display of kneeling at the national anthem on a football field started a year ago with 49er s Kaepernick and now has evolved into something else or perhaps has blossomed into the same thing but in a bigger way. Chris, what statement do you see NFL teams, owners, coaches making when they kneel, touch, lock arms on display like this? Kluwe responded: Well, I think that the players and the teams are saying that they are not going to be dictated to by a racist, fascist white supremacist who currently occupies the highest place in our government. When you look at what Donald Trump has said about speaking out against Nazis, I think it s fantastic that players and owners are now taking a stand in using the platform to speak out against this because this is not what America is. America is not a fascist military state where its devotion to the flag above all. Right now our nation is not holding up its end of the social contract, especially with communities of color. It should be a baseline right now that you can walk down the street and not get shot by a police officer for carrying a toy gun or for selling cigarettes out of the back of a car. It should not be out of the ordinary to expect that. So I m glad to see these players and owners taking a stand. Communities of color within our nation are not receiving the same level of justice that white communities are, he added. Black members of our society are far more likely to be put in prison for what white members are able to skate by on. But it s also morphed into a discussion that we have a person in charge of our society that does not understand what it means to wield the American empire, and has shown no willingness to work with minorities, with immigrants, with anyone who is not white, and that is, again, against the heart of what America stands for. Kluwe is spot on. These players do not suspend their First Amendment right when they take to the field. Further, Donald Trump should not be using the bully pulpit of the White House to try and get people fired for demonstrating for justice. These players are using their platforms to bring awareness to a very serious, and literally life or death, issue in America s communities of color. There s nothing more patriotic that they could do.Trump, on the other hand, is no patriot. Kluwe is correct Trump IS a racist, a fascist, and a white supremacist. Kudos to these sports teams for standing up to this bullying.Watch the video below:Featured image via video screen capture | 1 |
(Reuters) - U.S. President-elect Donald Trump spoke by telephone on Thursday with Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg, who congratulated Trump on his election win, the Trump transition team said in a statement. “The two leaders discussed the strong relationship between the United States and Norway,” the statement said. “President-elect Trump said he looked forward to participating in alliance building forums to strengthen ties within the global community.” | 0 |
We still do not know who or what is responsible for the crash of EgyptAir Flight 804, but we know this much for certain: The terrorist danger is growing, and it won’t be contained to the Mediterranean.
Responding to criticism of President Obama’s handling of terrorism, White House press secretary Josh Earnest boasted Thursday of all the setbacks the Islamic State has experienced in recent months, noting that in Iraq “45 percent of the populated area that ISIL previously controlled has been retaken from them. In Syria, that figure is now 20 percent.”
That’s like a patient who ignored a cancer diagnosis bragging that he finally reduced the tumor in his lung — glossing over the fact that he let it spread and metastasize to his other organs. If he had attacked the Islamic State cancer early, Obama could have stopped it from spreading in the first place. But instead, he dismissed the terrorist group as the “JV team” that was “engaged in various local power struggles and disputes” and did not have “the capacity and reach of a bin Laden” and did not pose “a direct threat to us.” He did nothing, while the cancer grew in Syria and then spread in Iraq.
Now the cancer has spread and metastasized across the world.
According to a recent CNN analysis, since declaring its caliphate in 2014, the Islamic State has carried out 90 attacks in 21 countries outside of Iraq and Syria that have killed 1,390 people and injured more than 2,000 others. The Islamic State has a presence in more than a dozen countries and has declared “provinces” in Algeria, Libya, Egypt, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Pakistan and Afghanistan. The Post reported in 2015 that “since the withdrawal of most U.S. and international troops in December, the Islamic State has steadily made inroads in Afghanistan” where it has “poured pepper into the wounds of their enemies . . . seared their hands in vats of boiling oil . . . blindfolded, tortured and blown apart [villagers] with explosives buried underneath them.”
And while the Islamic State spreads and grows, al-Qaeda is making a comeback. Obama is touting the killing of Taliban leader Akhtar Mohammad Mansour as “an important milestone,” but the truth is that the Taliban has made major military gains in Afghanistan — and that has opened the door to al-Qaeda. The Post reported in October that “American airstrikes targeted what was ‘probably the largest’ al-Qaeda training camp found in the 14-year Afghan war.” Sounds good except for one small problem: There were no major al-Qaeda camps in Afghanistan when Obama took office. Now it is once again training terrorists in the land where it trained operatives for the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
Al-Qaeda has also regained lost ground in Yemen, the country where it trained and deployed the underwear bomber who nearly blew up a plane bound for Detroit in 2009. And as a recent report from the Institute for the Study of War and the American Enterprise Institute’s Critical Threats Project notes, the “Syrian al Qaeda affiliate Jabhat al Nusra poses one of the most significant long-term threats of any Salafi-jihadi group” and “is much more dangerous to the U.S. than the ISIS model in the long run.”
Overall, Gen. Jack Keane recently testified that al-Qaeda has “grown fourfold in the last five years.”
We’re lying to ourselves if we think that the violence we are witnessing is going to be confined to the Middle East . . . or South Asia . . . or North Africa . . . or Europe. It is only a matter of time before the Islamic State and al-Qaeda bring this violence here to our shores.
Indeed, in many ways we face a situation far more dangerous and complex than we did before Sept. 11, 2001. Before 9/11, we largely faced a danger from one terrorist network (al-Qaeda) with safe haven in one nation (Afghanistan). Today, we face danger from multiple terrorist networks with safe havens in a dozen or more countries.
Moreover, we face something we have never seen before: two terrorist networks — the Islamic State and al-Qaeda — competing with each other for the hearts of the jihadi faithful and the backing of jihadi financiers. The way to win that competition is to be the first to carry out a catastrophic attack here in the United States.
When it came to terrorist networks, the George W. Bush administration had a mantra: We’re going to fight them over there so that we do not have to face them here at home. Obama abandoned that mantra. And now the danger is getting closer to home with each passing day.
Read more from Marc Thiessen’s archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook. | 0 |
It's been a big week for abortion news.
Carly Fiorina's passionate (if inaccurate) depiction of a Planned Parenthood sting video was one of the most memorable moments of last week's GOP debate. And the House of Representatives on Friday passed two abortion-related bills — one aimed at cutting federal funds to Planned Parenthood, the other at punishing doctors who fail to provide medical care to infants that survive abortion attempts.
Given all this, you could be forgiven for thinking there's been a public-opinion shift against abortion rights in the U.S.
Abortion is one of those rare issues in which public opinion never seems to budge all that much. Americans are still more or less where they were on whether they think it should be legal as in 1975, just after the Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision. That is, with the largest share of Americans somewhere in the murky middle.
According to Gallup data, by 29 percent to 19 percent, Americans think it should be legal in all circumstances. But a majority — 51 percent — say it should be legal in only certain circumstances — in cases of rape, incest or where the mother's life is threatened, for example. That number has barely changed in 40 years.
Those kinds of data stand in stark contrast to what's available about other social issues. Consider same-sex marriage, for example, where public opinion has swung dramatically toward legalization in the past decade.
Or take the death penalty — upticks in crime and opposition to government spending are two factors that have driven Americans' opinions on this topic back and forth over the years.
Abortion isn't like that. Strong majorities have consistently opposed overturning Roe since 1989, today by nearly 2 to 1.
That's perhaps even more surprising when considering what's happened over the past 40 years: a patchwork of state laws passed to define very specific restrictions on abortion, a decline in teen pregnancy, and increasing political polarization. All of that has apparently neither caused nor been the result of big shifts in national public opinion on abortion.
So what's going on?
It might have to do with another fact about public opinion on abortion — it's a topic for which the realities are anything but black and white, which is exactly how the arguments are all too often framed in the political arena.
A majority of Americans support legal abortion in the first trimester of pregnancy. But a majority also oppose it in the second and third trimesters. Most support it in cases of rape or incest, but most oppose it if the mother simply can't afford another child.
Those opinions get much messier when you dive deeper into the research.
"Not only is opinion remarkably stable ... it is deeply contradictory," said Karlyn Bowman, who studies public opinion at the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute. When people are asked, " 'Is it murder?' people say yes," Bowman said. But if asked, " 'Should it be a personal choice between a woman and her doctor?' a large majority say yes."
In one poll from the Public Religion Research Institute, 43 percent of Americans identified as both "pro-life" and "pro-choice." Those labels are their own source of uncertainty.
Since the mid-1990s, the share of people who consider themselves "pro-choice" (by Gallup's count) has fallen moderately — even while opinions on abortion circumstances have held steady. (Still, a majority — 50 percent — consider themselves "pro-choice," while 44 percent say they are "pro-life.")
These contradictions may be why public opinion holds so steady.
"When that [contradiction] happens on a public policy issue, when there are deep contradictions, most people pull away from an issue," Bowman said. "They don't see any reason to resolve the tensions in their opinions. So that leaves the topic up to the pro-life and the pro-choice activists. And those groups don't really represent most people."
Why Planned Parenthood is the focus
So if most Americans don't firmly oppose abortion, one might say it's foolhardy for Republicans, like this week's GOP debate participants, to stake such firm anti-abortion stances.
But abortion is an issue that fires up the bases of both parties. It's one of the top issues used by Republicans and Democrats to motivate, fundraise and organize.
What's more, though, the latest abortion fight isn't focused on the larger issue of abortion itself. It's been about Planned Parenthood. And recent surveys suggest that public opinion on the organization is more malleable than opinion on the topic of abortion.
Today, a plurality of Americans — 37 percent — view Planned Parenthood favorably, according to a recent Monmouth poll (with a margin of error of plus or minus 2.8 percentage points). But just three years ago, the same poll found that far more people — 55 percent — viewed the organization favorably.
It's just one survey, but it suggests that making the abortion debate about Planned Parenthood (and taxpayer money) may be a more successful tactic for the GOP than trying to pass laws restricting abortion itself.
Of course, that doesn't mean a shutdown over the issue would be a good idea for the GOP. The Republican Party's favorability rating fell sharply during the October 2013 partial government shutdown — making it one area where public opinion does tell a clear story. | 1 |
If Trump supporters seriously want black people to vote for the Republican nominee, they should leave their nooses at home.Because during a rally in North Carolina on Wednesday evening in which Donald Trump made another desperate appeal to black voters, one Trump supporter draped a rope around the neck of a Hillary Clinton doll and hung her in effigy above the crowd for all to see.Ginger Glover is a toy store owner, so getting her hands on a Lyin Hillary doll was easy. But it was a terrible idea to promote lynching imagery in a state where black people suffered lynchings in the past.Glover claims that she was only trying to say that Hillary should be incarcerated at the very least and that hanging her in effigy was just for effect. Here s the video via YouTube:From 1877 to 1950, approximately 100 African-Americans were lynched in the state of North Carolina.Hanging a political candidate in effigy is an act of violence or threatened violence that has no place in our elections.This incident is even scarier considering that many Trump supporters are openly threatening to assassinate Hillary Clinton or lead a violent overthrow of the federal government if Trump loses the election, threats that only get worse as Trump continues to claim that the election is rigged against him.Nevertheless, it s going to be damn near impossible for Donald Trump to attract black voters to his campaign, especially if his supporters are bringing nooses to rallies and threatening to hang Hillary.African-Americans are not going to appreciate that imagery and they will not vote for man who condones it.Featured Image: Screenshot | 0 |
HOUSTON (Reuters) - State and local governments need to become more self-sufficient in handling major disasters like Hurricane Harvey, FEMA Administrator Brook Long said in a televised interview on Sunday. Speaking on CBS’ Face the Nation, Long said the federal support is intended to be a “ray of hope, a bridge to kick-start recovery,” and state and local governments need to do more on their own. They should not expect the federal government to make their citizens whole after major disasters, he said. “We need elected officials at all levels to sit down and hit the reset button and make sure they have everything they need to increase levels of self-sufficiency,” Long said. He called the massive devastation “a wakeup call for local and state officials,” saying they needed to fully fund their own emergency management offices and have rainy day funds set aside for such emergencies. “They can’t depend only on federal emergency management,” he said following pointed calls by Houston officials for FEMA to quickly increase staffing in the city and provide relief funds. Long declined to offer an amount the White House would request Congress to provide for additional emergency assistance in the wake of Harvey. Earlier Texas Governor Greg Abbott said the cost of the storm had risen to between $150 billion and $180 billion. Houston is making progress on several fronts to recover from Harvey, resuming city services and helping get people into housing and out of emergency shelters, Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner said in separate comments on Face the Nation on Sunday. “This is a can-do city. We’re not going to engage in a pity party,” said Turner. “People are taking care of each other.” Speaking from the city’s convention center, which once housed 10,000 people fleeing from flooding, he said there are “significantly less than 2,000” people now staying at the shelter. | 0 |
"One should not insist on nailing [Trump] into positions that he had taken in the campaign," he said. | 1 |
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexico City s infamous traffic jams were back on Monday as offices re-opened after last week s deadly earthquake, but closed schools and clusters of homeless people served as reminders that life in the megalopolis has not yet returned to normal. The 7.1 quake on Sept. 19 killed at least 325 people and left thousands homeless, with many of them living in tents in the streets or emergency housing. Others among the 20 million people who live in greater Mexico City were gradually resuming their routines, however. You can t say that everything has totally returned back to being normal, but we do feel more safe that we did last week, said market researcher Diego Sandoval, 27, back at work in an office in trendy Condesa, one of the worst hit areas of town, and lining up at a taco stand with a dozen other office workers and laborers. The most visible sign of the city coming back to life were the rush hour queues after a week of eerie quiet along the avenues and highways that criss-cross the capital, known for its gridlock. We just opened up today, getting things back on track. We ve been closed since the earthquake, said Martha Bertha Martinez, 70, who along with her sister runs a small grocery store in Tlalpan, a southern neighborhood. Life goes on, she said. More than 44,000 schools in six states were due to reopen on Monday, but only 103 in Mexico City, or barely 1 percent of its schools, were set to resume classes after they were certified as structurally safe. Officials said they did not want to impede relief efforts, so more than 4,000 public schools and nearly as many private schools in the capital will remain closed for now. The National Autonomous University of Mexico, with 350,000 students at campuses in and around Mexico City, resumed classes on Monday. Of 6,000 damaged buildings, some 1,500 have yet to be inspected, said Horacio Urbano, president of Centro Urbano, a think tank specializing in urban issues and real estate. Urbano said 10 percent of the damaged buildings were constructed after 1990, by which time strict building codes had been enacted in the wake of the 1985 earthquake that killed some 10,000 people. Search operations for quake survivors in Mexico City were narrowed to five buildings, using advanced audio equipment to look for signs of life beneath tons of rubble, with help from teams from as far afield as Israel and Japan. At a school in southern Mexico City where 19 children and six adults had previously been reported killed, officials recovered another body on Sunday, that of an adult women. The search for survivors and bodies also carried on at a ruined office building in the Roma neighborhood and in a five-story apartment building in historic Tlalpan. Even with offices and businesses opening up again, it will take months or years for neighborhoods like Condesa to recover emotionally and physically from the quake and aftershocks, with numerous residents packing up belongings and moving out. Our neighborhood is in mourning, said Deborah Levy, 44, in Condesa. Some neighbors and friends got together (Sunday). We went to eat to cheer ourselves up, looking for a little normality. Florist Josue Castillo reopened the stall he has been tending for 15 years the day after the quake, so people could see something pretty, he said, between the ruins of buildings and cordoned off streets. But he said residents and businesses still did not feel safe in the area, which became the heart of Mexico City s hip revival over the past decade. People are leaving their homes and offices in Condesa. Leaving with their families. It was horrible yesterday to see people filling their cars with belongings and moving elsewhere out of fear of aftershocks, he said. (Graphic: Earthquake strikes Mexico - tmsnrt.rs/2jJ1WA0) | 1 |
Pathetic Predictably impotent. We are not united we are divided. We do not stand strong. We sit like ducks. Waiting to be shot. Helpless, pathetic, slow.Mohamed took a truck and drove it into men, women and children celebrating Bastille day in Nice. He killed 84.And who yet knows of the horrors still to spew from hospital wards lives fractured, crumpled, crushed.One minute they were jubilant, locals and tourists alike celebrating Bastille day together. The next, lying splintered on the floor.And the most sickening thing of all worse than spilt blood, fractured bodies, children with legs contorted out of human control, the reek of death, is our horribly sanitized response to it all.Pathetic. Predictably impotent.Evil mowed us down in a monster truck. And we tweeted like lethargic birds between Egyptian cotton sheets.Celebrities rushed to social media with their message not again , designers comforted with a patriotic graphic, tea candles were lit and instagrammed. There will be a vigil in a public square. Again. A hashtag is born #PrayForNice, exploding into a thousand others as people want to #PrayFor France or #PrayForHumanity, failing to acknowledge the horrible truth that this attack was done in some spurious god s name. You want to pray for Nice?You think religion will help solve this? Religion and its bonkers side-shoots are the problem.That s true if you re talking about the religion of hate Katie, but Christians, Jews and Hindu s don t subscribe to killing innocent people to gain entry to heaven. -100 Percent FED UP!Politicians tell us to stand united. The Prime Minister of France has said he will not allow the country to be destabilised. President Hollande reminds us terrorism will not be tolerated.Well big news: France IS destabilised in a perpetual state of Emergency. We do not stand united. We are divided, we are ripped apart. And yet we tolerate it every time.We do not stand strong. We sit like ducks. Waiting to be shot. Helpless, pathetic, slow.French Pres. Hollande hours before #NiceAttack: "What threatens us is the rise of populism." https://t.co/X9HR4Jw2fE pic.twitter.com/kyBedUfKlW Paul Joseph Watson (@PrisonPlanet) July 15, 2016We are reminded to be more tolerant. Liberal lefties takes to the airways lecturing at us, not to react. To remind us of the good and humanity in most people.Muslim mayors stand and tell us we will be there, shoulder-to-shoulder with France, reminding us Mohamed has nothing to do with ordinary Muslims or Islam.As with every other time, someone from the BBC informs us many of the victims will have been Muslim, as if that helps. Trying to give credence to the notion Islam can t be blamed because Muslims died too. And again, we hear a familiar refrain. The suspect was known to the police he had a fiche S on his file marking his links to terror and ISIS.He was a French national from Tunisia. (Why are they always French-Tunisians, never Tunisian/French? What do you think he called himself?)Via: Daily Mail | 1 |
Has anyone else noticed that the government sometimes seems to like awarding contracts to companies that have proven they re incapable of doing what they re supposed to be doing? Equifax s massive data breach affected most Americans with any kind of credit at all, and here comes the IRS to give Equifax a contract in the name of fraud prevention, because Equifax has proven that they re awesome at protecting our data. Oh! And then they proved that they were totally and completely transparent and on their consumers sides when they tried to yank away our right to sue by encouraging all of us to enroll in their own fraud protection program with very fine print binding us to arbitration.The contract, which is a $7.25 million contract to verify our identities and prevent fraud, is a sole source order, which means the IRS decided Equifax was the only company capable of doing this for them. Supposedly this is to help prevent an interruption in ID verification while officials try and resolve something else.Equifax s security breach involved sensitive information for over 145 million Americans, including our Social Security numbers. Congressman Greg Walden of Oregon likened the breach to the guards at Fort Knox forgetting to lock the doors. That s how bad this hack was.The IRS itself isn t exactly free of security issues, either. They ve had severe problems with tax-ID fraud and other data hacks. Senator Orrin Hatch, of the Senate Finance Committee, has said he s worried the IRS doesn t have the technology necessary to safeguard the integrity of our tax administration system. Well, it seems Equifax doesn t either, and yet the IRS is giving up our information to them for fraud prevention. The House Digital Commerce and Consumer Protection subcommittee called Equifax stupid, and said they deserve to be shamed, and called the breach shocking and unprecedented. Walden also said: How does this happen when so much is at stake? I don t think we can pass a law that can fix stupid. Apparently they can t regulate the stupid of the IRS, either. We should all cross our fingers and pray nothing else happens to our data now. That s literally about all we can do.Featured image via Scott Olson/Getty Images | 0 |
Senators from both parties were frustrated with the intel chiefs who refused to answer their most important questions during Wednesday s Senate Intelligence Committee hearing. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz), like many of his colleagues, was clearly fed up with their silence.McCain asked Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats about a recent article published in the Washington Post that said he told his associates that Donald Trump had asked him to intervene in the Russia probe on his behalf. Coats insisted that he couldn t talk about what had already been published by the Post, and everywhere else at this point, in a public hearing. Obviously irritated, McCain couldn t help but notice the Orwellian nature of the world we are living in today. You know, it just shows what kind of an Orwellian existence that we live in, McCain exclaimed. I mean, it s detailed as you know from reading the story as to when you met, what you discussed, et cetera, et cetera. And yet, here in a public hearing before the American people, we can t talk about what was described in detail in this morning s Washington Post. Coats again argued that he couldn t talk about private conversations publicly, but this didn t take away McCain s aggravation at the current state of affairs. I m certainly not blaming you but it certainly is an interesting town in which we exist, McCain said.He then added that whether the information published by the Post was classified or not, it really makes no difference now as it has already been made public. So, it s kind of a moot point.You can watch John McCain marvel at the Orwellian existence that we live in, here:Featured image via video screen capture | 1 |
21st Century Wire says According to reports from Business Insider, the Canadian government s immigration website crashed tonight following reports that Donald Trump was pulling ahead in the US after calling a victory in traditional Democrat stronghold of Wisconsin.Clinton surrogate Miley Cyrus.A number of high profile US liberals had said previously that they would leave the country if Trump won the presidency, including actor Bryan Cranston and controversial pop singer Miley Cyrus (photo, left), both of who are staunch Hillary Clinton supporters. The barrage of celebrity Clinton campaigners threatening to leave the US helped to propel this talking point nationwide and seems to fall neatly into line with the Clinton campaign s negative fear-based campaign strategy.According to online searches, the Canadian site went down just after 10:30 pm ET on Tuesday evening followed by a surge in traffic, presumably for information on emigrating north of the border.Other key states have shocked pollsters and media experts in this election including strong Trump performances in Michigan, Ohio, Florida, North Carolina and Arizona.Stay up to date with all the results on the Business Insider live-blog here SEE ALSO: How to move to Canada and become a Canadian citizenREAD MORE ELECTION NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire 2016 Files | 0 |
BEIRUT/GENEVA (Reuters) - A Syrian government delegation will arrive in Geneva on Wednesday, a day later than expected, to attend peace talks being held there this week, Syrian state news agency SANA said. The delegation had delayed its planned departure for the talks, which begin on Tuesday, because of the opposition s insistence that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad step down. \ The United Nations Special Envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, said the government and opposition would have a chance to negotiate directly for the first time, but it was not clear if they would choose to do so. We are going to offer it. We will see if this takes place. But we will be offering that, he said after meeting the opposition delegation. De Mistura has received assurances that the Syrian government delegation will attend the talks, U.N. spokeswoman Alessandra Vellucci told a Geneva news briefing. At least we know that they are coming, she said, declining to give details on who transmitted the message from Damascus. De Mistura said the government had accepted a Russian suggestion of a ceasefire in the besieged rebel-held enclave of Eastern Ghouta near Damascus. Bombardment on the area killed three people on Tuesday, a war monitor said earlier. A delegation from the newly-unified Syrian opposition, which arrived in the Swiss city on Monday, is due to hold a first meeting with de Mistura later on Tuesday, she said. In an emailed statement, the opposition negotiating committee said it was ready to meet the government side. It (the government) no longer has the pretext that the opposition is fragmented. We are one. We are ready to negotiate directly with the other side, said Yahya Aridi, the head of the negotiation committee. Earlier, the pro-Damascus Syrian newspaper al-Watan reported that the Syrian government delegation to an eighth round of peace talks in Geneva this week has not yet left Damascus. It had reported on Monday that the delay was because of the opposition s insistence that Assad step down, which he has refused to do. Nasr Hariri, head of the opposition delegation, told a Geneva news conference on Monday night that he is aiming for Assad s removal as a result of negotiations. The government delegation will be headed by Syria s U.N. ambassador and chief negotiator Bashar al-Ja afari, SANA said. A breakthrough in the talks is seen as unlikely as Assad and his allies push for total military victory in Syria s civil war, now in its seventh year, and his opponents stick by their demand he leave power. | 0 |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Michael Flynn and other advisers to Donald Trump’s campaign were in contact with Russian officials and others with Kremlin ties in at least 18 calls and emails during the last seven months of the 2016 presidential race, current and former U.S. officials familiar with the exchanges told Reuters. The previously undisclosed interactions form part of the record now being reviewed by FBI and congressional investigators probing Russian interference in the U.S. presidential election and contacts between Trump’s campaign and Russia. Six of the previously undisclosed contacts described to Reuters were phone calls between Sergei Kislyak, Russia’s ambassador to the United States, and Trump advisers, including Flynn, Trump’s first national security adviser, three current and former officials said. Conversations between Flynn and Kislyak accelerated after the Nov. 8 vote as the two discussed establishing a back channel for communication between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin that could bypass the U.S. national security bureaucracy, which both sides considered hostile to improved relations, four current U.S. officials said. In January, the Trump White House initially denied any contacts with Russian officials during the 2016 campaign. The White House and advisers to the campaign have since confirmed four meetings between Kislyak and Trump advisers during that time. The people who described the contacts to Reuters said they had seen no evidence of wrongdoing or collusion between the campaign and Russia in the communications reviewed so far. But the disclosure could increase the pressure on Trump and his aides to provide the FBI and Congress with a full account of interactions with Russian officials and others with links to the Kremlin during and immediately after the 2016 election. The White House did not respond to requests for comment. Flynn’s lawyer declined to comment. In Moscow, a Russian foreign ministry official declined to comment on the contacts and referred Reuters to the Trump administration. Separately, a spokesman for the Russian embassy in Washington said: “We do not comment on our daily contacts with the local interlocutors.” The 18 calls and electronic messages took place between April and November 2016 as hackers engaged in what U.S. intelligence concluded in January was part of a Kremlin campaign to discredit the vote and influence the outcome of the election in favor of Trump over his Democratic challenger, former secretary of state Hillary Clinton. Those discussions focused on mending U.S.-Russian economic relations strained by sanctions imposed on Moscow, cooperating in fighting Islamic State in Syria and containing a more assertive China, the sources said. Members of the Senate and House intelligence committees have gone to the CIA and the National Security Agency to review transcripts and other documents related to contacts between Trump campaign advisers and associates and Russian officials and others with links to Putin, people with knowledge of those investigations told Reuters. The U.S. Justice Department said on Wednesday it had appointed former FBI Director Robert Mueller as special counsel to investigate alleged Russian meddling in the U.S. presidential campaign and possible collusion between Trump’s campaign and Russia. Mueller will now take charge of the FBI investigation that began last July. Trump and his aides have repeatedly denied any collusion with Russia. In addition to the six phone calls involving Kislyak, the communications described to Reuters involved another 12 calls, emails or text messages between Russian officials or people considered to be close to Putin and Trump campaign advisers. One of those contacts was by Viktor Medvedchuk, a Ukrainian oligarch and politician, according to one person with detailed knowledge of the exchange and two others familiar with the issue. It was not clear with whom Medvedchuk was in contact within the Trump campaign but the themes included U.S.-Russia cooperation, the sources said. Putin is godfather to Medvedchuk’s daughter. Medvedchuk denied having any contact with anyone in the Trump campaign. “I am not acquainted with any of Donald Trump’s close associates, therefore no such conversation could have taken place,” he said in an email to Reuters. In the conversations during the campaign, Russian officials emphasized a pragmatic, business-style approach and stressed to Trump associates that they could make deals by focusing on common economic and other interests and leaving contentious issues aside, the sources said. Veterans of previous election campaigns said some contact with foreign officials during a campaign was not unusual, but the number of interactions between Trump aides and Russian officials and others with links to Putin was exceptional. “It’s rare to have that many phone calls to foreign officials, especially to a country we consider an adversary or a hostile power,” Richard Armitage, a Republican and former deputy secretary of state, told Reuters. Beyond Medvedchuk and Kislyak, the identities of the other Putin-linked participants in the contacts remain classified and the names of Trump advisers other than Flynn have been “masked” in intelligence reports on the contacts because of legal protections on their privacy as American citizens. However, officials can request that they be revealed for intelligence purposes. U.S. and allied intelligence and law enforcement agencies routinely monitor communications and movements of Russian officials. After Vice President Mike Pence and others had denied in January that Trump campaign representatives had any contact with Russian officials, the White House later confirmed that Kislyak had met twice with then-Senator Jeff Sessions, who later became attorney general. Kislyak also attended an event in April where Trump said he would seek better relations with Russia. Senior White House adviser Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, also attended that event in Washington. In addition, Kislyak met with two other Trump campaign advisers in July on the sidelines of the Republican convention. Trump fired Flynn in February after it became clear that he had falsely characterized the nature of phone conversations with Kislyak in late December - after the Nov. 8 election and just after the Obama administration announced new sanctions on Russia. Flynn offered to testify to Congress in return for immunity from prosecution but his offer was turned down by the House intelligence committee. | 1 |
