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Hillary Clinton on Thursday derided Donald Trump’s praise of Vladimir Putin as “unpatriotic” and “scary” and suggested the Republican nominee’s coziness with the Russian president could represent a threat to national security.
In a press conference at an airport in Westchester, New York, her first such formal event in 278 days, Clinton discussed Trump’s remarks at a “commander-in-chief forum” hosted by NBC and Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America in New York on Wednesday night, in which the nominees drew sharp contrasts on foreign policy and national security in back-to-back appearances that previewed their first debate later this month.
“Bizarrely, once again he praised Russia’s strongman Vladimir Putin – even taking the astonishing step of suggesting that he prefers the Russian president to our American president,” Clinton said on the airport tarmac, in front of her campaign plane. “Now, that is not just unpatriotic and insulting to the people of our country as well as to our commander-in-chief – it is scary.”
On Wednesday night, Trump insisted his praise for Putin was deserved because the Russian president has an “82% approval rating”.
“I think when he calls me brilliant, I’ll take the compliment, OK?” Trump said.
Trump has exchanged compliments with Putin, though critics have said Russia is meddling in the US election in order to tip the scales in Trump’s favor. Until recently, Trump’s campaign was run by Paul Manafort, who previously worked in Ukraine on behalf of a pro-Russia candidate.
Clinton and her campaign have suggested Russia is using cyber-attacks to meddle in the US election, after a hack of the Democratic National Committee led to the resignation of the DNC chair, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, just before the party’s convention in Philadelphia in July. Trump has downplayed the severity of the intrusion and even invited – sarcastically, he claimed – Russia to hack Clinton’s own emails.
On Thursday, the House speaker, Paul Ryan, distanced himself from Trump’s remarks, accusing Putin of conducting state-sponsored cyber-attacks “on what appears to be [the US] political system”.
“Vladimir Putin is an aggressor who does not share our interests,” Ryan told reporters at a press conference in Washington. “Vladimir Putin is violating the sovereignty of neighboring countries. He is acting like an adversary.”
Ryan, who has endorsed Trump, grew frustrated by questions about the Republican nominee’s remarks. He did not watch the forum event, he said, and did not wish to respond to every comment Trump makes.
“I’m not going to stand up here and do a tit-for-tat on what Donald said last night,” Ryan said.
In New York, Clinton also criticized Trump’s remarks about US generals, who he said had been “reduced to rubble” under the leadership of President Obama, to a degree that is “embarrassing for our country”.
“What would Ronald Reagan say about a Republican nominee who attacks America’s generals and heaps praise on Russia’s president?” Clinton said. “I think we know the answer.”
Clinton challenged Republicans to denounce Trump’s comments. “Every Republican holding or seeking office in this country should be asked if they agree with Donald Trump about these statements,” she said.
In the forum, Clinton and Trump diverged on whether the US should deploy ground troops to Iraq. Clinton restated her opposition to sending a contingent of troops into Syria and said she would not deploy ground troops to Iraq “ever again”. Trump disagreed.
“We would leave a certain group behind and they would take the various sections where they have the oil,” he said, regarding a policy apparently meant to prevent terror groups such as Islamic State from gaining command of such a vital resource.
On Thursday, Clinton denounced this approach. “The United States of America does not invade other countries to plunder and pillage,” she said. “We don’t send our brave men and women around the world to steal oil.
“And that’s not even getting into the absurdity of what it would involve – massive infrastructure, large numbers of troops, many years on the ground. Of course, Trump hasn’t thought through any of that.”
After the press conference, Clinton departed for Charlotte, North Carolina, where she was due to hold a rally on Thursday afternoon. | 1 |
HARARE (Reuters) - Crowds of Zimbabweans booed and jeered as President Robert Mugabe s motorcade left his Blue Roof residence in Harare on Saturday, a Reuters witness said. It was not clear whether Mugabe was in the motorcade, or where it was headed. | 0 |
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REMEMBER the dress debacle last year when billions of online users across the world were at war with one another over whether or not a dress was black and blue or white and gold? Well, prepare to engage in battle yet again folks with this viral picture that’s totes dividing the internets.
Uploaded to numerous social media channels yesterday morning, this picture of a Syrian man has gone viral after users struggled to figure out whether or not he was covered in white rubble from an airstrike – or if he was just all shiny and covered in some kind of silly oil.
“Once you see it, you just can’t see anything else,” posted one absolute genius, who pretty much summed up the whole picture with one epic tweet containing just 40 characters.
Whilst many internet players were quick to point out that the Aleppo man was shiny or covered in plastic, others corrected them by pointing out that the man was actually covered in concrete dust from an Assad led airstrike which launched an illegal barrel bomb that killed at least 15 people, many of whom were women and children.
“It’s crazy how your eyes deceive you like that,” pointed out another user of the internet web, “I’d say the guy didn’t know what hit him after his picture went viral”.
In fact, on closer inspection, it becomes obvious that the man is covered head to toe in chalk like material, probably from exploding concrete and falling rubble, as well as what appears to be ketchup on his forearm. Instagram user @reuters, who originally posted the snap, confirmed the red residue was in fact blood, sending the internet into yet another meltdown. | 1 |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The head of U.S. and international forces in Afghanistan said on Monday the United States’ future presence in Afghanistan would be based on “conditions and not arbitrary timelines”. “This new strategy means the Taliban cannot win militarily. Now is the time to renounce violence and reconcile,” General John Nicholson said in a statement. President Donald Trump opened the door on Monday night to an increase in U.S. troops in Afghanistan as part of a retooled strategy for the region, overcoming his own doubts about America’s longest war and vowing “a fight to win.” | 0 |
Wednesday in Ranchos Palos Verdes, CA at the annual Code Conference, former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton said the barrage of “fake news” and hacked emails released during the 2016 presidential campaign had to have been from the Russians and “guided by Americans. ” Clinton said, “I think it’s fair to ask, how did that actually influence the campaign, and how did they know what messages to deliver? Who told them? Who were they coordinating with, and colluding with?” Clinton continued, “The Russians in my opinion — and based on intelligence and counterintelligence people I have talked to — could not have known best how to weaponize that information unless they had been guided … Guided by Americans. ” When asked if she believed the campaign of President Donald Trump could have been involved she said, “Yes, I am leaning Trump. I think it’s pretty hard not to. ” Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN | 0 |
“ Justifying the Saudi Slaughter in Yemen ” by Gareth Porter, Oct. 31, 2016
To produce and publish these stories – and many more – costs money. And except for some book sales, we depend on the generous support of our readers.
So, please consider a tax-deductible donation either by credit card online or by mailing a check . (For readers wanting to use PayPal, you can address contributions to our PayPal Giving Fund account, which is named “The Consortium for Independent Journalism”). | 1 |
For people in the market for a used car, the “certified ” designation has long been the gold standard, an indication that a qualified mechanic has vouched for the car and that a buyer can expect a vehicle that is — hopefully — almost as good as new. But the Takata airbag recall, which is the biggest in history, has upended all of that. Now the certified designation — known in the auto trade as C. P. O. — will no longer necessarily have the same meaning. For one thing, last month the Federal Trade Commission made it easier for cars to be billed as “certified,” even if they were under recall and hadn’t been fixed yet. And just as significantly, Ford — with the F. T. C. settlement for cover — told its dealers this week that they could sell recalled vehicles and certify them too, so long as they did not advertise them as “safe” and required buyers to sign forms acknowledging that they were aware of the problem. Against this backdrop, one dealer in Florida has refused to sell recalled vehicles that he cannot get fixed, letting 100 or so pile up on a lot miles from his main showroom. He even sued a rival who he believes is selling recalled cars without disclosing that they have not been fixed yet. How did the market get so confusing all of a sudden? For starters, the Takata airbag recall is unprecedented in its scope, with over 60 million airbags affected, but also in its complexity. Dealers can’t simply fix everything at once, because there are not enough replacement parts. As a result, the airbags most likely to cause harm are first in line for repair, and the lines for existing recalls and others to come may extend for at least a few more years. Given that situation, the Federal Trade Commission told General Motors and two dealers in December that it was just fine to advertise used vehicles as certified even if their airbags were under recall and had not been fixed. Just disclose it, the agency said (in a complaint that has sent jaws dropping throughout the auto industry). Until early this week, every major car company had said that they forbade their dealers from selling certified used vehicles with any open recalls, including ones for Takata airbags. On Monday, however, Ford broke ranks, issuing an update to dealers on its “enhanced” recall process and giving them permission to certify used vehicles that had open recalls after all. There are conditions for the dealers, including these: They must note the recall in two different places and have buyers initial a form. When parts arrive, they have to contact buyers to schedule a replacement. And no advertisements may make claims about “safety” or “safety inspections. ” So does Ford believe there is no competitive advantage to be gained from fixing all recalled cars before selling them? “It’s very difficult to answer that,” Sara Tatchio, a Ford spokeswoman, said. “We absolutely put safety first and fix everything we can. ” All the chaos, conflict and changing policies leave consumers in a frustrating position, trying to sort out who’s still selling cars that federal regulators have ordered to be fixed and just how much any seller is disclosing. While federal law prevents dealers from selling new cars with an open recall, no federal law forbids them from selling used ones that way, even if some state consumer protection laws might help an injured owner’s case. In the complex ecosystem of and with wholesalers and sellers of various sorts, this has created a number of challenges and a wide range of responses, including some prominent companies that have changed their policies 180 degrees. Whatever policies they set, automakers have only so much control, given that people who work at dealerships occasionally go rogue. Moreover, dealers sometimes certify a car as clean and put it up for sale — and then it’s recalled right after that. If the dealer does not catch it and pull the car out of the sales inventory, it is violating the automaker’s rules (and could attract the attention of the F. T. C. ). Buyers who wonder how safe it is to drive with a recalled Takata airbag and check the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration website will learn the following: “The vast majority of Takata airbags will perform as expected. ” Oh, but: “Lives have been lost due to this defect. ” Reaction in the industry to Ford’s move was somewhat muted. Audi, BMW, General Motors, Honda, Kia, Mazda and Subaru said they had no plans to follow Ford’s move. Toyota’s response was a bit more squishy. “We are not going to speculate on what impact the F. T. C. ruling may or may not have on Toyota’s current policy,” Aaron Fowles, a Toyota spokesman, said via email. “But there have been no changes to date. ” The chain CarMax has taken a similar approach to Ford’s. While it too had a recent with the F. T. C. over disclosure issues, the company says that it is transparent as possible, from its online listings to its interactions. But why sell cars with open recalls at all, thus putting the onus on consumers to sort out the repair? In a statement on its website, CarMax, which cannot repair recalled vehicles itself, states that “customers are in the best position to act on recall information. ” How can that be? Well, CarMax explains that dealers who are authorized to do recall repairs are more likely to repair cars quickly when working with an individual. If CarMax showed up with dozens of cars, those dealers might shun it because it competes with that dealer’s operation. Does this sound like an extremely useful conspiracy theory designed to dump all the hassle on consumers, who have the least knowledge of how the system works? Would CarMax at least call out said manufacturers by name, to help get to the bottom of this? No, it would not. “Some manufacturers have provided guidance to their dealers that they should remediate recalls for dealer customers first,” a CarMax spokeswoman, Catherine M. Gryp, said in an email message. “Across the country, we have been put in the back of the line for recall repairs. ” AutoNation took a different approach, at least at first. In 2015, its chief executive, Mike Jackson, told Automotive News that the recall situation was “a dysfunctional nightmare that the industry should be ashamed of. ” The company pledged to sell no cars with open recalls, period. By last year, it was costing the company dearly, to the tune of 6 cents per share of its earnings in the third quarter. In November, it gave up and began selling some cars with open recalls (and full disclosures). The lack of Takata airbag replacements, the F. T. C. ’s decision and other anticipated regulatory rollbacks proved to be too much. “We are proud of the efforts we made, but sometimes the system beats you down,” Marc Cannon, the company’s chief marketing officer, said. Sounds kind of like what it feels like to be a consumer in the middle of all this. If you’re about to start shopping for a used car, begin at safercar. gov. There, you can look up cars — even the vehicle identification number of a specific car you’re considering — to see what recalls are in effect. A report from Carfax can help you figure out whether a recalled car has been fixed. But don’t stop there. Ask the dealer about any open recalls, as well as any proof they might have that they have gotten the recall fixed. Trust, but verify. (Actually? Don’t trust too much, and verify twice.) Worried about a car that you already have? You should be, both about future Takata recalls and others that we don’t know about yet. Rosemary Shahan of the Consumers for Auto Reliability and Safety suggests registering your vehicle both with your car’s manufacturer and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration so that you get a notice if your airbag or anything else comes up for recall. Run the vehicle identification number through some checks yourself from time to time too, just to make sure you’re not missing anything. You might also hope that more dealers act out in the same way as Earl Stewart of Lake Park, Fla. He refuses to sell used cars with open recalls, but he doesn’t want to turn away people who are trading in cars with recalled Takata airbags that they have not been able to get fixed yet. This policy isn’t just good customer service if he can’t take their trade, they might not buy another vehicle from him at the same time that they turn their old one in. As a result, however, he has 100 or so cars sitting in a lot waiting for repair. And when he sent secret shoppers into competing dealers to see how much disclosure they were doing about recalled cars they were selling, he was outraged at what he found. “Maybe this is unique to South Florida, but they are all extremely devious and proactively trying to sell recalled cars by saying there is no recall,” Mr. Stewart said. So he filed a lawsuit to try to swing others over to his way of doing things. “I don’t want the money — I just want to stop the practice,” he said. “We’re going to keep filing suits until they throw the towel in. ” | 0 |
HONG KONG — A Chinese company is setting up a rare and potentially showdown with the American government over its deal to buy a firm that the United States says could impact national security. The showdown involves Aixtron, a German semiconductor firm being acquired by a Chinese company, Fujian Grand Chip. In a statement on Friday, Aixtron said an American security panel that advises the White House on foreign deals had recommended the two sides drop their plan, citing unspecified national security concerns. Normally, a recommendation like that would be enough to persuade the companies to scotch their plans. But in its statement, Aixtron said it and its Chinese suitor would do something unusual: They would appeal to President Barack Obama directly to approve the deal. Chinese and German companies “plan to continue to actively engage in further discussions to explore means of mitigation that may be amenable” to the White House and the American security panel, according to the Aixtron statement. Mr. Obama has 15 days to decide the fate of the deal, though most likely Mr. Obama will scupper it given presidents usually follow the recommendations of the panel. If the deal is struck down, it would send the message that the United States will continue to carefully scrutinize similar deals — and may act quickly to kill them for national security reasons. The unusual move is sure to spotlight the growing tensions between the United States and China over the latter country’s ambitions to become a power in microchips. While China has made major advancements in technology and computers in recent years, its chip industry is in its infancy, and it still relies on foreign companies for the chips that power even sensitive systems. The move will also shine a light on the shadowy security panel that recommended the deal be dropped. The panel — called the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, and commonly known as Cfius — has been increasingly at odds with an expansive new Chinese effort to spend billions acquiring foreign companies. The panel is composed of representatives from major departments and intelligence agencies like Commerce and Justice and the Central Intelligence Agency. Cfius has the power to review any deal that could impact American national security, and either come up with ways to mitigate that impact or recommend the president block the deal. While the Aixtron deal does not involve an American company, Aixtron itself does considerable business in the United States, and lack of American approval would shut that business off. Beijing has highlighted its intentions of catching up to the rest of the world in semiconductors. It has spent hugely to help fund efforts by private Chinese companies and national champions to acquire foreign firms that make microchips, the brains of everything from supercomputers to smartphones to guided missiles. But Cfius reviews or concerns about them have derailed a number of proposed Chinese acquisitions of chip makers around the world. Earlier this year a group of Chinese investors abandoned plans to spend $2. 9 billion on a majority stake in a business owned by Philips of the Netherlands after Cfius noted the business specialized in a material key to making semiconductors. In the case of Aixtron, the companies are asking Mr. Obama to decide directly — a move that has been made only twice before. In 1990 President George H. W. Bush canceled the sale of an aviation company to Chinese bidders. In 2012 President Obama forced a Chinese firm to divest from a wind project deemed too close to a Navy facility in Oregon. The continuing Aixtron saga is a study in how difficult it can be to track which Chinese investments are private and which are state led. In October, The New York Times highlighted how a Chinese customer that dropped a large order — in turn crashing Aixtron’s shares — had a relationship with the acquirer, Fujian Grand Chip, through government investment funds. The connection doesn’t indicate wrongdoing, but does illustrate the blurred lines between Chinese industrial policy and the constellation of privately owned but companies that have been tasked with acquiring new Chinese technological capabilities. In a surprise move last month, German authorities withdrew approval for the takeover without specifying a reason. Because Cfius decisions are considered confidential, the regulator did not say what concerns it had with the acquisition. One possibility is Aixtron’s leading position making technology that creates chips based on an advanced semiconductor material called gallium nitride. The technology has been used in tech as mundane as Disc players, but its resistance to heat and radiation give it a number of military and space applications. Chips based on the technology are used in radar for antiballistic missiles and in an Air Force radar system, called Space Fence, that is used to track space debris. Cfius’s recommendation against the Philips deal earlier this year stemmed in part from that business’s involvement in gallium nitride. | 0 |
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraqi Shi ite paramilitary groups have deployed to the frontier to back up border guard forces who came under fire from within Syria over the past three days, one of their commanders said on Friday. There was no immediate word on who opened fire from Syrian territory, but forces arrayed against Islamic State in Iraq and Syria expect the group will resort to guerrilla warfare after losing its urban bastions earlier this year. After several Iraqi border guard positions came under several attacks by missiles, and backup from security forces was late, the 13th brigade of the Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF) was deployed and targeted the origins of the launch, PMF commander for west Anbar, Qassem Mesleh, said in a statement. Operations command and the infantry brigade are now present on the Iraqi-Syrian border in border guard positions to repel any attack or movement by the enemy, Mesleh said. This area is not within the PMF s remit but it is our duty to back up all security forces. The PMF is an umbrella grouping of mostly Iran-backed and trained Shi ite militias that formally report to Iraq s prime minister but are separate from the military and police. Sunni Muslims and Kurds have called on Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi to disarm the PMF, which they say are responsible for widespread abuses against their communities. An Iraqi military spokesman confirmed the deployment. Brigadier General Yahya Rasool told Reuters it was temporary, however, and very normal because it was the PMF s duty to back up government forces. The PMF were officially made part of the Iraqi security establishment by law and formally answer to Abadi in his capacity as commander-in-chief of the armed forces. Abadi has said the state should have a monopoly on the legitimate use of arms. Iraqi forces on Dec. 9 recaptured the last swathes of territory still under Islamic State control along the frontier with Syria and secured the western desert. It marked the end of the war against the militants, three years after they overran about a third of Iraq s territory. Rasool, the military spokesman, denied backup to the border guards had been late. The primary responsibility for the borders lies with the border guards and the army, however, said Rasool. He said Iraqi forces coordinate with both the Syrian army, which is backed by Russia, Iran and Iran-backed Shi ite militias, and the U.S.-backed alliance of Kurdish and Arab militias known as the Syrian Democratic Forces opposed to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. He said parts of Syria - including many areas on the border with Iraq - were still under Islamic State control. | 1 |
“Invisible Nation: Homeless Families in America” A book by Richard Schweid
About a quarter century ago, I taught a film course at UC San Diego. I drove from my home in Los Angeles once a week, returning the same day after my evening class. After one class session, some students requested to see me the next morning because they were unable to make my late afternoon office hours before class. I consented and stayed in San Diego that night.
Failing to find any local friends at that hour, I looked for an inexpensive motel. The clerk at a relatively nearby dump stood behind a glass partition and handed me the room key after I paid the cash-only daily rate. He sternly informed me that no visitors were allowed. The room smelled of cigarettes and looked extremely unappealing. The carpet was filthy and deeply stained. I never removed my socks the entire night. The foul smelling bathroom sink was also stained. I slept fitfully on the threadbare, unwashed sheets and kept the bathroom light on all night. At 6 a.m., I rose and left, feeling as though I had been released from jail.
Richard Schweid’s remarkable and disconcerting new book, “Invisible Nation: Homeless Families in America,” brought back my unpleasant San Diego motel memory. This exceptional work of journalism chronicles the lives of America’s homeless families, focusing dramatically on the plight of the thousands of homeless children, many living for protracted periods in motels eerily similar to my dreadful San Diego “fleabag.” Schweid traveled through a nation that privileged Americans generally try to avoid and deny. These more fortunate Americans are embarrassed, indifferent and sometimes actively hostile to the desperate plight of their hidden neighbors. Schweid’s book is a compelling account of his findings.
Throughout much of the 20th century, the homeless in America consisted primarily of men, often wandering from location to location. As late as 1980, families comprised only 1 percent of the homeless population. That number is now 37 percent, not only a huge increase, but a national catastrophe. Entire families now live in the streets, in cars, in temporary shelters, and often in one miserable motel room, waiting for some permanent relief in the form of a stable apartment. Schweid examined family homelessness in five U.S. cities: Nashville, Tennessee; Boston; Fairfax, Virginia; Portland, Oregon; and Trenton, New Jersey. He lived in the motels he described and listened carefully to the families’ stories, the basis for his grim observations and conclusions.
The accounts of family motel stays are the most dramatic feature of the book. Single mothers (and sometimes fathers) with one or more children are greeted by mildewed shower curtains, cigarette stains and lingering odors, cracked mirrors, stained rugs and sheets (often with holes) and other physical indignities, including roaches. Young boys and girls eat only what can be cooked in motel room microwaves and hot plates, often subsisting on the unhealthy fast food options from nearby restaurants and convenience stores. A lack of refrigerator space ensures that sugary beverages and precooked lunchmeats are common; fresh fruits and vegetables are rare or nonexistent in most of these motel settings.
Especially in cold weather states, children can play only in motel corridors, often encountering unsavory residents and visitors with criminal and drug histories and involvements. The children usually wait in these corridors for buses to transport them to schools, which they change with devastating regularity as their families move from motels to shelters and other temporary housing facilities.
All too regularly, families are evicted from these barely habitable motel rooms, invariably for not paying the (exorbitant) rent. Typically, they are locked out and lose their meager possessions. Schweid makes the point with heartbreaking poignancy: “Children’s toys and favorite things were gone forever. Anyone who has ever watched a young child form an attachment to some beat-up raggedy doll, some scrap of material ... will understand that its sudden overnight loss may generate terrible anxiety.”
The results are distressingly predictable. Children residing in these motels (and shelters) frequently act out in school and perform poorly. Physically, they suffer from a multitude of ailments, including ear infections, asthma, skin disorders, dental decay, obesity, depression and many others. Some of these are serious and chronic, and can have lifelong detrimental effects. Failure to address childhood dental problems, for example, often leads to massive tooth loss, gastrointestinal disorders and emotional trauma, among other consequences.
“Invisible Nation” also addresses the plight of homeless families in shelters, many run by local governments and sometimes assisted by churches and other charitable organizations. With minor variations, these shelters are the same in all five cities where Schweid conducted his investigations. The chief difference between shelters and motel rooms is that shelter food is generally better, and sanitary facilities like showers and toilets are generally superior. But privacy is conspicuously lacking, causing even greater stress to homeless parents and children.
