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MARCH 1st is the day! VOTE FOR BECKY GERRITSON FOR US CONGRESS IN ALABAMA S 2ND DISTRICT!WE LOVE THIS WOMAN! Becky Gerritson embodies everything that makes America so special and unique. She is a limited government conservative who is passionate about preserving and protecting the United States of America and everything we, as a nation stand for. She is a military wife and a brave warrior, who is ready to march to Washington DC and shake things up. Becky is running for US Rep. in Alabama s 2nd District. She is up against a RINO incumbent who, has voted to continue support for Obama s reckless Refugee program. Sending Representatives like Becky to DC, who are unafraid to confront an overreaching and out of control government should be a 1st priority for every freedom loving American.Becky moved out of her comfort zone, and into the national spotlight where she bravely faced Congress while staring down the punitive director of the IRS. In her powerful, passionate (and now famous) speech, she demanded the IRS was held accountable for the Stalinist tactics that were used against her, as they attempted silence her conservative views that were in stark contrast to Barack Obama.We are committed to helping Becky Gerritson defeat her RINO incumbent in Alabama.Becky Gerritson is up against an establishment Republican (RINO) in the primary election in Alabama who voted to continue support for a reckless refugee program. Establishment Republicans are now facing serious primary challenges, such as incumbent establishment Republican Martha Roby in Alabama-2, who is being challenged by Becky Gerritson. Roby is trying desperately to run away from the Syrian refugee jihadi threat because she repeatedly voted to fund it.Conservative congressional challenger Becky Gerritson has just issued a stinging challenge on the issue of Muslim immigration to her incumbent establishment Republican opponent Rep. Martha Roby (AL-2). I promise to fight President Obama s open arms policy and oppose all legislation that invites danger into the lives of the men, women, and children of this great nation, Gerritson stated in a pledge to Alabama voters. In essence, this is Obama s Islamic Importation Plan; and we cannot risk adopting his strategy that fails to screen against importing terrorists into this country. And by giving Obama a blank check in the budget and spending bills that could have stopped the Syrian refugee madness Republicans own the Syrian refugee jihadi infiltration problem.Tea Partier, conservative, patriot, wife, mother, Christian- These are some of the words that describe Becky Gerritson, the grassroots activist who was thrown into the national spotlight during the illegal IRS probing of conservative and libertarian interest groups several years ago. During a passionate speech in front of an audience of a congressional sub committee, in which she testified on behalf of her organization- the Wetumpka TEA Party, Becky s words went viral instantly, and began to inspire and encourage activists across the country to hold their government more accountable for it s actions.In October of this year, Gerritson made the decision to shift from grassroots conservative activist, to instead take on the GOP establishment head-on by challenging current Congresswomen Martha Roby (R-AL, 2nd District) to a primary, in order to receive the Republican nomination in time for the 2016 election. Here are some questions Becky was able discuss with me in order to give voters, and Americans across the country, a better look at her candidacy, and what her campaign s presence means to the current state of the Republican Party and establishment politics as a whole:Brownell: Why have you decided now is the best time to run for office? Why congress and not a state level position?Becky: I ve never wanted to run for political office before, and I had always pushed back when others urged me to do so. However, after years of fighting for a restoration of the America I grew up in, I grew tired of seeing my representative fail to share my commitment. Our country is in desperate need of bold, courageous citizen leaders who will step forward to fight for principle. After much prayer, I knew I had to answer the call.Brownell: With the general dissatisfaction with the GOP, even with John Boehner gone, why did you decide to run as a Republican and not an Independent?Becky: I ll be the first to admit that there are many times in which I find myself frustrated with my Party. However, I believe that there is strategic significance to trying to save the Republican Party from within. In Congress, I won t go with what Party leadership over principle. I will, however, use whatever influence I have to return my Party back to conservatism.Brownell: What are some of the biggest concerns you hear from voters in you re district?Becky: Voters are concerned about the future. They see a President and an unelected Supreme Court ruling, not governing. They see their rights taken away. They see a debt rising that threatens the security and economic stability of this country. And, what s worse, many feel helpless. They vote, and then they see nothing change. I m running to be the kind of leader that the voters can know and trust will actually stand up and fight the status quo to change the direction of this country.Brownell: On your website s issues page you have a section discussing your views on the 10th Amendment- do you think that the states have the right to nullify executive orders and acts of congress?Becky: You know, I think every branch of government needs to start exercising its constitutional authority. We need to reign in the Judicial and Executive branches, and the best way to do that is by the Legislative branch and the states reasserting themselves and say no, Mr. President or no, Supreme Court, we are drawing the line here, and you cannot cross. The 10th Amendment has been totally thrown out, and we need more states standing strong in opposition to unconstitutional actions by the federal government.Brownell: As a military wife currently living in a part of Alabama with a large veterans community, do you think the VA needs to be reformed from within, or privatized?Becky: It needs to be completely overhauled, and I think all options need to be on the table. My opponent is pushing to put the solution in the hands of the same VA bureaucracy that got us in this mess. Top-down, bottom- up this system must be overhauled, every job and individual evaluated, and the very manner of doing things analyzed to make sure our veterans never have to deal with an incompetent VA again.Brownell: What is your view of possible boots on the ground in Syria?Becky: Under this president, I absolutely oppose that idea. Under a Republican president, I m still skeptical. The case needs to be made first what our interests are in getting involved. Secondly, a clear strategy for winning- not just the moment, but the long-term future of the region- must be presented. I don t know that those two criteria will ever be met. I believe very strongly in American exceptionalism and leadership in the world. I also believe that we should be very hesitant to send our soldiers into a quagmire. A very strong case would need to be made for this course of action, and I m not sure that case exists.PLEASE click HERE to see where Becky Gerritson stands on issues that affect our entire nation. | 1 |
RIO DE JANEIRO — It was 1:30 a. m. Saturday, and Mathieu Peisson, a French water polo player, had just come through the security gates at Club France — the same Olympic gathering spot where Ryan Lochte had started a night that became a diplomatic incident. “We finished competing on Sunday, and we’re now into Day 5 of our Olympic vacation,” said Peisson, a and bearded . “There are parties everywhere. Every night we’ve been to a different one, but this place is the best. ” Athletes and officials from other countries are entitled to disagree. There are more than 30 such national hospitality houses operating in Rio during the Games, coming in all vibes and architectural styles, from Denmark House, a chic tent next to a lifeguard station on Ipanema Beach, to Portugal House, which is actually a naval ship moored in the harbor, to the British House, a mansion set in ornamental gardens. The hospitality houses act as promotional vehicles for sponsors, federations, future Olympic cities, Olympic cities and even the countries themselves. The House of Switzerland is on the edge of the Rodrigo de Freitas Lagoon — as it was during soccer’s 2014 World Cup — and has a synthetic ice rink and a snow globe. But the Olympic houses are above all social hubs: places for officials to meet and greet outside the stadiums and arenas, places for athletes to decompress from the Olympic Village after their competitions are over. “I think it was probably the Olympics in Barcelona in 1992 where the trend started in earnest,” said Michael Payne, a former marketing director of the International Olympic Committee. “It’s become an important part of the Olympic experience. ” The crowd streaming into Club France in the early hours Saturday included numerous 2016 Olympians, among them Dutch swimmers and French athletes from multiple sports. Many headed directly to the dance floor, a vast space located inside a converted indoor riding ring that had been used earlier in the day to fete four French medalists — a celebration complete with video highlights, onstage interviews, an a cappella rendition of La Marseillaise and, finally, confetti dropping from the ceiling. But from midnight to 5 a. m. the hall is transformed into an Olympic discotheque with reserved seating near the back for Olympic athletes, who are given a special bracelet to reach the V. I. P. area. “Look at this,” said Peisson, whipping out the new smartphone he had received as part of his Olympic welcome package. “This is last night at about 3 a. m. Just incredible. ” He pulled up a photo of several thousand people packed onto the dance floor, the same spot where Lochte said he and other American swimmers had stayed late into the night before taking the taxi ride that ended so badly. “What happened after they came here is above all regrettable,” said Denis Masseglia, president of France’s Olympic and Sports Committee. “It’s a shame for the image of swimming and for swimmers in general, who are exceptional athletes. You can say to err is human, but that was a whopper. ” Yet it did not dampen Masseglia’s enthusiasm for the French hot spot. “The Olympics are above all for the athletes to express themselves on the field of play,” Masseglia said. “But I’m very happy to see here every night that we have Australians, Canadians, Americans, all the athletes coming here to celebrate their performances and to have a good time. ” At Austria House, organizers expressed particular pride that, in what has been a downbeat Olympics for their country, they had managed to tempt medal winners from Germany inside (if you can’t beat your neighbors in the medal count, you can at least top them in the party department). The Austria House scene features an outdoor dance party that has been attracting a big crowd, which earlier in the week was jamming not to Brazilian samba but to Bon Jovi’s “Livin’ on a Prayer. ” Club France, located in the Sociedade Hípica Brasileira, is rare in this parallel Olympic universe in that it is open to the public. Visitors pay a small fee to get in and enjoy sports activities during the afternoon, food trucks and sponsor pavilions all day and entertainment all night. The crowd on Friday afternoon into early Saturday was overwhelmingly Brazilian. Masseglia said the club was attracting about 10, 000 visitors a day — not enough to break even on the project, although he insisted that profit was not his goal. “Club France started at the Seoul Olympics in 1988,” he said. “And it stayed private until 2008 in Beijing, where I met with a lot of athletes who asked me why can’t we have our fans with us and why can’t we celebrate our medals with the supporters?” He said the club in London, located near Tower Bridge, drew 85, 000 visitors during the 2012 Games. He expects double that in Rio and the club is also a subtle promotional vehicle for Paris’s 2024 Summer Olympic bid. “There were 300, 000 French people who lived in London plus all the French who could go across the Channel,” he said. “That’s not the case in Rio. So we knew we had to interest the Brazilians and all the overseas visitors here. ” Club France and the Danish, Dutch and Swiss houses are among the few open to the public. The majority, including U. S. A. House in Ipanema, are or offer restricted access. “The U. S. A. House is far more about serving the athletes, family and sponsors it’s more internal looking,” Payne said. Bethanie a American Olympian, went to U. S. A. House on Sunday night to celebrate winning the gold medal in mixed doubles tennis with her partner, Jack Sock. “It was a great little setup: good food, good drinks and a lot of the athletes were just hanging out,” she said. “You walk around, see an athlete with a medal around their neck, ask them what it was for and how they got it. It’s a pretty cool atmosphere. “I know some of the houses can get rowdy. I talked to my regular doubles partner, Lucie Safarova, who is Czech, and she said after they had gotten the bronze medal she went to the Czech House, and they were dancing all night. ” Other hospitality venues are not linked to national delegations. Companies like Nike, Oakley and Red Bull have their own places, typically reserved for the athletes they sponsor and their entourages. “Basically, the athletes are going to their own house, other national houses or to their sports booths like Nike or Red Bull,” Payne said. “I don’t think the team leaders of the national Olympic committees are encouraging them to wander around to party elsewhere, evidence the latest news stories. ” Not all athletes have stayed inside the bubble. But Payne estimates that some companies have spent over $10 million on their projects. Nike reportedly spent over $3 million just to rent its vast and luxurious location on a private golf course. “I went to Nike after my gold medal and enjoyed a great presentation and recognition,” said Christian Taylor, the American triple jumper. Others have established a Rio presence for significantly less investment, including the International Volleyball Federation, which is using a primary school along Copacabana Beach as its Olympic hub in exchange for doing some renovations. “It is paying no rent but investing a dollars in improvements that will leave a nice and simple legacy for the Games,” said Payne, who is a consultant with the federation. There are also less visible corporate efforts to connect with the athletes, one by Apple and its recent acquisition, the headphone company Beats. “Completely below the radar,” Payne said. “No P. R. nothing, just a private retreat where they invite a few hundred athletes each day. ” Peisson, the French water polo player, said he had visited. “They are not official partners of the Games, so they have done it by ” he said. “They have villas in Rio, and they bring in athletes and they have headphones, massage and relaxation. It is very cool. ” As he spoke, the Christ the Redeemer statue was visible high overhead, illuminated atop a peak that was a dark silhouette against the sky. “But we always keep coming back here,” Peisson said of Club France. And with that, Peisson headed off in the direction of the dance floor, which, at 1:30 a. m. was just beginning to get crowded. | 0 |
ASTANA (Reuters) - Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev threatened on Wednesday to sack his cabinet if they failed to make large state companies bring back cash held abroad. Nazarbayev, who wields sweeping powers in the oil-rich nation, also poured scorn on executives in private sector companies who, he suggested, were enjoying lavish lifestyles while keeping funds in foreign accounts. Enough of toying around, look at them, carried away with their games, keeping their money abroad, buying yachts and mansions in multiple countries, he said at a meeting with central government and regional officials. It is safer to keep money here, at home, we will ensure it is safe. Nazarbayev ordered Prime Minister Bakytzhan Sagintayev to investigate why state-controlled companies had tripled their foreign cash holdings to $6 billion in the first half of 2017. He did not cite a source for that figure. If you fail to do this, I warn you in front of the whole Kazakhstan, I will use other ways to return that money to Kazakhstan, but you will not be here any more, he told his cabinet. Nazarbayev said he also expected private sector companies to move cash back, citing Tengizchevroil, a joint venture led by Chevron, and state firm KazMunayGaz, as examples of groups keeping funds in foreign accounts. Tengizchevroil $4.5 billion, National Company KazMunayGaz - $3 billion, KazMunaiGas Exploration and Production - $2 billion. Again, he did not give a source for those figures. Tengizchevroil said it would comment later this week and KazMunayGaz could not immediately be reached for comment. Why are you doing this? You keep your money there while profiting from Kazakhstan s resources. Why is this money not being put to work in Kazakhstan? Nazarbayev said. Citing central bank data, he said some companies had also abused liberal foreign exchange regulations to delay the transfer to Kazakhstan of $7.7 billion in export revenue. | 1 |
Learning Horrors of War from Vets November 9, 2016
Americans shed some guilt for sending young soldiers to war by saying “thank you for your service” but it’d be better to ask vets about their war experiences, says ex-U.S. Army chaplain Chris J. Antal who served in Afghanistan.
By the Rev. Chris J. Antal
Veteran’s Day too often only serves to construct and maintain a public narrative that glorifies war and military service and excludes the actual experience of the veteran. This public narrative is characterized by core beliefs and assumptions about ourselves and the world that most citizens readily accept without examination.
The U.S. public narrative reconciles deep religiosity with a penchant for violence with an often unexamined American National Religion. The core beliefs of this religion include the unholy trinity of governmental theism (One Nation Under God, In God We Trust, etc.), global military supremacy, and capitalism as freedom. These core beliefs provide many U.S. citizens with a broad sense of meaning and imbue the public narrative with thematic coherence. U.S. Marines patrol street in Shah Karez in Helmand Province, Afghanistan. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Staff Sgt. Robert Storm)
War is a Force that Gives Us Meaning , as Christopher Hedges wrote. Yet this kind of coherence has a moral and psychological cost. The consequence of an unexamined faith in American National Religion is a moral dualism that exaggerates U.S. goodness and innocence and projects badness on an “other” who we then demonize as the enemy and kill.
Walter Wink described this moral dualism as a “theology of redemptive violence,” the erroneous belief that somehow good violence can save us from bad violence.
Veteran’s Day, in the context of American National Religion, enables selective remembering, self-deception, and projected valorization. In short, it serves to perpetuate lies in order to avoid facing uncomfortable truths about who U.S. citizens are and what kind of people we are becoming.
Imagine a Veteran’s Day where citizens gathered around veterans and asked, “what’s your story?” Citizens who risk this bold step begin to bridge the empathy gap between civilians and veterans and open up the path for adaptive change and post-traumatic growth.
I believe one citizen who approaches a veteran with the invitation, “what’s your story?” does more for the veteran than a thousand patriotic platitudes like “Thank you for your service” could ever do.
Only a First Step
Asking the question is only the first step. A citizen who wants to give back to veterans should cultivate narrative competence, the capacity to recognize, absorb, interpret, and be moved by the stories one hears or reads. The voice of veterans, if we open our ears to hear them, often provides an essential counter-narrative to the U.S. public narrative. Coffins of dead U.S. soldiers arriving at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware in 2006. (U.S. government photo)
Violent, sudden, or seemingly meaningless deaths, the kind of deaths often experienced by veterans, can make the world appear dangerous, unpredictable, or unjust. The experience of warfare can often undercut our sense of meaning and coherence and shatter assumptions. Because of this many veterans carry a depth of pain that is unimaginable to many citizens.
The voice of the veterans often reveals uncomfortable truths and invites collective examination of core beliefs and assumptions, especially those that form the bedrock of American National Religion.
Imagine a Veteran’s Day where communities join together for authentic dialogue between veterans and civilians. Such a gathering would empower veterans to share the kind of stories that would help the community face real problems. What new story might emerge in the process? How might we become a better people as a result?
The Reverend Chris Antal was a chaplain with the US Army in Kandahar, Afghanistan and later in the US Army Reserve. While in Afghanistan, he delivered a sermon that said, “We have sanitized killing and condoned extrajudicial assassinations…” He nearly lost his job. This past April, in an open letter to President Obama, he resigned his commission in protest over the use of drones, nuclear proliferation and our government’s claims of impunity to international law. He is minister at the Unitarian Universalist Church in Rock Tavern, New York. More background here.) | 1 |
She is the only Presidential candidate who travels with a full-time physician. She s been having brain freezes and admits to short-circuiting and video footage captures her, as she appears to be having a seizure in middle of being questioned by reporters. She can t seem to recall anything and clearly has a serious problem with the truth. Is Hillary Clinton mentally or physically fit enough to serve our nation in any capacity? Maybe it s time to take Hillary s advice and follow the money :Hillary Clinton kicked $125,000 in donations from her family foundation to a hospital after receiving treatment for a blood clot in 2013, the Washington Free Beacon has discovered.Hillary had never donated to the hospital before her treatment for the blood clot.Clinton was discharged from New York Presbyterian Hospital in January 2013 after being treated for a blood clot. Doctors discovered the clot during follow-up treatment for a concussion she sustained weeks earlier after she passed out from dehydration, causing her to fall and hit her head.The New York Times wrote in January 2013:Hillary Rodham Clinton, whose globe-trotting tour as secretary of state was abruptly halted last month by a series of health problems, was discharged from a New York hospital on Wednesday evening after several days of treatment for a blood clot in a vein in her head . Her medical team advised her that she is making good progress on all fronts, and they are confident she will make a full recovery, Philippe Reines, a senior adviser to Mrs. Clinton, said in a statement.Mrs. Clinton, 65, was admitted to NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia hospital on Sunday after a scan discovered the blood clot. The scan was part of her follow-up care for a concussion she sustained more than two weeks earlier, when she fainted and fell, striking her head. According to the State Department, the fainting was caused by dehydration, brought on by a stomach virus. The concussion was diagnosed on Dec. 13, though the fall had occurred earlier that week.The clot was potentially serious, blocking a vein that drains blood from the brain. Untreated, such blockages can lead to brain hemorrhages or strokes. Treatment consists mainly of blood thinners to keep the clot from enlarging and to prevent more clots from forming, and plenty of fluids to prevent dehydration, which is a major risk factor for blood clots.The Clinton Family Foundation the Clintons second, much smaller foundation then donated six figures to the hospital s fund, according to records filed with the Internal Revenue Service.The same year Clinton received treatment for the blood clot, the foundation made a $25,000 donation to New York-Presbyterian Fund Inc., the fund associated with the hospital.For entire story: Free Beacon | 0 |
JENSEN BEACH, Fla. — The gunman who committed the massacre at a popular gay nightclub in Orlando used multiple Facebook accounts to write posts and make searches about the Islamic State. “Now taste the Islamic state vengeance,” he declared, denouncing “the filthy ways of the west. ” He even searched for references to the massacre while he was carrying it out, a United States senator said. In his posts, the gunman, Omar Mateen, called on the United States and Russia to stop the bombing campaign against the Islamic State, the extremist group that controls parts of Syria and Iraq. He pledged allegiance to the group’s leader, Abu Bakr and said, “may Allah accept me,” Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin wrote in a letter to Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief executive. “You kill innocent women and children by doing us airstrikes,” Mr. Mateen wrote, according to the letter. “Now taste the Islamic state vengeance. ” And in what Mr. Johnson described as the gunman’s final post, he wrote, “In the next few days you will see attacks from the Islamic state in the usa. ” Mr. Johnson, a Republican who leads the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, wrote in his letter to Mr. Zuckerberg that officials had found that “five Facebook accounts were apparently associated with Omar Mateen. ” The letter asked Facebook to share all data on accounts tied to the gunman. Mr. Mateen frequently used Facebook to search for information on law enforcement agencies and terrorist groups, Mr. Johnson wrote. And on Sunday morning, during the siege at Pulse, “Mateen apparently searched for ‘Pulse Orlando’ and ‘Shooting. ’” More information came to light Thursday about Mr. Mateen’s troubled work and school history, and about his actions leading up to the slaughter at Pulse nightclub on Sunday that left 49 people dead and 53 wounded in the worst mass shooting in United States history. In the weeks before the shooting, Mr. Mateen, 29, went to a gun store here in Jensen Beach, Fla. and tried to buy body armor and at least 1, 000 rounds of ammunition, said a of the store, Robert Abell. He said the store, Lotus Gunworks, did not stock the type of armor sought by Mr. Mateen, who lived nearby, and a salesman grew suspicious of Mr. Mateen’s behavior during a visit that lasted perhaps five minutes, including a telephone conversation he conducted in a foreign language, and refused to sell him bulk ammunition. “Something in his gut told him it was wrong,” Mr. Abell said of the employee. He said the store contacted the F. B. I. but had no information by which to identify the customer only after the killings did an employee recognize Mr. Mateen, who used an assault rifle and a handgun in the attack. “Unfortunately, nobody connected the dots, and he slipped under the cracks, and this is where we’re at now,” he said. School records released under public records requests showed that Mr. Mateen, who was born in Queens and grew up in Florida, was frequently in trouble as a child, and struggled to keep pace academically, especially in the early grades. He was disciplined 31 times in elementary and middle school, with one report when he was in third grade including a sweeping list of concerns. He was “constantly moving, verbally abusive, rude, aggressive,” the report said, often put his hands on other students, disrupted class and engaged in “much talk about violence sex. ” In high school, he was repeatedly suspended, for a total of 48 days, in a span of less than two years, and attended three different schools. The last suspension came two days after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. The Martin County School District found no detailed records of what prompted the penalty, said Kim Sabol, a lawyer for the district, but former classmates have told news organizations that he celebrated the attacks, sparking conflicts with other students. In May 2001, when he was 14, he was suspended twice for fighting, and one of those times he was arrested, according to personnel records from his later work for the State Department of Corrections. In a note explaining the incident to the department, he wrote he was not taken to jail, and “the charge of battery was adjudicated and the charge of disturbing school function was dropped. ” From October 2006 to April 2007, Mr. Mateen worked for the Florida Department of Corrections as a corrections officer trainee, earning $1, 123. 35 every two weeks, according to state records. He was dismissed but the records do not say why, except that it was not for misconduct. He received middling scores on a performance evaluation. He worked for a private security company, where, according to law enforcement officials and a former he talked of killing people, and claimed to support or belong to Islamist extremist groups. He also expressed hatred of gay people. The leader of the Orlando police SWAT team added new detail to accounts of the massacre and defended the handling of the siege, saying that a lot of people believe, wrongly, that “we weren’t doing anything for a long period of time. ” “From the beginning of this, officers were running inside and trying to save people,” Capt. Mark Canty said. “They were setting up around the outside trying to figure out how to get people out. ” Officers rescued people escape throughout a standoff, including removing an air conditioner from a wall to allow several people in one room to climb out. Officials decided to storm the club after Mr. Mateen threatened to strap himself and hostages with explosives, which later turned out to have been a bluff. Law enforcement teams used explosives to try to blow a hole in the outer wall of the club, but they did not completely breach it. Then they used an armored vehicle to make a hole by ramming the building, but they had to do it repeatedly, Mr. Canty said, trying to find the spot where some people were trapped. A battery pack that officers saw through the bomb squad robot camera — which led them to believe there were explosives inside — turned out to have been from an exit sign or a smoke detector, Mayor Buddy Dyer said. Federal law enforcement officials said Thursday that the F. B. I. is increasingly skeptical of reports that Mr. Mateen was gay but “closeted,” that he had been visiting gay clubs or that he had used gay dating apps. The bureau has recovered the Samsung phone he used the night of the attack, and is trying to retrieve data from it. Investigators believe his wife, Noor Zahi Salman, drove Mr. Mateen to Pulse within a week or two of the shooting, apparently to assess the target, the officials said. She has told agents that she tried to talk her husband out of mounting an attack, and Justice Department say it is not clear if she will face criminal charges. Officials and eyewitnesses have said that during the siege at Pulse, Mr. Mateen, a son of Afghan immigrants, declared allegiance to Mr. . Officials say he was influenced by radical propaganda that he found online, but so far have found no direct connection to any larger organization. On Thursday, the Central Intelligence Agency director, John O. Brennan, gave a grim assessment of the prospects for more attacks. Though the Islamic State has been pushed back on battlefields in the Middle East, he said in testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee, “our efforts have not reduced the group’s terrorism capabilities and global reach. ” The Islamic State is intensifying plans to attack in the West, he said, and continues to use propaganda to inspire “lone wolf” attacks like Mr. Mateen’s. | 0 |
The growing rift between the United States and Russia over concerns that Moscow is employing its military to protect Syria's embattled president appeared to widen Friday when a Russian official called for military cooperation with Washington in order to avoid "unintended incidents."
The comments were made after Western intelligence sources told Fox News that Russia escalated its presence in the Middle East country days after a secret Moscow meeting in late July between Iran's Quds Force commander -- their chief exporter of terror -- and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Officials who have monitored the build-up say they've seen more than 1,000 Russian combatants -- some of them from the same plainclothes Special Forces units who were sent to Crimea and Ukraine. Some of these Russian troops are logistical specialists and needed for security at the expanding Russian bases.
President Obama warned Russia on Friday against “doubling down” on sending support for Syrian President Bashar Assad, calling the pursuit a "mistake."
"But we are going to be engaging Russia to let them know that you can't continue to double-down on a strategy that is doomed to failure," Obama said at a Maryland event.
Russia denies allegations that it is helping to build Assad's military. Moscow claimed its increased military presence is part of an international effort to help defeat the Islamic State. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov called on world powers to join Russia in that pursuit, arguing that Syria’s army is the most efficient force to fight extremists in the Middle East.
"You cannot defeat Islamic State with air strikes only," Lavrov said, a clear dig at the White House’s strategy. "It's necessary to cooperate with ground troops and the Syrian army is the most efficient and powerful ground force to fight the IS."
Reuters reported that Russia also called for military-to-military cooperation with the U.S. to avert "unintended incidents."
Moscow's recent support of Assad has dampened U.S. hopes that Moscow was tiring of the Syrian president. Syria has been gripped by civil war for more than four years, a conflict that has claimed more than 250,000 lives and created a vacuum for extremism to thrive.
U.S. officials have been gauging Russia’s willingness to help restart a political process to remove Assad from power.
Secretary of State John Kerry has lashed out at Russia’s presence in Syria, warning the recent buildup could lead to an escalation of the bloody conflict.
Despite the warnings from the U.S., Lavrov said Russia would continue to supply Assad with weapons that he said will help defeat Islamic State fighters.
"I can only say, once again, that our servicemen and military experts are there to service Russian military hardware, to assist the Syrian army in using this hardware," he said at a news conference in Moscow. "And we will continue to supply it to the Syrian government in order to ensure its proper combat readiness in its fight against terrorism."
Click for more from Reuters.
The Associated Press contributed to this report. | 1 |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A bipartisan group in the U.S. House of Representatives has called on the Environmental Protection Agency to recognize “the significant pitfalls and costs” of renewable fuel standards in its future rulemaking and enact “well-rounded” biofuel policies. “We look forward to working with you to put forth well-rounded biofuels policies that reflect market realities and benefit American families and businesses,” the 64 lawmakers wrote to EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt on Wednesday in a letter Reuters reviewed on Thursday. An EPA spokesman said in an email that the agency would respond to the group “through the proper channels.” Wednesday’s letter, whose list of signatories was led by Virginia Republican Bob Goodlatte and Vermont Democrat Peter Welch, said the standard had not accomplished any goals it was purportedly designed to meet, like protecting the environment and revitalizing rural America. “By diverting more than 35 percent of the annual corn harvest to fuel additive, the RFS has raised the cost of livestock production, increased food price volatility and insecurity, decreased fuel efficiency, damaged small-engine equipment, hurt the environment and chipped away at household budgets,” the letter said. Earlier this year, the EPA proposed reexamining several aspects of the standard for renewable fuels, including whether refiners should be responsible for blending them and whether ethanol exports could be included in a marketplace for renewable fuel credits. But the agency announced on Oct. 19 that it would abandon those efforts after protests from Midwestern lawmakers. “President Trump pledged to support biofuels during his campaign,” said Republican U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa in a statement emailed to Reuters on Thursday. “A strong RFS is consistent with that pledge, and President Trump should be applauded for keeping his word to the country.” Renewable Fuels Association spokeswoman Rachel Gantz said Goodlatte was “spreading the same lies” about the standard. “The RFS is helping bring about consumer choice by breaking Big Oil’s monopoly at the pump,” she said. | 1 |
Minnesota governor Mark Dayton believes that Philando Castile was killed because he was a black man. The governor made his point of view crystal clear in public statements given on Thursday. Would this have happened if those passengers, the driver were white? he asked. I don t think it would have. Dayton said he has spoken with Minnesota s senators, Amy Klobuchar and Al Franken, and the area s House representatives and would be demanding a Justice Department investigation. I can t say how shocked I am and deeply, deeply offended that this would happen to somebody in Minnesota, Dayton said grimly. No one should be shot in Minnesota for a taillight being out of function. No one should be killed in Minnesota while seated in their car. Castile was shot and killed in the city of Falcon Heights after he was pulled over for a supposed broken taillight. As his girlfriend sat in the passenger seat and his 4-year-old daughter sat in the back, the police officer shot into the car. According to his girlfriend, Diamond Reynolds, Castile complied with the officer s demands as he approached the vehicle.Castile told the cop he had a license to carry a concealed weapon, but was killed before he could produce it.In the video the cop can be seen freaking out, immediately after the shooting.The aftermath of the incident was streamed on Reynolds Facebook Live account, and sparked protests in Minnesota and elsewhere in America on Thursday. President Obama highlighted the case, along with the shooting death of Alton Sterling.The cases have brought the Black Lives Matter movement back to the front burner, though for black Americans the forever present threat of death from police officers has never gone away.Despite their advocacy in favor of concealed carry laws, the NRA has refused to comment on Castile s death. The organization has often been silent about gun crimes with black victims.Featured image via screen capture | 0 |
‹ › Arnaldo Rodgers is a trained and educated Psychologist. He has worked as a community organizer and activist. How this WWII airman is helping veterans heal with the help of 4-legged friends By Arnaldo Rodgers on November 10, 2016 veterans heal
By Alexandra Zaslow
Irwin Stovroff has received hundreds of thank-you cards since starting a nonprofit that pairs service dogs with veterans in need, but there’s one letter in particular that stands out to him.