The Republican Party should be so fortunate, as to have three aging, white, career politicians like Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders running against each other while representing the future of the diverse Democrat Party LOL!Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden gave themselves a pat on the back for the gains made by Democrats in yesterday s off-year election. For Clinton it was that her political group, Onward Together, supported a number of new progressive grass roots groups that did a lot of work on the ground. Last night was a great reminder of what s possible when we come together and fight for what we believe in, Clinton tweeted Wednesday morning. So I wanted to take a few minutes to celebrate the extraordinary successes of a few groups I and Onward Together proudly fight alongside. For Biden, who is keeping the door open to a 2020 presidential bid, it was his candidate picks.In a note, to supporters, Biden said Americans voted for a different kind of leadership. And last night, nearly every single candidate that I endorsed at your recommendation was elected, he wrote. Daily MailWhy were Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden both taking credit for wins in VA, a blue state that went for Hillary in 2016 and, in spite of constantly being referred to in the media as a swing state , hasn t been a red state since 2004 (see chart below):New Jersey is and has been a blue state for decades, so all of the self-congratulations and patting themselves on their own backs seems rather odd unless of course, Hillary and Joe are setting themselves up for what would be the most entertaining ever Democrat presidential primary in 2020. Anyone who believes that Hillary isn t up for another fight doesn t know Hillary. Fingers crossed Hillary s great at taking credit for a win, but prefers to blame everyone but herself when she loses bigly : Hillary Clinton has blamed Russian hackers for her loss along with many others. DailyMail.com has been keeping trackJames Comey The FBI Vladimir Putin The Russians Wikileaks Low information voters The electoral college Anti-American forces Everyone who assumed she d win Bad polling numbers Barack Obama White women The New York Times Joe Biden Bernie Sanders Bernie bros People wanting change Misogynists Television executives Netflix Facebook Twitter Content farms in Macedonia The media Steve Bannon and Breitbart The Democratic Party The Republican Party Cambridge Analytica Women protesters Matt Lauer White voters Democratic documentary makers Voter suppression Mitch McConnell The Supreme Court Father Husbands Boyfriends Male bosses | 1 |
Donald Trump seriously thought having the hardest job on Earth would be easy. LOL!After 100 days on the job, many of which Trump spent at his lavish Florida resort playing golf, Trump stated during an interview with Reuters that he thought the presidency would be an easy job that he could just sail through.Trump complained about how his current job requires him to do much more work than he is accustomed to doing and waxed nostalgic about his life before taking over the White House. I loved my previous life. I had so many things going, Trump said. This is more work than in my previous life. I thought it would be easier. This demonstrates just how woefully unprepared Trump was to become president. And it certainly shows.After all, Trump s administration has been a complete failure only three months in.His unconstitutional executive actions on immigration have been blocked by federal judges. His effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act went down in flames, much to the relief of millions of Americans. His environmental record is a disaster. He still denies science and is cutting funding to scientific agencies and organizations. He has alienated our allies while continuing to praise Russia and Putin. He is embroiled in an ever-growing scandal. And he has turned America into a laughingstock around the world.And that s just the tip of the iceberg as Trump threatens World War III over North Korea and a government shutdown looms because he refuses to negotiate with Democrats.The only president who has had an arguably worse first 100 days is William Henry Harrison and that s only because he died 30 days into his presidency. But at least he didn t embarrass the nation and destroy it from within.The fact is that being president is a tough job. It s also a lonely job. There s a reason why presidents go grey during their years in office. It s a stressful job. Every decision made affects the nation and the world. Maybe if Trump spent less time golfing, tweeting, and watching cable news he would know that being president means working with Congress, including Democrats. Instead, Trump would rather act like a dictator and just sign executive orders between tee times and whine when he doesn t get his way.Clearly, Trump doesn t know what hard work is.Featured Image: Tom Pennington/Getty Images | 1 |
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The Iraqi government said on Thursday it would not hold talks with the Kurdish autonomous region on reopening its airports and providing dollars for its banks, unless the Kurds commit to Iraq s unity . Iraq s central government imposed a ban on direct international flights to the autonomous Kurdish region after the Kurds held a Sept 25 referendum on independence, which Baghdad says was illegal. It is calling for its neighbors to shut the landlocked region s borders. Among other measures to isolate the Kurdish region, Baghdad stopped selling dollars to four Kurdish-owned banks and called for a halt to its independent crude oil sales. The Kurds have repeatedly called for negotiations following the referendum in which an overwhelming majority voted for independence. To avoid this collective punishment, we invite (Iraqi Prime Minister) Haider al-Abadi, again, ... (to) any form of dialogue and negotiations in conformity with the Iraqi Constitution, the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) said in a statement. It offered discussions regarding the crossings, internal trade, providing services to the citizens, the banks and the airports. But Baghdad has said the Kurds must disavow the referendum result as a pre-condition for any talks. Asked about the latest offer, an Iraqi government spokesman said there could be no talks until the Kurds gave a commitment to Iraq s unity . The KRG must accept the sovereign authority of the federal government on (..) oil exports, security and border protection, including land and air entry points, he told Reuters. The Kurds, who have sought an independent state for generations, say their referendum was meant to be the start of a negotiation that would see them gain independence after agreement with the Iraqi government. But Baghdad considered the vote illegal, especially as it was held not only in territory that forms part of the Kurdish autonomous region, but also in disputed neighboring parts of Iraq occupied by Kurdish troops. Iraq has maintained its tough line toward the Kurds with support of neighbors Turkey and Iran, which strongly oppose the secessionist movement. Washington, long friendly with the Kurds, had also called on them before the referendum to cancel it. President Tayyip Erdogan s spokesman said on Thursday Turkey would gradually close border crossings with northern Iraq in coordination with the central Iraqi government and Iran. Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim is expected to visit Baghdad on Sunday to meet with Iraqi Prime Minister Haidar Abadi. On Wednesday, the Kurdish authorities accused Iraqi forces and Iranian-trained Iraqi paramilitaries of preparing a major attack on the oil-rich region of Kirkuk and the area near Mosul. Both are in parts of northern Iraq outside the Kurdish autonomous region but held by Kurdish forces since Islamic State fighters were driven out. [L8N1MM5J1] Baghdad has denied it has plans for a military move against the Kurds. Abadi said on Thursday he would not use the army against the Kurdish region, and a military spokesman denied any attack on Kurdish forces was planned, saying government troops were preparing to oust Islamic State militants from an area near the Syrian border. We won t use our army against our people or to launch a war against our Kurdish citizens, Abadi said in a statement. Iraq s Supreme Judicial Council issued arrest warrants on Wednesday for the chairman of the Kurdish referendum commission and two aides for violating a valid court ruling banning the independence vote as against the Constitution. Kirkuk, a Kurdish-held, multi-ethnic city and surrounding province with large oil reserves, has emerged as a flashpoint in the crisis as it is claimed by both Baghdad and the Kurds. Iraqi forces and Shi ite Muslim paramilitaries, known as Popular Mobilisation, are deployed south and west of Kirkuk, in areas previously under the control of Islamic State. The Iraqi government spokesman said the KRG must acknowledge the authority of the federal government over Kirkuk as another pre-condition for talks. The area around al-Qaim, where the Euphrates river crosses into Iraq from Syria, is the last part of Iraq still under the control of Islamic State fighters, who overran a third of the country in 2014. On Thursday, the Iraqi military dropped leaflets on al-Qaim urging the militants to surrender or face death. IS also holds areas on the Syrian side of the border, but is retreating there in the face of two sets of hostile forces - a U.S.-backed, Kurdish-led coalition and Syrian government troops with foreign Shi ite militias backed by Iran and Russia. Islamic State s cross-border caliphate effectively collapsed in July when U.S.-backed Iraqi forces captured Mosul, the group s de facto capital in Iraq, after a nine-month battle. | 1 |
This cop killer was a hateful, racist sub-human. He not only hated white people and cops, he bragged about it. The scary thing is, much like ISIS, who has no trouble recruiting people with hate in their hearts, there are no shortage of people to carry out Obama s war on cops in America. These are terrorists and our very own President has inspired these people to act on their hate for Whites, for cops and for America. This, is Obama s real legacy The 29 year old ex-marine, Gavin Eugene Long, who ambushed and killed three unsuspecting Baton Rouge police officers on Sunday morning, hated those who did not share his skin-tone and harbored a particular hatred for the police. As revealed in the hours after the shootings, a Youtube account operated by Long under the handle I Am Cosmo where the alleged killer posted dozens of clips, provides insight into what motivated the young man to kill three police officers and wound three more on his 29th birthday.In the Youtube videos, Long rants against crackers, and makes multiple references to the July 5th killing of Alton Sterling at the hands of police officers only five miles away from Sunday s attack. The videos also detail that Long is a member of the Nation of Islam, labelled a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center for its black supremacist and racist views towards Jews, Asians, and whites which the group s leaders argue have sucked the blood from and exploited the black community.As Daily Caller details, the 29-year-old was a native of Kansas City, Missouri and was honorably discharged from the Marines in 2010 after reaching the rank of E-5. He preferred to go by the name Cosmo Ausar Setepenra rather than Gavin Eugene Long.In a video published on Thursday, the racist shooter says that If I would have been there with Alton Clap before promoting a book that he wrote that discusses black liberation ideology. I wrote it for my dark-skinned brothers, said Long. If you look at all the rebels like Black Panthers, Huey P. Newton, Malcolm X, and Elijah Muhammad, they was light-skinned. But we know how hard y all got it. https://youtu.be/kGuUq6eUoFwThe assailant also suggested that the black community should buy only from black-owned businesses rather than working for the white people. In one video Long is heard lamented working for the white people. He encouraged one man riding in his vehicle as he filmed using a body camera to shop only at black-owned businesses. He brought up a hypothetical scenario in which a family member who wanted to buy carpet was forced to buy from non-black business owners saying Who s she going to f with? The cracker, the Arab, the Chinese? These Arabs, these Indians, they don t give two fucks about us, said the shooter.Come to think of it, he may have a point. Via: Zero HedgeThis loser has his own Youtube channel. If you care to stomach has cancer-like rhetoric, you can find his channel HERE. | 1 |
The benignly-named National Policy Institute held a meeting on Saturday, where 200 white nationalists and neo-Nazi types gathered to celebrate pushing extreme racism and anti-Semitism back into the mainstream courtesy of Donald Trump s elevation. Richard Spencer, NPI s leader, actually greeted them by shouting, Hail Trump, hail our people, hail victory! And the people cheered while raising their arms in the Nazi salute.Spencer is the person who coined the term alt-right to make his fascist movement sound more palatable, but it doesn t change who they are. These are people who share Spencer s dream of an ethno-state that would be a gathering point for all Europeans, meaning all white people who aren t Jewish. They re looking to restore purity to the superior white race.NPI s agenda for the conference included topics like, Trump and the New White Voter, The Future of the Alt-Right, and America and the Jewish Consciousness, and the meeting was more heavily attended this year than it has been in years past. Spencer s opening remarks included: An awakening among everyone has occurred with this Trump election. We re not quite the establishment now, but I think we should start acting like it. Yes. Trump is their Hitler. Pretty much literally at this point.Anybody who doesn t find this terrifying ought to, because pushing Nazi ideology into the mainstream and into Trump s administration brings us way too close to the very thing that Republicans feared the most until this year: Horrific, fascist dictatorship. This isn t the America we re supposed to be.But it s the America that these people want, and, as the Holocaust showed us 80 years ago, people who think this way will do anything to achieve it.Spencer and his racist and anti-Semitic followers believe that the U.S. originally belonged to white Christians only, and they want to push us back there. That means widespread deportation of anyone who isn t white enough, and possibly worse. Given that the administration is actually, really discussing a registry for Muslims that could lead to internment, the idea that they can influence Trump against other groups, too, isn t all that far-fetched anymore.And the rise of hate incidents and crimes against anyone who isn t white serves as further evidence that these Nazi-types feel they ve been vindicated because of Trump s election.Haaretz reporter Peter Beinart called these interesting times on Twitter, as he watched Spencer spew anti-Semitic and racist rhetoric while waiting to pick up his son at a Jewish school. Interesting? Hardly. Downright frightening is more like it.Featured image via screen capture | 0 |
Jill Stein got less than 1% of the vote nationwide in our presidential election, but after raising more than $7 million to do a recount (at an estimated cost of around $2 million), Jill Stein finds out she missed the deadline to file for a recount in PA. Where will all of the money go that she raised to either throw the election for Crooked Hillary, or to make Trump s presidency appear to be illegitimate? Jill Stein had everything she needed to launch a presidential recount. She had the cash, the grassroots fervor and the spotlight of an adoring media. But there s one thing she needed to overturn Trump s victory: a calendar. Washington ExaminerThe Wisconsin Elections Commission agreed Monday to begin a recount of the presidential election on Thursday but was sued by Green Party candidate Jill Stein after the agency declined to require county officials to recount the votes by hand.It will be a race to finish the recount in time to meet a daunting federal deadline, and the lawsuit could delay the process. Under state law, the recount must begin this week as long as Stein or another candidate pays the $3.5 million estimated cost of the recount by Tuesday, election officials said.Also Monday, Stein filed a lawsuit in Pennsylvania to force a recount there and her supporters began filing recount requests at the precinct level in the Keystone State. Stein who received just a tiny piece of the national vote also plans to ask for a recount in Michigan on Wednesday.Unless Stein wins her lawsuit in Dane County Circuit Court, officials in each of Wisconsin s 72 counties would decide on their own whether to do their recounts of the 2.98 million statewide votes by machine or by hand, with dozens of counties expected to hand count the paper ballots. JS | 0 |
Report: Friend Has Been Going By Middle Name This Whole Fucking Time CALABASAS, CA—Astounded that it had never come up at any point in the six years they had known each other, local woman Lucy Reed, 25, reported Tuesday that her friend Nicole Silberthau had apparently been going by her middle name this whole fucking time. Cake Just Sitting There Take It CHICAGO—Assuring you that there was nothing to worry about and not a soul around who would see you, sources confirmed Tuesday that a large piece of chocolate cake was just sitting there and that you should go ahead and take it. Man Approaches Box Of Powdered Doughnuts Like Snake Discovering Unguarded Clutch Of Bird Eggs ASHEBORO, NC—Quietly slinking into his office’s break room after spying the unattended confections from afar, area marketing associate Dan Keegan reportedly approached a box of powdered doughnuts Monday like a pine snake discovering an unguarded clutch of bluebird eggs. Reality Of Fatherhood Never Truly Dawned On Man Until He Held Newborn Son’s Hospital Bill MISSOULA, MT—Describing how he suddenly found himself overwhelmed by a flood of intense emotions, local man Mike Bentzen told reporters Monday the reality of fatherhood didn’t truly set in for him until the moment he held his newborn son’s hospital bill. All-Business Adult In Halloween Shop Beelines It Straight For Pinhead Mask BROOKLINE, MA—Without so much as glancing at the seasonal store’s wide selection of other Halloween-themed merchandise, all-business 34-year-old Brian Aubin reportedly strode right past several aisles of costumes and accessories Friday and beelined it straight for the Pinhead masks. | 1 |
David Duke October 27, 2016
Today Dr. Duke and Dr. Slattery talked about Hillaryâs clear acts of treason against the United States by providing massive shipments of weapons to Saudi Arabia at a time that she knew they were providing support to ISIS. Dr. Duke, if elected to the Senate, would be in a position to expose Hillary and push for her impeachment should she win (steal) the election.
Dr. Slattery discussed post-election scenarios. He noted that if Trump wins in a close election, a small number of Republican electors could be bribed to vote for Hillary, throwing the election to her, or even vote for Pence, throwing the election to the House of Representatives to decide from amongst Trump, Hillary, and Pence. Should Hillary win and Trump supporters feel the election was illegitimate, impeachment would be more likely.
This is an extremely educating and enlightening show. Please share it widely. | 1 |
Tick tock. America will now wait until conservative news sources release his motive.UPDATE: The man who attempted to breach the cockpit has been identified as a Turkish man. Flight attendants, an off-duty Los Angeles police officer and other passengers were able to stop the man and secure him in a seat. It was all kind of surreal, said Penny Lorenzen, a passenger on the flight.Her husband was among those who got up to try to stop the man. It took seconds, said Lee Lorenzen, of Orange County, Calif. He was pushing against the cart and a bunch of guys grabbed him. They found some duct tape. There were pillows and blankets. And they taped him to his chair. Hawaii News Now A man was subdued after he tried to breach the cockpit of an American Airlines flight to Honolulu, a source familiar with the situation told ABC News.American Airlines said in a statement that law enforcement met the plane upon landing in Honolulu following a disturbance on the flight. The plane was escorted by two F-22 fighter jets for the duration of the flight following the disturbance, U.S. Pacific Command said in a statement. ABC NewsA source at the TSA told ABC News that the man was waiting for the bathroom near the cockpit when a flight attendant asked him to sit down. He had a laptop with him and appeared to try the cockpit door before he was subdued, the source said.The man, whose identity was not immediately available, was escorted off American Airlines Flight 31, after it landed safely at 11:35 a.m. Hawaii Standard Time, according to a statement from the airline.A government source confirmed that he had been loitering near the restroom and was carrying a laptop. Flight attendants asked him to return to his seat and he refused.He then seemed to lunge towards the cockpit door. That s when several passengers subdued him.He was arrested on the ground by the FBI.The flight, which originated from Los Angeles, was to arrive in Honolulu about noon. The flight departed from Los Angeles International Airport at 8:34 a.m. local time. NBC Los AngelesLATEST: 2 F-22 fighter jets escorted American Airlines Flight 31 to Honolulu Int l Airport due to disturbance on board, Pacific Command says pic.twitter.com/Ee8zTg4PN3 ABC News (@ABC) May 19, 2017 | 0 |
Thinking before you speak is basically a required skill if you want to be a lawmaker, but Missouri GOP Senator Roy Blunt didn t get the memo.In the wake of the Orlando mass shooting, Republicans have been accusing President Obama of being weak against ISIS because he won t say the words radical Islamic terrorism. It s as if the GOP believes saying the words will magically make the terrorists go away. What exactly would using this language accomplish? President Obama demanded to know in remarks made last week. What exactly would it change? Would it make ISIL less committed to try and kill Americans? Would it bring in more allies? Is there a military strategy that is served by this? The answer is none of the above. Calling a threat by a different name does not make it go away. But Republican Senator Roy Blunt is now accusing his Democratic opponent of being weak on terrorism because he also hasn t said the words.Blunt, who cowardly dodged the draft during the Vietnam War through the use of student deferments posted the accusation against Jason Kander on Twitter. Despite Ft. Hood, Boston & Orlando, @JasonKander won t acknowledge the root of threats we face: radical Islam, he wrote on Monday night after being criticized for voting to kill several gun control reforms that would ban suspected terrorists from buying guns.Despite Ft. Hood, Boston & Orlando, @JasonKander won t acknowledge the root of threats we face: radical Islam https://t.co/3RQu9TErRj #MOSEN RoyBluntMO (@RoyBluntMO) June 21, 2016There s just one big really offensive problem with Blunt s attack.As it turns out, Jason Kander VOLUNTEERED to serve in the Army National Guard in 2001 and served a tour in Afghanistan fighting the War on Terror, a fact that Kander brutally reminded Blunt about in a reply. I volunteered to serve in Afghanistan to fight radical Islamic terrorism, Kander wrote while also including the words Blunt accused him of refusing to say. Think before you tweet. I volunteered to serve in Afghanistan to fight radical Islamic terrorism. Think before you tweet. https://t.co/3vDe9SHL4K Jason Kander (@JasonKander) June 21, 2016And Twitter users were quick to mock the chickenhawk Blunt for his stupidity.@JasonKander @RoyBluntMO Big tough @RoyBlunt . How many deferments did you apply for #coward? Manhattan Project (@spconcannon) June 21, 2016 Some actually fight terrorism (@JasonKander) some only talk about fighting terrorism (@RoyBluntMO) #VoteWiselyMO https://t.co/quZYq3mCey Jane Dueker (@JaneDueker) June 21, 2016@JasonKander @jonfavs @RoyBluntMO Sen. Blunt is a coward; your vote sided with terrorists and you disparage a hero who actually fought them! Pamela P (@luv_wins_) June 21, 2016 @JasonKander @RoyBluntMO pic.twitter.com/6pqL7VhgsC kaitlyn (@CATlynaustin) June 21, 2016@RoyBluntMO @JasonKander I think he was actually fighting them in Afghanistan while NRA was building your DC house Beganovic (@Beganovic_85) June 21, 2016 .@RoyBluntMO Erm, pretty sure @JasonKander Volunteered to serve in Afghanistan. pic.twitter.com/lnjJ08FJyg (((Ron L Pitts ))) (@RonLPitts) June 21, 2016@RoyBluntMO @JasonKander Says the guy with 3 draft deferments to the guy who fought terrorists in Afghanistan. Cale Miller (@Cale_Miller) June 21, 2016Roy Blunt should be ashamed and embarrassed, and he should definitely think about who he is talking to before he writes something so ridiculous on Twitter. Because right now, karma is biting him hard on the ass.Featured Image: Flickr | 0 |
It s hard to tell what these Black Lives Matter crybabies hate more gays with a different opinion than them or free speech Meanwhile, security guards that were hired and paid by the speaker stood by passively as they threatened and berated the guys who were paying them Milo Yiannopoulos event at DePaul University had to be cut short Tuesday night after protesters stormed the stage, blew whistles, grabbed the microphone out of the interviewer s hand, and threatened to punch Yiannopoulos in the face.Yiannopoulos attempted to continue the event, but protesters refused to leave the stage and the group of security guards (which DePaul forced both the organisers and Breitbart to pay for) refused to intervene.The male ringleader continued to pace along the stage with his whistle, refusing to let Yiannopoulos speak for extended amounts of time, while the female ringleader forcibly snatched the microphone from the interviewer s hand and shouted at Yiannopoulos just inches away from his face.It turns out the male who threatened Milo is a minister at a local church:https://twitter.com/Nero/status/735325590438481920The good Minister following in the foot prints of Reverend Al Sharpton tried the same tactics at a Donald Trump and bragged about it on Twitter:The guy that tried to silence @Nero tonight did the same to @realDonaldTrump I hope Soros got his money's worth. pic.twitter.com/Tsv3rpi3DG Sherry (@NHLaVa) May 25, 2016The male ringleader screamed Feel the Bern and chanted against Donald Trump, whilst the female ringleader chanted Black Lives Matter .The female ringleader also claimed that she had been silenced for 200 years , prompting Yiannopoulos to question how the supposed 200 year-old protester looked so young.After an extended period of time, the crowd started to chant Do your job at security, who remained at the back of the venue for the entire event. When security refused to intervene, Yiannopoulos posed for pictures with fans in the audience, and ordered the crowd to follow him to the college president s office..@nero brought the party outside after inaction from spineless cops pic.twitter.com/0ZjljPHAp8 Furby.jpg (@duckspeakeasy) May 24, 2016Responding to the amount of black female protesters who had turned up, Yiannopoulos hypothesized that it was because he had sex with their brothers. I give it 20 minutes , announced Yiannopoulos. The black incarceration rates are about to go up . Via: Breitbart News | 1 |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. State Department has approved the possible sale to India of one Boeing C-17 transport aircraft, with an estimated cost of $366 million, a Pentagon agency said on Monday. The Defense Security Cooperation Agency said in a statement it notified Congress on Monday of the sale, which includes four turbofan engines, a missile warning system, a countermeasures dispensing system and an identification friend or foe transponder. | 0 |
Big brother is alive and well 3 months only 3 months In Obamaland surveillance on Muslim terror suspects is considered Islamaphobia, surveillance on Black Lives Matter riots is considered racism, but surveillance on law-abiding gun owners is an important crime-fighting tool. It turns out that federal agents have been spying on customers at guns shows and tracking their movements. Why? Because the current administration is hostile to legal gun ownership and completely inept.The Wall Street Journal originally broke this story but they have a stupid business model and put the article behind a pay wall. Thankfully there is this thing called the Internet where all information is available for free and Fox News has the scoop:The first problem you may notice in this illegal surveillance is how insanely pointless the operation is. There was no way this would ever yield any results if you understand California gun law. The Golden State does not have the gun show loophole that liberals love to blame for all crimes involving a gun. Even at a gun show, a person purchasing a firearm must undergo a background check and wait 10 before taking possession of the weapon.All gun transfers in California go through a federally licensed firearms dealer with no exceptions. Handgun purchases are limited to one every 30 days and require additional licensing. The state maintains a firearms registry. This is the last place in America where a person would try to make a straw purchase. Even less so for someone trying to buy guns, smuggle them into Mexico, and arm the drug cartels.On top of all that, California also bans many popular handguns and all assault rifles. Do the feds really think there is a vibrant black market in Mexico for California-compliant weapons? Apparently so.And despite the feds claim, this was completely illegal it is most certainly not. The government can t just start spying on Americans without probable cause that a crime is being committed. The feds went fishing here and they forgot to bring bait, rods, and reels. They also didn t pick a spot with any fish.If the feds want to know how guns are getting from the US to Mexico they should go ask former Attorney General Eric Holder who green-lit Operation Fast and Furious. In that, the BATF let guns go walking from US gun stores right into the hands of the Mexican drug cartels. One of those guns was used to kill a US border patrol agent. Via: Downtrend | 0 |
The leader of the worst economy on the planet is endorsing fellow Socialist Bernie Sanders. Let that sink in Yes It s A future you can believe in if you re an abject idiot who doesn t have access to a single news source. VENEZUELA TODAY: The army has moved in, Coca-Cola has stopped production and inflation is expected to hit 500 per cent.Venezuela s economic crisis has ratcheted up a gear in the last week after President Nicholas Maduro deployed the army to strategic areas for two days of war games designed as a show of strength to a population increasingly pitted against him.The drastic escalation follows a major deterioration in the country s finances that have seen widespread shortages of food, basic goods and power cuts, fueled by years of economic mismanagement and corruption that have seen unemployment skyrocket to 17 per cent as the oil price has plummeted.University College London s leadership professor Marco Aponte-Moreno, who was born and raised in Caracas, told news.com.au the past few days had seen the stakes raised for both corrupt officials and those dying from lack of food and medicine in his home country. The stakes are very high [for the government] if they lose power, he said, adding that many involved in illegal activities could be charged and taken to trial. The situation has become a matter of life and death for the government and also a matter of life and death for the people because people are dying because they don t have their medicines, the water they need. It s very sad to see the country like this, especially when you take into account that this is a country that has large natural resources. I have to admit it isn t a surprise. Corruption, shortages are things that are not new in Venezuela but they have never reached this level before. Via- News.comauVenezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has endorsed fellow socialist Bernie Sanders, D-Vt., for president, calling him our revolutionary friend. In a televised address on Tuesday, Maduro criticized the U.S. election system, which he called archaic, for putting Sanders at a disadvantage. If the elections were free, Maduro said, Bernie Sanders would be president of the United States. Socialist Venezuela, which has been criticized for lack of transparency in elections, frequently denounces the U.S. government and accuses it of imperialism. The South American country is also prone to blaming its economic woes on Washington, and the two countries do not exchange ambassadors.Is this the America so many college students are dreaming of?Venezuela teeters on the brink of collapse, with low global oil prices contributing to massive shortage of basic goods like flour and toilet paper. The government recently moved to a two-day work week for public employees in an effort to conserve electricity.Maduro, who has publicly denounced President Barack Obama, said Sanders ought to win in the United States. The Vermont senator trails frontrunner Hillary Clinton and has little chance of amassing the delegates needed to receive the Democratic nomination. Via: The Olympian | 0 |
NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana — The monument to General Robert E. Lee was removed from its pedestal in Lee Circle at the heart of the city of New Orleans. Mayor Mitch Landrieu used the event to claim victory for political correctness. [The famous Civil monument of Robert E. Lee has been at the center of the city’s most famous traffic circle for more than a century. The statue was put on the chopping block my Landrieu after he began a crusade against four monuments he deemed “symbols of white supremacy. ” Other monuments removed by the Landrieu Administration include the Battle at Liberty Place, Jefferson Davis, and the P. G. T. Beauregard Monuments, Breitbart Texas reported. All the monuments were removed at some expense to taxpayers, as New Orleans Police Department (NOPD) and New Orleans Fire Department (NOFD) officials were present at each of the removal processes. The money to physically remove the monuments, though, came from a private donor which Landrieu has refused to disclose to the public. In an address to the city, Landrieu derided critics of his now infamous monument removal crusade, saying Davis, Beauregard and Lee were not patriots. “These monuments that we took down were meant to rebrand the history of our city and the ideals of the Confederacy” Landrieu said. “It is that these men did not fight for the United States of America. They fought against it. They may have been warriors, but in this cause, they were not patriots. ” “These monuments celebrate a fictional, sanitized Confederacy,” Landrieu said. “Ignoring the death, ignoring the enslavement, ignoring the terror that it actually stood for. ” Landrieu hinted at what the monuments, specifically the Beauregard and Lee Circle statues, would be replaced with. “It immediately begs the question: Why are there no monuments,” Landrieu said. “No public markers on public land to remember the lynchings or the slave blocs? Nothing to remember this long chapter of our lives of pain, of sacrifice, of shame, all of it happening on the soil of New Orleans. ” Landrieu has been widely criticized for his calling for the removal of the historical monuments, with historians asking him to add context to the monuments, rather than removing them altogether. The grassroots activist group Save Our Circle formed solely in opposition to Landrieu’s actions in regards to the monuments. They say that the monuments represent the city’s history. Take ‘Em Down Nola and STAND With Dignity, two organizations lobbied Landrieu to go further than just the four monuments. Now, they are calling for the removal of more than a dozen monuments and street names, including: Most recently, Landrieu made a broad accusation about the impact of the four Civil monuments on the city of New Orleans. While speaking to local media, Landrieu said the monuments caused a “great migration out of the city,” as Breitbart Texas reported. “But I will say this for people that are interested in the cost,” Landrieu said. “The cultural and economic and the spiritual loss to this city for having those statues up that have run people out of the city,” Landrieu claimed. “The great migration that sent some of our best and brightest to places across the country that we don’t have the benefit of has been incredible. ” Historians have refuted this claim in 2015, when Landrieu first demanded the monuments come down. They argued that the city serves tourists and locals as a public history museum, unlike any other city in the U. S. | 0 |