A debilitating feature of many of these shelters, moreover, is that their temporary inhabitants must exit the premises early in the morning, forcing them out to the mean urban streets. In Boston, Fairfax, Trenton and Nashville, they can face freezing winter temperatures, while in Portland, they can encounter relentless winter rains. The shelters also impose strict, even punitive rules and regulations, further oppressing the temporary residents. These settings are understandably places of last resort for homeless families, who often have no relatives or friends with whom they can stay. | 1 |
Roughly 70% of states use some form of electronic voting machine. The ease with which these machines can be manipulated is stunning Donald Trump said this week that he fears the election will be rigged for Hillary Clinton. Although he didn t specify exactly how Clinton, her team, or her supporters would commit widespread voter fraud, allowing her to steal a Presidential election, he insisted that the 2012 Presidential election demonstrated a cause for significant concern.I ve been hearing about it for a long time, Trump told CNN. And I know last time, there were you had precincts where there was practically nobody voting for the Republican. And I think that s wrong. I think that was unfair, frankly. Many of Trump s supporters agree.But how easy is it to actually rig an election? It turns out that while voting machines are notoriously easy to hack, throwing a national election is a major operation that would require serious technical firepower.In a recent CBS News report, hackers demonstrated that individual electronic voting machines the kind used in most precincts are particularly vulnerable.WATCH:Via: Heat Street | 0 |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Secret Service, tasked with simultaneously protecting President Barack Obama and some of the Republican and Democratic candidates now running to replace him next year, is facing a manpower shortfall at a time of peak demand, the agency told Congress on Tuesday. Secret Service Director Joseph Clancy told a House Appropriations panel the agency is focused on “human capital needs across the organization” and accruing enough agents to ease overtime demands on the existing force. The Secret Service hopes to have 7,600 agents in its ranks by fiscal year 2019, up from the current figure of approximately 6,200, Committee Chairman John Carter of Texas said during Tuesday’s hearing. While Clancy said the Secret Service was making progress in hiring more agents, “we have yet to see the desired impact on our overall staffing levels due to increased attrition.” Clancy testified at a hearing to review the agency’s funding needs for the fiscal year starting on Oct. 1. Demands of the mission are peaking, he added, with Republican and Democratic presidential nominating conventions slated for this summer, the general elections in November and presidential inaugural events in January. Carter cited the loss of 19 agents in the last four months and the large amounts of overtime hours agents have had to put in on the president’s detail, on the campaign trail and in the uniformed division. Carter, a Republican, questioned whether the service’s hiring goals were “obtainable” with the agency “losing more agents than they have brought on board.” Clancy responded that the agency is exploring initiatives to lure more applicants and retain current agents. The Secret Service was rocked in 2012 when it surfaced that some agents working a presidential trip to Colombia were involved with prostitutes. In 2014, agents failed to stop a man who jumped the White House fence, ran across the lawn and made it into the mansion before he was apprehended. More recently, during a rally for presidential candidate Donald Trump in Radford, Virginia, a Time magazine photographer was grabbed by the neck and shoved to the ground by a Secret Service agent. An agency spokeswoman said the service is investigating the incident. Besides protecting the president and presidential candidates, Secret Service agents investigate financial crimes such as counterfeiting of U.S. currency and credit card and fraud. | 0 |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley opened the door to holding a hearing on President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland if a majority of senators wish to do so after the Nov. 8 election, in comments posted online Tuesday. Grassley, an Iowa Republican, vowed months ago that the Senate Judiciary Committee he chairs would not act this year to consider Garland’s nomination, saying the Republican-majority Senate should not act on a Court nominee until after the new president takes office early next year. But in a town hall meeting Monday in Cherokee, Iowa, Grassley indicated he could be persuaded by a large number of senators to take action in a “lame duck” session between the Nov. 8 election and the inauguration of the new president in January. “If we have the election, and there was a majority of the Senate changed their mind about doing it in the lame duck, as opposed to January 20, I don’t feel that I could stand in the way of that. But I don’t think I can promote that idea,” he said in a video of his remarks posted online by the American Bridge 21st Century website, which says it is committed to “holding Republicans accountable.” Grassley made a similar point at the Sioux City Iowa Rotary Club, Iowa’s Globe Gazette reported. Garland, a federal appeals court judge, was nominated by Obama, a Democrat, on March 16 to fill the Supreme Court vacancy created by the Feb. 13 death of conservative Justice Antonin Scalia. Republicans insist that the next president should fill the vacancy, hoping a Republican will win the White House and choose a conservative rather than the centrist Garland. But such an outcome is not assured, with Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton currently leading Republican candidate Donald Trump in public opinion polls. A spokeswoman for Grassley, Beth Levine, denied he was shifting his position. She said that in Sioux City Grassley reiterated his stance “that a Supreme Court nominee wouldn’t be considered until after the next president is sworn in so the American people have an opportunity to weigh in on this important issue.” Senate Republican leaders have vowed not to hold confirmation hearings or an up-or-down vote on any Supreme Court nominee put forward by Obama. “The Leader has been clear: the next president will make this nomination,” Don Stewart, spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, said in an email Tuesday. | 0 |
WHY IS THIS CRIMINAL ALLOWED TO JUST SKATE BY WITH SUCH A SHORT AMOUNT OF JAIL TIME?We know that this woman is working on a plea bargain but FIVE YEARS??? The two things that are so outrageous about this entire case are that there was NO OVERSIGHT and that this WENT ON FOR 8 YEARS!!!USING THE FEDS AS YOUR OWN PERSONAL PIGGY BANK:Lorena Loren s job was to help poor people find housing Instead, prosecutors say, she was stealing from the poor to buy booze, makeup, clothes and homes for her relatives.But after years of scheming, authorities say, the government caught on. IT TOOK 8 YEARS!In a public corruption case that surfaced in federal court today, Loren, the former executive director of the St. Clair Housing Commission, was charged with embezzling more than $300,000 in low-income housing funds and spending the money on herself and family.According to a charging document filed in U.S. District Court, Loren s scheme ran between 2008-2016 and benefited many family members, including her husband, son and son-in-law.Prosecutors say Loren s criminal activity started in 2008 five years after she was appointed executive director of the St. Clair Housing Commission, which administers federally funded low-income housing programs in St. Clair County.According to court records, Loren used her job in many nefarious ways, including: She fraudulently used the housing commission s two credit cards to buy personal items for herself and relatives, including nearly $135,000 in online purchases from Amazon.com; $14,364 in purchases from Sam s Club in Port Huron, and $16,460 in purchases from various Walmart stores. The purchases included, among other things, adult and infant clothing, furniture, food, beauty supplies, medications and alcoholic beverages. Her unauthorized Amazon.com purchases included $60,000 worth of bedroom furniture, mattresses, appliances and other household items for family members. The items were shipped to Loren s relatives in Georgia and Florida. She embezzled $24,600 in commission funds to pay for her son s rental unit. She lied on four government housing contracts by claiming that her son-in-law was the landlord of a rental property for low-income residents in Michigan, when it was really her home in Port Austin. She falsified lease agreements and stole public housing money that was supposed to help poor people to rent a home for her son. She directed members of her family to establish bank accounts so that federal rental subsidy payments could be deposited into those accounts. The relatives then used the money for their own personal use, including rent for their Florida residences.Loren is charged in what is known as an information, which typically means she is working on a deal with the government. She is charged with conspiracy to commit federal program fraud. If convicted, she faces up to five years in prison.Loren home Lorena Loren bought this $325,000 home in Georgia after federal prosecutors say she embezzled more than $336,000 from the St. Clair Housing Commission.JUDICIAL WATCH: HUD s inspector general has testified before Congress about the severe mismanagement at offshoots functioning independently yet federally funded in states across the country that have fleeced taxpayers out of hundreds of millions of dollars. He testified that his office discovered more than $200 million in questionable spending at local public housing agencies (PHAs) since 2012. PHAs are created by states, operate at the city or county level and administer the federal program known as Section 8 to provide low-income people with affordable housing. Many of these local public housing agencies are run by people with troubled backgrounds that somehow manage to remain in high-ranking positions at the agencies, the watchdog told lawmakers back in 2014.DR BEN CARSON NEEDS TO CLEAN THIS UP STAT!READ MORE: DFP | 1 |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Jared Kushner’s lawyer failed to give the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee documents President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser received about a “Russian backdoor overture and dinner invite,” the committee’s leaders said on Thursday. In a letter to Kushner’s attorney, Abbe Lowell, Senators Chuck Grassley and Dianne Feinstein, the Judiciary Committee’s Republican chairman and top Democrat, listed the documents and emails among materials Lowell has failed to produce. Kushner, the letter said, also forwarded to an unidentified campaign adviser emails from September 2016 concerning Wikileaks, the whistleblower group that published emails U.S. intelligence agencies determined Russian military intelligence had hacked from Democratic Party accounts. “It appears that your search may have overlooked several documents,” the letter said of Lowell’s responses to three requests for materials related to the committee’s investigation on Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. “Mr. Kushner and we have been responsive to all requests,” Lowell said in a statement. “We provided the Judiciary Committee with all relevant documents that had to do with Mr. Kushner’s calls, contacts or meetings with Russians during the campaign and transition, which was the request. We also informed the committee we will be open to responding to any additional requests and that we will continue to work with White House Counsel for any responsive documents from after the inauguration.” When asked about the letter, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders referred reporters to Lowell. Trump denies any collusion between his campaign and Moscow. Russia denies a January report by three U.S. intelligence agencies that it conducted an influence operation to skew the 2016 presidential vote in favor of Trump over his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton. Separately, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday that Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team last month subpoenaed Trump’s campaign for documents containing specified Russian keywords from more than a dozen officials. According to the Journal, a person familiar with the matter said the campaign has been complying voluntarily with the request. Grassley’s and Feinstein’s letter to Lowell also specified keywords, including Clinton, WikiLeaks, hacking, and the names of four Russian banks. Kushner remains one person of interest to the investigations by Mueller and congressional committees, according to a source with knowledge of the probes. Among other things, investigators want to know if Kushner knew during the 2016 campaign that Russia was hacking Democratic emails in an effort to help Trump and whether he tried to create a secret back channel between the Trump White House and the Kremlin, said the source, speaking on condition of anonymity. Investigators also want to know if Kushner took part in or knew of any post-election efforts by Trump’s former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, or others to lift U.S. economic sanctions on Russia in exchange for financial investments or other business deals. A May 26 Reuters report quoted two sources who said Kushner and Flynn discussed with former Russian ambassador to Washington Sergey Kislyak creating a “back channel” between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin that would bypass the State Department and U.S. intelligence agencies. Flynn, a former Army general who led the Defense Intelligence Agency and later was a Trump campaign adviser, was fired in February as national security adviser after misleading Vice President Mike Pence about his conversations with Kislyak. The letter to Lowell also said he had failed to produce “communications with Sergei Millian, copied to Kushner.” Millian, who has used multiple aliases, is a Belarussian-born émigré who in 2006 helped incorporate the Russian-American Chamber of Commerce, which sponsored trips to Russia by U.S. businessmen. After a December 2011 trip arranged by the chamber and a quasi-governmental agency in Russia called Rossotrudnichestvo, FBI agents questioned participants about whether Russian spies had approached them during the visit, one of the travelers said. Millian, who met Trump on at least one occasion, has boasted of his ties to the former New York real estate developer and reality television star. He has denied being a Russian spy. | 1 |
GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump has taken a ridiculously hardline and even bigoted stance on immigration. He has promised to build a wall and force Mexico to pay for it, and he has said that he will erect deportation forces to root out and get rid of all people in the United States without proper documentation. Well, as we already knew, it turns out that The Donald is the ultimate hypocrite on this one.According to the Associated Press, it turns out that Donald Trump s wife Melania violated immigration laws by working illegally in the United States when she first arrived from her native Slovenia. Melania often modeled using just her first name, and was first granted entry into the country on a visitor s visa, known as a B1/B2 visa. This occurred on August 27, 1996. Melania did not get a legal work visa until October 18, 1996. During the time when she was prohibited from working in the country, Melania made money on ten different modeling assignments, totaling upwards of $20,000. She got a green card in 2000, and became a naturalized citizen in 2006.So, in other words, Melania Trump lied about her immigration story, as recently as Thursday, when she once again touted how a million percent legal immigration is the only way to go, and that this is how she did it. Melania said, in part, in her stump speech: As a young entrepreneur, I wanted to follow my dream to a place where freedom and opportunity were in abundance. So of course, I came here. Living and working in America was a true blessing, but I wanted something more. I wanted to be an American. Well, it appears that, as has long been suspected, that Melania Trump wasn t as kosher in her immigration and work practices as she claims. The information obtained by the AP include, but are not limited to, her contract from Metropolitan International Management a modeling agency. Also, there s the ledgers from the agency, which is no longer in business, that shows Melania working during the time when she had the visitor s visa, but no work visa. It seems to be a complicated story full of many attempts to cover up Melania s wrongdoing, but it is certainly quite interesting. This would be why Melania Trump never released actual records regarding her initial immigration to the United States and her eventual path to citizenship. While it is unlikely that her citizenship is at risk, it certainly means that she committed immigration fraud. You can read more here at the Associated Press.The long and short of it is this: Donald Trump launched his crazy bid for the presidency preying on the fears of the other. Namely, immigrants. That is the height of hypocrisy, seeing as how his own wife didn t completely comply with immigration law. Hopefully this story, and the many other lies and cover-ups and shady dealings surrounding the Trump campaign break through the hypnotism that the demagogue has spun onto so many desperate citizens of this great country, and they figure out that they are falling for the biggest con of all time.Featured image via Alex Wong/Getty Images | 1 |
21st Century Wire says..We ll believe it when, and if we are even allowed to see it (redacted) Mary Clare Jalonick AP/All GovWASHINGTON The Senate on Tuesday backed legislation to make it easier for Americans to obtain government records.The bipartisan bill, passed by voice vote, would require federal agencies to consider the release of government information under a presumption of openness as opposed to a presumption that the information is secret.The legislation aims to reduce the amount of exemptions the government uses to withhold information and would create a single portal through which individuals can submit a Freedom of Information Act, or FOIA, request. Currently, FOIA requests are handled by each separate agency, each with its own rules about how to submit a request. Today s vote sends a clear message that the American people have a fundamental right to know what their government is doing, Cornyn said.( ) We cannot leave it to the next president to decide how open the government should be, Leahy said. We have to hold all presidents and their administrations accountable to the highest standard. Republicans in Congress have complained that the Obama administration hasn t been fully transparent in sharing records with lawmakers and the public, while the White House has criticized Congress for exempting itself from the requirements. FOIA does not apply to Congress.The House passed a similar bill in January. Because the two bills are not identical, the House will have to act again to send the legislation to President Barack Obama. Maryland Rep. Rep. Elijah Cummings, the top Democrat on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, urged Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., to promptly pass the Senate bill, saying FOIA reform is long overdue Continue this story at All GovREAD MORE FOIA NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire FOIA Files | 0 |
Now that Donald Trump is the presumptive GOP nominee, it s time to remember all those other candidates who tried so hard to beat him in the race to the White House. After all, how can we forget all the missteps, gaffes, weirdness, and sheer idiocies of such candidates as Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, John Kasich, Ted Cruz, Ben Carson, and Carly Fiorina?There s a video making the rounds on Twitter that does just that, and eulogizes three of these failed candidates as though they re dead (and the GOP itself might as well be dead at this point anyway). Appropriately titled, A Eulogy for the GOP, people make short speeches about each of these candidates.Once past the man who actually says Jeb Bush was qualified to be president, there are fake tears, with journalist and comedienne Francesca Fiorentini saying: Dearly beloved, we re gathered here today to commemorate the candidates that are no longer with us. One man, speaking to an amusing, circus-y rendition of Chopin s Funeral March, remembers Jeb this way: Jeb, we hardly knew ye. It s too bad that your policies couldn t find their way out of the Republican morass. Indeed, it was like Jeb and his policies were invisible sometimes, although many felt that he would win the nomination early on. His best performances often came during debates, when he d get into out-and-out fights with Donald Trump over virtually everything under the sun. He also had a bad habit of defending his brother s actions in Iraq, memorably saying, As it relates to my brother, there s one thing I know for sure: He kept us safe. Moving on to Marco Rubio, Fiorentini herself says: He was called so many things: Young, charming, Lil Marco.' That last nickname is, of course, a reference to Trump s penchant for name-calling. Then, a man speaking Spanish remembers Rubio this way: Marco, why aren t you a normal boy? Another said that his involvement in the Gang of Eight immigration bill killed him as a candidate, to which Fiorentini replies: Some people die of gang violence. He died of Gang of Eight violence. The makers of this video saved the absolute best for last, of course, which is Ben Carson. On our dear Dr. Carson, one of the speakers says: He would gently rock me to sleep with his monotone voice. Carson was especially well known for seemingly being asleep half the time. If we saw his eyes open wide, it was surprising, and likely because he was surprised himself. His voice is soft, his speech is slow, and it really can be hard to stay awake while he s talking. Imagine him giving a State of the Union address!To see the whole video, especially the spectacular ending after Carson s eulogy, watch below:Take a moment to say your g byes to these GOP candidates. ? https://t.co/6O70bl9zV8 AJ+ (@ajplus) May 7, 2016 Featured image via screen capture from embedded video | 1 |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya, who met with Donald Trump Jr. during the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign, wants permission to return to the United States to defend a claim by prosecutors that her client’s company has failed to pay a $6 million settlement in an international money laundering case. Veselnitskaya represented Prevezon Holdings Ltd, a Russian-controlled company, which in May this year agreed to pay nearly $6 million to the U.S. government to settle a $230 million Russian tax fraud case related to Hermitage Capital, an American fund that invested in Russia. In a court filing in federal court in Manhattan on Monday U.S. prosecutors said the settlement payment was due on Oct. 31, but in a letter on Tuesday filed in federal court in Manhattan lawyers for Prevezon disagreed. About half of the settlement money was supposed to come from 3 million euros owed to Prevezon that the U.S. government had asked the Netherlands to freeze. The Netherlands lifted the hold on the money on October 10, but the same day imposed a new freeze on the account based on a complaint by William Browder, chief executive of Hermitage Capital Management, the Prevezon letter said. In Monday’s court filing, U.S. prosecutors said the $6 million payment was due regardless of the new freeze on the funds and they intended to file a motion to enforce the settlement. In its letter, Prevezon asked the court to help obtain temporary U.S. immigration status for Veselnitskaya and its owner, Denis Katsyv, so she could attend upcoming hearings about the dispute. Veselnitskaya met Donald Trump Jr in New York last year while she was in the United States to represent Prevezon in the money laundering case. Trump Jr. said in a statement at the time that he and Veselnitskaya “primarily discussed a program about the adoption of Russian children” after Russia in 2012 banned adoptions of Russian children by Americans in retaliation for sanctions imposed under the U.S. Magnitsky Act. The Magnitsky Act was passed by Congress after Hermitage Capital’s Browder claimed that the tax fraud scheme involving Prevezon was uncovered by Sergei Magnitsky, an auditor for Hermitage Capital, who died in a Russian prison. Trump Jr. has released emails related to the meeting during last year’s election that described Veselnitskaya as a Russian government attorney who could provide information that would “incriminate Hillary and her dealings with Russia and would be very useful to your father.” | 0 |
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TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan s navy is supplying fuel to U.S. ballistic missile defense (BMD) ships in the Sea of Japan, in a sign of deepening co-operation between the allies amid the growing threat from North Korea, a source said. By providing fuel to the U.S. Aegis destroyers as well as its own BMD ships, Japan hopes to ensure patrols can be maintained without unnecessary gaps, said the source, who has knowledge of the operation. The refueling began in April, the Nikkei financial daily reported earlier. North Korea threatened on Thursday to sink Japan with nuclear weapons for dancing to the tune of the United States for backing a U.N. Security Council resolution that imposed fresh sanctions on Pyongyang. The U.S. Navy s Seventh Fleet usually has around six Aegis ships assigned to BMD operations around Japan. Japan operates four ships of its own. They are armed with interceptors designed to shoot down warheads in space before they plunge to their targets. Around half of the ships would normally be at sea at any one time. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe s administration in 2015 won lawmaker approval to expand the role of the nation s Self Defence Forces (SDF) under the pacifist constitution to allow them to take on a bigger role in the alliance with Washington, including resupplying and defending U.S. ships. Japan has delivered fuel to U.S. ships in the past under ad hoc legislation, including vessels deployed to support military operations in Afghanistan a decade ago. But this is the first time it has been undertaken under the new security law. Japan s Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga at his regular morning press briefing on Thursday said that this kind of co-operation would be undertaken by the allies. He declined to comment on the Aegis ship fuel shipments saying it could reveal details of SDF and U.S. Navy operations. | 0 |
TOKYO (Reuters) - U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross is expected to join Vice President Mike Pence for a bilateral economic dialogue in Tokyo next month, a Japanese government official with direct knowledge of preparations said on Thursday, dashing Tokyo’s hope of leaving thorny issues on trade off the negotiating table. Participants of the dialogue, led by Pence and Japanese Deputy Prime Minister Taro Aso, will hold their first round of talks in Tokyo on April 18 to discuss issues ranging from macroeconomic policy, infrastructure investment and trade. The dialogue will be a major test of U.S. President Donald Trump’s confrontational approach to trade. Senior administration officials, including Ross, have signaled they would press Japan to remove non-tarrif trade barriers and buy more U.S. products. Japan, which proposed the dialogue, had hoped to keep contentious issues like auto and agriculture trade out of the talks by proposing an agenda focused on infrastructure investment and energy. One of Tokyo’s strategy was to keep the bilateral dialogue as informal as possible so Aso can deal directly with Pence, who is regarded as having a less confrontational view on trade compared with others in the Trump administration, Japanese government officials said. “The agenda is vague now, but if friction comes up in the future, our plan is to say let’s discuss that in the Aso-Pence dialogue and then use the dialogue to diffuse any problems,” one of the officials said on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to speak publicly. The participation of Ross heightens the chance the dialogue would serve as a venue to discuss a bilateral trade deal, which could put Japan under U.S. pressure to open up heavily-protected areas like agriculture and pharmaceuticals, the officials said. Hiroshige Seko, Japan’s ministry of economy, trade and industry, and Foreign Minister Fumiko Kishida will also join the dialogue, the government officials said. Ross has been known to have close ties with Japan, having led a firm investing in the country since 1997 and serving as chairman of the Japan Society - a non-profit organization promoting bilateral relations, since 2010. | 1 |
We all know Trump is vindictive. If he wasn t, he wouldn t be threatening lawsuits against everyone under the sun, and promising to change libel laws so it s easier to sue media outlets that dare to report bad things about him (even if they re true). At a private lunch, years ago, when Richard Branson was expecting to just talk with Trump about whatever over lunch, it turned out that all Trump could talk about was his bankrupt companies and the people who d refused to help him financially.In an interview on CNN, Branson flat-out said: It was just the two of us. I was expecting an interesting lunch talking about various things in the world.And instead I got a lunch where all he talked about was his bankrupt companies. Then Trump said that he d tried to get help from five different people, all of whom had told him, more or less, to go fuck himself. Branson then said what Trump had planned for those people: And then he spent the rest of this lunch telling me how he was going to spend the rest of his life destroying those five people. He s also hell bent on destroying any press outlets, like The New York Times, that won t make him look good. And he s obsessed with destroying the women who have accused him of sexual assault, because they aren t helping him either.Maybe Trump had lunch with Branson because he was hoping Branson would help him out financially? Branson is only the 288th wealthiest person in the world, but Trump is 335th, according to Forbes. That s this year. Several years ago, when this lunch took place, Trump may have been in considerably worse shape. Certainly his companies were in terrible shape.Branson went on to say that Trump s vindictive nature is dangerous for America. In fact, he couldn t believe that such a vengeful and petty man would even get this far in a presidential election. He s hoping he can get through to people who think Trump is wonderful, and will be good for America and the world.Trump is not a good man.Photo of Richard Branson by Mike Coppola via Getty Images for Tribeca Film Festival. Photo of Trump by Joe Raedle via Getty Images | 0 |
DOUALA (Reuters) - A celebrated Cameroonian writer who wrote a piece critical of the government s handling of a separatist crisis in its Anglophone region was detained at Douala airport on Thursday, his wife and lawyer said. Patrice Nganang, a prize-winning poet, professor and author who lives in New York, was due to board a Kenya Airways flight to Nairobi and then onwards to Harare to join his wife on Thursday but never arrived. After 24 hours of trying to track him down, Nyasha Bakare said he had been found by his lawyers at a government detention center in Yaounde, the capital. He s apparently OK. That s the main thing, Bakare said, adding that the authorities appeared to be preparing for a legal hearing. His lawyer Emmanuel Simh said: He is accused of insulting the president of the republic, and after the hearings we will be able to give further information. A spokesman at the government s communications department was not immediately available to comment. Last week the government ordered thousands of villagers to leave their homes in the Anglophone Southwest region as it deployed troops to root out armed separatists. The move marked an escalation of a year-long crackdown on peaceful protests in the English-speaking western part of the country that has killed dozens of civilians and forced thousands to flee to Nigeria. Are we going towards the forced relocation of populations and the creation of (refugee) camps? Nganang wrote in Paris-based Jeune Afrique on Dec. 5, describing this as offensive . So bilingual Cameroonians can be enemies in a country whose president has never said a single speech in English? he added. President Paul Biya has ruled Cameroon since 1982 and plans to stand for another term next year. The separatist stirrings add to headaches over the economy slowing sharply since 2014 and attacks in the north by Islamist militant group Boko Haram which have strained the military. The linguistic divide harks back to the end of World War One, when the League of Nations divided the former German colony of Kamerun between the allied French and British victors. Biya s 35-year rule has grown increasingly intolerant of dissent, with opposition activists, journalists and intellectuals routinely arrested and sometimes charged. In April, a Cameroonian reporter for Radio France International was jailed for 10 years by a military court on terrorism charges, including for failing to report acts of terrorism to authorities. The verdict attracted international criticism. | 0 |
This article was written by Paul Joseph Watson and originally published at Infowars.com .
Editor’s Comment: Leftist have lived up to the hype, and thrown temper-tantrum violence as everyone expected. How anyone could have supported Hillary, rather than support her prosecution is something that will continue to boggle the mind. In the meantime, angry and disappointed DNC voters are waging violence and tempting the country into a full-blown martial law scenario.
Probably, these episodes will die down within hours, but there is always the threat that such non-sense and support for a would-be tyrant will continue and flourish. Just look how far George Soros & co. took the riots in Ferguson, Baltimore and dozens of other cities. The population’s buttons are being pushed, and the country is being tested. Best to be prepared just in case things get further out of hand.
Hillary Supporters Burn American Flag, Riot, Threaten to Kill Trump After Losing Election
by Paul Joseph Watson
Rioting hit the streets of Portland and Oakland as Hillary Clinton supporters reacted badly to Donald Trump’s election victory, while death threats against the new president-elect flooded social media.
Windows were broken and cars were set on fire in Oakland as irate protesters lit flares and blocked freeways.
“A protestor was struck by a vehicle on the eastbound lanes of Highway 24 although it was not immediately clear what the extent of the victim’s injuries were,” reports Fox 5 .
Anti-Trump protest reaches Telegraph and Channing #berkvote pic.twitter.com/RuuFPEGHE7
— Anderson Lanham (@AndersonLanham) November 9, 2016
Protest grows as participants light flares #berkvote pic.twitter.com/12AnGlAiEB
— Anderson Lanham (@AndersonLanham) November 9, 2016
Students also hit the streets of Eugene and Portland, Oregon to protest against a democratic election. Demonstrators could be heard chanting “bitch” and “f*ck Trump” as they marched in unison.
University of Oregon be mad #riot #ElectionNight #TRUMP @realDonaldTrump pic.twitter.com/SFi3MJDdb3
— Delaney Stipe (@stipe_d) November 9, 2016
theres a crowd going thru campus chanting this #ucsc #electionday pic.twitter.com/Jq0OGEEUxK
— Emilio (@habituaImind) November 9, 2016
Some of the students burned a U.S. flag.
The irony of the riots is that many pro-Clinton media outlets previously circulated the talking point that Trump supporters would be likely to stage violent unrest after they lost the election.
Twitter was also inundated with death threats , with leftists either hoping for or personally expressing their willingness to carry out Trump’s assassination.
This article was written by Paul Joseph Watson and originally published at Infowars.com .
Paul Joseph Watson is the editor at large of Infowars.com and Prison Planet.com . | 1 |
French warplanes launched a ferocious retaliatory assault late Sunday on targets in Raqqa, Syria — the Islamic State’s de facto capital — after coordination with U.S. defense officials who helped with the targeting.
The French Defense Ministry said that 10 aircraft dropped 20 bombs on facilities used by the militant group, which has claimed responsibility for Friday’s terrorist attacks in Paris, striking a command center, a militant-training facility and an arms depot.
Opposition activists reached in Raqqa said they counted at least 30 bombs, which they said had hit, among other things, a soccer stadium, a museum and medical facilities. They said the strikes had knocked out electricity in the city of about 200,000 people.
The French statement said the operation, launched from bases in the United Arab Emirates and Jordan, was conducted in coordination with U.S. forces, which have compiled an extensive target list in Raqqa. American officials, speaking at the Group of 20 summit here that President Obama is attending, said the French operation was discussed between the two militaries, as well as in telephone calls Saturday and Sunday between Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter and his French counterpart.
U.S. planes have repeatedly struck in and around Raqqa, in north-central Syria, in recent months.
In Iraq on Sunday, Foreign Minister Ibrahim al-Jafari said Iraqi intelligence had obtained information before the Paris attacks that the Islamic State was planning an imminent terrorist strike overseas that may have been aimed “in particular” at France, the United States and Iran.
“We notified these countries and warned them,” Jafari said in a statement, which did not include specifics of when the Iraqis acquired the information. U.S. intelligence officials did not confirm the report.
Administration officials said the United States would not alter its strategy against the Islamic State in response to the Paris attacks, despite evidence that the terrorist group was expanding its ability to hit Western targets. In recent weeks, Obama has approved the escalation of airstrikes in Syria and Iraq and has authorized the deployment of 50 Special Operations troops to assist Syrian Kurdish and Arab forces pushing toward Raqqa.
Officials said that, in response to the attacks in Paris, the administration was seeking renewed global commitment to that intensified military action, and to a negotiated settlement of Syria’s civil war.
France’s retaliation came as Obama held talks with allied leaders and with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the summit being held in this Turkish Mediterranean resort city.
Obama vowed again on Sunday to help France hunt down the perpetrators of the attacks. Deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes said Obama agreed with French President François Hollande that the rampage, which killed at least 132 and wounded more than 350, was an “act of war.” But he and others disputed suggestions from Republicans that Obama, who said in an interview last week that the U.S.-led coalition had contained the Islamic State, has consistently underestimated the adversary.
[Manhunt in Europe for at least 1 suspect ‘directly involved’ in Paris attacks]
The president was referring to recent setbacks for the militant group on the battlefield in Iraq, Rhodes told reporters. The Islamic State, also known as ISIS, ISIL and Daesh, a derogatory term in Arabic, has long harbored ambitions to sow bloodshed farther from its home base in Syria, he said, emphasizing that Obama has been realistic that the fight would be long and difficult.
“It’s the manifestation of what has been the ambition of ISIL for some time now — to conduct attacks beyond Iraq and Syria,” Rhodes said. “The president indicated when he launched the counter-ISIL strike campaign that he knew ISIL had those ambitions, which is why we have always focused on the threat of foreign fighters.”
The highly coordinated assaults on several locations in Paris on Friday evening have shaken the gathering of global leaders here. The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attacks, which intelligence officials said were carried out by three teams of terrorists affiliated with the extremist group.
The attacks prompted Hollande to declare that France would lead a “merciless” fight against the Islamic State, a move that could increase pressure on the Obama administration to take stronger actions to ensure that the Islamic State cannot attack the United States directly.
GOP leaders, including some presidential candidates, have faulted Obama’s strategy as too limited to contain the Islamic State. The Paris attacks, along with the recent bombing of a Russian commercial plane claimed by the group, have thrust the administration’s approach in the Middle East into the 2016 campaign for the White House.
Democratic front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton, who served as secretary of state in Obama’s first term, has struggled to articulate how she would deal with the threats. Republican presidential hopeful Jeb Bush said in an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that the United States “should declare war and harness all of the power the U.S. can bring to bear.”
[In Paris, a soccer game, an Asian dinner, a concert — and then terror]
After a meeting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the summit host, Obama said that the attacks in Paris, and last month in Ankara, were attacks “on the civilized world,” and that the United States would “stand in solidarity” with the victims in “hunting down the perpetrators of this crime and bringing them to justice.”
Rhodes emphasized that the attacks did not change the White House’s reluctance to establish a massive ground force of U.S. troops in the region, saying the administration remains confident that it can push back the Islamic State by relying on local forces it is training and advising in Iraq and Syria, along with punishing airstrikes.
“The further introduction of U.S. troops to fully re-engage in ground combat in the Middle East is not the way to deal with this challenge,” Rhodes said.
In Vienna on Saturday, diplomats from the region and from Europe, the United States and Russia agreed to press the various factions they back in Syria’s civil war to come together no later than Jan. 1 to begin talks on forming a transitional government.
Once that process starts, participants agreed, they will support a U.N.-monitored cease-fire between forces of President Bashar al-Assad, backed by Russia and Iran, and a wide array of rebel groups variously backed by the United States, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and others.
[Coordinated assault seems to mark new chapter in terrorism]
The administration has said that settling the ongoing civil war would allow global competitors to focus on defeating the Islamic State in both Syria and Iraq.
The Paris attacks, Rhodes said, “can serve to create a greater sense of urgency in the international community behind supporting various elements of the counter-ISIL campaign and support for a diplomatic resolution of the Syrian conflict.”
Obama met with Putin on the sidelines of the summit. White House officials said that they spoke for 35 minutes and that the discussion “centered around ongoing efforts to resolve the conflict in Syria, an imperative made all the more urgent by the horrifying terrorist attacks in Paris,” and on the “diplomatic progress” achieved in Vienna. While the United States has insisted that Assad must relinquish power, Russia, Assad’s main backer, has bombed rebel forces in a bid to help him remain in control.
Obama and Putin were joined in their meeting, held in the lounge area of a hotel conference center, by U.S. national security adviser Susan E. Rice and a man who appeared to be an interpreter. A closed-circuit video feed showed them sitting around a coffee table, with Obama leaning forward in his chair and talking intently with Putin, who was also leaning in, as other world leaders milled about.
The president also met here with Saudi Arabia’s King Salman.
In Brussels, NATO dropped the flags of its 28 member nations to half-staff to honor the French dead. NATO officials said that France so far has declined to invoke the alliance’s Article 5, which would oblige all members to join its fight against the militants.
The only time Article 5 has ever been invoked — at the request of the United States — was after the September 2001 al-Qaeda attacks.
“We support the French authorities in their determination to deal with the terrorist threat,” a NATO official said Sunday, “and a number of allies are already working with France on their ongoing operations and investigations in the wake of the attacks.”
Loveday Morris in Dahuk, Iraq, and Hugh Naylor in Beirut contributed to this report. | 0 |
By Nick Bernabe
Following the recent mass arrests of 141 people at the Dakota Access Pipeline construction site located near Standing Rock, North Dakota, an anonymous donor just donated $2.5 million to bail out everyone who was arrested at the protests.
The news came after Tamara Francis-Fourkiller, a tribal leader from the Caddo Nation tribe in Caddo County, Oklahoma, was arrested at Standing Rock. Francis-Fourkiller was released after spending two days in jail, but her family says she was just an innocent observer in the clashes between militarized law enforcement and Native American activists, or “water protectors.”
[ UPDATE 11/1 4:35 pm EST: A statement from Red Owl Legal Collective/National Lawyers Guild that is advising Standing Rock has issued a statement saying the $2.5 million has not been received yet. We are waiting on confirmation from the Caddo Nation tribe.]