An Army veteran named Tyson (who prefers to keep his last name private), had severe post-traumatic stress disorder, and wasn’t paying much attention to his wife, Adrienne, or his children. He then welcomed a service dog named Argon into his home, and it had a profound impact.
“When the days were so dark for Tyson, I wasn’t sure if I could get through to him,” his wife wrote in a recent letter addressed to Argon. “I am so glad you are here with us. You have brought life back into Tyson.”
Read the Full Article at www.today.com >>>> Related Posts: No Related Posts The views expressed herein are the views of the author exclusively and not necessarily the views of VNN, VNN authors, affiliates, advertisers, sponsors, partners, technicians or and its assigns. Notices Posted by Arnaldo Rodgers on November 10, 2016, With 0 Reads, Filed under Health , Veterans . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 . You can leave a response or trackback to this entry FaceBook Comments
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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. House of Representatives Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi said on Wednesday a sit-in on the House floor by Democrats will continue until a gun control bill is brought to the floor of the chamber for debate. “We are in for the long haul here,” Pelosi said. | 1 |
21st Century Wire says Welcome to Spaceship Earth.This past week, Stuart J. Hooper took a trip to Los Angeles, California and got the chance to meet up with YouTube star Hamish The Illusion Patterson.The Illusion has made over 1,200 videos covering everything from current events, to the nature of the universe, and his journey through sobriety.In the coming days, look for a hour and a half long discussion with Stuart and Hamish covering the state of the world and current political events.In this initial video, The Illusion introduces his worldview and philosophy: You can follow Hamish on Youtube, Facebook and Instagram.SUPPORT 21WIRE SUBSCRIBE & BECOME A MEMBER @21WIRE.TV | 0 |
MOSCOW (Reuters) - The Syrian army has cut Islamic State s main supply line in the city of Deir al-Zor after taking control of the al-Jafra district, Russia s RIA news agency cited an unnamed source as saying on Sunday. | 0 |
President Donald Trump has slid back from his campaign promises to curb the annual legal immigration of roughly 1 million foreigners. [In an interview with Economist magazine, Trump was asked: “Do you want to curb legal immigration?” Trump responded by saying he prefers immigration of skilled people. The interviewer pressed him again on the scale of legal immigration, asking “[are you] not looking to reduce the numbers?” “No, no, no, no, we want people coming in legally. No, very strongly,” Trump replied, as two of his economic advisors sat beside him — top economic staffer Gary Cohn, and Steve Mnuchin, the Secretary of the Treasury. Trump also backed proposals to keep importing temporary contract workers for the agricultural sector, even though the cheap labor will retard farmers’ emerging interest in buying new machinery, such as robot and robot . Trump told the Economist: We also want farm workers to be able to come in. You know, we’re going to have work visas for the farm workers. If you look, you know we have a lot of people coming through the border, they’re great people and they work on the farms and then they go back home. We like those people a lot and we want them to continue to come in. Immigration reform advocates are not surprised at Trump’s but they are confident that Trump’s dependence on his base in the 2020 election is pressuring him to stick with his campaign promises, amid constant elite pressure for more legal immigration. “The president was unambiguous in his [2016] campaign … one of the things he said was that he would support reductions in immigration,” said Ira Mehlman, communications director at the Federation for American Immigration Reform. “If he is backing off, we will fight to remind him that he did make this commitment during the campaign and we intended to hold him to it,” he told Breitbart. “Anyone following Trump’s primary campaign could have predicted this — he repeatedly justified guestworker visas of various kinds and stressed the ‘big beautiful door’ that would be built into his wall,” wrote Mark Krikorian, the director of the Center for Immigration Studies. “Both the crowd and some immigration hawks mistook Trump’s commitment to enforcement (which seems genuine) to mean he was also skeptical of the overall level of immigration,” he said, adding that the next generation of populist GOP leaders — such as Sen. Tom Cotton — understands the many harms caused by mass immigration. But Trump’s backsliding isn’t a done deal. Former President Barack Obama also backed off many of his promises, even while he was urging his supporters to publiccly protest his actions and to push back the lobbies that were blocking his agenda. Obama also adopted a gradualist political strategy which helped the GOP establishment ignore his gradual progress towards his goals, and he achieved many goals for his supporters via court decisions and agency regulations by allied appointees. With constant pressure by Trump’s supporters, Trump will be more willing and better able to ignore or overcome establishment opposition and gradually get his agenda implemented . In August 2015, Trump issued his very popular immigration plan to raise wages by reducing legal and illegal immigration: The influx of foreign workers holds down salaries, keeps unemployment high, and makes it difficult for poor and working class Americans — including immigrants themselves and their children — to earn a middle class wage … Every year, we voluntarily admit another [1] million new immigrants, [plus 1 million] guest workers, refugees, and dependents, growing our existing historic record population of 42 million immigrants. We need to control the admission of new workers in order to: help wages grow, get teenagers back to work, aid minorities’ rise into the middle class, help schools and communities falling behind, and to ensure our immigrant members of the national family become part of the American dream. Requirement to hire American workers first. Too many [contract worker] visas, like the have no such requirement. In the year 2015, with 92 million Americans outside the workforce and incomes collapsing, we need companies to hire from the domestic pool of unemployed. Petitions for workers should be mailed to the unemployment office, not USCIS … . Immigration moderation. Before any new green cards are issued to foreign workers abroad, there will be a pause where employers will have to hire from the domestic pool of unemployed immigrant and native workers. This will help reverse women’s plummeting workplace participation rate, grow wages, and allow record immigration levels to subside to more moderate historical averages. Trump repeated those commitments in many subsequent speeches. For example, in March 2016, Trump called for a pause in legal immigration, saying “I think for a period of a year to two years we have to look back and we have to see, just to answer the second part of your question, where we are, where we stand, what’s going on … I’d say a minimum of one year, maybe two years. ” In his January 2017 inauguration speech, he described the theme of his administration as “Buy American, Hire American. ” Some polls show that promise is extremely popular. For example, a November 2016 poll by Ipsos showed that only 12 percent of respondents strongly opposed plans to “change the legal immigration system to limit legal immigration. ” Four times as many, or 57 percent, back reductions in legal immigration, while 13 percent did not take a position. To a large extent, Trump has followed through on those promises. He has revived enforcement of immigration law, slashed the inflow of illegal immigrants, and he is pushing a popular reform that would likely reduce the inflow of unskilled legal immigrants. Trump’s reform is also backed by some GOP legislators who want to increase Americans’ productivity, not just the number of American consumers. But Trump is under constant pressure from business leaders — including some of his advisors — who have a huge incentive to boost legal immigration, no matter the cost to ordinary Americans. In strictly economic terms, legal immigration is far more important than illegal immigration, because it is far larger and has far greater impact on employees, companies, and investors, wages, housing prices, profits and stock prices. In fact, multiple economists — including economists at Goldman Sachs — say government should try to boost the size of the economy by importing more consumers and workers. Federal immigration policy adds roughly 1 million legal people, workers, consumers and renters per year to the economy. This annual inflow is further expanded by the immigrants’ children, which now combine to create a population of roughly 63 million consumers and workers — not counting roughly 21 million illegals and their U. S. children. That means roughly of the nation’s consumers have been imported into the 330 economy via legal or illegal immigration. This legal inflow includes some very skilled workers and some people who become very successful entrepreneurs, but it also dumps a lot of unskilled workers into the country just as a new generation of technology is expected to eliminate many types of jobs. It also annually shifts $500 billion from employees to employers and Wall Street, and it forces state and local government to provide $60 billion in taxes to businesses via routine aid for immigrants, and it pushes millions of marginal U. S. workers out of the labor force and into poverty, crime and opioid addiction. High immigration also reduces employers’ need to recruit disengaged Americans, to build new facilities in areas, or to buy machinery or to demand that local schools rebuild high school vocational training departments for the millions of youth who don’t gain much from colleges. The resulting poverty and civic conflicts increase support for Democrats, ensuring that more states — especially California — are dominated by the Democratic Party’s policies. Under Obama, the annual inflow of legal immigrants was roughly twice the inflow of illegals. Roughly 550, 000 illegals arrived in 2016, but fewer are expected in 2017, according to the Center for Immigration Studies. Whenever the inflow of extra immigrant customers is threatened by public opposition, business groups say their companies and investors will be damaged. For example, in July 2016, a Wall Street firm tried to help Hillary Clinton by declaring that Trump’s opposition to illegal immigration would hurt companies and investors by forcing them to pay higher wages, and by reducing the cost of housing. “As the immigrants leave, the already tight labor market will get tighter, pushing up labor costs as employers struggle to fill the open job positions,” the report declared. “Mr. Trump’s immigration policies will thus result in … potentially severe labor shortages, and higher labor costs,” the critical report promised. The formal unemployment rate would immediately drop by a third, from 5 percent in 2016 to 3. 5 percent in 2017, the report predicts. Housing prices would drop by almost 4 percent in 2018 and 2019, says the Moody’s report, which did not admit that higher wages and lower housing prices are popular throughout America. “Reduced immigration would result in slower labor force growth and therefore slower growth in potential GDP,” or annual economic activity, according to a 2017 report by Goldman Sachs. Similarly, Jamie Dimon, the chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase, recently called for an amnesty for illegals and a potentially huge increase in immigration to help stimulate the economy. “I hope eventually we have proper immigration. Good people who have paid their taxes and haven’t broken the law, get them into citizenship at the back of the line … [and] if people get educated here, and they’re foreign nationals, get them a green card,” he said. In the same interview, Dimon portrayed himself as concerned about the economic condition of ordinary Americans, saying: wages haven’t gone up. One is, wages haven’t gone up enough to create a living wage. One is, people losing jobs, more to automation than anything else. … There’s some more terrible numbers — men, age 25 to 55, the participation rate is down 10%. That’s unbelievable. There are 35, 000 dying of opioids every year. Seventy percent of kids age 17 to 24 can’t get into the US military because of health or education. Obesity, diabetes, reading and writing. Is that the society we wanted? No. We should be working on these things, acknowledge the flaws we have, and come up with solutions. Not Democrat. Not Republican. Not . But the 2016 election showed that Trump and centrist Americans recognize that higher immigration means reduced wages, more unemployment, more drug addition, higher housing prices and longer commutes. That is how Trump won the 2016 election in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, and why his immigration policy is at the core of his impending 2020 race. Follow Neil Munro on Twitter @NeilMunroDC or email the author at NMunro@Breitbart. com, | 0 |
BANGKOK (Reuters) - Thailand aims to get its air safety rating upgraded by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) by March, the country s transport minister said on Wednesday, after the FAA downgraded the rating in December 2015. Thailand s Department of Civil Aviation (DCA) was downgraded to Category 2 from 1 because it fell short of the FAA s standards. We aim to be restored back to Category 1 by March, Transport Minister Arkom Termpittayapaisith told reporters. Arkom s comment came three months after the United Nations International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) removed a red flag against Thailand over safety concerns in October. He said Thailand will speed up its inspection of pilot qualifications and aim to have more aviation personnel and qualified pilots to be considered for the safety ratings upgrade. Bangkok is a regional airline hub and Thailand targeted a record 33 million to 34 million tourist arrivals this year. | 0 |
Arizona will become the first state in the nation to require doctors to tell patients that abortions may be reversible, under a controversial bill that deals with an equally controversial method.
The highly debated abortion-reversal procedure is done to try and reverse the effects of the so-called abortion pill. It involves a woman being injected with progesterone to counteract the effects of mifepristone – a.k.a., the abortion pill.
Doctors say a patient must undergo the hormone treatment within 72 hours of taking the pill if she decides to keep her baby.
“Women who have initiated a medical abortion process and who change their minds for whatever reason should not have their babies stolen from them because Planned Parenthood or any abortionist withheld life-saving facts or withheld information,” anti-abortion advocate Dr. Allan Sawyer said in testimony before the legislature.
The relatively new procedure was pioneered by Dr. George Delgado, the medical director of California-based non-profit Culture of Life Family Services. He co-authored the first-ever medical literature detailing how progesterone could reverse an abortion in 2007.
That same year, his organization completed its first successful reversal.
“I received a call about a woman who had taken mifepristone, RUU 486, and changed her mind. She wanted help and I offered it,” he told Fox News. “Then I received calls from across the country of doctors and others seeking advice. In 2012, we established Abortion Pill Reversal and its attendant website and hotline.”
News eventually spread to Arizona Republican state Sen. Nancy Barto, who included the provision about disclosing information on abortion reversals as part of broader insurance legislation to prevent women who receive federal subsidies under Affordable Care Act exchanges from being able to buy optional abortion coverage with their plans.
Ducey signed the legislation Monday evening, but stayed mum on the abortion reversal provision, which would require doctors to inform patients about the option when they seek access to the abortion pill.
"The American people overwhelmingly oppose taxpayer funding of abortions, and it's no different in Arizona, where we have long-standing policy against subsidizing them with public dollars," Ducey said in a statement. "This legislation provides clarity to state law."
Critics of the bill have been vocal in their disappointment.
"Instead of delivering on his campaign promises to reduce the negative stigma our state has taken on because of extreme and out-of-touch politics, Gov. Ducey has put Arizona once again in the national spotlight for interfering in the medical decisions of women," Planned Parenthood of Arizona President Bryan Howard said in a statement.
Opponents also say there isn’t enough documented evidence on abortion reversals.
“We like to practice medicine that is evidenced based, and unfortunately the protocol that has been suggested for reversing a medication abortion has no evidence to support it,” Dr. Ilana Addis said in testimony against the bill.
But Delgado says his organization has a success rate of 60 percent, with 87 births since 2007 and 75 women currently still pregnant after successful reversals.
“There have been negative reactions from those who seem to have an agenda and can’t seem to imagine that a woman might change her mind after taking mifepristone … [but] many are relieved to know they have a second chance,” Delgado said.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Aalia Shaheed is part of the Junior Reporter program at Fox News. Get more information on the program here and follow them on Twitter: @FNCJrReporters | 1 |
Are Republicans going to use their control of Congress to pass immigration reform in 2015? The short answer is no.
Here's the best reason to think that they won't: if Republicans were serious about passing immigration reform next year, you'd at least see Republican officials and pundits saying so on Spanish-language media, to reach out to Latino voters. But they're not.
On the election night edition of Univision's nightly news broadcast (which only lasted an hour, from 11:30pm to 12:30am Eastern, rather than the all-night orgy of English language news networks), immigration was the first issue that came up in any segment. And while everyone on the broadcast agreed that immigration reform needed to happen, no one was willing to say that the Republican Congress would take it on.
When Univision interviewed an actual Republican member of Congress — newly elected Florida congressman Carlos Curbelo (who beat one-term Democrat Joe Garcia, a big supporter of immigration reform) — he was openly supportive of immigration reform, saying (in Spanish) "I'm ready to go to Washington to work with Republicans and Democrats to achieve it." But he didn't make any promises that Republicans are about to take up the issue. In fact, Curbelo wasn't terribly eager to defend his colleagues-to-be: "We have to be honest. Yes, there are Republicans in the House who've blocked immigration reform. I've criticized them — just like I've criticized the president for using the issue for politics, and failing to keep his promises."
During an analysis segment (also in Spanish), host Jorge Ramos pressed Republican analyst Mercedes Schlapp on whether Republicans would really do immigration reform. Her response began with "Bueno, yo espero que hagan algo" — "Well, I hope they do something." Instead of making any predictions about whether the Republican Congress would, she made a point that Univision viewers are very familiar with: that Republicans "tienen que, en alguna manera, buscar solución" — "they have to find some sort of solution" — if they want to compete for the Latino vote in the 2016 presidential election.
Schlapp did say that the Republican leaders of both chambers of Congress — incoming Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, and Speaker of the House John Boehner — understood the need for Republicans to take up immigration. But Republican leaders in Congress, themselves, haven't been so clear. House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, who's laid out the most detailed agenda so far for a Republican Congress in 2015 and 2016, didn't do anything more than "(leave) open the possibility" of some unspecified immigration bill.
What Republicans on Congress appear to agree on, however, is that any executive action by Obama on the issue of immigration is going to "poison the well" (in Speaker Boehner's words) for Congress to do anything about it. On Wednesday, incoming Majority Leader McConnell compared executive action on immigration to "waving a red flag in front of a bull." If congressional Republicans plan to make an exception to their recalcitrance so that they can get a border-security bill passed, they're certainly not mentioning it. (Bulls aren't known for only busting through particular aisles of china shops.)
Schlapp mentioned executive action on immigration as a possible obstacle to a Republican immigration bill. Curbelo didn't. But neither of them left Spanish speakers on Tuesday night with any impression that the incoming Republican Congress is committed to immigration reform. | 0 |
Syrian Army soldier holds up Al Nusra Front (al Qaeda in Syria) flag in the Umayyed Mosque, Old City, after government troops liberated terrorist-occupied East Aleppo this week (Image: Vanessa Beeley for 21st Century Wire) 21st Century Wire SPECIAL REPORTDAMASCUS According to two reports coming out of Aleppo today, at least 14 US Coalition military officers were captured this morning in an East Aleppo bunker by Syrian Special Forces.This story was quietly leaked by Voltaire.net, who announced, The Security Council is sitting in private on Friday, December 16, 2016, at 17:00 GMT, while NATO officers were arrested this morning by the Syrian Special Forces in a bunker in East Aleppo. Fares Shehabi MP, a prominent Syrian Parliamentarian and head of Aleppo s Chamber of Commerce published the names of the Coalition officers on his Facebook page on the 15th December (emphasis added):Mutaz Kano lu Turkey David Scott Winer USA David Shlomo Aram Israel Muhamad Tamimi Qatar Muhamad Ahmad Assabian Saudi Abd-el-Menham Fahd al Harij Saudi Islam Salam Ezzahran Al Hajlan Saudi Ahmed Ben Naoufel Al Darij Saudi Muhamad Hassan Al Sabihi Saudi Hamad Fahad Al Dousri Saudi Amjad Qassem Al Tiraoui Jordan Qassem Saad Al Shamry Saudi Ayman Qassem Al Thahalbi Saudi Mohamed Ech-Chafihi El Idrissi MoroccanListen to Fares Shehabi s interview on the Sunday Wire radio show: Liberation Aleppo In addition to Voltaire.net, the other original report was provided by Damascus-based Syrian journalist Said Hilal Alcharifi. According to Alcharifi, captured NATO officers were from a number of member states including the US, France, Germany and Turkey, as well as Israel. Here is his statement (translated from French): Thanks to information received, Syrian authorities discovered the headquarters of high ranking western/NATO officers in the basement of an area in East Aleppo and have captured them alive. Some names have already been given to Syrian journalists, myself included. The nationalities are US, French, British, German, Israeli, Turkish, Saudi, Moroccan, Qatari etc. In light of their nationalities and their rank, I assure you that the Syrian government have a very important catch, which should enable them to direct negotiations with the countries that have tried to destroy them. Although these initial reports describe the individuals in question as NATO officers, it s unlikely they would have been carrying NATO colors on a covert operation and might be more accurately labeled as US Coalition officers. Note that early reports suggest that these are not standard street rebel or jihadi terrorists but actual Coalition military personnel and field commanders.SEE ALSO: The REAL Syria Civil Defence Exposes Fake White Helmets as Terrorist-Linked Imposters21WIRE also received unconfirmed reports yesterday that militants had fired a missile into the Ramousa area and then tried, unsuccessfully, to get cars out of East Aleppo. It s possible this incident could be related to today reports of captured western operatives.This report from the Syrian Arab News Agency (emphasis added): The agreement on evacuating militants and weapons from the eastern neighborhoods of Aleppo city has been suspended after terrorist groups breached it, special sources told SANA correspondent in Aleppo.The sources said that the suspension of the agreement will remain in place until obtaining guarantees that oblige the terrorist groups to abide by all the agreement s provisions, stressing on the Syrian side s full adherence to the agreement and its keenness to end the bloodshed and restore security and stability to the entire city of Aleppo. Earlier, SANA reporter said that the terrorist groups have breached the agreement as they smuggled heavy weapons, including TOW missiles, heavy machineguns and kidnapped people via the buses and cars transporting terrorists and their families towards the southwestern countryside of Aleppo city.The reporter added that the terrorist groups fired shells and sniper bullets on the buses and ambulances at al-Ramousseh crossing, noting that the Syrian Arab Red Crescent (SARC) and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) which are supervising the evacuation process had to withdraw all buses and cars from the crossing.Over the past 24 hours, some 8079 terrorists and members of their families were evacuated via busses and ambulances from the neighborhoods of Salah-Eddin, al-Ansari, al-Mashhad and al-Zibdiyeh to the southwest countryside of Aleppo city If true, this latest news would also mean that both the Syrian and Russian governments would have additional leverage going forward in any bilateral negotiations with the US-led Coalition.If, however, this story is kept under wraps by NATO member governments and is summarily blacked out by the US and European media outlets, then it might indicate that a deal has been struck, albeit behind the scenes, for the return of captured NATO operatives in exchange for other concessions.If today s report from East Aleppo is accurate, this might also help explain the hysterical behavior by the US State Department and western UN officials who have been demanding an immediate ceasefire despite the fact that 99% of East Aleppo has already been liberated by Syrian government forces.The western establishment hysterical reactions to Al Nusra s defeat in Aleppo have included wild claims that the Syrian Army had unleashed death squads, on its own residents in East Aleppo and were openly executing women and children in the street, and burning children in the street, as well what appear to be more fictional reports circulated in US media mainly by Michael Weiss of The Daily Beast via CNN, claiming that Syrian Army was committing mass rape against residents of East Aleppo. His article entitled, Women in Aleppo Choose Suicide Over Rape, Rebels Report, made a number of outlandish claims including: Activists and rebels in the besieged city say mass executions have begun and children are burned alive as Assad s Iranian- and Russian-backed forces move in. Not surprisingly, aside from unnamed UN sources , Weiss claims to have received his information from none other than the discredited US and UK-financed pseudo NGO known as the White Helmets.SEE ALSO: Tulsi Gabbard Introduces Bill to Stop US Government Funding and Arming Jihadist Terrorists in SyriaBack in September, numerous reports suggested that a western command center located behind terrorist-held lines had been targeted and destroyed by a Russian missile strike. Prof Michel Chossudovsky wrote: The US and its allies had established a Field Operations Room in the Aleppo region integrated by intelligence personnel. Until it was targeted by a Russian missile attack on September 20, this semi-secret facility was operated by US, British, Israeli, Turkish, Saudi and Qatari intelligence personnel. This report was neither admitted, nor was it denied by US Coalition sources at the time. However, one mainstream Israeli source, The Times of Israel, did report the incident.For anyone who has been paying close attention to the Syrian Conflict, seeing NATO special forces or contractors working with rebel or terrorist fighters inside of Syria is nothing unusual. Numerous reports have been filed of British soldiers assigned to fighting groups to help with training, strategy and logistics. In June 2016, The Telegraph admitted that British special forces were helping one rebel group, with logistics, like building defences to make the bunkers safe, said one rebel fighter. Other reports, including the LA Times which detailed CIA operations used to arm militants, including Al Nusra Front (al Qaeda in Syria) who were the terrorist force in charge in East Aleppo. Other revelations of US covert involvement include The New York Times, and also information on US (NATO by another name only) covert operations provided to the Wall Street Journal.South Front also notes: Earlier in December, SF already noted that the US despearate attempts to push a diplomatic solution in Aleppo could indicate that the Obama administration stalling for time to extricate US mercenaries and special service members from the Aleppo pocket: Considering that US-led coalition military advisers have been widely operating across Syria, training and assisting to the so-called moderate opposition openly linked with al-Qaeda, the recently appeared reports are likely true.For instance, British military advisers have officially arrived to Syria to restore combat capability of the moderate opposition, retreated from Aleppo 21WIRE can also point out that throughout fighting in the Donbass in eastern Ukraine, during the period of May 2014 to the present, numerous incidents have been reported where NATO military soldiers and operatives have been both spotted, and captured by rebel forces, and in most cases these reports have been muted, more than likely because of horse trading taking place as an extension of wider diplomacy.Contributors to this report were Patrick Henningsen and Vanessa Beeley.STAY TUNED FOR MORE UPDATES . READ MORE SYRIA NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire Syria FilesSUPPORT 21WIRE SUBSCRIBE & BECOME A [email protected] | 0 |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama on Monday said China recognized it could not sustain an export-driven growth model indefinitely but that it would take time to change. Speaking to state governors at the White House, Obama urged them to press the U.S. Congress to approve the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade pact to boost U.S. exports in a region where China is “the 800-pound gorilla.” Obama said it was tempting for China to try to solve its short-term problems by dumping state-subsidized goods into the U.S. market but said his administration had made clear to China that would not work, Obama said. “They recognize that they can’t forever sustain an export-driven growth model, but it’s going to take some time and it’s tempting for them to solve short-term problems by just dumping a bunch of state-subsidized goods into the U.S. market,” Obama said in response to a question raising concerns about China’s exports of iron ore. “We’ve been very clear with them about the fact that that’s not going to work, and we’re going to put in place tools to make sure it doesn’t work,” he said. Obama also said the United States had made clear China needed to have an orderly market-based currency system that did not advantage its companies over their U.S. counterparts. “Right now, frankly, their intervention is to prop up their currency rather than to devalue it, because a lot of people have been nervous about the Chinese economy,” he said. Obama told the governors he was “cautiously optimistic” that Congress ultimately will back the 12-nation TPP trade pact, which labor unions oppose because of what Obama called “emotions” about job losses from past trade deals. “Our concern there was that China was the 800-pound gorilla. And if we allowed them to set trade rules out there, American businesses and American workers were going to be cut out,” he said. Obama said he would have to rely on votes from “a set of strong pro-trade Democrats” in Congress as well as Republicans. But Obama acknowledged that Republicans have also “some concerns along the margins” of the TPP, such as provisions affecting tobacco, and said the campaign for the Nov. 8 presidential election has “roiled” the debate in both parties. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican, has said he has “some problems” with the TPP and does not think it should be pursued before the election. | 1 |
Hillary Clinton introduces Michelle Obama at campaign rally (wait, WHAT?) [video] Posted at 3:37 pm on October 27, 2016 by Doug P. Share on Facebook Share on Twitter
Michelle Obama is campaigning for Hillary Clinton at a rally today, though judging from the order of speakers you’d think it was the other way around: An embrace as @HillaryClinton introduces @FLOTUS to speak at campaign rally. "Hillary Clinton is my friend," says Mrs Obama. pic.twitter.com/XjOqLl5LfY
— Mark Knoller (@markknoller) October 27, 2016 Hillary Clinton introduces Michelle Obama at North Carolina campaign event. Watch on @CNNGo https://t.co/tsd4VYu2VI https://t.co/BDF0fwnYc2
Popularity has obviously been taken into account: Strange, but understandable: Hillary Clinton introduces Michelle Obama at this rally.
FLOTUS is popular. Clinton…it's complicated.