When will American citizens stop being afraid to stand up and SPEAK OUT against the politically correct thugs of the left?A new Black Lives Matter textbook will soon be available to middle school and high school classrooms.According to the publisher s description, Black Lives Matter covers the shootings that touched off passionate protests, the work of activists to bring about a more just legal system, and the tensions in U.S. society that these events have brought to light. ABDO Publishing specifies that the book was written for sixth graders through high school students, and says the textbook is aligned to Common Core Standards and correlated to state standards. Until now, no authoritative text designed to teach non-black children about historical-structural inequalities productive of anti-black violence in U.S. law and society has been made available for commercial consumption, reads a review in The Feminist Wire. Parents as well as teachers eager to teach middle and/or high school students about the routine vulnerability and terror generative of the rejoined, Black Lives Matter, will find an invaluable resource in this special report. Conservative radio commentator Larry Elder weighed in on Fox and Friends over the weekend. [The textbook] is indoctrinating young kids, teaching them black people are victims, Elder said.He argued that the movement would be better off addressing black-on-black crime. If the Black Lives Matter people are really concerned, they ought to say something about the fact that last year 6,000 blacks shot other blacks, and far and away the number one cause of preventable death for young black men is homicide, he added. The textbook was co-authored by Missouri journalist Sue Bradford Edwards and Duchess Harris, a professor of American Studies at Macalester College in Minnesota. Harris is also the author of Black Feminist Politics from Kennedy to Obama and a co-editor of Racially Writing the Republic: Racists, Race Rebels, and Transformations of American Identity. Black Lives Matter is part of ABDO Publishing s Special Report series of books that aim to help readers develop an essential understanding of current events and encourage them to form their own opinions. There are a total of eight titles in the Special Report series, including Ebola Outbreak, ISIS, and Transgender Rights and Issues. Via: Red Alert Politics | 1 |
Earlier this week on the #FakeNewsNetwork CNN, Marc Lamont Hill said Donald Trump’s diversity coalition are “a bunch of mediocre negroes being dragged in front of TV as a for Donald Trump’s exploitative campaign against black people. ”[The Morehouse College professor also made his feelings about Steve Harvey’s meeting with Donald Trump very clear: … my disagreement is the way in which [Steve Harvey is] being used by folk like Donald Trump. Again, his intention is just to have a seat at the table. But when you’re at the table, you should have experts at the table. You should have people who can challenge the president at the table. … Because all — because they keep bringing up comedians and actors and athletes to represent black interests is demeaning, it’s disrespectful, and it’s condescending. Bring some people up there with some expertise, Donald Trump, don’t just bring up people to entertain. ” For my own sanity, I had to take a trip down memory lane. In June 2008, Barack Obama refused to meet with the black power brokers in Harlem, which led to Jesse Jackson desperately wishing to “cut his [Barack Obama’s] nuts out. ” In March 2010, to flex their muscles, the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) voted unanimously against an Obama “jobs” bill. They got a meeting. As Congresswoman Yvette Clarke ( ) explained: [President Obama] reached out to us because last week the caucus in a show of unity did something unprecedented in quite some time, actually. And that is to stand together to vote against what was called the jobs bill last week. We felt that it was important to highlight the fact that while we understand the crisis that small business is facing, the bill fell woefully short in terms of addressing needs in communities of color to really get people employed. In August 2011, while speaking before an audience at Detroit’s Wayne County Community College, another Congressional Black Caucus member, Congresswoman Maxine Waters ( ) was asked why Obama wasn’t visiting black communities during his bus tour of Midwestern states. She responded: We’re supportive of the president, but we’re getting tired. We’re getting tired. And so, what we want to do is, we want to give the president every opportunity to show what he can do and what he’s prepared to lead on. We want to give him every opportunity, but our people are hurting. The unemployment is unconscionable. We don’t know what the strategy is. We don’t know why on this trip that he’s in the United States now, he’s not in any black community. We don’t know that. ” In 2012, it was so bad, there was a Change. org petition for President Obama to meet with the Congressional Black Caucus. The petition read: Congresswoman Marica Fudge ( ) who leads the Congressional Black Caucus, (CBC) has asked for a meeting with President Obama since January. The President still has not found time to meet with the CBC, though he seems to find time to meet with every other constituency. True, he has lots on his plate. But is is very disrespectful NOT to have this meeting with a key core constituency, especially one that voted for him at 97 percent. At this point in The Obama Presidency, this is a disgraceful way to treat the duly elected Congressional representatives of his core national African American constituency. National Black Wall Street USA movement joins the call for President Obama to immediately schedule a meeting with The Congressional Black Caucus! In July 2013, the Congressional Black Caucus FINALLY got another meeting with President Obama. They discussed voting rights, the economy, and immigration. However, a meeting wasn’t scheduled. In August 2014, riots started in Ferguson, Missouri. The Justice Department was dispatched, and this entire record of disrespect by the first black President towards the Congressional Black Caucus was forgotten. All the CBC wanted was a seat at the table. These are the experts, right? The purpose for my trip down memory lane wasn’t to play “hypocrisy gotcha” with Marc Lamont Hill. I wanted to remind the American people, and the Congressional Black Caucus, how irrelevant the CBC has been to Barack Obama’s presidency. That reminder is important as Congressman John Lewis ( ) is championed for standing up to Donald Trump, when he couldn’t even get a meeting with Barack Obama. If I can paraphrase the words of Marc Lamont Hill, they — the Congressional Black Caucus — couldn’t even get a seat at the table, and they are the experts. What’s really funny? On December 14, 2016, I tweeted: “Trump invites Blacks with ideas on improving communities. Obama invites them to perform. ” Trump invites Blacks with ideas on improving communities. Obama invites them to perform. — DidSheSayThat (@SonnieJohnson) December 14, 2016, The comment was in relation to Donald Trump meeting with Ray Lewis and Jim Brown. I’m guessing these are the “athletes” whose meetings with Trump Marc Lamont Hill finds “condescending. ” I refuse to justify Marc Lamont Hill’s characterization of these men by stating their rags to riches stories. I don’t defend men. I defend ideas, and Marc Lamont Hill’s idea of black mediocrity needs to be exposed. This is why I love Breitbart. Let me turn into #DidSheSayThat Sonnie Johnson real quick. I have been fighting the Republicans and conservatives to include black culture for years. In fact, the entire #DidSheSayThat podcast is a mix of conservative intellect with Hip Hop culture. It’s what I do. By choosing this path, I have lost my seat at the “conservative intellectual” table. Republicans and conservatives looked at Hip Hop artists as nothing but entertainers. For years I’ve argued they are entrepreneurs, spouses, parents — they came from these Democratic hellholes, and they can help get the people out. While my intellect has never been questioned and my conservatism is second to none, my love of Hip Hop and support of its culture only have a home on Breitbart. If you ask an African American Republican or conservative intellectual about me, they would probably label me … mediocre. I don’t use their buzzwords, source their white papers, or talk about the Democrat plantation. I must come to them humbly, acknowledge their years of Republican service, and denounce Hip Hop to receive my place at the table. Not happening. This is not a trait of the Progressive left. This is a trait of the elites in BOTH political parties. Donald Trump is changing that, and I pray the more people like Marc Lamont Hill criticize his outreach, the more he understands it’s working. | 0 |
To be a woman in the United States is to feel unequal, despite great strides in gender equality, according to a poll about gender in postelection America released Tuesday. It’s catcalls on the street, disrespect at work and unbalanced responsibilities at home. For girls, it’s being taught, more than boys, to aspire to marriage, and for women, it’s watching positions of power go to men. Men, however, don’t necessarily see it that way. Those are some of the findings from the poll, by PerryUndem, a nonpartisan research and polling firm whose biggest clients are foundations. It surveyed 1, 302 adults in December via the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago’s AmeriSpeak panel. percent of women said sexism was a problem in society today, and 41 percent of women said they had felt unequal because of their gender. Men underestimated the sexism felt by the women in their lives, the survey found. And while most respondents agreed it’s a better time to be a man than a woman in our society, only Republican men thought it was a better time to be a woman than a man. As women across the nation prepare to march in protest of an election in which gender loomed large, the poll results reveal nearly unanimous support for gender equality and policies that would help women — but deep partisan divides in the perception of inequality and of who’s thriving and who’s losing in society. Many Americans seemed to think others had it better than they did, especially Republican men. Over all, only 37 percent of respondents thought it was a good time to be a woman in the United States. Fewer thought it was a good time to be a minority woman 24 percent said it was a good time to be a Latina, and 11 percent a Muslim woman. Republican men seem to see it differently. Just over half thought it was a good time to be a woman, while only 41 percent of them thought it was a good time to be a man. Donald J. Trump’s rhetoric has appealed to people who feel this way. At his victory rally in Cincinnati last month, he said about women: “I hate to tell you men, generally speaking, they’re better than you are. Now, if I said it the other way around, I’d be in big trouble. ” Dennis Halaszynski, 81, is a retired police captain in McKeesport, Pa. and a registered Democrat who voted for Mr. Trump. “It’s easier being a woman today than it is a man,” he said in an interview. “The white man is a low person on the totem pole. Everybody else is above the white man. ” Women “should be highly respected,” he said, but they are no longer unequal: “Everything in general is in favor of a woman. No matter what happens in life, it seems like the man’s always at fault. ” Democrats of both genders were much more likely to have felt unequal because of some aspect of their identity — 68 percent, compared with 47 percent of Republicans. Gender, race and religious views were the biggest reasons. The only reasons Republicans were more likely than Democrats to feel unequal were their religious views and military status. There is overwhelming support for gender equality in work, life and politics: 93 percent of respondents said they believed in it. But 43 percent of male Trump voters said it had already been achieved. Only 20 percent of those polled and 12 percent of women agreed. The disparity is partly because people define equality very differently, based on their politics and gender. A majority of respondents said the following things affected women’s rights and equality: unequal responsibilities caring for children violence against women a focus on women’s beauty and sexuality the lack of women in political office and positions of power sexism racism equal opportunities in the workplace and access to birth control and abortion. But in almost every instance, Republican men had a different view. For example, 51 percent of respondents but 24 percent of Republican men said a lack of women in political office affected women’s rights. percent of respondents over all and 36 percent of Republican men said unequal responsibilities caring for family affected women’s rights. Even men who said women were still treated unequally underestimated the sexism that women experience. While 41 percent of women said they frequently or sometimes heard sexist language in their daily lives, 26 percent of men thought their partners did. percent of women said they had been touched by a man in an inappropriate way without consent, while 31 percent of men thought their partners had. “The typical catcalling or comments or inappropriate gestures that men make toward you, I don’t think there’s any women who haven’t experienced that sort of harassment,” said Cristina Hall, 44, who works in customer service in San Diego. But she was not surprised that men didn’t realize it. “I think when people don’t go through certain experiences, it’s hard for them to understand that it even happens,” Ms. Hall said. “Maybe they’ve never done it to a woman. Plus as women, we don’t typically say anything because of fear we’re not going to be believed or retaliation or shame. ” About 40 percent of women said acts of sexism would be more likely because Mr. Trump won, including sexual assault and feelings of entitlement among men to treat women as sexual objects. About a third of respondents said they were less tolerant of sexism in their own lives as a result of Mr. Trump’s victory, and 43 percent of parents said it made them teach their children about sexual assault and consent. “People seem to feel validated in their racist and sexist beliefs right now,” said Tayler Lien, 22, a college student in Las Vegas who voted for Hillary Clinton. “It’s a little bit scary. ” There was widespread support among large majorities in both parties for policies that would help women, like equal pay and paid leave. These have been rallying cries for feminists and progressives, and Republicans have traditionally opposed them. Congress failed to act on those policies during the Obama administration, but Mr. Trump has said he would push for them. Ninety percent of the respondents and 86 percent of Republicans supported the idea that the next president and Congress should work on equal pay laws. percent of respondents supported policies improving access to affordable child care, and 87 percent supported paid family and medical leave. Policies concerning reproductive rights were the exception to the bipartisan support. percent of Republicans and 82 percent of Democrats said they supported work toward protecting a woman’s right to abortion from the next president and Congress, and 40 percent of Republicans and 80 percent of Democrats opposed getting rid of the part of Obamacare that offers birth control without a . Peg Cherry, 83, a lifelong Republican who voted for Mr. Trump, said only jobs were available when she was young. She worked in retail and elder care jobs while raising five daughters. All five worked — “a feather in my cap,” she said — and so she supports policies like equal pay and paid leave. She thinks Mr. Trump will deliver. “I think he’s going to put his money where his mouth is,” said Ms. Cherry, who lives in Lisbon Falls, Me. “I think he’s more likely to because, look, he’s had his daughter in charge of a company and he could very well put a man in there. ” Ms. Cherry is not the only one pinning her hopes on Ivanka Trump for policies. percent of people, including the majority of Democrats, said they wanted her to help push forward on women’s rights and equality. Despite the widespread support for gender equality and certain feminist policies, only 19 percent of respondents said they considered themselves feminists. There was no clear consensus on who best represented feminism today. The largest shares of people, both women and men, named two black women: Michelle Obama and Oprah Winfrey. | 0 |
Cassandra s points about why she s supporting Donald Trump over Hillary are based on common sense and facts. These are all ideas that many, if not most Americans would agree with. Is the lure of having free stuff a Democrat in the White House so great, that many Democrats are willing to give up our national security and sovereignty in order to make that happen?Cassandra Fairbanks is a writer for Sputnik News. Here is her message to the over 69K fans who follow her on Twitter, many of whom have been attacking her for switching her allegiance to Trump:***LANGUAGE Warning*** | 0 |
President Obama spoke to reporters at the close of the fourth Nuclear Security Summit in Washington, D.C. about Republican frontrunner Donald Trump s statements regarding his advocacy for the proliferation of nuclear weapons. Trump had stated earlier in the week that more countries should have nuclear weapons, including Japan and South Korea. He also suggested that the US should get rid of 70 years of arms negotiations and agreements. Here s what President Obama had to say about Trump s comments: The person who made the statements doesn t know much about foreign policy or nuclear policy or the Korean Peninsula or the world generally. The president made his statement about Trump in a way that was serious, but at the same time with a tone that seemed to indicate that he thought Trump was an absolute moron. In reference to America s nuclear umbrella for Japan and South Korea, the president said that it is: One of the cornerstones of our presence in the Asia-Pacific. It has prevented the possibilities of a nuclear escalation and conflict. You don t mess with that. It s an investment that rests on the sacrifices that our men and women made. We don t want someone in the Oval Office who doesn t recognize how important that is. One can only imagine what the president s thoughts are on what the Republicans have to offer for a GOP nominee: There s the creepy Ted Cruz and there s crazy Trump. At this point in the game the president probably is both humored and alarmed at the choices.Watch video here:Pres. Obama suggests Trump "doesn't know much about foreign policy or nuclear policy." https://t.co/y21HLhwl2X https://t.co/l54PRiXmHy ABC News (@ABC) April 1, 2016 Featured image via video screenshot. | 1 |
A massive global debt write-down of sovereign bond is coming, on the back end of the Global Financial RESET. Think paradigm shift of the most disruptive type while power shifts eastward. By Jim Willie
The Western central bank franchise system is totally broken, totally insolvent, and totally corrupt. It invites the Gold Standard return. The entire financial system is built upon a debt-based monetary system. The debt saturation process has run its full course. The central bank heads have been covering the sovereign debt for the last five years, having rendered their balance sheets as ruined.
Debt is at obscene levels, like $19.7 trillion for the USGovt. No debt limits are in place anymore, a signal that most likely it has already defaulted. A hidden game is underway, with control lost to the creditors, even as they attempt to salvage their debt holdings. The major central banks continue to manage badly the great game, where money is fake phony and a farce.
A titanic battle is underway, where the Eastern nations are discarding their USTreasury Bonds, and doing so in tremendous volume while they set up the many platforms and pieces to the Gold Standard.
The US Federal Reserve monetary policy of hyper-inflation has failed to revive the USEconomy, failed to legitimize the debt securities, failed to halt the financial corruption, and failed to stem capital destruction. The official monetary policy has only succeeded in preventing the failures of almost all big Western banks.
They are all insolvent, mostly supported by narco money laundering in the hundreds of $billions. The Eastern super-powers are leading a campaign to put aside the US$-based financial system, isolate it to the sidelines, while arranging a new system. The Gold-based system will be complete with its currency, sovereign debt securities, transfer systems, global offices, and debt rating agencies, maybe even debit cards. The East strives to install the Gold Standard as the remedy to the ongoing global financial crisis. The West has made exactly no movement toward solution, remedy, or enforcement against bond.
Four graphs display the broken unfixable bizarre situation: Graph 1 – BALANCE SHEET DESTRUCTION Central bank balance sheets could take decades to normalize, so the conventional thinking goes. Their balance sheets will never return to normal. Most assets of toxic paper are far more worthless than junk bonds. A normalization process would require at least 50 years of more financial repression and deep corruption.
A massive global debt write-down of sovereign bond is coming, on the back end of the Global Financial RESET. Think paradigm shift of the most disruptive type while power shifts eastward. The risk of war rises.
The big Western banks find themselves in an impossible Catch-22 situation. The markets are addicted to QE and its destructive money hyper inflation. Federal Reserve policymakers have acknowledged that their $4 trillion balance sheet will not shrink any time soon. Also, Bank of England officials talk of crisis fighting tools as semi-permanent fixtures. In Asia, the Bank of Japan has developed a new monetary policy framework that features admitted infinite QE. The financial crisis the balance sheet volume to GDP ratios for the Bank of England and USFed have peaked at around 25%, the highest level ever recorded. Uncharted territory has been entered.
The USFed balance sheet ratio to GDP previously reached 23% in 1940 during World War II. The Bank of England ratio approached 20% in the 1730s during the South Sea Bubble scheme, 1816/17 during the Great Re-coinage, the 1830s/1840s following other wars, and in the immediate aftermath of WW2. In every scenario above, the central banks managed to unwind their balance sheets. But then the great unwinding took decades, up to 60 years in some cases. This time is different. No economic growth is anywhere remotely on the current horizon, nothing sufficient to unwind the tremendous debt burden.
This is where the conventional analyst turns stupid, even locked in fantasy. They assume the GDP growth has been around 3% in recent years, when it has been closer to minus 4% or minus 5% each year since 2008 in a fierce recession with strong feedback loops. We are not on the verge of economic expansion, which can relieve the balance sheet toxicity, but rather a financial reform to sweep away the USDollar and to render its USTreasury Bonds as near worthless paper. The next chapter will be centered upon the Gold Standard, first in trade payment, next in bank reserves, finally in currencies.
The installation of the Gold Standard will render almost all US$-based debt securities as toxic paper, much like African Govt Bonds. QE might have bought time for the big US banks, but it guaranteed the kill of the USEconomy as host, and the default of the USGovt debt. No semblance of return to normalcy can come. This is why war is being vigorously pursued, to retain power.
Graph 2 – CONCENTRATION OF CENTRAL BANK ASSETS Big Central Bank assets have jumped the fastest in five years to $21 trillion. The toxic sovereign bond bubble is the largest bubble in history. Four major central banks control 75% of all central bank assets. Any currency reform must come from a major nation and its lead. The majority of the world’s central bank assets are controlled by four sites: China, the United States, Japan, and the European Union. The next six each account for an average of 2.5%, namely the central banks of Brazil, Switzerland, Saudi Arabia, the United Kingdom, India, and Russia. The major nations control toxic vats of deeply impaired debt paper which nobody wants.
The big four central banks are often called the major central banks. They are from the so-called industrialized nations, when in fact they are from former industrial states with a strong leaning toward New Third World status. They control the global financial structure and rig markets in order to keep it stable. If any changes are to come to the USDollar and the King Dollar reign of terror, the reform will be done by a major central banks with support from an alliance of other nations. Do not expect reform. Instead expect a revolution from the East, as it installs the Gold Standard in certain key spots. The best one can expect is a dual financial universe, where the USDollar is gradually phased out.
Graph 3 – Dumping of USTreasury Bonds in Worldwide Trend A truly massive international dumping of USDollars has entered a second powerful phase. The Saudis and China recently dumped huge blocks of USTreasury Bonds. Foreign central banks liquidated a record $346 billion in USGovt debt securities in the last 12 months, the trend having accelerated. Numerous factors contribute to the dumping, which manifests the fading global confidence in the USDollar. Amplified Quantitative Easing (QE) volume soaks up the large volumes dumped on the bond market, further eroding the faith in fiat currency.
One month ago, a troublesome sharp decline was seen in the USTreasurys held in custody, which is the formal way to describe central bank holdings kept at the USFed computer banks. The amount fell by over $27.5 billion in a single week, the biggest weekly drop since January 2015. One month later the trend continues with powerful force, enough to capture global attention. The custody volume fell sharply again by another $22.3 billion in the past week, pushing the total amount to $2.805 trillion, another fresh post-2012 low.
The foreign central banks have continued their relentless liquidation of US debt securities held in the USFed’s official custody account. History is being made, as global sentiment and conditions are changing in fierce mode. The King Dollar throne is having its legs removed, kicked out, and cut off. Most financial analysts refuse to put the factors in such stark terms, but the Jackass does so naturally and without hesitation. Three dynamics can be identified as the principal proximal factors, detailed in the Hat Trick Letter for the October edition in the reports.
A month ago was observed a massive $343 billion in USTreasury sales by foreign central banks in the period July 1st 2015 to July 1st 2016, something truly unprecedented in size. Fast forward to the latest monthly update, which was posted as July data. All have gone worse. The running latest 12 months (LTM) in foreign central bank sales shot up to a new all time high $346.4 billion. Thus over one third of a $trillion in USTreasurys were sold in the past 12 months. Recall that in three months late in 2015, the Chinese sold $250 billion in USTBonds, which forced the IMF inclusion of the RMB into their formal basket of currencies. The dumping has been global, massive, and without precedent. China is the major seller, while the Saudis are the newest sellers. The broken Outhouse of Saud requires the funds to offset the collapse of the Petro-Dollar, and to backstop the country’s soaring budget deficit made worse by the obscene Yemen War.
The official story is told that private investors, both foreign and domestic, are soaking up hundreds of $billions in central bank holdings being sold on the bond market. The other dubious story is that bond yields are rising slightly, given the newfound concerns the USFed, the Bank of Japan, and maybe even the EuroCB will soon taper their purchases.
The bigger factor (surely not private investors) is the USFed ramping up hidden QE volume in a huge way, buying the massive bond dumpings, all kept secret and quiet so as not to disturb the pristine AAA rating of the USTBond toxic paper. Expect continued debt monetization of theUSGovt deficit, of which perhaps 75% is supported by the African style printing press. The USEconomy cannot grow its way out of the debt. They will monetize it until it default on the global stage.
The QE process cannot take in all the dumped USTBonds without psychological damage. The USDollar confidence is eroding globally. Faith in the USDollar is eroding very quickly. The nation is moving along in the US isolation process, identified as rogue nation on the financial front, terrorism front, laced vaccine front, and war front. Just the Jackass opinion.
Graph 4 – Evidence of USTBond Bubble (versus Diamonds) The USTreasury Bond bubble is the second biggest asset bubble is history, behind the residential real estate bubble in the last decade. The USTBonds are a massive sanctioned Ponzi Scheme, signifying the default of the USGovt debt and failure of its sovereign bond. The Elite controllers talk of a flight to safe haven, when in reality it is a leap into a black hole and toxic vat. Motive is to keep USGovt borrowing costs to minimal levels while the debt soars toward the $20 trillion mark. The gigantic black hole attracts legitimate capital from around the world. All will be subject to heavy losses. The USTreasury Bond asset bubble is supported by three major forces: the USFed monetary hyper inflation , the Interest Rate Swap derivative contract , the bond carry trade managed by Wall Street banks . More details are provided in the Hat Trick Letter for October.
The relation between top tier assets should remain stable, such as diamonds, special gemstones, classic art works & sculptures, special jewelry items, icon properties, and more. However, the bond price for USGovt debt has gone haywire, rising far beyond anything reasonable. Check out an unusual chart above, for the bond value versus the standard benchmark diamond price. This is a clear visible nasty bond bubble, which will burst just like the US housing market bubble that nobody in the mainstream moronic arenas expected. The Jackass correctly forecasted the housing market bust one year before it occurred. No longer are diamonds a girl’s best friend. It is USTBonds.
GOLD TRADE NOTE INTRODUCTION The Gold Trade Notes for trade payment might be coming into view, initially with commodity transfers, later swap contracts, and finally gold-backed short-term notes which supplant the USTBill. One might think of used newspapers on the floor, or of the dodo bird.
The trade might be made in exchange for either goods delivered or USTBills held. Detect a growing connection to finished goods being withheld from delivery. This is probably another sign of refusal of USTBills as payment.
As footnote, be sure to know that the preliminary steps to the Global Currency RESET will not be laid out in full disclosure for public benefit. It represents a tremendous investment opportunity for the elite, which they never tend to share.
In fact, the RESET might be well along before it is even recognized. End to EuroRaj main thoughts and open analysis, for which much gratitude is given. The Jackass believes a few critical elements to the RESET are in place. More details on DIP Financing feature is included in the September Hat Trick Letter report.
***A major hitch obstacle can be inferred. Payment in USD terms might be the clot in the artery. Demands might be for hard asset swaps, and the contract security from large scale commitment of commodities, facilities, and property. The swap trade is coming into view, a presage of the Gold Trade Note.***
The Jackass concludes the USD rejection could be lifting its head within a gathering storm, without clear identification. It is indeed difficult to identify all the elements when hidden deals at the highest level are underway, and friction is omnipresent. The Bobcat Corp rejection of USTBills at Pacific ports is a clear story. For every one story recounted, there are 10 to 20 not yet heard.
My firm belief is that in Asian banking systems, they do not want the USTBills anymore. The banks in Asia are trying to dump them in heavy volume, not accumulate more worthless toilet paper. Finally the sharp blowback from printing QE money has hit. The USFed monetary policy saves the big insolvent banks, but kills capital. The result has finally seen manifested in USD global rejection, or at least hints toward the same. Asian banks still hold vast sums of USTBonds. They are not going to announce the rejection, but instead fight behind the walls for better terms of payment, even as they pursue the Gold Trade Note for payment at ports. It is coming, like daybreak follows the long night.
NEW SCHEISS DOLLAR & GOLD TRADE STANDARD In time, expect an eventual refusal by Eastern producing nations to accept USTreasury Bills in payment for trade. The IMF reversal decision assures this USTBill blockade in time, and might accelerate the timetable. The United States Govt cannot continue on five glaring fronts of gross negligence and major violations. These violations have prompted the BRICS & Alliance nations to hasten their development of diverse non-USD platforms toward the goal of displacing the USDollar while at the same time take steps toward the return of the Gold Standard.
The New Scheiss Dollar will arrive in order to assure continued import supply to the USEconomy. It will be given a 30% devaluation out of the gate, then many more devaluations of similar variety. The New Dollar will fail all foreign and Eastern scrutiny. The USGovt will be forced to react to USTBill rejection at the ports.
The US must accommodate with the New Scheiss Dollar in order to assure import supply, and to alleviate the many stalemates to come. The United States finds itself on the slippery slope that leads to the Third World, a Jackass forecast that has been presented since Lehman fell (better described as killed by JPM and GSax).
The only apparent alternative is for the United States Govt to lease a large amount of gold bullion (like 10,000 tons) from China in order to properly launch a gold-backed currency. Doing so would open the gates for a generation of commercial colonization, but actual progress in returning capitalism to the United States. The cost would be supply shortages to the USEconomy, a result of enormous export increases to China.
The colonization has already begun, with secret deals galore. It is very unclear what deals are being struck in order to arrange for the USGovt to have a proper gold reserve hoard, for backing a new legitimate USDollar. Meetings at very high level are in progress, with little if any popular representation, only elite members present. Failure to produce a legitimate bonafide gold-backed currency would mean the United States must proceed with the New Scheiss Dollar, an illegitimate fake phony farce of a currency.
It would be subjected to a series of devaluations. The result would be heavy powerful painful price inflation from the import front. The effect would be to reverse a generation of exported inflation by the United States. The entire USEconomy would go into a downward spiral with higher prices, supply shortages, and social disorder. However, the rising prices would come from the currency crisis, and not so much from the hyper monetary inflation. That flood of $trillions has been effectively firewalled off.