According to local news affiliate News On 6 :
Family members of Caddo Nation chairwoman Tamara Francis-Fourkiller said an anonymous donor paid $2.5 million late Saturday afternoon to release everyone arrested on Thursday at the Dakota Access Pipeline site. They said, however, that Francis-Fourkiller should not have been arrested in the first place.
Though the donor who sent the $2.5 million remains anonymous, it appears the person is connected to the Caddo Nation tribe in some way . | 0 |
News Bulletin A common swift.
A new study has revealed that a small bird known as the common swift can fly for 10 months without landing. The study in the US journal Current Biology has confirmed an old hypothesis that these birds spend most of their lives in the air.
Scientists believe the birds which stop while flying does so only for a moment, and spent 99.5 percent of the 10 months in the air. They save energy during the day by sliding in upward currents of warm air.
It’s still unclear how the birds sleep during the time. But researchers believe they might catch a few winks when they fly to high heights. Loading ... | 0 |
Amidst protests all around the country against Trump s Muslim ban are local police departments ensuring that the protests don t get out of hand. One might think one has the right to protest anywhere as per the First Amendment, but apparently, not all police officers agree. In Denver, Police Commander Tony Lopez says that people can t protest at the airport without a permit.So, okay, a lot of places do that in order to maintain peace and public safety. Requiring a permit for gatherings over a certain size makes some sense. But the way he phrased it is shall we say a little strange: Stop doing anything that could be construed as free speech without a permit. There s no context in the video so it s hard to know what the situation was. However, even without the context, that s a strange and frankly alarming way to say that the roughly 120 or so protesters at Denver International Airport need a permit for their gathering.Lopez is also seen telling someone that he can t carry the Constitution around without a permit. Aren t there other ways to tell groups of people that they need a permit? Why phrase it that way? Even if the question he was asked was along the lines of, We can t exercise our right to freedom of speech here? there are other ways to explain than stop doing anything that could be construed as free speech. Watch below:Featured image via screen capture from embedded video | 1 |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter pledged to oversee an orderly transition to a Trump administration on Wednesday and thanked Pentagon employees for staying out of the political fray during the 2016 presidential campaign. “We must stay focused on our duty to confront our current challenges and any that might arise during this period,” Carter said in a memorandum to Defense Department employees. | 0 |
The Republican Party should be prepared to lose the Hispanic vote by a record number this year as Donald Trump has basically just surrendered any chance the party had to reach out to them.After 71 percent of Hispanics voted to re-elect President Obama in 2012, Republicans claimed that they would work hard to bring them back into the fold to better their chances in 2016. Since then, however, the Republican Party has only doubled down on their anti-immigration stance and they chose Trump to be their nominee.Trump s poll numbers among Hispanics have since gone from bad to downright atrocious even as he scrambles to do ridiculous outreach efforts like eating a taco bowl or having white Trump supporters hold up signs saying Latinos support Trump to somehow draw Hispanic support to his campaign. And it looks like any substantial effort has just gone down the toilet as well.According to Buzzfeed, cancellations of outreach events and frustration among Hispanic volunteers and surrogates is imploding Trump s pitiful attempt to attract Hispanic support.RNC Chair Reince Priebus bragged prior to the Republican Convention that Trump is going to be doing a Hispanic engagement tour coming up soon and claimed Trump understands the need to expand the party in the general election.That apparently went in one ear and out the other as Trump has failed to meet with Hispanic leaders in Texas and Florida, which is only angering the few Republican Hispanic voters left.The campaign canceled an initial July 8 roundtable with Cuban business and faith leaders in Miami because of the tragic shooting in Dallas. Then the rescheduled July 26 event was officially canceled because the roundtable participants were out of town. (Three Republican sources told BuzzFeed News a hold was put on the campaign calendar for that time slot but the event was never planned.)Another unreported, but planned Hispanic event was also canceled: The July 5 event was supposed to bring Trump face-to-face with San Antonio business leaders and Texas Republicans, but after the campaign reached out for venue space and possible participants, the event was scrapped. I think they couldn t get enough people to come to the event because their support among Hispanic voters is 14%, Republican voter Artemio Muniz said. What do they expect? Indeed, Trump s is polling so badly among Hispanics that Hillary Clinton is currently leading him in all 12 swing states, including Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Michigan, North Carolina, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin.Furthermore, 67 percent of Hispanic voters support Hillary Clinton while only 19 percent support Trump 77 percent of Hispanics view Trump unfavorably.Trump s performance among Hispanic voters in November would be even worse than Mitt Romney in 2012 if the current numbers hold. Romney was able to capture 27 percent in 2012. Trump is 8 points behind that mark and it may only get worse from there as he continues disparaging Hispanics wherever he goes and continues to fail at getting any outreach effort off the ground.It also doesn t help that Trump s campaign has rejected the effort of Ileana Garcia, who started Latinas For Trump, to lead a national effort to attract Hispanic voters. The Trump campaign got mad at her for telling reporters in Cleveland that she is the national Latino spokesperson for Trump. Now it appears she will not have a major role within the campaign at all even though Trump and the GOP desperately need someone to do something to stop the bleeding.At this point, it s very late in the game to convince Hispanic voters that Trump is somehow the right person to be president. He has made zero effort to reverse the damage he has done and only continues to do more damage. If Republican leadership didn t have buyer s remorse before, they certainly do now because it really looks like the only demographic Trump is courting is the white vote and that may have been enough to win 30 years ago, but it definitely is not enough today.Featured image via Twitter | 0 |
Pop star Madonna got raunchy while introducing comedian Amy Schumer at a performance in New York City Tuesday night, promising the crowd sexual favors in exchange for their support of Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. If you vote for Hillary Clinton, I will give you a blowjob. OK? the 58-year-old Rebel Heart singer told an audience at New York s Madison Square Garden Tuesday night. I m really good. I m not a douche, and I m not a tool. I take my time, I have a lot of eye contact, and I do swallow. BreitbartWatch the classless Lopez perform for Hillary here:.@JLo booty shake @HillaryClinton GOTV concert Miami Florida pic.twitter.com/zrFokjtKpH Tamara Gitt (@tamaragitt) October 30, 2016And then there s this special act in Lopez s concert for Hillary. Every mom supporting Hillary will want to teach her daughters to try this at home How to spin this.https://t.co/iKfSnjDf7c pic.twitter.com/D0HDStnGiA Arma Obscurum (@ShootingHipster) October 30, 2016J-Lo campaigns with Hillary at last night's rally in Miami. pic.twitter.com/Dr6yqCdBH8 Steve Milloy (@JunkScience) October 30, 2016And finally, the Champion of Women joined da ho and her ex on stage:Hillary Clinton joins Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony on stage https://t.co/jnBiRtZ1BD pic.twitter.com/xNaA2XNLoj Miami Herald (@MiamiHerald) October 30, 2016 | 1 |
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Union told Britain on Friday to spell out what it will pay Brussels for when it leaves the bloc in 2019 or face more delay in talks on future trade ties that are vital for British business. After negotiations in Brussels, the first in a month, Brexit Secretary David Davis said during a news conference with his EU counterpart Michel Barnier it was time for political discussions to break a deadlock that has left both sides frustrated about a lack of progress. Political talks has in the past been code for Prime Minister Theresa May addressing fellow EU leaders directly, over the heads of Barnier and the EU executive, in order to square a circle in which Brussels will not address the future without a firm line from London on settling what the EU sees as past debts and May will not settle without assurances about future trade. May is due at a Brussels summit on Dec. 14-15 but EU officials insist that any breakthrough must be agreed at lower level first and weeks in advance to let the other 27 members agree a joint position. Progress in December is important for May as businesses seek clarity by the new year, when many will take investment decisions dependent on conditions after Brexit. A British budget due on Nov. 22 will, however, complicate the task for May in persuading hardline Brexit supporters of any need to meet Brussels demand for tens of billions of euros to cover liabilities incurred in 44 years of EU membership. Barnier stressed that he was not looking for a number from London but for a clearer undertaking than May gave in September on how far Britain would honor its obligations . It is absolutely vital if we are to achieve sufficient progress in December, Barnier told reporters, adding not all details had to be settled but there needed to be sincere and real progress . The clarifications should come within the next two weeks, Barnier said: If that s not the case, then we will continue and that will pull back the opening of discussions on the future. He said progress had to be made on all three key issues of the divorce talks - the money, the rights of EU citizens in Britain and how to avoid a hard border with EU-member Ireland. Davis said both sides made substantial technical progress on all the issues that need to be addressed. This is now about moving into the political discussions that would enable both of us to move forward, he said. British discussions with other national governments do not appear to have breached the unity of the 27 for now. And German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron, the bloc s most powerful leaders, have taken a particularly tough line on the money issue in Brussels. The EU executive has said Britain will owe it around 60 billion euros when it leaves. London has challenged the legal reasoning behind that but has not offered its own figure. One thing that was clarified on Friday was exactly when Britain would leave the Union. The EU had previously defined Brexit hour as midnight on March 29, 2019, exactly two years after May triggered the process. But it was unclear whether that meant midnight in Brussels or London. May and Barnier made statements on Friday stating that Brexit will happen in London at 11 p.m. (2300 GMT) on Friday, March 29. That will be midnight in the EU capital. Davis repeated the declaration made by May in September in Florence that EU countries will not need to pay more or receive less for the remainder of the current EU long-term budget ending in December 2020: The UK will honor the commitments we made during the period of our membership, he said. Barnier said both sides moved ahead on citizens rights and that Britain gave useful clarifications on a process through which EU citizens could obtain a settled status but the EU needed reassurances on how such a system would work. He said issues related to family reunification, the right to export social security benefits and the role of the European Court of Justice still need work. On the problems of avoiding a hard border between the British province of Northern Ireland and EU-member Ireland, Davis and Barnier said more work must be done. | 1 |
He s always been in our top three. A rock solid conservative who s not afraid to fight back against the establishment on behalf of his constituents. A politician with a spine who respects our Constitution. You really can t ask for much more at this critical time in our nation RUSH: I think that there is a dark horse in this entire thing. I think there is one candidate who is positioned here. Now, I know it s getting late. Trump has had the lead for a hundred days here or more. Well, he s been in the lead ever since he got in. And there are now fewer days to Iowa than he has been in the lead. I mean, he s over the hump in that regard. But there s still a long way to go. It s politics. Any number of unforeseen, unpredictable events are potentially out there, and there has been somebody trucking along here, steady Eddie that has continued to be who he is and continues to lay down foundational markers for himself, and that s Ted Cruz. I think Ted Cruz is positioned, I wouldn t say ideally, I mean I m sure Cruz would love to be in the top two, top three here, but of all the others in the race, Trump and Carson here, and they re at number one and two, Carson s pulled ahead of Trump even in Iowa now, in two polls. But overall Trump leads and his lead continues to expand.But what if it doesn t? What if something happens? We re not shut out here. We still have somebody in our roster who opposes every bit of the Democrat agenda, perhaps more than anybody else in the race, and that s Cruz. I mean, Cruz does not have in his record any statement like Trump does of having supported certain things the Democrats have done. Cruz is inarguably thoroughbred conservative. The more I read about the Millennials, by the way, and I ve got some stuff about them in the Stack today, the more I read about Millennials and where they are attitudinally, politically, socially, economically, Cruz is somebody I think has a great opportunity to connect with them.In fact, before we get to the Trump sound bites, let me find this little thing on the Millennials. Survey: Millennials Around the World Worry Most About Economic Inequality. Now, this is typical of young people, young generations. They see injustice and unfairness and inequality out there and they want to right it, they want to correct it. When you have half of the country making this is unbelievable 51% percent of the country making under $30,000 a year, that just cannot stand. We will not have a standard economy with that kind of reality. We just won t.The website here is USA Today, and the survey comes from the World Economic Forum, and they released it yesterday. Millennials around the world worry most about social and economic equality, remain skeptical of government and the media, and count Tesla CEO Elon Musk as one their heroes, according to a World Economic Forum survey released Sunday. More than 1,000 young people, ages 20 to 30, from 125 countries and who are all active in the forum s Global Shapers Community. It s a left wing bunch, the World Economic Forum, it s an establishment left-wing bunch, understand, but they still went out and they talked to these Millennials all over the world, 125 different countries. The average age was 28. The results were released at the beginning of a three-day World Economic Forum conference in Abu Dhabi, capital of the United Arab Emirates. It s right down the road from Dubai. The survey showed that 65% of the Millennials said one of their top three goals in selecting a job was to make a difference in society, their city or country. Well, yeah, I mean, yeah, of course they want that. They want to right wrongs. They want to correct social injustice wherever they see it. And when Ted Cruz gets going, that s ultimately what he s all about.He s all about everybody being the best they can be using their natural he s conservative top to bottom, through and through, no matter how you slice it, left, right, up, down. They also look for an opportunity to learn, followed by career advancement. More than nine out of 10 said they would be willing to relocate to advance their career. That is the number one obstacle most people put in their own way. They re unwillingness to move. I ve always said that most of the obstacles people face in life are self-imposed, and the number one obstacle is the unwillingness to move. If you live in a place, let s say you want to be a brain surgeon and you live in a place where there s not a hospital, you re gonna have to move.If you want to get big in media and you live in Peoria, you re gonna have to move. And a lot of people don t want to move. The comfort level of being at home, friends, family, all that, it s a big obstacle. People get past that and nine out of 10 of these Millennials say they would be willing to relocate in order to advance their career, that s a big deal. Anyway, it s just a long way to go here and the Republican establishment has made it clear they are not interested in a conservative nominee. The Republican establishment has made it clear that the role of conservatives in this primary is to once again split the vote and split money.It was the money, don t forget, it was the money that was gonna save Jeb, or, if not Jeb, the next chosen establishment candidate. And the money, the ads, are not working. The ads simply are not overcoming, and they always have, the opposition to some of these candidates. So there s sheer panic out there now.END TRANSCRIPT Via: RushLimbaugh.com | 1 |
Who could forget the unbelievable standoff in Oregon between patriots and the government? Who could forget the dramatic shooting of patriot Savoy Finicum who traveled from Arizona to Oregon from to stand with American ranchers against the BLM, an overbearing government agency. Oregon State Police troopers fired the three rounds that killed the Arizona rancher and father of 11 during a confrontation on a remote road, law enforcement officials said at a news conference in Bend.An independent investigation by Oregon authorities later found the troopers were justified in shooting Finicum because he failed to heed their commands and repeatedly reached for his weapon, Masher County District Attorney Dan Norris said.The not guilty verdict of the other members who were involved with Finicum who gave his life for the fight against our government, must be especially stinging for the large loving family this father of 11 left behind.As expected, liberals are freaking out over the verdicts, like this Black Lives Matter crybaby:I have a criminal record for protesting for #FreddieGray meanwhile #oregonstandoff terrorists didn't even get a slap on the wrist. Kwame Rose (@kwamerose) October 28, 2016Here are the verdicts. #oregonstandoff pic.twitter.com/fXW9GoxKUr Ryan Haas (@ryanjhaas) October 27, 2016Ammon and Ryan Bundy have been found not guilty of conspiracy. Their five co-defendants Jeff Banta, Shawna Cox, David Fry, Kenneth Medenbach and Neil Wampler have all been found not guilty as well. Jurors were unable to reach a verdict on Ryan Bundy s theft of government property charge.The jury returned its verdict after some six weeks of testimony followed by less than six hours deliberations, and the last minute replacement of a juror after an allegation surfaced that he was biased.The jury was instructed to disregard their previous work and to re-consider the evidence. It was a pretty jaw-dropping verdict, said OPB reporter Amelia Templeton of the climate in the courtroom. The jury began by reading out the verdict for Ammon Bundy, ostensibly the leader of the occupation, and when we heard that Ammon Bundy was not guilty, it became clear very quickly that likely no one in the case was going to be found guilty, and indeed, everyone has been acquitted. After the verdict was read, Ammon Bundy s attorney Marcus Mumford was tackled to the ground by five U.S. Marshals. He insisted his client was free to go. Ammon Bundy faces a US Marshall hold and is supposed to be transferred to Nevada where he faces charges for the Bunkerville standoff. There s a hold for Ammon Bundy and Ryan Bundy out of the district of Nevada, said Matt Schindler attorney for Kenneth Medenbach. There s nothing Judge Brown can do about that. So acquitting him here, all it does is effectively release him to that hold, to be transported to Nevada. And the court that has anything authority to deal with that, is the court in Nevada. Marcus let the emotion of the moment, I think, overtake his better judgement. During the incident, Judge Brown ordered everyone out of the courthouse. Mumford was later detained.United States Attorney for the District of Oregon Billy J. Williams reacted to the decision on Thursday saying, While we had hoped for a different outcome, we respect the verdict of the jury and thank them for their dedicated service during this long and difficult trial. The charges stem from the 41-day armed occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge near Burns in eastern Oregon s high desert. The armed protest began Jan. 2 and ended when the final four occupiers surrendered to the FBI on Feb. 11. For many weeks, hundreds of law enforcement officers federal, state, and local worked around-the-clock to resolve the armed occupation at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge peacefully, said Greg Bretzing, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI in Oregon. Although we are extremely disappointed in the verdict, we respect the court and the role of the jury in the American judicial system. Prosecutors initially charged Ammon Bundy, his brother Ryan Bundy, and 24 others with conspiracy to prevent Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Fish and Wildlife employees from doing their jobs at the wildlife refuge in Harney County. Some defendants named in the indictment faced weapons charges for carrying firearms in a federal facility, as well as theft of government property.Only seven defendants went to trial in September. Others have pleaded guilty or are scheduled to go to trial in February 2017. Oregonian | 1 |
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The mainstream media have been doing a victory lap since the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the National Security Agency (NSA) confirmed on Monday in testimony before the U. S. House Intelligence Committee that President Barack Obama did not wiretap Trump Tower. But that was already known. [There was only one new revelation at the hearing, and it was a bombshell: senior Obama administration officials could have known the identities of surveillance targets. One of those targets, retired General Michael Flynn, lost his job after it was revealed that his conversation with the Russian ambassador had been monitored, and that he had discussed sanctions relief, contrary to his early private and public claims. Yet Flynn’s identity was never supposed to have been revealed. The surveillance of the Russian ambassador, routine though it may have been, yielded classified information, and the identity of any U. S. citizen swept up in it should have been redacted. But Flynn’s name was unmasked and leaked to the media. Moreover, the New York Times reported on Jan. 19 — with a headline on Inauguration Day — that “intelligence reports based on some of the wiretapped communications had been provided to the White House. ” And the Times also reported in February that surveillance of Trump aides suspected of ties with Russia had been disseminated widely throughout the government, without privacy protections, by order of the lame duck Obama administration under NSA rules, which the Times had already reported earlier in January. Monday’s hearing “debunked” Trump’s wiretapping tweets, but left his underlying claim intact: that there was surveillance of the Trump campaign that the results were shared throughout the government — even possibly reaching the Obama White House and that intelligence was leaked, illegally, to the mainstream media. In an extraordinary exchange with FBI Director James Comey on Monday, Rep. Trey Gowdy ( ) explored what that meant — that Obama aides could have broken the law: GOWDY: Do you know whether Director [of National Intelligence] James Clapper knew the name of the U. S. citizen that appeared in the New York Times and Washington Post? COMEY: I can’t say in this forum because again, I don’t wanna confirm that there was classified information in the newspaper. GOWDY: Would he have access to an unmasked name? COMEY: In — in some circumstances, sure, he was the director of national intelligence. But I’m not talking about the particular. GOWDY: Would Director [of the Central Intelligence Agency James] Brennan have access to an unmasked U. S. citizen’s name? COMEY: In some circumstances, yes. GOWDY: Would National Security Adviser Susan Rice have access to an unmasked U. S. citizen’s name? COMEY: I think any — yes, in general, and any other national security adviser would, I think, as a matter of their ordinary course of their business. GOWDY: Would former White House Advisor Ben Rhodes have access to an unmasked U. S. citizen’s name? COMEY: I don’t know the answer to that. GOWDY: Would former Attorney General Loretta Lynch have access to an unmasked U. S. citizen’s name? COMEY: In general, yes, as would any attorney general. GOWDY: So that would also include Acting AG Sally Yates? COMEY: Same answer. GOWDY: Did you brief President Obama on — well, I’ll just ask you. Did you brief President Obama on any calls involving Michael Flynn? COMEY: I’m not gonna get into either that particular case that matter, or any conversations I had with the president. So I can’t answer that. Gowdy’s questioning revealed an astonishing list of potential suspects. And given that the FBI and NSA testified that there was still no evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian government, the fact remains that the only crime that is known to have occurred with absolute certainty was the leaking of Flynn’s name and the contents of his conversation with the Russian ambassador. Democrats hoped to hurt Trump. Instead, they raised more questions about Obama’s role. 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 |
Le e-mail di Hillary Clinton e la Fratellanza di Thierry Meyssan L’indagine dell’FBI sulle e-mail private di Hillary Clinton non verte su una negligenza in merito alle norme di sicurezza, ma su un complotto mirante a distrarre ogni traccia delle sue corrispondenze che avrebbero dovuto essere memorizzate sui server dello Stato federale. Potrebbe includere scambi su finanziamenti illeciti o su casi di corruzione, e altro sui collegamenti dei coniugi Clinton con i Fratelli Musulmani e i jihadisti.
Rete Voltaire | Damasco (Siria) | 2 novembre 2016 ελληνικά English Español français Türkçe русский Deutsch Português Hillary Clinton e il suo capo di gabinetto Huma Abedin. Il rilancio dell’inchiesta dell’FBI sulle e-mail private di Hillary Clinton non verte tanto su questioni di sicurezza, quanto su intrighi che potrebbero andare fino all’alto tradimento.
Tecnicamente, anziché utilizzare un server sicuro del governo federale, il Segretario di Stato aveva installato nel suo domicilio un server privato, in modo da poter utilizzare Internet senza lasciare tracce su una macchina dello Stato federale. Il tecnico privato della signora Clinton aveva ripulito il suo server prima dell’arrivo del FBI, così che non era possibile sapere il motivo per cui lei avesse messo in opera questo dispositivo.
Inizialmente, l’FBI ha osservato che il server privato non aveva subito la procedura di sicurezza del server del Dipartimento di Stato. La Clinton aveva quindi commesso solo un errore di sicurezza. In un secondo tempo, l’FBI ha sequestrato il computer dell’ex parlamentare Anthony Weiner. Costui è l’ex marito di Huma Abedin, capo dello staff di Hillary. Lì sono stati trovati messaggi di posta elettronica provenienti dalla Segretaria di Stato.
Anthony Weiner è un politico ebreo, molto vicino ai Clinton, che aspirava a diventare sindaco di New York. Fu costretto a dimettersi dopo uno scandalo assai puritano: aveva inviato SMS erotici a una giovane donna diversa da sua moglie. Huma Abedin si separò ufficialmente da lui nel corso di questa bufera, ma in realtà non lo lasciò.
Huma Abedin è una statunitense allevata in Arabia Saudita. Suo padre gestisce una rivista accademica – di cui è stata per anni la segretaria editoriale - che riproduce regolarmente il parere dei Fratelli Musulmani. Sua madre presiede l’associazione saudita delle donne che fanno parte della Fratellanza e ha lavorato con la moglie dell’ex presidente egiziano Mohamed Morsi. Suo fratello Hassan lavora per conto dello sceicco Yusuf al-Qaradawi, predicatore dei Fratelli Musulmani e consigliere spirituale di Al-Jazeera.
In occasione di una visita ufficiale in Arabia Saudita, la segretaria di Stato visita il collegio Dar al-Hekma accompagnata da Saleha Abedin (madre del suo capo di gabinetto), presidente dell’Associazione delle Sorelle che fanno parte della Fratellanza. Huma Abedin è oggi una figura centrale nella campagna elettorale clintoniana, accanto al responsabile della campagna, John Podesta, ex segretario generale della Casa Bianca sotto la presidenza di Bill Clinton. Podesta è inoltre il lobbista ufficiale del Regno dell’Arabia Saudita al Congresso, per la modica cifra di 200 mila dollari mensili. Il 12 giugno 2016, Petra, l’agenzia di stampa ufficiale della Giordania, ha pubblicato un’intervista con il principe ereditario saudita, Mohamed bin Salman, nella quale affermava la modernità della sua famiglia che aveva illegalmente finanziato circa il 20% della campagna presidenziale di Hillary Clinton, anche se si tratta di una donna. Il giorno dopo questa pubblicazione, l’agenzia ha annullato questo servizio e ha assicurato che il suo sito web era stato violato.
Secondo l’agenzia di stampa giordana Petra (12 giugno 2016), la famiglia reale saudita ha illegalmente finanziato il 20% della campagna presidenziale di Hillary Clinton. La signora Abedin non è l’unica componente dell’amministrazione Obama ad aver legami con la Fratellanza. Il fratellastro del presidente, Abon’go Malik Obama, è il tesoriere dell’Opera missionaria dei Fratelli in Sudan e presidente della Fondazione Barack H. Obama. Lavora direttamente sotto il comando del presidente sudanese Omar al-Bashir. Un Fratello musulmano è membro del Consiglio di Sicurezza Nazionale, la più elevata istanza esecutiva negli Stati Uniti. Dal 2009 al 2012, è stato il caso di Mehdi K. Alhassani. Non si sa chi gli sia succeduto, ma la Casa Bianca aveva negato che un Fratello fosse membro del Consiglio fino a quando non emerse una prova. È inoltre un Fratello l’ambasciatore degli Stati Uniti alla Conferenza islamica, Rashad Hussain. Gli altri Fratelli identificati occupano funzioni meno importanti. Occorre tuttavia ricordare Louay M. Safi, attuale membro della Coalizione Nazionale siriana ed ex consigliere del Pentagono.
Il presidente Obama e il suo fratellastro Malik Obama Abon’go nello Studio Ovale. Abon’go Malik è il tesoriere del lavoro missionario dei Fratelli Musulmani in Sudan. Nell’aprile 2009, due mesi prima del suo discorso al Cairo, il presidente Obama aveva segretamente ricevuto una delegazione della Confraternita allo Studio Ovale. Aveva già invitato, in occasione del suo insediamento, Ingrid Mattson, la presidente dell’Associazione dei Fratelli e delle Sorelle Musulmani negli Stati Uniti.
Da parte sua, la Fondazione Clinton ha impiegato come responsabile del suo progetto "Clima" Gehad el-Haddad, uno dei dirigenti mondiali della Fratellanza che era stato fino ad allora responsabile di una trasmissione televisiva coranica. Suo padre era stato uno dei co-fondatori della Fratellanza nel 1951 in occasione della sua rifondazione da parte della CIA e dell’MI6. Gehad ha lasciato la fondazione nel 2012, quando al Cairo divenne il portavoce del candidato Mohamed Morsi, e in seguito quello ufficiale della Fratellanza Musulmana su scala mondiale.
Sapendo che la totalità dei leader jihadisti nel mondo sono emersi sia dalla Fratellanza sia dall’Ordine sufi Naqshbandi - le due componenti della Lega islamica mondiale, l’organizzazione saudita anti-nazionalista araba - vorremmo saperne di più sulle relazioni della signora Clinton con l’Arabia Saudita e i Fratelli.
Si scopre che nella squadra del suo sfidante Donald Trump, ci trova il generale Michael T. Flynn, che ha cercato di opporsi alla creazione del Califfato da parte della Casa Bianca e si è dimesso dalla direzione della Defense Intelligence Agency (Agenzia d’intelligence militare) per rimarcare la sua disapprovazione. Gli si affianca Frank Gaffney, un "reduce della guerra fredda", ormai qualificato come "cospirazionista" per aver denunciato la presenza dei Fratelli nello Stato federale.
Va da sé che, dal punto di vista dell’FBI, tutto il sostegno alle organizzazioni jihadiste sia un reato, indipendentemente dalla politica della CIA. Nel 1991, la polizia – nonché il senatore John Kerry - avevano causato il fallimento della banca pakistana (benché registrata nelle Isole Cayman) BCCI, che la CIA utilizzava in ogni sorta di operazioni segrete con i Fratelli Musulmani e anche con i cartelli latini della droga.