— T. Becket Adams (@BecketAdams) October 27, 2016
Hillaryous! | 1 |
This is a clear case of election-rigging.South Dakota Secretary of State Shantel Krebs is running for Congress in 2018. But rather than win the votes of the people fair and square, Krebs is using her current position to stack the odds in her favor.The Dakota Free Press pointed out that Krebs has purged thousands of voters from the rolls in the last threes months.The September 1, 2017, South Dakota voter registration tally shows 11,762 voters 2.14% of the August 1 total removed from Active status and 11,450 newly Inactive voters. This one-month purge restocks the Inactive pool, which the Secretary of State has whittled down over the last 18 months from a March 2016 peak of 54,708 to an August 2017 low of 30,619. Inactives now total 42,069 Thus, in three months, the Secretary of State managed to scrub 3.06% of the names on the voter rolls.Considering how close elections can be in this country, three percent is a big deal and could easily be enough to guarantee a victory for Krebs in November 2018.In fact, Democratic voters were targeted most by Krebs, which makes it all the more clear that she is rigging the election to help herself. In all, 2.63 percent of Democratic voters were purged from the rolls. If Democratic voters are kept from voting, her opponent doesn t stand a chance against her.And that s probably the whole point.This is voter suppression in its ugliest form. No candidate for office should have unfettered access to the voter rolls. As Secretary of State, Krebs is supposed to make sure elections are fair. But because she is going to be a congressional candidate in 2018, it appears she has thrown fairness out the window because winning is more important to her. When she pulls up the list of voters whom the state hasn t heard from for a while, it wouldn t be hard to sort that list by party and start with the Democrats first, the Dakota Free Press noted.That means Krebs has a conflict of interest and she should be forced to resign.Featured image via Mark Wilson/Getty Images | 1 |
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DOHA (Reuters) - Iraqi Foreign Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari said on Wednesday his country was against isolating and besieging any other country. He was speaking in the Qatari capital Doha. Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt cut diplomatic and transport ties with Doha on June 5, saying Qatar supports regional foe Iran and Islamists, a charge which Qatar denies. | 0 |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - At least two additional officials in Donald Trump’s presidential campaign said they spoke with Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyan at a conference on the sidelines of the Republican National Convention last July, USA Today reported on Thursday. The newspaper said J.D. Gordon, who was the Trump campaign’s director of national security, and Carter Page, another member of the campaign’s national security advisory committee, both said they met the ambassador. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who also met Kislyan at the conference of diplomats in Cleveland that coincided with the Republican convention to select Trump as the party’s presidential candidate. | 1 |
Posted: Nov 14th, 2016 by Guest Click for more article by Guest .. More Stories about: Ticker | 1 |
Can she just go away? This is so bizarre no words for the pictures except UGH!Michelle Obama has posted a workout video online that shows her pumping iron, crunching her abs with a medicine ball, and smacking a punch-bag with a roundhouse kick. The two-minute clip shows Michelle in full workout gear in the gym with the family s personal trainer Cornell McClellan putting her through her paces.I THINK MOOCH HAS HIM BEAT-REMEMBER THE VIDEO OF BARACK WORKING OUT IN A WARSAW GYM? The First Lady tweeted the video to husband Barack Obama after the President posted his own film showing him going running in a suit and drinking water with Joe Biden in the Oval Office.Read more: Daily Mail | 0 |
Donald Trump just can t seem to make up his mind about abortion laws, but his latest stance is going to make pro-life Republicans really angry.In the last week, the Republican frontrunner s opinion about abortion laws have changed more times than I have changed my clothes. On Wednesday, during a town hall discussion with MSNBC s Chris Matthews, Trump told the host that he believes the Roe v. Wade should be overturned and abortion should be banned. When the medical procedure is banned he said that women who get an abortion should be punished. It all went downhill from there.Shortly before the interview was set to air, Trump said the abortion issue should be left to the states. When he realized that people were still pretty pissed off, he said that he meant women who have abortions are victims and if he has his way he will punish the doctors who perform them. But now, he is once again changing his tune and is going full-on pro-choice liberal.During an interview with CBS John Dickerson (set to air Sunday) Trump was asked about his position on abortion laws and he responded: I would ve preferred states rights, he added. I think it would ve been better if it were up to the states. But right now, the laws are set .At this moment, the laws are set. And I think we have to leave it that way. Dickerson was clearly surprised by his obvious liberal position and asked, Do you think abortion is murder? Trump replied: I have my opinions on it, but I d rather not comment on it. Right now, the current laws make abortion 100 percent legal and he is saying that he does not believe they should be changed. That means that he is not pro-life, but instead pro-choice. Which, by the way, is the position he always had until he realized that he could appeal to America s ignorant imbeciles and changed his long-held position.After this clip from the Face The Nation interview was aired and the media reacted, Trump s campaign once again scrambled to clarify his statement, saying: Mr. Trump gave an accurate account of the law as it is today and made clear it must stay that way now until he is President. Then he will change the law through his judicial appointments and allow the states to protect the unborn. There is nothing new or different here. That s actually not what he said at all, but it s funny that they are trying to spin it again.Watch the clip below:Featured image via Tom Pennington/Getty Images | 1 |
The gas station at the corner of Lafayette and East Houston Streets in SoHo is an industrial outpost in a Manhattan neighborhood of luxury lofts and even more luxurious shopping. It has existed on the corner for decades — first as Gaseteria, later as BP, but nearly always selling gas. For cabdrivers, it was a way station in an unruly city, where they could fill up, use the restroom, or kneel for afternoon prayers on one of the communal kilims the owner let them keep stowed beside the convenience mart. It closed on Thursday, to be replaced by a luxury office building, turning some four square miles at the southern end of the borough into a gasoline desert. Today, the only reminder that this stretch of SoHo was once a forest of filling stations known as Gasoline Alley is a coffee shop of the same name that sells coffee beans from Burundi. The closing of the inelegant station, its shabby convenience store invariably full of drivers dancing in place while waiting in line for the restroom, has a familiar feeling. As New York City’s molten property values have made selling off a parcel of land often more profitable than operating the grocery, hardware store or gas station sitting on it, the gas station’s passing appears to be the latest example of a common trope. And while Amazon and FreshDirect may fill the hole when the corner store goes condo, there is no doubt it is getting harder in Manhattan to get many of the basics that make life livable. What happens now if you are downtown and the needle is on E? “It’s not going to be easy for the drivers, and the people who are using this facility,” Sunkanmi Alaka, a cabdriver, said as he waited for the restroom a few days before the station closed. “You’re going to travel miles before you see a gas station. ” Today there is not a single operating gas station left on the city’s East Side from the southern tip of the island to 23rd Street, a chunk of Manhattan that includes some of the most highly trafficked portions of the city, like the transverses between the bridges to the east and Holland Tunnel to the west, and the corridors of Wall Street and NoHo. With the exception of a small station in the West Village, the West Side is similarly parched. In Manhattan, there are 50 gas stations that can be used by the public, according to the Fire Department. Over the past eight years, about 30 have disappeared. A 2014 analysis by The Wall Street Journal said there were just 12 below 96th Street, but several have closed since then. The math makes the decision to pack up shop and build simple. “If you own the gas station and you own the land, and you can get 30 or 40 million dollars for that, you could run that gas station for 100 years and never make that kind of money,” said Ralph Bombardiere, executive director of the New York State Association of Service Stations and Repair Shops, which lobbies on behalf of the industry in New York. The gas station that closed Thursday was owned by Marcello Porcelli, whose father bought the corner plot for $100, 000 about four decades ago and built up the Gaseteria brand, whose signs became a fixture of the city’s 1970s streetscape. In the early 2000s his father’s company, LargaVista, shifted its goals to prioritize developing its more than 60 parcels citywide, “in order to maximize its extremely valuable portfolio of prime locations,” according to its website. LargaVista has formed a partnership with Related, a development company, to build the office building, a $200 million project of zigzagging glass designed by the architect Rick Cook. “Everyone is nostalgic when you look at something that’s been there for a while, maybe even a gas station,” said Lisa Linden, a spokeswoman for LargaVista, which is Spanish for “long view. ” “There are many things that people need, the question is, Is this location going forward?” she added. The building will bring jobs to the city, Ms. Linden said, adding: “Cabdrivers will be dropping people off there. So. ” For many, the closing is a nonissue, including those who rely on the subway system or believe New York is still too . Many neighbors are happy to see the station, which they see as an eyesore, go, including members of Community Board 2, which approved the new building. Board members did not respond to requests for an interview. Woolworth’s and the Gristedes supermarket chain are among the businesses that have sold as the value of their land has eclipsed profits. But while disappearing grocery stores have provoked public outcry and even street demonstrations, the loss of one charmless gas station — even if it is the last one for miles — seems to induce little clamor beyond the cabdriver community. Maqsood Ahmad, 49, a former cabdriver who owns Little Lahore, a restaurant on Crosby Street next to the gas station that has sold Pakistani cuisine to a mostly cabby clientele for two decades, believes gas stations have evaporated unchecked in part because their most loyal clients are immigrants who often feel voiceless. The city, he said, needs “the lower people, people and people. ” “They need all the mix,” he added. “But right now they are running on the path that they need only money. ” Mr. Ahmad’s rent for his subterranean restaurant has risen from $1, 100, when he started in 1995, to $10, 000 a month today. He will have to close, he believes, when the cabs no longer have a pit stop. Gas station attrition is widespread. A decade ago, there were nearly 300, 000 gas stations nationwide there are now fewer than 140, 000, according to Michael J. Fox, the executive director of the Gasoline and Automotive Service Dealers of America, the industry association for New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. Consolidation is partly responsible for the decline, as are new environmental regulations that make updating underground gas reservoirs a burdensome expense, he said, but in increasingly expensive cities, like New Canaan and Greenwich, in Connecticut, and San Francisco, booming real estate values are most often to blame. Mr. Fox’s organization has fought for states to pass laws, or to add tax incentives for stations that stay, that might thwart the decline. “The Manhattan circumstance is going to keep spreading,” he said. “I remember one time when Brooklyn was considered the garbage dump, now Brooklyn is the new Manhattan. You want to get the law passed so that it doesn’t come to be that within a radius you have no service stations at all because of the real estate situation. ” The mood at the gas station a few days before its closing was bitter. “I worry about my mayor: Where is his driver going to fill up the gas?” Janusz Krawczynski, 65, said as he sat in his cab in the station’s lot, his voice loaded with sarcasm. “Right now, any place he goes, he’s late,” he said, referring to the mayor’s history of tardiness. “The driver is going to have to go to fill up the gas in New Jersey, Brooklyn, the Bronx,” he said. “He’ll never go to a meeting!” Not all see that vision as bad. In the West Village, where Athanasios Hondros, who goes by Tommy, runs a Mobil station, business has been booming, and though people have come with envelopes of cash, he said, the station is not for sale. “Doesn’t bother me,” he said. “I plan on being the last gas station left. ” | 0 |
WATERBURY A federal agent, with help from an informant, went undercover for nearly two years to document food stamp fraud occurring at an inner-city market whose employees were busted in recent weeks.Though W.B. Trade Fair Supermarket, a small corner market on Willow Street, had dusty cans and only one regularly used register, federal authorities estimated they have redeemed almost $5.7 million in food stamps since 2011.But those benefits weren t used to provide nutritional food to city residents, rather they were swapped for cash, glass smoking pipes and even power tools, federal authorities allege.A recently unsealed federal search warrant for the store shows an undercover agent with the Office of the Inspector General suspected the store of trafficking, or exchanging large amounts of benefits for cash.Tallat Mahmood, 63, Raul Carlos Monarca, 40, and Tahir Shahzad, 32, of Harrison, N.Y. were charged with federal food stamp fraud and illegally trafficking in food stamp benefits.The food stamp program is aimed at giving low-income residents the ability to purchase nutritious foods using a type of debit card called an EBT. But people enrolled in the program are barred from buying booze, cigarettes, paper goods and soap, among other items. The market is well stocked with everything from rice and sugar, to doorknobs and scented candles.But authorities say the trio allowed customers to illegally swap their federal food stamps, known as Supplemental Nutrition and Assistance Program or SNAP benefits, for cigarettes, bongs, hookahs and glass smoking pipes, which are in display cases at the front of the store.When the EBT card is run through a special terminal, the total amount of items is inputted by the store, which is then deducted from the person s SNAP account. When that occurs, that inputted amount is then transferred to the store s bank account.Federal authorities allege the men exploited those transfers, giving customers a meager portion of their SNAP benefits in cash, while the rest went into the store s bank account. Store employees are supposed to ensure the items being purchased are eligible for the benefits when they run the person s EBT card.THE STORE OPENED IN early 2011 and by March of that year the owners applied to accept SNAP benefits, federal authorities allege. The store redeemed $6,532 in SNAP benefits in April 2011, but by March of this year, that one-month tally had grown to more than $179,000, according to federal documents.The agent, along with an informant, visited the store 19 times starting in 2014 and paid about $7,381 in SNAP benefits in exchange for about $2,905 in cash and a number of eligible and ineligible items such as soda, chips, glass pipes, bongs, hookahs, and hardware. For instance, in April, the agent was given $200 cash, two glass smoking pipes, an electric circular saw and cigarettes in exchange for $583 in SNAP benefits.Only weeks later, a federal SNAP employee visited the store under the guise of inspecting it to talk about SNAP rules and regulations.Shahzad indicated he knew that exchanging cash for SNAP benefits was prohibited, while Mahmood stated the benefits were to buy food, that s it and no lottery. Only weeks later during another visit by the undercover agent, an employee at the store gave him $200 cash for $540 in benefits.THOUGH AUTHORITIES SUSPECT the store redeemed more than $5 million in federal benefits, the store employees were charged with fraud based on a roughly 18-month span starting in 2014 where the store took in $3.2 million in benefits. This practice results in illegal profits to traffickers, misuse of government funds intended to provide food for needy families, and the creation of a market for stolen or fraudulently obtained SNAP benefits, the agent wrote of alleged traffickers, according to a federal search warrant for the store.The store now only accepts cash for payment, according to a sign on its door.Mahmood and Shahzad are free after they posted bond, but they were ordered to surrender their passports. Monarca has not been released from jail. If convicted, they face a maximum of five years in prison.The principal member of the store is listed as Aijaz Ahmed, according to state business records, but he has not been charged with any crime.Via: REP-AM | 1 |
VIENTIANE (Reuters) - The Philippines said on Tuesday that President Rodrigo Duterte regretted comments he made about U.S. President Barack Obama came across as a personal attack and led to the cancellation of a meeting between the leaders of the allied nations. “President Duterte explained that the press reports that President Obama would ‘lecture’ him on extrajudicial killings led to his strong comments, which in turn elicited concern,” the Philippines said in a statement released at a summit in Laos. “He regrets that his remarks to the press have caused much controversy,” it added. | 0 |
A few days before Thanksgiving, a food bank in Central Texas received a letter that was so hateful it could only have been written by a Trump supporter.Dear Foodbank:I don t understand who these poor folks are that need food. I assume they consist primarily of illegals, who come to Texas for free stuff. And of course, our unemployed Africans, who find work too much trouble, especially when they can collect the equivalent of $40,000 a year on welfare, and other benefits offered to the unfit, the lazy, and the under-educated and of course, the drug addicts.I expect that most who need food are marching around whining that the congenital liar, Hillary Rodham Clinton, lost the election. Too bad; How sad.I also wonder if your organization is not one of those Phoney-Baloney, so-called charities, designed primarily to provide a good living to its organizers.In sort, no way.Signed,Citizen RobespierreNaturally, the food bank was mortified. The lack of empathy was disturbing, says Paul Gaither, marketing and communications director for the Food Bank. Most of the letters we receive say things like we don t have anything to contribute or please take me off your list, but this one was a little different. It s important that we don t categorize the people we serve as takers Gaither said. Most of the people we serve have fallen on hard times or are the working poor who just can t make ends meet, and that can happen to anyone. Source: GivingCityAustinBefore I tackle how this proves we need food stamps, let s talk about the misconceptions in the surprisingly literate letter. First off, food should never be treated as a luxury. You can absolutely not call yourself pro-life while at the same time advocating that people should starve. Of the 37 million people who are fed every year by food banks, 14 million of them are children and 3 million are seniors.As for undocumented immigrants, well, they aren t crossing the border to eat at food banks. They are crossing the border, for the most part, to work and that s what they do. Collectively, undocumented immigrants contribute almost $12 billion each year to our country because they pay taxes and get nothing in return. We should be thanking them instead of sending hateful notes about them.It s not just unemployed people who need food banks, so do people who work minimum wage jobs. Texas happens to be among the states with the very lowest wages. Only Alabama, Arkansas, Tennessee and Mississippi have lower wages. In other words, in states like Texas, laziness has nothing to do with the ability to put food on the table.Now, back to the food stamps argument. One Republican argument has always been that if the government stops offering a social safety net, private charities will pick up the slack. While that sounds like a beautiful idea (sort of), it s simply not true. People s ability to eat should not depend on the whims of people, nor should it depend on the economy or whether a charity can effectively market itself. We tried that in the past. It didn t work.Instead, that time in history proved that privately funded charities can be both bigoted and very selective in who they cover. If you can imagine the writer of this letter, for example, giving to any charity, do you honestly think (s)he d give to a charity that serviced minority areas? No. That s where government comes in. Making sure Americans have enough food is our moral prerogative. Relying on bigots like Citizen Robespierre should be out of the question, no matter who is hungry.As for the Central Texas Food Bank, well, they are a damn good charity. They score 100 out of 100 on Charity Navigator. The vast majority of the people they serve are not homeless. 1/3 of the recipients are white.Featured image via State Farm/Flickr. | 1 |
(Reuters) - A man suspected of shooting an Idaho pastor who led a prayer at a rally for U.S. Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz was arrested on Tuesday and was facing attempted murder charges, police said. Kyle Odom, 30, was taken into custody in Washington D.C. in connection with the Sunday afternoon shooting of Pastor Tim Remington outside the Altar Church, Coeur d’Alene Police Department Chief Lee White said in a late Tuesday news conference. Odom was apprehended by Secret Service officers after he tossed several items, including flash drives, over the fence of the White House, White said. The items thrown by Odom were deemed non-hazardous, the U.S. Secret Service said in a statement. The attack on the pastor is the latest in a spate of highly publicized shootings in the United States that have made gun control an issue in the presidential race. Remington had led a prayer at a Cruz rally on Saturday and was shot by Odom, an ex-marine, the next day in the church parking lot in a preplanned attack, police said. The senior pastor was shot six times, including in the skull, after Sunday morning service, John Padula, outreach pastor at the church told Reuters. Remington regained consciousness on Monday evening as a candlelight vigil for his recovery was underway, Padula said. “He opened one eye and gave me a thumbs up,” Padula said, adding that Remington does not have feeling in his right arm but appears to be improving. “Without God, there is no way he’d be here.” There is no apparent connection between the shooting and Remington’s appearance at the Cruz rally, Padula noted. Cruz, an outspoken supporter of gun rights, could not be reached for comment on Tuesday, but a campaign spokeswoman told NBC News on Monday that they were praying for Remington’s recovery. Odom flew from Boise, Idaho to Washington D.C., on March 7, White said. An investigation into his plans was ongoing. The police chief, who previously said Odom had a history of mental illness, read a statement from Odom’s family saying they were thankful for his “safe apprehension.” Local broadcaster KXLY reported that a Facebook page linked with Odom, who police said suffered from mental illness, was updated on Tuesday with a statement claiming that Remington was part of an ancient Martian civilization that ruled Earth. (Reporting by Curtis Skinner and Victoria Cavaliere; Editing by Sara Catania, G Crosse, Kim Coghill and Michael Perry) This article was funded in part by SAP. It was independently created by the Reuters editorial staff. SAP had no editorial involvement in its creation or production. | 0 |
“People Power” Versus Manipulation of the Masses “People Power” Versus Manipulation of the Masses November 7, 2016, 9:37 am by Cliff Kincaid Leave a Comment 0
By: Cliff Kincaid | Accuracy in Media
On November 8, the election will come down to Donald J. Trump’s “people power,” a largely spontaneous uprising of the “silent majority,” against Hillary Clinton’s scientific manipulation of the electorate, using personal data to identify and provoke people to go to the polls. In this effort, Mrs. Clinton has the support of the giant company Google and the president of its parent company, Eric Schmidt. Experts say the effort resembles how the Communist Chinese dictatorship monitors people and modifies their behavior through media manipulation and censorship of the Web.
As Trump suggests, the election process seems “rigged,” and the evidence has come in the form of another John Podesta email.
One of the internal Clinton campaign emails disclosed by WikiLeaks shows that Schmidt, chairman of the Google parent company, offered a detailed campaign plan for the Clinton campaign. The April 15, 2014, message, addressed to Clinton aide Cheryl Mills, said, “I have put together my thoughts on the campaign ideas and I have scheduled some meetings in the next few weeks for veterans of the campaign to tell me how to make these ideas better.” The details included “Size, Structure and Timing” and a campaign budget of $1.5 billion, with more than “5000 paid employees and million(s) of volunteers.” The Schmidt email was sent along to several key Clinton people, including campaign chairman John Podesta.
The plan examines how information is received and reviewed by voters, and what provokes them. Indeed, in a section titled “The Voter,” Schmidt says, “Key is the development of a single record for a voter that aggregates all that is known about them. In 2016 smart phones will be used to identify, meet, and update profiles on the voter.” Schmidt goes on to say, “For each voter, a score is computed ranking probability of the right vote. Analytics can model demographics, social factors and many other attributes of the needed voters.”
Patrick Wood, editor of Technocracy News, comments that Schmidt’s scoring idea “is just like China’s social scoring of citizens to see who is for them and who is against them.”
On one level, this means that search engine results are manipulated. In his evaluation of the Schmidt email, Michael Cantrell comments , “For some time now, people have wondered if Google, the world’s largest search engine, might be a tad bit slanted when it comes to politics, favoring left-wing candidates over conservatives in how search results are displayed. Well, it seems those suspicions may not be so far-fetched after all.”
Earlier this year, in a column carried by Accuracy in Media, Seton Motley documented how Google was designing its search engine to maneuver people away from the issue of Hillary Clinton’s health problems.
It’s a fact of life that in this era of access to many different sources of information, some people go to the Google search engine and rely on the first item that pops up. That’s how I got banned (temporarily) from the campus of the State University of New York at New Paltz. A feminist professor used Google to search my name and passed around derogatory information from the first source on the search engine page—the Southern Poverty Law Center. She then passed around the information, creating a stink that caused the campus administration to cancel the debate I was scheduled to participate in.
A new book, Islamic Jihad, Cultural Marxism and the Transformation of the West , examines the role of Google as a new media “gatekeeper” that determines how people see the reality of the world. The author, William Mayer of PipeLineNews.org , examines how Google produces search engine results on the subject of Islamic terrorism that play down criminal activities of leading Jihadists. Mayer says the results can be confusing unless the search terms are assembled with scrupulous precision, “a difficult task when one isn’t exactly sure in advance the extent of the associations being pursued.”
In his excellent book, Mayer documents in detail the “leftist/Obama/Media merger” that played a significant role in Obama’s 2012 victory and figures prominently in Hillary Clinton’s plan for victory on Tuesday.
Mayer comments, “…if we think of the Internet as the largest depository of information ever to be created, it assumes in many sense the role of the book of common wisdom. When the universal storehouse of information obfuscates and hides knowledge it becomes censorious, preventing or at least stifling access to non-ideologically approved ideas and information.”
When Barack Obama campaigns against Trump by citing the KKK, you can rest assured this has been determined by analysts in the Hillary campaign to be at least somewhat effective in scaring blacks. Getting blacks to vote against Trump is a part of what they hope will be their winning strategy. Similarly, when Hillary Clinton campaigns with a profane rapper named Jay Z, the calculation has been made by some brain in the campaign structure that using such a spectacle will inspire other blacks to turn out for the former secretary of state on Election Day. Hillary hopes that the rapper’s popularity will somehow rub off on her.
These two campaign events are more evidence of how truly “scientific” the progressive movement has become. People are perceived by the Clinton campaign as subjects to be manipulated.
Even with the use of these scientific techniques, victory is not assured for the “progressive” forces. That is why reports of vote fraud are mounting as Obama sounds the alarm about the KKK. For Trump to win, the “silent majority” will have to be a real majority with millions of votes to spare, surpassing the artificially created “progressive” bloc bolstered by fraudulent votes and created by an emerging technocratic dictatorship of access to information.
The “media monopoly” that the left used to rail against is now controlled by them. Cliff Kincaid
Cliff Kincaid is the Director of the AIM Center for Investigative Journalism and can be contacted at [email protected]. View Cliff Kincaid . 0 | 1 |
Donald Trump was nervous as hell over the hearing with FBI Director James Comey earlier today, and he had every reason to be. It s now been confirmed that Trump is in fact being investigated by the FBI, however Americans shouldn t rejoice yet. There are still more dangers facing America.Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), the ranking member on the House Intelligence Committee, kicked the hearing off by stating that the meddling we saw from Russia in the 2016 election the interference that helped Trump win could haunt us. According to the top Democrat, it s highly likely that this sort of thing could happen again, maybe as soon as 2018. Schiff said: Only by understanding what the Russians did can we inoculate ourselves from the further Russian interference we know is coming. It was a bombshell of a statement, and the warning became even more clear three hours later, when Comey himself agreed with Schiff during the hearing. Comey said of Russia: They ll be back. They ll be back in 2020, they may be back in 2018, and one of the lessons they may draw from this is that they were successful because they introduced chaos and division and discord and sowed doubt about the nature of this amazing country of ours and our democratic process.It is possible they re misreading that as it worked, and so we ll come back and hit them again in 2020. I don t know. But we have to assume they re coming back. While Comey couldn t give any specific details about whether or not Trump has definitely been involved with Russia, the announcement of the investigation implies that there is evidence. If Trump is found to be connected to Russia and its interference, he will have compromised the country and put America in a severe, unprecedented amount of danger.Featured image via Drew Angerer / Getty Images | 1 |
BEIJING (Reuters) - Some northern Chinese cities failed to improve air quality by much last month, hitting the smog-prone region s overall results in a drive against pollution, the government said as it warned provincial officials to comply with stringent steps to clear the skies. Some cities did not improve air quality by much or even experienced some volatility, and in a way, they have dragged down the regional air quality level, Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP) spokesperson, Liu Youbin, said at a regular briefing on Thursday. He did not identify the underperforming cities, but the comment comes amid concerns about the country s ability to reduce pollution in winter as it battles to avoid a repeat of the near-record levels of choking smog that enveloped key northern areas at the start of the year. There is no jesting in war. For those local officials who do not enforce the measures of the campaign effectively and could not improve air quality in time, we will hold them accountable, Liu added. Data earlier this month showed only four of 28 northern Chinese cities met their air quality targets in October and air quality in 338 Chinese cities worsened in October, with levels of hazardous breathable particles, known as PM 2.5, up 5.6 percent on the year to an average of 38 micrograms per cubic meter. Beijing is under huge pressure to meet politically crucial air quality targets and clear the skies of toxic smog that blankets the north of the country as homes turn up the heat which is powered by coal. Liu said overall air quality in the northern cities was improving compared with September. Average PM 2.5 levels in the region dropped 15.8 percent in October from the month before, he said. It shows that our measures are working. As long as we are persistent, and diligently enforce existing measures, regional air quality will definitely improve, he said. Under the six-month campaign, 28 northern Chinese cities were ordered to thin traffic and cut industrial output. Thousands of pollution sources including steel mills, coal-fired boilers, cement and ceramic plants, mines and building sites will be shut. These measures, part of Beijing s years-long time war on smog, have already roiled commodities market, fuelling worries that the tough inspections are hurting the already slowing economy. | 1 |
■ The Oakland Raiders defense may need some tightening up, but their offense can keep up with Drew Brees in the Superdome and their coach’s Twitter game is decidedly elite. ■ Jameis Winston of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers completed touchdowns to four different receivers in a win on the road, and no one is asking if Marcus Mariota should have been drafted ahead of him anymore. ■ Life without Marshawn Lynch may be an odd experience for the Seattle Seahawks, who asked Russell Wilson to throw a 43 times, struggled to run the ball, and barely beat the uninspiring Miami Dolphins at home. ■ Ezekiel Elliott should likely have exercised a bit more caution before discussing breaking Eric Dickerson’s rookie rushing record, as the Dallas Cowboys running back had just 51 yards in his debut, averaging 2. 5 yards a carry. ■ The New England Patriots, playing on the road, beat one of the best teams in the N. F. L. without Tom Brady or Rob Gronkowski, and Jimmy Garoppolo completed a pass to himself, so the other teams in the N. F. L. may want to consider giving up. Go here for the complete Week 1 schedule and scores The New England Patriots and Arizona Cardinals are two of the top teams in the N. F. L. so a tight matchup between them on Sunday night made sense until you realized the Patriots were playing without the team’s two best players, Tom Brady and Rob Gronkowski, and their most dominant defender from last season, Chandler Jones, was suited up for the other team. Proving that no individuals are too important when it comes to one of Coach Bill Belichick’s teams, the Patriots outlasted the Cardinals with Jimmy Garoppolo not missing a beat in Brady’s place and the team’s defense working together to limit one of the N. F. L. ’s most potent offensive units. Garoppolo, who threw just four passes last season, completed 24 of 33 against the Cardinals for 264 yards and 1 touchdown, showing a great deal of mobility in the pocket and getting some style points for pulling a trick out of Steve Young’s old play book, catching his own deflected pass and running it for a gain. Down by one point with just under 10 minutes remaining in the game, he led a drive that resulted in Stephen Gostkowski’s field goal that put New England on top for good. Garoppolo was positively Belichickian in his assessment of the win. “There’s plenty of room for improvement,” Garoppolo said. “We’ll look at the film and get it corrected for next week. ” The Cardinals, who never seemed to get into an offensive rhythm despite Larry Fitzgerald scoring the 99th and 100th receiving touchdowns of his career, had a chance to take the lead when Chandler Catanzaro came out for a field goal attempt with 41 seconds remaining, but after a low snap, Catanzaro’s kick sailed wide left, ensuring New England’s victory. Russell Wilson hobbled through much of the second half, but when the Seattle Seahawks needed him most he stepped back into the pocket and found Doug Baldwin in the corner of the end zone to put his team ahead to stay in a win over the Miami Dolphins. It was the first game of the Lynch era, and the Seahawks leaned heavily on Wilson, who threw a 43 passes, many of which came after he had his ankle crushed under the weight of Ndamukong Suh following a sack in the third quarter. Playing with a taped ankle that severely limited his mobility, Wilson did not miss a snap and was able to float the ball over a defensive back into Baldwin’s arms from 2 yards away. He finished the day with 258 yards passing, 1 touchdown and 1 interception. It was a quiet game in favor of the Seahawks after three quarters, but the teams made it interesting from that point forward, with Cassius Marsh, a standout special teams player for Seattle, blocking a field goal, and Ryan Tannehill of the Dolphins engineering an efficient drive that appeared to secure a huge upset win for Miami prior to Wilson finding Baldwin for the . Marcus Peters, a cornerback for the Kansas City Chiefs, held his right fist in the air throughout the playing of the national anthem before his team’s game against the San Diego Chargers on Sunday. Peters, who stood with his arms linked with his teammates, was channeling the Black Power salutes of Tommie Smith and John Carlos at the 1968 Olympics while simultaneously supporting the protest that Colin Kaepernick of the San Francisco 49ers started during the preseason to raise issues of the treatment of minorities. “I salute Colin for what he’s doing for a great cause,” Peters told reporters on Friday. “I’m 100 percent behind him. What’s going on in law enforcement, it does need to change and it does need to change for everybody, not just us as black Americans. ” The Chiefs as a team issued a statement, saying in part “after having a number of thoughtful discussions as a group regarding our representation during the National Anthem, we decided collectively to lock arms as a sign of solidarity. It was our goal to be unified as a team and to be respectful of everyone’s opinions, and the remembrance of . ” The protest of the national anthem has been a hot topic, with many players in Week 1 choosing to help hold the oversize flags to show their patriotism, while several others have voiced support of the issue. In the game on Thursday between the Carolina Panthers and Denver Broncos, Brandon Marshall, a linebacker for the Broncos, kneeled during the anthem in solidarity with Kaepernick, his teammate in college at Nevada. In the Sunday afternoon game between the Seattle Seahawks and Miami Dolphins, the Seahawks linked arms together in a sign of unity while as he had promised, Arian Foster, a Dolphins running back, kneeled. He was joined by his teammates Kenny Stills, Michael Thomas and Jelani Jenkins. The Houston Texans had to temper some of the enthusiasm for the team’s win over the Chicago Bears because of what appeared to be a significant knee injury to Brian Cushing, a linebacker who is among the team’s leaders on defense. Cushing, who has dealt with several knee injuries in the past, went down in the first quarter and did not return. — Keenan Allen, a wide receiver for the San Diego Chargers, suffered a injury to his right knee early in the second quarter. The Sporting News is reporting that Allen tore his ACL, which would be a big blow to the Chargers, who had started the game well but ended up losing to the Kansas City Chiefs in overtime. Allen, who is the team’s best receiver when healthy, already had 6 catches for 63 yards at the time of his injury. Following a touchdown late in the fourth quarter, Coach Jack Del Rio of the Oakland Raiders decided he had no interest in going to overtime against the New Orleans Saints, and instead went for a conversion with just 47 seconds remaining. The upstart Raiders made Del Rio look like a genius, with Derek Carr finding Michael Crabtree for the conversion, and then the Oakland defense held on to secure a victory in New Orleans. “I was thinking ‘we’re here to win, let’s win it right now,’” Del Rio said at a news conference following the game. “That’s why we took some clock there at the end, so they wouldn’t have as much, that’s why we went for two after the score. Everything about our strategy at the end was to win. ” The Raiders, trying to make the playoffs for the first time since the 2002 season, survived a passing game by Drew Brees and a touchdown by Brandin Cooks that was the longest reception in the N. F. L. since 2011. Victor Cruz is back! Facing a crucial situation yards from the Dallas end zone, the Giants turned to a star who was injured and out of the lineup last season. Giants wide receiver Victor Cruz, playing his first game in nearly two years, craftily around and between two Dallas defenders to get open for a touchdown pass that gave the Giants a spirited victory. Here’s how they won. Carson Wentz Makes Browns Pay: The Cleveland Browns felt strongly enough that Carson Wentz was not the answer for the team at quarterback that they traded away the No. 2 pick in this year’s draft rather that select him. After getting a good look at the quarterback in his role as the starter for the Philadelphia Eagles, they may be regretting that decision. Wentz hit the ground running in his N. F. L. career, throwing a touchdown on his first drive and eventually beating the Browns . “This is who he is,” Eagles coach Doug Pederson said after the game. “This is his DNA. He prepared like a veteran and he played that way. His maturity level was outstanding. ” The Browns, who have seemed cursed at the quarterback position since Bernie Kosar was released in 1991, knew that keeping the No. 2 pick in the draft would guarantee them either Jared Goff (who ended up going No. 1 to the Los Angeles Rams) or Wentz, but according to Paul DePodesta, the team’s chief strategy officer, neither player was enticing enough, so the team instead traded the pick to the Eagles for five draft picks. Time will tell if Wentz is an elite quarterback, but in the first game of his career he completed 22 of 37 passes for 278 yards and threw two touchdowns and no interceptions. Late field goal dooms Jets: The scheduling doyens at N. F. L. headquarters did not do the Jets any favors. Five of their first six opponents this season advanced to the playoffs last season, a hazy maze of danger that began Sunday afternoon when the Cincinnati Bengals visited MetLife Stadium. Sure enough, the first game of the season ended in disappointment for the Jets, whose defensive backfield had more seams than a business suit. The Bengals held on for a win as Mike Nugent kicked a field goal with 54 seconds left. Here’s our Jets game story. Packers survive in Jacksonville: The Jaguars and their young quarterback, Blake Bortles, made it difficult, but Aaron Rodgers was too much for them, leading the Packers to a victory. Rodgers threw two touchdown passes and ran for another score. He looked every bit like, well, a league MVP. He extended plays with his feet, escaped sacks and had precision accuracy all over the field. Bortles gave Rodgers a challenge, completing 24 of 39 passes for 320 yards and a touchdown, but he came up short on the Jaguars’ final drive. Osweiler Solid in Texans Debut: Brock Osweiler threw for 231 yards and two touchdowns in his debut with Houston to lead the Texans and their revamped offense to a win over the Chicago Bears on Sunday. Osweiler, who signed to a $72 million contract from Denver in the offseason, was helped by an offense filled with playmakers. He completed passes to eight different receivers, led by rookie pick Will Fuller, who became the first player in franchise history to have 100 yards receiving in a debut with 107 and a touchdown. DeAndre Hopkins added 54 yards and a score and running back Lamar Miller had 106 yards rushing in his first game with the Texans. — Associated Press All times Eastern Tampa Bay 31, Atlanta 24 Baltimore 13, Buffalo 7 Houston 23, Chicago 14 Green Bay 27, Jacksonville 23 Kansas City 33, San Diego 27, OT Oakland 35, New Orleans 34 Cincinnati 23, Jets 22 Philadelphia 29, Cleveland 10 Minnesota 25, Tennessee 16 Seattle 12, Miami 10 N. Y. Giants 20, Dallas 19 Detroit 39, Indianapolis 35 New England 23, Arizona 21 | 0 |