Source: Jim Willie — Golden Jackass
Via: Silver Doctors
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TOKYO (Reuters) - Heavy rain and powerful winds are expected to lash large areas of Japan on Sunday as a strong typhoon sweeps ashore, possibly hindering voter turnout in a national election. Typhoon Lan was classified as an intense Category 4 storm on Saturday, with winds of up to 250 km/h (156 mph), according to the Tropical Storm Risk web site. By midday, it was south of South Borodino Island, east of Okinawa, and moving northeast at 15 kph, the Japan Meteorological Agency said. It is expected to weaken to a Category 1 typhoon as it nears the Tokyo metropolitan area on Monday morning, Tropical Storm Risk said. Authorities in Okinawa and Hyogo prefectures have moved voting ahead a day for some remote islands as the storm neared, media said. Saturday marked the last day of campaigning for the parliament s lower house seats, and bad weather could deter some voters. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe s Liberal Democratic Party-led (LDP) coalition is on track to roughly match the two-thirds super majority it held in parliament s lower house before dissolution, helped by divisions in the opposition camp and jitters over North Korea s nuclear and missile programs, media forecasts have said. | 1 |
Donald Trump keeps digging himself deeper and deeper into a hole where Russia is concerned. His entire term has been plagued by a steady drip of leaks regarding his shady Russian ties. The latest revelation to become front page news is that his son-in-law and senior advisor, Jared Kushner, was trying to establish a secret line of communication between Trump and the Kremlin.Not surprisingly, administration officials are pushing for Kushner to step aside and take a leave of absence amid his current Russian scandal. According to ABC News, members of Trump s inner circle are saying it might be time for Jared Kushner to take a leave of absence from the White House. Last week, it was announced that Kushner had come under intense scrutiny by the FBI because of his suspicious contacts with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, as well as a Russian banking executive. Then the Washington Post reported on Friday that Kushner had been attempting to set up a back channel of communication between Trump and Moscow.To call this news a bombshell (a term that has become a cliche with Trump in the White House) would be an understatement. Former intelligence officials, with decades of experience, say they had never seen anything like this before and described the news as off the map, explosive, and extremely dangerous. Both Trump s former campaign manager Paul Manafort and former National Security Advisor Mike Flynn were forced to resign when news broke of their Russian ties. It now looks like Kushner might soon be following in their footsteps.Watch more here, via ABC News:NEW: @jonkarl: People close to the president are saying it might be time for Jared Kushner to take a leave of absence from the White House. pic.twitter.com/pIgqkNJNx1 This Week (@ThisWeekABC) May 28, 2017Featured image via Harrer-Pool/Getty Images | 1 |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump’s tax plan would let U.S. companies take bigger, faster deductions on capital investments, a step some experts said would deplete Washington’s policy arsenal by using up a tax break normally reserved for fighting recessions. By putting a five-year “immediate expensing” provision in his plan, Trump handed a win to some businesses, especially capital-intensive ones such as oil drillers, that could gain from it through savings on new plant and equipment purchases. “These changes are something I would 100 percent support ... It would be a huge positive,” said Paul Mosvold, president of privately held Scandrill Inc, which drills oil wells for Anadarko Petroleum Corp and others. While some industrial sectors might get a short-term boost from the tax break, critics said its wider business impact was unclear, as was whether it is needed with the economy slowly but steadily growing and investment capital abundant. Moreover, some said, a five-year immediate expensing policy could set up a capital investment hangover in late 2022 or 2023 by shifting private-sector plant and equipment purchases into the five years covered and out of later years. One outcome would be sure, they said: putting immediate expensing in place for the next five years would make it unavailable until 2022 to combat a possible future recession. “It’s hard to see how moving to full expensing, except at the margin, would produce the growth that they’re looking for from this provision,” said corporate tax analyst Robert Willens, formerly an executive at KPMG and Lehman Brothers. “It’s also true that, once you go to full expensing, there’s nothing more you can do, particularly during a later downturn when you might really need to provide a jolt to the economy.” Immediate expensing lets companies take a tax deduction for the full value of new plant and equipment upon purchase, rather than stringing out deductions over several years under accelerated or normal depreciation schedules. Immediate expensing has been tried before, but not for as long and at the maximum level proposed by Trump, his advisers and congressional Republicans. Their plan faces months of debate in Congress before it could become law. It calls for immediate expensing “for at least five years” at “an unprecedented level” and urges Congress to work out the details, with a focus on helping small businesses. “That will be something that people have never seen before and it will be truly great,” Trump said on Friday at a National Association of Manufacturers event where his remarks were applauded by a roomful of business executives. Federal tax revenues would be slashed under Trump’s plan. An estimate of immediate expensing’s revenue impact earlier this year was for a loss of $2.2 trillion over a 10-year window, according to the Tax Foundation, a business-focused group that supports making immediate expensing permanent, not temporary. Scott Hodge, president of the foundation, said permanent expensing is needed if Trump wants to meaningfully boost economic growth. “The only way to get there is by having permanent immediate expensing for all capital investments, not a short-term policy that robs investment from the future. “Only then do you get the long-term increase in investments that boost productivity, wages and GDP,” Hodge said. Louisiana Republican Senator Bill Cassidy told reporters on Capitol Hill on Tuesday that “full expensing could be quite effective for economic growth. I’m favorably disposed. But I’d like to see it in the context of everything else.” Some tax experts questioned the need for expensing at all. While U.S. economic growth has been sluggish, there is little evidence that businesses are short on investment capital. “There’s no sign that there’s a shortage of capital available to business today ... So is immediate expensing really necessary?” asked Ed Kleinbard, a law professor at the University of Southern California and former chief of staff of the U.S. Congress’s Joint Committee on Taxation. The tax code has not been overhauled since 1986 under former President Ronald Reagan. Trump’s plan is largely a set of tax cuts that is less ambitious than Reagan’s sweeping package, but the plan is politically important to the Republicans. After more than eight months in office, Trump has no major domestic policy achievement. Much is riding on the tax plan, which the business community has eagerly awaited. Immediate expensing was put in place under former Democratic President Barack Obama for qualified investments between September 2010 and January 2012, part of his recovery program after the deepest U.S. recession in decades. After 2012, immediate expensing was cut to 50 percent of new investment through 2017. It has been slated to decline in phases to 40 percent in 2018 and 30 percent in 2019. Trump’s plan would bring it back up to 100 percent through late 2022. Investment firm Morgan Stanley questioned the impact of the immediate expensing proposal in a recent research note. “We are not sure that this policy can drive incremental stimulus because the tax code has contained similar incentives since 2008. Evidence shows that only 50 percent of companies elect to use bonus depreciation,” the firm said, adding that the likeliest beneficiaries would be in the utilities, telecoms, materials and industrials sectors. | 0 |
YAOUNDE (Reuters) - Militants seeking independence for Cameroon s English-speaking regions killed four soldiers and two policemen in attacks this week, President Paul Biya said late on Thursday, vowing to eliminate the secessionists as a threat to peace. Dozens of civilians have been killed since October, after the government cracked down on members of a movement protesting their perceived marginalization by Cameroon s Francophone-dominated government. The repression has driven many into the arms of a once-fringe separatist movement, which has launched a series of deadly raids before presidential elections in 2018. I think things are now perfectly clear to everyone. Cameroon is the victim of repeated attacks, Biya said as he arrived home from a summit of European Union and African leaders in Ivory Coast. Faced with these attacks of aggression, I assure the Cameroonian people that all measures are being taken to end these criminals ability to do harm, he said. Two secessionist leaders confirmed the movement carried out the first raid, late on Tuesday in the town of Mamfe, near the border with Nigeria in Cameroon s Southwest Region, in which four soldiers were killed. One of the main objectives is to clear the checkpoints that they have put on our roads. They are the symbols of occupation, Ben Kuah, the chairman of the defense wing of the Ambazonian Governing Council (AGC), told a Reuters reporter in Dakar. The separatists claimed to have looted weapons during the raid. Ambazonia is the name the separatists have given to the homeland they hope to create. We will dismantle all of these military outposts that have been used to prosecute the occupation of our homeland, said Cho Ayaba, another leading member of the AGC. Two police officers were killed in a similar attack the following night in the nearby town of Out. Separatist leaders were not immediately available to comment on that raid. Cameroon s language divide is a legacy of World War One, when the League of Nations split the former German colony of Kamerun between allied French and British victors. The two entities were reunited following independence. (This version of the story has been refiled to fix typo in paragraph five) | 1 |
Posted on September 7, 2016 by DCG | 53 Comments
Liberals would probably tell you to not “body shame” her. I say this woman needs serious medical and mental treatment.
From Daily Mail : An obese model who is paid by men to eat wants to pile on a further 300lbs to become the world’s fattest woman and be completely immobile. Monica Riley, 27, from Fort Worth, Texas, already tips the scales at 700lb but dreams of being too fat to move and is working towards hitting 1,000lb so that she feels like a ‘queen’.
Her feeder boyfriend Sid Riley, 25, whose surname she has taken despite not being married, spends his days cooking Monica meals and even feeding her 3,500 calorie shakes lavished with double cream through a funnel . He then rolls her over when her 91-inch stomach is full.
Among the things Monica – a model on Super Sized Big Beautiful Woman websites – is looking forward to being immobile and getting a bed with a built-in toilet which Sid will need to empty.
Monica said: ‘The plan is to reach 1000 lbs and become immobile. I would feel like a queen because Sid would be waiting on me hand and foot and he’s excited about it too.
‘ It’s a sexual fantasy for us and we talk about it a lot. He already has to help me get off the sofa and get me out of bed. If I lay down after a big dinner he has to help me roll over because my belly is too full for me to roll – it’s a big turn-on for both of us .’
Despite their controversial plans, the Monica and Sid are trying for a baby and have endured two miscarriages so far. She said: ‘We do plan to have children – there’s nothing to stop me raising a child from my bedroom . We would get a nanny in to help around the house and take the baby out and about. There’s nothing to stop us raising a child. Some people might think it’s selfish but I’m confident we would be good parents.’
Monica had been overweight all of her life and just two years ago she was preparing for bariatric surgery after an ex-boyfriend urged her to shed the pounds. But at the last minute she pulled out of the operation and decided to embrace her figure instead.
And since meeting average-built Sid online four months ago, Monica has gained almost 55 lbs by gorging on 8,000 calories every day.
Monica said: ‘ The bigger I get the sexier I feel. I love my big soft belly and stuffing myself with food really turns me on . Sid loves to cook for me and hand-feed me and I’ve achieved so much since we got together . He feeds me around the clock and I never have to get up to do anything.’
On an average day, Monica will eat six biscuits, six sausages in a bread roll, a big bowl of sugary cereal, two weight gain shakes, four McChicken sandwiches, four double cheeseburgers, a large portion of French fries, 30 chicken nuggets, macaroni cheese, Taco Bell treats and a gallon of ice cream.
Monica hopes to get to a size where she will be unable to do anything for herself – requiring Sid to clean her, feed her and change her – by the time she is 32.
The couple have run into criticism for their intentions, especially from Monica’s mother Terri, but they won’t be deterred in their efforts. Monica said: ‘My mom doesn’t understand it at all and she says I’m killing myself. ‘I understand her concerns but it’s my life and gaining weight makes me happy. I do worry a little bit about losing my independence but I know Sid loves taking care of me and would never let me suffer. ‘
Sid, who is 6ft 2in and 220 lbs, is also defensive against any criticism and insists he is simply helping Monica achieve her dreams . Sid said: ‘There is a misconception that feederism and immobility is about control but that’s not the case. If Monica wanted to stop I would accept her decision without question. I wouldn’t see caring for Monica as a chore at all. I love her and I love doing things for her – caring for her would be a dream come true.’
To assist Monica with her weight-gain, Sid prepares a special shake for her to drink through a funnel. The shake consists of ten Pop Tarts, heavy-duty cream, ice cream, milk and weight-gain power, totalling 3,500 calories.
Monica said: ‘The funnel feeding is what I really look forward to. I find it to be a very sexual experience and I know Sid likes it too. I have 20,000 online fans and they love to watch the funnel feeding – it’s a big hit.’
And regardless of the health risks of being morbidly obese, Monica and Sid are charging full steam ahead with their mammoth quest.
Monica said: ‘I could get hit by a car tomorrow and my life would be over. At least if I die this way I will have lived out the life I wanted and fulfilled all of my dreams.’
DCG | 1 |
Donald Trump finally held his first solo press conference on Thursday and it did not go well at all.In fact, it was a complete and total disaster and an embarrassment.Throughout his remarks, Trump peppered the press and the American people with lie after lie.His principle target, of course, was the media, which he again accused of being dishonest. The press has become so dishonest that if we don t talk about it, we are doing a tremendous disservice to the American people, Trump said. Tremendous disservice. We have to talk about it. We have to find out what s going on because the press, honestly, is out of control. The level of dishonesty is out of control. I ran for president to represent the citizens of our country. I am here to change the broken system so it serves their families and their communities well. I am talking, and really talking, on this very entrenched power structure and what we re doing is we re talking about the power structure. We re talking about its entrenchment. As a result, the media s going through what they have to go through to oftentimes distort not all the time and some of the media s fantastic, I have to say, honest and fantastic but much of it is not. The distortion, and we ll talk about it, you ll be able to ask me questions about it. We re not going to let it happen because I m here, again, to take my message straight to the people.Trump went on to claim that he inherited a mess from President Obama and portrayed the world as an apocalyptic wasteland that only he can fix.And then he bragged about his Electoral College win again as some sort of proof that the American people love him.I put it out before the American people, got 306 electoral college votes. I wasn t supposed to get 222. They said there s no way to get 222. 230 is impossible. 270, which you need that was laughable. We got 306. Because people came out and voted like they have never seen before. So that s the it goes. I guess it was the biggest electoral college win since Ronald Reagan. In other words, the media is trying to attack our administration because they know we are following through on pledges that we made, and they are not happy about it for whatever reason.Trump s press conference was a dumpster fire of lies. And NBC reporter Peter Alexander stepped up to the plate and called Trump out. You said today that you had the biggest electoral margin since Ronald Reagan, Alexander began. He then proceeded to list President Obama s two electoral victories which were far bigger than Trump s in 2016.Trump then claimed that he was talking about Republican presidential wins.Overall, Trump s win is one of the smallest on record and he lost the popular vote by nearly three million votes.Faced with the facts and caught in a lie, Trump was asked Why should Americans trust you? Trump claimed that he was given the information, suggesting that he was just reading remarks that someone told him to read.Alexander repeated his question and added to it. Why should Americans trust you when you accuse the information they receive as being fake when you re providing information that s fake? he asked.All Trump could say in response was I don t know. Here s the video via YouTube:Clearly, Donald Trump doesn t know how to do anything except lie. And this is why we have a free press to call him out for it.Featured image via screenshot | 1 |
Another stunning cover-up for #Unfit Hillary by her most committed media cheerleader One week ago, board-certified medicine specialist, TV personality and CNN employee Dr. Drew Pinsky broke the mold of conformity, when he said that he is gravely concerned about presidential candidate Hillary Clinton s health, pointing out that treatment she is receiving could be the result of her bizarre behaviors.Appearing on KABC s McIntyre in the Morning, Pinsky said he and his colleague Dr. Robert Huizenga became gravely concerned .not just about her health but her health care, after analyzing what medical records on Hillary had been released. Pinsky pointed out that after Clinton fainted and fell in late 2012, she suffered from a transverse sinus thrombosis, an exceedingly rare clot that virtually guarantees somebody has something wrong with their coagulation system. What s wrong with her coagulation system, has that been evaluated? asked Dr. Drew.Pinsky described the situation as bizarre, and said that Hillary s medical condition was dangerous and concerning . Dr. Drew also went on to add that it was a sign of brain damage when Hillary had to wear prism glasses after her fall. Just as stunning as Pinsky s assessment which promptly went viral and led to the immediate takedown of the original interview webpage by KABC-AM radio, was that it came from an employee of HLN, which is part of the pro-Clinton CNN network.As such it is probably not surprising that earlier today, just one week later, CNN executive vice president Ken Jautz announced Thursday that Dr. Drew and I have mutually agreed to air the final episode of his show on September 22. Zero Hedge | 0 |
Last week, Donald Trump Junior became a new focus for Senate investigators in the case against Russia regarding the 2016 election. The New York Times did a piece on Wednesday detailing the fact that Junior was scheduled to meet with them (behind closed doors, of course) the following day and, well, you know the rest.It wasn t the article, explosive though it was, that captured the internet s attention, though. It was the hilariously badly-staged photo that Don Jr. apparently staged for Todd Heisler, a photographer on the Times staff, and the image it was clearly trying and failing miserably to portray:I, too, casually arrange photographs of my 100 children to face outwards so I can only see the backs of frames pic.twitter.com/Pa0cHP5ayj Ashley Feinberg (@ashleyfeinberg) September 8, 2017See the problem? Obviously when they were setting up the shoot, Son of the Deal decided he needed the world to know how much he loves his five kids. So he took essentially every picture ever taken of them, put them in shiny frames, and arranged them to best be captured by the camera, dad s studious face aglow with the glare of hard work emanating from his computer monitor stern in the background.Facing away from him.It was just too good to pass up, and so Twitter did not:THE PHOTOS MUST EARN THE RIGHT TO FACE FATHER the September Son (@bagofbadgers) September 8, 2017I don't want to know what he uses those giant scissors for Sam Lloyd (@LloydWithTwoLs) September 8, 2017His photos shoots are all awkward af pic.twitter.com/LoVhqrVpyr pauisanoun (@pauisanoun) September 8, 2017Welp, he's always seemed to be somewhat genetically inferior. #BestGenes pic.twitter.com/3RTMHJJWwM TinyFingeredFuhrer (@TinyFingerTrump) September 8, 2017Where's my brother don jr pic.twitter.com/UooKJ1vInw WrongAgain (@wrongestwrong) September 9, 2017He needs the bobblehead of his father there because it's the only way he'll get him to nod "yes" to something Kristen Hernandez (@K_Hern) September 8, 2017He's only 30% sure the kids are his M.R.Scully (@Falling_Short) September 8, 2017One user made a fine point about why it may have been set up so peculiarly:Joke's on you, he can see them in the 10 ft mirror that's guaranteed to be on the other side of the room Selerax (@Selerax) September 8, 2017While this woman pointed out that the biggest of Junior s photos on the desk was actually one of himself just like his dad: pic.twitter.com/7NMhprnhGS suzanne zuppello (@suppello) September 8, 2017Here s the part I think is funny, though:This is the most painfully staged shot I have ever seen in my whole entire life, bar none, EVER. ?TheKIERHAWK (@KieranStrange) September 9, 2017A quick Google search says that Todd Heisler of the New York Times is a professional photographer with thousands of shoots under his belt, a Pulitzer Prize, and an Emmy. C mon, Todd Don t even play like you didn t know Junior looked like an idiot.For the long con, for the wait-for-it, waaaaaait-for-it troll, I salute you.Featured image via David Becker/Getty Images | 0 |
On Valentine’s Day, couples often reminisce about that moment they knew they would stay together, whether during a vacation, over a fancy dinner or, perhaps, while meeting their future . For Isaac and Rosa Blum, who became teenage sweethearts 75 years ago in a ghetto in Poland, that moment came as they and thousands of other terrified Jews were being herded to a death camp by Nazi soldiers. “I saw her walking in front of me,” Mr. Blum recalled. “I went up to the German and told him, ‘That’s my sister,’ even though she was my girlfriend. ” Miraculously, they were both pulled off the line and managed to survive the Holocaust by working as slave laborers in a munitions factory. The following 70 years have been a cinch by comparison, the couple said on Monday in their house in the Manhattan Beach neighborhood of Brooklyn. He is 94, and she is a year younger. Asked to recount their lengthy love affair, they noted the absurdity of couching it — a romance incubated in the hell of the Holocaust — in the frilly trappings of Valentine’s Day. “You have a mixed story here — you won’t be able to put them together,” Mr. Blum said, even while acknowledging that, yes, it was young, bold love that prodded him to stand up to a Nazi guard and save his sweetheart from being sent to the Treblinka death camp. A hasty marriage followed, and then a horrific honeymoon of sorts: stealing glances and brief exchanges under the stern watch of armed guards. By 1941, the Nazis had taken over the Polish city of Czestochowa and established a ghetto of about 45, 000 Jews. It was in this grim setting that the two met, flirted, gathered with friends, played records and danced together. By autumn 1942, the Nazis were rounding up Jews for extermination. Mr. Blum was pulled from the line to work in the factory, while his family was pushed onward toward the trains bound for Treblinka. He would never see his family again. In that chaotic, horrific moment, he spied Rosa, brazenly approached a Nazi officer and tried to save the teenage girl up ahead walking with her family. A Nazi soldier grabbed her and asked if she was Isaac’s sister, as he had claimed. She said yes. “I was young and strong and able to work,” she said. “He said, ‘Come with me,’ and I was pulled out of the line. ” The memories are still vivid and bitter today, but the silver lining is that they still have each other to grow old with, living largely independently and doting on each other. He calls her a Polish term of affection that translates to “old one. ” She calls him simply Blum, and makes his favorite soups every day. Mr. Blum is a type who considers holding hands silly and, truth be told, has little use for Valentine’s Day. “He’s not very romantic,” Mrs. Blum said, but his thoughtfulness reveals itself in little gifts and almost begrudging acts of tenderness. “We have a different point of view, but somehow we’ve survived,” she said. “What keeps us together are the quarrels. That’s the cement of a marriage. ” “I love him in spite of all his defects,” she said. “It’s not so easy, but I wouldn’t change him for somebody else. ” They are both sharp and physically and socially active, even if they are no longer the strapping youngsters who were selected for labor by the Nazis. With their families sent to their deaths, they were placed in a smaller ghetto of about 5, 000 Jews and, the lie about being siblings never detected, they were issued a marriage license so they could live briefly in a residence for couples before being separated in different barracks at the factory site, which was patrolled by armed guards. They toiled long hours, she as a welder and he as an electrician, which gave him the chance to approach her workstation to share covert glances. They treasured their few minutes of contact during “ lunch,” Mrs. Blum recalled. “We didn’t know if we were going to live, so we wanted to be together,” he said. When word filtered out that most Jews were being killed at death camps, they were incredulous, and counted themselves lucky despite their misery. “We didn’t know you could build factories to kill people,” Mr. Blum said. “We didn’t want to believe it. ” As Mrs. Blum fixed lunch for her husband on Monday, she said she still had nightmares about the horrors, which included being with a group of women while German soldiers watched and laughed. And she was in a medical ward after being pushed down some stairs by a Nazi. She shared the ward with a young Jewish woman who tried to hide her pregnancy from the Nazis. Jewish nurses drowned the newborn in a bucket, fearing that the baby’s cries would doom them all. After being liberated by the Allies near the end of the war in 1945, the couple stayed in a displaced persons camp and were married a second time, by a city official in Austria with borrowed rings. Soon after, they managed to buy their own rings with a silver coin they had hidden for months. The two rings wore down over the years, and the Blums never replaced them. They moved to Argentina and were married a third time, in a more proper service. They had two children and then moved in 1963 to New York City, where Mr. Blum opened a furrier business, with Mrs. Blum doing much of the handiwork. They stay busy through programs for Holocaust survivors offered by Selfhelp Community Services, which is partly financed by of New York and the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany. Reflecting on why he risked his life by approaching the Nazi soldier that day in 1942, Mr. Blum said simply, “I wanted to be with her. ” Then, Mrs. Blum looked adoringly at her unromantic, savior and said, “They could have killed him right away on the spot, but he loved me and he wanted to keep me. ” | 0 |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Senate Banking Committee Chairman Richard Shelby, fresh off his primary victory in Alabama, signaled on Wednesday that he may soon end his moratorium on some of the 16 Obama administration financial nominees awaiting panel confirmation. The stalled nominees include those for two Federal Reserve Board governors, two Securities and Exchange commissioners, a U.S. Export-Import Bank board member needed to approve large financing deals and the U.S. Treasury’s top anti-terrorist finance official. Banking Committee Democrats and some policy analysts had speculated that Shelby, 81, might be more willing to break the logjam once he defeated a 33-year-old Tea Party-backed primary challenger who had tried to make an issue of his age and long tenure in Washington. Shelby returned to Washington for a Senate vote on Wednesday afternoon, but Reuters could not reach him in the Capitol. His spokeswoman, Torrie Matous, said that the five-term senator now “intends to address a number of issues throughout the year including some nominations.” She added that he would likely begin announcing some hearing plans next week. In Alabama on Tuesday, Shelby easily defeated four challengers to take 65 percent of the vote, enough to avoid a runoff election in April. In a campaign atmosphere dominated by Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump’s anti-establishment message, Shelby did the opposite, running on his experience and emphasizing his “power base in Washington, D.C.” Earlier this week, Democrats on the Banking Committee urged Shelby to “stop obstructing” the nominations. One of the most acute problems is for the Export-Import Bank, which cannot approve loans or guarantees above $10 million without Senate confirmation of a third board member —effectively locking it out of deals for Boeing commercial aircraft or major power equipment made by General Electric Conservatives, including Shelby, had waged a major campaign to close the trade bank last year, idling it for more than five months before Congress voted to renew its charter. The Fed nominees, former community banker Allan Landon and University of Michigan economist Kathryn Dominguez, would restore the central bank’s board to its full capacity of seven members. Many had written off their chances of being confirmed, in part because of the testy relationship between Congress and the Fed, which has opposed Republican bills it says would curb its independence. Shelby had previously said that he would not move the 16 nominees until the Obama administration named a Fed vice chair for supervision, a position created by the Dodd-Frank financial reform law. | 0 |
In the wake of the Orlando mass shooting Arizona pastor Steven Anderson responded by cheering on the killings and called for executing every gay person in America. The good news is that there s 50 less pedophiles in this world, because, you know, these homosexuals are a bunch of disgusting perverts and pedophiles, Anderson said in a video posted to YouTube the day after the shooting. But these people all should have been killed, anyway, but they should have been killed through the proper channels, as in they should have been executed by a righteous government that would have tried them, convicted them, and saw them executed. Because, in Leviticus 20:13, God s perfect law, he put the death penalty on murder, and he also put the death penalty on homosexuality. That s what the Bible says, plain and simple. Now karma is kicking his ass and he isn t happy about it.As it turns out, Anderson and his congregation at the Faithful Word Baptist Church in Phoenix do business with other people both online and in brick and mortar establishments. That means these businesses can be informed about who they are doing business with and they re not too interested in doing business with a bigot who wants to commit mass murder.Paypal and Apple are among many businesses that have terminated the accounts of Anderson, his church, and the other bigoted pastors who foolishly followed his lead in calling for executing gay people.And like a child being denied candy by his parents in the middle of a supermarket, Anderson literally threw a temper tantrum about it during a sermon. It s war. You know what the filthy sodomites have done toward our church and us, and our friends and our fellow pastors that actually have the guts to say what needs to be said? Here s what they ve done in the last few weeks. They got our PayPal account shut down so that we can t take anymore online donations. We set up with another company, GivLet, they got that shut down. Qgiv, they got that shut down. BitPay, they got that shut down. They shut down our iTunes podcast. They shut down Brother Jimenez s PayPal account. They shut down Brother Romero s PayPal account The landlord of Pastor Jimenez is saying, hey we re not going to renew your lease. Romero and Jimenez both praised the Orlando mass shooting and called for gay people to be executed across the country. I mean these people are dedicated, Anderson continued. These people are researching, they re finding out where we bank, they re finding out who we do business with. They re trying to get us shut down on all fronts, and you know what, let me tell you something, I m sick of it. Then he leaped atop his podium and began screaming at his congregation telling them if they don t agree with him they should leave and proceeded to call LGBT people dogs. And you know what, if you re not gonna back us up then get out of here, we don t need your help, he said. I don t want to hang around with a bunch of fag hags and a bunch of queer baits and a bunch of effeminates. GET OUT! They re sodomites! They re dogs! DOGS! Here s the video via YouTube:And just think, many conservatives out there disgustingly agree with him and they are voting in November. Will you?Featured Image: Screenshot | 0 |
LONDON (Reuters) - Legislation to sever political, financial and legal ties with the European Union is vital to ensuring Britain leaves the bloc in an orderly manner, Brexit minister David Davis said on Thursday. Davis also said the powers offered by the EU withdrawal bill, which seeks largely to copy and paste EU law into British legislation, would allow the government to make sure the statute book works on the day Britain leaves the EU. This bill is vital to ensuring that as we leave, we do so in an orderly manner, Davis said at the start of a debate in parliament on the bill. | 0 |
It has nothing to do with Russia. That s the story the Trump campaign is sticking to. Paul Manafort, Trump s dictator-protecting campaign manager, has doubled down: we are not releasing his tax returns. The reason? His taxes are under audit, so they can t (even though the head of the IRS completely debunked that claim on live national television).For months Democrats and even Republicans have been hounding the billionaire mogul to release his tax returns, a standard that every presidential hopeful has met over the last several decades. But Trump seems to be the only one who will not do it. Even Romney, after enough prodding, did it.There s several theories as to why he won t release them. The first is that they will show he s not actually a billionaire. Another is that it will show he has overvalued his properties (which has already been shown he has) and his businesses. The third option is that it will show he paid virtually nothing in taxes, certainly not his fair share.And the fourth (and now most plausible theory): he has ties to Russian interests/oligarchs. That s the theory of conservative columnist George Will. Given that the FBI has a strong case linking Russia to the DNC email hack, and Trump s campaign manager has close ties to Russia, and that Trump has business dealings with the authoritarian country, that theory seems to stick in people s mind. And it should.Trump has been a serial liar throughout this campaign. He s had the audacity to say Hillary Clinton has taken money from countries that kill gays and women. But the evidence is starting to show it is Trump who has taken not only taken money, but has offered his soul to a country that also kills gays, women, and anyone who dares to dissent (remember the Winter Olympics controversy)?For a man who claims he wants American sovereignty and autonomy, he certainly has no problem letting his buddies at the Kremlin determine our political discourse.Of course Will s speculation is just that speculation. But it does raise the question that Trump s refusal to release his tax returns and his love and shady dealings with Russia and Putin may be more than what meets the eye.Like Trump University, this story won t be going away anytime soon. And the Democrats certainly won t be letting it go.This election, it s Trump/Putin 2016.Featured image via Sara D. Davis/Getty Images | 1 |
By Brandon Turbeville When the DEA announced that it was backing off o f its decision to go through emergency procedures to place kratom on the Schedule 1 list of controlled substances, kratom... | 1 |
We Use Cookies: Our policy [X] 43-Year-Old Can’t Get Over The Amount Of Kids In Local Night Club October 26, 2016 - BREAKING NEWS , LIFESTYLE Share 0 Add Comment
A COUNTY Waterford man is currently undergoing psychiatric treatment today after he was unable to get over the amount of ‘kids’ in a local night club last night.
Michael Roache, 43, is said to be suffering from a rare form of temporary psychosis, which forces him to repeat himself continually for its duration.
“It started after he arrived home last night,” wife Deirdre Roache recalls, “I thought nothing of it until this morning, when I found him staring at the ceiling in bed, murmuring the same thing over and over again: ‘I can’t get over the amount of kids in here'”.
Worried, the mother of children immediately called her local care doctor, who in turn referred him to a psychiatric unit for further testing.
It is understood the self-employed man was overwhelmed when he entered the popular nightclub in the city centre, triggering something in his head and sending him into a loop.
“He kept saying over and over again that he couldn’t get over the amount of kids in the place,” friend Dermot Ryan told WWN, who is also way too old for night clubs, “We just went in for a late drink because we were working late. It’ll be the last time I go into that fucking place. I felt so old”.
Mr. Roache is currently being treated for verbal looping at the psychiatric unit, and doctors have suggested temporarily moving him to an old folks home in a bid to ‘snap him out of it’.