Thierry Meyssan Traduzione
Matzu Yagi
Fonte
Megachip-Globalist (Italia) | 1 |
in: General Health , Sleuth Journal , Special Interests Taking calcium supplements — even at low doses — linked to brain lesions in the first study of its kind. Most calcium supplements are just plain bad news. The idea of taking calcium in pill or tablet form to “keep the bones strong” just doesn’t make that much sense given, first, that we are designed to get our calcium from food. Second, our bone is a living tissue, which requires vitamin C, amino acids, magnesium, silica, vitamins D and K, etc., not to mention regular physical activity, just as much as it does calcium. Taking calcium to the exclusion of these other critical factors doesn’t make sense; nor does it make sense to look at osteoporosis as a deficiency of calcium supplements! As we have reported on extensively in the past, not only is consuming limestone, bone, and the shells of oysters and eggs not a good idea because the calcium can deposit in our soft tissues leading to heart attacks and strokes , but even the goal of maintaining bones as dense as a 25-year old late into life (known as the T-score) is fraught with danger, including a far higher breast cancer risk for those with the highest bone density . Instead of pathologizing aging, and focusing on making the bone denser by any means necessary, the focus should be on bone quality and agility and bodily self-awareness late into life, which helps the elderly prevent the falls that lead to fracture in the first place. In other words, simply having a gait or vision disorder can be at least as an important factor in fracture risk as bone mineral density. The problem with poor quality, inorganic, calcium supplements, however, does not stop with their contribution to cardiovascular disease risk. A combination of factors including low magnesium, vitamin K2 and the presence of fluoride in the water and diet can lead to pineal gland calcification , as well as the calcification of other brain structures, which recently has been hypothesized to be a contributing factor in the pathogenesis of Alzheimer’s disease . (click image to enlarge) A truly provocative study on this topic published last year in the British Journal of Nutrition somehow slipped through the cracks, because not only did we miss it but we do not recall it being reported elsewhere. Titled, “ Elevated brain lesion volumes in older adults who use calcium supplements: a cross-sectional clinical observational study ,” the study looked at the possibility that since calcium supplements have now been linked in multiple studies with vascular pathologies associated with cardiovascular diseas they may also be associated with the occurrence of brain lesions (known on MRI scans as hyperintensities) in older adults. These brain lesions, visible as brighter spots in MRI scans, are known to be caused by lack of blood flow (ischemia) and subsequent neurological damage. According to the study, “Brain lesions,also known as hyperintensities, are areas of damage observed on brain MRI ( See Above ). These lesions are common in older adults and increase the risk of devastating health outcomes, including depression, cognitive decline, dementia, stroke, physical disability, hip fracture and death. Postmortem studies have determined that these lesions form primarily due to ischemia, especially larger lesions (.3mm) and lesions found in depressed individuals.” The observational study enrolled 227 older adults (60 years above) and assessed food and supplemental calcium intakes. Participants with supplemental calcium use above zero were categorized as supplement users. Lesion volumes were assessed with MRI scans. Key findings were: Greater lesion volumes were found among calcium supplement users than non-users The influence of calcium supplements was of a magnitude similar to that of the influence of high blood pressure (hypertension), “a well-established risk factor for lesions.” The study found that the amount of calcium used was not associated with lesion volume and that “even low-dose supplements, by older adults may be associated with greater lesion volumes.” Even after controlling for food calcium intake, age, sex, race, years of education, energy intake, depression and hypertension, the association between calcium supplement and lesion volumes held strong. The study details were summarized as follows: “In the present cross-sectional clinical observational study, the association between Ca-containing dietary supplement use and lesion volumes was investigated in a sample of 227 older adults (60 years and above). Food and supplemental Ca intakes were assessed with the Block 1998 FFQ; participants with supplemental Ca intake above zero were categorised as supplement users. Lesion volumes were determined from cranial MRI (1.5 tesla) scans using a semi-automated technique; volumes were log-transformed because they were non-normal. ANCOVA models revealed that supplement users had greater lesion volumes than non-users, even after controlling for food Ca intake, age, sex, race, years of education, energy intake, depression and hypertension (Ca supplement use: β = 0.34, SE 0.10, F(1,217)= 10.98, P= 0.0011). The influence of supplemental Ca use on lesion volume was of a magnitude similar to that of the influence of hypertension, a well-established risk factor for lesions. Among the supplement users, the amount of supplemental Ca was not associated with lesion volume (β = – 0.000035, SE 0.00 015, F(1,139)= 0.06, P= 0.81). The present study demonstrates that the use of Ca-containing dietary supplements, even low-dose supplements, by older adults may be associated with greater lesion volumes. Evaluation of randomised controlled trials is warranted to determine whether this relationship is a causal one.” What is the mechanism beneath this association? The researchers discussed the already established link between calcium supplementation and increased ischemic stroke risk, indicating that calcium supplementation may contribute to calcium deposits in the vasculature (i.e. arterial calcification), mainly in the fatty deposits (atheromas) that contribute to blocking the opening (lumen) of the blood vessels. They state that this process can lead to lack of blood flow and subsequent oxygen deprivation (ischemia), ultimately leading to the development of brain lesions. Another mechanism by which excess calcium may have a direct neurotoxic effect on the brain is the influx of excess calcium into brain cells, which lead to cell death. This possibility is greatly increased if the blood-brain barrier is compromised. The researchers also highlighted the importance of the finding that calcium supplementation may have as significant a deleterious effect on brain lesions as high blood pressure (hypertension): “If this finding is confirmed in longitudinal studies, it could have important health implications – because it is obviously much easier to cease Ca supplement use than to medically manage hypertension.” In other words, hypertension is often caused by toxic antihypertensive drugs that may actually increase the risk of cardiac mortality . Why not remove one of the modifiable causes: calcium supplementation, which would strike to one of the root causes of the problem and resolve it. The researchers concluded their study as follows: “The use of Ca [calcium] -containing dietary supplements by older adults was found to be associated with greater brain lesion volumes, even after controlling for the usual amount of dietary Ca intake. Interestingly, neither the amount of supplemental Ca nor the duration of supplemental Ca use was associated with lesion volume. These findings indicate that adverse biochemical effects of supplemental Ca use may exist in older adults, regardless of the dose.” So, what do we do instead of taking calcium supplements? First, consider why you think you need calcium supplements. Is it because of the dairy industry promoting for decades the concept that we need calcium (from milk)? Or, is it because your doctor is throwing around terms like osteopenia and osteoporosis carelessly, without explaining to you that the present day bone mineral density (BMD) reference ranges assume that aging is a disease and even if you are 60 or 100 for that matter you are still supposed to have the BMD of a 25-year old young woman; an absurd and dangerous idea. Please read the expose, “ Osteoporosis Myth: The Dangers of High Bone Mineral Density ,” in order to understand how millions of healthy women were made to believe that aging is a disease, with worse health outcomes as a result of overdiagnosis and overtreatment. Now, when it comes to calcium, focus on food sources. The site NutritionData.com lists about 1,000 of the highest calcium-containing foods, categorized by food group: Foods highest in Calcium . Also, remember that the accelerated bone loss that occurs later in life in women, is triggered by hormonal changes associated with the exhaustion of the ovarian reserve. Nature, however, provides ‘back up’ support for the ovaries in the form of pomegranate . Other hormone-modulating foods include the fermented soy food miso , prunes , and even vitamin C , which has recently been found to regenerate steroid hormones . For a far more extensive research resource on bone health, you can view our page dedicated to the topic here: Bone Health . © November 2, 2016 GreenMedInfo LLC . This work is reproduced and distributed with the permission of GreenMedInfo LLC. Want to learn more from GreenMedInfo? Sign up for the newsletter here http://www.greenmedinfo.com/greenmed/newsletter . Submit your review | 1 |
When he was running for president, Donald Trump made locking up Hillary Clinton for her criminal behavior a centerpiece of his campaign. Just the mere mention of her name would send supporters at his massive rallies into a wild chant, as they screamed, LOCK HER UP! Trump s supporters weren t chanting to be cute. Trump supporters were chanting because after decades of evading the law, Americans were quite serious about expecting candidate Donald Trump to follow through on his campaign promise to hold her accountable, and make her pay for her crimes, just like any other American would be expected to do. When we told @realDonaldTrump to LOCK HER UP! we weren t asking Mr. President, please deliver on your promise. pic.twitter.com/A6lWKhv3Yu Newt-Trump Fan Club (@NewtTrump) May 9, 2017 | 1 |
(Reuters) - Celebrity real estate developer Donald Trump has extended his lead nationally over Senator Ted Cruz of Texas and Ohio Governor John Kasich for the Republican presidential nomination, according to the latest Reuters/Ipsos poll. The national online poll from April 4-8 showed that 42 percent of Republicans support Trump, compared with 32 percent for Cruz and 20 percent for Kasich. Trump has topped the poll of Republican voters since July, though his lead narrowed considerably in recent weeks as Trump retweeted unflattering pictures of Cruz’s wife and his campaign manager was charged with battery in an incident involving a reporter at a campaign event. Meanwhile, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton led Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont for the Democratic nomination. The poll showed that 53 percent of Democrats support Clinton and 43 percent support Sanders. The poll included 626 Republicans and 668 Democrats and has a credibility interval of 4.6 percentage points. | 0 |
Donald Trump and his running mate, Mike Pence, conducted their first joint interview on Saturday. The interview was conducted by Lesley Stahl on CBS 60 Minutes. The full interview does not air until Sunday night. However, CBS released a teaser for the interview that shows that the two candidates are starting to look more like two students forced to work together on a science fair project than a presidential duo.In the preview, Stahl questions Pence about an essay he wrote where he said that he felt that negative campaigning was wrong: You said negative campaigning is wrong. And a campaign ought to demonstrate the basic decency of the candidate. With that in mind, what do you think about your running mate s campaign, and the tone and the negativity of it? I think this is a good man who s been talking about the issues the American people care about, Pence said referring to Trump.Pence said that he wrote the essay a long time ago. He continued saying that I said campaigns oughta be about something more important than just one candidate s election. And, and this campaign and Donald Trump s candidacy has been about the issues the American people care about. Stahl continued to press Pence on the issue of negative campaigning, and that s when Trump decided he needed to jump in to clarify that he is a huge fan of negative campaigning, but Pence does not think that way or share the belief that negative campaigning is great. We re different people, Trump interrupted. I understand that. I ll give you an example. Hillary Clinton is a liar. Hillary Clinton, that was just proven last week. Hillary Clinton you better believe it. Hillary Clinton is a crook. Trump continued, only to reiterate that he does, in fact, think that calling people mean names is a great thing to do. I call her Crooked Hillary. She s Crooked Hillary, he said. He won t. I don t, I didn t ask him to do it, but I don t think he should do it because it s different for him. You can watch the excerpt from the interview below.Featured image via video screenshot | 0 |
(Want to get this briefing by email? Here’s the .) Good evening. Here’s the latest. 1. Mike Pence, the Republican, and Tim Kaine, the Democrat, squared off in the one and only debate. It was hosted by Longwood University in Farmville, Va. a community still grappling with its role in civil rights history. Times reporters Maggie Haberman, Adam Nagourney, Ashley Parker and Alan Rappeport provided analysis, and we statements made by the candidates. We also had Walter F. Mondale, the country’s 42nd vice president, chatting with us via emails throughout the debate. ____ 2. Hurricane Matthew made landfall, slamming into Haiti with winds of up to 145 miles an hour. The country has been battered by natural disasters over the last decade. The storm is expected to retain its intensity until at least Wednesday night, delivering heavy rains and damaging winds to other Caribbean nations as it moves north. Much of the East Coast is bracing for dangerous conditions later this week and weekend. ____ 3. When Donald J. Trump claimed a loss so big in 1995 that it could have let him avoid up to 18 years of income taxes, 500, 000 other taxpayers used the same maneuver to claim losses, too. Mr. Trump claimed a $916 million loss. The average loss for everyone else was $97, 600. An executive who was hired by Mr. Trump in 1990 described the work environment then as “like getting on the Titanic just before the women and children were moved to the lifeboats. ” The Trump campaign has threatened legal action against The Times for publishing parts of his tax returns, but legal experts think that might not be such an easy case to win. Our reporter, who found the documents in her mailbox, said in a podcast, “I honestly thought it was a hoax, because who mails you Donald Trump’s tax returns?” ____ 4. The second Nobel Prize of the year, for physics, was awarded to three scientists who study matter that assumes strange shapes. David Thouless, F. Duncan Haldane and J. Michael Kosterlitz, all of whom work at universities in the U. S. were recognized for discoveries that are largely theoretical, but may have practical applications for electronics. The prize for chemistry will be announced on Wednesday, and the Peace Prize on Friday. Two more Nobel prizes will be announced next week. ____ 5. The Justice Department has gone after a tech company again. Earlier this year, it issued a subpoena to the maker of a widely used encryption app called Signal, seeking information about two phone numbers, then blocked the company from talking about it. But there wasn’t much information to give up. “The Signal service was designed to minimize the data we retain,” said Moxie Marlinspike, above, the founder of Open Whisper Systems, which makes the app. Tech companies have complained about government overreach in similar cases. ____ 6. Maria Sharapova, the Russian tennis star, will be allowed to return to the sport in April of next year. The world’s top sports court reduced her suspension for a doping violation, saying the original penalty was too harsh. In baseball, the postseason kicked off tonight with the Toronto Blue Jays hosting the Baltimore Orioles (the Blue Jays won). We asked six of our sportswriters to offer their predictions. Most of them are not picking the Chicago Cubs. ____ 7. At high schools across the U. S. football players are adopting the controversial protest of Colin Kaepernick, the San Francisco 49ers quarterback who took a knee during the national anthem and now sits during its playing. “When Kaepernick kneeled, he gave us an outlet. He gave us something to do,” said Vicqari Horton, a junior at Aurora Central High School in Colorado. Over the weekend, of his team’s players took a knee with him. ____ 8. On Monday, people in the U. S. will mark Columbus Day. In Canada, it will be Thanksgiving. If you didn’t know, well, neither do a lot of U. S. citizens. The centerpiece of the Canadian holiday dinner is turkey with stuffing and gravy, much as in the U. S. In fact, a lot of the food is pretty similar. But why do they have the holiday in the first place? “You were supposed to go to church and reflect on the blessings you and the country had received,” a historian explained. ____ 9. Fashion Week in Paris is wrapping up, although our critic is less than impressed. “It has been an unambitious finale to what had been shaping up as a strikingly political season,” Vanessa Friedman wrote. But she lauded the Alexander McQueen show for its reflection on unity, inspired by the Shetland Islands in Scotland. (The country is grappling with whether to leave Britain following Britain’s vote to leave the European Union.) “Sarah Burton sent out a beautifully argued case for the allure of unity,” Ms. Friedman wrote of the designer. ____ 10. Finally, how do you say email in Yiddish? Well, for a long time, you just didn’t. But a new dictionary has published, updating the language. Blitspost is the Yiddish word for email. Butt dialing? Use “alpi tokhes” — which literally means “by way of the backside. ” The new dictionary will be formally celebrated with a panel discussion and music at the Center for Jewish History in Manhattan next month. Your Evening Briefing is posted at 6 p. m. Eastern. And don’t miss Your Morning Briefing, posted weekdays at 6 a. m. Eastern, and Your Weekend Briefing, posted at 6 a. m. Sundays. Want to look back? Here’s last night’s briefing. What did you like? What do you want to see here? Let us know at briefing@nytimes. com. | 0 |
Texas Christian Pastor Cindy Jacobs stood in front of her Trinity Church congregation in Cedar Hill, Texas, this month and described how she literally moved clouds and performed other miracles like preventing typhoon flooding. Really? You don t say? We re listening teach us, Sensei.But, all kidding aside (okay no kidding aside) if this is true, we really wouldn t mind knowing her secret. Here s how she says you can move clouds, too: Just read the Book! So I did, I just put my hands up, and Mike had the word that I should pray that the clouds dissipate.Did I get it right this time? yay! So, I lifted my hands and I said these simple words, In the name of Jesus, I command this cloud layer to dissipate. Now didn t that seem weird? You know what happened? Within a half an hour, no more clouds! Amen! Okay, so, in case cloud moving is not your thing, maybe you d rather get rid of typhoon flooding instead. If so, Pastor Jacobs has you covered there, as well: And so we said, In the name of Jesus, we command the flooding to stop, the river to stop flooding and the streets to dry up! You know what happened? In one hour, one hour, it stopped and I told them, prepare the van because we re going! It looks like anything is possible with Jesus. Maybe we can try this theory out with child hunger? Might as well give it a shot. Let s try it now: In the name of Jesus, we command child hunger be gone! Be gone with you! Did it work? I guess we ll find out here in an hour or so. Let s be patient.Let s not stop there. There are a few other miracles worth performing: In the name of Jesus, we command you, diseases, be gone! Be gone with you horrible diseases! Now!We re hoping this pastor isn t full of shit, really. Why? Because we d also like to win the lottery. One more time: We command you, lottery, give us the winning numbers! That s an order!And, God saw everything that he had made, and, behold, it was very good.Featured image via screen capture | 1 |
The U. S. Senate approved Elaine Chao’s nomination to serve as the new secretary of transportation in Donald Trump’s administration by a vote of on Tuesday. [Chao, who served in the cabinet of George W. Bush as secretary of labor in two successive administrations, will oversee important changes in transportation over coming years, such as the development of cars, as well as Donald Trump’s $1 trillion plan to comprehensively upgrade the country’s transportation infrastructure. In her hearing, Chao said that excessive regulation “dampens the basic creativity and innovation of our country,” and promised to avoid a “patchwork” of regulation in the rollout of cars. “The Department of Transportation has a key role to play in modernizing our transportation systems, strengthening our country’s competitiveness, and improving our quality of life. I look forward to working with you to rebuild, refurbish and revitalize America’s infrastructure, so our economy can continue to grow, create good paying jobs for America’s working families and enhance our quality of life,” Chao said at her first confirmation hearing last week. However, financial disclosure forms released last week showed Chao could collect up to $5 million in Wells Fargo preferred stock after assuming her new role in the Trump administration. Chao, who was born in Taiwan, is married to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. She becomes the fifth member of Donald Trump’s cabinet to be confirmed. You can follow Ben Kew on Facebook, on Twitter at @ben_kew, or email him at bkew@breitbart. com | 0 |
Satellite service DirecTV is refunding NFL Sunday Ticket subscriptions for customers offended by the weekend s national anthem protests.Normally the company does not give refunds for the specialty package after the season starts, but it apparently changed course after getting calls from hoards of customers upset over the players and coaches who knelt for the anthem during Sunday and Monday games, one former subscriber said. I want to spend my money somewhere where it s gonna be appreciated, former subscriber Paul Alvarado of Keller, Texas, told The Post. I m paying for a product that should not include that kind of anti-American sentiment. Keller contacted DirecTV Tuesday to cancel his roughly $300-per-year plan when they surprised him by telling him he would get all the money back as a statement credit. The customer service rep he talked to said he had already received five calls to cancel on Tuesday alone, Alvarado said.DirecTV did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but Alvarado said the policy change happened overnight. NYP | 0 |
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - A withdrawal by the United States from the Paris climate deal would be disappointing but the European Union stood ready to take global leadership on this issue, the European Commission said on Wednesday. U.S. President Trump is expected to make an announcement on whether he will stay in the agreement this week, with media reports on Wednesday suggesting he had made up his mind to withdraw. “If they decide to pull out it would be disappointing but I really do not think this would change the course of mankind,” said European Commission Vice President Maros Sefcovic. “There is a much stronger expectation from our partners across the world from Africa, Asia and China that Europe should assume leadership in this effort and we are ready to do that,” Sefcovic added. | 1 |
ISTANBUL (Reuters) - A Syrian fighter pilot who was detained after crashing in southern Turkey in March has returned to Syria after a Turkish court released him on Friday, Syrian TV reported. The pilot, Mehmet Sufhan, faced trial in Turkey charged with espionage and violating border security after he crashed in the border province of Hatay. He was found by a search team, treated at a local hospital and detained. Turkish media said on Friday that a criminal court in Hatay had released him, but that legal proceedings were continuing. Several hours later Syrian TV reported that Sufhan was back in Syria, saying his return was the result of vigorous attempts and intensive efforts. It was not immediately clear whether Sufhan would come back to Turkey for his trial, which was set for Oct. 25, according to Sufhan s attorney, Anil Cevahir Can. Sufhan s release will hopefully help rebuild bridges of friendship between Syria and Turkey, Can added. | 0 |
TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan is studying plans to cope with an influx of perhaps tens of thousands of North Korean evacuees if a military or other crisis breaks out on the peninsula, including ways to weed out spies and terrorists, a domestic newspaper said. The Japan Coast Guard would escort boats fleeing North Korea to designated ports, where police would screen them by checking their identity and possible criminal records and expel those deemed a threat, the Yomiuri newspaper said on Thursday. It did not say where those people would be sent, however. Evacuees granted temporary entrance would be transferred to emergency detention centers, probably in southern Japan, after completing quarantine and other procedures. Officials would then decide whether they were eligible to remain in Japan, the Yomiuri said. Regional tension over Pyongyang s missile and nuclear arms programs remain high. A senior Chinese diplomat was to visit the North from Friday as a special envoy of Chinese President Xi Jinping, just a week after U.S. President Donald Trump met Xi in Beijing and pressed for greater action to rein in Pyongyang. Junji Ito, an official of the justice ministry s immigration bureau, said the Japanese government was looking at steps to deal with a possible influx of people from North Korea but declined to comment on details. Outspoken Deputy Prime Minister Taro Aso grabbed headlines in September when he touched on the possibility of shooting armed refugees from North Korea. Will police respond and arrest them on charges of illegal immigration? media quoted him as saying in a speech. If the Self-Defense Forces (military) are dispatched, will they shoot them down? On Thursday, the Japan Coast Guard said it had rescued three North Korean men on a capsized boat a day earlier and was searching for 12 missing crew. The men said they were fishermen, not defectors, and Japan was arranging to send them home, it added. Japan has strict requirements for recognizing asylum seekers and accepted only three refugees in the first half of 2017 despite a record 8,561 fresh applications. In January, Human Rights Watch described Japan s record on asylum seekers as abysmal . The country took in more than 11,000 Indochinese boat people refugees over three decades to 2005 in the aftermath of the Vietnam War, a little-remembered open-door policy. | 0 |
But that s another story Make a sub-standard movie win sub-standard prizes.Moving on to 2017 Who has time to worry about slights against black actors or directors this year, it s TRASH TRUMP time, and regardless of FACTS (like uh the FACT that Obama and his DHS actually created the list of Muslim Majority countries who Trump used in his temporary ban) DuVernay showed up wearing a dress she claims was made in a majority Muslim country. How very progressive A small sign of solidarity. I chose to wear a gown by a designer from a majority Muslim country. Thanks to @AshiStudio of Lebanon. #Oscars pic.twitter.com/CbEkK7rCpG Ava DuVernay (@ava) February 27, 2017Here s our response to her on Twitter:If you re going to attempt to represent how women REALLY look in Muslim majority nations, we re happy to provide you with a few actual pictures. We re just two moms with teenage daughters who want to see our girls grow up in a Sharia-free zone. So while you re out at the Academy s pretending there s something glamorous about being a woman in a majority Muslim nation, you might want to consider what you re promoting. Here s a few more photos of women s fashion in majority Muslim nations just for fun: So next time you re going to wear a dress that represents Muslim women from majority Muslim nations, maybe you should remember the burka You don t want to be caught dead without one in Yemen or something like that. | 1 |
Republicans are caught between a rock and a hard place and Democrats are poised to take advantage of the chaos.The avalanche that buried the Republican Party on Friday is causing mass panic among GOP candidates up and down the 2016 ballot.Trump s vulgar remarks about groping women has resulted in many Republicans withdrawing their support of his presidential campaign. But whether they stick with him or turn their backs on him, it s a double-edged sword that is making Republicans bleed out with under a month to go before Election Day.The Republican nominee has been a toxic force ever since he threw his hat into the ring over a year ago, and while that has hurt Republicans among independent and moderate Republican voters in addition to the many groups Trump has insulted, Republicans who are just now running away from Trump have angered the conservative base that somehow still supports him.And the political consequences could cut deep if Trump has his way. Even if he loses in November, Trump could still bring many Republicans down with him, especially after this threat he posted on Twitter.So many self-righteous hypocrites. Watch their poll numbers and elections go down! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 9, 2016Just in case you re confused, that s Trump attacking the Republicans who have denounced him since Friday s bombshell, and there is no doubt that Trump s supporters are going to remember who betrayed them when it s time to vote.Trump even escalated the threat by instructing his team to launch the attack.According to the New York Times,In a set of talking points sent to his supporters Sunday morning, Mr. Trump s campaign urged them to attack turncoat Republicans as more concerned with their political future than they are about the country. As we all know, Trump s team has received a lot of television time this year, which means any Republican who has distanced themselves from Trump is about to get a whole lot of negative press.And that s really bad news for Republicans, because as the Times further reports, much of the party appeared to be in a state of paralysis, uncertain of how to achieve political distance from Mr. Trump without enraging millions of voters who remained loyal to his campaign. Specifically, Republicans now fear losing both houses of Congress, which would be a historic political victory for Democrats at a time when gerrymadering basically guaranteed that the GOP would at least hold onto power over the House of Representatives.Steven Law, a longtime lieutenant of the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky, said the party had descended into chaos. The Republican Party is caught in a theater fire; people are just running to different exits as fast as they can, said Mr. Law, who now heads the super PAC American Crossroads.One member of the House Republican leadership, conceding its majority was now in jeopardy, compared the situation to the 2006 scandal involving a Florida congressman s inappropriate conduct with congressional pages. If that scandal was a house fire, this lawmaker said, Mr. Trump had brought on the political equivalent of a nuclear attack.Democrats see this as a major opportunity to seek wins in Republican leaning states such as Indiana and Georgia, and even wins in red states like Arizona. If successful, we could be seeing a reversal of the 2010 midterm election that swept Republicans into office.Should it come to pass that Republicans lose across the board on November 8th, we could be finally seeing the last gasp of Republican reliance upon it s conservative base, which means Republicans will have to move towards the center if they want to be politically relevant again.Featured Image: Win McNamee/Getty Images | 1 |
(Reuters) - U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross is expected to announce a new probe into imported aluminum, CNBC reported on Wednesday. The probe will be similar to the one the White House launched last week regarding steel, CNBC reported, citing an administration official. (cnb.cx/2q8oDQl) Ross on Tuesday told the Wall Street Journal the Trump administration may undertake trade actions to protect the U.S. semiconductor, shipbuilding and aluminum industries, citing national security concerns. | 1 |
Why don’t they teach this to the starving people in third world countries? | 1 |
We all know the defense of children comes dead last when it comes to the Left. It s interesting how Hillary helped to get a child rapist off (before she still had her law license taken away) and now nearly a decade later, this news about Bernie s support for child molesters and his non-support for the Amber Alert by way of his NO vote What s happened to Bernie- 2006 anti-Bernie by DailyPolitics Back in 2006, when Sanders was running for the Senate, Republican Richard Tarrant pointed out some things about the socialist s voting record he probably doesn t want his liberal flock to know.For example, Sanders voted AGAINST the Amber Alert system and refused to endorse a bill that would lock away child molesters for life.Via: DownTrend | 1 |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Republican-majority U.S. Senate Finance Committee will vote on Tuesday on the nomination of Representative Tom Price to head the Department of Health and Human Services, the panel’s chairman, Senator Orrin Hatch, said on Sunday. Price, a Republican, is an orthopedic surgeon who if confirmed would be given the task of carrying out President Donald Trump’s promise to gut former President Obama’s Affordable Care Act, also called Obamacare. Price’s trading in health company stocks while a lawmaker has been questioned by Democrats, but Price says his actions were legal and ethical. Price made his name in Washington as an opponent of Obamacare. For years he has proposed legislation to repeal and replace the 2010 health care law, but his proposal has never been voted on in committee. At a hearing last week before the finance committee, Price minimized the impact he would have on changing the healthcare insurance system if he is confirmed, saying it would be his task to carry out the will of Congress, expressed in legislation. Congress is in the process of working on a repeal of Obamacare and crafting a replacement. Republicans have generally supported Price’s nomination while Democrats have sharply criticized it. At last week’s hearing, the top Democrat on the finance committee, Senator Ron Wyden, said that if Price is confirmed, he would “take America back to the dark days when healthcare was for the healthy and the wealthy.” | 0 |