Randy Johnson 21st Century Wire MIRROR MIRROR Am I still just a movie concept? Virtual avatar technology is in its infancy as far as we know (Image: Actor Sam Worthington from the science fiction blockbuster film, Avatar).Is humanity s recent quantum leap with technology all fun and games, or a zombie-like march into the arms of a technocratic prison world?For generations we have seen global figures such as John F. Kennedy or Ronald Reagan speak on television and that s what we believed we have seen and heard.We have all heard, people say things such as The President said it it was on the news or she said it on TV, I saw it. Ever since the invention of the medium of television, this has served as a sufficient casual reference to any event away from the local area.What if the words and image of a global figure, broadcast to millions on television, was not real? What if your eyes and ears where literally deceiving you?Simply put, what if seeing isn t believing anymore? What if the person on screen, on LIVE television, who is actually interacting with questions asked, was not the person being represented on screen?With technological advancements, as exemplified with the still-in-development Face2Face system, the potential to present and act any person to an audience for multiple reasons, both good and bad, is here. With respect to black budgets, exotic technology, and unknown classified advancements of similar computer systems and programs technology beyond that of the Face2Face system could already be here and further advanced.What exactly is a Face2Face system? TechCrunch.com describes it as taking, A YouTube video of someone speaking like, say, George W. Bush. Use a standard RGB [Red Green Blue] webcam to capture a video of someone else emoting and saying something entirely different. Throw both videos into the Face2Face system and you ve now got a relatively believable video of George W. Bush s face now almost entirely synthesized doing whatever the actor in the second video wanted the target s face to do. If the definition eludes you, then take a look at the Face2Face system in action.Watch below as life-like avatars of George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Donald Trump, and Vladimir Putin follow visual commands in real time via the Face2Face system. That s great. What about the voice you might ask?It does not take a wild imagination to envision voice software programs linked up with visual avatars for something like the Face2Face system in real time.Celebrity voice changer technology or other voice morphing software is already available at the consumer level. Many security systems, phones, and buildings grant access by authenticating a person s voice. There is even a real danger for people to have their actual voice hacked as they leave samples of it everywhere throughout the day.If the Face2Face technology, in a development stage as seen above, as does voice changing and voice recognition technology exists, then it only follows that the audio and the visual technology are destined to sync up.Just think of the implications.You could potentially have John Wayne, Elvis, Michael Jordan, Osama bin Laden, Miley Cyrus, or Justin Beiber wishing you happy birthday on a video message and interacting with you Live. It isn t really them, but then again it is them, just in a virtual reality sort of way. Could there eventually be monetary charges to use the likeness of famous people dead or alive with certain companies owning certain celebrity s long dead and families of recent celebrities getting a cut?Perhaps a world leader could be dead for weeks and still delivering speeches or issuing orders. Anyone can be misquoted intentionally and questioned, framed, or made to fall from grace in the court of public opinion. If you could take over another nation s airwaves, their leader can be seen saying something they said on television except for the fact it isn t them and they never said it. Wars have been started for less.In the summer of 2015, 21WIRE discussed the use of a 3D avatar in the political realm, as India s Prime Minister Narendra Mohdi delivered a holographic speech at some 900 different rallies over the course of his campaign: Some would argue politicians are actors or entertainers in their own right, but hologram use is not limited to entertainers. Narendra Mohdi has already used the technology during his successful campaign to become India s Prime Minister. What would the future of electioneering look like with this new high-tech gadgetry?It has long been known that US political strategists have shaped elections throughout the world.In 2015, Hollywood released a fictionalized political comedy-drama named after a documentary called Our Brand Is Crisis (2005), a picture which gave a behind-the-scenes account of how James Carville and the political consultancy Greenberg Carville Shrum (GCS) socially-engineered the 2002 Bolivian elections to help Gonzalo S nchez de Lozada win the heavily contested presidency. He eventually resigned due to the so-called Gas Wars, where it was announced that he would follow pro-US economic policies and export natural gas to the US and Mexico.The documentary displays much of the socially-engineered electioneering that has been ongoing by the West for decades it makes you wonder what future Western-backed campaigns might look like when aided by new tech, such as Spain s recent holographic protests, that featured thousands marching in avatar form. SOCK PUPPET PROTEST? New forms of political control on the horizon. (Image Source: americansuburbx)Media platforms are used to manipulate. The very images we see all sorts of screens and media platforms can be planned, created, and manipulated through the use of actors, sets, and computer graphics.So technology doesn t have an effect on the masses and is rolled out to society without a blueprint so to speak? Just consider the now common scene below. NOMOPHOBIA Technology, consumerism, and human behavior together. So close, yet so far away (Image Source: mymimtimsum.blogspot.com)Mass media in particular, is often utilized to shape opinions, drive agendas, and to communicate messages to the masses. This is nothing new and can be as mundane as with advertising and marketing. Specialized fields such as consumer psychologists and behavioral scientists became part of marketing teams and campaigns. Corporations within the United States, China, United Kingdom, Germany, and Japan spent over 590 billion dollars on advertising in 2015. In so many words, shaping masses in various aspects of behavior is literally seen as a science.Is mainstream news reporting above the fray and simply covering events? Is shaping minds and creating trends limited to marketing and mass commercialism? Probably not. It is now becoming common knowledge that 6 umbrella corporations own about 90% of the media. If you steer the minds, shape the laws, and build the consensus, you control the profits and get to select winners and losers. The saying The medium is the message seems as relevant as ever.Virtual Reality vs Old Fashioned Reality LAWNMOWER MAN (left image) In this 1992 science fiction film, drugs & virtual reality augment human intelligence. (Image Source: movpins)Virtual reality or deception is best brought in through the front door and accepted slowly via entertainment means. Movies, televisions, computers, the internet, and smart phones are the norm and were presented to the masses as a means of entertainment, news, communication or learning, but have a dark side of conditioning, monitoring people, propaganda dissemination and changing or controlling human outlooks on reality.For those old enough to remember life before the year 2000, they might remember having human interaction that included interaction in close proximity to others. Now, so-called social networking is something not done in person. It s almost fashionable for someone to ignore their surroundings and introvert themselves into the world of a device.Nothing beats connecting with other people more than losing oneself into the cyber reality of a smart phone DIGITAL SLAVE This is becoming a familiar sight. When the conversation is this good, why go out? (Image Source: Prezi.com)Fun and games, or a zombie-like walk into the arms of a technocratic world. The Face2Face system technology above is not unlike the virtual reality (VR) technology used to map a person s face and expressions to a VR avatar. Mark Zukerberg s Facebook has shown heavy interest in the technology, most notably with its 2 billion dollar purchase of Silicon Valley VR firm Oculus Rift.The global acquisitions of talent and start-up companies with expertise in virtual reality technology by Facebook has been notable and they have stated their intent to integrate social networking with virtual reality and avatars.Nothing beats getting people together and networking than a visual representation of themselves in a virtual reality scenario.Get with it! Reality is so yesterday! OCULUS RIFT purchased by Facebook, can map and copy face movements in real time. It has vast potential for shaping reality via gaming and social networking.Ready or not, an ever-increasing technological world is on the way. Virtual reality devices are not likely to become common overnight. However, over time, especially for those who can remember, it will probably be like when there were no smart phones. Eventually humankind could reach a point where few remember what it was like without it.In addition to Face2Face types of technology, holographic and projection technology, as seen with Face Hacking , could be intertwined with Face-2-Face and voice morphing technologies.Read 21st Century Wire s article Face Hacking: 3-D Projection Mapping in Real Time here.The potential can be as amazing as it is disconcerting. In the meantime more and more people are warming up to the reality of a virtual reality. Watch below. READ MORE A.I. TECHNOLOGY: 21st Century Wire A.I. Files | 0 |
A scene straight from the Freddie Gray School of Bad Actors A Baltimore man arrested in connection to the shooting of five people, one fatally, in East Baltimore on Wednesday was captured on video collapsing to the ground while in handcuffs seemingly right after he spotted a news camera. My back! My back! the suspect started screaming.// <![CDATA[ var p = new anv_pl_def(); p.config = {}; p.config.width = 640; p.config.height = 360; p.loadVideoExpressV3('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|1000011|SPS'); // ]]>The man s condition was unclear, but viewers immediately accused the suspect of attempting to fake the injury. WMAR-TV s anchor also noticed that the man went to the ground after seemingly seeing their camera on the scene.He eventually got back up and was loaded into a police vehicle.Looks like the guy who fell down in the live shot is heading to Central Booking pic.twitter.com/eDG13eKv5h Christian Schaffer (@chrisfromabc2) May 20, 2015Via: The Blaze | 0 |
One Donald Trump supporter just realized that she voted for the wrong candidate.Teena Colebrook knew she had made a terrible error in judgment after Donald Trump picked former Goldman Sachs partner Steven Mnuchin to head the Treasury Department. I just wish that I had not voted, Colebrook said. I have no faith in our government anymore at all. They all promise you the world at the end of a stick and take it away once they get in. Colebrook believed Trump when he said he would drain the swamp, his term for getting rid of all the Washington insiders and elites. She believed he would keep his promise to look after and take care of ordinary Americans like herself. But Trump s choice of a billionaire big Wall Street banker changed her mind about Trump.Colebrook bought a triplex in 1998 in Los Angeles for $248,000. She rented out two units to make extra income and lived in the third. She kept up the payments but then the recession hit and her two tenants lost their jobs.According to the Associated Press,Over five years, she tried unsuccessfully to adjust her loan with OneWest through the Treasury Department s Home Affordable Modification Program. But she said that One West Bank lost paperwork, provided conflicting statements about ownership of the loan and fees and submitted charges that were unverified and caused her loan balance to balloon. By the time she lost her home in foreclosure in April 2015, the payoff balance totaled $517,662.OneWest Bank was owned by Steven Mnuchin, and Colebrook is not the only person he screwed over. Two years ago, Mnuchin s vulture bank literally tried to take a house away from a 90-year-old woman over a 27 cent bill.That s how petty and greedy Mnuchin is, and that makes him unfit to be in a position that is supposed to serve the American people and protect them from economic predators like himself.Featured Image: Screenshot | 0 |
As women all over the world celebrated Women’s History Month this March, little attention focused on the number of women who form the backbone of President Trump’s National Security Council. [His two deputy national security advisers — K. T. McFarland (pictured above) and Dina Powell, and the person in charge of writing the national security strategy — Nadia Schadlow — are women. It’s likely the first time that women have held those positions simultaneously — no insignificant fact in a field that’s still . Together, McFarland, Powell and Schadlow bring different strengths to the table. McFarland is an experienced national security hand, starting at the NSC in 1970, as an college freshman. “At that time, there were maybe two women who were research assistants, but to be a professional expert on the national security council as a woman, in that era, at the very beginning of the baby boom, that just wasn’t going to be an option for women,” she said. “It wasn’t that we were discriminated against, it just wasn’t thought of. ” It was a momentous time — Richard Nixon was president, Henry Kissinger was national security adviser. The issues were the Vietnam War, Paris Peace Accords, opening to China, arms control with the Soviet Union, Middle East shuttle diplomacy. McFarland started at the NSC as the nightshift secretary and left in 1976 as a research assistant. She later returned to government when Ronald Reagan became president, and was one of the highest ranking women at the Defense Department. Her experience served her well for her first challenge on the job: Building an NSC from scratch, particularly since her Retired Army Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, had never worked in the White House before. McFarland said she got the call from Trump on Thanksgiving night. Her first call was to her mentor, Kissinger. She then brought him and subsequent cabinet officials in to discuss their experiences. “Since President Trump did not come into office having a long experience in foreign policy and national security, had never been in government before, had never been in office before, I thought it made a lot of sense for us to start at the beginning and look … at former national security advisers,” she said. In the meantime, they were talking to Trump every day — he was already meeting and taking calls from foreign leaders. “It was a heady time, it was an exhausting time,” McFarland recalls. On January 20, she came into her new office. Her new desk was about 20 feet from where her first desk was, 47 years ago. She placed a call to Kissinger, so the dispatcher could say, “Henry Kissinger, the White House is calling. ” “He was so moved and so touched,” she said. McFarland said the first thing Trump asked her to do is look at North Korea. She convened the deputies at the Departments of State, Defense, and Treasury, the Joint Chiefs, and from the intelligence community, and instructed them to come back in a few weeks with some ideas, and to “think outside the box. ” “Don’t just think about a little bit of sanctions, a little bit of diplomacy. Open it wide, and think of any creative ideas you can and come back to us. And so they did. And what I was very impressed with was they had thought outside the box on a lot of things, and so we were able to craft some really good options for the president on how to deal with North Korea’s nuclear weapons program and that’s the process he’s in now,” she said. “We’ll do this for other issues as well — China, Russia, Venezuela, we’re going to look at the whole range of these issues for the president,” she added. McFarland calls terrorism “the challenge of our day. ” She said while there were kamikaze attacks during World War II, today’s terrorists are targeting civilians, not military targets, and are “happy to die as long as they can bring others with them. ” “If you look at the history of warfare, people always wanted to survive,” she said. “This is a threat we’ve never seen before. ” Fellow Deputy National Security Adviser Powell brings to the table 10 years of working on Wall Street and a “get it done” mindset. She first came into the Trump administration as an assistant to the president and senior counselor for economic initiatives. But it also made sense for Powell, an who was born in Cairo, migrated to Texas when she was four, and worked in the former George W. Bush administration and Congress on defense issues, to expand her role to the foreign policy realm. Powell, who wants to stay out of the spotlight, is working closely with McFarland and Schadlow to help build out the national security strategy. She particularly believes in the economic empowerment of women, particularly in the Middle East. Coming from one career field to another, she believes that talent will carry one through — whether it’s from a male or female. Still, she recognizes that it can be hard for women to be confident in areas where there might not be a lot of other women, and that sometimes there have to be role models to pave the way. Hers were former National Security Adviser and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and former Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison ( ). Schadlow, in addition to experience in government as a presidential management fellow, brings to the table experience in thinking deeply about national security planning. Her first assignment in government was at the Department of the Army, where she was first exposed to the military. She later became the Pentagon’s first desk officer for Ukraine after the fall of the Soviet Union, a job that is the equivalent of country director today. Wanting more career mobility, she left the government for the Foundation, where she researched emerging national security threats — which she said was great preparation for her current role. Her role models include Marin Strmecki, senior vice president at the Foundation, but also her mother, who migrated from Italy to give her three daughters more opportunity, and encouraged them to be independent. Supporting McFarland, Powell and Schadlow is another echelon of accomplished women, such as Victoria Coates, senior director for strategic assessments at the NSC. Coates (pictured right) is a protégé of Sen. Ted Cruz ( ) Gov. Rick Perry ( ) and former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. She last served as Cruz’s senior national security adviser. She has a Ph. D. in art history, and recently published a book on the history of democracy. Her role models were her mother, who is a chief compliance officer at a large firm, and Rumsfeld. She also credits McFarland with being a great friend and mentor. A typical day for them involves lots and lots of meetings. McFarland said a typical day involves getting up at 5 a. m. getting into office by 7 a. m. and receiving an intelligence briefing of major developments. Some days, she has an additional briefing on specific topics. Around 10 a. m. she usually goes in to see the president with her Army Lt. Gen. H. R. McMaster, the CIA Director and other national security officials for the president’s daily briefing. “Then the rest of the day, I’m chairing meetings, I’m meeting with people on the NSC staff in the intelligence community, members of the White House staff, and then my day usually goes until seven or eight or nine o’clock at night,” she said. On one recent day, there were meetings ranging from Montenegro, Kurdish independence, to North Korea. The job is not particularly family friendly. The main obstacle? Classification issues. Much of the work can only be done in a secure environment inside the White House. That means mom has to live and work in Washington, D. C. McFarland’s five children are grown, but Powell, Schadlow and Coates all have young children who live at home outside of D. C. “You’re still not ever going to have it all — it’s impossible,” said Schadlow, who has three children. “I wished many times that I was a little more engaged with what my kids were learning in school, and I had the time to do a deep dive and just be part of that intellectual life that they’re experiencing, and in some ways I can’t do it especially now,” she said. She said while there are more services for working mothers these days, it’s still a challenge. “Of course there are tradeoffs. My house is always a wreck,” she laughs. “It’s real. It’s a constant balance. ” Coates, who has a daughter and son, says it makes the time spent together more special. “I went to spring training with my son. We had 36 hours together … but they were 36 really good hours,” she said. Schadlow said as difficult as it is to be away from family, it can also be a luxury just to focus on work. “When you’re at home as a working mom, you’re constantly multitasking all day long, managing everyone’s schedules. A lot defaults to the mom, I think, still,” she said. “And here — no cell phones in your office, no way to communicate really in the office. It’s really all about your work. ” “I’m so happy to have the opportunity. It’s a luxury to jump in and focus on one thing for awhile, and knowing that everyone at home has sort of agreed to just take care the ” she said. At the NSC, the women say they’ve found no difference in treatment due to their gender. McFarland calls Trump an “equal opportunity guy. ” “President Trump is an equal opportunity guy in the sense of, I’m in a room, and as I said, I’m in the president’s daily briefing in the morning, and sometimes there’s only one woman in the room, and sometimes the vice president’s national security adviser — also a woman, Col. Andrea Thompson, is there, and the president will look at us and expect us to answer the tough questions just as readily as anybody else,” she said. “In fact sometimes when the really tough questions come, I look around at my male colleagues who are afraid to say something, and I’m the first one to jump in and say, ‘Well you could think of it this way, Mr. President.’ And often the only other person who jumps right in with me is the other woman,” she said. Her advice to women in any career field? “Don’t settle. Don’t settle for second best. And don’t quit, and don’t give up. ” | 0 |
SKOPJE, Macedonia — A freakishly violent rainstorm that Macedonia’s top weather official called a “water bomb” ravaged Skopje during the weekend, collapsing streets, inundating vehicles and drowning trapped motorists and homeowners, most of them caught by surprise. At least 21 people were killed and 77 injured in what officials described on Sunday as the worst flooding disaster in a to hit Skopje, the Macedonian capital and a city of more than a people in the central part of the Balkan Peninsula. Officials said the death toll could rise because many people were still missing after the storm, which hit with shocking ferocity on Saturday night. The police, army units and firefighters rescued more than 1, 000 people from the raging water that flooded streets, buildings, houses, clinics and schools. Traffic in much of the city was paralyzed. The Gazi Baba area, in the eastern part of Skopje, was particularly hard hit, with hundreds of homes losing power. Underpasses throughout the city became instant lakes, completely submerging vehicles. The National Hydrometeorological Service said it had issued a warning about an impending storm earlier on Saturday, but the intensity of the storm was a shock. “The clouds seem to have stopped immediately and dropped the water on this very small part of Skopje, in what can be described only as a water bomb,” Oliver Romevski, the director of the service, said Sunday. “We are all shaken from this phenomenon and from what it has caused. ” Koce Trajanovski, Skopje’s mayor, who announced financial aid for the families of the dead, said many victims had been caught off guard because the rain started so rapidly on Saturday evening. “Most of the casualties were people returning home from work or travel,” he said. Mr. Romevski said the storm had dumped nearly four inches of rain on the Gazi Baba area, while other parts of Skopje received far less. Heavy rain was also reported in the western Macedonia city of Tetovo. Volunteers established a center in central Skopje on Sunday to accept donations for victims, who needed food, drinking water and hygiene supplies. The government was expected to declare a state of emergency later. But many local residents accused the municipal authorities of an utter lack of preparedness. Mayor Trajanovski rejected the criticism, saying that the storm was a natural catastrophe and that no system could handle such volumes of rainfall in such a short period. Nikola Todorov, the minister of health, said the last such flooding that Skopje residents could recall was in 1962, when more than 5, 000 houses were flooded. Showers and thunderstorms were forecast to hit Skopje again on Sunday evening, and many feared they would exacerbate the crisis. “We don’t expect showers with the same intensity as those from yesterday,” the National Hydrometeorological Service said in a statement. “But we already have quite saturated soil,” it said, and in such situations, “even smaller rainfalls can cause problems. ” | 0 |
I was just going to put up the video of this disgusting display of brattiness when I happened to read that Janet Napolitano is the president of UCSB. Well, well, well, Does anyone remember she went straight to UCSB after leaving the Obama administration as head of the DHS. Napolitano is an open borders advocate and is part of the reason we re where we are today with our border crisis. I also happened to see that the college had just approved that illegals attending UCSB can participate in the student loan program funded with TAXPAYER DOLLARS. How many of you have applied with your children for a student loan only to be turned down? Yea, it s very difficult to obtain one of these loans. How in the world did we get here? It s because we have lying, two-faced politicians who selling the taxpayers down the river Shameful!The protest at UC Santa Barbara occurred on the same day that UC President Janet Napolitano announced more than 3,000 undocumented undergraduate students would now have access to a system-wide student loan program funded by taxpayers.SANTA BARBARA A cadre of University of California-Santa Barbara students took to the quad Thursday to protest the participation of U.S. Customs and Border Protection recruiters at a campus job fair, loudly chanting f*ck your borders, f*ck your walls among other slogans.The 50 or so student protestors who lined the outside of the campus building hosting the career fair held aloft a large banner stating Undocumented Unafraid, and also chanted Hey hey, ho ho CBP has got to go. We do have undocumented students here on campus who are at potential risk, said UCSB graduate student Idalia Robles in an interview with The College Fix. This is a very triggering event for people in those circumstances. There is no space on this campus for an organization that continues to threaten the safety of students. A video taken by a College Fix reporter shows students continuing to chant similar slogans sometimes in English and other times in Spanish as the demonstration continued into the afternoon.Several students declined to be interviewed by The College Fix, but the group appeared to include a mix of members from several student organizations on campus. Robles said demonstrators had mostly converged to show solidarity with undocumented students. This event is a university endorsed event, right? And there is the presence of Customs and Border Patrol. We are in a Hispanic serving institution. One of the concerns that are very present in the Chicano-Latino-Mexicana community is that of immigration and the abuse of power at the hands of immigration officers, she said. As someone committed to social justice, I know that this is something crucial. Students at the public university were notified Monday via email about career fair participants, along with a statement by U.S. Customs and Border Protection.The CBP statement read: Uniformed CBP staff will be on site with the sole purpose of providing students with BorderPatrolHiring1information about a broad range of career opportunities. The CBP personnel will be attending in a recruitment capacity. CBP recently launched a national recruiting strategy to aggressively recruit women, minorities, veterans, and college students. Current openings entail not only frontline law-enforcement positions, but also a variety of administrative, professional, and technical functions. Read more: The College Fix | 0 |
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has tasked a number of his cabinet officials with traveling to Washington to meet their counterparts in the Trump administration in anticipation of a meeting between the two leaders. [Trudeau’s overtures to the White House follow a month in which his personal approval ratings have plummeted following a series of ethics scandals and embarrassing public appearances before hostile audiences during a nationwide town hall tour. Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland, Finance Minister Bill Morneau, and Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan all visited Washington this week. Freeland met her U. S. counterpart Rex Tillerson and reportedly used the occasion to object to a hypothetical tariff on Canadian goods. Freeland’s office also recently opened a special unit for bilateral relations with Washington, CBC reports, at Trudeau’s behest. On the same day Freeland met Tillerson, Sajjan met with Defense Secretary James Mattis to discuss “ethics in soldiering. ” Sajjan did not expand upon the topics of conversation, lending only his support to the U. S. government and dismissing a question about President Donald Trump’s ability to handle a crisis by noting that he is the legitimate president of the United States. Morneau, meanwhile, arrived in Washington on Wednesday and is currently speaking at Georgetown University. The meetings are all intended to lay the groundwork for Trudeau and Trump to meet and discuss policy in person — and, Natural Resources Minister Jim Carr told reporters Wednesday, “to make friends” with the Americans. The meeting is scheduled to take place on Monday, according to both the White House and the Prime Minister’s Office. Trudeau has a hefty travel schedule before him for next week — the Prime Minister is also expected to travel to France and Germany and deliver an address to the European Parliament. Trudeau will also meet with German chancellor Angela Merkel. Trudeau has yet to establish a concrete relationship with Trump and instead has used the President’s policies to promote his own leftist agenda. Following President Trump’s signing of an executive order limiting refugee flows from nations, Trudeau posted on Twitter that Canada would take in those rejected by the United States. Trudeau’s confrontational Tweet did not match Canada’s record of rejecting hundreds of foreign nationals in 2016 for a variety of national security reasons. Trudeau’s approach also does not seem to match what Canadians are seeking from him as prime minister. A poll by the firm Mainstreet Research released this week found that over half of Canadians approve of President Trump’s national security policy, compared to only 39 percent who approve of Trudeau’s. Similarly, the poll found 53 percent of Canadian respondents supported Trump’s approach to the economy, compared to 41 percent for Trudeau. Trudeau’s meeting with Trump will follow a tumultuous January that saw the Prime Minister’s national approval ratings drop under 50 percent for the first time since he assumed the top government office. Following several public blunders, including praising Cuban dictator Fidel Castro and attempting to hide a lavish New Year’s vacation in the Bahamas, Trudeau went on a nationwide tour to speak to Canadian audiences. Upon arriving in Calgary, the crowd loudly booed the prime minister and accused him of lying to the Canadian people on energy policy. Trudeau is currently undergoing an unprecedented ethics investigation for the Bahamas vacation, in which he accepted a ride on a private helicopter owned by the head of the Ismaili sect of Islam, the Aga Khan. Accepting such free private transportation is a violation of both Liberal Party ethics guidelines and the Canadian government’s ethics rules. | 0 |
Washington (CNN) The nation's most elite conservative donors are just as split as Republican voters are about who to support for president -- and it's keeping many of the leading moneymen on the sidelines of the campaign as it barrels through the summer of 2015.
Only a quarter of the top conservative donors in 2012 and 2014 have decided to exclusively support one White House hopeful, according to a CNN analysis of super PAC filings posted Friday. In a splintered field where no presidential candidate holds a commanding lead, the records reveal in the clearest terms yet just how few financiers have made their decisions.
Some, like casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, the party's top giver in 2012, have not cut any checks to Republican candidates' allied groups. Others, like Houston Texans owner Bob McNair, have donated simultaneously to as many as four aspirants, spreading their money around the field.
"There's nobody clearly ahead," said Jay Bergman, a top Republican donor who has given sparingly to the super PACs that have courted him for the past six months. "Until that emerges, a lot of people are not going to commit themselves."
Months before they formally announced their bids, potential candidates courted contributors at lavish resorts and with one-on-one visits. This weekend, five Republican hopefuls will travel to Dana Point to woo the network of donors organized by Charles and David Koch, two of the country's richest Americans who themselves have not donated to any candidate's super PAC so far.
Those groups raised $250 million in the first half of 2015, records show, $103 million of which was raised by the super PAC supporting former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush. Four years ago, Mitt Romney's super PAC led the field at the time by raising $12 million in the same filing period.
Thanks to 2010 Supreme Court decisions that led to an explosion in super PACs, which can accept unlimited donations from individuals and corporations, nearly every candidate has eyed the nation's billionaires to bankroll their political ambitions. And the reports Friday reveal they're as dependent as ever on their goodwill: A single hand's worth of Republican funders comprise a majority of most of the allied outside spending groups that will go to war with one another this year as the Iowa caucuses approach.
But these donors' influence will wane as more and more well-heeled contributors join in the political giving that they revolutionized in 2012 and 2014. Fundraisers and Republican operatives say that when the super PACs file their next campaign finance reports in early January, many of the top donors will no longer be uncommitted.
"Voters, as well as donors, may have preferences, but the numbers are really soft," Saul Anuzis, a fundraiser for the Republican Governors Association, said of the current landscape. "Just like any activist letting it play itself out, there are lots of donors letting the final process play itself out."
In the meantime, politicians are left waiting.
In addition to Adelson and the Kochs, New York investor Paul Singer, who gave $10.5 million to outside groups in 2014, remains uncommitted. As do Silicon Valley angel investor Peter Thiel and Kentucky executive Wayne Hughes.
And they're not alone, according to a CNN analysis that tracked current giving by 90 people who were ranked by the Center for Responsive Politics as being among the most prolific donors to conservative groups in 2012 and 2014. Among those donors, half are currently sitting out.
But for those who are giving, they seem to have a strong preference for the governors in the race.
Bush has a clear lead among the mega-donors in CNN's analysis, with 30% of the elite donors giving to his super PAC, Right to Rise USA. No other candidate in the race was able to persuade so many of the top conservative donors to open their wallets at this early stage.
Another favorite is New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, but his mega-donors are hedging their bets. The five donors that contributed to his super PAC also gave to groups supporting Bush, Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida and former Hewlett-Packard Chief Executive Carly Fiorina.
With an unprecedented number of hopefuls in the race, many donors are shying away from investing in just one candidate. Half of the elite donors who are giving this year donated to multiple groups.
"A lot of it is bet-hedging," said top donor John Jordan, who owns a California winery and is backing Scott Walker. "That's what a lot of people do if they like more than one."
Candidates like Rubio, Fiorina and Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal were the second choice of many who gave to multiple groups, according to the CNN analysis.
The most prolific double-donator was McNair, the Texans owner, who contributed $500,000 to groups supporting Bush, Walker, Cruz and Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina.
Still, it's impossible to know for sure how much money is flowing. Super PACs must disclose their donors, as they did Friday with hundreds of pages of filings with the Federal Election Commission. But for donors looking to give discreetly, some candidates have allied nonprofit organizations that are registered with the IRS but don't ever have to name names.
Super PACs are taking over more and more functions of traditional campaigns this cycle, with the outside groups organizing field programs in early-voting states and even announcing endorsements given to the official campaign. But the risk for candidates is that these groups are heavily dependent on a few billionaires to sustain their presidential operations.
Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, who shocked many Republicans by corralling $38 million for his super PAC, raised $36 million of that from three families alone. Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, a favorite of Iowa evangelicals, posted only a $3.6 million haul -- a sum that would be significantly lower had Arkansas poultry producer Ronnie Cameron not given Huckabee's group $3 million.