“This kind of thing is common in the over 35’s,” Dr. Kevin Maher explained, “Hopefully an hour or two in the old folks home will neutralize his psychosis. He should have known better going to a nightclub at his age, though”. | 0 |
SHAMLAPUR, Bangladesh (Reuters) - For tens of thousands of Rohingya Muslims, an informal fleet of small wooden fishing boats has meant deliverance from what they say is an indiscriminate assault on their villages by the Myanmar army. Deliverance, however, comes at a price. Some refugees told Reuters they paid as much as 10,000 taka ($122) per adult to boatmen to make the five-hour crossing from Myanmar s coast to ports in southern Bangladesh. While the fishermen say they have a moral obligation to help desperate fellow Muslims escaping persecution, Bangladeshi officials accuse them of profiteering. Ordered to stamp out what they call human trafficking, they have made arrests and even set fire to fishing boats. Of course we want to keep going back to rescue more people. Our Muslim brothers and sisters are in a bad situation, so I have to go and bring them, said Mohammed Alom, 25, a fisherman in the Bangladeshi village of Shamlapur. Around 400,000 Rohingya have arrived in Bangladesh in less than three weeks and people are still coming, by land as well as by sea, after attacks by Rohingya militants sparked a fierce counteroffensive by Myanmar s army. Senior United Nations officials have described the violence as ethnic cleansing . The influx is placing huge strain on authorities in southern Bangladesh, one of the poorest parts of a poor country. Don t say rescuers. The rescuers should be going and they should rescue people, not in terms of money, said Lieutenant Colonel Ariful Islam, Border Guards Bangladesh commander in Teknaf on the country s southern tip, referring to the fishermen bringing refugees ashore. These people are very poor, it s just extorting from them whatever they have. We are helping those who arrived, but we re trying to insist that no human trafficking should take place. Reuters interviewed three Rohingya fishermen and two Bangladeshi boat owner-operators, all of whom had made at least two visits to Myanmar in recent weeks. The men didn t believe the profits they made detracted from what they saw as a rescue mission. Shaif Ullah, 34, a Bangladeshi, who co-owns a fishing boat, said he made 100,000 taka ($1,220) rescuing the family of a Rohingya in Malaysia who paid him via BKash, a popular mobile money service, after he returned to Bangladeshi shores. People from Malaysia and Saudi Arabia call me and tell me to go there to get their family, he said. They are crying for my help. I take money from them, yes, but it s also a humanitarian act. Two refugees have told Reuters their family members were detained by fishermen or brokers in Bangladesh when they could not pay for the journey. Several also complained they had to hand over gold and other jewelry to boat operators. We had no chance to negotiate with the boatmen, said Ali Johar, 75, an elder from his village in southern Maungdaw, just across the Naf river that forms the border between Myanmar and Bangladesh, now staying in Shamlapur. He handed over his wife s gold necklace and a gold ring, in addition to 7,000 taka for the rescue of him and about 30 members of his extended family, including young children, he said. But we are grateful to the fishermen for bringing us here, he said. There were so many people trying to get here. If they didn t bring us, we would be stuck. Pronay Chakma says it was a stroke of fate that thrust him into a key role in Bangladesh s response to the crisis. The 31-year-old administrator arrived in Teknaf to start a new job as sub-district assistant commissioner for land on Aug. 23, two days before northwestern Myanmar exploded into violence. The thing is that, yes, the fishermen can go there, no problem, but if they demand money from the pain of stricken people, is it humanitarian? No, he said. Chakma - a Buddhist member of the Chakma tribe who live scattered throughout South Asia - is an executive magistrate, which means he can hand down jail terms in simple criminal cases. He interrupted an interview with Reuters to sentence a man to three months for possession of five methamphetamine tablets. Chakma and another local official have sentenced at least 100 people to terms of up to six months for continuing to charge Rohingya refugees for ferrying them to safety. Each and every time we are warning them, he said. Yes, you can do that, but not in exchange of money. He pointed to the deaths of women and children who, unable to swim, have died after their boats capsized near Bangladeshi shores. Fishermen and local residents told Reuters that authorities have also broadcast messages in their villages by loudspeaker ordering them not to pick up Rohingyas. At least five boats caught bringing refugees in exchange for money have been set on fire on the beach by officials. The boatmen Reuters spoke to said they were cautious about operating in bad weather and rejected allegations of coercion or detaining refugees. Tens of thousands of people may still be waiting to cross the mouth of the Naf river, according to estimates by refugees, fishermen and rights groups. I would like to go back to bring these people, because Muslims are suffering, said Bangladeshi boat owner Moni Ullah, 38. For me, it s hard to sit here and not go there, because I have seen so many people crying on the beach. ($1 = 81.9300 taka) | 0 |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Senate passed legislation on Tuesday that would revamp federal chemical safety protections for the first time in decades, sending it to President Barack Obama for his expected signing into law. The Senate approved the measure that was overwhelmingly passed by the House of Representatives on May 25. The bill would update the Toxic Substances Control Act amid complaints that its 40-year-old provisions hobble the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency from effectively regulating chemicals, including those ranging from asbestos and flame retardants to everyday household products. “No one disputes that this bill transfers power from the states to the federal government,” Republican Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky complained during debate of the bill. He said it would add hundreds of new regulations that will burden the U.S. chemical industry and hurt jobs. The EPA, under the bill, would have to consider the impact of a chemical on human health and the environment, as well as the chemical’s benefits and the economic impact of regulation. | 0 |
BOSTON (Reuters) - A proposed Massachusetts ballot initiative that would allow voters to require U.S. presidential candidates to release their tax returns cleared a key hurdle on Wednesday, as state lawmakers mulled a similar bill after President Donald Trump declined to release his returns. The state’s attorney general, Maura Healey, a Democrat, certified the initiative petition along with 20 others covering a variety of topics as having met constitutional requirements for ballot questions. The proposed Massachusetts law would require candidates for U.S. president and vice president to submit to the state’s secretary copies of their federal income tax returns for the last six years that could then be made public. Certification of the petitions means backers can begin collecting the tens of thousands of signatures needed to get their questions onto the November 2018 ballot. Healey’s office said her decision did not mean she supported the petitions. The election-related initiative came after Trump, a Republican, last year became the first major presidential candidate since the 1970s to not voluntarily release at least some of his tax returns. Healey’s certification of the petition came as state lawmakers held a committee hearing and took testimony on a bill that would require U.S. presidential candidates to also disclose their tax returns in order to get onto the ballot. Senator Michael Barrett, the bill’s Democratic sponsor, in an interview said the bill had “a lot of grassroots interest,” and was receiving support from March Forward Mass, which formed after the Women’s March protest held in January a day after Trump was inaugurated. William Galvin, the Democratic secretary of state, testified in support of the bill, saying the public disclosure of tax returns is needed in order for voters to know about a candidate’s potential conflicts of interest. “This bill is not about Donald Trump,” he said. “It’s because of Donald Trump.” Barrett acknowledged such a law could be subject to lawsuits. The U.S. Constitution sets out qualifications to become president, and critics could argue the state’s law would unconstitutionally do the same. But Galvin testified that he believed that a law requiring tax returns’ disclosures could survive a legal challenge as states have a right to set conditions to get on their ballots. Similar proposals are being considered in other states. Republican New Jersey Governor Chris Christie in May vetoed a bill that would have required the disclosure by presidential candidates of tax returns, calling it “politics at its worst.” | 1 |
all 30,000 of the “missing” Hillary emails are on Weiner’s laptop, plus hundreds of thousands more that were deliberately ditched and we never knew existed in the first place, evidencing not only lying about the content of the 30,000 emails but the existence of hundreds of thousands more?
What if among the authenticated email traffic is John Podesta saying, just days before the Clinton campaign was compelled to produce said material they they had to “dump those emails”, apparently proving intent to obstruct justice?
What if all of the emails that came from big public cloud providers are provably, to a near-forensic standard, to be exactly as WikiLeaks has presented them and could not have been tampered with because those providers digitally sign every email that comes from them and those signatures all validate back against those cloud providers, and those emails are thus in fact already known to be authentic?
What if the evidence on that laptop adds to the already known fact that Bill Clinton took a number of trips on Epstein’s “Lolita Express” aircraft, some of them after dismissing his Secret Service detail, and implicates what was about to, or did, happen on those trips?
What if the evidence on that laptop shows that Hillary was present on at least one of those trips and either knew about or participated in those acts?
What if the evidence shows that the Clinton Foundation operated as a major pay-to-play operation and national security interests were implicated such as, for example, in the sale of uranium to the Russians.
What if some of the “pay to play” activity involves nations we have a sketchy relationship with or even those that are under some sort of active embargo, but the Foundation was able to “get around”?
What if these “pay to play” activities implicate federal Racketeering and/or bribery statutes?
What if some of the “pay to play” activity involves nations that have been implicated in international Muslim terrorism, arguably therefore rising to the act of treason since by our own government’s own statements we are in a war against said international terrorism?
What if the Clintons actively conspired with Loretta Lynch to obstruct the ongoing investigations including but not limited to Bill Clinton’s “chat about family matters” aboard Lynch’s aircraft, a meeting for which no minutes or recording has been produced for the public?
What if for the first time in known history of FBI and DOJ investigations of such serious conduct with national security implications utterly nobody was served with a subpoena, nobody had evidence seized and material witnesses were allowed to corroborate and be present when others were testifying, and those acts were undertaken by the DOJ for the explicit purpose of both crippling the investigation and preventing a Grand Jury from seeing and judging the evidence in the case?
What if the FBI Deputy Director who headed up — and is still in charge of — the Hillary email server investigation has a wife who received nearly $700,000 in political contributions from a major Clinton operative and yet despite this clear and publicly-known conflict of interest has not recused himself or been forced to step aside?
What if James Comey was browbeaten into making a public announcement that was beyond his legal authority (that “no reasonable prosecutor” would indict) through political pressure but upon being presented with the new evidence on Weiner’s laptop he couldn’t stand by his previous decision because this new evidence made him sick to his stomach, convinced him that the damage to this nation was so severe that we might not survive it — or both?
What if it turns out that Hillary’s campaign cheated multiple times during the primary season when it came to being fed debate questions and other means of tampering with the primary election process, denying her primary opponent a fair election?
What if Hillary should have never been nominated in the first place due to her cheating in the primaries and the race should be “Trump .vs. Sanders”? What does that say about the legitimacy of the upcoming election if one candidate on the ballot cheated to get there and is thus not legitimately entitled to stand for election in the general at all?
What if the evidence shows how people “divested” and transferred financial interest in foreign firms so as to evade federal reporting requirements that would have otherwise triggered scrutiny on some of the Foundation’s deals?
What if Friday afternoon comes and goes, Saturday, Sunday and Monday come and go, all or a sufficiently-damning group of the above turn out to be true and as a result the person who was at the center of all of these things stands to be able to pardon herself and everyone else associated with what would be, quite-arguably, the most outrageous series of acts of public corruption in our nation’s history?
That we are here, just a few days before an election, that we have a DOJ that has actively obstructed the investigation for at least months if not longer and has a history of doing this during Obama’s Presidency, including I remind you with “Fast-n-Furious” where a whole bunch of people got killed as a result of our government’s illegal gun-running is an outrage.
The only thing more-outrageous than what has already happened would be if we were to get to Monday night, on the eve of voting, and all of those “What Ifs” up above remained unanswered.
Oh wait, I tricked you and I admit it — some of those “what ifs” — including some truly damning ones — have already been answered in the affirmative.
If you know the answers to any of the remaining questions — not a belief of what the answers might be but you are in possession of hard facts that prove any of the above, either in the positive or negative, you have a duty to this Republic and the people in it to make those answers known.
If you do not then you stand as equally responsible for every “Yes” answer that is ultimately proved, and the harm that comes to this Republic as a consequence.
Originally posted at Market Ticker .
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One week before the first votes of the 2016 campaign are cast, Donald Trump has solidified his standing nationally, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll. Republicans see Trump as the strongest candidate on major issues and by far the most electable in the large field of GOP hopefuls.
The Republican electorate is in a sour mood as its members prepare to begin the process of picking a presidential nominee. Almost 9 in 10 say the country is seriously off on the wrong track, and more than 8 in 10 are dissatisfied with the way the federal government works, including nearly 4 in 10 who say they’re angry about it.
Two-thirds worry about maintaining their current living standard, more than 6 in 10 say people with similar values are losing influence in American life, and about half say the nation’s best days are behind it. Half also say immigrants mainly weaken American society, compared with 55 percent of the overall population who say immigrants strengthen America.
Amid this political climate, Trump has maintained his place atop the Republican field for six months. He now receives the support of 37 percent of registered Republicans and Republican-leaning independents, almost identical to the 38 percent support he enjoyed a month ago.
Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas runs second in the national survey, with 21 percent, surpassing his previous high of 15 percent in December. Third place belongs to Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida at 11 percent, virtually unchanged from 12 percent a month ago.
Rounding out the field are retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson at 7 percent, former Florida governor Jeb Bush at 5 percent, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie at 4 percent, businesswoman Carly Fiorina at 3 percent, former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee and Ohio Gov. John Kasich at 2 percent each, and Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky at 1 percent. Former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum registered less than 1 percent.
When first and second choices are combined, Trump is named by 49 percent, Cruz by 39 percent and Rubio by 32 percent — well ahead of the others.
At this point in presidential campaigns, as the primary season is beginning, candidates’ support can be tenuous and shift quickly in response to the first state-level contests. Results in Iowa, which holds its caucuses Monday, and in New Hampshire, which votes eight days later, often scramble national numbers. Trump enters this crucial phase strong nationally, but it isn’t clear what a loss in Iowa would do to his support.
But The Post-ABC survey offers some clues. Trump’s supporters appear more committed to him than do people backing other candidates. A majority (57 percent) of Trump supporters say they will definitely vote for him. For all the other candidates combined, 34 percent are as firmly committed, while nearly two-thirds say they could change their minds.
Trump’s committed support exceeds what the previous Republican nominee received before the Iowa caucuses four years ago: 36 percent of former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney’s supporters said then that they would definitely support his candidacy.
The poll also finds no sign that Trump’s support wavers among the Republicans who are most likely to attend primaries and caucuses, which are typically low-turnout contests. Trump’s 16-point advantage among all registered Republican voters is similar to his lead among Republicans who say they are certain to vote, report voting in 2012 Republican contests or are following the race “very closely.”
Although there was resistance to his candidacy at the beginning, Trump now is broadly acceptable to GOP voters. About 2 in 3 Republicans say they would find him acceptable as their nominee, a percentage almost identical to Cruz’s and Rubio’s. Rubio is seen as the least unacceptable, followed by Cruz, Carson and then Trump. Only about half of Republicans say Christie and Bush are acceptable, and Bush has the highest “unacceptable” percentage at 45.
That fluidity underneath Trump is the other story of the Republican race to date. One after another candidate has been seen as surging, in Iowa or New Hampshire. Cruz surged into a narrow lead in Iowa and then got into a fight with Trump, after which Trump has regained a small advantage.
Cruz, Christie and Kasich have claimed some momentum in New Hampshire. Rubio is seeking a clear third-place finish in Iowa and a strong finish in New Hampshire to use as springboards into the later contests. But whether Republicans are heading for a three-person race or a two-person race won’t be clear until the results are in from the first four states.
The new Post-ABC survey suggests that a sizable majority of Republicans believe that whatever happens in those early states, Trump will emerge with the nomination — a dramatic shift from when he first entered the race in June to mixed reviews and overcame widespread unfavorable impressions among GOP voters before his campaign launched. Today, more than 6 in 10 Republicans say Trump is most likely to win the nomination, up from 4 in 10 in the late fall.
Trump leads among nearly all demographic groups, including a narrow advantage among white evangelical Christians, a key target of the Cruz campaign. Trump’s strongest support comes from those with incomes below $50,000. Previous surveys showed Trump with significantly more support among those lacking a college degree, compared with those who have graduated from college. The new survey finds no significant difference.
The reality TV star scores best among those who are most dissatisfied with government and the country’s direction and with those who say they prefer someone from outside the political system rather than a candidate with political experience. Overall, a bare majority of Republicans say they are looking for an outsider, while just over 4 in 10 who want someone with experience in politics.
On a wide range of issues and candidate attributes, Trump dominates his rivals. Majorities of Republicans say he has the best chance of getting elected president and is most likely to bring needed change to Washington. More than a third say he is closest to them on issues. He and Carson are seen as the most honest of the GOP candidates, while Trump and Cruz are seen as having the best personality and temperament to serve as president.
Half or more of all Republicans name Trump as the candidate best able to handle the economy and regulate the banks. More than 4 in 10 say he would be the best to handle immigration and the threat of terrorism.
Trump is seen by about 3 in 10 as the most capable of the GOP candidates to handle a major international crisis. Cruz is second, named by almost a quarter of Republicans.
Republicans are bullish about their chances of winning in November. Three in 4 say Trump would defeat Democrat Hillary Clinton, while just over 6 in 10 say Cruz or Rubio would defeat the former secretary of state. Republicans are even more optimistic about winning a general election against Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont.
Among the broader public, however, Clinton is seen as a favorite to defeat Trump, Cruz or Rubio. She is perceived as having a better chance of winning than would Sanders.
Trump won the endorsement of former Alaska governor Sarah Palin last week, but her support appears to be mostly a non-factor in the race. About 8 in 10 of the Republican respondents in the poll said it makes no difference, and the rest split evenly on whether it makes them more or less likely to back Trump. Overall, 56 percent of Republicans have a favorable impression of Palin.
The Post-ABC poll was conducted Jan. 21-24 among a random national sample of 1,001 adults reached on land-line and cellular phones. The margin of sampling error for overall results is plus or minus 3.5 percentage points; the error margin is 5.5 percentage points among the sample of 356 Republican and Republican-leaning registered voters. | 1 |
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Director James Comey of Federal Bureau of Investigation stirred up a hornet’s nest with his decision to interfere in our election by giving House Republicans more ammunition to smear Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton over her “email scandal”– and not even everyone in his own agency is happy about it.
The head of the FBI’s Agent Association (FBIAA), Reynaldo Tariche , resigned tonight to work in the private sector in protest over Director Comey’s decision to use the FBI as a political tool on behalf of Donald Trump. “Importantly, we will not be used for political gains, and any implication that the FBI Special Agents are unwilling or incapable of performing effective investigations is simply false.'”
And quit he should. Comey’s behavior has been most unbecoming as the head of a federal law enforcement agency who is obligated to remain impartial for the good of our nation. The FBI has no idea what the emails that “may be pertinent” that were discovered on disgraced Congressman Anthony Weiner’s laptop actually contain; there was no need to alert Congress and doing so so close to an election is an obvious move to try to tip the scales in favor of the most unqualified and morally abhorrent candidate our nation has ever seen.
Read his letter here:
Dear Members,
After 26 + years of service for the greatest Law Enforcement organization in the world I am retiring from the FBI today. I have accepted a position in the private sector within the Banking Industry. It has truly been a pleasure and honor to serve with the men and women of the FBI in the relentless pursuit of protecting the American people from Domestic and International threats. I will be eternally grateful to have worked side by side with the most dedicated individuals who carry out the FBI mission 24 hours a day seven days a week.
My two terms as President of the FBIAA have been spent in a whirlwind of travel, meetings and other important work on behalf of the members of the FBI AA. It has truly been an amazing journey to witness the incredible work being done on a daily basis by the FBI around the world. Equally impressive has been to see how the FBI family helps each other in times of need including; deaths, family illnesses, natural disasters or any unforeseen tragedy. I am confident that incoming FBIAA President Tom O’Connor, the National Executive Board, and our entire FBIAA team will continue the work of advancing the mission of this incredible organization.
The FBIAA’s mission includes defending the work and integrity of FBI Special Agents. As a non-partisan organization, comment on political campaigns or candidates is atypical for us, and we intend to keep it that way. Yet, in this intensely partisan election cycle, we find our work—our integrity—questioned as it relates to the investigation of Secretary Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server. Thus, honoring our mission, we will continue to remind federal officials and the public that the FBI Special Agents who undertook this investigation did so with an unwavering focus on complying with the law and the Constitution, as we do with all of our investigations. Importantly, we will not be used for political gains, and any implication that the FBI Special Agents are unwilling or incapable of performing effective investigations is simply false.
May God bless the FBI family and may God continue to bless the United States of America | 1 |
Bruce Picken still remembers the goal. He was a Gordie Howe fan in southern Ontario, and he wanted to see the big man play one more time. After all, Howe was 42 years old. He couldn’t play forever, could he? Picken lived in Hamilton, between Toronto and Buffalo, the new city in the National Hockey League in . Tickets were easier to score in Buffalo, so Picken, then 20, crossed the border and saw a goal he can still recreate. Howe performed in what now seems like a prehistoric age — there were six teams in the N. H. L. for much of his career and interest in hockey was mostly confined to Canada and a few states near the 49th parallel north. Fans of a certain age sometimes talk about Howe the way others do about sporting deities they were lucky enough to see back in the day — Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova in a Grand Slam final, Sandy Koufax or Roberto Clemente going around the league one last time, Dr. J defying gravity above the rim, Jim Brown trudging back to the huddle. If you’re smart, you take a mental image, the way Picken did. Luminaries like Howe do not come around every day. Part of Howe’s legend is his No. 9. One Ontario kid would never wear it as a professional, choosing instead No. 99 in homage to his boyhood hero. The photo of the powerful Howe poking the blade of his stick into the mop of hair and prominent ears of a young Wayne Gretzky is one of the great relics of their sport, of any sport. Howe is often considered to be the greatest No. 9 in any North American sport (Ted Williams is second in my rankings). Picken has been a steady email correspondent for a decade or so, enriching me about his loves: hockey, Canada, Japan, birds and waterfalls. He is a friend I have never met. With the awe for hockey that Canadians possess as a birthright, Picken recalled spotting Howe in public once, in Hamilton in 1965, while a bystander to an argument over whose greatness was greater: Howe or Maurice Richard. “He was a passenger in a convertible going to Dundas for some banquet,” Picken said. “Amazing, because I was 15 and in the back seat of the car with my father driving with a friend of his. They were, literally, arguing over who was better. He continued: “I looked over and saw Howe. I said, ‘God, there’s Howe in the car next to us.’ They thought I was kidding. ” People talked about Gordie Howe with reverence, long before he died this week at age 88. Sightings of legendary figures either confirm our image of them — or destroy it. The celebrity as primo jerk we all have our stories. “I knew a guy from The Toronto Star who picked him up at Pearson airport in Toronto about 25 years ago for some function,” Picken recalled. “He said Howe was incredible. Humble, appreciative and modest. ” That is the highest praise a Canadian can lavish on a great athlete from the True North Strong and Free. Humble, appreciative and modest — even if he played across the border in Detroit. The mighty right wing was one of the fastest skaters in the league. And he was a good guy. It’s the legend of Gordie Howe. “I bought the ticket well in advance,” Picken continued in his email, “but was having a fit because he’d been hurt — wrist or rib cartilage — and had missed a bunch of games. ” The Red Wings were playing at Buffalo on Dec. 27 and Howe was back, on a line with Alex Delvecchio and Frank Mahovlich. “I saw him do two things I’ve never seen before or since,” Picken said. “He was at the right side of the net on a power play and started to shoot the puck,” Picken recalled. “Joe Daley was in net for the Sabres. Howe saw he couldn’t score because of the angle, so he switched from his shot to his left hand and fired the puck into the far side of the net — . ” Hockey sticks are slightly curved, to enable the player to better control the puck. By suddenly switching grips, from left hand on top to right hand on top, Howe had given up some power and control, but he furnished surprise, as well as coordination and power, backed up by an ability to either skate over a defender or flit around him. Mickey Mantle could bunt. Michael Jordan could flick a pass. Like that. “There was stunned silence, and suddenly the entire crowd went, ‘Oohhhhhh’ at the same time,” Picken recalled of the fans from Buffalo and Ontario. The other play Picken remembered was a penalty kill: “He had the puck and was standing at the blue line. Two Sabres came rushing at him, and he never moved his feet. However, he moved his stick a certain way, and both skated past him. I have no idea what he did. ” Grace and power and will. At 42. The Red Wings lost that game, and a week later were beaten by the Maple Leafs, and eventually finished last in the East Division. Howe played 63 games, had 23 goals and 29 assists, and retired at the end of the season — that is, his first retirement. He rested for two seasons, joined the World Hockey Association for six seasons and then roared back into the N. H. L. for a final season, this time with the Hartford Whalers in and scored 15 goals as he aged from 51 to 52. After that, he was a living icon of his sport, popping up at hockey events — a throwback, an ambassador, carrying the aura of one of the greatest stars, but true to the code of modesty. I recall being at one Stanley Cup finals — Montreal? New Jersey? Philadelphia? — and spotting Howe in a coffee shop, and asking him a few questions while he waited for a spot at the counter. He was a gentleman, although not to the opponents he popped. Some fans like Bruce Picken talk with reverence about Gordie Howe as the greatest hockey player ever. Let’s put it this way: They are entitled. | 0 |
Behind The Shortage Of Special Ed Teachers: Long Hours, Crushing Paperwork
There is a letter that school districts really don't like sending home to parents of special education students. Each state has a different version, but they all begin with something like this:
"Dear Parent, as of the date of this letter your child's teacher is not considered 'highly qualified.' " And then: "This doesn't mean your child's teacher is not capable or effective. It means they haven't met the state standards for teaching in their subject."
In any other subject, that's an annoying problem that suggests students may not be well-served. In special education, it means the school district is breaking the law.
The federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, or IDEA, requires that every student have what's known as an IEP — Individualized Education Program. And almost always, those IEPs spell out that students — either some of the time or all of the time — must be taught by a teacher fully certified in special education.
Yet around the country, that's exactly the category of teacher that's most in demand, as many states and districts are reporting severe shortages.
"This crisis has been coming for a long time," says David Pennington, superintendent of Ponca City public schools in Oklahoma. Many teachers there are nearing retirement and he's not sure he can replace them.
"Forget about replacing them with someone of the same quality," he says. "I'm just worried about replacing them. Period."
Pennington's rural district of 5,300 students northwest of Tulsa has been hit hard by the shortage. He says it's extremely difficult to persuade newer special education teachers to stay beyond two or three years.
"The job is not what they thought it was going to be," Pennington explains. "They feel like they're under a microscope all the time."
On top of the normal demands of teaching, special education teachers face additional pressures: feelings of isolation, fear of lawsuits, and students who demand extra attention. Many are the only special-needs teacher in their grade or their school, or sometimes in the entire district.
And then, there's the seemingly endless paperwork.
"It is not uncommon," Pennington says, "for a special ed teacher to tell me, 'I did not get a degree in special ed to do paperwork. I got a degree to help kids.' "
The IDEA and the IEP require hours and hours of filling out forms and writing reports documenting each student's progress.
"And when do teachers do that paperwork? Sometime during the hours of 3 p.m. to 10 p.m.," says Deborah Ziegler of the Council for Exceptional Children, a special education research and advocacy group. "It's like having two full-time jobs."
So what's the answer? Aggressive recruitment, says Trevor Greene. He's the human resources director of Highline Public Schools, a 19,000-student district south of Seattle.
"Right now it's a buyers' market," he says. "Districts can't afford to wait around for the right candidate." And he's speaking from experience. When Greene started as HR director last July, he had 30 vacancies in special education to fill before school began in September.
"It was pretty ominous at the beginning," he recalls.
Greene reached out on every teacher-recruitment platform he could find. He even tracked applicants down on LinkedIn.
Greene was even able to find certified special education teachers for all of the positions, which has become a rare occurrence. Many districts are able to fill vacancies only by hiring teachers trained in general education who are willing to make the switch to a special education setting.
Betty Olson, the special education administrator for the Boise public schools in Idaho, says she was forced to hire a few general education teachers this year.
As the school year approached she was prepared to send some of her district specialists, former teachers who now train new teachers, back into the classroom to fill vacancies.
It didn't come to that. But she now has the challenge of helping a slew of new teachers adjust to the world of special education.
Olson is getting some help from Boise State University, which has created a new program designed to prepare teachers with little or no experience in special education. Candidates are put on a fast track to complete a master's degree, and they receive one-on-one support as they begin their new career.
Similar programs have popped up around the country. "I'm hopeful things will get better," Olson says.
Other administrators, like Pennington from Oklahoma, are less optimistic.
He believes we're in for a rude awakening. He expects more and more teachers to look at all that responsibility, all that pressure, and conclude that it's not worth it.
And so, he wonders, "What happens when it gets so bad that you literally cannot find anyone to be in charge of a classroom?" | 1 |
BERLIN (Reuters) - A regional parliament has lifted the immunity of the best known politician in the anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, opening the way for prosecutors to pursue possible perjury charges against her. Frauke Petry, who is the AfD s co-chairwoman, has been dogged by allegations that she lied under oath to a committee of the Saxony parliament about how the party s campaign for the 2014 election in the state was financed. The ending of her immunity from prosecution adds to the right-wing party s problems less than four weeks before a national election. Weakened by infighting, it has bled support over the last year as voters concerns about immigration have eased. Prosecutors have pursued the case against Petry, who denies the allegations, for more than a year. Her immunity as a member of the Saxony s parliament ended at midnight, a spokesman for the assembly said. A spokesman for prosecutors in the state capital Dresden said they would await written confirmation of that from the parliament s president before any further proceedings could be agreed upon. The AfD is polling between 7 and 10 percent in opinion surveys - well down from a high of 15.5 percent at the end of 2016 but still clearing the 5-percent threshold needed to enter the federal parliament in the Sept. 24 national election. Petry cuts an increasingly isolated figure in the AfD, which she transformed from an anti-euro party at its founding in 2013 into a group that taps into voters concerns about migration. The party soared in the polls after Chancellor Angela Merkel s decision in 2015 to open Germany s borders to migrants fleeing war and poverty in the Middle East and beyond, of whom more than a million have since arrived. At a party conference in April, Petry suffered a humiliating defeat when delegates refused to discuss her plan to shift the party towards the mainstream. | 0 |
Wakame Seaweed Salad May Lower Blood Pressure VN:F [1.9.22_1171] Close Wakame Seaweed Salad May Lower Blood Pressure
I used to think of seaweed as just a beneficial whole food source of minerals—like iodine, for which it is the most concentrated dietary source. And, indeed, just a half-teaspoon of mild seaweeds, like arame or dulse, or two sheets of nori a day, should net you all the iodine you need for the day.