21st Century Wire says Here s something quite Pavlovian to think about. What if it were a goal of government and their security services to ensure that we feel we re being watched at every turn, in every-way feasible; but reality is not exact what we think it is and we re doing most of the censoring all by ourselves.Adam Garrie from The Duran takes us on an interesting journey in the below article. It also contains an important element of what we ve talked about on shows at 21st Century Wire and Alternate Current Radio s The Boiler Room regarding this fourth wall that people find it difficult to push through, which is fear . The fear of losing their job, loved ones, social acceptability, and so forth.More on this article from The Duran Adam Garrie The DuranEven prior to the release of Vault 7 from Wikileaks, people knew that so-called intelligence agencies in western states had the means to spy on their own citizens. Many also assumed that the typical illegality of such activities was of no consequence for agencies and individuals in those agencies who regard themselves as being above the law.Now that we know the CIA and other institutions have such abilities to digitally hack just about every household device from the smart phone and Smart-TV to the good old fashioned PC, the biggest question is, when do these deep state organisations implement these measures to spy on civilians and compromise their lives?The answer can be found without needing to resort to conspiracy theories nor even speculation. The answer lies in the private sector.Organisations like the CIA, MI5, FBI etc., need only do what the private sector isn t all ready doing for them and as it is, the private sector is doing a hell of a lot.If one wonders why major financial, academic, diplomatic, trading, banking, security and even artistic institutions in the West tend to have people on their payrolls who follow the western ideological narrative , there are two reasons.The first is that people are attracted to like-minded people and by extrapolation like-minded professions.But there is a second more devious reason. Those who think outside the western box, those who question more simply cannot get a foot through the door. Technically, one needn t have any view on Vladimir Putin to be on the board of a major western construction company, law firm, private bank or hedge fund. These professions do not involve knowledge of Russian politics or society. But those who have and even casually express a view of Putin or of the Arab world or of East Asia and Latin America that differs from the neo-lib/neo-con point of view, are blacklisted.Social media has made this blacklisting easier to do than ever. If two equally qualified candidates were applying for a high level position at a financial institution and one person had a picture of himself at a Hillary Clinton fundraiser on his Facebook and the other had a Save Palestine picture or a pro-Putin meme on his social media accounts, there would be no prizes for correctly guessing who would almost certainly get the job.In the words of George Carlin, It s a big club and you ain t in it .The punitive blacklisting of those who don t follow the CNN/BBC/NYT script has a double effect.First of all, it keeps those who think outside the box away from positions of power in the private sector and in most western countries, without a prominent position in the business or mainstream entertainment community, achieving political office is next to impossible.Secondly, there is a powerful deterrent effect. Many people would like to post pro-Putin, pro-Donbass, pro-Syria or pro-Palestine items on social media, but they are afraid that it could cost them their job, their bonus or even their friends. In the west such things can break-up families. It happens every day. At this very movement, someone in a western country is contemplating suicide because of being on the losing end of a divorce settlement. Very sad, yet very true.This Kafkaesque reality is achieved without the CIA needing to hack people s phones or computers. The private sector does the job for them.For every tabloid story about a woman losing her job because she posted a photo of her genitals on-line, there are many more people who are professionally compromised for posting photos of patriotic Russian or Arab leaders.Throughout the 20th century, the private sector has always been happy to do the bidding of the deep state. Hollywood was largely compliant with the red scare tactics of the 1950s and frankly, Hollywood producers did more to censor free-speech than the drunk and soon discredited Joseph McCarthy ever could have done.Why should the CIA waste time and money to read people s emails, when their much more local boss, or chairman of human relations can take a quick look at Facebook and achieve the CIA s goal far more easily?The answer is that they don t. The beauty of a police state is that unquestioning citizens are deputies of the secret police and they work for free. Some do it willfully and others do it unconsciously, but they do it nevertheless Continue this article at The DuranREAD MORE WIKILEAKS NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire WIKILEAKS FilesSUPPORT OUR WORK BY SUBSCRIBING & BECOMING A MEMBER @21WIRE.TV | 0 |
Got News- New York Times Mexican telecom mogul Carlos Slim s blogger Michael Schmidt told professional liar Brian Williams that he hadn t seen the memos that James Comey allegedly wrote. Someone that had seen them recounted details to me, Schmidt said in what is a breach of journalistic protocol.Schmidt has been called out for getting a story wildly wrong before thanks to his anonymous sources. Schmidt, citing his anonymous federal law enforcement sources, claimed that one of the San Bernardino terrorists had talked about jihad openly. She didn t.His boss even reprimanded him and called for systematic changes to the way Schmidt and Carlos Slim s blog use anonymous sources.We guess our anonymous sources are better than the Times.Schmidt s open admissions on MSNBC confirm GotNews reporting Wednesday that Schmidt hasn t in fact seen the relevant Comey documents. | 0 |
BEIRUT (Reuters) - A senior U.S. official met Syria s national security chief in Damascus this week in the highest ranking visit to Syria by a U.S. official since the start of the war in 2011, a senior regional official close to Damascus told Reuters on Friday. The Lebanese newspaper al-Akhbar first reported the visit earlier on Friday, saying that the U.S. official discussed security matters including Americans missing in Syria. Among them are operatives of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). The regional official did not name the U.S. official who met Ali Mamlouk, Syria s national security chief. It is an important step, but Damascus does not have confidence in the American position, the regional official said. The U.S. official traveled to Damascus via Lebanon. The United States has supported the opposition to President Bashar al-Assad during the Syrian war. It has provided anti-Assad rebels with weapons via a CIA-run military aid program that President Donald Trump ordered shut down earlier this year. U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson last week reiterated the U.S. position that Assad should leave power, saying the reign of the Assad family is coming to an end and the only issue is how that should be brought about . With military backing from Russia and Iran, Assad has recovered control of swathes of lost Syrian territory over the last two years and appears militarily unassailable. U.S. forces have been fighting in Syria as part of the coalition against Islamic State, helping Kurdish-led militias capture Raqqa and other parts of northern and eastern Syria. During the meeting, Mamlouk protested to the U.S. official that U.S. forces are on Syrian land and this is considered occupation , the regional official said. The U.S. official responded that our presence is advisory and we are fighting Daesh , the regional official added, using an Arabic acronym for Islamic State. Syrian government officials could not immediately be reached for comment. | 1 |
JACKSON, Miss. (Reuters) - Nigel Farage, a key figure in the successful campaign to get Britain out of the European Union, lent his support to Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump on Wednesday, saying Trump represented the same type of anti-establishment movement that he masterminded in his own country. Farage appeared with Trump before a cheering crowd of thousands at a rally in Jackson, Mississippi. Farage partly based his Brexit drive on opposition to mass immigration to Britain that he said was leading to rapid change in his country. His appearance came as Trump sought to moderate his own hardline stance against illegal immigration. In remarks broadcast on Wednesday, Trump backed further away from his vow to deport millions of illegal immigrants, saying he would be willing to work with those who have abided by U.S. laws while living in the country. Trump summoned Farage on stage in the middle of his appearance, shook his hand and surrendered the microphone to him. Farage said he would not actually endorse Trump because he did not want to repeat what he called President Barack Obama’s meddling in British affairs when Obama urged Britons to vote to stay in the EU. “I cannot possibly tell you how you should vote in this election. But you know I get it, I get it. I’m hearing you. But I will say this, if I was an American citizen I wouldn’t vote for Hillary Clinton if you paid me,” Farage said. “In fact, I wouldn’t vote for Hillary Clinton if she paid me,” he added. Trump has sought to align himself with the Brexit movement, noting he had said before the June 23 referendum that Britons should vote to leave. He visited one of his golf courses in Scotland the day after the vote and boasted that he had predicted the outcome and called it a sign his own campaign would be successful. Trump has since tumbled in national opinion polls and is fighting to remain competitive with Democratic rival Clinton with little more than two months to go until the Nov. 8 election. “November 8 is our chance to redeclare American independence,” Trump said, borrowing a phrase Farage used during the Brexit campaign. Farage drew parallels between the Brexit movement and the support Trump has received from many Americans who feel left behind by Washington. “They feel people aren’t standing up for them and they have in many cases given up on the whole electoral process and I think you have a fantastic opportunity here with this campaign,” he said. Trump’s comments on immigration came in the second part of an interview conducted on Tuesday with Fox News anchor Sean Hannity. They signaled a further softening in his immigration position as he tries to bolster support among moderate voters and minority groups. Trump, who defeated 16 rivals for the Republican presidential nomination in part based on his opposition to illegal immigrants, said he would not permit American citizenship for the undocumented population and would expel lawbreakers. To qualify to remain in the United States, Trump said, illegal immigrants would have to pay back taxes. “No citizenship. Let me go a step further - they’ll pay back taxes, they have to pay taxes, there’s no amnesty, as such, there’s no amnesty, but we work with them,” Trump said. “But when I go through and I meet thousands and thousands of people on this subject, and I’ve had very strong people come up to me ... and they’ve said: ‘Mr. Trump, I love you, but to take a person who’s been here for 15 or 20 years and throw them and their family out, it’s so tough, Mr. Trump,’” Trump said. “It’s a very hard thing.” Trump said he would outline his position soon. “Well, I’m going to announce something over the next two weeks, but it’s going to be a very firm policy,” Trump told WPEC, a CBS affiliate in West Palm Beach, Florida. Trump’s new position seemed to resemble in some respects the failed 2007 reform push by former Republican President George W. Bush. That effort offered a way to bring millions “out of the shadows” without amnesty and would have required illegal immigrants to pay a fine and take other steps to gain legal status. | 0 |
During a segment of Last Week Tonight, John Oliver discussed the issue of voter disenfranchisement. Republicans have everything to gain by making it harder to vote.One of the hot button issues of the day is Republicans creation of laws that force people to have valid identification when they vote. The genius behind the plan is that it seems so innocent to require people to show identification in order to vote. However, it has been shown that it can be far harder to have all the valid identification that some states are now requiring than one might think. Oliver notes how hard it can be just to get an ID due to the times that ID-issuing offices are closed: And in some parts of the country, the offices that issue IDs are hardly ever open. In 2012, a study found that in Wisconsin, Alabama and Mississippi, fewer than half of all ID-issuing offices in the state are open five days a week. And in Sauk City, Wisconsin the ID office is only open on the fifth Wednesday of every month and only four months in 2016 even have five Wednesdays, Oliver says.Those Republicans wish to see vote the least are minority voters, who traditionally back Democratic candidates. That s why during the segment, John Oliver points out how much these anti-democratic schemes disproportionately hurt Black and Latino voters. Studies have shown these restrictions tend to disproportionately impact African-American and Latino voters. In Texas, for instance, experts found that African-American voters were nearly twice as likely to lack voter ID, and Latinos were nearly two and a half times as likely. It s just one of those things that white people seem to be more likely to have, like a sunburn or an Oscar nomination, says Oliver.The Republican Party is dying due to demographic and ideological changes. Instead of changing their Party s platform, they would rather sink to these pathetic voter disenfranchisement schemes.You can watch the segment below.Featured image from video screenshot | 0 |
An NYPD officer was assassinated early Wednesday by an ex-con who marched up to her NYPD vehicle and pumped a bullet into the helpless cop s head, authorities said.Officer Miosotis Familia, 48, was mortally wounded by the 12:30 a.m. gunshot on a Bronx street as she neared the end of her Fourth of July shift, cops said.Cop-killer Alexander Bonds, dressed in black from head to toe, was then shot to death in a gunfight with two cops responding to a desperate call for help from Familia s partner. Shots fired! the officer screamed moments after the gunshot. I need a f ing bus! 10-85 10-85! My partner s shot! My partner s shot! My partner s shot! Hurry up central! Police Commissioner James O Neill said there was no doubt the paroled gunman targeted the 12-year NYPD veteran for execution at E. 183rd St. and Creston Ave. NY Daily NewsSo why is the same media who blames President Trump for violence committed against Republicans not asking if cop-killer Alexander Bonds was inspired by Barack Obama, Eric Holder, Al Sharpton, Black Lives Matter and Hillary Clinton, who made her support for the cop-hating movement a focal-point of her campaign for president?Only two years ago, Black Lives Matter supporters were filmed chanting Pigs in a blanket, fry em like bacon! at the MN State Fair. President Barack Obama and his radical AG were silent."Pigs in a blanket, fry em like bacon" #BlackFair #BlackLivesMatter #FTP #ACAB pic.twitter.com/NaQNehnd5g EMP THY (@MrNikoG) August 29, 2015President Barack Obama actually lectured mourners on bigotry, slavery and oppression at the memorial service for slain police officers who were killed by a Black Lives Matter supporter. Instead of using the opportunity to condemn the growing, violent movement, he actually appeared to be condoning it. While paying tribute to the fallen officers for sacrificing their lives to protect others from a sniper, Mr. Obama also called on law enforcement agencies to root out bigotry. We have all seen this bigotry in our lives at some point, Mr. Obama told an audience of several hundred at a concert hall in Dallas. None of us is entirely innocent. No institution is entirely immune. And that includes our police departments. We know this. The officers Michael Smith, Lorne Ahrens, Michael Krol, Brent Thompson and Patrick Zamarripa were killed by a black sniper who told police he targeted white officers during a Black Lives Matter protest.The day after the memorial service for the Dallas cops who were murdered by a Black Lives Matter supporter, President Barack Obama invited BLM leaders to the White House for a private meeting:It should come as no surprise to anyone that the most recent assassination of an innocent cop was at the hands of Hillary Clinton supporter Alexander Bonds, given her outreach to the Black Lives Matter terror group during her campaign. Wikileaks even released an email showing how radical group Center For American Progress was advising her on how to fake empathy for parents of kids killed by cops. Wikileaks released an email from Center for American Progress President Neera Tanden, coaching Hillary on how to best gain the trust of the Black community by going directly to the victims being held up by Black Lives Matter movement as heroes, and faking empathy with the parents. She also mentions it would be a good idea to use the idea that their grief should be magnified because it happened at the hands of law enforcement officers (the state).Given all that has happened over the last few days with the Black Lives Matter movement, I thought it would be a good idea for Hillary to pen an op ed, discussing the pain people feel as parents at the loss of their children to these incidents of police brutality, how as a parent, she knows that pain is magnified because it happens at the hands of the state, and her commitment to solve the problem as President.Given her strong words on Charlotte, it could serve as a reminder that she gets it that racism isn t like everything else. She wouldn t have to mention Bernie s name, but I think it could really respond to the sense of continual injured dignity .I think, but others will know better, that it will move around the social media networks. > > Anyway, just thought I d share with you guys . >> Thanks! > > Neera >While Barack Obama was in office, radical activist, hate-monger and racial division expert Al Sharpton was a regular visitor. Obama s former AG Eric Holder was caught using taxpayer funds to pay protesters to march against George Zimmerman during the Trayvon Martin case in Sanford, FL. Upon the unbelievable discovery, the media was predictably silent.The culprit behind a shocking unprovoked attack on a female police officer had spouted anti-cop rhetoric in the past and urged people to vote for Hillary Clinton.Bonds, who the source said boasts up to six different aliases, recently spoke critically of law enforcement on Facebook. He said police in Oakland, Calif., were wrong to stop a child riding a bicycle.Authorities are trying to piece together a motive after NYPD officer and mother of three Miosotis Familia was brutally gunned down in cold blood by Alexander Bonds early Monday morning while she sat in a temporary headquarters vehicle at East 183rd Street and Morris Avenue in Fordham Heights.Bonds was subsequently killed by two other officers called to the scene while Familia died in hospital. This is absolutely an unprovoked attack, said NYPD Commissioner James P. O Neill. Police say surveillance footage shows Bonds pulling up his hoodie before purposefully walking up to the vehicle and shooting through the passenger side. Speculation as to why 34-year-old Bonds, who had previously served seven years in prison for a Syracuse robbery, gunned down Familia has begun to center on his political beliefs.Bonds Facebook page reveals that days before the presidential election, he posted a video of a woman alleging that voting machines were switching Hillary Clinton votes to Donald Trump.Watch video Bonds made below, where he tells his Facebook followers about his hate for cops. He calls police faggots and accuses them of raping children. He also says he s up and ready for the cops, using his time in jail as an example of how he got ready for them. He posted the words Mad as hill above the video.On the same day he urged people to get mad about the election and vote. When asked who he was voting for, Bonds responded that he couldn t vote (due to his felony conviction), but said people should vote for Hillary Clinton.Bonds also posted Malcolm X memes as well as videos of confrontations between black people and police officers. Previous ambush-style murders of police officers have been motivated by extremist anti-cop Black Lives Matter -style rhetoric, as well as mass shootings of police officers like the Dallas massacre, which was celebrated by BLM sympathizers. Infowars | 0 |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump dictated a statement, later shown to be misleading, in which his son Donald Trump Jr. said a meeting he had with a Russian lawyer in June 2016 was not related to his father’s presidential campaign, the Washington Post reported on Monday. Trump Jr. released emails earlier in July that showed he eagerly agreed last year to meet a woman he was told was a Russian government lawyer who might have damaging information about Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton as part of Moscow’s official support for his father. The New York Times was first to report the meeting. The Washington Post said Trump advisers discussed the new disclosure and agreed that Trump Jr. should issue a truthful account of the episode so that it “couldn’t be repudiated later if the full details emerged.” The president, who was flying home from Germany on July 8, changed the plan and “personally dictated a statement in which Trump Jr. said he and the Russian lawyer had ‘primarily discussed a program about the adoption of Russian children,’” the Post said, citing unnamed people with knowledge of the deliberations. It said the statement, issued to the New York Times as it prepared to publish the story, emphasized that the subject of the meeting was “not a campaign issue at the time.” An attorney for Trump, Jay Sekulow, issued a statement in response to the Post report: “Apart from being of no consequence, the characterizations are misinformed, inaccurate, and not pertinent.” The White House did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment on the Post story, nor did Trump Jr.’s attorney, Alan Futerfas. U.S. investigators are probing whether there was collusion between the Kremlin and Trump’s Republican presidential campaign. U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded that Moscow sought to hurt Clinton and help Trump in the 2016 election. Russia denies any interference, and Trump has denied collusion with Russia.The president applauded his son’s “transparency” after he released the email exchanges on July 11. “It remains unclear exactly how much the president knew at the time of the flight about Trump Jr.’s meeting,” the Washington Post said. David Sklansky, a professor of criminal law at Stanford Law School, said that if Trump, as reported by the Post, helped craft a misleading public statement about the meeting, he may have bolstered a potential obstruction of justice case against himself. To build a criminal obstruction of justice case, federal law requires prosecutors to show that a person acted with “corrupt” intent. A misleading public statement could be used as evidence of corrupt intent, Sklansky said. “Lying usually isn’t a crime,” he said. But “it could be relevant in determining whether something else the president did, like firing (former FBI Director James) Comey, was done corruptly.” | 0 |
One has to wonder how much longer Kellyanne Conway can keep lying for Donald Trump, because she is very clearly losing it.On Sunday, Kellyanne Conway clashed with CNN s Brian Stelter over a number of issues most notably the Russia nonsense as she called it during perhaps her most insane interview yet.About seven minutes in, Stelter attempted to explain to the unbelievably vapid Conway why the Russia Russia Russia story is news despite her and Donald Trump calling it a hoax. Because journalists love America and America was attacked last year and America s probably going to be attacked again next year around the midterms, and you call it a hoax, Stetler said. And that has what to do with our campaign that I managed? I managed that winning campaign, Conway demanded. It has what to do with that campaign? That may be because by the time you became campaign manager, the deal was already in, the conversations were already had. We don t know, Kellyanne, but shouldn t we find out? Stelter replied. Are you actually alleging there was active conversations with Russians trying to change the election results? Conway raved. Because very few people are saying that. Are you saying that or just trying to put it out there because you guys are so invested? What is there? What constitutional crisis are we facing right now? I ll leave that to [CNN s] Jeffrey Toobin and the law expert Stelter said, demanding to know why Trump doesn t want answers as much as the rest of Americans. Isn t Mr. Mueller and his band of democratic donors trying to do that? Conway shot back, adding that Americans would rather hear about Trump s propaganda than the unequal coverage on Russia. Watch the interview below: | 1 |
Behind the headlines - conspiracies, cover-ups, ancient mysteries and more. Real news and perspectives that you won't find in the mainstream media. Browse: Home / Top US General Pleads With Troops Not To Revolt Over 2016 Essential Reading General Ivashov: “International terrorism does not exist” By wmw_admin on February 24, 2007
Gen. Leonid Ivashov was Chief of Staff of Russian armed forces when the 9/11 attacks took place, but he says, they weren’t carried out by Osama or al-Qaeeda. The most likely culprits, says the General, were transnational mafias and international oligarchs Waco: The Untold Story. By wmw_admin on May 6, 2006
The real story behind Waco. A shocking revelation that ultimately led to the death of the man who sought to expose it, attorney Paul Wilcher. Bilderberg Meeting – Media Should Be Ashamed By wmw_admin on July 12, 2003
Why do the Bilderberg meetings receive so little coverage. Victor Thorn examines why, and how, real news is suppressed by the mainstream media BBC Report (Subsequently Deleted): Ukrainian Fighter Shot Down MH17 By wmw_admin on July 31, 2014
On the anniversary of its downing: BBC reporter interviews eyewitnesses (with English subtitles) who saw jet fighters fire on MH17. The BBC has since deleted the report They Live By wmw_admin on August 19, 2012
Considered by some as prophetic, many will find eerie echoes of present day concerns in John Carpenters 24-year-old ‘They Live’. View the cult classic here Juri Lina – In the Shadow of Hermes By wmw_admin on July 15, 2011
Fixed and a “must see” for all serious students of REAL history. This outstanding video from the author of “Under the Sign of Scorpio” challenges many modern myths. With English subtitles The Mastermind Behind 911? By wmw_admin on February 11, 2005
He recieved hardly any media attention while chief financial officer at the Pentagon, but he might just be THE KEY FIGURE behind the events of 911 The Anglo-Saxon Mission Part II By wmw_admin on March 1, 2010
Former City of London insider reveals that the depopulation program would begin with a planned war between Israel and Iran. More importantly, he goes onto to describe how we can derail their plans for global dominance America Before Columbus By Rixon Stewart on September 1, 2006
Could it be that certain powers have a vested interest in keeping our real history under wraps? Because a great deal has been unearthed which is completely at odds with conventional notions regarding the origins of what we know today as America The Essene Gospel of Peace II By wmw_admin on April 26, 2007
Translated by Purcell Weaver and Edmond Szekely from its original Aramiac, a language that today few know but 2000 years ago was the language that Christ spoke and taught with | 0 |
Some companies definitely prefer increased profit over principle and, clearly, patriotism. Yet another U.S. company, this time Carrier, decided that they would be relocating their Indianapolis, IN, plant to Monterrey, Mexico. This relocation will, in turn, put 2,100 people out of work come 2017.The company, of course, in a state-run by a supposed business friendly Republican, Gov. Mike Pence, is blaming regulations and the high cost to run business here at home. In a statement put out by HVAC Systems and Services North America president Chris Nelson: This move is intended to address the challenges we continue to face in a rapidly changing HVAC industry, with the continued migration of the HVAC industry to Mexico, including our suppliers and competitors, and ongoing cost and pricing pressures driven, in part, by new regulatory requirements, Relocating our operations to a region where we have existing infrastructure and a strong supplier base will allow us to operate more cost effectively so that we can continue to produce high-quality HVAC products that are competitively positioned while continuing to meet customer needs. Nelson, trying to have a heart, but failing miserably, also said: This decision is difficult and we recognize the impact on employees, their families and the community. We are committed to ensuring that our employees are treated respectfully and to working closely with their representatives throughout this transition. Actually having a heart, Indianapolis Mayor Joe Hogsett (D) issued his own statement regarding the devastating blow to the local economy: A job lost in any part of our community affects us all, and I believe these are the times we must come together as one city to lift up our neighbors. That is why this afternoon I will issue and Executive Order to create a task force that will convene local, state, and federal resources and direct every tool at our disposal toward supporting these workers in the days ahead. You can actually witness and listen to Carrier tell their employees that they will soon be out of work in this video below. The gasps are audible and the anger is palpable, justifiably so. You can hear the company try to explain themselves to their employees. And unfortunately, due to the rotten discourse created by the likes of people like Donald Trump, you can hear one employee blame Mexicans. To add insult to injury, Carrier simply states: This is simply a business decision. Watch here:// < ![CDATA[ // < ![CDATA[ // < ![CDATA[ // < ![CDATA[ <span class="mceItemHidden" data-mce-bogus="1"><span></span><span></span>(function(d, s, id) { var js, <span class="mceItemHidden" data-mce-bogus="1"><span class="hiddenSpellError" pre="" data-mce-bogus="1">fjs</span></span> = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; if (d.getElementById(id)) return; js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = "//connect.facebook.net/en_US/sdk.js#xfbml=1&version=v2.3"; <span class="hiddenSpellError" pre="" data-mce-bogus="1">fjs</span>.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);}(document, 'script', '<span class="hiddenSpellError" pre="" data-mce-bogus="1">facebook-jssdk</span>')); // ]]>Carrier indianapolis plant is closing 2017Posted by LaKeisha Austin on Wednesday, February 10, 2016Video/Featured image from Facebook | 0 |
By Dr. Mercola
As noted at the very beginning of this 26-minute health documentary by juicing expert Jason Vale: “More people die from chronic diseases than all other causes put together.”
This is a remarkable state of affairs when you consider that the human body is actually designed to maintain healthy homeostasis, given half a chance.
What’s worse, chronic diseases strike the very young as well as the very old. Children are now developing diseases previously relegated to seniors, such as type 2 diabetes , fatty liver, heart disease and even cancer.
Toxicity appears to be a major factor driving this burgeoning wave of chronic disease. Toxins are in our food, in our water and air, in the medications we take, in the products we use each day to clean ourselves and our homes; they’re in beauty products and our furnishings and building materials.
“All chronic diseases are caused by two, and only two, major problems,” Charlotte Gerson, founder of the Gerson Institute, says . “Toxicity and deficiency.”
TOXICITY AND DEFICIENCY ARE CORE PROBLEMS According to the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), PREVENTABLE chronic diseases are now the world’s biggest killers. And the combination of eating nutrient-deficient foods and being over-exposed to toxins is at the core of our current health crisis.
The answer to this dilemma is certainly not to take medication to mask the symptoms of toxicity and deficiency. The solution is to remove toxins, clean up your system and increase the nutrient density of your healthy food.
Plants — fruits, berries and vegetables — are “live” foods. Provided they’ve not been severely processed, or are eaten in excess and out of season. Ideally, the best time to eat fruit is in the summer when you have plenty of exposure to sunshine and can tolerate higher net carbs.
They contain many phytochemicals your body can use to heal and nourish your cells. The appeal of juicing is that you can consume more nutrient-dense vegetables than when you eat them whole or Vita Mix them in a blender.
This allows you to consume far greater amounts of vegetable nutrients than you would normally be able to eat whole or blended with the fiber.
JUICING IS A GREAT WAY TO BOOST NUTRIENT INTAKE Some will argue that consuming more veggies than you could normally chew through is unnecessary, but when you consider how nutrient levels in most foods have dramatically decreased since the introduction of mechanized farming in 1925, juicing really makes sense.
Healthy soils contain a huge diversity of microorganisms, and it is these organisms that are responsible for the plant’s nutrient uptake, health and the stability of the entire ecosystem.
The wide-scale adoption of industrial farming practices has decimated soil microbes responsible for transferring these minerals to the plants, and synthetic chemicals sprayed on the crops have further destroyed overall soil quality.
For example, as explained by research scientist August Dunning , chief science officer and co-owner of Eco Organics, in order to receive the same amount of iron you used to get from one apple in 1950, today you’d have to eat 36 apples!
How could you possibly get 36 apples into you? Even with juicing that would be a remarkable feat, and would likely overload you with natural sugars as well, so I wouldn’t recommend it.
My point is that even when juicing, you may not get the same amount of nutrients our ancestors used to get from even a fraction of the foods they ate, so you’re unlikely to get superfluous amounts of nutrients by regularly drinking fresh vegetable juices.
When you drink fresh, live juice, it’s almost like receiving an intravenous infusion of vitamins, minerals and enzymes because they go straight into your body without needing to be broken down. Since juicing is essentially “mainlining” live nutrients, it’s no surprise it can produce rapid and profound health benefits.
FOOD ADDICTION IS A PROFIT CENTER There’s a conscious effort on behalf of food manufacturers to get you addicted to foods that are convenient and inexpensive to make. This system is detailed in investigative reporter Michael Moss’ book, “ Salt, Sugar, Fat ” — the top three substances that make processed foods so addictive.
One of the guiding principles for the processed food industry is known as “sensory-specific satiety.” Moss describes this as “the tendency for big, distinct flavors to overwhelm your brain, which responds by depressing your desire to have more.”
The greatest successes, whether beverages or foods, owe their “craveability” to complex formulas that pique your taste buds just enough, without overwhelming them, thereby overriding your brain’s inclination to say “enough.”
“Vanishing calorie density” is another term used to describe foods that melt in your mouth, which has the effect of making your brain think it doesn’t contain any calories. As a result, you keep eating.
In short, as noted in the film, the big food companies are “manipulating our food so that we keep eating more, and more, and more.” And, as stated by Cherie Calbom, also known as “The Juice Lady:” “It’s corn and soy, and wheat and sugar and salt and chemicals — that’s primarily what people are eating.”
So is it really any wonder that so many are so sick and overweight? Many health authorities make it seem as the obesity epidemic is a great mystery, and largely blame it on laziness. “If only people exercised more, they’d be fine,” the reasoning goes.
But this simply isn’t true, and by sweeping the proverbial elephant under the rug and ignoring the fact that our food supply is the problem, these authorities have done us all a shameful disservice.
Remember, it really isn’t about calories, it is about insulin resistance. And processed foods, sugars and high net carb foods will make it virtually impossible to normalize your metabolism and get lean.
MODERN MEDICINE IS ANOTHER PROFIT CENTER Many times, even severe health problems have simple fixes. For example, in the film, Vale, who’s also the author of “The Juice Detox Diet,” explains that what prompted him to try juicing in the first place was a severe case of psoriasis — an autoimmune disease that causes cells to build up on the surface of your skin, leading to thick, unsightly scaly patches that are very itchy and often painful.
He also had eczema and severe hay fever and asthma. For years he used steroid tablets and various inhalers to manage his symptoms, but he wasn’t getting any better. “Not once did anyone look at what might be causing the problems; they only wanted to treat the symptoms,” he said.
The turning point came when one of his doctors suggested a coal-tar treatment for his psoriasis. He’d be slathered in coal-tar, the same gooey tar placed on roadways, and covered in bandages for six weeks. The idea of resorting to such a bizarre and clearly toxic intervention was the final straw. “There’s GOT to be another way,” he thought.
Indeed, toxicity and a narrow focus on managing symptoms — not actually addressing the root problem, which might result in a full remission or cure — are hallmarks of modern medicine. This mode of operation has turned healthcare into a massive for-profit business that has become increasingly reluctant to embrace strategies that might actually remove an individual from the paying patient pool.
This is tragic, since research exists showing that raising your vitamin D level, for example, can help heal psoriasis, especially if you’re vitamin D deficient. Vitamin D supplements are very inexpensive, and if you optimize your level by getting regular and sensible sun exposure, which is the preferred and ideal way, it’s free (provided you live in a sunny area and don’t use a therapeutic sunbed).
In Vale’s case, juicing was the answer, and he no longer suffers from any of his previous problems. His asthma completely vanished within a month, and his skin gradually cleared up until there was not a trace of psoriasis or eczema left. His weight also dropped “at a rate I didn’t think was humanly possible,” he says. As noted by Dr. Dwight Lundell, author of “The Cure for Heart Disease,” who is featured in the film:
“Not one single person will be cured of heart disease, pulmonary disease, stroke, arthritis, obesity and, of course, diabetes, with our current medical approach.”
INFLAMMATION IS THE DRIVING MECHANISM BEHIND MOST CHRONIC DISEASE Toxicity, nutrient deficiencies , processed foods, sugar and excess net carbs promote inflammation, and chronic inflammation is a hallmark of virtually every chronic disease there is. When your inflammation levels are low, it’s very difficult for disease to take root. When healthy, your body is simply too well-equipped to address foreign invaders and can easily clean out minor toxic exposures.
As noted by Lundell, when we investigate what we’re doing differently today, when inflammation levels are high, compared to decades past when chronic disease rates were much lower, the main difference we find is the foods we eat.