The fortunes of groups linked to top-tier Republican candidates like Walker and Rubio were similarly attached to the pockets of their financiers: Half of Walker's $20 million haul came from two people. Half of Rubio's came from two.
Some other Republicans showed the potential to have a deeper reservoir of financial firepower. Bush shattered fundraising records by deploying his family's fundraising network to collect $103 million for his super PAC. But he also built that support on a wider base: His top 24 donors only accounted for about a quarter of all the money raised.
But candidates shouldn't fear that juggernaut, said Anuzis, who is supporting Cruz.
"With almost all the candidates in single digits, this is a wide open ballgame," he said. | 1 |
BANGKOK (Reuters) - A roadside bomb planted by suspected Muslim insurgents killed four army rangers and wounded six, including a civilian, in southern Thailand on Friday, a security official said. A decades old-separatist insurgency in predominantly Buddhist Thailand s largely Muslim provinces of Yala, Pattani, and Narathiwat has killed more than 6,500 people since 2004. The bomb was planted under a road that was being built in Pattani, the security official said. The group that planted the bomb is using old techniques in order to create instability in the region. They planted the bomb under a road currently under construction, said Pramote Prom-in, a spokesman for security forces in the region. Friday s blast followed roadside bombs last week that killed two soldiers and wounded more than 20 people in Yala. There was no claim of responsibility for the blast, which is usually the case in Thailand s deep south, where insurgents are fighting for secession. Thailand s three southernmost provinces were part of an independent Malay Muslim sultanate until they were annexed in 1909. | 1 |
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Wednesday that U.S. President Donald Trump’s travel restrictions on people with passports from seven countries and a freeze on refugee resettlement was “not the best way to protect the U.S.” and should be lifted sooner than later. Guterres’ comments were his first to directly address Trump’s signing of an executive order last Friday on immigration amid a drumbeat of criticism from around the world and protests. The order put a 120-day halt on the U.S. refugee program, barred Syrian refugees indefinitely and imposed a 90-day suspension on people from seven predominantly Muslim countries - Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. The White House has described the order as necessary “to protect the American people from terrorist attacks by foreign nationals admitted to the United States.” But Guterres told reporters on Wednesday that “this is not the way to best protect the U.S. or any other country in relation to the serious concerns that exist about possible terrorist infiltration. “I think that these measures should be removed sooner rather than later,” said Guterres, who has issued a series of comments since Friday about the importance of protecting refugees and the dangers of broad-based travel bans. Guterres said travel bans risked playing to the advantage of terrorist organizations seeking to recruit members. “If a global terrorist organization will try to attack any country like the United States, they will probably not come with people with passports from those countries that are hot spots of conflict today,” he said. He said such groups were likely to use people for attacks traveling on the passports of “developed and credible countries,” or who had been living in the United States or other countries for decades. A panel of U.N. human rights experts urged the Trump administration on Wednesday to protect people fleeing war and persecution, and said the executive order contravened international humanitarian and human rights laws. Critics of the order inside the United States have described it as unconstitutional and several states have sued to challenge the travel ban. | 0 |
Ashleigh Shackelford is what passes for a serious Democrat these days. She s a Black Lives Matter activist who has some serious issues with hate. This is not a joke but a serious effort to try to tell white women hateful lies about their own race IN THE NAME OF DIVERSITY. The women just sit there! Unreal!ANTHONY BRIAN LOGAN (VIDEO BELOW) GIVES HIS TAKE ON THIS DIVERSITY TRAINING :Ashleigh Shackelford, a black female activist , gave a short lecture in front of a crowd of mostly working-aged white people that covered one issue: all white people are racist. It was difficult to tell where this talk was being held. At a school, a place of business, or a lecture hall where people paid to come see her. Either way, it was a strange sight to see a room full of people be spoken about in such a negative way without reacting in a defensive way or reacting at all. It was also strange to see the audience members dressed in a business casual way sitting before Ashleigh who was dressed like she just got out of bed in clothing that fit way too small for her very large frame.Talks like the one given in the video are unfortunately becoming very common. Some of these so-called activists get paid to speak at corporate meetings as some sort of diversity checklist. Even white men like Tim Wise get paid lots of money to berate white people at places like Google. Much of this culture comes from the belly of the beast of liberalism which is the San Francisco bay area. Much of the tech world is run here but it is also a hotbed for radical liberalism. So when the two of those worlds mix, what you end up with is individuals like Ashleigh Shackelford allowed to run amok. Her issue may be one of envy and ensuing resentment of white people, but the force which allows her to vent her frustrations in an open way can be found in socially and politically liberal hotbeds across the country especially California.Here is info from Shackelford s website: Ashleigh Shackelford is a queer, non binary Black fat femme writer, cultural producer, and artist. She is a contributing writer at Wear Your Voice Magazine and For Harriet. In her commitment to creating and imagining new worlds, Ashleigh created an organization for body positivity Free Figure Revolution, and a coalition for afrofuturism entitled Black Futurism. When she s not writing Facebook statuses as novels, Ashleigh is working on producing cultural storytelling of and by Black fat femmes. | 1 |
After ABC News broke the General Flynn-Trump story, the stock market began its freefall, Americans were stunned by the news, and the media, who s been searching for blood in the water since Trump s inauguration, was in a feeding frenzy over the prospect of President Trump being caught directing General Flynn to meet with the Russians when he was actively campaigning. As it turns out, ABC News got it wrong. But no worries, several hours later, they clarified how the story should have read ABC News major report on Michael Flynn and President Trump s direction on reaching out to the Russians has been corrected. Hours later. And Twitter is ripping the network over it.Per multiple reports earlier, Brian Ross report that Flynn is expected to testify Trump directed him to meet with Russians as a candidate was followed minutes later by a drop in the stock market.But as Ross clarified on World News Tonight (video here), it was as President-elect, not as a candidate, and that is kind of a major difference. MediaiteABC News also tweeted out a clarification and deleted its earlier tweet:CLARIFICATION of ABC News Special Report: Flynn prepared to testify that President-elect Donald Trump directed him to make contact with the Russians *during the transition* initially as a way to work together to fight ISIS in Syria, confidant now says. https://t.co/ewrkVZBTbc pic.twitter.com/GQAKwT1Eda ABC News (@ABC) December 2, 2017Twitter users responded to the clarification by ABC News, who should NEVER have gotten this story wrong in the first place. Jim VandeHei, CEO and co-founder of Axio slammed ABC for moving the markets and setting off a frenzy with their massive mistake:Astonishing. The story moved markets, set off a media frenzy, suggested worst possible outcome. This is called a massive correction, or retraction, not clarification. https://t.co/uVUamf4jYY Jim VandeHei (@JimVandeHei) December 2, 2017Associate editor of the Daily Caller reminded ABC News that their clarification was actually a huge correction. That's a huge correction https://t.co/EIMaE0EkGu Peter J. Hasson (@peterjhasson) December 1, 2017David Rubin reminded ABC News why no one trusts them anymore: Reason nobody trusts the mainstream media 14,761 .Reason nobody trusts the mainstream media 14,761 https://t.co/1RQ7FRbava Dave Rubin (@RubinReport) December 2, 2017Twitter user Echo Lew called out ABC News for blaming their source and not Brian Ross, their reckless reporter who actually made the mistake:Blame it on a source and not your reckless reporter @BrianRoss 'on air' tremendous mistake. Echo Lew (@PhinsnNoles) December 2, 2017ABC News has apparently earned a new name to go along with their acronym.ABC Always Broadcasting Crap BNL NEWS (@BreakingNLive) December 2, 2017And then, finally, Twitter user Jake Blum called ABC News out for reporting fake news :This is so incredibly irresponsible and reckless. Sowing damage to the legitimacy of our government. Hard for you all to push back on the fake news label when this is so damn common. Jake Blum (@RealJakeBlum) December 2, 2017 | 0 |
Donald Trump may spend his time furiously tweeting that the Russia investigation the one over which he fired FBI Director James Comey after he requested additional resources is FAKE NEWS, while simultaneously complaining about leaks of classified information that is simultaneously FAKE NEWS and real information, but the rest of us see through his actions that not only is our alleged President hiding about a billion skeletons in his closet, but he has sold out our nation. This is, at this point, something that can be considered a truth because even Fox News can t avoid commenting on The Donald and his administration s shady practices. When I heard that exchange today between Jeff Mason, White House reporter, and Sean Spicer speaking from the podium in the briefing room for the President of the United States, it took my breath away, Wallace told fellow Fox host Shep Smith on Friday, adding:That was what in Watergate they called a non-denial denial. He was asked specifically, is there a recording device in the Oval Office of the President of the United States? He said, I have nothing for you on that. He could have said no. He could have said yes. He said I have nothing for you on that. That is a non-denial denial. Look, it may just be that the President is trolling the press corps and saying work yourself into a frenzy about this and turns out it nothing. But why would he do that? Why would he want to decrease the credibility which is already in question of this White House and comments that are made from that podium? It seems to me that you re playing a very dangerous game with the currency of the credibility of the President of the United States. Every step he s taken this week has cut into the credibility of this White House, the trust of the people inside the White House, Wallace said, and clearly I think the trust that the American people pay to this President and to his White House staff. I ve never seen anything like it and I find it very troubling and troubled. I just don t understand the game that they re playing, he added. Cause it isn t a game. Watch Wallace tear Trump limb from stupid limb below:featured image via screengrab | 0 |
Let s face it, Obamacare had been a nightmare since it began. We have the website failure and then the corruption with the state set ups where millions went unaccounted for. Yes, we have the Gruber episode that should have buried the whole damn Obamacare debacle. So now we have a HUGE miscalculation on the part of the Congressional Budget Office this is big:What does the future of Obamacare hold now that its total cost is expected to be 11% higher between 2016 and 2025 than initially expected?There are mistakes, and then there are big mistakes. What the Congressional Budget Office s latest report on federal subsidies revealed was a mistake of monstrous proportions on the part of the federal government.Here s what a forecasting error looks like The Congressional Budget Office, or CBO, has been making projections on the future of Obamacare, and healthcare in general, for years. Initially, the CBO had projected that up to 21 million people would sign up for private health insurance using Obamacare s transparent marketplace exchanges by 2016. However, that estimate has been substantially reduced to just 12 million. According to the Department of Health and Human Services, Obamacare enrollment totaled about 12.7 million as of the end of third enrollment period (Jan. 31, 2016). Ultimately, the CBO foresees private health enrollment via Obamacare topping out at between 18 million and 19 million people between 2018 and 2026.Why such a huge difference in actual enrollment versus initial projections? To begin with, the government appears to have overestimated just how many people would sign up on private exchanges versus being enrolled via their employer. The data has thus far shown that nowhere near as many people as expected dropped out of employer-sponsored insurance to sign up on Obamacare s marketplace exchanges, meaning there was a considerably smaller uninsured pool than initially anticipated.The other possibility is that the shared responsibility payment (SRP) isn t working as initially expected. The SRP is a penalty charged to consumers who fail to purchase health insurance and who don t have a qualified exemption. The average SRP in the first year of Obamacare (2014) totaled $190, according to H&R Block, with the Kaiser Family Foundation predicting an average penalty of $661 for 2015 tax returns and $969 in 2016. Despite this increasing penalty, young adult enrollment is still well below initial expectations, most likely because the cost of the penalty is still much less than the annual cost of purchasing health insurance.By itself, this 9 million-person enrollment shortfall on Obamacare s exchanges is pretty substantial. Health-benefit providers had been licking their chops with the expectations of adding 20 million-plus enrollees within the first three years following implementation. However, that bubble has been popped, with only a few insurers truly benefiting.But this mistake is far from the worst.Now, here s what a monstrous forecasting boo-boo looks like As noted by the CBO report, the biggest boo-boo comes the federal governments estimate of how many people would enroll for Medicaid and Children s Health Insurance Program (CHIP).Initial estimates from back in 2010 pegged Medicaid and CHIP combined enrollment at about 52 million in 2016. The actual figures? How about 68 million current enrollees in 2016, or a difference of 16 million. The report notes that total Medicaid/CHIP enrollment grew by 3 million last year, and it s expected to swell to 74 million by 2026.How did the federal government miss so badly? The CBO believes that fewer people than expected enrolled in employer-sponsored plans because they were eligible for free healthcare under the expanded Medicaid program. Traditional Medicaid fully covers consumers making up to 100% of the federal poverty level. Obamacare s expanded Medicaid program, which 31 states and Washington, D.C., took advantage of, covers people earning up to 138% of the federal poverty level. The federal government appears to not have understood the magnitude of the lure to drop out of employer-sponsored care and be covered by Medicaid.What s even more egregious is that this estimate in 2010 was done before a Supreme Court decision in 2012 that allowed states the right to choose whether or not they wanted to expand their Medicaid program.When President Obama initially signed the Affordable Care Act into law in March 2010, Medicaid expansion was mandatory. However, a ruling of 7-to-2 by the Supreme Court allowed individual states to make the decision of whether or not to expand. Ultimately, 19 states have chosen not to. Their reasoning? The federal government offered financial assistance to all expanding states between 2014 and 2016 but fully plans to pare back its assistance to just 90% from 100% between 2017 and 2020. The holdout states simply felt that they would be left on the hook for too much additional revenue generation to cover these new Medicaid members. If Medicaid expansion was mandatory, the CBO estimates another 4 million people would be enrolled.This 16 million-person shortfall is far from insignificant. In fact, the CBO estimates that the federal government s failure to accurately forecast how many people would be enrolled in Medicaid/CHIP to be $146 billion over the next decade. When taking into account factors like the estimated $46 billion the federal government will save by paying out less than expected in subsidies for marketplace exchange enrollees, as well as the $28 billion less it s expected to collect in revenue because the Cadillac Tax will be suspended for an additional two years, Obamacare is now expected to cost $136 billion more than originally forecast over the long-term.Is Obamacare sustainable? It s anyone s guess at this point What does the future of Obamacare hold now that its total cost is expected to be 11% higher between 2016 and 2025 than initially expected? That s really anyone s guess, as major changes could be on the horizon like elect a Republican President who ll scrap the entire thing!Read more: fool.com | 0 |
A new study found that 52% of roadside accidents involved drivers distracted by their phones. [Apparently, being in sole control of one of the aluminum shells hurtling at high speed on America’s roads isn’t enough to hold drivers’ attention. Traffic deaths have jumped by 14% since 2014, according to Cambridge Mobile Telematics, which conducted the study. The research firm found that 52% of accidents involved drivers who were distracted by their phones. phone use while driving laws have done little to curb the habits of its citizens. Only fourteen states have banned handheld use of phones while driving, and only twenty prohibit phone use by school bus drivers a single state bans bus drivers from texting. But Cambridge Mobile Telematics’ Chief Technology Officer, Hari Balakrishnan, has hope: Distracted driving due to smartphone use is intuitively blamed for the increase in road crashes and claims. What’s less intuitive is that smartphones hold the solution to the problem they created. Drivers now have access to tools that analyze their driving and achieve real behavioral change through immediate and ongoing feedback. Balakrishnan called distracted driving “one of the most urgent public safety problems facing our communities today” and stressed the importance of taking a “critical look at how we can most effectively reduce the danger that drivers face. ” CMT is working to do their part. Their DriveWell app both monitors drivers and encourages safer driving habits. The site claims that “users see an average reduction of 35% in phone distraction, 20% in hard braking, and 20% in speeding all within less than 30 days of using the program. ” Their goals are best summed up by Balakrishnan himself: “By harnessing the very technology that threatens driver safety, and using it to help drivers understand and improve their behavior, we’re making the world safer by the day. ” Follow Nate Church @Get2Church on Twitter for the latest news in gaming and technology, and snarky opinions on both. | 0 |
A gunman who claimed allegiance to the Islamic State killed 49 people and wounded 53 more when he opened fire in a crowded gay nightclub in Orlando, Fla. early Sunday. It was the worst mass shooting in American history. President Obama was in Orlando on Thursday to meet with victims’ families. Here is the latest: • The gunman, Omar Mateen, 29, was killed in a shootout with the police. Mr. Mateen, an American citizen whose parents were from Afghanistan, claimed allegiance to the Islamic State in a 911 call he made at the time of the attack, law enforcement officials said. He lived in Fort Pierce, Fla. • On Tuesday, a senior F. B. I. official said investigators suspected the gunman’s second wife, Noor Zahi Salman, might have been aware that he was plotting an attack, and the agency was trying to determine her level of involvement. Ms. Salman, the mother of his young son, told the F. B. I. that she had driven him to the Pulse nightclub at some point before the attack and that she had also been with him when he bought ammunition. NBC, which reported the development, said Ms. Salman, 30, lives in Port St. Lucie, Fla. with Mr. Mateen’s father. The woman told officials she had tried to talk Mr. Mateen out of any attack, but whether she knew of his true plans was unclear. • Mr. Mateen was born in Queens, New York, according to public records. His Sitora Yusufiy, said her marriage to Mr. Mateen had been abusive, and that he had at times displayed erratic behavior. “There were definitely moments when he’d express his intolerance toward homosexuals,” she said. The marriage ended in divorce. • Mr. Mateen was removed from his job as a security officer at the St. Lucie County Courthouse in Fort Pierce, in 2013 at the request of county sheriff’s officials who had grown concerned about his demeanor and his “inflammatory” comments. The sheriff then informed the authorities, prompting an investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the sheriff’s office said Tuesday. Mr. Mateen was transferred to a job as a security guard at a nearby residential golfing community, leading him to lodge a discrimination complaint, an official with the private security company that employed him said on Tuesday. The F. B. I. director, James Comey, said Monday that the gunman was on a terrorism watch list from 2013 to 2014, but that months of investigation into his foreign travels, his inflammatory remarks and his motives did not produce enough evidence to charge him. • The global security company G4S, based in Britain, said Mr. Mateen had worked for it as a guard since 2007. A said he had repeatedly complained to the company that Mr. Mateen used racial, ethnic and sexist slurs, and talked about killing people. • The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives said Mr. Mateen had legally bought both weapons used in the attack, a handgun and a long gun, in Florida within the last week. • Mr. Mateen opened fire inside the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, a popular gay club, at about 2 a. m. He was armed with an assault rifle similar to the and a handgun. • Mr. Mateen shot about of the people in the packed club. Hundreds of panicked clubgoers escaped and fled into the streets. • As more police officers rushed to the scene, Mr. Mateen retreated to a bathroom where he is believed to have held four to five hostages. About 15 to 20 people were in another restroom, frantically texting friends and family for help. • The police chief, John Mina, said that when police negotiators began to talk with Mr. Mateen, he appeared “cool and calm. ” The gunman made statements that led officers to think he was going to begin killing more people, the chief said, and he spoke of having explosives. Mr. Mateen was killed by a police SWAT team when it raided the building about 5 a. m. with an armored vehicle and stun grenades. One police officer was wounded, and at least 30 people were rescued. • President Obama said that the attack was a kind of “homegrown extremism” because it appeared the gunman had been inspired by extremist information he found on the internet, but that there was no clear evidence he was part of a wider terrorist plot. • The City of Orlando set up a special web page where it released the names of victims. The New York Times has compiled brief portraits of the victims. • A staggering 90 percent of the 49 victims were Hispanic or of Hispanic descent, including Mexican, Colombian and Dominican, community leaders said. Of those killed, 23 were Puerto Rican. • Medical officials said the victims had deep, gaping wounds from the rounds fired from the assault rifle and handgun. In some cases, the rounds bounced around inside their bodies, inflicting internal injuries. • More people were killed in Orlando than in any previous mass shooting in the United States. The 2007 shooting at Virginia Tech killed 32 people, while 26 people were killed in the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. • This is the second mass shooting in the United States linked to sympathizers of the Islamic State since December, when a married couple killed 14 people in a rampage in San Bernardino, Calif. The Orlando shooting was the worst terrorist attack on American soil since Sept. 11, 2001. • The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the massacre in a statement released over an encrypted phone app. The group said the attack “was carried out by an Islamic State fighter,” according to a transcript provided by the SITE Intelligence Group, which tracks jihadist propaganda. • The gunman made a series of Facebook posts, according to Senator Ron Johnson, the chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, including one in which he raged against the “filthy ways of the west” and another that warned of more attacks by the Islamic State “in the next few days. ” He even searched for references to the massacre while he was carrying it out, the senator wrote in a letter to Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chairman and chief executive. • Mr. Mateen’s father, Seddique Mir Mateen, posted a video on his Facebook page early on Monday in which he expressed regret and confusion about why his son had carried out the mass killing. “I don’t know what caused this,” said Mr. Mateen, speaking in Dari, a language spoken in Afghanistan. “I did not know and did not understand that he has anger in his heart. ” • At a news conference on Monday, A. Lee Bentley, the United States attorney for Central Florida, said the investigators had collected a large amount of electronic and criminal evidence and were trying to determine whether Mr. Mateen acted alone. The statement by the Islamic State did not provide details about its relationship with Mr. Mateen. • The F. B. I. director, Mr. Comey, said Monday that there was no evidence directly linking the gunman to an outside group, though he appeared to be — that is, he claimed allegiance to the Islamic State but had no direct tie — like the husband and wife team behind the attack in San Bernardino last year. • Investigators continued looking into whether Mr. Mateen’s wife knew what he had planned, but officials have deflected questions about possible criminal charges against her. They are also scouring his past movements and possible accomplices. • Mr. Mateen told the police by phone that he would strap explosives to four hostages and place them strategically in the corners of the building, Mayor Buddy Dyer said on Wednesday. But investigators have not found any evidence of explosives. | 0 |
Michigan s former Democratic governor, Jennifer Granholm, gave Rick Snyder some sharp advice on Saturday.During an interview over the phone, Granholm told The Detroit News that she believes Michigan s governor, Rick Snyder, should move to the troubled city of Flint, Michigan. Further, Granholm says: I think who s ever going to fix this problem should move to Flint and live in one of those houses so that they can understand the urgency with which the citizens of Flint are operating, that they feel it so deeply because every single day they have to deal with water that has been poisoned. Granholm has yet to demand that Snyder resigns over the Flint water crisis. She does very carefully say that someone needs to get the job of fixing Flint s water system fixed, even if Snyder is not the person to do it. I would want to see pedal to the metal, hair on fire action in Flint. And I think (Snyder), right now, can do that. But if not, then I think somebody should come in who can look at as the emergency that it is and move heaven and earth to get those pipes replaced. Many politicians and celebrities have either called for Snyder to resign or for his arrest. Democratic presidential primary candidate Bernie Sanders,has called for Snyder to resign immediately. With the Michigan primary only days away, Sanders has reiterated this call during campaign events in the state. During a recent campaign event at Macomb Community College in Warren, MI, Sanders told the crowd: I think the governor should do the right thing and resign. So far, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has been very critical of the Snyder administration. Though, she has yet to call for him to resign.The topic is sure to come up during the presidential debate that will be held on Sunday night in Flint. Featured image via Flickr [CC BY 2.0], via Wikimedia Commons | 1 |
You could almost hear the gasps from both sides of the ideological divide when President Trump unveiled the outline of his first budget late last month, proposing to slice $54 billion from the discretionary civilian budget next year to pay for a defense. That part of the budget pays for pretty much everything the government does other than the military, pensions and health insurance for older people. And it has been slashed repeatedly already. It adds up to only some $500 billion, hardly the best place to balance a $4 trillion federal budget. After Mr. Trump’s proposed cuts it would be 25 percent smaller than it was in 2010, adjusted for inflation. Even Republicans in Congress, no friends of government spending, argued that the math made little sense. While they share Mr. Trump’s twin goals of balancing the budget and slashing taxes, they would prefer to square the circle by cutting the entitlements of Social Security and Medicare. And yet Mr. Trump’s approach possesses a powerful political logic: The frazzled, anxious men and women who voted for him like Social Security, Medicare and defense. Other government spending, not so much. Notably, there is little political cost for Mr. Trump — in fact, potential benefit — in going after programs for the poor. These programs appeal to two constituencies that voters show little affinity for: the poor and urban liberal elites who can express enormous sympathy for the disenfranchised while ignoring the struggle of the white working class. While Mr. Trump is not the first Republican to propose cutting programs to pay for tax cuts, his bluntness breaks, at least rhetorically, with a Republican establishment that insists it cares about poverty. His political calculation could, paradoxically, protect Social Security and Medicare, entitlements that the Republican Party has tried so hard to rein in. But in areas as diverse as food stamps and housing assistance, education for the disadvantaged and Head Start, it could further fray the rest of America’s threadbare social safety net. In “White Working Class: Overcoming Class Cluelessness in America,” due out in May from Harvard Business Review Press, Joan C. Williams argues that white workers’ resentment of the safety net should not be surprising: They get next to no benefit from it. Ms. Williams, a professor at the University of California Hastings College of the Law, writes that these struggling workers resent not only the poor beneficiaries of the government’s largess but also the liberal policy makers who seem to believe that only the poor are deserving of help. And they bristle at the perceived condescension of a liberal elite that seems to blame them for their failure to acquire the necessary skills to rise to the professional class. By contrast, they see themselves as citizens who struggle to make ends meet, only to be left out of many of the government programs their taxes pay for. Over all, 61 percent of poor Americans draw from one benefit program or another, according to an analysis by the Census Bureau. But among families with incomes above the poverty line — many of which are barely better off, making just over $24, 000 for a family of four — only 13 percent do. Struggling families may not understand that welfare programs are so meager that the poor hardly get any help. But they can directly understand that they missed out on the tax credit because their family income hit $50, 000. It is not surprising that harried working mothers resent that 30 percent of families using child care receive some form of subsidy while families get next to nothing. “All they see is their daily lives, and they resent subsidies and sympathy available to the poor,” Professor Williams wrote. President Barack Obama’s signature legislation, the Affordable Care Act — the most significant expansion of the safety net since the War on Poverty in the 1960s — has unsurprisingly bred class resentment, too. Many disgruntled workers see it as another program for poor people that just pushed up their own premiums, offering little of benefit. The whites who turned out so enthusiastically for Mr. Trump include people like Lee Sherman, 82, from Louisiana, living precariously on Social Security after a life of hard and dangerous work fitting pipes, and exposed to all manner of toxic chemicals, at a petrochemical plant. Aversion to the safety net is built into his moral view of the world. “He knew liberal Democrats wanted him to care more about welfare recipients,” wrote the sociologist Arlie Russell Hochschild, who portrayed Mr. Sherman in her book “Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right” (The New Press). “But he didn’t want their P. C. rules telling him who to feel sorry for. ” To people like Mr. Sherman, government benefits tied to work, like Social Security and unemployment insurance, are legitimate rewards for one’s effort. Welfare recipients, by contrast, just “lazed around days and partied at nights,” he told Professor Hochschild. Racial mistrust is never far from the surface: Only 13 percent of whites draw benefits from programs, according to the Census Bureau analysis, compared with 42 percent of and 36 percent of Hispanics. So while most beneficiaries of welfare programs are white, many whites perceive them as schemes to hand their tax dollars to minorities. Mr. Trump’s agenda serves both race and class resentment: Whites are twice as likely as blacks to prefer a smaller government, according to a Pew Research Center survey. Among Americans, 56 percent would like the government to be smaller and offer fewer services, while among the poor, only 38 percent would like the government to shrink. It is the whites whom Mr. Trump has promised to serve. These resentments are hard to swallow on the left of the political spectrum. Since the 1960s, at least, liberal activists have held to the belief that a grand progressive alliance was possible: working men and women, the poor, immigrants, racial and other minorities coming together in a coalition to counter conservatives and their corporate allies. November’s election — when whites without a college degree voted for Mr. Trump over Hillary Clinton by 39 percentage points — pretty much drove a stake into those hopes. But could they be revived? As the president takes an ax to much of the government, the pressing question for liberals is whether a coalition can be built to protect the meager social safety net that remains. Could they draw back in the white voters who rejected them so soundly in November? These voters care less about gender rights and minorities. They may not share liberal views on abortion rights. They are unlikely to support a safety net that allows a poor woman to stay at home while offering nothing to a couple day and night shifts to care for their children. But, Professor Williams notes, the liberal goal can’t be saved without them: “If America’s policy makers better understood white anger against the social safety net, they might have a shot at creating programs that don’t get gutted in this way. ” | 0 |
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In a complete 180, Hillary Clinton is now the Presidential candidate that is talking about a US election that is rigged… courtesy of the FBI .
It so enjoyable watching the neo-liberal left, Hillary Clinton crime syndicate, scramble to divert attention away from justice finally being carried out against her entire corrupt group of grifters.
Was it not just a few weeks ago that the Clinton campaign was blasting Trump comments on elections rigging.
Hello shoe, meet the other foot…Here is Hillary Clinton alluding to an FBI vote rigging operation…
“It is pretty strange, it’s pretty strange to put something like that out with such little information, right before an election.”
“In fact it’s not just strange, it’s unprecedented and it is deeply troubling.”
It’s not strange at all. You broke the law multiple times, over multiple instances.
With all the pay-to-play Clinton Foundation evidence and Libya illegal war funding ISIS activity overseen by “her”, we subscribe to the view held by these baseball fans who held up a large “Hillary for Prison” sign during the World Series Postgame Show.
It was impossible to ignore… | 1 |
The Dollar Is On Its Way Out – Gold Backed Currency Next? | Rory Hall by IWB · October 27, 2016 Tweet
Rory Hall from The Daily Coin joined Silver Doctors. Hall believes price manipulators are losing control of the gold and silver markets.
When it comes to investing in precious metals, Hall says “stay away from paper…If you don’t hold it you don’t own it.”
Hall also discusses how China accumulating massive amounts of gold. What do they plan to do with the shiny metal? Hall predicts China will issue some sort of goldbacked currency or bond. How will a competing gold backed currency impact the value of the dollar? “It’s no secret the dollar is on its way out,” he says.
The economy is not on the road to recovery, Hall says. The Fed, European Central Bank, and Bank of Japan are holding together a failed system by papering over the cracks in the system, while not fixing the fundamental problems. Hall believes the Powers that Be cannot hold the system together much longer.