But, “the intake of seaweeds is advised” not only as a whole food source of iodine, but also, evidently, “for the prevention of lifestyle-related chronic diseases.” Based on what?
Well, you’ll see this kind of reasoning; the Japanese live long, and they eat seaweed. And so, they speculate that seaweed might have something to do with it, based on suggestive reports. But, when you see lists, like this, of all the supposed biological activities some food has, you want to know is this based on clinical data (meaning on actual people) or so-called preclinical data (based on test tubes and lab animals)? When a study like this is published, talking about the “Effects of seaweed-reconstructed pork diets” on rats, what do you do with that information? Seaweed is one of the ingredients they’re trying to use to improve the “image” of meat products. So, they try to add grape seeds, or flax seeds, or walnuts, or purple rice or, whatever this is. I had to look it up: thong-weed. How’s that for an image booster?
You can look at epidemiological studies (meaning looking at populations). And, indeed, Japanese preschoolers who eat seaweed tend to have lower blood pressures, suggesting seaweed might have beneficial effects—which would make sense, given all the minerals and fiber. But, you can’t prove cause and effect with that kind of study. Maybe it was the other components of the diet that went along with the seaweed-eating.
It’s even harder to do these kinds of studies on adults; so many people are on high blood pressure medications. University of Tokyo researchers took an innovative approach by comparing the diets of people on low-dose, versus high-dose, versus multiple blood pressure medications. And, although they all had artificially normalized blood pressure, those that ate the most fruit and sea vegetables tended to be the ones on the lower doses—supporting a dietary role for seaweed. But, why not just put it to the test?
A double-blind crossover trial found that seaweed fiber lowered blood pressure, apparently by pulling sodium out of the system. I know they couldn’t use real seaweed, because then you couldn’t fool people with a placebo; but, why not just, like, put whole powdered seaweed in pills? This was finally attempted, ten years later.
Compared to doing nothing, they got beautiful drops in blood pressure. But, if you look deeper into the study, they desalinized the seaweed—meaning they took out two-thirds of the sodium naturally found in it. So, that still doesn’t tell us if eating seaweed salad is actually going to help with blood pressure. What we need is a randomized controlled trial with just plain, straight seaweed. But, no one had ever done that study—until this study out of Ecuador.
Six grams of wakame, natural sodium and all, led to a significant drop in blood pressure, especially in those who started out high. Side effects were all minor, and what one might expect increasing fiber intake. And, the nice thing about whole food, plant-based interventions is you sometimes get good side effects as well, such as the resolution of gastritis—stomach inflammation that they’d been having—as well as the disappearance of chronic headaches. Close Sources Video Sources
My next video, Salt of the Earth: Sodium and Plant-Based Diets , will further address the sodium question.
Roxy
I’ve read that only asians, for the most part, have the bacteria (macrobiome) to properly digest seaweed. And by properly digest I mean….”to properly breakdown the seaweed to allow usability of the nutrients and such in seaweed.”
Some sort of genetic trait asians have? Evolutionary?
Truth in this? Joe Caner
It would seem that gut flora has more to do with what one eats as opposed to genetic factors. Asian populations are better able to handle seaweed in their diets precisely because they eat more seaweed so their gut flora adapts accordingly:
“Recent studies analyzed the gut flora of people across multiple countries and continents and identified two enterotypes. Enterotypes correlate with our diet and can change as our diet changes. Diets rich in animal protein and saturated fat are associated with the Bacteriodes enterotype, while diets rich in healthy carbohydrates are associated with the Prevotella enterotype.” http://nutritionfacts.org/topics/microbiome/ Roxy
So did the Okinawans have both of these types of enterotypes? How about some of the other cultures (longest lived) that include animal products/fish in their diet? Do they also have a healthy, varied enter type that of both baceriodes and prevotella? Roxy
And, apparently, the seaweed/gut bacteria macrobiome evolved over thousands and thousands of years, unlike, I think, the enteretype issue you are referencing that has more to do with our gut bacteria changing quickly, daily, weekly, due to the diet. Apparently seaweed might be a different issue, and for whatever reason takes a culture thousands of years to adjust. Richard W
Perhaps it is beneficial but, like fish oil, seaweed probably comes with a dose of pollutants too. Roxy
I am curious about all the plastic-residue showing up in fish….and if seaweed would then accumulate these plastics-chemical residues. Ishay
Unfortunately, most natural food will contain at least trace levels of pollutants, even those grown organically in ‘natural’ soil. It doesn’t mean, however, that this is always a palpable cause for concern. Theoretically, even though all seas and oceans are polluted to a degree, sea vegetables are low in the food chain, so there is less bio-accumulation of most contaminants.
The biggest concern in seaweed is inorganic arsenic. Hijiki is known to have high, potentially harmful levels, but moderate consumption of most other sea vegetables, including wakame, shouldn’t pose a significant risk:
I don’t know if seaweed that’s grown in indoor tanks is commercially available (similar to microalgae used for DHA/EPA pills), but that might become a safer alternative one day. Wade Patton
I shared the transcript. nonyabizzz
ok, but the seaweed salad shown obviously has a sizable amount of oil on it, possibly counteracting some of the health benefits…
The frame rate seems off in this video? rjs
small study that hasn’t been replicated (with seaweed that hasn’t been desalinized). Given the high sodium content of commercially available seaweed, I still feel reluctant to try it.
I’m already doing as many lifestyle things as I can to lower my BP such as eating a whole plant vegan diet, restricting sodium, drinking hibiscus tea, consuming fax seeds daily, avoiding BPA, doing daily aerobic exercise, and exercising with hand grips. Anyone have any other ideas? Matthew Smith
Hello! You are doing everything exactly right. Dr. Greger suggests “beans, whole grains, other legumes, beets, beet juice, cocoa, flaxseeds, greens, hibiscus tea, purple potatoes, and the seaweed, wakame,” in his hypertension page. Have you tried Vitamin D and Magnesium (watch out for diarrhea)? How long have you been on a low sodium diet? Since they add Iodine to salt, I have avoided it, and I developed in my opinion low Iodine levels. I had just one half teaspoon of salt and could no longer feel my heartbeat in my chest. I have since fallen in love with some salt. It takes at least a gram of salt a day to be healthy. I love Iodine. Dr. Greger recommends it. Beware of its heart benefits. Doctors say it is ideal to not be able to feel your heartbeat. Perhaps it is Iodine that modulates this. Darryl
Potassium Blood pressure response to changes in sodium and potassium intake: a metaregression analysis of randomised trials
Sodium reduction (median: -1.7 g/d) was associated with a change of -2.54 mmHg in systolic blood pressure…Corresponding values for increased potassium intake (median: +1.7 g/d) was -2.42 mmHg
In the context of a WFPB diet, increasing potassium means favoring tubers and beans over cereal grains as staple calories, more greens & tomatoes, and using “lite-salt” (50/50 mix KCl & NaCl) where possible. I mail-order sun-dried tomatoes (the most concentrated potassium source) in bulk, and they’re my main “dried fruit”. Previous Video | 1 |
One thing I often hear in the wake of these endless mass shootings is, "Surely this will convince those gun people. Surely the carnage and suffering are bad enough now that they'll feel compelled to support some gun control."
This betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of the cognitive and emotional dynamics at work. It presumes that mass shootings constitute an argument against guns, to be weighed against arguments in their favor. But to gun enthusiasts, mass shootings are not arguments against guns but for them. The rise in mass shootings is only convincing both sides that they're right, causing them to dig in further.
It's not even clear that opinions on guns and gun violence remain amenable to argument. Over the past few decades, gun ownership in the US has evolved from a practical issue for rural homeowners and hunters to a kind of gesture of tribal solidarity, an act of defiance toward Obama, the left, and all the changes they represent. The gun lobby has become more hardened and uncompromising, pushing guns into schools, churches, and universities.
This has taken place in the context of a broader and deeper polarization of the country, as Red America and Blue America have become more ideologically homogeneous and distant from one another. The two sides are now composed of people who quite literally think and feel differently — and are less and less able to communicate. The gun issue is a salient example, but far from the only one.
This suggests that if the status quo on guns in the US is to change, it will be through overwhelming political force, not through evidence and argument. Guns have now ascended to the level of worldview and identity, areas largely beyond the reach of persuasion.
For years, an accumulating body of psychological and social scientific research has shown that, as Chris Mooney summarized in an article last year, "liberals and conservatives disagree about politics in part because they are different people at the level of personality, psychology, and even traits like physiology and genetics." (Mooney later gathered that research in his somewhat unfortunately titled book The Republican Brain.)
Mooney quotes psychologist John Jost and colleagues, writing in Behavioral and Brain Sciences:
So, different how?
Jost and colleagues were responding positively to this paper by the University of Nebraska's John Hibbing, which argues, based on a series of experiments, that conservatives display a strong "negativity bias":
Other research has traced this effect in part to the physiological level, finding that conservatives have larger right amygdalae. (The amygdala is a cluster of neurons in the brain's medial temporal lobe thought to regulate basic pleasure and fear responses; many psychological conditions, including anxiety and PTSD, have been traced to abnormal functioning of the amygdala.)
Heightened sensitivity to negative stimuli can mean a propensity for anxiety, fear, and occasionally alarm. If fear threatens loss of control, many traits common to conservatives can be seen as efforts to reassert control. As Jost and colleagues summarize: "Research consistently finds that conservatism is positively associated with heightened epistemic concerns for order, structure, closure, certainty, consistency, simplicity, and familiarity, as well as existential concerns such as perceptions of danger, sensitivity to threat, and death anxiety."
Another way of framing the differences is in terms of the five-factor model, a set of five core personality traits many psychologists use for assessment: openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism.
As Mark Mellman wrote earlier this week, liberals and conservatives consistently differ on a few of these traits. Liberals are more open to new experiences, novelty and disruption; conservatives prefer stability and the status quo. Liberals are more tolerant of mess, ambiguity, and uncertainty; conservatives prefer tidiness, clarity, and certainty.
Yet another way to frame the difference: Yale psychologist Dan Kahan, whose cultural cognition work Ezra has written about before, divides worldviews along two dimensions, hierarchical vs. egalitarian and individualist vs. communitarian. This creates a four-quadrant space; conservatives are hierarchical-individualists.
These differences can help inform our understanding of current US politics, but first we should head off a few misunderstandings.
Talking about deep personality differences is a sensitive business and inevitably draws some anger. So it's worth clarifying a few things.
All these conservative tendencies put together and pushed to the extreme amount to authoritarianism. The liberal inverse amounts to a kind of drifting libertinism. In practice, very few people lie at the far ends of the bell-curve distribution. Most people are somewhere closer to the middle, an idiosyncratic mix.
What's more, different aspects of personality can be elicited by different circumstances, at different times, around different people. In times of peace and growth, there's a drift toward liberalism. Fear and crisis tend to push everyone the other direction, to shrink boundaries of concern and heighten in-group/out-group sensitivity. So liberal and conservative traits are not static, at the group level or within an individual.
Everyone is unique. No individual is predicted or explained by this research. These are general tendencies, heuristics, fluid and context-sensitive.
Whichever of these personality traits, or clusters of traits, you might prefer, the research itself does not characterize any as better or worse. It's easy to imagine circumstances in which sensitivity to threat and commitment to stability are valuable and others in which risk-taking and innovation are valuable. And it's likely valuable to have a mix, a balance, no matter the circumstances.
As Mooney is at pains to emphasize in his book, personality does not dictate ideology. There's no law of nature that conservatives are confined to the political right. The 20th century offers no shortage of authoritarian leftists. When the political left dominates the political order, those prone to defending the status quo will tend to be leftists.
There was a period in the mid-20th century US when liberals and conservatives were somewhat more evenly distributed across the parties — there were conservative Democrats and liberal Republicans. But the past four or five decades have seen a slow (lately accelerating) process of polarization. Americans have sorted themselves: Almost all liberals are now Democrats; almost all conservatives are now Republicans. In Congress, the leftmost Republican is to the right of the rightmost Democrat.
Let us imagine, then, a conservative gun owner — an older white gentleman, let's say, in his 50s, living in the Rust Belt somewhere. When he was growing up, there was living memory of a familiar order: men working in honorable trade or manufacturing jobs, women tending home and children, Sundays at church, hard work yielding a steady rise up the ladder to a well-earned house, yard, and car.
That order was crumbling just as our gun owner inherited it. The honorable jobs are gone, or going. It's hell to find work, benefits are for shit, and there isn't much put aside for retirement. The kids are struggling with debt and low-paying jobs. They know, and our gun owner knows, that they probably aren't going to have a better life than he did — that the very core of the American promise has proven false for them, for the first time in generations.
It's a bitter, helpless feeling. And for someone naturally attuned to "order, structure, closure, certainty, consistency, simplicity, and familiarity," it's scary. The role he thought he was meant to play in the world, the privileges and respect that came along with it, have been thrown into doubt. Everything is shifting under his feet.
Over the last few years, our gun owner has found a whole network of TV channels, radio shows, books, blogs, and Facebook groups that speak directly to his unease. They understand the world he heard about from his father and grandfather, the world that's being lost; they understand the urgency of saving what's left of it.
Most of all, with his already heightened sensitivity to threat further aggravated by economic uncertainty, they finally help him see who's to blame. They show him the immigrants crowding in, using up jobs and benefits that were promised to American workers. They show him minorities demanding handouts that are paid for with his taxes, even as they riot, even as they kill each other and the police. The show him terrorists making a mockery of weak American leadership. They show him elitist liberals, professors and entertainers, disdaining his values and mocking his religion.
And it is such a relief, to finally put a face to all the ambient dread, to have some clarity again, to know who the good guys and bad guys are. Our gun owner is a good guy, thankfully, from the kind of self-reliant stock that settled this country.
It seems like America's decline is a done deal, that the tide of liberal rot is unstoppable. But the one place he knows he can draw the line is at his door, on his private property, because he has a gun. He can defend his own. If the minorities riot again, or immigrant criminals move in nearby, or terrorists attack, or some wackjob goes on a shooting spree, or Obama comes for his guns ... well, that's what the guns are for. He's given up a lot, but he won't give up his autonomy or the safety of his family. He'll defend that to the end.
To our gun owner, another mass shooting is not an argument for getting rid of guns. It's a confirmation of his every instinct, another sign of moral and societal decay, another reason to arm himself and defend what he's got left.
You can tell him about Canada and Australia until you're blue in the face — the lower rate of gun deaths, the hunting exemptions, the seemingly intact freedoms. You can cite high popular support for restrictions on gun and ammunition sales. You can tell him that not every incremental tightening of standards is a slippery slope, that no one wants to confiscate his guns.
But you're just another self-righteous liberal on another self-righteous crusade, too blind or stupid to see how governments always use people like you to disarm their citizenry. You've taken enough — of his taxes, his freedoms, his culture. He won't give you any more.
A cherished myth of American politics (indeed, of democracy generally) is that it's fundamentally about persuasion, the contest of ideas. But in a political system already biased against action, in which members of both parties are becoming more ideologically and even psychologically distant, persuasion on issues that activate tribal identities is all but impossible. Our gun owner is not going to change his mind; everything gun control proponents consider evidence for their side, he considers evidence for his. The differences run deeper than evidence.
If there are ever to be gun laws passed in the US, any kind of policy response to the rising tide of mass shootings, it will be because the people who want it amass the political power to overwhelm the power of the gun lobby. It will be because they organize and deploy more intensity, money, and votes than their opponents. More mass shootings are not going to do the job for them. | 1 |
#DraftOurDaughters: Feminist Hillary Supporters Vow To Fight War With Russia For Us
Eric Striker October 28, 2016 Liberated af
Women have come a long way since the sexual revolution. Through subsidization and affirmative action that makes up centuries of mean-spirited discrimination, they’ve shown their grit in a number of fields the Old Boys Club never thought possible. They’ve blown past the fitness tests which lives hinge on as firefighters , they demonstrate amazing coolness and discipline as police officers , and have become billionaires revolutionizing blood work as we know it.
Anything you can do, women can do better! I don’t know why men even exist anymore!
A majority of women are, according to most polls, hopeful that they will be able to push new frontiers by electing the first female president of the United States. And while the Patriarchy has in the past asserted that a world run by women would essentially mean world peace, sexist bigots will be proven wrong if Hillary takes office and makes good on her promise to start a nuclear war with Russia over Syria for no coherent reason. Gen X and single women, who are too confident and smart for any man to want to marry, are the biggest Hil fanatics.
Rawwrrr, come turn off this Pussy Riot, Putin!
Yet, even with all this progress, there’s still one last He-Man Woman-Hater’s club that looks down on women from their glass ceiling, hogging up all the glory for themselves. Did I say glass ceiling? I meant grass floor: Mmmm , Man Tears
The only place in modern American culture where you will see a white male portrayed with dignity, honor and pride is in military recruitment ads. In these ads, the black man is shown at best as a white man’s equal, rather than as a smarter, better-looking, more masculine superior, in contrast to many movies, TV shows and most commercials. In the last Iraq War, white privilege and racism meant that in our very diverse country, non-Jewish white males were overrepresented among fatalities, and are heavily over represented in frontline and infantry roles.
While Neo-conservative (((Jennifer Rubin))) and others of her (((ilk))) dedicate their columns to mocking, attacking and threatening white males based on nothing but who you are, the mange-inflicted yentl buckles at the knees when you put on that uniform and die in one of the many wars she pushes for.
Get it through your thick skull you racist, privileged, baby-dicked white boy goyim: the only thing you’re good for is to fight for Israel!
In light of this institutional patriarchy and privilege, #DraftOurDaughters has emerged to raise consciousness. This social media campaign is composed of Hillary Clinton’s coalition of non-whites and women – shut out of military combat roles by worthless racist rednecks – eager to make her dream of a World War with an emerging and more advanced superpower come true.
We need women, blacks, Mexicans, and especially Jews (.02% of the US military while 2% of the US population) to come on in. Women especially, who have been shut out of Selective Service for the draft, should be given priority over men when the draft comes in order to mitigate decades of discrimination.
Here are some of the memes already floating around. #DraftOurDaughters is grassroots progress Martin Luther King Jr. (Peace Be Upon Him) would be proud of. I encourage you to make your own and put them up on Twitter, we’ll show that rude bigot Vladimir Putin what the New America can do: | 1 |
Donald Trump s spokeswoman Katrina Pierson went on national television to try and validate and justify Trump s comments about Muslims hating Americans. This time however, she was schooled by Muslim journalist Dean Obeidallah.During the interview, Pierson labeled the culture of Islam as the problem and referenced polls in some Muslim countries that showed a distaste for America. However, Obeidallah pointed out that her information is misleading because Indonesia, which is the largest Muslim country in the world, has a more favorable view of the United States than Germany and if a Muslim country has an unfavorable view of America, it s because of U.S. foreign policy and not some congenital hatred for the United States.For example, Pierson cited that polls show that the Palestinian Territories, the majority of whose inhabitants are Muslim, have an unfavorable view of the United States. While this is true, it s because when Palestinian civilians are tear gassed, gunned down in the streets, or bombed from the air, it s with US made weapons it gives to Israel. If the Palestinians were majority Christian or Jewish, they would still have an unfavorable view of the United States.Watch Here:[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuMKCqgm0Gg]Obeidallah also fired back at Pierson and Trump s idiocy by pointing to Trump s business dealings in Muslim countries. He said: Let s be honest. Donald Trump says here in America, Islam hates us. Then he goes to Dubai and does multi-million dollar business deals. Donald Trump loves Muslims when he s making money with them. He loves you when he s making money and demonizes you when he s getting votes. He s a despicable hypocrite. A special kind of hypocrite. There are many more proud and capable Muslim Americans like Dean Obeidallah in the united States and it would be great if we continue to see them on national television to rip apart the racists in our midst. Featured image via video screenshot. | 0 |
Google "Donald Trump, pedophile" | 1 |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court sided with the Obama administration on Thursday in rebuffing a bid by 20 states to halt an Environmental Protection Agency rule to curb emissions of mercury and other toxic pollutants from power plants. The action came about a month after the high court put on hold federal regulations to curb carbon dioxide emissions mainly from coal-fired power plants, the centerpiece of President Barack Obama’s strategy to combat climate change. Chief Justice John Roberts denied a petition made last week by the states, led by Michigan, to put the rule on hold after a federal appeals court decided in December to leave it intact while the EPA reassessed costs of implementing the regulation. The states had argued that a stay was necessary because the Supreme Court had “already held that the finding on which the rule rests is unlawful and beyond the EPA’s statutory authority.” The Supreme Court ruled last June that the EPA should have considered compliance costs when it decided to limit emissions of mercury and other hazardous air pollutants mainly from coal-fired power plants, and returned the case to the appeals court. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit subsequently said the regulations could remain in place while the government responds to the high court’s June ruling. The appeals court gave the EPA until April 15 to come up with compliance costs. The EPA rule, which went into effect last April, applies to about 1,400 electricity-generating units at 600 power plants. Many are already in compliance. EPA spokeswoman Melissa Harrison said the agency was “very pleased” with Roberts’ action, noting that power plants are the largest source of mercury pollution in the United States. “These practical and achievable standards cut harmful pollution from power plants, saving thousands of lives each year and preventing heart and asthma attacks,” Harrison said. Environmental groups and 15 other states that had asked the court to reject the stay request applauded Roberts’ action and called on the attorneys general in the group of states led by Michigan to end their legal challenge to the rule. The rule is “safeguarding millions of American children from poisons such as mercury, arsenic and acid gases,” said Vickie Patton, general counsel for the Environmental Defense Fund anti-pollution advocacy group, a party to the case. | 0 |
Ben Carson is having a really bad week. He s had a lot of bad weeks recently, but this one is particularly bad.The last Republican debate was considered Carson s do or die moment and he died unambiguously while we all watched. The once rising star of the 2016 election went out, not with a bang, but with a characteristic whisper. A soft, monotone word salad. His trademark. By the end of the night, Carson was misquoting the preamble to the Constitution and perhaps slowly realizing that this would be the last time many people would ever remember he ever had run for president at all.The very next day, while Carson slept off his post-relevancy hangover and waited to come in 6th in Iowa, his campaign chairman Robert Dees was talking to reporters. Normally this would be a good thing, but Dees happens to be a raging homophobe and the questions happened to be about gay soldiers.Speaking with radio host Alan Colmes, Dees was insistent that gay people cannot be allowed to be open about their sexual orientation or risk destroying the entire military. Well the ultimate test for military effectiveness is readiness, it s cohesion, and anything that detracts from that is important. Dr. Carson often says it s important for people to have rights in accordance with life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness in the U.S. Constitution, but no particular group ought to have extra rights. Why would the right to be yourself be considered an extra right? Dees explains: Where the extra rights come in is when the gays in the military become somewhat militaristic to the detriment of unit cohesion, he said.Dees added that a question to be considered in determining policy toward gay people in the military was, whether they, in the military, flaunt it and disrupt cohesion. Heaven forbid soldiers become too militaristic in the military. However, Dees was not talking about fighting. He was worried that gay people would use their secret weapon: Flaunting their gayness.What makes Dees statements so cringeworthy is that he isn t just an idiot, he s an idiot who used to be a general in the military. As such, he might have bothered to read up on the military s own research into how gay people effect a unit s cohesion. All the way back in 2010, the Pentagon was telling the president and the nation that repealing don t ask, don t tell and letting gay people serve openly did nothing but bring the military in line with where the country already was. The general lesson we take from transformational experiences in history is that in matters of personnel change within the military, predictions and surveys tend to overestimate negative consequences, and underestimate the U.S. military s ability to adapt and incorporate within it ranks the diversity that is reflective of American society at large, the report concluded.Going further:This report confirms that by every measure from unit cohesion to recruitment and retention to family readiness we can transition to a new policy in a responsible manner that ensures our military strength and national security, Obama said in a written statement.Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and the Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen were also strongly in favor of dropping the ludicrous DADT policy. Since its dissolution, the military hasn t crumbled. Nobody is flaunting anything. The military continues to be one of the strongest and best trained fighting forces in the world.Dees is certainly living in a fantasy world, but it s hard to expect much who decided to ride Ben Carson s coat tails all the way to a massive loss in the very first primary and an inevitable campaign suspension. Carson s track record on talking about gay Americans isn t much better. During his brief moment in the national spotlight, he once floated the idea that prison rape turns people gay.Much of Carson s campaign has been predicated on the idea that he is above the fray. He s consistently pleaded with his fellow candidates and the nation more generally to stop the mudslinging. It s an admirable goal which happens to be total malarkey. Carson has never had a problem with going after liberals , gay people , Muslims , or any other group he feels doesn t align with his worldview. Gay people can t serve in the military. Muslims can t be president. Liberals can t well do anything.In the end, the only group of people who seem safe in Carson s America are conservative Christians like himself. How brave.Feature image via Fox News screengrab | 0 |
Pandering is what Hillary does best. First it was the black vote with her meeting with Al Sharpton and now it s the Latino vote in Nevada. This is such a dog and pony show! None of this matters if Hillary still wins the super delegates. At least Bill gets to have fun Hillary Clinton s campaign has received a much needed shot of glamour with actresses America Ferrera and Eva Longoria speaking at her final pre-caucus rally as Clinton made a last ditch bid to secure Nevada s Latino vote. With just hours to go before the state becomes the first in the west to caucus for the Democrats, and polls showing Clinton in a statistical tie with Bernie Sanders, the Latino vote has become the key demographic to win, making up 27.8 percent of the state s population. America Ferrera, 31, was the first to speak to the crowd of more than 600 supporters who had gathered on the grass of Clark County Government Center Amphitheater on the chill February evening.Flanked by a suitably diverse blend of loyalists spanning every demographic and invited to sit square in the line of cameras there to record the event, America asked: Who s ready for Hillary? I am so ready for Hillary. In comments designed to rebut criticisms that the campaign has notably failed to connect with young voters or convince others that Hillary possesses warmth and likability, America said: I m a millennial, female voter and I m not only for Hillary but really like Hillary. She s the kind of person I want to share a bottle of wine with. I really heart Hillary I d like to Netflix and chill with her. Maybe because I am an American Latina who has experienced first hand the kind of inequities Hillary has spent her career trying to fix. She continued: Hillary stood with Latinos even before the Latino vote was desirable. Read more: Daily Mail | 1 |
Wikileaks released an email from Center for American Progress President Neera Tanden, coaching Hillary on how to best gain the trust of the Black community by going directly to the victims being held up by Black Lives Matter movement as heroes, and faking empathy with the parents. She also mentions it would be a good idea to use the idea that their grief should be magnified because it happened at the hands of law enforcement officers (the state). The email was forwarded by Jen Palmieri who is the same person who was busted criticizing Catholics. Karen Finney, Hiilary s Senior Advisor for Communications and Political Outreach, & Senior Spokesperson for Hillary for America was also copied on the suggestion about how to fake concern for parents of Black Lives Matter victims.Here is an excerpt from the Wikileaks email:Hillary clearly took her advice, as she can been seen milking her phony support for mother s of Black Lives Matter victims by giving them a chance to appear at the DNC as her special guests to chant :Ever the actress, here s Hillary appealing to the black community with her newfound black dialect: | 1 |
There was a heavy push and big-time lobbying from G7 leaders but President Trump said no to endorsing the Paris Climate Agreement. We hope this means another nail in the coffin of Obama s legacy. Obama set America up to pay a fortune to other nations in this MAJOR boondoggle of a redistribution of wealth to other nations. American taxpayers DO NOT want to pay for this!Trump has stated in the past that he would like to renegotiate the deal but we think he needs to get out of it. He tweeted he ll make his decision next week after saying that the discussion on climate was very unsatisfying : Whole Discussion on climate was very unsatisfying #Merkel says after #G7taormina. No indication whether US will stay in #ParisAgreement . pic.twitter.com/n1BH3LqB6U Maximilian Hofmann (@maxhofmann) May 27, 2017Even better, Trump s decision upset world leaders like German Chancellor Angela Merkel, desperate to convince the president of the agreement s merits. The Paris deal isn t just any other deal. It is a key agreement that shapes today s globalization, Merkel said, describing discussions with Trump about climate change very unsatisfying. Merkel doesn t understand that globalization is exactly why we don t like this boondoggle!For opponents of the agreement, the decision is a welcome development after the president s economic adviser, Gary Cohn, told reporters that Trump was evolving on the issue. Trump needs to evolve his way OUT of this agreement . PULL OUT!Read more: Breitbart | 1 |
Carly Fiorina has joined the ranks of the biggest hypocrites of all time. Joining the likes of Josh Duggar, Sarah Palin and Kim Davis, Fiorina has committed the ultimate of egregious errors: She worked for a company that profited from fetal stem cell research.In a scathing report from Al Jazeera America, Fiorina was exposed for collecting some $83000 working for a major pharmaceutical company:Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina, a staunch opponent of abortion, made at least $83,000 serving on the board of directors of Merck & Co. at a time when the pharmaceutical company was producing vaccines using fetal stem cell lines derived from aborted fetuses, according to corporate documents reviewed by Al Jazeera America. The program Inside Story with Ray Suarez also obtained documents indicating that during Fiorina s tenure on the board, anti-abortion groups had asked Merck to stop producing such vaccines, and that the company had refused.How can someone be so openly pro-life and still cash a check earned at least in part by the use of fetal tissue? That s easy: She s a Republican. Republicans live by a different code. All things American should follow the constitution, unless it s something they don t like. They cherry-pick parts of the First Amendment to ignore. They ignore the 14th Amendment altogether. They don t recognize the power of the Supreme Court under article 3 section 2 unless you re talking about Hobby Lobby or Citizen s United.Carly Fiorina touts herself as a candidate from outside of the establishment. Sure she is. She s a multi-millionaire former CEO who will look directly into the camera and lie to our faces. She destroyed people s lives at Hewlett-Packard and refuses to take responsibility for it. She answers the bulk of questions she s asked with Hillary Clinton emails. She s exactly what the GOP loves to see. She fits in rather perfectly with the likes of Jeb Bush, Chris Christie and John Kasich.Here she is at GOP debate Thursday night talking about just how much she loves those precious little fetuses and doubling down on her lies: Featured image by Gage Skidmore | 1 |
Good Morning Britain viewers have been left baffled by pop diva Mariah Carey s appearance on Monday s installment following the breaking news of a shooting in Las Vegas.The 47-year-old hitmaker was due to chat to host Piers Morgan and Susanna Reid about her upcoming Christmas shows in London and Paris before news broke about the shocking incident at the Route 91 Harvest Music Festival which so far has claimed the lives of 50 people and left more than 400 injured.Appearing in a live feed from her Beverly Hills home, Mariah was seen stretched out across a chaise longue in a red gown as the British TV presenters asked her about the attack near the Mandalay Bay Resort and Hotel.The Grammy award-winning singer is no stranger to the world-renowned Vegas strip, having held residency at Caesars Palace s the Colosseum in recent years.Despite admitting she didn t know enough about the attack, Mariah shared her condolences to all who were affected.Following the interview, GMB s Piers took to social media to explain that Mariah s reps knew that they would ask her about the horrific attack.Writing to his 6.12million followers, he retweeted a comment that criticized the interview and added: We told Mariah s people before the interview. Her reaction seemed very relevant given she s a performer who often resides in Vegas. Daily MailAlthough fans have come to expect that whenever Mariah is being interviewed, that she will make her viewers uncomfortable, this latest interview with Piers Morgan has created a bit of a social media meltdown. Social media users couldn t get over how Mariah was draped across the sofa like she was posing for a glamorous magazine shoot during the morning talk show. It was the CHRISTMAS tree in the background, however, that had everyone really questioning her sanity. Piers Morgan cleared up the confusion about the Christmas tree when he told viewers that, Mariah was booked to do an interview about her UK Christmas tour. So without addressing the elephant or Christmas tree if you will, in the room, Morgan was able to explain (kind of) why Mariah Carey was propped up on her couch with a lighted Christmas tree behind her during the first official week of fall | 0 |
ERBIL, Iraq (Reuters) - Iraqi Kurdish leader and ex-Iraqi president Jalal Talabani died on Tuesday at age 83, Iraqi state TV said, a week after Iraq s autonomous Kurdish region held a referendum on independence. Talabani, a veteran leader of the Kurdish struggle for self-determination, stepped down as president in 2014, after a long period of treatment following a stroke in 2012. Talabani died in Germany, according to Erbil-based Rudaw TV, which reported earlier in the day that his health had deteriorated. He often went to Germany for medical treatment. His wife and companion in political struggle, Hero, and his Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) party voiced only lukewarm support for the Sept. 25 referendum that delivered an overwhelming yes to secession from Iraq. Unlike Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) leader Massoud Barzani of the rival Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP), the PUK has had traditionally good ties with Iran and Iranian-backed Shi ite groups which are effectively ruling in Baghdad. The Baghdad government, Iran and Turkey all strongly opposed the referendum. Talabani was born near Erbil, now the seat of the autonomous KRG in northern Iraq, in 1933. He lived in Sulaimaniya, a stronghold of his PUK, the main rival of Barzani s KDP. He was the first non-Arab president of Iraq, elected in 2005, two years after the U.S.-led invasion that toppled dictator Saddam Hussein, a Sunni Arab. Fuad Masoum, a Kurd from the PUK, replaced Talabani in the Iraqi presidency, a largely ceremonial post in the political system established after Saddam s overthrow that concentrates power in the hand of the prime minister, now Haider al-Abadi, an Arab Shi ite Muslim. One of Talabani s sons, Qubad, is the current deputy prime minister of the autonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq. | 1 |
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Buzz Cuts:
• Trump advisors try to pivot not fishtail
• Indiana shaping up as do or die for Cruz
• What happened to working man’s liberalism?