We’ve gotten away from eating fresh, whole foods, most of which come from the plant kingdom, and most of what we eat are processed foods laced with a myriad of chemicals that were never in our food supply before. “In my opinion, this dietary change is the cause of most chronic diseases,” he says.
It may appear as though all these different chronic diseases are very different, and therefore would have different causes. But these variations are deceiving. In the vast majority of cases, the root problem can be narrowed down to inflammation and mitochondrial dysfunction, caused by toxicity and insufficient amounts of “building blocks” (nutrients) to maintain optimal biological function. The differences in manifestation primarily relate to individual weaknesses.
“It just stands to reason and common sense that if the vast majority of those diseases are caused by diet and lifestyle, then the simple answer, surely, is to change the diet and lifestyle, and they’ll just get better,” Vale says.
Calbom adds: “We should be juicing, because so many people have impaired digestive tracts, and digestion is impaired because of the diet we’ve been on. Along come your beautiful juices; they go right into your intestinal tract, and those nutrients get absorbed into your system.
They’re going right to work within about 20 or 30 minutes. They’re there feeding your body, rejuvenating, giving you energy; giving your body life! This is why you should juice … Juice every day; this has got to be a way of life, because that’s when you’re going to notice your life changing.”
EAT ‘LOW HUMAN INTERVENTION FOODS’ Vale wisely suggests that if a food has a label, it probably shouldn’t be in your diet. What you’re really looking for is real food, or what he calls “low human intervention foods,” meaning foods that has passed through as few human hands and processes as possible. Ideally, you would be growing your own food and eating out of your garden.
In the summer, the majority of my main meal comes from my garden: sunflower spouts, red bell peppers, oregano, rosemary, turmeric and spinach. If you are unable to grow your own, your next best bet would be to get locally grown organic produce that has not been waxed, cut up or processed in any way.
“When you look at the fact that the food you eat really creates the life that you live, everything starts to change,” Philip McCluskey, author of “Weight Loss Blueprint,” says.
‘SUPER-JUICING’ FOR 28 DAYS CURED DIABETES AND CHRONIC PAIN
In a previous documentary, Vale recruited eight people who collectively suffered from 22 different chronic diseases and put them on a juice-only diet for 28 days (plus exercise) in order to explore juicing’s potential benefits for reversing chronic disease. He filmed their experience, which resulted in the documentary “Super Juice Me,” which I’ve included above for your convenience.
The health improvements seen by those eight individuals are nothing short of astounding. Every participant felt energized and lost weight, and most reported a drastic reduction in their symptoms and the number of medications they needed to use. One man completely resolved his diabetes in those 28 days. A woman went from years of chronic pain to being completely pain-free, and others suffering from asthma, colitis and sleep apnea enjoyed a profound reduction in symptoms.
It was not an easy journey, as several experienced detoxification reactions, food cravings and, for some, a temporary increase in symptoms as their bodies began to purge toxins they’d accumulated, but those reactions were relatively short-lived, and they felt immensely better on the other side — better than they’d felt in years.
THE MANY HEALTH BENEFITS OF JUICING There are many reasons to consider incorporating vegetable juicing into your health plan. Whether you use it as an occasional cleanse, or as the start of every morning, juicing:
Helps you absorb all the nutrients from your vegetables. This is important because most people have impaired digestion as a result of making less-than-optimal food choices over many years, which limits your body’s ability to absorb all of the nutrients in whole, raw vegetables. Juicing helps “pre-digest” them, so you won’t lose any of this valuable nutrition. Makes it easier to consume a large quantity of vegetables. Virtually every health authority recommends that you get six to eight servings of vegetables and fruits per day, but very few actually get that. Juicing virtually guarantees you’ll reach your daily target. Makes it easier to get a wider variety of vegetables into your diet. Juicing greatly expands the number of different phytochemicals you receive, as each vegetable offers unique benefits. Juicing also allows you to consume vegetables that you may not normally enjoy eating whole. Boosts your immune system. Raw juice supercharges your immune system with concentrated phytochemicals and biophotonic light energy, which can revitalize your body. The nutrients in fresh juice also feed your body’s good bacteria and help suppress potentially pathogenic ones. Increases your energy. When your blood is flooded with nutrients and your body’s pH is optimized, you’ll feel energized. Since juice is absorbed and utilized by your body very rapidly, juicers report feeling an almost instantaneous “kick” of energy. Supports your brain. In the Kame Project, 1 people who consumed juice more than three times per week were 76 percent less likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease than those who consumed juice less than once a week. Provides structured water. Vegetable juice is one of the purest sources of water and actually qualifies as water. Vegetable water is structured water (living water), which is different from regular water — H3O2 rather than H2O. Water from vegetables is the best quality water you can drink!On a side note, sun exposure is also important for structuring the water in your cells. Part of the energy your body requires can actually be obtained from sunlight, but you must expose your skin directly to it. The ultraviolet (UV) radiation increases nitric oxide (NO) release, which can direct more than half your blood flow to your skin. Once your blood is exposed to the sun, it can absorb UV and infrared radiation, which help to structure the water in your cells and energize your mitochondria.
Download Interview Transcript Keep in mind your juices should consist mostly of green vegetables. You’ll want to minimize fruits in order to keep the fructose and net carb content low. The bulk of your juice should come from organic green veggies. Spinach, celery, kale and Swiss chard are common juicing staples.
If you’re new to juicing, you can start with more mild-tasting veggies, like celery and cucumbers. From there you can work your way up to red leaf lettuce, romaine, spinach and escarole, along with parsley and cilantro. Kale, collard, dandelion, mustard and other greens can be bitter, so you’ll want to start slowly and add just a few leaves at a time.
Some of the most nutrient-dense veggies are the strongest tasting, but don’t avoid them. Just use a lesser quantity in your juice until your taste buds acclimate. Selecting organic, non-GMO produce is very important when juicing, but the price can be a challenge for some. One alternative is to grow your own, making sure to avoid toxic garden chemicals (synthetic herbicides, pesticides and fertilizers).
If you’re using non-organic vegetables, your best bet is to peel them, to avoid juicing pesticide residues. This is particularly important for fruits and vegetables that have been waxed, as this seals in the chemicals. It can be difficult to discern if a vegetable has been waxed or not, because the wax can be applied in a very thin, transparent layer.
Beware that even organic produce sold in grocery chain stores will typically be waxed. For unwaxed fruit and vegetables, you typically have to get them from a local source.
TIPS THAT CAN MAKE YOUR VEGGIE JUICE MORE PALATABLE If you’re not used to eating a lot of vegetables, the taste may take a little while to get used to. A great trick to make your juice more palatable, especially in the beginning, is to add one or more of these elements:
Limes and lemons: You can add one half to a whole lime or lemon for every quart of juice. Limes are my favorite for cutting bitter flavors. Cranberries: You can also add some cranberries if you enjoy them. Limit the cranberries to about 4 ounces per pint of juice. Fresh ginger : This is an excellent addition if you enjoy the taste. It gives your juice a spicy “kick.” Limited amounts of apple and carrot (just be mindful of your overall sugar content). HOW TO MANAGE CRAVINGS AND DETOX SYMPTOMS Changing your diet or any other aspect of your lifestyle is sometimes stressful, and stress can sabotage your success. As some of the people in Vale’s super-juicing experiment discovered, you might feel a little worse before you feel better, as detox symptoms and food cravings can arise. Addressing your emotional and mental health is a very important aspect of total body health, so please do not ignore stress.
The Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) can be helpful when anxieties strike, including emotional struggles surrounding dietary changes. In fact, it’s one of the most powerful tools for reducing stress and anxiety that I know of. In 2012, a triple blind study 2 found that EFT reduced cortisol levels and symptoms of psychological distress by 24 percent, more than any other intervention tested!
If you worry that you won’t be able to get the juice down or you won’t take the time to do it, or your food cravings will be unbearable, EFT may be able to help. The first couple weeks of a new eating routine are typically the most challenging, while your body is making the necessary biochemical adjustments. Tapping can be extraordinarily beneficial for reducing anxiety, cravings and detox symptoms during this time.
EFT is easy to learn and once you do, it’s always at your fingertips, whenever and wherever you need it. You can even adapt this intermittent fasting EFT video by Julie Schiffman for juice fasting. Just as juicing helps reduce your body’s toxic burden, you can think of EFT as detoxification for your mind. By combining the two, your healing will have the greatest chance of success.
Source: Mercola
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John Pilger did an interview with Assange and is planning to use this material for his next documentary about Wikileaks founder! We are going to report with every major info from this interview in the next few days! Assange once again made an astonishing statement, and he confirmed his statement from a couple of days ago that Wikileaks will release election day bombshell, but also added that they are doing this for a reason!
Assange offers several predictions and analyses, most quite revealing. He also hinted that he would expose the whole truth about Hillary on election day! Assange notes the most significant email in an entire load of emails may well be the one in which Hillary (2014) contacts John Podesta. This email states that “the governments of Qatar and Saudi Arabia which are providing clandestine financial and logistic support to ISIL and other radical Sunni groups in the region.” Assange notes that the backing is from “the governments of Saudi Arabia and Qatar.”
However, he also gave his view about the election day bombshell with surprising statement:
We Are Purposely Holding The Emails Back Until Election Day So They Cannot Have Time To Replace Hillary.”
Pilger observes,”… ISIL or ISIS is created largely with money from the very people who are giving money to the Clinton Foundation, will the election day bombshell contain similar material .” Assange did not confirm this but just answered that would be very valuable information that could change everything.
The slant of this interview is evident, but that does not make it incorrect. The challenge is to determine, logically and with the information at hand: is there sense and feasibility to Assange’s conclusions?(video below part 1 of the interview)
Assange: The Global Elites Will Not Allow Donald Trump To you can read the full article on the following link http://www.usasupreme.com/assange-trump-will-not-global-elites-winvideo/
Posted by USA Supreme on Friday, November 4, 2016 Facebook Comments | 1 |
It s still more than three weeks before the incoming Trump administration is set to take office, but one member of his staff has already been forced to resign over an alleged sex scandal.Just two days after being chosen as Trump s Communication Director, Jason Miller changed his mind about the job after it was revealed that he might be a philanderer. His excuse, of course, is that he wants to spend more time with his family.The scandal broke, perhaps ironically and perhaps not at all, because another Trump staffer tweeted hints at an affair. The New York Daily News got screenshots of Trump senior advisor, A.J. Delgado s Twitter account, before the Twitter account was deleted.The first tweet congratulated Miller and then, but then it got weird. Congratulations to the baby-daddy on being named WH Comms Director! she wrote in one now-deleted tweet. The 2016 version of John Edwards, she wrote in another, referring to the disgraced ex-Democratic senator who fathered a child with his mistress. It s clear they need to be my top priority right now, and this is not the time to start a new job as demanding as White House communications director, said Miller, whose wife is expecting their second child.Source: NY Daily NewsHere s the video:To be fair, a good old fashioned sex scandal seems absolutely wholesome compared to some of Trump s behavior. Not only is Trump an admitted adulterer and an accused sex offender, he s blatantly thumbing his nose at the Constitution with his conflicts of interest and with campaign improprieties.This clearly also points to the fact that Trump is not doing his due diligence when it comes to picking his staff. The President Elect hasn t been vetted, which is frightening on its own, but Congress can t do much about that fact. They can, however, put up a real fuss, if they so desire, about skeletons in the closets of Trump s nominees. The fact that this came down over the Christmas holiday, when few people are paying attention, shows how embarrassing this is to the incoming administration.Featured image via Drew Angerer/Getty Images. | 0 |
NEW YORK (Reuters) - The White House is hiring Ty Cobb, a veteran Washington lawyer with experience as a prosecutor and defense attorney to assist with Russia-related investigations, a source familiar with the matter said on Friday. Cobb has been a long-time partner at the law firm Hogan Lovells in Washington and represented people in government during the 1990s Clinton administration. Cobb did not respond to a request for comment, and a spokesman for the law firm declined to comment. “We have no announcement at this time,” a White House spokeswoman said. A federal special counsel and several congressional panels are investigating allegations by U.S. intelligence agencies that Russia meddled in the 2016 U.S. presidential election and potential connections between Russian officials and the campaign of then-candidate Donald Trump. Moscow has denied any interference and the President has denied any collusion. The intelligence agencies said earlier this year that Russia sought to help Trump win the election by hacking private emails from Democratic Party officials and spreading false information. Cobb is expected to be an intermediary between the White House and Congress, as well as outside attorneys. Trump met with Cobb about the role last month, Reuters exclusively reported on July 3. Bloomberg News wrote about his hiring earlier on Friday. Cobb’s role is separate from Trump’s outside legal team, led by New York lawyer Marc Kasowitz. Constitutional lawyer and evangelical radio talk show host Jay Sekulow, Washington lawyer John Dowd, and Michael Bowe, a partner at Kasowitz’s firm, are all on that team. Cobb, who sports a handlebar mustache, is a distant relative of the famous early 20th century baseball player of the same name. Washington lawyer Robert Bennett, also of Hogan Lovells, who represented President Bill Clinton in the sexual harassment case filed by Paula Jones, said Cobb knew how to handle a crisis where politics and the law intersected. “Given recent developments, they really need him and need to listen to him,” said Bennett. In the 1990s, Cobb, 66, represented former Democratic National Committee fundraiser John Huang and former White House aide David Watkins, who was probed over the Clinton White House travel office. In 2006, Cobb also represented former CIA official Mary McCarthy, who was fired after she was accused of providing classified information to reporters. No charges were brought against McCarthy. Cobb graduated from Harvard University and earned his law degree at Georgetown. In the 1980s, he was a federal prosecutor in Baltimore, where he led a regional drug and organized crime task force. | 0 |
BERLIN (Reuters) - German drag queens are using satire to spoof a hard-right party s anti-Islam election campaign, and German voters are loving it. They have formed Transvestites for Germany, or TfD, a name that bears an uncanny resemblance to Alternative for Germany (AfD), the name of Germany s leading right-wing party, and launched a Facebook campaign that has almost 7,000 followers. The AfD s election campaign focuses on messages that Islamic customs don t belong in Germany. That has left a bad taste with many Germans, and TfD saw an opportunity to use drag fashion and wit to mock the AfD s own election placards. The AfD posters feature white German women in bikinis or raising wine glasses, with captions like Burka? I m into bikinis and Burka? I m into Burgundy . The posters are emblazoned with the party s election motto: I dare you, Germany! The TfD version of the posters uses the AfD s light blue party color but replaces the anti-immigrant party s red arrow with red stiletto shoes. Guzzle your crap Burgundy alone! I prefer prosecco, reads one poster with a picture of Gisela Sommer, one of several bearded men dressed like women and raising a middle finger on TfD placards, which include the hashtags #NoAfD and #NoNaziPack. JACKY-OH WEINHAUS The TfD campaign has drawn the attention of several German newspapers and has brought some flare to an otherwise largely dull election. Chancellor Angela Merkel is expected to win and secure a fourth term in office without much trouble. I don t think that all AfD members are Nazis, but there is an appalling racial tone in this party which is for sure shared by many of its members, said TfD leader Jacky-Oh Weinhaus. Buffalo Meus, the media manager of the fictional party, said he gets about 50 Facebook messages a day from people asking how they can become TfD members. We just wanted an art project, Meus said. But some people have taken us for a real party. They ask us, how can I register? How can I vote for you? Not all the messages are pleasant. Other readers have wished the group members death by stoning or by hanging. The group s main goal is get the 17 million Germans who stayed home in the 2013 election to the polls. They hope their votes will cut into support for the AfD, which is forecast to enter parliament for the first time with 8 to 10 percent of the vote. Instead of supporting the AfD, the only party that criticizes Islam, you go against it, an angry Facebook user called Hans Horn wrote to TfD this week. If Islamisation continues and Muslim invaders from Africa continue to flood in you will be the first to be thrown from high roofs. The TfD responded two days later: We love you and wish you a sunny Wednesday! | 1 |
HARARE (Reuters) - President Robert Mugabe s own ruling ZANU-PF party wants him to step down and plans to hold a rally in Zimbabwe s capital Harare on Saturday to make the point. Mugabe, at Zimbabwe s helm since independence from Britain in 1980, faces the starkest challenge ever to his rule after the army seized power on Wednesday, saying it was targeting criminals around the nonagenarian leader. ZANU-PF called on Friday for Mugabe to resign, the main state newspaper The Herald reported, a clear sign that the aging leader s authority has collapsed after the army takeover. The newspaper said that ZANU-PF branches in all 10 provinces had met and had also called for Mugabe s wife Grace, whose ambitions to succeed her husband triggered the political crisis, to resign from the party. A senior member of ZANU-PF earlier told Reuters the party wanted their long-time president gone. If he becomes stubborn, we will arrange for him to be fired on Sunday, the source said. When that is done, it s impeachment on Tuesday. The Herald reported that ZANU-PF would convene a special Central Committee meeting on Sunday to realign the revolutionary party with current political developments . Pointedly, the military said it fully supports a solidarity march - apparently separate from the ZANU-PF event - in Harare on Saturday, part of an apparent groundswell of anti-Mugabe sentiment unleashed by the dramatic events of the past few days. The army said it had been approached by several private volunteer organizations seeking to freely move and express their desires and they could do so if they were orderly and peaceful. Harare has been calm as the coup has unfolded but the armed forces also said in a statement that people have been warned against looting . The army appears to want Mugabe to go quietly and allow a transition to Emmerson Mnangagwa, whose sacking last week as vice president sparked the army action. A goal of the generals is to prevent Mugabe handing power to his wife, Grace, 41 years his junior, who appeared on the cusp of power after Mnangagwa was pushed out. Mugabe, 93, who calls himself the grand old man of African politics, looks to be running out of options. The army is camped on his doorstep. Grace Mugabe is under house arrest and her key political allies are in military custody. All the main pillars of Mugabe s rule have turned on him or have offered no support. The police have shown no resistance, while Chris Mutsvangwa, the leader of Zimbabwe s influential war veterans, said on Friday that Mugabe would not be allowed to resist the military and remain in power. And ZANU-PF, which built a cult of personality around its leader, has now deserted him. Mugabe is revered by some as an elder statesman and independence leader but also reviled by many in Africa and abroad who accuse him of resorting to violence to retain power while running a once promising economy into the ground. The economy collapsed after the seizure of white-owned farms in 2000. Unemployment is now running at nearly 90 percent and chronic shortages of hard currency have triggered inflation, with the prices of imports rising as much as 50 percent a month. | 0 |
NEW YORK (Reuters) - The cost to healthcare companies for U.S. regulatory review of their products, including drugs and medical devices, would more than double under the Trump administration’s proposed 2018 budget. For 2018, the Trump administration has budgeted over $2 billion in fees to be collected by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration from industry, twice as much as in 2017, according to budget documents released on Thursday. Citing a constrained budget environment, the proposed budget said industries that benefit from the FDA’s approval “can and should pay for their share.” In return, the budget said it also offered measures that would help speed up the approval process for new drugs and other products. The FDA has been criticized by lawmakers for not being quick enough at approving drugs, and President Donald Trump told Congress earlier this year that he aimed to speed up the approval of drugs. The FDA has been charging companies to review their products since 1992. Most of the user fees collected are for prescription drugs - around $866 million estimated in 2017 - and generic drugs - around $324 million, according to the FDA website. The FDA’s 2017 budget was $5.1 billion, the website said. The budget does not say if the fee increases would be evenly spread or directed in a particular area. The budget did not provide specifics on what measures to speed up approvals might include. | 1 |
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It is called the SS-18, the “Satan” for short. As Obama has gutted military preparedness, Putin has busily been doing the opposite. The Russian military is capable of wiping our large swaths of this country in less than an afternoon.
The title of this piece is 115 million Americans killed in 30 minutes. Thirty minutes is the approximate time that an SS-18, launched from inside Russia, would reach the Eastern Seaboard, where 5 of these missiles would destroy the entire east coast in which 115 million Americans would perish with scarcely a trace. The casualty figures come from Paul Craig Roberts.
When will the bulk of Americans realize that they have been sold out under a treasonous chief executive? You will scarcely believe your eyes and ears in the following report as you are about to learn that we are Russia’s mercy.
The stunning details are in the following video. DOES ANYONE THINK THAT HILLARY’S “NO-FLY ZONE” IN SYRIA, IS STILL A GOOD IDEA? | 1 |
Mitt Romney got a lot of praise and a lot of headlines this past year when he came out and attacked Donald Trump s presidential campaign, and made himself the de facto head of the Never Trump movement. But now he has completely humiliated himself by sucking up to Trump after the election, first appearing to him to beg him for the Secretary of State job, then going out to dinner with Trump and RNC chairman Reince Priebus in New York.After dining with the man who made fun of him at every turn for months on end, Romney appeared without his dignity after the meal to heap more praise on Trump:WATCH: @MittRomney addresses reporters following dinner with President-elect @realDonaldTrump. #Breaking #KellyFile pic.twitter.com/eWakmDTnuU Fox News (@FoxNews) November 30, 2016Romney s decision to humiliate himself and his family name (his father Gov. George Romney marched with Martin Luther King) is a disgusting moment in American politics, and shows once again that the moral outrage demonstrated by Never Trump was as phony as a three dollar bill.And perhaps it shouldn t be surprising. When Trump was best known in politics for pushing the racist birther conspiracy, it was Mitt Romney who first elevated his stature in mainstream Republican politics. Against advice from his team and against good taste, Romney held an event in 2012 where Trump endorsed him and the two men stood on stage together, slapping each other s backs.Later in the campaign, when Trump was pushing conspiracy theories about Obama s college record, Romney also enlisted Trump to cut advertising for him in the form of robocalls to help get out the vote.So Romney going to Trump, on bended knee in front of cameras from the international and national press, is just another chapter in the story of once-powerful men humiliating themselves in front of a clown, abandoning whatever little shred of principles they had left, just to get a sip of the power. Gross.Featured image via Twitter | 1 |
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In the final 11 days leading up to the monumental 2016 presidential election, reports have filtered in that thousands of immigrants are headed for the U.S.-Mexico border to illegally enter the United States. Their motivation is crystal clear, according to CBS News York , which explains the sudden influx:
“The smugglers are telling [the masses of illegal] if Hillary [Clinton] gets elected, that there’ll be some sort of amnesty, that they need to get here by a certain date,” [Border Patrol Agent Chris] Cabrera said. “They’re also being told that if [Donald] Trump gets elected, there’s going to be some magical wall that pops up overnight and once that wall gets up, nobody will ever get in again.”
Cabrera added that they’ve encountered up to 1,000 immigrants along [the Texas city of] McAllen’s stretch of the border some days.