Stay tuned to hear Hall’s opinion on how to prepare for the coming collapse! | 1 |
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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A Democratic U.S. senator pressed Deutsche Bank (DBKGn.DE) on Wednesday to release information about issues including President Donald Trump’s debt and any bank meetings with Trump administration officials, saying he had “great concern” about possible conflicts of interest. “I write to you with great concern regarding conflicts of interest between Deutsche Bank and the President of the United States and how these conflicts may impact ongoing investigations and regulatory oversight of your institution,” Senator Chris Van Hollen wrote in a letter addressed to the chief executive of Deutsche Bank USA, which he released to the public. Van Hollen is a member of the Senate Banking Committee. A spokeswoman for Deutsche Bank declined comment. White House officials did not respond to a request for comment. Van Hollen’s letter said prior financial disclosures listed two loans and two mortgages for which Deutsche Bank was the lender and Trump the borrower. Those loans amounted to about $340 million, with another $950 million extended to a venture in which Trump owns a 30 percent stake, he wrote. The letter also noted that Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, holds a multimillion-dollar line of credit at Deutsche Bank. Van Hollen asked for a response by May 12. | 0 |
Recently, fans of DC Comics Suicide Squad started a petition to shut down review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes after the site collected negative reviews of the latest superhero film. Sure, the reviews were written by people who had actually seen the film, and of course their opinions were solely based on clips made available on preview reels, but they were angry. You can pretty much expect conservatives to jump on that bandwagon soon enough once they see what critics think of convicted felon and filmmaker Dinesh D Souza s latest embarrassment to propaganda films. The film, which has taken in less than a quarter-million dollars since its July 15 release, boasts an 84% rating from conservatives who eagerly lap up whatever D Souza sh*ts onto a screen, but actual reviewers found it hard to stomach, giving it a four percent on the Tomatometer. Of 23 total reviews, only one was positive. This thing is madness, raves Arizona Republic s Bill Goodykoontz. The Los Angeles Times Michael Rechtshaffen notes that the film doesn t even qualify as effectively executed propaganda. The AV Club s Vadim Rizov describes Hillary s America as A series of conspiratorial talking points familiar to Breitbart-oriented readers, but reshuffled in a new, startlingly illogical order, and the Chicago Daily Herald s Dann Gire calls it an embarrassment to propaganda films. To put it plainly, Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates averages 38 percent from critics. Now let s look at some of the user reviews: Note that the guy who said Rotten Tomatoes, which simply aggregates reviews, got this WAY wrong has not seen the film. While the Right, desperate to justify their support of Trump or their hatred of Hillary Clinton, will give raving reviews to a film TheWrap s Sam Adams points out is not intended to convince or to provoke thought, but to confirm the biases its intended audience already holds, the rest of us see it as yet another pathetic attempt by someone who can t be trusted to respect campaign finance laws to attack Democrats in an election year.Featured image via screengrab | 0 |
Politico reports that Obama administration staffers are mourning the repeal of regulations that they had spent years crafting but which are being eliminated by a Republican Congress under the 1996 Congressional Review Act. [Many of the regulations were promulgated late in President Barack Obama’s term, in the hope of locking the incoming Trump administration into policies it would not be able to reverse. Former Interior Department Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement director Joe Pizarchik told Politico that Congress had “ignored the will of the people” in repealing regulations such as a restriction on mountaintop coal mining that he had championed. But critics would argue that the proliferation of such regulations, made and enforced by unelected bureaucrats, is precisely why Trump won in the first place. The Congressional Review Act was passed after New Gingrich’s 1994 Republican Revolution precisely to act as a break on a runaway federal bureaucracy. Kimberly Strassel of the Wall Street Journal pointed out last month that while the law is usually reserved for regulations passed in the previous 60 days, it actually allows Congress to repeal many of the regulations that were created under Obama over the past eight years, because the federal agencies never reported their regulations to Congress: Here’s how it works: It turns out that the first line of the CRA requires any federal agency promulgating a rule to submit a “report” on it to the House and Senate. The clock starts either when the rule is published or when Congress receives the report — whichever comes later. “There was always intended to be consequences if agencies didn’t deliver these reports,” Mr. [Todd] Gaziano of the [Pacific Legal Foundation] tells me. “And while some Obama agencies may have been better at sending reports, others, through incompetence or spite, likely didn’t. ” Bottom line: There are rules for which there are no reports. And if the Trump administration were now to submit those reports — for rules implemented long ago — Congress would be free to vote the regulations down. There’s more. It turns out the CRA has a expansive definition of what counts as a “rule” — and it isn’t limited to those published in the Federal Register. The CRA also applies to “guidance” that agencies issue. Think the Obama administration’s controversial guidance on transgender bathrooms in schools or on Title IX and campus sexual assault. It is highly unlikely agencies submitted reports to lawmakers on these actions. On January 30, President Trump issued an executive order providing “that for every one new regulation issued, at least two prior regulations be identified for elimination. ” Joel B. Pollak is Senior at Breitbart News. He was named one of the “most influential” people in news media in 2016. His new book, How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak. | 0 |
PARIS — He has nailed his scrotum to the cobblestones of Red Square, sewn his lips shut to protest restrictions and set fire to the doors of Russia’s Federal Security Service. Now, Pyotr Pavlensky, Russia’s performance artist, has fled to France, where he intends to seek political asylum. Russian authorities questioned Mr. Pavlensky and his partner, Oksana Shalygina, last month after an actress at an Moscow theater filed a complaint accusing them of sexual assault. The couple deny the allegations, saying that the encounter was a consensual threesome and that the case is politically motivated. Amid the ambiguities — and at a time when violence against women is a topic of intense debate in the country — Russia’s cultural opposition is now divided over a figure once seen as a symbol of the resistance to President Vladimir V. Putin’s Russia. Mr. Pavlensky and Ms. Shalygina have not been formally charged, but were questioned by the police in Moscow on Dec. 15 and informed that they could face up to 10 years in prison. Told not to leave Moscow while the case was pending, they said they saw what was likely to happen and took their daughters, ages 6 and 8, to France over the weekend after spending a month in Ukraine. “We’ve become victims of this investigation,” Mr. Pavlensky said in an interview on Monday in a Paris cafe, speaking Russian through an interpreter, and with Ms. Shalygina at his side. “It’s like a horrible dream that you can’t even imagine. ” The situation — with its charges of a honey trap and “kompromat” (compromising material gathered by the authorities) — reflects the climate of suspicion and growing authoritarianism in Russia, where artists like the female punk band Pussy Riot have faced jail, but, for the most part, outright censorship has given way to artistic in the face of changing laws and cuts to culture funding. The accusations, however, have prompted even some supporters of Mr. Pavlensky to question his behavior. The theater where the actress works, Teatr. doc, is known for plays that have criticized and angered the Russian government, and it has supported Mr. Pavlensky in the past. But its leadership has seconded the assault accusations and defended the actress against the couple’s assertions that she was working for the state. This is not the first time Mr. Pavlensky has found himself in the cross hairs of the Russian authorities. Over the years, they have ordered him to undergo a dozen psychiatric evaluations, a technique long used to quash political dissent. In 2014 he chopped off his right earlobe for a piece called “Segregation,” inspired by van Gogh and intended, he said, to show that “psychiatry is a collection of subjective opinions. ” After setting fire to the doors of Lubyanka, the Moscow headquarters of Russia’s infamous security service, in 2015, he served seven months in pretrial detention on charges of vandalism. (He called that action “Threat” and said it was intended to illuminate “what people prefer to forget,” that the security apparatus hadn’t changed since Soviet times.) He was released last June with a fine, a move human rights activists said was intended to avoid an international incident of the kind that ensued after members of Pussy Riot were jailed in 2012 on charges of hooliganism for performing an song in a Moscow church. Soon after, Mr. Pavlensky said, he gave some lectures at Teatr. doc. It was at one of them last September that he met the actress who later filed the assault complaint. Mr. Pavlensky said that on Dec. 4, the actress texted Ms. Shalygina. The couple — who say they have an open relationship — invited her to their Moscow apartment that evening. “We talked about art,” he said. “We sat and drank coffee. We drank Cognac, but not a lot. ” “There was some form of intimacy,” he added. “And then she said she wants to leave. We said, ‘Fine, no problem.’ We parted as friends. ” Both Mr. Pavlensky, 32, and Ms. Shalygina, 37, said it was the first time the three had had sex together. Yuri A. Lysenko, a lawyer for the actress, said that Mr. Pavlensky had committed a “crime,” a rape, and that he wanted to portray the police investigation as politically motivated to avoid punishment. Adding to the confusion over the allegations, this week Teatr. doc posted on its Facebook page a video dated Oct. 31 that it said showed Mr. Pavlensky and others beating up a man they said was the actress’s boyfriend, in the theater’s parking lot. Mr. Pavlensky said that the video was “murky” and that he didn’t recognize himself in it. But he said he had been involved in a physical altercation with the actress’s boyfriend in October, when he and others confronted the man over allegations that he had beaten her. The Interfax News Agency reported that the police told him that a criminal case had been opened about the fight. Mr. Pavlensky said that was not the case. Mr. Lysenko said the fight with the boyfriend and the sexual assault allegations were “not related. ” He then added: “You have to ask Mr. Pavlensky if he has seen a psychiatrist recently. What he did is part of his carefully crafted plan to paint his crime in political colors. ” In a Facebook post that she said would be her last word on the matter, Yelena Gremina, the director of Teatr. doc, called the couple’s claims that the actress worked for the security services “slander. ” On Russia’s vibrant social media, artists are divided over the case. “The hysteria with Pavlensky is an alarming sign that anyone who becomes a significant ‘fighter against the regime’ is immediately put on a pedestal and declared a saint,” the artist Lena Hades wrote on Facebook. Others came out against Mr. Pavlensky. “Alas, yesterday a national hero and a great performance artist, today — it’s true — a criminal, a psychopath and a rapist,” Olga Papernaya, a former art director at a Moscow film club, wrote on Facebook, suggesting that she was friends with the actress. “For now, the authorities are winning,” Mr. Pavlensky said. The press is weak, he added, and “the opposition” divided, even over Russia’s annexation of Crimea. “But each move is not the last,” he said of the country’s situation. “It’s not clear who will have the last word in this conflict. ” | 0 |
Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders said Sunday that American voters, superdelegates and others must “take a hard look” at the recent federal report that found primary rival Hillary Clinton’s email setup while running the State Department broke agency rules.
“It was not a good report for Secretary Clinton. That is something that the American people, Democrats and delegates are going to have to take a hard look at," Sanders told CBS' "Face the Nation," during one of two TV network interviews Sunday.
The inspector general’s report last week concluded Clinton broke agency rules by using a private email server and that she would have been denied permission to have one had she first sought permission.
On Sunday, Sanders, desperately trailing the front-running Clinton in the delegate count, continued to not comment directly on the controversy.
But he repeated the notion that superdelegates, of which he needs more in a longshot bid to take the nomination, should indeed scrutinize the report.
“I mean everybody in America is keeping it in mind, and certainly the superdelegates are," Sanders said.
The Clinton campaign said Wednesday that the report shows "just how consistent (Clinton's) email practices were with those of other secretaries and senior officials at the State Department who also used personal email."
The campaign also said the report notes that Clinton's use of personal email was known to officials within the department and that there is no evidence to show any successful breach of the former secretary of state's server.
In a separate interview Sunday with NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Sanders said he is focused on “the future of the American middle class and how we deal with the fundamental problems they are facing.”
He also declined to comment on the FBI investigation into the Clinton email scandal, including what impact the findings might have on a Clinton general election bid.
However, Sanders appeared to perhaps take his concerns about the emails a step further, suggesting Americans are “tired of those kinds of politics.”
And he made clear presumptive GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump has and will continue to make an issue of them if and when he faces Clinton directly in the November election.
“Donald Trump and other Republicans will seize on it,” he told NBC. “There’s no doubting that.” | 0 |
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Both U.S. presidential candidates plan to watch Tuesday night’s election returns in New York, prompting the city to stage the largest Election Day police deployment in its history, officials said on Monday. More than 5,000 police officers will be stationed around the United States’ largest city, and there will be extensive street closures in the neighborhoods where Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump plan to watch returns come in - and where one will likely declare victory before hundreds of cheering supporters. “We know that the eyes of the world will be on New York City,” Mayor Bill de Blasio told a news conference on Monday. “We have an obligation, not only to the people in the city but to this country, to make sure that tomorrow, all through the day and particularly tomorrow night, go smoothly and goes well.” Clinton plans to hold her election night event at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center near the Hudson River, while Trump’s will be at a large Hilton Hotel in Midtown Manhattan. The city’s heightened security efforts come after federal authorities received unspecific threats of attacks by the al Qaeda militant group on New York City, Texas and Virginia around Election Day. Tuesday will be the first time that both major party candidates have spent Election Day in New York City since 1944, when New York state’s Republican governor, Thomas Dewey, tried to unseat Democrat and New Yorker Franklin Roosevelt, who went on to win an unprecedented fourth term in office. The New York City Police Department plans to station uniformed officers, including some with automatic weapons and explosives-detection equipment, across Manhattan and the city’s 1,205 polling stations. All of the city’s bomb-sniffing police dogs will be deployed, as well as special roving teams of officers, police said. The candidates will also be protected by the U.S. Secret Service, which has provided security for both candidates during the presidential campaign and will work with the city police department on Tuesday. “This is by far the largest election detail that the NYPD has ever had,” said Carlos Gomez, the chief of department. “It’s comparable to the detail size we have here on New Year’s Eve and last year when Pope Francis visited.” Trump has longstanding ties to New York City, where he was born and followed in his father’s footsteps as a real estate developer. Clinton moved to the suburb of Chappaqua, New York, following President Bill Clinton’s eight years in the White House, and served as a U.S. senator from the state from 2001 through 2008. | 1 |
WASHINGTON — Vice President Mike Pence will speak on Friday to a gathering of activists on the National Mall, a sign of the movement’s new and growing authority in a government now dominated by Republicans. The organizers for the event, the March for Life, had extended invitations to President Trump and Mr. Pence. A senior White House official confirmed that Mr. Pence would address the marchers. Mr. Pence’s appearance will come just a few days before Mr. Trump is expected to reveal his nominee for the Supreme Court seat left vacant by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia last year. Mr. Trump has said his pick, like Mr. Scalia, would oppose abortion rights, one of several promises he has made to roll back legal protections for the procedure. Other Republican presidents, including Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush, have spoken to the march, but remotely. leaders see the Trump administration’s commitment to their cause and the looming Supreme Court nomination battle as a tipping point after eight years of a Democratic administration. The symbolism of hearing from Mr. Pence and another senior Trump administration official, Kellyanne Conway, at the march is hard to overlook. Mr. Trump eventually won over many reluctant leaders who had chafed at his past support for abortion rights and his history of being a role model for religious conservatives. Mr. Trump’s pledges to them, which he made in writing before the election, have gone a long way to rebuilding trust. activists say they are among the most detailed and serious pledges a president has made to their cause. They include a vow to sign a nationwide ban on abortion at 20 weeks of pregnancy and a commitment to ensuring that his Supreme Court appointments are against the procedure. | 0 |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - After failing to repeal Obamacare, Republicans in the U.S. Congress quickly pivoted on Friday to President Donald Trump’s next priority: overhauling the federal tax code, but their plan has already split the business community. Division among Republicans was the chief cause of the embarrassing setback on Obamacare, and similar fault lines have been evident for months in the Republicans’ tax plan, mainly over an untested proposal to use the tax code to boost exports. House of Representatives tax committee Chairman Kevin Brady conceded the demise of a Republican plan to roll back Obamacare could make the path to tax reform harder. “This made a big challenge more challenging. But it’s not insurmountable,” he told Fox News after Ryan canceled a vote on an Obamacare rollback bill. But Brady said he and House Speaker Paul Ryan are all-in on tax reform. Brady said House Republicans plan to begin moving on tax reform this spring and to pass legislation before Congress’s summer recess in late July. “We’re going to work with the administration to get this done,” he said. Trump has been unclear about his position on the most problematic feature of the House Republicans’ tax “blueprint,” a proposal known as the border adjustment tax that would cut taxes on exports and raise them on imports. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said on Friday that tax reform in many ways is “a lot simpler” than healthcare reform. “We’re able to take the tax code and redesign things and I think there is very, very strong support,” Mnuchin said at an event hosted by news website Axios. Comprehensive tax reform is a policy goal so complex that it has defied successive Congresses and presidents since 1986 when it was last accomplished under former President Ronald Reagan. The U.S. tax code is riddled with narrow subsidies and loopholes, many of them deeply embedded in the economy and defended by the interests they benefit, such as the mortgage interest deduction and the business interest deductibility. Brady’s panel has been working on a plan since mid-2016 that would cut the corporate tax rate to 20 percent from 35 percent, end taxing foreign profits for U.S.-based multinationals and cut other tax rates for businesses and investors. The plan has divided businesses, prompting import-dependent industries to warn of higher prices for consumer goods from clothing and electronics to gasoline. Brady has been adamant that border adjustment will be part of the House tax reform, saying earlier this week that the provision was “a given” for final legislation but would include a transition period for import-heavy industries. | 1 |
RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) - Brazilian Former President Luiz In cio Lula da Silva and right-wing congressman Jair Bolsonaro would make it to a second round of voting in the 2018 presidential elections if they were held today, an Ibope poll showed on Sunday. The poll, published in the O Globo newspaper, showed center-left Lula winning 35 to 36 percent of the vote in the October 2018 race regardless of the candidates he theoretically runs against. Law-and-order congressman Bolsonaro, whose popularity has been spurred by rising violence in cities like Rio de Janeiro that were hard-hit by the country s troubled economy, would win 15 percent if he faced off against Lula. Marina Silva, Former Environmental Minister for Lula, would take third placed in any voting field that included Lula as a candidate with 8 to 11 percent of the vote. Silva would tie with Bolsonaro for first place if Lula were out of the picture. Despite Lula s popularity, his political future hangs in the balance after he was convicted in July of receiving bribes from a construction firm in return for help winning government contracts. In August, he said his Workers Party might have to run a different candidate. Ibope s poll of 2,000 people in all of Brazil s states was conducted between Oct. 18 and 22. It has a margin of error of two percentage points. | 0 |
non gaap has always been bullshit. | 1 |
Why Ted Cruz Could Have A Real Shot At The GOP Nomination
Perhaps the clearest sign that Ted Cruz is seriously challenging Donald Trump's dominance in the Republican primary race is that Trump has started attacking him.
Up until recently, the two have been operating in a state of detente, if not outright kinship. Through all the controversial statements Trump has made in this campaign, including his call last week to ban Muslims from entering the U.S., Cruz has steadfastly avoided saying anything critical of Trump, instead criticizing reporters for asking him to pass judgment on Trump's positions.
In an interview with NPR last week, Cruz was asked about the proposed Muslim ban and simply said, "I disagree with Donald on that."
But behind closed doors, Cruz was recorded saying last week that voters are asking themselves, "Who am I comfortable having their finger on the button?" In audio obtained by the New York Times, he added that, "It's also a question of judgment" — "a challenging question" for Trump, Cruz said. (He also lumped in retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, who has sunk in polls after making serious missteps in statements about foreign policy.)
After that audio was released, Trump called out Cruz on Twitter.
A short time later, Cruz denied in a tweet that he had any issue with Trump.
But the dam appears to have broken. Since then, Trump has called Cruz a "maniac," and at an event in South Carolina over the weekend he tried to undermine Cruz's base of support among evangelical Christian conservatives based on the fact that Cruz is the son of a Cuban immigrant.
"I do like Ted Cruz, but not a lot of evangelicals come out of Cuba, in all fairness," Trump said. (In reality, a poll conducted this year showed that 5 percent of Cuban residents are evangelical.)
That was a targeted attack, since Trump has plenty of reason to worry about Cruz's position in Iowa, with its large base of evangelical voters. A Des Moines Register-Bloomberg poll released Sunday, conducted by venerable Iowa pollster J. Ann Selzer, showed Cruz opening up a 10-point lead over Trump in that state, with 45 percent of evangelicals backing Cruz.
Cruz also received the most coveted endorsement from an evangelical leader in the state last week.
There was good news for Cruz nationally over the weekend, as the latest NBC News-Wall Street Journal poll showed him jumping into second place behind Trump, 27 percent to 22 percent.
But does Cruz have a path to the nomination? The short answer is: Yes.
For casual observers of politics, Cruz might fit the mold of past candidates like Rick Santorum and Mike Huckabee — hard-core conservatives, popular with the religious base of the GOP, who won Iowa but just couldn't pull together enough support to overcome establishment candidates like John McCain and Mitt Romney.
But Cruz has some key fundamentals on his side. For one thing, he dominates the evangelical wing of the GOP, and has strong support among Tea Party backers. He's been able to raise money and build a campaign organization more effectively than Huckabee or Santorum.
The latest fundraising reports released in October showed Cruz with more cash in the bank than any other GOP candidate, with $13.8 million. Neither Santorum in the 2012 cycle nor Huckabee in the 2008 cycle reported more than $2 million cash on hand at any point in the campaign.
In states like Iowa and South Carolina, Cruz has held a massive event with thousands of supporters in attendance called the "Rally for Religious Liberty." It's a potent theme this year since the U.S. Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage. It's also something Cruz has played up in his day job, leading the charge on Capitol Hill to pull federal funding for Planned Parenthood.
Part of the explanation of why Cruz is so well-poised is also the anti-establishment moment we are in. Cruz is very unpopular among his colleagues in Washington. In a typical election, that could make it hard to raise money and solidify a campaign. But in a GOP primary race where Washington is as good an enemy as Hillary Clinton herself, Cruz is making the most of it.
One of the consistent jokes in his stump speech goes like this: "I spent most of last week in Washington, D.C., so it is great to be back in America."
Another thing Cruz has going for him is the primary calendar, where you can see his path shaping up.
First up is Iowa on Feb. 1, where he's now leading the pack. If he wins there, he goes into New Hampshire with low stakes. No one expects Cruz to do well in New Hampshire on Feb. 9 — so he can't lose the expectations game there.
Then there's South Carolina on Feb. 20, where the vote is split among evangelical, military and establishment Republicans. Trump is leading there now, but if Cruz comes out of Iowa with a win (and the wind at his back), he could have a real shot in South Carolina, where he held one of those large rallies last month and is locking up the endorsements of pastors. Both will help in turning out evangelical voters in the state.
If Cruz were to win — or even come in a strong second — in Iowa and South Carolina, he would go into Super Tuesday on March 1 with the big mo'(mentum).
It's dominated by Southern states this year, which in the past have been marginalized in the primary calendar even though they have become the deep red heart of the Republican Party. This year, many Southern states banded together to set their primaries on this single day and create a regional superprimary, forcing candidates to spend more time campaigning in the South.
Regardless of how the politics of 2016 were shaping up, that arrangement was likely to give a strong conservative like Ted Cruz an important early boost — and a whole bunch of delegates. That day includes the GOP primary in Texas, Cruz's home state. Texas' 155 delegates are more than 10 percent of the total that a candidate needs to win the Republican nomination, though they will be awarded proportionally as opposed to winner-take-all.
This is all to say Ted Cruz has a path to the nomination that runs through Iowa and South Carolina and could carry through the Southern primaries on Super Tuesday.
Of course, others could easily spoil that. The candidate many in the Republican establishment and Beltway pundits are awaiting to challenge Trump is Florida Sen. Marco Rubio. His campaign is trying to make a big play this week as he barnstorms early voting states, including Nevada, where the GOP candidates will meet for their next debate Tuesday.
Nevada, where Rubio lived for a time as a child and maintains ties with the large Mormon community, is the only early voting state where he looks poised to succeed at this point. Of course, there's his home state of Florida as well — another big prize, with 99 delegates that will be awarded on a winner-take-all basis on March 15. But that's getting awfully late in the primary calendar to spark momentum behind a campaign. For now, Rubio is solidly in the second tier and is looking to make a surge like it appears Cruz is doing now.
But despite what Rubio might do, or what Cruz is doing, you can't pretend Donald Trump isn't still dominating the race. Even if he doesn't retake the lead in Iowa, he's ahead in New Hampshire and South Carolina. He's also been campaigning consistently in the South.
If there was any doubt that Trump had a serious path to the nomination, it was dispelled this week by a report in the Washington Post that several top establishment Republicans, including RNC Chairman Reince Priebus, huddled in Washington to figure out what to do to stop Trump should he get to the Republican National Convention in Cleveland next summer with a sizable chunk of delegates.
At this point, it's impossible to say what would prevent that from happening. Except maybe, just maybe, it could be Ted Cruz. | 0 |
Another night, another idiot libtard who can t answer a straight question owned by Tucker Carlson. pic.twitter.com/eOklFlkiqy Paul Joseph Watson (@PrisonPlanet) December 14, 2016 | 1 |
Insane! This really is the definition of insanity. Letting non-citizens vote in our elections is something no other country would even consider ever! When you elect a socialist radical as mayor then I guess that s what you get New York City lawmakers and Mayor Bill de Blasio are reportedly discussing legislation that would give voting rights to non-citizens in local elections. The Guardian noted that under the legislation that is being discussed, legally documented residents who have lived in New York City for at least six months will be able to vote in municipal elections. Lawmakers are reportedly discussing the legislation with Mayor Bill de Blasio s office and a bill might be introduced as soon as this spring. Two years ago, city councilman Daniel Dromm won the support of 35 of the city council s 51 members, forming a veto-proof majority when he tried to advance the non-citizen voting bill, but he faced the obstruction of then council speaker Christine Quinn and the unbreakable opposition of the Bloomberg administration. De Blasio has said he is willing to continue the conversation on non-citizen voting. Non-citizens make up as much as half the population in areas that Dromm represents and studies have found that more than a million would be eligible to vote citywide if such de Blasio were to sign such a bill. New York recently instituted its IDNYC card, which gives illegal immigrants access to a variety of city services in addition to the municipal identification card. As the Guardian points out, many Americans find the idea of non-citizen voting entirely unpalatable and fear that it undermines the sanctity and privilege of citizenship. Peter Schuck, an emeritus professor of law at Yale University, told the outlet, My guess is that it would cause many Americans to wonder what the point of citizenship is if anyone can vote without even bothering to learn or be committed enough to apply for naturalization. Eric Ulrich, one of three Republicans on the city council, recently told Newsday, The right to vote is a privilege and a sacred obligation that citizens have enjoyed. It should only be for United States citizens. It s also a reason for people who are on a path to citizenship to aspire to citizenship. It s something for them to look forward to. Six Maryland jurisdictions and Chicago allow non-citizens to vote in some local elections, and activists in Amherst, Massachusetts, Madison, Wisconsin, and Burlington, Vermont are also clamoring to give voting rights to non-citizens. -Breitbart NewsVia: Brietbart News | 1 |
Overwhelmed by the sadness of the mass shooting in Orlando, Florida where 50 people were killed, the 70th Annual Tony Awards and host James Corden sent a message to hateful bigots everywhere.Conservatives are applauding the mass shooting, which occurred at an LGBT night club. But the Tony Awards countered the hate with an opening number celebrating diversity.In his opening remarks, Corden declared that hate will never win and sent support and condolences to the victims and their families. Good evening. All around the world, people are trying to come to terms with the horrific events that took place in Orlando this morning. On behalf of the whole theater community and every person in this room, our hearts go out to all of those affected by this atrocity.All we can say is you are not on your own right now. Your tragedy is our tragedy. Theater is a place where every race, creed, sexuality and gender is equal, embraced and loved. Hate will never win. Together, we have to make sure of that. Tonight s show stands as a symbol and a celebration of that principle. Here s the video via YouTube.Indeed, it was exactly that as Corden then launched into a number featuring himself singing in every Broadway play imaginable, including The Lion King, Grease, and Les Miserables just to name a few.And then he sang about how any kid could be on Broadway some day no matter what they look like or who they are. To the theatre kids of any place with stardust in their eyes, Corden sang as children of all ages and ethnicities took the stage. Of every color, class and race, and face, and shape and size. To the boys and girls, transgenders too, to every Broadway would-be. Don t wonder if this could be you. It absolutely could be! Here s the video via YouTube.And the diverse Tony Awards wouldn t be complete without a shot at the Oscars and Donald Trump, which James Corden also provided. Think of tonight as the Oscars, but with diversity, Corden joked. It s so diverse, Donald Trump has threatened to build a wall around this theater. Featured image via screen capture | 1 |
The White House has warned Donald Trump not to turn his attacks to Michelle Obama, or things could get quite rough for him. I can t think of a bolder way for Donald Trump to lose even more standing than he already has than by engaging the First Lady of the United States, principal deputy White House press secretary Eric Schultz told reporters aboard Air Force One. To date, The Donald has largely stayed away from attacking the First Lady, with his one reference to her a blatantly false claim that she attacked Clinton in political ads only serving to embarrass him. I ve gotten to see some of the most vicious commercials I ve ever seen of Michelle Obama talking about you, Hillary, Trump said at the debate, earning him a collective eyeroll from America and a false from PolitiFact. In reality, Obama has campaigned hard for Clinton.Schultz is right: if Trump begins attacking the First Lady, a woman who is admired by people on both sides of the political aisle and who (for the most part) avoids engaging in politics, it will show that he truly has no shame if The Wall, a proposed Muslim ban, grabbing women by the pussy, courting white supremacists, and a f*cking child rape case had not managed to make that clear already.Schultz s warning is a good one: there is nothing The Donald can do strip what little legitimacy his campaign has ever had than to attack a woman whose primary concern for the last eight years has been making sure children are educated and fed. The blowback would be something even Trump could not handle.Of course, Trump will likely view this as a challenge but even if he doesn t go on the attack, his deplorables have had him covered in that area for years.On Thursday, Michelle Obama didn t attack Trump, but she very poignantly pointed out exactly how awful he is. Watch that below:Featured image via Getty Images (Chip Somodevilla/Ty Wright) | 0 |
PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) - French President Emmanuel Macron vowed to quickly rebuild the islands of the French Caribbean during a visit on Tuesday meant to dispel anger at his government s response to Hurricane Irma, which killed at least 43 people in the region. The clutch of Caribbean islands hardest hit by the storm were mainly overseas territories belonging to Britain, France and the Netherlands, whose tens of thousands of residents are European Union citizens. The U.S. Virgin Islands were also hard hit. European countries and the United States have sent troops to deliver aid and provide security after the storm toppled homes and hospitals, but locals and tourists short of food or shelter say help was slow to arrive. Macron, who is also facing the first test at home of his resolve to reform the economy with a day of protests against his labor reforms, denied that authorities reacted too slowly. Basic services in the region were lost after Irma, weakening law and order, and looting erupted on some islands. Haiti s government said on Tuesday more than 10,000 people were in shelters after heavy rains flooded the former French colony. Britain was forced to reinforce its marines on the British Virgin Islands after more than 100 very serious inmates escaped after a prison was breached in the storm, Alan Duncan, Britain s minister for Europe and the Americas, said on Tuesday. It was not clear if the prisoners had been captured. Macron was due to travel on Tuesday to St. Martin, an island France shares with the Netherlands that suffered some of the worst devastation from Irma. Most of the 10 people killed by Irma lived on French territories there. St. Martin will be reborn, I promise, Macron told reporters in Pointe-a-Pitre, on the French island of Guadeloupe. I will shake up all the rules and procedures so the job is done as quickly as possible. It will be done quickly, it will be done well, and it will be done better. Macron said 50 million euros will be made available as soon as possible, and 2,000 security forces have been deployed, including the army, roughly double the original contingent. The French government has said it would take at least three months for water distribution to normalize. The electricity supply has also been badly hit, authorities said. British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson traveled on Tuesday to the Caribbean to visit British territories devastated by Irma. Among the hardest hit islands were the British Virgin Islands, Anguilla, plus Antigua and Barbuda. He is very keen to see for himself the devastation, to reassure governors who have done a magnificent job under quite the most incredible pressure, Duncan said. Four people died on Anguilla, up from one reported previously, Duncan said, while the death toll on the British Virgin Islands rose by one to five. Speaking on CNN, Stacey Plaskett, delegate to the U.S. House of Representatives for the U.S. Virgin Islands, said there was no real looting occurring, but rather desperate people scrambling for scarce supplies. Our airport, the terminal looks as if grenades have been inside there and bombed the places out, she said. This is not anything that we could ve been prepared for. | 0 |
ISTANBUL (Reuters) - President Tayyip Erdogan filed a criminal complaint against a prominent opposition lawmaker on Tuesday, one of Erdogan s lawyers said, after the deputy called the Turkish leader a fascist dictator. In blistering criticism of Erdogan, the spokesman for the main opposition Republican People s Party, Bulent Tezcan, attacked what he said was a fearful atmosphere in Turkey. Erdogan s lawyer, Huseyin Aydin, said on Twitter: We have filed a legal petition concerning Bulent Tezcan with the Ankara chief prosecutor s office for the crime of insulting the president. Aydin also posted photos of the petition. The suspect s statements are part of a new campaign against our president and cannot be interpreted as an isolated incident, the petition said, saying such a campaign had also been launched ahead of last year s attempted coup. In a speech on Monday in the western city of Tekirdag, criticizing local judicial authorities, Tezcan had said: If you try to scare people and to create a fearful atmosphere by showing legal words as illegal ones we will not be deterred. His comments appeared to be in defense of the local mayor, a CHP member, who was questioned by authorities this month after he reportedly called Erdogan a dictator at a party congress. I don t know if our mayor said that or not. I, here in Tekirdag, say it now: Erdogan is a fascist dictator , Tezcan said. His comments prompted a swift backlash from Erdogan s office and lawmakers from his ruling AK Party, with Erdogan s spokesman Ibrahim Kalin saying his hate speech is an example of disgrace for the main opposition . Insulting the president is a crime punishable by up to four years in prison in Turkey. Lawyers for Erdogan, who has dominated Turkish politics for more than a decade, have filed more than 1,800 cases against people including cartoonists, a former Miss Turkey winner and school children on accusations of insulting him. Following the failed coup of July 15 last year, Erdogan said he would drop outstanding suits, in a one-off gesture. Nonetheless, rights groups and some Western governments have voiced concern that Turkey is sliding toward authoritarianism. Some 150,000 people have been sacked or suspended from their jobs and more than 50,000 jailed pending trial on suspicion of links to the failed coup. Erdogan says such measures are necessary to ensure stability and defend Turkey from multiple security threats. | 0 |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said on Thursday the DACA program for people who arrived in the country illegally as children should be part of a larger discussion on border security and Congress would welcome a proposal to address those issues. “As Congress debates the best ways to address illegal immigration through strong border security and interior enforcement, DACA should be part of those discussions. We look forward to receiving the Trump administration’s legislative proposal as we continue our work on these issues,” McConnell said in a statement. | 0 |
By Gordon Duff, Senior Editor on October 30, 2016 Constitutional Crisis: FBI used prohibited FISA domestic terror warrant in Clinton-Weiner email search …by Gordon Duff, with Ian Greenhalgh , Editors – Veterans Today
In a surprise announcement, the Department of Justice just admitted that there was no legal authorization in place to access email accounts of Hillary Clinton aide, Huma Abedin, estranged wife of accused sex offender former Congressman Anthony Weiner.