• Pro-Clinton PAC spends $1 million to fight online trolling
• 10-point score
TRUMP ADVISORS TRY TO PIVOT NOT FISHTAIL
HOLLYWOOD, FLA. – It’s a fine line between a general election shift and the dreaded ‘Etch A Sketch.’
Donald Trump’s supporters give him broad latitude on issues and even his promise of an attitudinal change. For example, his suggestion that the Republicans should become a pro-choice party likely wrinkled few brows among his core supporters.
The idea that Trump would change his attitude and approach along with his opinions wouldn’t trouble many who have faith in him as a man and a leader. For those who believe the Trump is the only person who can make America great again, putting on a new guise for the general election would be nothing troubling.
Remember, these are people who believe him when he describes himself as the new Reagan and the person more presidential than anybody since Lincoln.
But can Trump create a habitat that is healthy for both his backers and the kinds of folks that his newly expanded campaign are schmoozing here in Hollywood without further antagonizing the substantial chunk of his party that ranges from resentful to outright outraged about Trump’s surprising success in overtaking the GOP?
Trump had a very good day here Thursday. Aside from turning back a Rules Committee vote that might’ve helped Sen. Ted Cruz win a floor fight at the convention, delegates and other members of the establishment were very impressed by Trump’s campaign’s effort to start sucking up to them.
Promises of Trump’s flexibility when served alongside seafood platters and open bars from his new K Street handlers went a long way toward convincing the GOP elite that Trump is ready to play ball.
Little could be more comforting to them than the pledge from Trump’s campaign boss that the wildness of the frontrunner to this point has been a put on.
Consultants and party elders are not uncomfortable with the idea of tricking rubes or profit and or patriotism. And for those facing general election oblivion, anything that sounds like avoiding a savage showdown in Cleveland and not losing the general election by 40 states sounds good.
But even if Trump and his new handlers can keep the GOP elite and his existing populist base happy, the current maneuvers do pose a risk.
The most important thing for the Republican frontrunner right now is for his detractors and enemies on the conservative side of the party to just give up.
There are enough Republicans who loathe Trump to still stop him. But they have to go vote and they have to be willing to blow up their conventions to do it.
When Trump’s new Sherpa suggests that it has all been a fake so far, that gives new cause for alarm to the conservatives who already deeply mistrust Trump and see him as more of a Democrat than Republican.
All Trump needs in order to win is for the resistance to just lay down for a couple of weeks. When they wake up it will all be over.
But if Trump starts fishtailing in his turn towards conventionality it will reinvigorate the #NeverTrump movement.
It’s great to suck up to the party, even belatedly, but doing in such a transparent manner could be hazardous to Trump’s nomination.
[GOP delegate count: Trump 845; Cruz 559; Kasich 147 (1,237 needed to win)]
Fox News Sunday: Trump’s new man - Mr. Sunday sits down with the Trump campaign’s new boss, Paul Manafort, to discuss the latest campaign news on the heels of the RNC’s spring meeting. “Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace” airs at 2 p.m. and 6 p.m. ET on the Fox News Channel. Check local listings for broadcast times in your area.
Indiana shaping up as do or die for Cruz - RCP: “Due to a dearth of public polling in Indiana, however, it’s not clear how large Cruz’s advantage might be, if he indeed has one. One recent private poll not affiliated with any of the presidential campaigns showed Cruz leading in two congressional districts, Kasich in one, and Trump dominating in two more. Three other congressional districts, meanwhile, showed Cruz and Kasich essentially tied…Although there are just 57 delegates at stake in Indiana, the contest is one of the few remaining wild cards on the primary map. If Cruz or Kasich do not win, the Republican race could quickly spiral out of their control. If Trump does not win Indiana, however, his delegate math becomes exceedingly difficult to win the nomination before Cleveland.”
Unpacking Trump’s health proposal - Health care policy expert, James Capretta, points out the flaws in Trump’s health care plan proposal: “Trump has said he wants to get rid of the entirety of the [Affordable Care Act], including subsidies for health insurance and its expansion of Medicaid. What does he propose instead to boost enrollment in health insurance by lower-income households? Essentially nothing.”
[Watch Fox: On Sunday, Martha MacCallum and Bill Hemmer host a town hall in Philadelphia with voters ahead of the crucial Pennsylvania primary. Tune in at 8 p.m. ET]
WITH YOUR SECOND CUP OF COFFEE…
The passing of legendary pop star Prince on Thursday rocked the music industry in a way not seen since the passing of Michael Jackson. But the music revolutionary also had another passion in his life, one that Charlie Murphy was surprised by: Prince’s love of basketball. Time: “Back in October, Prince unexpectedly showed up to Target Center in Minneapolis to watch the fifth and deciding game the WNBA Finals, between the Lynx and the Indiana Fever. The Lynx won, 69-52, to clinch the series. The pop icon…approached a Lynx staffer with an incredible offer. The players, plus a guest, were invited to his Paisley Park compound for a private concert…He played ‘Purple Rain,’ ‘When Doves Cry,’ ‘1999,’ and some new stuff. He played different instruments throughout the evening — guitar, keyboards, drums. He played until 4 am; a few Lynx players and coaches danced on stage.”
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POLL CHECK
Real Clear Politics Averages
National GOP nomination: Trump 40.4 percent; Cruz 30.6 percent; Kasich 21.8 percent
National Dem nomination: Clinton 47.7 percent; Sanders 46.3 percent
General Election: Clinton vs. Trump: Clinton +9.3 points
Generic Congressional Vote: Democrats +1
WHAT HAPPENED TO WORKING MAN’S LIBERALISM?
Vox’s Emmet Rensin takes a deep dive into a concept he dubs “smug style” liberalism in America and how the political concept changed from an ideology of the working class to that of the elite. How did this happen and what has the smug style done to American liberalism? This lengthy piece goes into the origins and results of the shift in American political thought:
“The smug style is a psychological reaction to a profound shift in American political demography. Beginning in the middle of the 20th century, the working class, once the core of the coalition, began abandoning the Democratic Party…In 1964, it was 55 percent of working-class voters. By 1980, it was 35 percent…The smug recognize one another by their mutual knowing…It is the smug style’s first premise: a politics defined by a command of the Correct Facts and signaled by an allegiance to the Correct Culture…So long as liberals cannot find common cause with the larger section of the American working class, they will search for reasons to justify that failure. They will resent them. They will find, over and over, how easy it is to justify abandoning them further. They will choose the smug style.”
Pro-Clinton PAC spends $1 million to fight online trolling - Daily Beast: “Citing ‘lessons learned from online engagement with ‘Bernie Bros,’ a pro-Hillary Clinton Super PAC is pledging to spend $1 million to ‘push back against’ users on Twitter, Facebook, Reddit and Instagram. Correct the Record’s ‘Barrier Breakers’ project boasts in a press release that it has already ‘addressed more than 5,000 people that have personally attacked Hillary Clinton on Twitter.’ The PAC released this on Thursday.”
Democrats shift from protecting to adjusting Obamacare - National Journal: “In interviews, Senate Democrats pointed to items like sorting out the ‘Cadillac tax,’ building on delivery-system reforms, making sure states are afforded flexibility in the law, and more. The Democratic presidential front-runner, Hillary Clinton, has based her own health platform on protecting and building on the Affordable Care Act. Her proposals include adding a new tax credit to help with excessive out-of-pocket medical costs, capping monthly prescription-drug costs, and allowing three free sick visits per year, to name a few.”
#mediabuzz - Martha MacCallum and Bill Hemmer talk with host Howard Kurtz ahead of their Sunday town hall with voters in Philadelphia. Watch Sunday at 11 a.m. ET, with a second airing at 5 p.m.
[Dem delegate count: Clinton 1893; Sanders 1180 (2,383 needed to win)]
10-POINT SCORE
BBC: “Tom Lo, 17, has told Newsbeat that he was about 10 minutes into the test when [a deer] ran across a road right in front of his car. ‘I was picking up speed because it was a 60mph zone and all of a sudden I see a deer in front of me…So I hit my brake but unfortunately the deer was killed,’ he says. It happened on a road near Colchester [England]. ‘I pulled over after the incident and my driving instructor had a look at the car and checked the deer…‘He said there was nothing we could do and that it wasn’t my fault, so I was told to continue my test.’ Amazingly, Tom passed the driving test with two minor faults.”
AND NOW A WORD FROM CHARLES…
“I mean do we really have an epidemic of transgenders being evil in bathrooms across the country? I haven’t heard of a single case…This is a very small problem at the edges of the other problem having to do with gender identity that’s become national precisely because Republicans of North Carolina decided it was a problem.” – Charles Krauthammer on “Special Report with Bret Baier”
Chris Stirewalt is digital politics editor for Fox News. Sally Persons contributed to this report. Want FOX News First in your inbox every day? Sign up here.
Chris Stirewalt joined Fox News Channel (FNC) in July of 2010 and serves as digital politics editor based in Washington, D.C. Additionally, he authors the daily "Fox News First" political news note and hosts "Power Play," a feature video series, on FoxNews.com. Stirewalt makes frequent appearances on the network, including "The Kelly File," "Special Report with Bret Baier," and "Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace." He also provides expert political analysis for Fox News coverage of state, congressional and presidential elections. | 0 |
President Donald Trump’s immediate 2017 budget request will fund the first 62 miles of border walls and fences, pending the appropriation of more funds in late 2017 for additional construction in 2018, says a report from CNN. [According to CNN, ” The [2017] money will fund 14 miles of new border wall in San Diego, 28 miles of new levee wall barriers and six miles of new border wall in the Rio Grande Valley region and 14 miles of replacement fencing in San Diego. ” CNN’s report does not say how much of the $1 billion planned for extra spending in early 2017 would be allocated to planning and construction of the border fence, which is expected to stretch along much of the nation’s border. The fence or wall is expected to annually save tens of billions of dollars in reduced spending on illegals and also on offsetting the impact of illegal immigrants. Already, according to CNN, the administration’s budget “documents also claim that Trump’s executive orders on immigration enforcement are already having an effect, saying arrests are up 50% charges are up 40% and requests to detain arrested individuals who are deportable are up 80%. ” Trump’s new budget plans also call for an extra $2. 6 billion in spending for 2018 to improve border security and construction. Top Democratic leaders, including the Democrats’ Senate leader, Sen. Chuck Schumer, are hoping to block construction of the wall. But numerous polls show that strong majorities of Americans want to reduce the flow of drugs, preserve U. S. jobs for Americans and also want Congress to pass laws that help Americans. In 2006, Congress passed a law authorizing — but not funding — the construction of a border wall. Trump’s budget document was sent to Congress March 16, and is titled “America First: A Budget Blueprint to Make America Great Again. ” It is not the formal budget request for 2018, but it outlines spending plans for 2018, and it requests amendments to the 2017 budgets set by Congress late last year. If the requested budget amendments are approved by Congress, the DHS 2017 budget in 2017 would rise by $3 billion. The budget plan also calls for the DHS 2018 budget to be set at $44 billion. A comprehensive budget request for FY 2018 will be delivered to Congress in May. According to a department statement: The FY 2017 Budget Amendment would provide $3 billion [in 2017] for DHS implementation of recent Executive Orders. The request would fund efforts to plan, design, and construct a physical wall along the southern border, and make other critical investments in tactical border infrastructure and technology. The request also proposes funding to increase immigration detention capacity, which is necessary to ensure the removal of illegal aliens from the United States. Finally, the request funds additional capacity at DHS to prepare for hiring additional immigration law enforcement officers and agents … | 0 |
NEW YORK (Reuters) - The largest lobbying group for health insurers has asked U.S. lawmakers weighing the fate of Obamacare to push back the due date for 2018 individual insurance submissions to regulators in hopes of obtaining greater clarity on the program’s future later on. Republican leaders including President-elect Donald Trump and U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell have said they are keen to repeal President Barack Obama’s signature health insurance program, the Affordable Care Act, which provides coverage to millions of Americans. The process of repealing and replacing Obamacare could take two to three years, however, according to some senators. How much of the law will change and when is still unclear. Trump has said some aspects of the program are good, such as allowing young adults to stay insured with their parents until age 26. The trade association America’s Health Insurance Plans, or AHIP, has been speaking with senators for the past few weeks, spokeswoman Kristine Grow said on Tuesday. She provided a list of issues under discussion, which touch on the individual exchanges, Medicare and Medicaid. Insurers backed the idea of high-risk pools, saying they can mitigate the risk of adverse selection and deliver effective coverage. Both Trump and his choice to head the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Tom Price, advocate for use of the pools to insure the very sick. Two of AHIP’s largest members are Anthem Inc and Cigna Corp, both of which plan to sell Obamacare plans in 2017. Insurers also asked for funding through Jan. 1, 2019, for cost-sharing programs and making the 2016 reinsurance payments to insurers who qualify for them as planned. And they asked for elimination of two health insurance taxes, which they said would help slow premium growth. They suggested extending the deadline to file health exchange plans by a few months until the summer of 2017, when there will be less uncertainty and more insurers are likely to submit bids. Insurers are asking senators for limited changes to the Medicaid program during the transition period, and to ensure a transition period for states that have expanded Medicaid, the program for the poor jointly funded by the federal government and states. Republicans are considering changing its funding to block grants, which could cut the total amount. On Medicare, the insurers are seeking changes as soon as February, when the government will propose target rates for 2018 Medicare Advantage plans. | 1 |
BEIJING (Reuters) - China s commerce ministry said on Thursday that North Korean firms or joint ventures in China will be shut within the 120 days of the latest United Nations Security Council sanctions passed on Sept.12. Overseas Chinese joint ventures with North Korean entities or individuals will also be closed, the ministry said in a statement on its website, not giving a timeframe. The U.N. Security Council voted unanimously on Sept.12 to boost sanctions on North Korea, banning its textile exports and capping fuel supplies. The U.N. action was triggered by North Korea s sixth and largest nuclear test this month. It was the ninth Security Council sanctions resolution over North Korea s ballistic missile and nuclear programs since 2006. | 0 |
This is the economic policy that s bringing throngs of college-age young adults to rally for Bernie Sanders.It s a sad but true commentary on the generation of adults who will be leading our nation in the years to come. Note to college students, this is what mature bill-paying adults call B.S. economics. | 0 |
This past week, on Monday, Oct. 24, 2016, a judge with the Oxford Crown Court in the United Kingdom sentenced Michael Danaher to life in prison for murdering rare book dealer, Adrian Greenwood. The purpose of the crime was to steal a rare first edition of the book, “The Wind in the Willows.” Danaher argued he killed Greenwood in self-defense, yet it only took two hours to render a unanimous guilty charge. Adrian Greenwood, 42, was found dead after being stabbed 30 times at his Oxford home in April.
Prosecuting Attorney Oliver Saxby told the court that this was a “brutal” murder that included stab wounds to the “chest and neck and a deep wound to his back.” There was also evidence of torture and blunt wounds indicating Greenwood had been “stamped on.” The sentence Danaher received for murdering the rare book dealer was life in prison or no less than 34 years. Saxby explained to the court that Danaher stabbed Greenwood until the knife broke, after which he began beating him. Saxby went on to say that Danaher, “cool as you like, he helped himself to that first edition of ‘The Wind in the Willows,’ and Adrian Greenwood’s phone, and his laptop and his wallet.”
The book is valued at £50,000 but Danaher listed it on eBay for only £2,000 after returning home from murdering Greenwood. Danaher learned that Greenwood was in possession of the book after he tried selling a copy on eBay in August of 2015. Danaher had been planning the crime for some time. He also had a list in an Excel file on his laptop titled “Enterprises” of other wealthy persons who were targets. It included their addresses, the method to be used like “stun gun” and the “expected take” from each target. Next to Greenwood’s name on the list Danaher wrote “Modus: Any!! Expected take: rare books.”
Saxby, the prosecutor, told the jury the wealthy targets on Danaher’s list “exudes a sense of resentment. It is almost as if these people who, because of their wealth . . . deserve to be subjected to what he has planned.” The jury was comprised of four women and eight men. The names on the list included Simon Cowel, Kate Moss, Jeffery Archer and others. About two weeks before Danaher’s attack on Greenwood, he tried to break into wealthy businessman Adrian Beecroft’s house pretending to be a delivery man, but Beecroft’s wife believed the man to be suspicious and “raised the alarm,” which caused Danaher to flee. He later drafted a letter on his laptop to Mrs. Beecroft demanding 200 bitcoin or about £96,000 for leaving them alone. The letter was never sent.
The sentencing handed down by the Oxford Crown Court for murdering book dealer Greenwood over “Wind in the Willows” is perhaps a relief to those who were on his list. The author of the book is Kenneth Grahame and it was published in 1908. “Wind in the Willows” is a children’s book known for its “mixture of mysticism, adventure, morality and camaraderie.” Its text is available online for free as part of Project Gutenberg.
By Joel Wickwire
Sources:
BBC News – Man Guilty of Murdering Adrian Greenwood Over “The Wind in the Willow” Book
The Guardian – Alleged Killer of Antiques Deal Had List of Famous Targets, Jury Told
The Las Angeles Times – British Book Dealer Slain for His First Edition of “The Wind in the Willows”
Top and Feature Image Courtesy of Ken Wilcox’s Flicker Page – Creative Commons License
In-Line Image Courtesy of Karen Cox’s Flickr Page – Creative Commons License
book | 1 |
In case you haven t heard, God s chosen candidate, Ted Cruz, either disproved God s existence or showed the world that the Big-Guy-in-the-Sky REALLY hates smarmy, bigoted douchebags. Yes, the embarrassment to America that was Ted Cruz s campaign is finally over. Fate swallowed his chances up like that throat booger he ate on national television during a debate. You can all rest assured knowing that the Republican Party s destruction is finally complete in that Donald Trump is considered the most qualified candidate for the office of President.What better way to end his presidential campaign than to elbow his wife in the face? You may be staring at your screen wondering, Did he just say what I think he said? Yes, by punching and elbowing his wife in the face. While it was almost assuredly as much an accident as abstinence-only advocate Bristol Palin s multiple out-of-wedlock pregnancies, it actually happened.Still don t believe me? Watch:As Cruz was hugging his father, while his bigoted, homophobic, and hateful supporters looked on, the now-former presidential candidate accidentally did what most of America wants to do to him: he accidentally popped Heidi in the jaw then followed up with an elbow to the face.His campaign, which was built on catering to the absolute worst people in society s hatred and stupidity (the ones Trump had not already snagged up anyway), was truly an embarrassment to our nation almost as embarrassing as the fact that his own daughter hates him just as much as the rest of us.But what will Cruz do now? Will he commit himself to the Senate, where he can continue to attempt to install a theofascist regime in America and fight diligently to take away the rights of anyone he thinks God tells him to hate? Will he come to terms with the fact that he, as the candidate he himself has stated God chose to lead America into the Promised Land, probably isn t the super-Christian he thinks he is? Will he continue his alleged career as the Zodiac Killer?No matter what Cruz does, one thing is for certain: he s probably going to spend some time in the dog house rather than the White House.Featured image via screengrab | 1 |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives Appropriations Committee introduced a bill on Monday to provide $81 billion in emergency aid for recent hurricanes and wildfires. The legislation includes $27.6 billion for the Federal Emergency Management Agency and $26.1 billion for community development block grants, Representative Rodney Frelinghuysen said in a statement. President Donald Trump had requested $44 billion last month, which was widely criticized by lawmakers as being insufficient. | 1 |
Housing In 2015: Four Reasons For Optimism (And One For Worry)
Six years ago, homebuilders and Realtors were facing brutal business conditions: millions of Americans were losing their jobs and homes.
As 2015 begins, hiring is strong and economic indicators are pointing up. Could this be the year when the housing market finally breaks out of its tepid recovery and takes off?
Economists see several reasons why 2015 might be a banner year for homebuying — and not just in San Francisco and Miami.
They also see One Big Factor that potentially could block a buying binge.
Before considering that possible downer, let's first look at the upside:
When companies are hiring, would-be homebuyers feel more confident about taking on mortgage debt.
During the recession, companies kept slashing positions, sending the unemployment rate soaring to 10 percent and frightening potential homebuyers. But job growth has been strong lately, with employers adding 321,000 jobs in November. The unemployment rate has tumbled to 5.8 percent.
As that good news sinks in, optimism is rising. The Conference Board's latest Consumer Confidence Index shows confidence is running 19.5 percent higher than a year ago.
Home prices just took a breather, which helps.
From January to October, home prices rose 4.5 percent nationally, according to the latest S&P/Case Shiller Home Price Index. That gain was subdued compared with October 2013, when home prices jumped 11 percent higher than the previous year.
But slower price appreciation in 2014 may have set the stage for a buying surge in 2015. That's because buyers need the right combination of steady income, decent savings, low interest rates and reasonable home prices to jump into the market.
The Labor Department's latest jobs report showed an uptick in wages, and the surging stock market has been boosting savings. Mortgages have been holding below 4 percent for 30-year fixed rates.
And now the decelerating growth in home prices may be creating an affordability opportunity that will attract buyers in early 2015.
When millions of Americans were losing their homes in the recession, many started moving into apartments. That shift caused rents to soar.
"With rents now rising at a seven-year high, historically low [interest] rates and moderating [home] price growth are likely to entice more buyers to enter the market in upcoming months," Lawrence Yun, the National Association of Realtors' chief economist, said in a release.
The Census Bureau says just 36 percent of Americans under age 35 own a home. In 2007, that figure was 42 percent.
Some young people enjoy renting, but a recent survey by Fannie Mae showed 9 in 10 would prefer to own. They have been held back by tight lending standards that have made it tough to get around their heavy student debts and light savings.
But in December, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac announced programs that would allow first-time buyers to get homes with down payments of just 3 percent, instead of 5 percent.
That lower amount would allow creditworthy but cash-strapped young buyers to qualify for mortgages. "If access to credit improves, we could see substantially larger numbers of young buyers in the market," Jonathan Smoke, chief economist for Realtor.com, said in his 2015 outlook.
But there's one reason for pessimism.
For years, many economists have been saying mortgage interest rates would rise. In 2015, they finally may be right.
That's because the Federal Reserve, which has held down both short- and long-term interest rates since 2008, has been signaling a coming change. The Fed is expected to allow rates to drift up, probably starting this summer.
Industry economists generally expect mortgage rates to reach 5 percent by year's end. That would still be quite low by historical standards, but after having such cheap mortgages for so long, even a modest rate increase could scare off buyers, according to Lindsey Piegza, chief economist for Sterne Agee.
"A rising monthly payment — thanks to rising interest rates — could cause an unwelcome sticker shock for many potential homebuyers," she said. | 0 |
LUCIFER in the Temple of the Dog II ‹ › GPD is our General Posting Department whereby we share posts from other sources along with general information with our readers. It is managed by our Editorial Board Iraqi Army: US Hindering Advance on Mosul By GPD on October 31, 2016 TEHRAN (FNA)- The Iraqi army blasted the US for troubling its Mosul liberation operation through electronic jamming to disrupt the communication among various army units. “The US army troops have disrupted communication among Iraqi forces participating in the Mosul liberation operation,” the Iraqi army reported. Iraq’s joint military forces, including the Hash Al-Shaabi (popular forces), started their military operation in Western Mosul on Saturday to recapture Tal Afar and also prevent terrorists from fleeing to Syria. The Iraqi parliament’s Security and Defense Committee, meantime, confirmed that the advances of the Iraqi volunteer forces to the West of the city of Mosul has foiled the US plot to help the ISIL terrorists to flee to Syria. “Hashd al-Shaabi’s efforts in the biggest military operation in Mosul city blocked the US aid to senior ISIL commanders’ escape to Syria from the Western part of Mosul city. The parliamentary committee underlined that Washington intended to repeat the Fallujah scenario and help the ISIL commanders to escape to Syria. Earlier on Monday afternoon, the first units of the Iraqi army entered the strategic al-Karama region Southeastern Mosul. Al-Karama is the first region of Mosul city that the Iraqi army has entered after the city fell to the ISIL terrorists in July 2014. Earlier on Monday, Iraq’s joint military forces kicked off a new round of military operations from three directions towards the Eastern parts of Mosul after seizing control over a vast swathe of land in the surrounding areas of the city in Nineveh province. “The Iraqi forces started moving towards the Eastern bank of the Tigris river near Mosul city,” the Arabic-language media reported. The military operation towards the Eastern part of Mosul started on the 15th day of the Mosul liberation operation. Meantime, the Iraqi sources disclosed that the ISIL has laid mines and stationed snipers on the Eastern bank of the Tigris river. On Sunday, Spokesman of the Iraqi Volunteer Forces (Hashd al-Shaabi) Ahmad al-Assadi announced that the country’s joint military forces had seized back tens of villages since the start of the Mosul liberation operation about two weeks ago. “Iraq’s joint military forces have seized back 100 villages from the ISIL on the West of the city of Mosul,” al-Assadi said. He noted that a sum of 20 bomb-laden vehicles of the ISIL have also been destroyed to the West of Mosul over the past 12 days. Also on Sunday, local sources said ISIL has broadly planted bombs in toys and other attractive objects for children and civilians in areas they leave as Iraqi joint forces continue their advances in the military operations to liberate Mosul from the terror group grip. “ISIL used toys because they know the Peshmerga will not touch it, but children will,” said Colonel Nawzad Kamil Hassan, an engineer who says his unit has cleared more than 50 tons of explosives from areas once controlled by the militants. In the areas where ISIL rules for, the group has attempted to plant bomb before its retreat. A toy, a playing card and an abandoned watch are all detonators designed to spark the acquisitive curiosity of a returning civilian, who would be maimed or murdered by the explosion. Related Posts: No Related Posts The views expressed herein are the views of the author exclusively and not necessarily the views of VT, VT authors, affiliates, advertisers, sponsors, partners, technicians, or the Veterans Today Network and its assigns. LEGAL NOTICE - COMMENT POLICY Posted by GPD on October 31, 2016, With 148 Reads Filed under Investigations . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 . You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed. FaceBook Comments
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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. State Department on Monday condemned Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro s threat to ban opposition parties from participating in next year s presidential elections. The Venezuelan people deserve the right to express their views and consent to governance through a free and fair democratic process that is open to all candidates, the department said in a statement. After three opposition parties boycotted mayoral elections on Sunday, Maduro said on Monday they should be banned from participating in future elections. | 1 |
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Friday that the U.S. Democratic Party was wrongly trying to blame its electoral defeat to Donald Trump on external factors. Speaking at an annual end-of-year news conference, Putin said that the party needed to learn how to lose gracefully. | 1 |
Actor Morgan Freeman, beloved not just for his on-screen persona but also his silky smooth voice, has put his skills to good use with a powerful new ad for Hillary Clinton s campaign.Shot largely in black and white and titled All the Good, the ad spans the years from Clinton s origins: This church taught her to do all the good you can, for all the people you can, for as long as you can. to her on the campaign trail. She understands that this country can t reach it s potential, unless we all do. And as ever, Freeman has an uncanny ability to make you sit up and listen regardless of the subject matter.And for Clinton fans (or fans of Morgan Freeman s voice), this ad is slated to be just one in a series that the actor will record for the Clinton campaign. A longer version of the ad will also begin appearing on televisions across America later this month.Despite a few desperate conservatives trying to claim Freeman as their own, he has long established himself as a fierce advocate for Democrats. Early in Obama s first term, Freeman slammed the Tea Party for the way he said they were intentionally trying to sabotage Obama based on his race. The tea partiers who are controlling the Republican party their stated policy, publicly stated, is to do whatever it takes to see to it that Obama only serves one term, he tells Piers Morgan. What underlines that? Screw the country, we re going to do whatever we can to get this black man out of here. In 2012, he lent his voice to Barack Obama s reelection campaign, with similarly powerful results.In contrast, Republican candidates have struggled to find celebrities willing to attach their names to campaigns. Almost every other day, a conservative candidate is served with a cease-and-desist order for using the music of America s biggest pop icons. It s left Republicans struggling to scrape the bottom of the barrel of D-listers. While Sanders and Clinton pick up George Clooney and Susan Sarandon, Ted Cruz and Trump are literally squabbling over the family members of Duck Dynasty.And then there is whatever this is supposed to be:Waiter, I'll have what she's having. RT @passantino: This has to be the best line from Palin s endorsement https://t.co/XtXE23SzYn Saeed Jones (@theferocity) January 20, 2016With celebrities like Sarah Palin, who needs Oscar winners like Morgan Freeman. Right, Republicans?Feature image via Flickr | 1 |
The uproar over Donald Trump’s latest comments is a classic case of media-generated outrage.