It’s not just Donald Trump’s imagination that Democrats are manipulating the immigration process to register as many Hillary Clinton voters as possible. Bloomberg notes independently that a number of American cities are opening allowing illegals to vote. In some cases, an ad hoc workaround is being impemented to give the process an air of respectability. | 1 |
We wholeheartedly approve Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich is now the leading candidate to be tapped by Donald Trump as his running mate, a close confidante of Trump tells Newsmax.On Tuesday, Trump told the AP that he has whittled down his choices to 5 or 6 names. I have a list of people that I would like, Trump revealed in his interview Tuesday.But the name that keeps cropping up as his favorite is Gingrich, a Trump confidante tells Newsmax.Trump has tapped former presidential contender Ben Carson to help pick his running mate. Carson said Tuesday that he is stepping down from that post to focus on the Thursday meeting between Trump and House Speaker Paul Ryan. Trump also announced this week that New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie will head his transition team.Trump is said to favor Gingrich for several reasons.First, Trump recognizes he is a Washington neophyte and sees in Gingrich someone who can school him in the legislative process and make nice with Capitol Hill.Trump admitted to the AP he wants a running mate who can help him with legislation, getting things through. As Speaker, Gingrich successfully got Bill Clinton to sign legislation abolishing welfare, while agreeing to budget constraints that led to the first balanced budgets in a generation.Trump has other reasons he is leaning toward Gingrich. He is said to personally like him. Rubio, Newsmax reported, has already been eliminated though he lobbied through surrogates for the job. Rubio has denied doing so.Trump also finds Ohio Gov. John Kasich kind of quirky and not someone he resonates with, the confidante said.Trump is apparently discarding the traditional approach of picking a running mate to provide geographic or ideological balance to his ticket. Instead he wants someone he can live with for eight years, the Trump source said.This concept of a simpatico ticket, while rare, occurred when then-Gov. Bill Clinton of Arkansas turned to then-Sen. Al Gore of nearby Tennessee to run with him in his successful 1992 bid for president.The Fox News commentator was an early defender of Trump in the GOP primary.Here is Newt Gingrich endorsing Donald J. Trump only yesterday: Donald values loyalty, the source said, and Gingrich has been loyal.Trump told the AP that he also is looking for a candidate who has held office and been under the public microscope. For the most part, they ve been vetted over the last 20 years, he explained to the AP.Gingrich has had such vetting, and survived a bitter, though unsuccessful run for president in 2012 against Mitt Romney.Gingrich is also considered one of the best communicators in the party, and Trump is placing great emphasis on who can go toe-to-toe against Hillary Clinton s running mate in upcoming debates.Via: NewsMax | 0 |
This is why religion should stay out of government.The people of Houston, Texas are drowning as flooding continues in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey.Death and destruction are everywhere, and people are desperate for any help that can be provided. People need food, shelter, clothing, and medical supplies.At this point, the people of Houston don t really care where the aid comes from as long as it comes.But Texas Republican Secretary of State rejected an offer from Canada this week that would have provided blankets, beds, and physical manpower to the region affected by the storm.Quebec s Minister of International Relations Christine St-Pierre contacted Rolando Pablos to offer aid and condolences. It was a conversation about how devastating the situation is and we want to express our support to the people of Texas, St-Pierre said.Had Pablos accepted Canada s help, many people in Texas could have had blankets, pillows, and perhaps even something more crucial. The manpower Canada offered would have come in the form of professional electricians who would have helped restore much needed power to residents and buildings such as hospitals and shelters. Our crews are well-equipped and they have good knowledge of the grid so they can help to restore and rebuild the distribution lines, Hydro-Qu bec spokesperson Louis-Olivier Batty told CBC. Indeed, 250 Hydro-Quebec electricians did great work restoring power in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005.Canada offered real help to storm victims. But Republicans slapped away their hand of friendship. Instead of accepting the generous offer of supplies and volunteers, Texas Republicans rejected the offer and asked for prayers from the people of Quebec. That s right. Texas Republicans think prayers can help them more than actual supplies and manpower.What the people of Texas need right now are not prayers. They need blankets, beds, and electrical power, all of which are in short supply because God sent a f*cking hurricane to slam the Texas coast.The people of Texas should be outraged that their elected officials are not accepting help from Canada. This offer could mean the difference between life and death for many people. Prayer is not going to help. It s a nice thought, but it won t do any good. People can t get warm by wrapping themselves in prayer. Electrical lines won t magically fix themselves because of prayer.This is why Republicans are totally unfit to lead. They offer prayers instead of real solutions. And that is going to cause more deaths and suffering in Texas.Featured Image: Screenshot | 0 |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House is considering shifting press secretary Sean Spicer away from the daily spokesman job and into a new communications role but no such move is believed imminent, a senior White House official said on Monday. Spicer has been a frequent target of criticism for his performance at the White House lectern during daily news briefings, although President Donald Trump has stood by him through a variety of controversies. Spicer, who was the Republican National Committee’s senior strategist during the presidential campaign last year, is currently doing double duty as press secretary and communications director after the previous communications director, Michael Dubke, resigned May 30. The senior White House official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said discussions about some changes in the communications department have been going on for some time. “I don’t think anything is imminent,” the official said. “No decisions have been made. There is nothing definitive.” Trump has privately vented to aides on occasion about the communications team and the need to have more people defending him on television. The White House has been looking at ways to improve on this front. “We have sought input from many people as we look to expand our communications operation. As he did in the beginning, Sean Spicer is managing both the communications and press office,” said White House deputy press secretary Sarah Sanders. Spicer has been doing fewer briefings and not as many of them before the TV cameras in recent weeks as he and his team have adjusted to Trump’s tendency to be his own spokesman through his tweets and public comments. He and his team have also stopped commenting on a special counsel’s investigation into Russian meddling into last year’s presidential election. On Monday, Spicer conducted an off-camera session with reporters. Sanders has been Spicer’s stand-in at the lectern on several occasions and would likely be considered a potential successor to Spicer. But Trump has also been intrigued in the past by the possibility of hiring conservative talk radio host Laura Ingraham as his press secretary. | 0 |
(Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump’s proposed budget estimates that the federal government could save $35 billion over the next decade by rolling back regulations governing Wall Street. The White House does not detail how those savings, which are equivalent to the annual economic output of the Democratic Republic of Congo, would be realized. But the administration said an ongoing review of existing financial rules “will likely result in proposals that will provide significant savings to the federal government.” While it is not expected to be passed by Congress, the fiscal 2018 budget unveiled by the White House on Tuesday hews closely to Trump’s view that slashing financial regulations would boost the economy. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin is currently conducting a comprehensive review of the impact of the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial reform legislation. An initial report recommending policy changes is expected to come at the beginning of June. The White House’s projected savings from easing financial rules exceed estimates offered by the Congressional Budget Office. That policy scorekeeper calculated that $24 billion would be saved over a decade if a broad Dodd-Frank rollback bill currently in the House of Representatives were passed. Most of those savings identified by CBO come from eliminating a Dodd-Frank provision allowing the government to step in and wind down failing financial institutions, and by placing tighter control over the funding of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), which was set up to protect consumers from predatory lending. Trump’s budget would give control of funding that agency to Congress, a policy change sought by Republicans eager to rein it in. Currently, the CFPB gets its funding from the Federal Reserve. The White House estimates that moving oversight of the CFPB to Congress would save the federal government $6.8 billion over a decade. However, the budget proposal does not account for any funds appropriated to the CFPB beyond fiscal 2018. The Office of Financial Research, also created by Dodd-Frank to gather data on financial markets, is facing a 28 percent budget cut under the new plan. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission and U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission would see their budgets hold steady at $250 million and $1.6 billion, respectively, under the new budget. The CFTC is pushing for an additional $31 million in funding in its own budget request. | 1 |
This week President Donald Trump followed through with his most audacious building a wall along the US southern border with Mexico.After his visit to the Department of Homeland Security this afternoon, Trump is set to sign government directives today that will set in motion the construction of a new system of border reinforcement which will include a number of new provisions -including the wall.The move is expected to correspond with announcements on stricter immigration procedures in the short term sending out a power message to illegal immigrants hoping to cross the US southern border from 2017.Bloomberg adds: The Trump administration is also considering a 120-day suspension of refugee admissions and cutting the total number allowed into the U.S. in the current fiscal year from 110,000 to 50,000, actions that could be announced as soon as Thursday, according to a person familiar with the plan. The border directives come immediately on the heals of Trump s recent statements and executive move to renegotiate, or cancel Washington s position in the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the TransPacific Partnership (TPP).Once again, Trump is wasting no time putting his signature campaign issues into play something many of his critics have doubted he would be doing.READ MORE MEXICO NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire Mexico FilesSUPPORT 21WIRE SUBSCRIBE & BECOME A MEMBER @21WIRE.TV | 1 |
TRIPOLI (Reuters) - The bodies of 21 Egyptian Christians killed by Islamic State in its former Libyan stronghold of Sirte have been recovered, the attorney general s office said on Friday. The bodies were found in the same orange jumpsuits the victims were wearing when they were filmed being killed in the coastal city in February 2015, according to a statement provided to Libya s Al-Ahrar TV channel. Sadiq al-Sour, the head of investigations for the attorney general s office, said last week that the area where the bodies were buried had been identified after a captured commander gave details of its whereabouts. Islamic State took control of Sirte in 2015 and lost the city late last year to local forces backed by U.S. air strikes. | 1 |
Actress Rosie O’Donnell took to social media and praised contractor Reality Leigh Winner, who was recently arrested and charged for allegedly leaking a National Security Agency report on Russian election hacking to news site The Intercept. [In one Twitter message, the former View applauded the alleged leaker. “Brave young patriot,” O’Donnell wrote Wednesday in a Twitter message that linked to a GoFundMe page dedicated to raising money for Winner’s “loss of wages, counseling”: brave young patriot — https: . — ROSIE (@Rosie) June 7, 2017, On Thursday, O’Donnell tweeted, “I support Reality Winner speak truth to power #resist #womenUNITE”: https: . support reality winner speak truth to power #resist #womenUNITE https: . — ROSIE (@Rosie) June 8, 2017, A vocal critic of President Donald Trump, O’Donnell also reportedly confirmed that she donated $1, 000 to Winner’s GoFundMe campaign. As of Saturday, more than $32, 000 from over 770 people had been raised. The comedian also defended Winner, insisting that she was “brave” and not “careless” for allegedly leaking government documents: brave not careless @flightbomb @clb0137 @JeanetteSharon1, — ROSIE (@Rosie) June 9, 2017, Winner was denied bail at a hearing in federal court Thursday and will remain behind bars as she awaits trial. Last week, filmmaker and activist Michael Moore launched a website called TrumpiLeaks to encourage government employees and contractors to engage in the kinds of leaks in which Winner allegedly participated. “Today, I’m launching TrumpiLeaks, a site that will enable courageous whistleblowers to privately communicate with me and my team,” the Oscar winner wrote. Moore cited the historical significance of the 1778 whistleblower protection law, saying, “Patriotic Americans in government, law enforcement or the private sector with knowledge of crimes, breaches of public trust and misconduct committed by Donald J. Trump and his associates are needed to blow the whistle in the name of protecting the United States of America from tyranny. ” Follow Jerome Hudson on Twitter @jeromeehudson. | 0 |
President Trump and First Lady Melania Trump are attending the Military Families Picnic today in support of our US military families and the brave men and women who serve. Pres Trump welcomed a very special guest: 1st Lt Michael Pence, USMC the son of VP and Mrs Pence. The video below is of the ceremony and speech during the picnic. Don t forget: There will be a live stream tonight at 9pm ET for the fireworks display at the White House!https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ja6KQefEPNgPRESIDENT TRUMP TWEETED OUT BEFORE HIS ARRIVAL TODAY:Getting ready to celebrate the 4th of July with a big crowd at the White House. Happy 4th to everyone. Our country will grow and prosper! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 4, 2017THE FIRST LADY TWEETED OUT A MESSAGE TO AMERICA:#HappyIndependenceDay We are the land of the free because of the brave. Thank you to the heroes who serve! Melania Trump (@FLOTUS) July 4, 2017Hands over hearts as US Marine sings National Anthem at start of WH picnic for military families:Hands over hearts as US Marine sings National Anthem at start of WH picnic for military families. pic.twitter.com/4sZbwMNb2C Mark Knoller (@markknoller) July 4, 2017A SHOT OF THE GUESTS ON THE LAWN:Trump, 1st lady, Pence, 2nd lady emerge together on balcony for Fourth of July picnic. pic.twitter.com/zCM7w8qG8B Jennifer Jacobs (@JenniferJJacobs) July 4, 2017Pres Trump welcomes VP and Mrs Pence and their son 1st Lt Michael Pence, USMC:Pres Trump welcomes VP and Mrs Pence and their son 1st Lt Michael Pence, USMC. pic.twitter.com/a6QFfCWjp6 Mark Knoller (@markknoller) July 4, 2017 | 0 |
MANCHESTER, England (Reuters) - Britain s junior Brexit minister said on Monday he was hopeful that EU negotiators would agree to move on to discuss future relationships in October, even after the head of the European Commission said it would take miracles for that to happen. I am very hopeful that everyone will see the mutual advantage of moving on to a discussion of the future relationship in October, Steve Baker told an event at the Conservative Party s annual conference. Britain has been seeking to push the talks beyond the terms of the divorce and on to future ties, including trade, at a European meeting later in October. But Jean-Claude Juncker appeared to dash those hopes when he said last week that the first stage of talks had not made enough progress. | 1 |
(Reuters) - A Turkish-Iranian gold trader on Thursday told jurors in a New York federal court that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan authorized a transaction in a scheme to help Iran evade U.S. sanctions. Reza Zarrab is cooperating with U.S. prosecutors in the criminal trial of a Turkish bank executive accused of helping to launder money for Iran. At the time of the alleged conspiracy, Erdogan was Turkey s prime minister. Zarrab said he had learned from Zafer Caglayan, who was Turkey s economy minister, that Erdogan and then-treasury minister Ali Babacan had authorized two Turkish banks, Ziraat Bank and VakifBank, to move funds for Iran. Both Ziraat and VakifBank denied taking part in the scheme. Erdogan s spokesman, and an adviser to Babacan could not immediately be contacted by Reuters. Erdogan said earlier on Thursday that Turkey did not violate U.S. sanctions, CNN Turk reported. A spokesman for Erdogan s government has called the case a plot against Turkey. The testimony came on the third day of the trial of Mehmet Hakan Atilla, an executive at Turkey s state-owned Halkbank, who has pleaded not guilty in Manhattan federal court. U.S. prosecutors have charged nine people in the case with conspiring to help Iran evade sanctions, although only Zarrab, 34, and Atilla, 47, have been arrested by U.S. authorities. Over two days of testimony, Zarrab has told jurors that he helped Iran use funds deposited at Halkbank to buy gold, which was smuggled to Dubai and sold for cash. On Thursday, he said that he had to stop the gold trades and start moving money through fake food purchases instead in 2013, after U.S. sanctions changed. Zarrab has said that Atilla helped design the gold transactions, along with Halkbank s former general manager, Suleyman Aslan. On Thursday, Zarrab discussed a 2013 phone call with Atilla about his plan to switch from gold trades to fake food sales. He said Atilla did not understand at the time that no actual food would be sent to Iran, and was reluctant to sign off on the plan. Zarrab said Aslan ordered Atilla to allow the transaction. Zarrab has testified that in the course of his scheme, he bribed Aslan and former Turkish economy minister Zafer Caglayan. Both Caglayan and Aslan were charged in the case. Reuters was not able to reach Caglayan or Aslan for comment. Turkey s government has previously said that Caglayan acted lawfully, and Halkbank has said it acted lawfully as well. Caglayan previously said that similar allegations in a 2013 corruption investigation in Turkey that was later dismissed were unfounded claims . | 0 |
ALTOONA, Pa. (Reuters) - Republican Donald Trump on Friday backed away from comments calling President Barack Obama and Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton the founders of the militant group Islamic State, while the Republican Party sought to project unity behind their candidate. A new poll showed Trump, whose unfiltered speaking style has repeatedly landed him in hot water, losing ground in three crucial states ahead of the Nov. 8 general election against Clinton. In a surprise appearance, Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus, who in private expressed fury over some of Trump’s actions earlier this month, introduced the candidate at a campaign event in Erie, Pennsylvania, and the two hugged onstage. “We’re so honored to be working with Donald Trump and the campaign,” Priebus told thousands of Trump supporters. “And don’t believe the garbage you read. Let me tell you something. Donald Trump, the Republican Party, all of you, we’re going to put him in the White House and save this country together.” Republican sources earlier this month said Priebus was furious over Trump’s failure to endorse House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan and his feud with the parents of a Muslim American soldier killed in Iraq. Trump did endorse Ryan a few days later. Trump brought Priebus on stage later at another rally, in Altoona, Pennsylvania, to thank him for the work he has done as he insisted there is great unity in the party. “I have to say we have great unification,” Trump said. Trump on Friday told the rallies in Altoona and Erie that his remarks earlier this week calling Obama and Clinton the founders of ISIS, as Islamic State is also known, had been sarcastic. “I have been saying because it’s true, but somewhat sarcastically, that he’s the founder of ISIS and she’s a close second,” Trump said in Altoona. Trump first made the unfounded claim on Wednesday and repeated it through the week. Trump claimed sarcasm in July as well after he was heavily criticized for inviting Russia to dig up tens of thousands of “missing” emails from Clinton’s time as U.S. secretary of state. A Wall Street Journal/NBC News/Marist poll released on Friday suggested support for Trump is eroding among voters in three battleground states. Such states are hotly contested because their populations can swing either to Republicans or Democrats and thus play a decisive role in presidential elections, which are ultimately decided by the state-by-state tally of the Electoral College. The poll found Clinton widening her lead in Colorado, Virginia and North Carolina, while holding her advantage in Florida. Clinton released her tax returns on Friday, painting the move as a sign of transparency that her campaign says Trump lacks. U.S. presidential candidates are not required to release their tax returns, but it has become a common custom. Trump has cited an audit by the Internal Revenue Service in refusing to release his returns. Trump also has said his taxes are no one’s business and that they reveal little. Trump scheduled a speech in Warren, Ohio, on Monday that will focus on how he would handle the threat posed by Islamic State. Trump has said he would “knock the hell out of ISIS,” without offering details. Trump has been mired in repeated controversies in recent days. He drew heavy criticism after he suggested gun rights activists could take action against Clinton, a statement he later said was aimed at rallying votes against her. Nearly one-fifth of registered Republicans now want Trump to drop out of the race for the White House, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Wednesday. Republicans frequently trace the birth of Islamic State to the Obama administration’s decision to withdraw the last U.S. forces from Iraq by the end of 2011. But many analysts argue its roots lie in the decision of George W. Bush’s Republican administration to invade Iraq in 2003 without a plan to fill the vacuum created by Saddam Hussein’s ouster. It was Bush’s administration that negotiated the 2009 agreement that called for the withdrawal of all U.S. forces from Iraq by Dec. 31, 2011. At his Erie event, Trump seemed to acknowledge he is facing a formidable opponent in Clinton as well as a difficult electoral path. “The Republicans have a tougher path – not my fault,” he said. He said Clinton’s campaign is smart to keep her out of the spotlight. “She doesn’t talk to reporters very often. ... She doesn’t expose what’s going on up here, which isn’t good,” he said, meaning her brain. “She’s doesn’t expose her mind to questions. What they want to do is try to fake it through.” Trump also said in Altoona that the only way he could lose Pennsylvania to Clinton is if “cheating goes on.” He said he wants authorities to monitor the voting closely. “I know what’s happening here, folks. She can’t beat what’s happening here.” | 0 |
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Republican candidate Donald Trump’s odds at becoming the next president of the United States took a hit following his loss to Senator Ted Cruz of Texas in the Iowa caucuses, two online betting sites said on Tuesday. On Tuesday morning, both Ladbrokes PLC and Paddy Power Betfair PLC said the real estate tycoon’s odds of winning the November election were now 7/1, compared to 3/1 on Monday. That reduced his chances for victory to 13 percent from 25 percent on Monday. Cruz won Monday’s Republican Iowa caucuses with 28 percent of the vote compared with 24 percent for Trump, whose aggressive and unorthodox campaign has been marked by unorthodox and controversial stances such as calls to temporarily ban Muslims from entering the United States or build a wall along the U.S.-Mexican border. Senator Marco Rubio of Florida has taken over as the favorite to become the Republican nominee after a stronger-than-expected third place finish in the caucuses, Ladbrokes said. His odds for the nomination were 4/5 on Tuesday, giving him a 56 percent chance. Trump’s odds were 11/4, giving him a 27 percent chance. “This could be the first sign that the Trump bubble is about to burst,” said Matthew Shaddick, head of political odds at Ladbrokes, said in a statement. “The betting is now firmly pointing toward a Clinton-Rubio showdown in November.” Trump’s odds have improved since he declared his candidacy in June, when they were 100/1, giving him a 1 percent chance, Ladbrokes said. (Reporting by Anjali Athavaley; Editing by David Gregorio) SAP is the sponsor of this coverage which is independently produced by the staff of Reuters News Agency. | 1 |
DES MOINES, Iowa (Reuters) - President-elect Donald Trump said on Thursday the United States needed to improve its relationship with China, which he criticized for its economic policies and failure to rein in North Korea. “One of the most important relationships we must improve, and we have to improve, is our relationship with China,” Trump told a rally in Iowa. The United States and China are the world’s two biggest economies. “China is not a market economy,” he said. “They haven’t played by the rules, and I know it’s time that they’re going to start.” Trump criticized China repeatedly during his presidential campaign and drew a diplomatic protest from Beijing last week after speaking by phone with President Tsai Ing-wen of Taiwan, which China considers a wayward province. It was the first such top-level contact with Taiwan by a U.S. president-elect or president since President Jimmy Carter adopted a “one-China” policy in 1979, recognizing only the Beijing government. Trump kept up his criticism of Beijing during the rally, which was part of a “thank you tour” to express gratitude to states that helped him win an upset victory over Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton last month. “You have the massive theft of intellectual property, putting unfair taxes on our companies, not helping with the menace of North Korea like they should, and the at-will and massive devaluation of their currency and product dumping,” Trump said of China. “Other than that, they’ve been wonderful, right?” China is not currently viewed as a currency manipulator by either the U.S. Treasury Department or the International Monetary Fund. The World Trade Organization says Chinese tariffs on imported goods are generally higher than U.S. tariffs. Trump brought his pick for ambassador to China, Iowa Governor Terry Branstad, onstage, saying Branstad always encouraged him not to say anything negative about China in his state. “I have so many friends there,” Trump said Branstad would tell him. Branstad has said he and Chinese President Xi Jinping have a 30-year friendship. The Iowa governor has visited China at least six times, and Xi has been to Iowa twice. Trump repeated his campaign message that he planned to prioritize the United States and American workers over global interests. The Trump administration, which takes office on Jan. 20, would focus on two rules: “Buy American and hire American,” he said, adding he would keep pressuring companies not to move jobs overseas. | 0 |
MANILA (Reuters) - President Rodrigo Duterte crooned a hit Filipino love song at a dinner in Manila for leaders from across Asia, explaining later that it was on the orders of U.S. President Donald Trump . Trump and Duterte were among 19 leaders at a glittering gala in the Philippines capital on Sunday ahead of an annual summit, and at one point Duterte took the microphone to sing Ikaw (You), in a duet with local pop diva Pilita Corrales. One of the song s verses, translated from Filipino, begins: You are the light in my world, a half of this heart of mine . Ladies and gentlemen, I sang uninvited, upon the orders of the commander-in-chief of the United States, Duterte said later, according to the ABS-CBN news channel. Duterte, who is sometimes described as the Trump of the East because of his brash style, is due to meet the U.S. president on the sidelines of the summit on Monday. The United States and its former colony, the Philippines, have been strategic allies since World War Two. But their relations have been strained by anti-U.S. outbursts from Duterte and his enthusiasm for better ties with Russia and China. More than 3,900 Filipinos have been killed in a war on drugs that Duterte declared when he took office last year. His government says the police act in self defense, but critics say executions are taking place with no accountability. Duterte said last week he would tell the U.S. president to lay off if he raised the issue of human rights when they met. But Trump, who has been criticized at home for neglecting rights issues in dealings abroad, praised Duterte in May for doing an unbelievable job on the drug problem . Trump and leaders of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations, China, Russia, Japan, Canada, South Korea, India, Australia and New Zealand were entertained by singers and dancers at the dinner. Each of the men sported a cream-colored barong, a traditional Philippines shirt made of fiber from the pineapple plant, hand-embroidered and worn untucked. They were served a four-course Filipino-Asian fusion meal curate and prepared by Chef Jessie Sincioco, who also designed the menu for Pope Francis when he visited the Philippines in 2015. | 0 |
Whether from incompetence or malice, the Immigration Act of 1990 was a disaster. That is why we are in the state 60 Minutes is likely to describe tonight. Jessica VaughanHERE S THE 60 MINUTE PIECE ON THE H1B-VISA PROGRAM:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vaykxCMDPo0 | 1 |
(Reuters) - Republican lawmakers, operatives and donors grappled with whether to support Donald Trump, who effectively clinched his party’s presidential nomination this week after his two remaining rivals, Ted Cruz and John Kasich, dropped out of the White House race. As Trump sought to rally the fractured party behind him, many prominent Republicans got behind the reality TV star and real estate developer, while some weighed their options. Still others said they might vote in the Nov. 8 general election for Hillary Clinton, the likely Democratic nominee. Bill Achtmeyer, the Boston-based founder of consulting firm Parthenon Group, was among those considering a possible vote for Clinton, a former secretary of state and former first lady. “If she is able to move to the center and think as creatively and thoughtfully as her husband (Bill Clinton) did ... boy, I would have a very hard time, based on what I know today, not voting for Hillary versus what Trump is espousing,” said Achtmeyer, who has donated $200,000 to Republicans over the last decade. Another Republican donor, David Beightol, a Washington lobbyist who raised money this year for the presidential bid of former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, said he was leaning toward voting for Trump because he could not support Clinton. “I’m not there yet, but I don’t have a lot of choice,” Beightol said. In most U.S. elections cycles, party insiders quickly coalesce around candidates once they have effectively sewn up the nomination. But Trump’s bombastic rhetoric, unorthodox campaign and his lack of experience in government have left the party divided. The New York billionaire has vowed to deport illegal immigrants and build a wall along the Mexican border. He has also said he would temporarily bar Muslims from entering the country as a way to combat terrorism. Republican former presidents George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush do not plan to endorse anyone in the White House race this year, their spokesmen told Reuters. The party’s presidential nominee in 2012, Mitt Romney, will not attend the Republican National Convention in July, an aide said. The former Massachusetts governor delivered a blistering attack on Trump in March. The party’s 2008 nominee, U.S. Senator John McCain of Arizona, has said he would support the eventual nominee, “who is now presumptively Donald Trump,” said McCain’s Senate campaign spokeswoman, Lorna Romero. But McCain told supporters in Arizona last month that having Trump at the top of the Republican ticket make his re-election harder, according a recording obtained by Politico. The state has a large Hispanic population. On Wednesday, fresh off the win in Indiana’s primary that drove both his rivals out of the race, Trump pledged to unify the party and said he was getting calls from people who had criticized him in the past but who now wanted to back him.Supporters of Trump, who has never held elective office, said he could ease concerns about his lack of experience by choosing a well-known running mate. Representatives Scott DesJarlais of Tennessee and Chris Collins of New York both suggested former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Rice did not respond to a request for comment. Trump told CNBC on Thursday there was a 40 percent chance his vice presidential pick would be a former Republican presidential rival. Backers said Trump could mend ties with allies of Cruz, who had been his strongest challenger and had trumpeted himself as a true conservative, by meeting with lawmakers in person after a heated campaign in which Trump dubbed the U.S. senator from Texas “Lyin’ Ted.” Cruz’s supporters on Capitol Hill have ties to conservative activists and the Tea Party, groups that could help Trump raise money and turn out voters. DesJarlais said meeting Trump in person would improve their impressions of him. Representative Raul Labrador, a Cruz backer and conservative leader from Idaho, told a radio station that he saw Trump as favoring the political “establishment” even though he has run as an outsider. But he said Trump would likely appoint a conservative to the U.S. Supreme Court, a priority for many on the political right. “With Clinton, there is no chance,” Labrador said. “In my opinion, there’s just no choice between the two.” | 1 |
Donald Trump wanted the press to tour his brand new hotel in Washington D.C., so they did and discovered that he is truly a giant hypocrite.The Republican nominee was hoping to use the press corps as his own personal team of promoters but photographers were the only ones allowed to follow Trump inside the building. And that many cameras came in mighty handy as they captured how big of a liar Trump is when he claims he will make America great again. American Bridge used their exploration time to find out how Trump furnishes the rooms in his hotel and the answer is definitely not with the help of workers in the United States.As it turns out, the hotel that is supposed to represent the United States capitol around the world is filled with products made in China and the Philippines among multiple other countries.Here s a bunch of photos via Twitter showing how Trump relies heavily on cheap foreign labor.A very classy gold lamp in the new DC Trump Hotel, which just happens to have been made in China, not in the USA. pic.twitter.com/wZAloIuNEu American Bridge (@American_Bridge) September 16, 2016 This dresser was made in the Philippines, far and away from the USA. pic.twitter.com/MtU7mx9dfc American Bridge (@American_Bridge) September 16, 2016The king-sized beds inside the suites at the new DC Trump Hotel were you guessed it not made in the USA. pic.twitter.com/rH3FBLmjJy American Bridge (@American_Bridge) September 16, 2016 Even these Trump Hotel branded umbrellas are made in China, not here in the U.S.. pic.twitter.com/aw4q5nj8H8 American Bridge (@American_Bridge) September 16, 2016Inside the Trump Hotel in Washington, DC: bedding made in China, not the USA. pic.twitter.com/lmI5MpBKm4 American Bridge (@American_Bridge) September 16, 2016Did you catch all of that, Trump supporters? Your hero claims that he is going to make America great but he can t even be bothered to support American workers by furnishing his hotels with American-made products.And if your blood is not boiling from that revelation, just wait until you read about what Washington Post reporter David Fahrenthold discovered while experiencing what it is like to be a guest in Trump s hotel.Even as Donald Trump vilifies Muslims all over the world and describes Islam as a violent threat to the United States, he actually offers guests a Quran if they want one complete with a prayer rug and a compass directing them towards Mecca. According to Fahrenthold, it was incredibly easy. Minutes after my call to housekeeping, a pleasant woman arrived with a copy of The Glorious Qur an in Arabic and English, along with a brown prayer rug and a compass pointing in the direction of al Kabaa in Mecca, he wrote.When a presidential candidate is using foreign labor to make his products at will while claiming that he will make America great that a problem because it means Trump is part of the problem that many of his own supporters are complaining about, the fact that American companies are moving jobs overseas and giving them to foreigners. If Trump really cared about American workers, he would employ them to make his products, not the Chinese.And while Americans have freedom of religion in this country and can practice whatever religion they want, Trump s hotel offering the Quran is also damaging to his own image because he has worked hard to convince his supporters that Islam is an evil religion. If Islam is so evil, why offer the Quran to any hotel guest who requests one?Clearly, Trump s supporters are too blind to see that their candidate is a con artist who is duping them.Featured Image: Getty Images | 0 |
BEIJING (Reuters) - The Chinese and Russian militaries will next month hold anti-missile drills in Beijing, China s Defence Ministry said on Friday, amid concern in both countries about the deployment of a U.S. anti-missile system in South Korea. China and Russia have both expressed opposition to the basing of the U.S. Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (THAAD) system in South Korea, which Seoul and Washington say is needed to defend against the threat of North Korean missiles. China, along with Russia, has repeatedly expressed opposition to the THAAD deployment, saying it will do nothing to help ease tension with North Korea. China also fears THAAD s powerful radar system can look deep into is territory, undermining its security. China s Defence Ministry said in a statement a computer drill would take place from Dec. 11 to Dec. 16. The aim of the exercise was to jointly practice defense against missiles and how to handle sudden and provocative attacks on the two countries territories by ballistic missiles and cruise missiles , the ministry said. The drill is not aimed at any third party, it said, without elaborating. While China and South Korea agreed last month to move beyond their year-long stand-off over THAAD, a dispute that has been devastating to South Korean businesses that rely on Chinese consumers, China has stuck to its opposition to the system. China and Russia have close military and diplomatic ties, and they have repeatedly called for a peaceful, negotiated solution to the North Korea nuclear and missile crisis. | 0 |