The government admitted that no warrant had been requested and that discussions to seek a warrant had not yet begun, making the letter FBI Director James Comey wrote to Congress on Friday a potentially criminal act, if it can be proven that Comey was aware of this fact and of the actions of his subordinates in “planting” Clinton emails on Weiner’s laptop.[14]
(CNN)Justice Department and FBI officials are working to secure approval that would allow the FBI to conduct a full search of top Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin’s newly discovered emails, sources familiar with the discussions told CNN.
Government lawyers haven’t yet approached Abedin’s lawyers to seek an agreement to conduct the search. Sources earlier told CNN that those discussions had begun, but the law enforcement officials now say they have not.[14]
FBI Director James Comey is under assault for what is being perceived as more than simply partisan behavior. Former presidential advisor, Lanny Davis writes for The Hill:
“Comey as FBI director — an investigative agency, not a prosecution agency — (does not) have any authority to send a report to Congress in the middle of an investigation about the past or present subject of an investigation. He appears to be in violation of the limits on his authority as FBI director by disclosing investigation information — or possible investigation information — directly to Congress with obtaining permission from the attorney general or someone else delegated authority by her. His decision to reveal the results of an ongoing investigation, before a published criminal indictment, violates due process principles and pre-indictment secrecy rules and guidelines of the Justice Department.”[16]
Through court challenges to FBI search tactics under FISA and other counter-terror legislation, accessing “cloud” based emails and either representing them as “found” in a warranted search of a hard drive or in “syncing” a computer to place emails on a drive under a warranted search, clear prohibitions have been established.[Addendum I]
In this case, with no warrant in place at all, there are no possible interpretations of FBI actions that could be consistent with admissibility.
In what has been seen by most a the long expected “October Surprise,” the highly controversial letter written by FBI Director James Comer, something more far reaching has developed, a constitutional crisis that may well exceed that of Watergate or even Iran/Contra. Like the Federal Reserve, the FBI itself lacks a clear constitutional authority. There is no mention of nor authorization given, in the constitution, for a national police force. In fact, the Constitution, in the 10th Amendment ratified in 1791 states:
“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”[12] More often than not, this has been ignored, a “stepchild” of the Bill of Rights. Here, however, the FBI, created initially as the “sex police”[11], created to enforce the Mann Act[13], has assumed not only “powers not granted” under the constitution, but has exponentially expanded its reach, well beyond constitutional limitations on rights of privacy and against unreasonable search and seizure, assailed by laws like the Patriot Acts.”
Behind the current controversy, that of an FBI director being accused of interfering in an election and acting against policy, procedure and advice of the Attorney General, is something more. The FBI has crossed into the area of possible criminality, violating clear cut Federal Court restrictions, not only through an illegal search but by actually planting evidence and then channeling misleading information into the press with a clear intent to subvert constitutional authority.
Another issue is the kind of language Comey has been using to mollify critics who have kept a flurry of investigations going and who have subjected him to hostile interrogation for endless hours in front of highly partisan committees. Colonel Jim Hanke (ret), former US attache to Israel and ranking NATO military intelligence planner commented on the nature of Comey’s assertions of Hillary’s classified emails:
“Take the text of any of the emails we have seen. Anything here could have been said in a press conference or on a television interview and, in those formats, would not have been considered classified. There would have been fallout, for sure, not from disclosing policy or in endangering operations, real issues that get high level classification. Hillary’s emails, were they made public, and there was reason to expect this might well happen, are revealing and reflect on her personal judgement and, at times, demonstrate a lack of grasp, particularly when it comes to Russia or Syria. These are issues of public confidence, not criminality nor are they areas of real security classification.
Conversely, what we have seen Comey do may well rise to the level of something serious, certainly he undermines the FBI and attacks the American system of government. As to what his intent was or to what laws apply, this is not my area of expertise but I would like to think that criminal code could deal with this kind of threat.”
One additional consideration to put into the mix is Wikileaks. During recent weeks while Wikileaks has released two dozen batches of emails, the Clinton campaign has mirrored earlier charges made against Wikileaks by former National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinsky, that Wikileaks “sexes up” and even fabricates documents that are, according to Brzezinsky, when speaking to Judy Woodruff of National Public Radio, “seeded” into a virtual deluge of material.
The FBI used FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) powers when it downloaded and “synced” Clinton emails into former Congressman Anthony Weiner’s computers, according to legal experts.[1,4,6,7] The FBI knowingly violated the law in applying terror statutes when they illegally expanded their search into Weiner’s computers and downloaded emails from a 3rd party account. With only days before an election, the term “October Surprise” has never been more applicable.
The question people are asking is; “Why did Director Comey choose to ignore legal advice and, more importantly, was he aware that he was upsetting an American presidential election based on a pattern of criminal-level misconduct by his own agency?”
The FBI lied when it claimed the it found Clinton emails when it searched Anthony Weiner’s computer. Sources now tell VT that the FBI in fact “synced” the email account of Weiner’s estranged wife, Huma, downloading the emails “from the cloud” and falsely claiming they were discovered as part of a legal search warrant. However, there is no case law supporting the expansion of such warrants to spouses or others whose email accounts may be accessible through devices but were not stored on hard drives and not by any stretch of the imagination, legally accessed under any possible search warrant tied to Weiner’s sexual indiscretions.
What did in fact happen here was planting of evidence, by the FBI, illegally accessing a “cloud based” email account not included in a search warrant and downloading to a hard drive that was included in a warrant. This is a common FBI/DHS practice used in terror investigations, making use of a single warrant to follow cloud accounts for multiple users.
In an article in today’s Washington Post, the issue of how the FBI found emails that should not been on Weiner’s computer were brought to light.
“Top Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin has told people she is unsure how her emails could have ended up on a device she viewed as her husband’s computer, the seizure of which has reignited the Clinton email investigation, according to a person familiar with the investigation and civil litigation over the matter.
The person, who would not discuss the case unless granted anonymity, said Abedin was not a regular user of the computer, and even when she agreed to turn over emails to the State Department for federal records purposes, her lawyers did not search it for materials, not believing any of her messages to be there.
That could be a significant oversight if Abedin’s work messages were indeed on the computer of her estranged husband, former congressman Anthony Weiner, who is under investigation for allegedly exchanging lewd messages with a 15-year-old girl. So far, it is unclear what — if any — new, work-related messages were found by authorities. The person said the FBI had not contacted Abedin about its latest discovery, and she was unsure what the bureau had discovered.”[8]
There is no evidence, of yet, that Director Comey was aware the “evidence” he took to congress was illegally planted on Weiner’s computer but Comey was aware of the practice. Typically, the FBI search warrants used can give access to cloud based emails as outlined below by FBI Special Agent James M. Cauthen:
“An alternative is for the investigator to search in the same manner as the user would—with the computer turned on and connected to the data. In this example, the investigator needs access to the subject’s computer with the relational database software and connection to the cloud. The investigator could consider combining two search warrants—one on the computer owner for the location being searched under Rule 41 and one on the cloud provider under §2703 for the content to which the computer is connected.
With this approach, the investigator will need to understand how to operate database software and make queries. These queries must comply with the search warrant. The investigator must conduct the search carefully as actions taken on a live system will change the data on the computer. Using this method, it may be possible to obtain a single search warrant combining the provisions of Rule 41 and §2703; however, it should be noted that there is no case law yet on implementing this strategy.” [7]
In light of the controversy over the handling of this issue by FBI Director Comey, an article in The New Yorker, dated October 28, 2016 cuts to the director’s state of mind. From that article: WASHINGTON ( The Borowitz Report )—James Comey, the embattled director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, presided over a special ceremony on Friday evening to commend the brave F.B.I. agents who had to touch Anthony Weiner’s computer. In awarding the commendations to the agents, whom Comey called “the bravest men and women this country has to offer,” the F.B.I. director criticized the political uproar that he said had overshadowed “their selfless acts of heroism.” “These agents have performed far and beyond the call of duty,” a visibly angry Comey said. “I know we’re eleven days away from an election and tensions are running high, but we shouldn’t let that subtract in any way from what these brave agents did with their own hands.” “Who among us could look at ourselves in the mirror and say, ‘I have what it takes to touch Anthony Weiner’s computer ’?” Comey asked. “I know I sure as hell couldn’t.”[15] A common way to hide ones train in Washington is to wrap whatever the smell is “in a bloody flag” or to hand out medals for heroism. This is “deception 101” and Comey wasn’t in the least bit coy about using his agents, who may be steeped in ethical or even criminal complicity, in that same “bloody flag” theatrics.
The Clinton/Weiner connection may well be an abuse of expanded counter-terrorism powers the FBI assumed during the Bush era. However, in 2008, these powers were curtailed by a Federal court decision. [Addendum I] From the New York Times, April 19, 2016:
“WASHINGTON — A federal judge has rejected a legal challenge to rules permitting F.B.I. agents, when working on domestic criminal cases, to search emails written by Americans that the government has intercepted without a warrant in the name of gathering foreign intelligence.
In an 80-page opinion that was issued in November and remained classified until being made public on Tuesday, Judge Thomas F. Hogan, the chief judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, ruled that what critics call “backdoor searches” of messages by the F.B.I. comply with both the Constitution and the FISA Amendments Act. That 2008 statute legalized a form of the government’s once-secret warrantless surveillance program.”[9]
There has been considerable controversy involving the FBI’s illegal expansion of search warrants in criminal cases. With the expanded powers under the Bush administration’s Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, covering the use of broad “single warrant” powers in domestic terrorism cases, the FBI has on numerous occasions misused FISA powers in criminal investigations.
This has been brought before the Federal Courts in 2008 [Addendum I] and the FBI should well consider itself forewarned not to attempt to apply questionable expanded powers under FISA legislation intended to apply to terror threats. That FISA was applied here, knowing a court challenge would take far too long to correct the damage, in this case a “rigged” presidential election, as claimed by Clinton campaign advisor, John Podesta. References:
[1] Elena Kagan: Supreme Court Hasn’t “Gotten to” Email , CBS News, August 21, 2013.
[2] Josiah Dykstra, “Seizing Electronic Evidence from Cloud Computing Environments,” in Cybercrime and Cloud Forensics: Applications for Investigation Processes , ed. K. Ruan (Hershey, PA: IGI Global, 2013).
[3] Tony Sammes and Brian Jenkinson, Forensic Computing: A Practitioner’s Guide , (London, UK: Springer-Verlag, 2000). Forensics was developed on the idea of copying data from a hard disk drive that was turned off or dead. Live recovery involves changes to the contents of a computer’s storage space, 18 U.S.C. §2510(15). Therefore, it is essential that someone competent to give testimony performs it, showing that the continuity and integrity of the evidence has been preserved.
[4] U.S. Department of Justice, Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section, Criminal Division, Searching and Seizing Computers and Obtaining Electronic Evidence in Criminal Investigations 3d ed., (Washington, D.C.: Office of Legal Education, Executive Office for United States Attorneys, 2009), 84. Although the courts have not directly addressed the matter, the language of Rule 41 combined with the Supreme Court’s interpretation of “property” may limit computer searches to data that physically resides in the district in which the warrant was issued.
[5] For legal purposes, there are two classes of cloud providers: those who provide “electronic communication services,” and those who provide “remote computing service.” See 18 U.S.C. §2510(15) and 18 U.S.C. §2711(2) respectively.
[6] United States v. Gorshkov , 2001 WL 1024026 (May 23, 2001). In this case, the defendants moved to suppress the evidence, but the motion was denied. Nonetheless, the investigator was charged with hacking by foreign authorities who requested that the investigator be extradited for trial. U.S. authorities have not complied. | 0 |
Another day, another billionaire and/or Republican refuses to endorse the train wreck that is Donald J. Trump. While a slew of influential Republicans elected or not have rescinded or flat out refused to endorse the GOP presidential nominee, others have stubbornly remained by his side even after being stabbed in the back.But as Trump continues to say any outrageous, offensive and grotesque thing that comes to mind, one influential mega donor in the party is saying enough and is endorsing Trump s rival, Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton instead. And her endorsement of Clinton isn t a I guess I m with her mentality, either it s a full blown Ready for Hillary sentiment.Meg Whitman, a self made billionaire who didn t have any help from her daddy, posted a stinging denouncement of Trump on her Facebook. Earlier this year, during the primary, Whitman expressed concern that Trump s rhetoric would hurt the party and turn off the electorate. It turns out she was right, as Hillary Clinton has taken the lead (for now) by margins of 7 points to 15 points nationally.Whitman referred to Trump as uninformed, unsteady, authoritarian, and a demogauge. She also praised Clinton for being an experienced, level-headed leader:As a proud Republican, casting my vote for President has usually been a simple matter. This year is different. To vote Republican out of party loyalty alone would be to endorse a candidacy that I believe has exploited anger, grievance, xenophobia and racial division. Donald Trump s demagoguery has undermined the fabric of our national character.Trump s reckless and uninformed positions on critical issues from immigration to our economy to foreign policy have made it abun dantly clear that he lacks both the policy depth and sound judgment required as President. Trump s unsteady hand would endanger our prosperity and national security. His authoritarian character could threaten much more.Therefore, I have decided to support Hillary Rodham Clinton. It is clear to me that Secretary Clinton s temperament, global experience and commitment to America s bedrock national values make her the far better choice in 2016 for President of the United States. In a tumultuous world, America needs the kind of stable and aspirational leadership Secretary Clinton can provide. I urge all Republicans to reject Donald Trump this November.Whitman, who is seen as a more moderate Republican given her positions of abortion, gay marriage and immigration, did the unthinkable: she put country over party. And for that Republicans are already denouncing her like they did Romney, Kasich, Christie Todd Whitman, and so forth.This also shouldn t come as a huge surprise. Whitman has donated to and aligned herself with California senator Barbara Boxer, considered one of the most liberal members of the Senate.Good for Meg Whitman in denouncing Trump and doing what is right. Hopefully more Republicans will take action.Featured image via Andrew Burton/Getty Images | 0 |
This is big! In the name of security and state sovereignty, the Tennessee General Assembly will sue the feds on Tenth Amendment grounds. Alabama and Texas are already suing but on different grounds. States should take notice and pay attention to what the people want which is overwhelmingly to address the refugee resettlement program. In the mean time, we have a surge of refugees arriving every month Obama just announced he s speeding up the vetting process from 2 years to just 3 months! NASHVILLE, Tennessee On Tuesday, the Tennessee General Assembly declared it will sue the federal government over its refugee resettlement program on Tenth Amendment grounds. The State Senate passed a resolution authorizing that lawsuit in a 29 to 4 vote one day after it passed the Tennessee House by a 69 to 25 margin. Today we struck a blow for Liberty by finally adopting SJR467, State Senator Mark Norris (R-Collierville), the co-sponsor of the resolution who shepherded it through the State Senate, tells Breitbart News. The General Assembly clearly understands the importance of public safety and state sovereignty as demonstrated by the overwhelming support of this Resolution for which we are thankful. The Syrian surge heightens our sense of urgency to get this properly before the courts, and we urge the Attorney General to act without delay, Norris adds. MUSLIMS TAKING OVER SMALL TOWN IN TENNESSEE: As a state legislator, it is my duty to fulfill my oath and to exercise Constitutional authority, House sponsor State Rep. Terri Lynn Weaver (R-Lancaster) tells Breitbart News. I take it seriously to do all I can to protect the sovereignty of our great state. Either we abide by the Tenth Amendment or we ignore it, she adds.Read more: Breitbart | 1 |
Obama's Attorney General Warned FBI Director Not to Inform Congress of New Hillary Investigation
The media is shamelessly spinning this corrupt behavior by Attorney General Lynch as standard protocol and blasting the FBI from deviating from some imaginary standard in which Democratic presidential candidates are supposed to be immune from the consequences of their criminality . And Congress is meant to be kept in the dark.
Attorney General Loretta Lynch and Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates disagreed with FBI Director James Comey's decision to notify Congress about his bureau's review of emails potentially related to Hillary Clinton's personal server, law enforcement officials familiar with the discussion said.
There was no direct confrontation between Lynch or Yates and Comey. Instead, the disagreements were conveyed to Comey by Justice Department staff, who advised the FBI chief his letter would be against department policy to not comment on investigations close to an election, the officials said.
It is in line with policy though for Lynch to have met with Bill Clinton.
But yes, a Hillary backer disagreed with a course of action damaging to her candidate.
Comeydecided to disregard their concerns and sent the letter Friday anyway, shaking the presidential race 11 days before the election and nearly four months after the FBI chief said he wouldn't recommend criminal charges over the Democratic nominee's use of the server.
The officials acknowledged there was little Lynch and Yates could do given the fallout over Lynch's controversial meeting over the summer with former President Bill Clinton.
Note how the media is spinning this as Comey's drastic course of action while Lynch is just being a responsible public servant. The default assumption is that Comey is in the wrong for providing information to one of the major branches of government and the greater public. | 1 |
REYNOSA, Tamaulipas — More than 400 Mexican soldiers have been deployed to this border city as part of an ongoing security strategy aimed at targeting various Gulf Cartel cells in the region. [Approximately 417 soldiers departed from the Mexican state of Chiapas on three military airplanes, Reynosa’s El Mañana reported. The soldiers are from the 15th Motorized Cavalry Regiment their deployment comes just weeks after 500 soldiers were sent to Ciudad Mier, Tamaulipas. The new deployment of soldiers occured days after Tamaulipas’s Governor Francisco Cabeza de Vaca announced a new security strategy for Reynosa. The mounting pressure forced Gulf Cartel’s regional boss, Julian “Comandante Toro” Loiza Salinas aka Juan Manuel Loiza Salinas, into hiding. While his commanders continue to operate in Reynosa, Loiza Salinas allegedly sought temporary refuge in Texas. During the raids, cartel gunmen have been setting up roadblocks and throwing hundreds of makeshift road spikes designed to rapidly deflate tires. The tactic is also done to flatten the tires of regular motorists, causing traffic jams. Ildefonso Ortiz is an journalist with Breitbart Texas. He the Cartel Chronicles project with Brandon Darby and Stephen K. Bannon. You can follow him on Twitter and on Facebook. Brandon Darby is managing director and of Breitbart Texas. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook. | 0 |
TOKYO (Reuters) - U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has threatened Toyota Motor Corp (7203.T) over its Mexican-built cars, but the biggest risk from a punitive tariff would be for its compatriot Nissan Motor Co (7201.T), the largest automaker operating in the country. Trump has criticized U.S. companies like General Motors (G.N) and Ford Motor Co (F.N) which manufacture abroad, accusing them of costing U.S. jobs. On Thursday he took on Toyota, warning the world’s largest automaker that it would face a “big border tax” if it exported Mexico-built cars to the U.S. market. But it is Nissan, Japan’s second-largest automaker, which would be the bigger victim of any tax punishment. Nissan built its first overseas plant in Mexico in 50 years ago and now produces more than 800,000 cars there, mainly its entry-level Versa and Sentra sedans. Nissan’s production dwarfs that of Toyota, Honda Motor Co (7267.T) and Mazda Motor Corp (7261.T) in Mexico. It exports roughly half of its output to the United States, where it also has production plants. Vehicles made in Mexico comprise roughly one-quarter of Nissan’s total U.S. vehicle sales, industry experts say, compared with around 30 percent for smaller rival Mazda, but less than 10 percent for Toyota and Honda. Japanese automakers together produced around 1.4 million vehicles in Mexico in the year ended March, nearly 40 percent of the country’s total output. According to the Japan External Trade Organization, they plan to ramp up production to 1.9 million by 2019. Current production in Mexico is dwarfed by the number of cars they produce in the United States, their single largest market, where Japan’s top three automakers alone produced around 4 million vehicles in 2015. Trump has said he plans to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement between the United States, Canada and Mexico, and has vowed to impose a 35 percent tariff on cars exported to the United States from Mexico. According to JP Morgan estimates, an increase in tariffs on cars exported from Mexico to the United States to even 10 percent would hit Nissan’s consolidated operating earnings by 10.3 percent, more than 5.5 percent at Mazda. Toyota would see a hit of 0.7 percent, while Honda 2.2 percent. All four Japanese automakers building cars in Mexico said they have no immediate plans to change operations. But Nissan and Renault SA (RENA.PA) CEO Carlos Ghosn told Reuters he was watching the incoming Trump administration closely and would respond to whatever policies it adopts. “I don’t want to preempt or try to guess what’s going to happen,” Ghosn said in an interview on Thursday, on the sidelines of the CES technology show in Las Vegas, Nevada. “It’s not a question that we are afraid or not afraid, we’re dealing with 160 markets in the world, different powers, different policies, different approaches, so we are used to adapting our strategy to different policies,” he said. One Asian auto executive told Reuters his company long ago made a strategic decision to make Mexico a production hub in North America, and that it is tough to alter its strategy overnight. “We can’t turn back the clock on these decisions,” said the executive, who did not have clearance to speak to media and so declined to be identified. “What we need to explain more clearly (to Trump) is that most automakers are not cutting production capacity or jobs in the United States to make Mexico an additional production hub.” Still, analysts said automakers would likely think twice about expanding production in the country in the coming years. “As long as this administration is in place I suspect (Nissan is) not going consider any additional capacity there,” CLSA analyst Chris Richter said. Trump’s criticisms come just as Japanese automakers are shuffling their production portfolios to boost supply of popular, higher-margin sport utility vehicles (SUV) and trucks for the U.S. market. Honda last year announced it would expand its U.S. production capacity to build more of its CR-V SUV, while shifting production from Mexico. Toyota has said that its Guanajuato plant under construction in Mexico will produce the entry level Corolla sedan, a vehicle segment currently produced at its plants in Mississippi and Ontario, Canada. Demand for the cars has slumped in recent years as cheap gasoline prices has prompted drivers to buy more SUVs. “We’re always considering ways to increase production in the United States, regardless of the political situation,” Toyota President Akio Toyoda told reporters on Thursday. | 1 |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Less than 24 hours after Donald Trump took office, his presidency started generating controversy. Photographs showing that the crowd at Trump’s swearing-in was smaller than at Barack Obama’s first presidential inauguration in 2009 caused the first ruckus in his administration - but not the last. Trump’s first year in office was colored by an investigation into whether his campaign colluded with the Russian government to affect the election outcome, insults and threats of war with North Korea, and an effort to pass business-friendly legislation. From the start, the White House took a combative approach, accusing the media of framing photographs of the inauguration in a way that appeared to understate the crowd size. Press Secretary Sean Spicer argued that the images were not what they seemed and that crowds of historic size watched Trump take the oath of office. Protests would become a hallmark of Trump’s first year. On Jan. 21, the day after the inauguration, hundreds of thousands of women jammed the streets of Washington to demonstrate opposition to Trump. A week after taking office, the Republican president signed an executive order to prevent citizens of seven predominately-Muslim countries from traveling to the United States. Known by critics as the “Muslim ban,” protesters quickly demonstrated at airports in opposition. Trump would ignite protests again in August, when he was asked to respond to white nationalists marching in Charlottesville, Virginia, including one who drove his car into a crowd of counter-protesters, killing a woman. The president argued there were bad people “on both sides.” Following his remarks, business leaders resigned from Trump’s business councils and the panels were disbanded. A defining feature of Trump’s first year in office was the investigation into whether his campaign colluded with Russia during the election. Trump ignited a political firestorm in May when he fired Federal Bureau of Investigation Director James Comey, who had been leading an investigation into possible collusion by the Trump 2016 presidential campaign with Russia to influence the election outcome. Russia has denied meddling in the election and Trump has denied any collusion. Soon afterward, the Justice Department named former FBI chief Robert Mueller as special counsel to lead the investigation. Paul Manafort, who had briefly served as Trump’s campaign manager, and his business associate Rick Gates were indicted by Mueller’s team in October, accused of illegally lobbying on behalf of foreign governments. A month later, Michael Flynn, who briefly served under Trump as U.S. national security adviser, pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his conversations last December with Russia’s then-ambassador in Washington just weeks before Trump took office. Trump has also found himself embroiled in a war of words with North Korea over its missile program, exchanging insults and threats with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. At home, Trump has struggled to enact sweeping changes he promised on the campaign trail. He threatened to withdraw the United States from the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), but business lobbyists persuaded him to renegotiate it. Trump signed an executive order setting up talks on the trilateral trade deal, which has hit roadblocks with Mexico and Canada. Trump’s team also failed to repeal the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare despite Republican control of the White House and Congress. It was not until December that Trump made headway on major legislative change as both chambers of Congress passed a sweeping tax overhaul. The bill must be reconciled with a different version approved by the House of Representatives, but the Senate bill is expected to remain largely intact. (Click on reut.rs/2Asabau to see a related photo essay) | 0 |
If you ve been joking that Ivanka Trump would make a perfect First Lady (given Trump s numerous remarks through the years about how he wants to yeah), prepare to have your goddamn mind blown.Ivanka Trump won t be receiving a salary, but she will be getting her own West Wing office, government-issued communications devices, and security clearance (yes, the jokes kinda write themselves).In the past, The Donald has described Ivanka as voluptuous and a piece of ass who has the best body. He has also, as we re sure you aware, said that perhaps [he d] be dating her if she wasn t his daughter. He also famously talked about how he kisses her as often as possible in comments so creepy the Dr. Oz show was forced to edit them out. To add to the hilarious nature of this new situation, these photos exist:Ew. Are there any pictures of Donald Trump and Ivanka that aren't creepy? Barron and Melania too.@Brotatopics pic.twitter.com/TPgd9oypU6 Midnight In America (@MittRegularGuy) January 17, 2017Ew. Are there any pictures of Donald Trump and Ivanka that aren't creepy? Barron and Melania too.@Brotatopics pic.twitter.com/TPgd9oypU6 Midnight In America (@MittRegularGuy) January 17, 2017De pose op deze oude foto van Donald Trump en dochter Ivanka is al wat creepy. Maar de papegaaien maken het helemaal af. pic.twitter.com/YolgnbRwfd Bas Vermond (@BVermond) November 28, 2016Donald Trump Creepy Comments And Photos With Ivanka Trump https://t.co/zomwCO0XGl pic.twitter.com/j9e2g9KrTM News (@hadyr2es) December 16, 2016At it again! 'Dr. Oz Show' edits out Donald Trump comment about kissing daughter Ivanka. #Creepy #Deplorables pic.twitter.com/kOxKR3XrJt March Madness Goof (@MetsFanInPhilly) September 16, 2016#ManyPeopleAreSaying that Donald Trump has taken a bunch of CREEPY pictures with Ivanka as a teenager. Like these- pic.twitter.com/CN54qe4wyq NY Rangers Fan (@DarakNy) August 9, 2016In a role befitting of Daddy s Little Nazi-in-Training, Ivanka will reportedly serve as his eyes and ears a strange role amid reports that Trump is stationing people to monitor the loyalty of those within his administration. While there is no modern precedent for an adult child of the president, I will voluntarily follow all of the ethics rules placed on government employees, Ivanka says of her new position, adding that she intends to give daddy candid advice and counsel, as I have for my entire life. She, of course, will maintain ownership of her business because apparently the President s daughter sorry, our new FLOTUS can t possibly have conflicts of interest, either.Featured image via screengrab | 1 |
Rather than call the sitting president who could actually help him, Florida Governor Rick Scott dissed President Obama by calling Donald Trump instead.On Friday, a gunman entered the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport and killed five people while wounded eight others. The incident unfolded throughout the afternoon and police finally took the shooter into custody.When a tragedy like this occurs, a governor usually makes a phone call to the White House to speak to the president. But Florida Governor Rick Scott disrespected President Obama and contacted Trump to speak with him and Mike Pence about the situation.Scott went out of his way to mention that to reporters and seemed to suggest that President Obama should have reached out to him.The Scott dodged follow-up questions from reporters about his disrespect towards the sitting president by claiming that now isn t the time for politics, even though shunning President Obama while speaking to Donald Trump is clearly political.Here s the video via Twitter.Florida Gov. Rick Scott says he has reached out to Trump and Pence since the shooting, but not POTUS. pic.twitter.com/y8iVykaxV3 ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) January 6, 2017So Rick Scott chose to keep Trump and Pence informed but not the one man who can actually do something to assist Florida during this tough time? Seriously?!Republicans have been disrespecting President Obama for eight years and with 14 days left until Inauguration Day, one would think that Republicans would at least be more respectful. But no, they would rather continue hypocritically calling for unity behind Trump and asking everyone to respect Trump while continuing to disrespect the sitting President of the United States. They would rather pretend that Trump is already president. Republicans couldn t even show respect to President Obama in the wake of a mass shooting and used it to as opportunity to insult him.This is the last straw. In no uncertain terms should Democrats step one toe across the aisle to work with Republicans over the next four years and Trump deserves to be disrespected at all times no matter what. Turnabout is fair play. All of Trump s nominees should be blocked and his agenda obstructed 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year for ALL four years. If disrespect is what Republicans want, then that s what they should get.And people were NOT happy about Rick Scott talking to Trump instead of President Obama like he should have done.@ABCPolitics PRESIDENT is BARACK OBAMA the only one with legal authority to do anything at this point. Deepen Gandhi (@deepen915) January 6, 2017@ABCPolitics Not time to be political so @FLGovScott why the hell would you call Trump and not the current sitting President? Ycp45 (@PakYong45) January 6, 2017@ABCPolitics @ABC7NY moments like this politics should be put aside. Governor of Florida should have reached out to POTUS before Trump Chris Winkelman (@mpngirl) January 6, 2017@ABCPolitics such a hypocrite , he says it s not time for politics so why not reach out to POTUS? He is still the president . Alice Fiona N (@AliceFionaN) January 6, 2017@ABCPolitics @ABC7NY So, #RickScott reached 2 #PEOTUS and not #POTUS. Interesting. Ressources needed can wait 14d I guess. #FortLauderdale DocGM (@DocGMleMollah) January 6, 2017@ABCPolitics @ABC7NY how disrespectful. The office demands respect. Even if u don t like the person Zaida (@Saida11660) January 6, 2017@ABCPolitics Unbelievable and distasteful Maggio 2028 (@Haus_Of_Maggio) January 6, 2017@ABCPolitics @GMA what an ignorant Governor! Does not know to contact the President! As if the President would not take his call. Shameful. SBR (@sbr255) January 6, 2017This country only has one president at a time and President Obama still has 14 days left. The only thing Rick Scott did is divide America even more today at a time when Fort Lauderdale needed us to come together. But Scott would rather suck up to Trump instead of getting immediate help for his state. Sad.Featured image via Joe Raedle/Getty Images | 1 |
BEIJING (Reuters) - U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s call with Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen was a “petty” move by Taiwan that does not change its status as part of China, China’s Taiwan Affairs Office said on Saturday. China will “unswervingly” stick to its position of opposing Taiwan independence, it said, in a statement released on the official Xinhua news agency. | 0 |