All over the newspapers, all over the airwaves, there is shock and horror that Trump would appeal to Russia to furnish Hillary Clinton’s hacked emails.
The lines seemed so obviously sarcastic to me, as I watched Trump’s presser from the Democratic convention here in Philadelphia, that I didn’t see the tsunami coming. Maybe I’m wrong, but as a longtime Trump-watcher, that’s how it came off to me.
But think about the media coverage for a minute. To believe that the Republican nominee was dead serious in urging an adversary of the United States to commit or complete an act of espionage against his Democratic opponent is to believe that Trump is clinically insane.
And I do think many journalists and commentators view him as a bit unhinged. That’s why this makes sense to them. They think Trump is so off the wall that it seems perfectly plausible.
Others, I believe, don’t believe Trump really meant it, but they think he stepped in it with the remarks and are happy to bash him over it.
Look, Trump says a lot of incendiary things. His comments on Mexicans and Muslims and the like get him into trouble and are more than fair game for criticism. But this one is different.
“Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing,” Trump said. He added that the press would love that.
Trump is a master, of course, of saying things that are just far enough over the line that he drives a story for days. In this case, it means keeping a focus on the 33,000 emails that Clinton deleted from her private server as pundits and politicians debate whether he crossed a line—siphoning covering from the convention speeches by President Obama, Vice President Biden, Bill Clinton and others.
Trump now says he was being sarcastic and we don’t even know whether the Russians are behind the hacking.
What’s striking about the coverage is that it barely acknowledges that this could be an open question:
The New York Times headline: “Donald Trump’s Appeal to Russia Shocks Foreign Policy Experts”:
“There is simply no precedent for this: A presidential candidate publicly appealing to a foreign adversary to intervene in the election on his behalf.”
The Washington Post lead: “Republican nominee Donald Trump pleaded directly Wednesday with the Russian government to meddle in the U.S. presidential election by finding and releasing tens of thousands of private emails from his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton — an extraordinary and perhaps unprecedented maneuver in American politics."
Politico’s lead: "Donald Trump's call on Russia to hack Hillary Clinton's emails has shocked, flabbergasted and appalled lawmakers and national security experts across the political spectrum, with one saying it was ‘tantamount to treason.’”
“Is it possible that Trump was being sarcastic? That he was joking?” CNN’s Carol Costello asked her panel. The response was no, and even if he was, it wasn’t funny.
This is why professional politicians avoid sarcasm, to avoid uttering words that create an uproar. But Trump delights in it, which is why his supporters love him, his detractors view him as reckless and the media can never seem to get enough.
Howard Kurtz is a Fox News analyst and the host of "MediaBuzz" (Sundays 11 a.m. and 5 p.m. ET). He is the author of five books and is based in Washington. Follow him at @HowardKurtz. Click here for more information on Howard Kurtz. | 0 |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The top U.S. Senate Democrat said on Friday he would force a vote on the Federal Communications Commission’s decision to repeal landmark net neutrality rules, but the move was unlikely to block a ruling that could reshape the digital landscape. The FCC voted Thursday along party lines to reverse the Obama era rules barring internet service providers from blocking or throttling internet traffic, or offering paid fast lanes. A group of state attorneys general vowed to sue. On Friday, Senator Charles Schumer of New York said he would force a vote on the FCC action under the Congressional Review Act. Republicans scuttled internet privacy rules adopted under the Obama administration using the same procedural vehicle. “There will be a vote to repeal the rule that the FCC passed. It’s in our power to do that,” Schumer said in New York. “Sometimes we don’t like them, when they used it to repeal some of the pro environmental regulations, but now we can use the CRA to our benefit and we intend to.” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell opposes Schumer’s effort and backed the FCC repeal, a spokesman for the Republican said Friday. A reversal of Thursday’s FCC vote would need the approval of the Senate, U.S. House and President Donald Trump. Trump also backed the FCC action, the White House said Thursday. This week’s FCC order grants internet providers sweeping new powers to block, throttle or discriminate among internet content, but requires public disclosure of those practices. Internet providers have vowed not to change how consumers get online content. The FCC rules also seek to bar states from imposing their own net neutrality requirements. The FCC said the rules would take effect once the White House Office of Management and Budget approved the new transparency rules, which could take several months. Democrats say net neutrality is essential to protect consumers, while Republicans say the rules hindered investment by providers and were not needed. Moody’s Investors Service said in a note Friday the FCC vote was “credit positive” for internet service providers that could have faced rate regulation under the 2015 rules that would have treated them like public utilities. Moody’s said providers “will tread lightly when it comes to engaging in paid prioritization and throttling, as there could be significant negative public reaction to these acts.” Moody’s said “at least in the near term, the cost of negative publicity on their existing businesses far outweighs the benefit of additional revenue streams these companies can generate from paid prioritization agreements.” | 0 |
Putin Rejects Russian Army’s Calls to Resume Aleppo Airstrikes
Putin believes resumption of Aleppo air strikes unnecessary for now Antiwar.com
Russian President Vladimir Putin has officially rejected a request from his nation’s Defense Ministry to endorse a resumption of Russian airstrikes against the Syrian city of Aleppo, after 10 straight days of no Russian airstrikes being conducted.
Russia launched a brief ceasefire in Aleppo last week, and extended it for four days. Even after it officially expired, they have not resumed strikes against the city, with officials saying they want to convince Western nations to separate the moderate rebel factions within East Aleppo from the al-Qaeda-linked Nusra Front.
So far that’s not been working so well, as indeed separating the two was the primary goal of a weeklong ceasefire a month ago, and a public US call to separate never amounted to anything. After that, the idea appears to have been given up on by the US, and Russia has also sought Turkey and Saudi Arabia’s influence on the more moderate factions.
As the rebel factions are launching a new offensive trying to brief the Aleppo siege, the Russian defense ministry has gone to the unusual step of publicly announcing their request to Putin, and Putin’s very public rejection may suggest there is some debate within the Russian leadership on how to proceed. | 1 |
Enough is enough. Americans need to start making business owners and their employees pay up for discriminating against them simply because they dare to show their support for our President. Good for this Trump supporter for fighting back against the intolerant left. A lot of Americans would be happy to contribute to his legal defense Bartenders at a West Village hot spot served up discrimination with a liberal twist refusing to serve a customer because he was wearing a Make America Great Again hat, according to a lawsuit.Greg Piatek, 30, an accountant from Philadelphia, claims he was snubbed and eventually 86 d by workers at The Happiest Hour on West 10th Street over his conservative fashion statement, popularized by Donald Trump on the campaign trail, he told The Post. Anyone who supports Trump or believes what you believe is not welcome here! And you need to leave right now because we won t serve you! Piatek claims he was told as he was shown the door by a manager.The shake-up started when Piatek and two pals, after a visit to the 9/11 Memorial, ordered drinks at the posh tavern around 6:30 p.m. on Jan. 28.A female bartender served Piatek a $15 jalape o margarita and his pals beers. But when he tried to order a second round, a male bartender noticed his hat and skipped them, he said.One of Piatek s pals pointed out it was their turn to be served, but the bartender scoffed. Is that hat a joke? the Manhattan Supreme Court suit claims. Ignoring me because I m wearing the hat is ridiculous, Piatek said. It s really sad. The flustered bartender got them a second round but allegedly slammed the drinks down. A third bartender also asked Piatek if his lid was a joke and shouted, I can t believe you would support someone so terrible and you must be as terrible a person! Piatek claimed. I wasn t even trying to order a drink and she said, Don t even try to order from me. I won t get you a drink, Piatek alleged.A manager said he spoke to the bar owner, and was told, Anyone who supports Trump or believes what you believe is not welcome here. And you need to leave right now because we won t serve you! according to the suit. For entire story: New York Post New York Post reporter Dean Balsamini had a similar experience when he wore a Trump hat around NYC. He recounts his day of scorn and discrimination after donning a Make America Great Again hat as he visited a few hot spots in the city: I may as well have been wearing a Red Sox hat at Yankee Stadium.The mere sight of my cap nearly caused a riot at the historic Stonewall Inn on Christopher Street site of the 1969 riots that launched the gay rights movement. You come into a gay bar THIS gay bar with THAT hat! one woman lectured as a large crowd gathered.At Soho s sceney La Esquina, where celebs like Julia Roberts nosh on $26 enchiladas, servers nearly lost their lunch when I showed up. Oh my God, do you see that? Is he serious? Is he kidding me? one waiter gasped.My companion and I were quickly shunted to an out of sight table near a back wall. Don t talk to him! a man instructed a street vendor as I browsed along 125th street near the Apollo Theater.Hipsters and trustafarians along Bedford Avenue in Williamsburg either did a double take, shot me a death stare or a snarky remark. Take off that stupid f ing hat! one skinny-jeans-wearer sneered.At high-end chapeau peddler Goorin Bros., I overheard a salesman tell his colleague, I m losing my sh ! as I walked in. When I asked him to hold my hat while I admired a fedora, he grimaced. I m surprised nobody s knocked that hat off your head! a mother of two scolded me as we crossed paths along Central Park West and 63rd Street. Make America Great Again right! | 0 |
Tune in to the Alternate Current Radio Network (ACR) for another LIVE broadcast of The Boiler Room tonight 6:00 PM PST | 8:00 PM CST | 9:00 PM EST for this special broadcast. Join us for uncensored, uninterruptible talk radio, custom-made for bar fly philosophers, misguided moralists, masochists, street corner evangelists, media-maniacs, savants, political animals and otherwise lovable rascals.Join ACR hosts Hesher and Spore along side Jay Dyer of Jays Analysis, Fvnk$oul and Randy J (ACR & 21WIRE contributors) for the hundred and forty first episode of BOILER ROOM. Turn it up, tune in and hang with the ACR Brain-Trust for this weeks boil downs, analysis and the usual gnashing of the teeth of the political animals in the social rejects club.On this episode of Boiler Room the social rejects club meets for the final shebang of 2017. We ll be discussing John McAfee s twitter account being hacked to promote a low value crypto-currency, silicon valley censorship in social media, year end wrap ups and 2018 predictions.Direct Download Episode #141 Please like and share the program and visit our donate page to get involved! Reference Links, for your consideration and research: | 0 |
One thing that has continuously dogged the Donald Trump for president campaign is the fact that racists, anti-semites, xenophobes, misogynists, and various other bigots have stuck with the bombastic real estate mogul since he first launched his travesty of a campaign. No matter how much Trump s people try to say he doesn t want the support of such folks, the candidate himself refuses to take the fact that there is anything about the campaign he has been running that attracts these people seriously. So, naturally, when Trump s campaign manager Kellyanne Conway sat down with an interview with CNN s Jake Tapper on Sunday, that particular issue came up again. Of course, Conway was not happy. Tapper began: There are a lot of anti-Semites and racists and misogynists who support the Trump candidacy. Conway immediately went on defense, saying, wow. Tapper went on to reference a man who was shouting JEW-S-A at the press pen at a recent Trump rally, and directly asked Conway if she would refer to such people as deplorable. She responded: Yes, I would. Wow, I have to push back on some of the adjectives you just used to describe I hope you ve been to Trump rallies and I hope that you ve seen the tens of thousands. I mean, he s had over half a million people easily, I think in excess of that. These are U.S.A.-loving Americans. Tapper went on to say that no, he isn t putting all Trump supporters into that camp, but went on to force Conway s hand on this one: But without question, people who are experts on hate groups say that there has been a comfort level that has been offered to people who are anti-Semitic that has been offered to people who are anti-Semitic and racists and on and on. And these people are comfortable coming out in the open and supporting Mr. Trump.Mr. Trump has refused to condemn in a very serious way his racist and anti-Semitic fans, Tapper continued. He just has. He says things like, Oh, sure, I disavow, I disavow. But he has never serious said, I don t want the support of those people, they are reprehensible, they have nothing to do with me. He has never seriously done it. Conway used the pushing to pivot back to the idea that the Trump campaign is winning, saying: I think this exchange is frankly the best piece of evidence I have that we re actually going to win in nine days because the idea that we re going to shift away from the pattern of corruption the cloud of ethical stain that Hillary Clinton would bring to the Oval Office in such an important week. No, Kellyanne, it s not a sign that Trump is winning. It s pointing something out that has been true since this whole fiasco began: That Donald Trump is a raging bigot, and he has been so openly. Dog whistles have turned into fog horns this election cycle, and it s all because of Donald Trump. He embraces these bigots because he s one of them. The quicker you learn that, the better.Watch the exchange below:[ad3media campaign= 1279 ]Featured image via video screen capture | 0 |
It seemed like an innocent enough announcement: Michael Strahan, the former football player turned television personality, was shifting assignments on ABC’s morning lineup, the network said Tuesday. He would leave “Live With Kelly and Michael” in September to become a on “Good Morning America. ” But there was rancor behind the scenes. Mr. Strahan’s Kelly Ripa, was told of the move just minutes before the announcement, and felt blindsided, said a person who has spoken to her about ABC’s decision. And she made little attempt to conceal her displeasure, skipping Wednesday’s edition on “Live. ” ABC said she would not appear on the show for the rest of the week and would be replaced by Erin Andrews. Ms. Ripa’s absence Wednesday forced Mr. Strahan into the awkward position of addressing the news of his departure with a guest host, Ana Gasteyer, a former “Saturday Night Live” cast member. After Mr. Strahan and Ms. Gasteyer danced their way to the hosts’ desk on the “Live” set, Mr. Strahan said, “I’ve been in the news lately,” before formally announcing that he was leaving. For ABC, what was supposed to be a boost to its morning lineup is instead developing into a giant headache with one of its most prominent stars. Ms. Ripa, who joined the show in 2001, replacing Kathy Lee Gifford, has developed a loyal following of her own. In addition to Ms. Ripa’s apparent displeasure, “Good Morning America” is also presenting the network with cause for concern. Though it remains the morning show, it’s down 10 percent in total viewers and 18 percent in the demographic important to advertisers. It is second in that age bracket to NBC’s “Today,” a show that experienced its own ratings difficulties four years ago when it botched Ann Curry’s departure. When Mr. Strahan does join “Good Morning America” in a role in September, he will be accustomed to the surroundings. He began as an correspondent for “Good Morning America” two years ago, a decision that Ms. Ripa expressed concerns about at the time, according to the person. Ms. Ripa was worried it would distract him from “Live” but was reassured it would only be a temporary position. Mr. Strahan continued to appear on the morning show, and ABC executives recently decided that bringing him into the “Good Morning America” lineup could help stem the ratings drop. After “Live” ended on Tuesday morning, Ms. Ripa was called to a meeting along with the show’s longtime producer, Michael Gelman, and the WABC general manager, Dave Davis (the show is produced by WABC, and it is distributed by ABC and Disney’s syndication group). She did not know the purpose of the meeting. After a wait, Mr. Strahan entered the room and broke the news that he was leaving. It wasn’t long before tensions flared. “Didn’t I tell you this was going to happen?” Ms. Ripa said to Mr. Davis at the meeting, according to the person. “I told you two years ago this was going to happen. ” A few minutes after the meeting ended, ABC publicly announced Mr. Strahan’s departure. Ms. Ripa later let the network know she would not appear on Wednesday. Ms. Ripa was angry, this person said, because she perceived that “Good Morning America” was being given priority over “Live. ” Ms. Ripa declined to comment. Ms. Ripa was similarly caught off guard in 2011 when Regis Philbin informed her 20 minutes before show time that he was going to announce his departure on that edition of “Live. ” After Mr. Philbin left the show, “Live” began an open casting call to replace him, cycling in more than a dozen potential to sit beside Ms. Ripa. After 10 months, ABC selected Mr. Strahan, who is also a commentator on Fox’s N. F. L. pregame show. In a statement, an ABC spokeswoman said: “‘Live’ continues to be a vibrant and enduring franchise under our lead host, the extraordinarily talented Kelly Ripa. ‘Live’ has successfully transitioned twice before and will do so again. Together with Kelly, ABC and the ‘Live’ team will begin a new search to find a replacement for Michael. ” It appears that Ms. Ripa’s absence will be an extended one: “Live” is not scheduled to shoot on Friday and she had already arranged to take Monday off for a long weekend to celebrate her 20thwedding anniversary, the person said. Friday’s show will be taped on Thursday, so Ms. Andrews will appear for the next two editions of “Live. ” Ms. Ripa will be replaced by the “Pretty Little Liars” actress Shay Mitchell on Monday, an ABC spokeswoman said. | 0 |
Yesterday I asked of lying liar climate ‘scientist’ Michael Mann: “Does anyone take this guy seriously any more? ”[But the question was a purely rhetorical one. I already knew the depressing true answer having just sat, fuming, in my car listening to Mann being given the red carpet treatment on a BBC Radio 4 science programme. “Oh Professor Doctor Mann, Sir, may it please your eminence to descend from your radiant cloud for a few precious moments and explain to us mere mortals why your amazing and unquestionably brilliant new paper on global warming demonstrates you to be even more right about climate change than you were even in the days when you won your Nobel prize?” fawned and grovelled the BBC’s interviewer from his prostrate position on the studio floor. Perhaps I exaggerate slightly. But it would be fair to say that the BBC’s interviewer, Adam Rutherford, sought to leave the listener in no doubt that when it came to climate science the “Distinguished Professor of Atmospheric Science” Michael Mann was a respected expert of great insight whose opinions one could totally trust. Mann isn’t though, is he? Maybe in 2001, when Mann’s Hockey Stick was promoted heavily in the IPCC’s Third Assessment Report, it would have been legitimate enough for the BBC to quote him as a climate scientist of note. But that was 16 years ago, since when the Hockey Stock has been discredited to the point where not even the IPCC quotes it in its reports. And where Mann’s reputation has become so tarnished that Mark Steyn was able to compile and edit a book called A Disgrace To The Profession, consisting largely of distinguished scientists from around the world explaining in lavish detail how utterly flawed, bankrupt and worthless Michael Mann’s climate science was. “Misleading” “Just bad science” “Very erroneous conclusions” “A crock of shit” “Excuse me while I puke. ” … . just a few of things scientists had to say about Mann and his work. But as we were reminded yet again on the BBC’s Inside Science programme this week, the BBC continues to treat this tainted and controversial figure with uncritical reverence. On the programme, his interviewer Adam Rutherford allowed Mann space to give a version of this week’s Congressional hearing on climate science so ludicrously biased towards the alarmist narrative it might have been scripted by Greenpeace. “We have currently as the chair of the House of Representatives Science Committee an individual — Lamar Smith — whose funding mostly comes from fossil fuel interests who rejects the overwhelming consensus of the world’s scientists that climate change is real and human caused and represents a threat. The hearing was intended to provide cover to Congressional Republicans and the current Trump administration who are trying to cut funding for climate science and who are trying to roll back the policy successes over the last several years in dealing with climate change and dealing with carbon emissions. ” “As the hearing went on every time the topic was about the substance, what the science has to say, my feeling was that the Congressional Republicans realised that they were on the defensive, that they were losing the argument because, after all, they are denying the overwhelming consensus of the world’s scientists. And eventually it got into the gutter where they were trying to discredit me personally and to talk about squabbles between scientists in a sense it was a confirmation that they knew they had lost the actual scientific argument at that hearing. ” “It’s a difficult period right now for anybody who cares about science. We’re about to see an unprecedented event next month here in DC where scientists are going to be marching in the streets … .I think it’s a recognition from the typically quite reticent and conservative scientific community that they have to speak out now, that there’s a threat to science and to scientists unlike anything that we have, in my view, faced in the past. ” None of this weapons grade bilge went even slightly challenged by Rutherford, who flagged his own concerns about the Trump administration’s approach to climate science at the beginning of the interview by describing it as “troubling” and “disturbing”. [Says who? Why? ?] Let’s not forget, also, that there were three other scientists with at least as much knowledge and experience as Mann who were speaking at the same Congressional hearings, only from a sceptical point of view. Might it not have been useful for the purposes of balance to get at least one of them — John Christy, Judith Curry or Roger Pielke Jr — for the BBC to hear from one of them too? In theory, this is one of the BBC’s statutory obligations. According to the terms of its revised Charter 2006: ‘The BBC must do all it can to ensure that controversial subjects are treated with due accuracy and impartiality in all relevant output.’ As Christopher Booker detailed in his thorough report for the Global Warming Policy Foundation The BBC And Climate Change: A Triple Betrayal — the BBC has consistently failed to do this in its woefully treatment of environmental issues. Indeed, the BBC hasn’t just failed to remain impartial on the issue it has actively proselytised on behalf of the climate change scare lobby across a range of programmes from the hysterical reportage of its Roger Harrabin on BBC Radio 4 news, to the doddery laments of its house Malthusian Sir David Attenborough, to the of Chris Packham, to the rampant global warming alarmism promoted by its entire celebrity science team from Adam Rutherford (see above) to pouty boy physicist Brian Cox and its lefty comics Robin Ince and Daragh O’Briaiaiaan. All this would be absolutely totally fine if the BBC were a private subscription channel whose sole purpose was to reinforce the prejudices of the liberal elite. But it’s not. It’s supposed to be for everyone. Even deplorables like you and me. In this regard it fails. And always will fail. Scrap the licence fee, I say. That’ll teach it. | 0 |
PHOENIX (Reuters) - The Democratic National Committee will file a federal lawsuit over the actions of Arizona election officials during the presidential primary that caused long waits at the polls and critics said disenfranchised voters, especially minorities. Officials said the lawsuit, to be filed in U.S. District Court in Arizona on Friday, will target the decision to sharply reduce polling locations in Maricopa County, which caused up to five-hour waits for voters casting ballots in the March 22 primary. The lawsuit will also question the state’s “arbitrary rejection of provisional ballots at alarming rates,” with a large number coming from minority voters, according to a DNC statement. “Republicans are using every tool, every legal loophole and every fear tactic they can think of to take aim at voting rights wherever they can,” the DNC chair, U.S. Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz, said in a statement. Joining the suit will be the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, the Arizona Democratic Party, former Navajo Nation leader Peterson Zah, the Ann Kirkpatrick for Senate campaign and affected voters, the statement said. The Democratic nominating contest for the Nov. 8 presidential election was won by Hillary Clinton over Bernie Sanders. Their campaigns both said they would join the lawsuit. Named as defendants in the legal action are Arizona Secretary of State Michele Reagan, the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors and Maricopa County Recorder Helen Purcell. A spokesman for the secretary of state declined to comment on the specifics of the case, saying: “The secretary welcomes any inquiry.” A spokeswoman for Purcell declined to comment but told CNN last week there were no intentional efforts to keep people from voting. The election became mired in controversy from the outset as county voters spent hours to vote at one of 60 polling sites, a reduction from 200 sites in 2012. Officials said the move was an effort to cut costs. County officials immediately took the blame for the decision, saying they misjudged voter turnout based on recent history and increasing mail-in votes. The election, called unacceptable by the state’s governor and a fiasco by the Phoenix mayor, has prompted questions by the U.S. Department of Justice over its handling by county officials. The county, Arizona’s most populous, has said it will comply with an April 22 request for information from the head of the voting section of the department’s civil rights division. A county spokeswoman had no comment on the lawsuit. | 1 |
It was the tweet that blew up the internet:BREAKING: Trump lawyer: Tax returns from past 10 years show no "income of any type from Russian sources," with few exceptions. The Associated Press (@AP) May 12, 2017The headscratching claim by Trump s lawyers was that he had no income of any type from Russia with few exceptions.The exceptions cited don t raise many eyebrows. What is noticeably absent is any mention of the Russia megadonors Eric Trump recently bragged helped finance Trump s golf resort, leading one to assume that there are things being intentionally left out of this report. (Eric Trump now denies making this admission, unfortunately Eric has been known to lie before.)The follow up story published by the Associated Press was even more bizarre (emphasis added).President Donald Trump s lawyers say a review of his last 10 years of tax returns do not reflect any income of any type from Russian sources, with some exceptions.The lawyers did not release copies of Trump s tax returns so The Associated Press cannot independently verify their conclusions.So Trump s lawyers reviewed Trump s tax returns and surprise found that he is completely innocent of any wrongdoing. But they won t let reporters independently verify those findings. So we just have to take their word for it If that s the case, then the law firm doing the investigation better have an absolutely impeccable record. Instead, Trump got one that has even more connections than he (allegedly!) does.The lawyers Trump turned to work for a firm called Morgan Lewis. It does a lot of business in Russia. It does so much business in Russia, in fact, that it actually nabbed a prestigious award for being Russia Law Firm of the Year in 2016.The law firm that sent the letter RE: Trump's biz interests in Russia was recognized as "Russia Law Firm of the Year" in 2016: pic.twitter.com/t7yBFpl1Hn Frank Thorp V (@frankthorp) May 12, 2017Others argue the law firm is merely a victim of its own success. It s a global company, of course it would be in Russia.Trump letter is dumb for other reasons, but not this. Morgan Lewis & Bockius is one of the biggest & most well-known lawfirms in the world. https://t.co/gBeg7Ms0EP Jeff B/DDHQ (@EsotericCD) May 12, 2017However, this needn t be a massive conspiracy. Something worth thinking about: This group which has a vested interest in not upsetting Trump and Putin wants us to take their word at facevalue when they say that Trump is completely innocent. The very fact that they have business relationships and clients in Russia means they would feel pressured to tread lightly. Russia, a country run not only by Putin but a collective of oligarchs, can destroy your business if they feel antagonized by what you re doing.Making matters even more shady, Trump s lawyers claim they just released these findings at the behest of a congressional request. But the letter they sent is two months old. If it were that old, it may explain why Trump s lawyers didn t bother to mention Trump s Russian golf course investors. They didn t think it would come out. News of that relationship only leaked in the past few weeks.But there s an easy way to clear all this up: Trump could always release his tax returns to the public.Featured image via AFP-OUT | 1 |
STRASBOURG (Reuters) - The European Union wants to launch and conclude free trade negotiations with Australia and New Zealand in the next two years, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said on Wednesday, opening up a potential race with Britain. If Juncker s timeframe is achieved, the EU could nip in ahead of the UK, which is also courting both countries but cannot negotiate independent trade deals until it leaves the EU in March 2019. Juncker said there was a good chance that the EU would agree the main elements of a new free trade with the Mercosur countries of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay and of an updated trade partnership with Mexico by the end of this year. And today, we are proposing to open trade negotiations with Australia and New Zealand, Juncker told EU lawmakers. I want all of these agreements to be finalised by the end of this mandate. And I want them negotiated in the fullest transparency, he added. The current Commission s term of office runs until Oct. 31, 2019. The EU is seeking to capitalize on new trade opportunities in response to a more protectionist America First stance from the United States under President Donald Trump. We will not miss any opportunity to step in. Whatever space the Americans leave behind, the Europeans will occupy, a senior U.S. official said. Juncker said, however, that while Europe favored open commerce, it needed reciprocity from its trading partners. We have to get what we give, he said. The European Union was not a group of naive free traders and would always defend its strategic interests. The European Commission is now proposing that it should have the right to review foreign investment in important assets. If a foreign, state-owned, company wants to purchase a European harbor, part of our energy infrastructure or a defense technology firm, this should only happen in transparency, with scrutiny and debate, Juncker said. France, Germany and Italy jointly welcomed the proposal to give member states a tool to intervene. Juncker did not mention any country, but most EU concern over reciprocity and investment has centered on China. China s COSCO Shipping [COSCO.UL] already owns a majority stake in Greece s biggest port, Piraeus, and a share of a terminal at Europe s largest port, Rotterdam. China contributed to the European Union s Galileo satellite navigation program, which critics say led to a massive transfer of technology. | 1 |
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