By Francis Carr Begbie on October 29, 2016 Francis Carr Begbie — Occidental Observer Oct 27, 2016 . The dismantling of the Calais “Jungle” refugee camp has been marked by huge scenes of disorder with rioting, at least one gang rape , and much of the camp going up in flames. But there has been uproar in Britain too since the realisation that most of the thousands of “child refugees” , which the Prime Minister had agreed to accept, were neither children nor refugees. From the moment these healthy, strapping adult male migrants stepped off the bus in London it was obvious that the British people had been subjected to yet another massive immigration deception. Those who enabled and organised this “child refugee” scam are brazening it out, safe in the knowledge there will be no comebacks for them. First they attempted to prevent any more embarrassing pictures by throwing blankets over the arrivals so they resembled state witnesses at a Mafia trial. Then a screened walkway from the bus alighting point to the door of the reception centre was erected overnight for the same purpose. Dental tests to determine the real age of these youths were ruled out as an “invasion of privacy.” And there is no question of having them deported, so nothing can be done now. They’re here. Get over it. But of course, it all works better if there is no clamour from the public. So the powers-that-be have resorted to the tried and tested method of stifling dissent. Anyone who sticks his head above the parapet to raise doubts is subjected to stern lectures about their moral shortcomings. BBC TV presenter Gary Lineker chastised his fellow British for their “shameful” attitudes, while Labour shadow Home Secretary Diane Abbot t attacked those who wanted to carry out dental tests to assess their age as “racist.” Pop singer Lily Allen became a media darling when, on behalf of the people of Britain, she made a tearful apology to the refugees for causing their plight. Let that sink in. Britain caused the plight of the refugees. After voting for Brexit, for ordinary British people, who have seen their schools, hospitals and welfare services strained to breaking point, a fresh influx of immigrants was not exactly what they had been looking forward to. After all, Britain has no legal or moral obligation to take these people. They were supposed to be the responsibility of the first country they arrived at in the EU. And why are they coming to racist Europe anyway? It’s incredibly short-sighted of them. Why not go to some Asian or African country? Or Israel? This fresh burden will be placed squarely on the local authorities that receive the immigrants, and they are going to have to dig deeply. While the government is providing £40,000 ($48,000) per annum for each young refugee, the total annual cost is around £133,000 ($162,000). So tax increases — or reduced services in other areas — are predicted. Naturally little of this will fall on the prosperous London boroughs filled with BBC-watching, morally uplifted Whites. Instead many migrants are being located in far-flung areas such as Devon or poorer northern communities already thronging with refugees, such as Bradford. The tipping point in the long battle to admit these bogus “child refugees” seems to have been a multi-faith initiative in which more than 200 religious leaders led by the former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Williams and senior representatives from the Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim and Sikh faiths — signed a letter urging the Prime Minister to admit 3,000. In a speech at a London synagogue, Lord Williams described the Calais camp as “a stain” on the British conscience. But in fact, this alleged multi-faith support was not what it appeared to be. It was largely organised by dozens of Jewish activists working through an organisation called Citizens UK that organised the casework and poured substantial resources into ensuring that the necessary amendments to the law would make it through Parliament. The Calais “Jungle” crisis has brought the Jewish community together in a unity of purpose rarely seen outside the occasion of Israel’s various wars. From the highest communal levels to the smallest youth groups, it seems everyone Jewish has been mobilised in the cause of getting uneducated, unassimilable Muslim economic migrants into Britain. It is a campaign they have chosen to frame in entirely moral terms. The Jewish community’s loud insistence has been that not only is Britain under a strict moral obligation to take these migrants but that there should be no upper limit. To do otherwise would be to undermine our reputation as a humanitarian country that wishes to describe itself as civilised. Their arguments have been formed around highly emotional anecdotes and images. Time and again we have been treated to stories of children struggling in the squalor at the Calais “Jungle” camp. The iconic photographs of the lifeless body of three-year-old Syrian boy Aylan Kurdi washed up on a Turkish beach are frequently invoked. You will notice that nowhere is there any consideration of the stress this is causing on existing British communities, especially those in the poorer areas where refugees are invariably housed. Nor is there any recognition of the profound unfairness this imposes on the native White community who will be required to support these strangers via the welfare system, health and housing services. Such a process is not only unaffordable, it makes a mockery of the basic idea that help from the welfare state is in return from previous tax contributions. There is a largely unspoken reason for this: resentment over Britain’s perceived inadequacy in admitting Jewish refugees before World War II. In fact, Britain admitted many tens of thousands of Jews in the 1930s, but it is an article of faith amongst many Jews that Britain could and should have admitted many more. Typical of this attitude was the speech of Rabbi Herschel Gluck, founder of the Muslim-Jewish Forum. He says he lost over 100 relatives in the Holocaust and implied that Britain’s wartime attitudes to refugees were to blame for this. “I feel obliged to ensure we don’t make the same mistakes,” he said. Numerous references were made to the Kindertransport programme by which Jewish children from Europe were smuggled into Britain. (The TOO has already debunked much of this greatly mythologised episode.) A veteran of that same Kindertransport is the figurehead for the Calais refugee crusade. eighty-four year old Lord Alf Dubs , a veteran Labour politician. He has tirelessly campaigned for mass immigration all his life. A former director of the Refugee Council, he somehow arrived in Britain aged six in 1939 despite Britain’s horrendous attitudes at the time, and was shown much Christian charity. Since then, he has chosen to repay this kindness by devoting his life to opening Britain’s borders to non-Whites from around the globe. According to EU law, refugees should have been processed at the first country they arrived at, so some ruse had to dreamed up whereby Britain could allow their entry. This was done through a device known as the EU’s Dublin III regulation, whereby lone refugee children could be taken to any European country where they have a relative. This was not enough for Lord Dubs. He wanted the “child refugees” in the Calais “Jungle” admitted to Britain without any “family reunion” qualification and pushed his own amendment which would oblige the British government to transfer to the UK any unaccompanied refugee children from Europe. To this end Lord Dubs was able to count on wholesale establishment support. Not just the Archbishop of Canterbury but charities , NGOs and even economists all rallied round. TOO has already shown the hugely disproportionate Jewish influence on a similar letter from senior lawyers. The same disproportionately Jewish influence can be seen in the plea from the 126 economists. One of the signatories was Jonathan Portes, who can be fairly regarded as the architect of Tony Blair’s mass immigration disaster . So it seemed as if the passing of the Dubs amendment to an immigration bill was a foregone conclusion. But then at the vote in the House of Commons there was a problem. For Conservative politicians had not long finished fighting a general election campaign in which their voters had left them in no doubt how they felt about the never-ending waves of mass immigration. In the House of Commons the Dubs amendment was defeated . Jewish campaigners could barely contain their anger. The nagging, scolding words of Dr. Edie Friedman , director of the Jewish Council for Racial Equality, were characteristic. As a result, children across Europe will remain cold, alone and at risk over the coming months. This was an opportunity to stand on the right side of history, to bring relief to just 3,000 of the 95,000 unaccompanied children who applied for asylum in Europe last year. We wake up this morning on the wrong side of history and on the wrong side of compassion.The Immigration Bill has shown the UK at its worst, uncaring about the suffering of children a mere 30 miles away in places like Calais, but it has also shown us (sic!) at our best. Rabbi Harry Jacobi too was beside himself with anger at MPs voting in accordance with their electorate’s wishes. For him loomed the shadow of 1938, when Britain decided to stop the flood of Jewish refugees. Too many MPs with hardened hearts, just like the biblical story of Pharaoh. To close their eyes and hearts to unaccompanied children, to insist that it is alright to detain pregnant women, and that refugees can still be detained indefinitely simply on the say so of an immigration official. These are not the actions of a world-leading moral civilisation. Then, in one of his last acts as Prime Minister, David Cameron did a U-turn and announced he would allow the amendment to go through unopposed. Now Britain could admit the bogus 3,000 “refugee children” unilaterally. Citizens UK’s main task seems to be getting migrants or “refugees” into Britain and dispersed around the country. It describes itself as a “community organiser’s hub,” but is in fact an arm of the state with deep pockets and a nationwide network of affiliated organisations. It has fought many legal battles for refugees and succeeded in getting migrant “child asylum seekers” released from detention centres and housed in the wider community. So how Jewish is it? At letterhead level it seems to be drawn from a cross-section of the community, but at organiser level, the Citizens UK appears to be disproportionately Jewish. (This tactic of recruiting sympathetic non-Jews and giving them highly visible position in Jewish-dominated causes has a very long history, going back at least to immigration battles in the early twentieth century, as recounted in Chapter 6 of SAID [p. 192ff] and Chapter 7 of Culture of Critique [e.g., pp. 249-250].) They include the Citizens UK spokeswoman , Rabbi Janet Darley, who, of course, has a tear-jerking story to tell. She said it was when a 15-year-old migrant fell under the wheels of a truck he was trying to board that she felt that she had to get involved. For me, that was the deal breaker — I knew I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t do everything I could to make sure there were no more dead children. … The Torah warns us against the wronging of a stranger. For us, this is core teaching and not an optional extra. Another Jewish Citizens UK activist is senior organiser Charlotte Fischer, who is lobbying for Britain to increase the total number of “Syrian” refugees it has agreed to take from 20,000 to 50,000. “We are doing shamefully compared to Canada” she chides. But the UK is doing awesomely compared to Israel. Doesn’t that count for anything? Citizens UK campaigner Rabbi Danny Rich is co-chair of yet another arm of the refugee industry, the National Refugee Welcome Board. He clearly has the magic touch when it comes to getting access on the BBC. Since the beginning of September he has graced at least half a dozen BBC outlets including the main BBC TV news and the BBC World Service and gets softball kidglove treatment from all of them. He blithely brushed aside the concerns of ordinary British people: “Look at the Kindertransport and the contribution made to Britain over the last 70 years by those who escaped the Nazis. Look at the contributions made today by doctors, nurses and care workers, many of who were not English born.” Anyone doubting the distinctly Jewish flavour of Citizens UK would be advised to look at this promotional video , also featured at the beginning of this article. Of course, no British refugee campaign would be complete without the presence of Rabbi Laura Janner-Klausner who can be guaranteed to be at the forefront at any number of “multi faith” immigrant events including a Citizens UK vigil outside the House of Commons. Citizens UK is an umbrella organisation overseeing local grass roots initiatives for refugees all over the country, many of which are Jewish-organised. One of the main ones is called Safe Passage UK . In an article for the Jewish Chronicle, the two Jewish organisers described their work as “fighting injustice.” Apparently a group of synagogues had raised £200,000 for them in just a few weeks. Rabbi Rebecca Birk was recently named by the Evening Standard as one of London’s most influential people for her fund raising for Safe Passage UK. Again, her entire rationale is bound up with her Jewish identity, framed, of course, as a moral imperative stemming from the inherently moral essence of Judaism. She says : The Jewish identity is predicated on being a foreigner, relying on the kindness of strangers, it runs through our own theology really: doing good, mending the world. We talk of three pillars the world stands on — the Torah, divine service, and kind acts. It’s an anathema to be a Jew and only be concerned with oneself. A clear sense of Jewish identity also informed the efforts of the three fashionable north London women who decided to put their media careers on hold to set up the Help Refugees charity in the Calais “Jungle.” The women, two of whom are Jewish, have tapped into a lucrative market indeed, and their outfit was one of the biggest players in Calais. It has been a massive, trendy, profile-raising success. After setting up, they were inundated with corporate contributions, and now they run 26 projects from Israel and on the migrant trail all the way across Europe. Articles about them focus on “child refugees.” And because Hollywood is well-known for its high moralism, it is not surprising that actors such as Benedict Cumberbatch and Lena Dunham have lent their support. Help Refugees even has a mobile kitchen on to the shores of Greece where their volunteers are helping refugees from Turkey from their dinghies and then seeing them off on their long journey across Europe. One of these women, Dani Lawrence, insists her parents fled anti-Semitism in Morocco in the sixties. The Jewish community has an extremely high opinion of its charitable efforts. Their strong Jewish identities and loyalty to their tribe are obvious, and it is wonderful that all that philanthropy makes them feel so good about themselves. But it might be worthwhile for the White British to ask what exactly is in it for them, apart from Kosher certification? It is time to ask some searching questions about the real motives that lie behind all this Jewish selflessness. After all, a charitable disposition towards Muslims is not exactly a characteristic of Jewish life anywhere else and certainly not in the Palestinian territories. And no question is guaranteed to infuriate Jewish activists more than asking why Israel doesn’t admit any refugees from Syria which is, after all, next door? So what do they get out of this sudden influx of unassimilable immigrants who have neither the temperament nor inclination to fit into modern Britain? Sadly, as readers of TOO are all to familiar with (see, e.g., “ Is immigration a Jewish value? “), the motivation is not compassion but veiled ethnic vindictiveness aimed at undermining and dispossessing ordinary British people. One of the questions that British people might also ask themselves is this: If those British people in the 1930s who had admitted waves of Jewish refugees could see the fruits of what they had done, what would they think? If those British people, who were to suffer so much in a war they were told was about “freedom”, if they were to see the streets of Peckham, Newham or any number of London boroughs or cities today overrun by Third-Worlders, what would they think? And if they were to then told, in detail, about the role of Jewish activism, power and “philanthropy” in bringing about this transformation, what would their thoughts be then?Perhaps they would agree with so many of us. That the Jewish invocation to “heal the world” seems to be code-words for eradicating White identity and eradicating the power of Whites to control their own destiny. And perhaps, instead of admitting these “child refugees,” Britain would have been better off remembering the words of another Jewish sage, economist Milton Friedman, who said “You can have a welfare state or you can have open borders, but you cannot have both.” | 1 |
WASHINGTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) - President Donald Trump’s order to restrict people from seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States sparked confusion and anger on Saturday after immigrants and refugees were kept off flights and left stranded in airports. In his most sweeping decision since taking office a week ago, Trump, a Republican, put a four-month hold on allowing refugees into the United States and temporarily barred travelers from Syria and six other countries. Civil rights and faith groups, activists and Democratic politicians were furious and vowed to fight the order. Capping a day of confusion and chaos and protests in several airports across the country, a federal judge in Brooklyn, New York, granted a temporary reprieve. The American Civil Liberties Union successfully argued for a temporary stay that allowed detained travelers to stay in the United States. Supporters outside the Brooklyn courtroom and at protests at airports in Dallas, Chicago, New York and elsewhere cheered the decision, but a bigger fight lay ahead. The court action does not reverse Trump’s order, which was criticized by some of America’s closest allies. Trump, a businessman who successfully tapped into American fears about terror attacks during his campaign, had promised what he called “extreme vetting” of immigrants and refugees from areas the White House said the U.S. Congress deemed to be high risk. He told reporters in the White House’s Oval Office on Saturday that his order was “not a Muslim ban” and said the measures were long overdue. “It’s working out very nicely. You see it at the airports, you see it all over,” Trump said. Along with Syria, the ban affects travelers with passports from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. The Department of Homeland Security said about 375 travelers had been affected by the order, 109 of whom were in transit and were denied entry to the United States. Another 173 were stopped by airlines before boarding. The order “affects a minor portion of international travelers,” the department said in a statement, saying the measures “inconvenienced” less than 1 percent of travelers. The new rules blindsided people in transit and families waiting for them, and caused havoc for businesses with employees holding passports from the targeted nations and colleges with international students. Pegah Rahmani, 25, waited at Washington’s Dulles airport for several hours for her grandparents, both Iranian citizens with U.S. green cards. “They weren’t treating them very well,” she said. Rahmani’s grandfather is 88 and legally blind. Her grandmother is 83 and recently had a stroke. They were released to loud cheers and cries. Several Democratic governors said they were examining whether they could launch legal challenges, and other groups eyed a constitutional challenge claiming religious discrimination. “I don’t think anyone is going to take this lying down,” said Cleveland immigration lawyer David Leopold. “This is the tip of the spear and more litigation is coming.” The White House did not respond immediately to a request for comment. The Department of Homeland Security said the order would stay in place. “No foreign national in a foreign land, without ties to the United States, has any unfettered right to demand entry into the United States,” the department statement said. Mark Krikorian, the director of the conservative Center for Immigration Studies, called lawsuits challenging the order “last ditch efforts” that would only apply to a few individuals, and he said a broader constitutional argument would be hard to win. “The first amendment doesn’t apply to foreigners living abroad. The law explicitly says the president can exclude any person or class of people he wants,” Krikorian said. Some leaders from the U.S. technology industry, a major employer of foreign workers, issued warnings to their staff and called the order immoral and un-American. “This ban will impact many innocent people,” said Travis Kalanick, chief executive of Uber Technologies Inc UBER.UL, who said he would raise the issue at a White House meeting on Friday. Arab travelers in the Middle East and North Africa said the order was humiliating and discriminatory. Iran vowed to retaliate. Sudan called the action “very unfortunate” after Washington lifted sanctions on the country just weeks ago for cooperation on combating terrorism. A Yemeni official expressed dismay at the ban. Iraq’s former ambassador to the United States, Lukman Faily, told Reuters that Trump’s ban was unfair to a country that itself has been a victim of terror attacks, and could backfire. “We have a strong partnership with U.S., more so in the urgent fight against terrorism. This ban move will not help, and people will start questioning the bond of this partnership, Faily said. Allies in the United Kingdom, France and Germany were critical. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau tweeted a photo of himself welcoming Syrian refugees. Confusion abounded at airports as immigration and customs officials struggled to interpret the new rules. Some legal residents with green cards who were in the air when the order was issued were detained at airports upon arrival. However, senior administration officials said it would have been “reckless” to broadcast details of the order in advance. Other officials said green card holders from the affected countries would require extra screening and would be cleared on a case-by-case basis. Airlines were blindsided and some cabin crew were barred from entering the country. Travelers were handled differently at different points of entry and immigration lawyers advised clients to change their destination to the more lenient airports, said Houston immigration lawyer Mana Yegani. At Chicago O’Hare International Airport, brothers Bardia and Ayden Noohi waited for four hours for their father Kasra Noohi - who has an Iranian passport and a U.S. green card - to be allowed through. They knew Trump had pledged tougher rules but did not expect the problems. “I didn’t think he’d actually do it,” Bardia Noohi, 32, said. “A lot of politicians just talk.” Thousands of refugees seeking entry were thrown into limbo. Melanie Nezer of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society said she knew of roughly 2,000 who were booked to come to the United States next week. Trump’s order indefinitely bans refugees from Syria. In a television interview, he said he would seek to prioritize Christian refugees fleeing the war-torn country. U.S. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said they were not consulted on the action and in some cases only learned the details as they were made public. At the State Department, a senior official said lawyers were working to interpret the executive order, which allows entry to people affected by the order when it is in the “national interest.” However, a federal law enforcement official said: “It’s unclear at this point what the threshold of national interest is.” | 1 |
. The Daily CallerThe Democratic Party and mainstream media have become increasingly consumed with the narrative that Donald Trump s election win is largely influenced by Russian hacking.The narrative is centered around two hacks the hack of a DNC server that led to the release of embarrassing emails during the Democratic National Convention, and the hack of John Podesta s email which led to several embarrassing moments for the Clinton campaign in October 2016. Both are supposedly the result of the Russians.The Russia story is back in the headlines once again after reports surrounding former President Barack Obama s attempts to punish Russia for its interference.However, there is still a cloud of doubt hanging over the DNC s Russia narrative on the breach of the DNC servers.The analysis that alleged that Russia was behind the DNC server breach was carried out not by the U.S. government, but by the private security group CrowdStrike.CrowdStrike is the sole source of this claim, with their June 2016 report, Bears in the Midst: Intrusion into the Democratic National Committee being the basis of the DNC s Russian hacking allegations.Here are five key points about CrowdStrike that the mainstream media is ignoring:1. Obama Appoints CrowdStrike Officer To Admin Post Two Months Before June 2016 Report On Russia Hacking DNC2. The FBI Never Looked At The DNC s Servers Only CrowdStrike Did3. Comey Contradicted The DNC s Story On The FBI Asking To See The Server4. CrowdStrike Co-Founder Is Fellow On Russia Hawk Group, Has Connections To George Soros, Ukrainian Billionaire5. CrowdStrike Is Funded By Clinton-Loving Google $$To read more about CrowdStrike and the five things you need to know, visit The Daily CallerREAD MORE SCI-TECH NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire Sci-Tech FilesSUPPORT 21WIRE SUBSCRIBE & BECOME A MEMBER @ 21WIRE.TV | 1 |
WASHINGTON — When calls for his removal from office reverberated through the capital a decade ago, Speaker J. Dennis Hastert struggled to explain why he had not aggressively investigated allegations that a Florida lawmaker had sent flirtatious messages to a teenage boy who had served as a House page. At that perilous moment, an impassioned group of supporters stepped forward to speak up on Mr. Hastert’s behalf: wrestling coaches. “Denny Hastert is a good and honorable man — and one of wrestling’s own,” Leo Kocher, the wrestling coach at the University of Chicago, wrote in late 2006 in a letter distributed to high school and college coaches. “The wrestling community must reach as many people as it can through calling talk radio, letters to the editor, and any other way in which public opinion can be moved,” he wrote. “Denny Hastert is one of the finest people to ever hold membership in the wrestling community. ” Wrestling gave Mr. Hastert stature in his hometown, Yorkville, Ill. and propelled a political career that culminated in one of the most powerful jobs in Washington. But the sport he loved also gave him proximity and opportunity for what prosecutors say was a pattern of sexual abuse of boys while serving as their high school coach. Now, as a federal judge prepares to sentence Mr. Hastert next week on charges that he illegally made secret payments to cover up the misconduct — a former wrestler who said Mr. Hastert abused him decades ago is expected to speak at the hearing — the weight of his transgressions is falling hard on former colleagues and constituents. But it is the wrestling community that is struggling most to come to terms with its sense of betrayal. “It is just hard to find the words it is just such an awful thing,” said Mike Moyer, executive director of the National Wrestling Coaches Association, who has known Mr. Hastert for nearly 20 years. “It runs so contrary to the dedicated support that Denny gave to the wrestling community over so many years. ” On Capitol Hill, Mr. Hastert was known as “Coach,” and one Republican aide attributed his rise to speaker in 1998 to an ability to “bring the team together in the locker room and motivate them to get things done. ” Mr. Hastert hired former wrestlers as top aides. For more than a decade, he used clout in Congress to fight Title IX, the landmark federal law that requires equitable opportunities for men and women to participate in college sports, arguing that it was hurting wrestling by forcing cutbacks. He used campaign funds to support wrestling causes. He intervened in a dozen cases to try to save college wrestling programs. “Who would have guessed that a wrestling coach from Kendall County in Illinois would be the Republican speaker of the House of Representatives in all our nation’s history?” Mr. Hastert said, announcing his retirement from Congress in 2007 in front of the county courthouse in his hometown, where three decades earlier he and his state championship wrestling team had been honored with a parade. Mr. Hastert, who is 74 and suffered a stroke in November, has pleaded guilty to violating bank reporting requirements, but was not charged with abuse, for which statutes of limitation would have prohibited criminal charges. Prosecutors for the first time this month provided details of the abuse of at least four wrestling team members, one as young as 14, that they said occurred on training tables, in a locker room and in a hotel room. One of the wrestlers recalled how Mr. Hastert put a reclining chair in view of the showers in the locker room, where Mr. Hastert sat “while the boys showered. ” The “known acts,” the prosecutors said, consisted of “intentional touching of minors’ groin area and genitals or oral sex with a minor. ” His lawyer, Thomas Green, said Mr. Hastert acknowledged committing “transgressions” decades ago, for which, the lawyer said, Mr. Hastert was “profoundly sorry. ” Mr. Hastert first took up wrestling in high school, bulking up while carrying feed bags from the farm supply business his father operated in rural Illinois. After graduating from Wheaton College, a nearby Christian liberal arts school where he was on the wrestling team, Mr. Hastert became a teacher and wrestling coach at Yorkville High School. He built the Yorkville Foxes into a powerhouse program that won 11 straight conference titles, produced eight Illinois state champion wrestlers and, in 1976, the Illinois team championship — an accomplishment Mr. Hastert has described as “among the finest moments of my life. ” “I love this sport and the kids I coached,” Mr. Hastert told a congressional committee years later. Local power brokers saw political appeal in his coaching success, encouraging him to run for the state legislature, and then Congress. Sometime after his arrival in Washington, Mr. Hastert named Bryan L. Harbin, one of his former wrestlers, to his staff. Mr. Harbin, who did not respond to multiple requests for comment, continued to serve as an aide to Hastert for most of his congressional tenure. As Mr. Hastert rose through the House Republican leadership, he also amassed substantial campaign funds, and he used some of that money to support the National Wrestling Hall of Fame and the wrestling program at Manchester College in Indiana, run by a longtime friend and fellow wrestler, Thomas S. Jarman, whom Mr. Hastert also later hired onto his congressional staff. Mr. Jarman did not respond to messages seeking comment. When the Republicans took control of the House in 1994, Mr. Hastert was named chief deputy whip. From his new position of power, he began a yearslong campaign against Title IX. Mr. Hastert wrote letters to the Department of Education, called for an investigation by the Government Accountability Office, and repeatedly introduced legislation to curb cutbacks to wrestling. “It really disturbs me when people claim that it is fine to cut opportunities for men to eradicate discrimination,” Mr. Hastert testified in May 1995 at a House hearing that he had helped set up to examine the impact of the 1972 law. The National Collegiate Athletic Association called Mr. Hastert’s 1998 legislative proposal an “unparalleled federal intrusion into the and budgetary process of the nation’s colleges and universities. ” The provision, which would have required colleges to report annually if they had any plans to cut funding for any athletic team, was ultimately cut from the education bill. But Mr. Hastert did not give up. He joined an effort organized by the National Wrestling Coaches Association to challenge universities or colleges that cut funding for the sport, even appearing before the Pennsylvania state legislature in 2007 to push for more funding for wrestling programs there. By this point, Mr. Hastert, a hero to the sport, had been inducted into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame. While in Congress, Mr. Hastert also was an outspoken advocate for severe punishment of anyone convicted of abusing minors. He helped push legislation in 2006 that required states to expand sex offender registers, as he declared that “protecting our children from Internet predators and child exploitation enterprises are just as high a priority as securing our border from terrorists. ” The ties to wrestling continued even after Mr. Hastert left Congress. Two of his three staff members in the House Office of the Former Speaker — an office he set up in Yorkville funded by the federal government — were former wrestlers. Wheaton College opened the J. Dennis Hastert Center for Economics, Government, and Public Policy. Its director, starting in 2010, was Seth Norton, the former head wrestling coach at Wheaton College. Mr. Hastert also set up a consulting firm working with an Illinois businessman, David John, a former Wheaton College wrestler who had worked with Mr. Hastert to pressure the college president to reverse a plan to eliminate funding for the school’s wrestling program. The former speaker frequently attended a wrestling tournament that Mr. John ran at Wheaton College, and Mr. John also saw him at the national collegiate wrestling championship every March. “He absolutely loved being in that environment,” Mr. John said. In 2013, Mr. Hastert returned to the State Capitol in Springfield, delivering a valedictory on his career on the State House floor, where he also urged legislators there to pass a resolution condemning the decision by International Olympic Committee to drop wrestling as an Olympic sport after the 2016 games. “I can only look at the opportunity I had when I was a young man,” Mr. Hastert said, just before the Illinois House voted to pass the Olympic resolution. “I had a coach and an opportunity to perform. ” Since the allegations of abuse became public last year, former wrestling champions, coaches and parents of student wrestlers are still trying to reconcile the painful new images now associated with Mr. Hastert’s name. The Denny Hastert Yorkville Invitational annual wrestling tournament has already been renamed, as has the center at Wheaton College that was named after him. A campaign has started to have Mr. Hastert removed from the Wrestling Hall of Fame. Mr. Kocher, the University of Chicago coach, declined to comment when asked about his letter defending Mr. Hastert from a decade ago. But other coaches said the turn of events had caused tremendous sadness and confusion. Tony Houle, who was Mr. Hastert’s assistant wrestling coach at Yorkville High from 1975 until Mr. Hastert moved on to politics, said the entire situation was “mystifying” to him, in part because of how devoted to and focused on the sport Mr. Hastert always seemed to be. Larry Kristoff, a Olympic wrestler and a former Southern Illinois University wrestling coach, who worked closely with Mr. Hastert for decades on wrestling causes, said he was similarly confused, and hurt, by what had happened. “I haven’t come to terms with it — I am not sure there is a way I ever can, really,” said Mr. Kristoff, 73. “Wrestling can get over a lot of things. One issue won’t tumble it. It is more the man himself — wrestling has been a part of his whole life. ” Federal prosecutors had a somewhat different take on the matter, saying that Mr. Hastert’s career is “marred by stunning hypocrisy. ” “While defendant achieved great success, reaping all the benefits that went with it,” Zachary T. Fardon, the United States attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, wrote in a court filing this month, “these boys struggled, and all are still struggling now with what defendant did to them. ” | 0 |
AMMAN (Reuters) - Jordan said on Monday it was working with Russia to roll out a plan to end fighting in southwestern Syria in the fastest possible time - part of a peace pact for the border area brokered by Amman, Moscow and Washington. Jordan and Russia s foreign ministers met in Amman to discuss progress in setting up a de-escalation zone in the particularly sensitive region that includes Syrian territory neighboring Israel. Neither side gave details on any sticking points, but diplomats told Reuters they have included the final positions of fighting forces, U.S. unease about Russian involvement in policing the deal, and when to reopen a key border crossing. Russia, which backs Syria s government in the civil war, and the United States, which backs rebel forces seeking to topple President Bashar al-Assad, met secretly in Jordan in June and announced a ceasefire in Syria s southwest a month later. The truce - the first peacemaking effort in the war by the U.S. government under President Donald Trump - has reduced fighting there and is meant to lead to a longer-lasting de-escalation, a step toward a full settlement more than six years into the complex war. We expressed our support to resolve all issues relating to the de-escalation zones performance, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told reporters in Amman. The goal is to set up a de-escalation zone in the fastest possible time, his Jordanian counterpart Ayman Safadi said. Our priority is that our borders are secure and that means that there should be no Daesh nor Nusra nor sectarian militias, Safadi added, referring to Islamic State and a rebel force once linked to Al Qaeda, both operating in Syria. An official and two senior diplomats told Reuters the powers have made progress in drawing up a map of the de-escalation zone, including Quneitra province bordering Israel, alongside the southern Deraa province adjoining Jordan. The official and diplomats said Washington had also secured an understanding with Moscow that militias backed by the Syrian government s ally Iran must be pushed 40 km (25 miles) from the border. That might help allay Israeli and Jordanian concerns about the presence of Lebanon s Iran-backed Hezbollah group in the area. Diplomats said Lavrov also pressed Jordan to re-open its Nasib border crossing with Syria, something Amman has so far resisted, saying it needs more security. But it has strongly backed the broader de-escalation deal, seeing it as paving the way for an eventual return of tens of thousands of refugees in its territory. Rebels say the ceasefire remains fragile and fear Syria s army will return to attack them once it has consolidated gains in the north and other areas. Insurgents say the de-escalation zones merely free up Syria s army to make territorial gains elsewhere. Syria s army, supported by Russian air power and Iranian-backed militias, has in recent weeks gained a string of post along the border with Jordan in southeastern Syria, a zone that is outside the ceasefire area. | 1 |
The interview below is pretty much what we all knew but now it s out in the open. Notice how Senator Johnson calls on the DOJ to act:Senator Ron Johnson told Tucker Carlson tonight that the corruption in the intel agencies is much worse that we thought. He believes that the entire investigation into Hillary s emails was a sham used to protect her and not investigate her. He says the same cast of characters is being used to investigate Trump scary stuff!Fox News reports:WASHINGTON Newly released documents obtained by Fox News reveal that then-FBI Director James Comey s draft statement on the Hillary Clinton email probe was edited numerous times before his public announcement, in ways that seemed to water down the bureau s findings considerably.Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, sent a letter to the FBI on Thursday that shows the multiple edits to Comey s highly scrutinized statement.In an early draft, Comey said it was reasonably likely that hostile actors gained access to then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton s private email account. That was changed later to say the scenario was merely possible. Another edit showed language was changed to describe the actions of Clinton and her colleagues as extremely careless as opposed to grossly negligent. This is a key legal distinction.Johnson, writing about his concerns in a letter Thursday to FBI Director Christopher Wray, said the original could be read as a finding of criminality in Secretary Clinton s handling of classified material. | 0 |
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) could not say on Wednesday where he got the information that thousands will die if Obamacare is repealed.Sanders made the claim while speaking with CNN s Jake Tapper but could not provide any specific sources that backed his assertion, instead referring to studies that have been done. You ve said if this repeal and replace plan goes forward that thousands of Americans will die, Tapper said to Sanders. Where do you get that estimate from? I get that estimate from the fact that studies have been done that people who do not have health insurance, who do not go to the doctor when they should, who do not go to the hospital when they need to go, in fact die, Sanders said. And thousands of people die every year because they don t have health insurance. And if you throw 24 million people off of health insurance, there is no doubt that many thousands of people will die. Jake Tapper then goes on to ask Bernie Sanders about the disastrous results of Obamacare, making insurance unaffordable for so many Americans. Tapper tells Sanders, In many states Obamacare is in dire straights. The governor of Minnesota, a liberal Democrat said the Affordable Care Act is unaffordable . To his credit, Tapper continues with his line of questioning and actually shocks Sanders when he asks him, Don t the Democrats own this bill that in so many states is failing? No, I think what the American, look, what you re saying is true, Sanders replied. No one, certainly not me, that the Affordable Care Act, Obamacare, has many serious problems. Deductibles are too high, premiums are too high, we still have too many people who don t have any health insurance, Sanders said. It s too complicated, it s too bureaucratic. WFBYEAH Okay Bernie whatever you say Watch: | 0 |
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