GROWING APPROVAL FOR ECONOMY AND PRESIDENT OBAMA - Emily Swanson: "Americans' views of President Barack Obama have improved slightly in the past two months, and opinions are more positive about the direction of the country and the health of the economy, an Associated Press-GfK poll finds... Forty-seven percent of those surveyed approve of how Obama is doing his job, compared with 41 percent in December, and 51 percent approve of his handling of unemployment, compared with 44 percent before. Nearly half say the economy is good now, while 41 percent thought that in December. In December 2013, only one-third called the economy good. Approval of the way Obama is handling the economy improved slightly, 41 percent to 45 percent, over the past two months…But people still feel that their own recovery is lagging, the poll shows, with only 35 percent saying their own family has completely or mostly recovered from economic downturn. Just 27 percent see the job market where they live as being most of the way to recovery, far less than the number that thinks big businesses (55 percent) and the stock market (53 percent) have bounced all the way back. In spite of growing optimism about politics and the economy, 8 in 10 people questioned have little confidence that Obama and Republicans in Congress can work together to solve the country's problems." [AP]
How high is the ceiling on Obama's approval? - David Lauter: "President Obama's standing with the public likely will continue its recent upward trend following the latest positive economic news, but new data on the country's polarized politics suggests he'll soon bump up against a low ceiling. The labor market data released by the federal government on Friday showed the best three months of job growth since the mid-1990s, an increase in the percentage of Americans who are working and the first signs of wage growth. That's the kind of good news that usually sends presidential approval ratings upward. But political polarization exerts a powerful pull in the other direction: Much like President George W. Bush before him, Obama faces near unanimous disapproval from opposing partisans that is deeply dug in and unlikely to change….In the past half century, the only years that showed more polarization than Obama's sixth year were his -- and Bush's -- fourth and fifth years. All of that suggests that Obama's overall approval rating probably will not rise much above 50% for any sustained period." [LA Times]
Four signs of an improving U.S. jobs situation - Drew DeSilver, summarizing Bureau of Labor Statistics: "[1] More people are getting back into the labor market, even if they don’t immediately find jobs. [2] More people who want work are actually looking for it. [3] More people are quitting their jobs. [4] The unemployed are spending less time out of work." [Pew]
ANOTHER NH POLL SHOWS NO GOP CANDIDATE OVER 20 PERCENT - Michael Bender & Lisa Lerer: "Jeb Bush has taken a slight lead over other potential Republican presidential candidates in a new Bloomberg Politics/Saint Anselm New Hampshire poll...Bush now leads with just 16 percent. Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky is second with 13 percent, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker is at 12 percent, and New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, coming off a controversy-filled overseas trip, is at 10 percent...The poll also shows former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton dominating her potential Democratic rivals. Clinton, who won the state’s presidential primary in 2008, is the first choice of 56 percent of Democratic primary voters. Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, who has said she isn't running, is second at 15 percent, while Vice President Joe Biden and Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont both have 8 percent." [Bloomberg]
WHAT TO MAKE OF EARLY POLLS, WALKER 'SURGE'? - Jonathan Bernstein: "Let’s talk early-stage presidential primary polls. Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker has had something of a surge over the last week. What should we make of it? Is there any information to be squeezed out of these polls?...the latest polls tell us almost nothing about voters. Most people aren’t paying attention yet, which is why a bit of positive publicity for a candidate can shift polling quite a bit. Voters aren’t reporting firm decisions; they’re just responding to what’s been in the news lately. If these early polls are important, it is only because of the way the people who pay close attention to Republican Party politics react to them. That’s the real thing to watch, going forward." [Bloomberg]
CQ RESEARCHER: BROAD OVERVIEW OF POLITICAL POLLING - Chuck McCutcheon: "Smart phones, social media and the Internet have made it easier than ever for people to make their views known, but the new technology can make it harder for political pollsters to gather and measure public opinions with precision or consistency. They face public suspicions of partisanship, reluctance to provide candid answers and — as cellphone use grows — difficulty reaching respondents by the traditional method of random calls to household landlines…Polling has become entangled in the nation’s prevailing polarized political climate, with both politicians and the public questioning the validity of polls." The CQR report provides a broad overview of recent issues and controversies facing the polling world. It is available by subscription or single issue purchase only. [CQ Researcher]
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VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - The Legionaries of Christ, a Catholic religious order which fell into disgrace after the discovery that its founder was a sexual abuser with a secret family, has been hit by fresh scandal with revelations that the head of its Rome seminary fathered two children. The order said in a statement late on Friday that Father Oscar Turrion would leave the priesthood. It also released a letter by Turrion in which he asks forgiveness for the scandal ... forgiveness for my bad example and the negative witness I have given . The Legionaries is a conservative order of Roman Catholic priests. Turrion was rector of the Pontifical International College Maria Mater Ecclesiae, a seminary for men in the order studying for the priesthood in pontifical universities in Rome. The Legionaries said Turrion, a 49-year-old Spaniard, told his superiors in March that he had just had a daughter. A new rector was appointed and Turrion was ordered not to practice his ministry publicly. On Thursday Turrion acknowledged that he had previously had a son with the same woman several years ago, the order said. This meant he had a secret family while he was head of the seminary. In his letter, Turrion said he did not come clean earlier out of weakness and shame and that he had not used any of the seminary s money, supporting his family with donations from friends. He said he had lost his grounding and fell in love with a woman during the period of turmoil that hit the order when revelations about its founder, Rev. Marcial Maciel Degollado, came to light between 2006 and 2014. Maciel founded the order in Mexico in 1941 and for decades the Vatican dismissed accusations by seminarians that he had abused them sexually, some when they were as young as 12. The order was run like a cult, former members said, with rules forbidding any criticism of the founder or questioning his motives. Maciel enjoyed the support of the late Pope John Paul and was spared official censure for years despite what critics say was overwhelming proof of his crimes. In 2006, a year after John Paul s death, a Vatican investigation concluded that the previously denied accusations of molestation were true. Pope Benedict ordered Maciel to retire to a life of prayer and penitence . After Maciel s death in 2008, Vatican investigations found that he had also fathered several children with at least two women, visited them regularly and sent them money. He also used drugs. The Vatican appointed a commissioner to run the order and phase in a new leadership, rejecting suggestions from critics that it be suppressed. New constitutions for the order were approved in 2014 but the Vatican still has a special representative in its leadership. Turrion s case was very similar to that of Thomas Williams, a former Legionaries member who left the priesthood in 2013 after it was discovered that he had fathered a child with the daughter of the former U.S. ambassador to the Vatican. Williams, an American moral theologian, kept his family secret while continuing to teach at the Legionaries university in Rome, appearing often on U.S. television. | 1 |
During the revelations that Russia had a giant hand in influencing our election, one word has been used throughout the media: unprecedented. Well, unprecedented is not exactly true. While it is true that Russia s hacking has been blatant and Trump s involvement is becoming undeniable, this isn t the first time a foreign and hostile government has played a role in installing a Republican leader and we don t have to go very far back to see examples.Nearly 50 years ago, in 1968, the most famously scandal-ridden President began his term under a scandal. After his Democratic opponent Vice President Hubert Humphrey switched course from his president, Lyndon B. Johnson, and promised that we would pull out of the Vietnam war, Nixon began falling in the polls. On October 30th, Johnson, though, announced that there would be peace talks and Nixon s lead disappeared. So, Nixon invited Vietnam to intervene.Nixon s team met secretly with Anna Chan Chennault, a wealthy supporter of Taiwanese President Chiang Kai-shek, co-chair of Republican Women for Nixon and confidante of South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu. At Nixon s behest, Chennault informed Thieu that Nixon would secure a better deal for his country than either Humphrey or Johnson, and that the Democrats were effectively prepared to sell out Saigon in order to secure peace at any price. If Chennault could convince Thieu to stay away from the negotiating table, the talks would collapse, LBJ would look foolish and the Democrats 11th-hour gambit would fail.Johnson and the Democrats knew it was happening. The National Security Agency had intercepted cables between Thieu and his D.C. ambassador.( [I am] still in contact with the Nixon entourage, which continues to be the favorite despite the uncertainty provoked by the news of an imminent bombing halt, one communiqu began.) On the basis of these cables, LBJ ordered the FBI to tap Chennault s phone; the bureau, in turn, concluded that she contacted Vietnamese Ambassador Bui Diem and advised him that she had received a message from her boss (not further identified) which her boss wanted her to give personally to the ambassador. She said the message was that the ambassador is to hold on, we are gonna win and that her boss also said, Hold on, he understands all of it. Johnson didn t mince words. He called it treason, and a gross violation of the Logan Act, which prohibits civilians from negotiating with foreign governments. Still, there wasn t enough to firmly plant the smoking gun in Nixon s hands, so the American people didn t have this bit of information before the election.South Vietnam pulled out of the peace talks and well, we got a President Nixon. The rest is history, and well, people should be reminded that an administration that begins in scandal will likely end in scandal.The second recent instance happened fewer than 40 years ago. In 1979, university students in Tehran, Iran stormed the American embassy there and took 63 American hostages. In hindsight, we were kind of asking for it. In 1953, the CIA helped overthrow Iran s government because of oil. Instead, we installed the Shah, who was corrupt and brutal. When the Shah fell in 1979, then President Jimmy Carter allowed the Shah to seek medical treatment for cancer in the United States. Iran s new leader, Ayatollah Sayyid Ruhulla Musawi Khomeini, who hated us anyway, demanded extradition so the Shah could face trial. Carter refused.Still, as we were nearing the election, it appeared that the hostage situation was coming to a resolution, which would have nearly assured Carter of reelection. The Reagan camp couldn t let that happen. Reagan s campaign manager, William Casey talked to sources close to the ayatollah and convinced them to delay the release of the hostages. Reagan went on to win the election and the hostages were released on inauguration day.Of course, details of both these cases are different from the details in the Trump/Russia hacking scandal, but I would argue that today we are in a worse situation. By helping Trump, Russia is providing themselves blackmail ammo in case Trump does something they might not find agreeable. More than that, though, in the days when cyber security is at the top of everyone s minds, what Russia has done to us is as dangerous as any terrorist act and the ramifications are far bigger. Trump has allowed a hostile foreign government to infiltrate our electronic communication, which is almost everything. What s next, credit card information and IRS records of individuals who speak out against Trump?The bottom line is that we can t allow Donald Trump to take office. There s too much at stake. We can t afford another Nixon. We can t even afford another Reagan.Featured image via Sean Gallup/Getty Images. | 0 |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Senator Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said allegations that President Donald Trump released classified information to Russia would be a “slap in the face” to the U.S. intelligence community, if true. “Risking sources & methods is inexcusable, particularly with the Russians,” Warner said in a comment on Twitter and distributed by his office, referring to a Washington Post report that Trump disclosed classified information to Russia’s foreign minister during a meeting last week. | 0 |
Just another reason conservatives love Ted Cruz .Share this with everyone | 1 |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States on Monday praised Saudi Arabia for exposing Iran s role in Yemen and Tehran s provision of missile systems to Houthi militia fighting there, following the interception of a missile fired toward the Saudi capital Riyadh on Saturday. We continue to maintain strong defense ties with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and work together on common security priorities to include combat operations against violent extremist organizations, and neutralizing Iran s destabilizing influence in the Middle East region, said Pentagon spokesman Marine Major Adrian Rankine-Galloway. | 1 |
BEIJING (Reuters) - China understands and supports the Spanish government s efforts to protect the country s unity and territorial integrity, China s Foreign Ministry said on Thursday, amid moves by Catalonia to declare independence. The wealthy region s intention to break away has plunged Spain into its worst political crisis since an attempted military coup in 1981, with Madrid threatening to sack the Catalan government if it goes ahead. China was paying close attention, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told a daily news briefing. China understands and supports the Spanish government s efforts to protect national unity ... and its territorial integrity, Hua said. China believes Spain has the ability to guarantee social order and people s interests in accordance with the law, she added. China says it adheres to a policy of non-interference in other countries internal affairs, but it generally takes a dim view of independence or secessionist movements around the world. At home, it contends with what it says are separatist movements in its western regions of Tibet and Xinjiang, and also insists that the self-ruled island of Taiwan belongs to China. Though it generally remains officially agnostic on such issues abroad, Beijing has expressed more openness toward independence votes when both sides have agreed to them, such as Scotland s unsuccessful 2014 referendum to leave the United Kingdom, and South Sudan s 2011 vote in favor of independence from Sudan. | 1 |
Donald Trump does not care about Jewish people. If he did, he would have strongly condemned anti-Semitism long ago instead of pandering to groups that commit it.In cities across the country on Monday, Jewish community centers were evacuated after receiving bomb threats.This is yet another escalation of the attack on Jewish people in America since Trump was elected in November. Hate crimes are on the rise, and so is anti-Semitism. Trump has been repeatedly called upon to condemn anti-Semitism but he has refused to do so or only weakly does so because he would lose his supporters on the extreme right-wing.On Tuesday, a full day after the bomb threats, Trump finally made a short statement pathetically denouncing anti-Semitism. The anti-Semitic threats targeting our Jewish community and community centers are horrible and are painful and a very sad reminder of the work that still must be done to root out hate and prejudice and evil, Trump said.Of course, Trump has contributed to this hate by ignoring it and has insulted Jews ever since taking office a month ago.Shortly after Trump s late statement, Anne Frank Center for Mutual Respect Executive Director Steven Goldstein scolded Trump in a statement. The President s sudden acknowledgement is a Band-Aid on the cancer of anti-Semitism, he began. His statement today is a pathetic asterisk of condescension after weeks in which he and his staff have committed grotesque acts and omissions reflecting anti-Semitism, yet day after day have refused to apologize and correct the record. Make no mistake: The Antisemitism coming out of this Administration is the worst we have ever seen from any Administration.The White House repeatedly refused to mention Jews in its Holocaust remembrance, and had the audacity to take offense when the world pointed out the ramifications of Holocaust denial. And it was only yesterday, President s Day, that Jewish Community Centers across the nation received bomb threats, and the President said absolutely nothing.When President Trump responds to anti-Semitic proactively and in real time, and without pleas and pressure, that s when we ll be able to say this President has turned a corner. This is not that moment. .@POTUS @realDonaldTrump do not make us Jews settle for crumbs of condescension. What are you going to do about #Antsemitism in @WhiteHouse pic.twitter.com/95Z5GP1OBc AnneFrankCenter(US) (@AnneFrankCenter) February 21, 2017Trump s campaign was heavily supported by Nazis and Trump even hired a Nazi by making Steve Bannon his top adviser. So while Trump s statement on Tuesday is a start, it s not enough because his anti-Semitic supporters still believe he is one of them and that he doesn t really believe what he s saying when he condemns them. That s because Trump s statement was weak and his previous actions and words make it clear that he is not a friend to Jews.Featured image via Andrew Harrer-Pool/Getty Images | 1 |
BEIRUT (Reuters) - An aid convoy arrived at Deir al-Zor in eastern Syria on Thursday, bringing supplies to soldiers and civilians days after the Syrian army broke a three-year Islamic State siege, Syrian state media reported. The Syrian army and its allies reached Deir al-Zor on Tuesday in a sudden advance following months of steady progress east across the desert. The army on Thursday advanced against militants in a pocket they still hold further west, pro-Damascus media reported. State TV broadcast footage of scores of residents cheering with relief in Deir al-Zor as the convoy arrived. The United Nations estimated that 93,000 civilians living under Islamic State siege in Deir al-Zor had been in extremely difficult conditions, being supplied only by air drops. The 40 trucks that reached the area on Thursday carried basic needs such as fuel, food and medical supplies to civilians, and included two mobile clinics, state news agency SANA reported. The army also holds another besieged enclave at the city s airbase, separated from its advancing forces by hundreds of meters of IS-held ground. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Thursday that the army had not yet connected with that enclave, and was working on expanding its corridor from the west. Islamic State mortar fire on neighborhoods still surrounded near the air base killed at least seven civilians and wounded dozens more on Thursday, the British-based monitoring group said. On Thursday, the army also advanced against Islamic State militants in countryside east of the city of Hama, a media unit run by Damascus ally Hezbollah reported. The advance, which saw forces recapture two villages there, is part of efforts to drive the militants out of an isolated pocket of territory they control east of Hama and Homs. Separately, the U.S. special envoy to the U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State, Brett McGurk, said on Wednesday that a convoy of Islamic State fighters and families from the Syria-Lebanon border was still in open desert. The coalition is using air strikes to block the convoy from reaching IS-held territory in eastern Syria, to which the Syrian army and its ally Hezbollah were escorting it as part of a truce following fighting on the Syria-Lebanon border. Islamic State is fighting separate offensives by both the Syrian army and its allies in eastern and central Syria, as well as the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces in Raqqa. The group has lost nearly half of its territory across both Iraq and Syria, but still has 6,000-8,000 fighters left in Syria, the United States-led coalition has said. | 0 |
(Reuters) - The financially distressed city of Scranton, Pennsylvania, will soon sell its public sewer utility to a subsidiary of American Water Works Company Inc. for $195 million, a city official said on Tuesday. The deal would mark another step forward in the city’s efforts to stabilize its budget. An old steel and coal town known as the Electric City and as the setting for the television series “The Office,” Scranton’s finances have been under state oversight since 1992. The city’s previous administration made headlines in 2012 when it cut police and firefighter pay to minimum wage for two weeks because it could not make payroll. “Without this deal the city wouldn’t have been able to survive, financially anyway,” Mayor William Courtright said late 9on Monday in televised remarks on the sewer utility sale. The Scranton Sewer Authority’s board authorized the sale to Pennsylvania American Water late on Monday, City Solicitor Jason A. Shrive told Reuters. Before the transaction can close, it needs governmental approvals from state public utility regulators and state and federal environmental protection agencies. The deal is expected to save the city $350 million over 30 years, plus another $140 million the authority must spend on environmental mediation under a consent decree. Ratepayers will likely see their rates increase on average 1.9 percent per year for the next 10 years, Shrive said, compared to 4.5 to 5 percent every year for the next 30 years if there were no sale. That amounts to $7,600 of savings total for each ratepayer over the next three decades, Shrive said. A spokeswoman for Pennsylvania American Water, which already owns Scranton’s drinking water system, declined to comment. Nationally, American Water expanded its customer base in 2015 by nearly 42,000 customers, with just over half of those coming from acquisitions that closed that year, according to a transcript of the company’s fourth-quarter earnings call in February. Earlier this month, Scranton city officials also disclosed details of a $31.5 million deal to pay off a long-overdue labor award inherited from the previous administration. The city will pay about $29.3 million in back pay to police and firefighters, including retirees, and put a total of $1.59 million into the city’s public pension funds. These steps, combined with a planned long-term lease of the city’s parking authority that could be finalized by June, could get the city out of the state oversight program for distressed cities by the end of 2017, Shrive said. | 0 |
Is this just one more case of an activist judge too blinded by his hate for Trump to deliver the justice he took an oath to uphold? It was announced yesterday that Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, who walked away from his post in Afghanistan and triggered a search that left some of his comrades severely wounded, was spared a prison sentence by a military judge Friday in what President Donald Trump blasted as a complete and total disgrace. The judge gave no explanation of how he arrived at his decision, but he reviewed evidence that included the five years Bergdahl was held captive by the Taliban and the wounds suffered by troops who searched for him, including one who now uses a wheelchair and cannot speak. Chicago TribuneWhen candidate Donald Trump told a crowd that Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl should have been executed for leaving his post in Afghanistan, the crowd cheered We re tired of Sgt. Bergdahl, who s a traitor, a no-good traitor, who should have been executed, Trump said to cheers at a rowdy rally inside a packed Las Vegas theater at the casino-hotel Treasure Island. Thirty years ago, Trump added, he would have been shot. Before everyone starts calling Trump heartless or an idiot, perhaps they should first familiarize themselves with our laws about Americans who commit treason:Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason and shall suffer death, or shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined under this title but not less than $10,000; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.(June 25, 1948, ch. 645, 62 Stat. 807; Pub. L. 103 322, title XXXIII, 330016(2)(J), Sept. 13, 1994, 108 Stat. 2148.)Immediately after the news broke about the slap on the wrist given to Bowe Bergdahl in his desertion case, President Trump tweeted about his disgust with the judge s decision:https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/926492915626663939President Trump s harsh criticism of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, who walked off his Army post in Afghanistan in 2009 and was captured by the Taliban, will weigh in favor of a lighter sentence for the sergeant, a military judge said on Monday. I will consider the president s comments as mitigation evidence as I arrive at an appropriate sentence, the judge, Col. Jeffery R. Nance of the Army, said during a hearing at Fort Bragg. The judge is expected to sentence Sergeant Bergdahl in the next few weeks.The judge rejected a request that he dismiss the case or cap the length of the sentence on the grounds that the president s comments had precluded a fair hearing. The judge said he had not been influenced by the remarks and that the public s confidence in the military justice system had not been undermined.Sergeant Bergdahl faces up to life imprisonment. He pleaded guilty on Oct. 16 to desertion and endangering the troops who were sent to search for him.He testified on Monday that he deeply regretted that people suffered because of my bad choices. Colonel Nance will also consider aggravating factors presented by the prosecution, including injuries suffered by several service members during the search for Sergeant Bergdahl, as well as the negative impact they say the search had on the military s overall war effort in Afghanistan.Anger over the injuries has driven much of the testimony in the case so far, as service members vividly described a rescue operation that exposed them to enemy fire. Shannon Allen, the wife of Sgt. First Class Mark Allen, who was shot in the head took the stand on Monday.Sergeant Allen, a national guardsman from Georgia, had part of his brain removed during surgery, and is now unable to speak, walk, or take care of himself. His wife has said little publicly, but in a Facebook post after Sergeant Bergdahl was freed, she blamed him for causing her husband s incapacitation. Instead of being his wife, I have become his caregiver, Ms. Allen testified on Monday.Last week, Staff Sgt. Jason Walters testified that his six-man team had only just arrived in Afghanistan when they were sent to search for Sergeant Bergdahl. They had little time to prepare for the rugged terrain of Paktika Province, and little intelligence to go on.On the second morning of the search, an insane amount of fire came out of nowhere, Sergeant Walters said. Militants had them surrounded. In minutes, half the team had been wounded. Sergeant Walters turned to see a cloud of blood spraying from the head of Sergeant Allen. I started treating his wounds, talking to him, telling him to hang on, Sergeant Walters said.The battle subsided only after F-15 fighter jets and Apache helicopters arrived overhead.Only later would the troops learn that the battalion responsible for the area believed that 150 Taliban fighters were near the village where the soldiers were resting when they came under fire. My words can t take away what people have been through, Sergeant Bergdahl told the court on Monday. Offering condolences is not enough. People went through things they shouldn t have had to go through. I grieve for those who have suffered and their families. For entire story: NYT s | 1 |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President-elect Donald Trump’s shortlist of candidates to lead the U.S. Department of Interior has employees and environmental advocates fearful of a shift in the agency’s direction, from one focused on preserving public lands to one that would open them up to more drilling and mining. The outcome will have implications for industry access to millions of acres of national parks, reserves and tribal territories stretching from the Arctic to the Gulf of Mexico and the viability of President Barack Obama’s efforts to keep the United States in line with international agreements to reduce the impacts of climate change. Republican Trump, a New York real estate businessman who has never previously held public office, has leaned toward right-wing loyalists for the Cabinet since winning the Nov. 8 election. He is considering oil drilling advocates like Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin, Alaska’s former governor Sarah Palin and Lucas Oil co-founder Forrest Lucas to run the Interior Department, media reports and Reuters sources said. Other contenders are several politicians from Western states who favor easier development of public lands. Any of those picks could trigger battles with environmental groups and cause internal strife at an agency where many workers see themselves as land stewards after nearly eight years of conservation-minded policies under Democrat Obama. “Public lands have been set aside to ‘preserve and protect’ cultural and scientific resources for future generations,” said Geoff Goins, a National Park Service ranger at the Bandelier National Monument in New Mexico, adding that with Trump coming in, “people are concerned about their jobs.” Other Interior Department employees interviewed by Reuters said they were worried the agency’s environmental mandate would be weakened under Trump, and green advocates said they were bracing to resist those changes. “Climate change is a major focus of conservation concern for national parks,” said one National Park Service employee in the Northwest who asked not to be identified. “If (Trump’s administration) gets in the way of scientists...we are all in deep trouble.” During the election campaign, Trump tweeted that “the concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive” - a view that is at odds with most but a few scientists who study the impacts of rising global temperatures and extreme weather. Maureen Finnerty, chair of the Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks, an organization of more than 1,200 current and former National Parks employees, said it was ready to launch a public relations campaign against Trump if he pursues an anti-environmental agenda. “We will be vigilant and hope for the best,” she said. The Interior Department employs more than 70,000 people across the United States and oversees over 20 percent of federal land. Under Obama, the Interior Department played a big role in efforts to curb the effects of climate change by limiting fossil fuel development in some areas. Outgoing Interior Secretary Sally Jewell banned coal mining on public lands, canceled leases for drilling in the Arctic and Atlantic coasts, expanded wildlife protection and cracked down on industry methane emissions. The Obama administration planned on using forest restoration on federal lands as a way to help the United States meet its long-term goals under the 2015 Paris agreement within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The agreement outlines how countries will deal with lowering greenhouse gas emissions starting in 2020. Trump has given mixed messages on his plans for Interior. In an interview with Field and Stream magazine in January, Trump said: “I want to keep the lands great... We have to be great stewards of this land.” But he has advocated strongly for boosting energy development on federal lands and has criticized Obama’s use of environmental regulation to check oil and gas development. He picked renowned climate change skeptic Myron Ebell to run his transition at the Environmental Protection Agency. U.S. Representative Kevin Cramer of North Dakota said Trump could consider hiring as his energy secretary Harold Hamm, an oil and gas driller and a pioneer of developing shale oil resources. One potential Interior Department head is Oklahoma Governor Fallin, who met with Trump on Monday. She has been an ardent supporter of Oklahoma’s drilling industry and has blocked attempts to ban hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, a controversial drilling technology. Fallin’s spokesman confirmed she is being considered for the post, but said there has been “no offer given.” Also on the shortlist is Palin, who made famous the motto “Drill, Baby, Drill” when she was the vice presidential running-mate to Republican John McCain in 2008, and former Arizona Governor Jan Brewer, a Trump supporter without experience in public lands policy. Governor Butch Otter of Idaho, venture capitalist Robert Grady and U.S. Representatives Cynthia Lummis and Rob Bishop of Wyoming and Utah are also potential candidates for the job. All declined comment. (Refiles to correct typographical error National Park Service instead of National Parks Service.) | 0 |
CNN political hack Alison Camarota wants to nail President Trump but Former Independent Counsel Ken Starr says he sees no obstruction . Starr goes on to say that it s a very hard case to make. Camarota comes back and tries to make the HOPE comment by Trump to be an admission of guilt Starr isn t buying it:She really, really wants this but Starr says she s going to intent . It s very hard to prove and to know someone s intent BINGO! Starr hit the nail on the head with the last comment!Starr also goes through the same thing with George Stephanopolous: Notice how Stephanopoulos tries desperately to get Ken Starr to claim Trump is guilty It s a full-on deep state press with the constant media bashing of President Trump. It s become a surreal experience to just attempt to listen to the blathering liberals on CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS, MSNBC and other local liberal hack stations. All credibility is lost | 0 |
SEOUL (Reuters) - Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is considering attending the winter Olympics in South Korea in February despite escalating tension after North Korea s latest missile test on Wednesday, the South s presidential office said. Abe raised the possibility of attending the games during a telephone call with South Korean President Moon Jae-in, in which they said they would no longer tolerate North Korea s increasing security threats and they would tighten sanctions and pressure against it, Moon s press secretary, Yoon Young-chan, told a news briefing. | 0 |
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (Reuters) - U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos was confronted by largely silent protesters holding signs opposing the Trump administration’s promotion of for-profit schools and changes to how colleges handle sex assault allegations at a speech at Harvard University on Thursday. DeVos ignored the protesters, but took questions from audience members on issues, including a White House move to reverse Obama-era guidance on how colleges should handle allegations of sexual assault on campus. “One sexual assault is one too many, but by the same token, one that is denied due process is one too many,” DeVos said. “So we need to be sure that policy is fair to all students.” More than a dozen protesters stood in the crowd holding signs reading “protect survivors,” and “our students are not 4 sale.” Many others stood or sat with raised fists. As the event wrapped up and DeVos headed for the exit, the crowd broke into loud chants, including: “This is what white supremacy looks like!” The administration last week reversed guidelines established under former President Barack Obama on how colleges should handle sexual assault allegations, saying the prior policies led to too many students being falsely charged and disciplined. The prior rules outlined a strict set of steps for schools to follow or risk losing funding under Title IX, the federal law that bars sex discrimination in education. Opponents of those rules said that they allowed schools to use lower standards of evidence of those followed in criminal proceedings. While the cheers and jeers of protesters gathered outside the venue could faintly heard as DeVos spoke, the event avoided the scenes of students shouting down conservative speakers seen at universities around the United States over the past year. That trend that has drawn the scrutiny of the Justice Department. Several activists also expressed concern that the administration’s support of shifting funding from public schools to charter, private and for-profit schools would hurt low-income and minority communities. “If you are trying to help a community, first you need to listen to what they need,” said Latoya Gayle, a mother of three. “If she listened more, I think she would hear that what people need is not what she thinks they need.” DeVos, a billionaire who has drawn fire for her advocacy of for-profit schools, is married to the heir and former chief executive of Amway. She was confirmed in February when Vice President Mike Pence cast a tie-breaking vote in the Senate. | 1 |
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